I want to tell whoever cares to read this a little bit more in depth as to who I am. Who I am is a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ our Lord and savior. I recently surrendered my life to the Lord on June 3, 2006. The following is my testimony on how this occured.
My wife Carol, whom I love deeply attended a course at our church called "Alpha". This course gives you a way to explore the Christian faith in a more relaxed environment then a typical church does. http://alpha.org/default.asp After Carol's first experience with Alpha, she asked me to attend the next session. She said she thought it would help strengthen our marriage. At the time I thought we had a pretty good marriage but I came to find out later that it could and would get much better. I told her that I would attend to support her, not that I really wanted to go on my own accord. Don't get me wrong, I believed in Jesus, I just didn't think I needed to go to a class or church for that matter to prove it. Anyway, I attended Alpha and immediately my curiostity was peaked. I started asking tons of questions. What I was hearing was quite different from what I heard in my church growing up. Along with Alpha there is a retreat that is an optional part of the program. Carol told me we were going. I agreed and went to the retreat. If you would have told me 3 months prior to this that I would be going to a retreat, I would have said, "Yeah, right".
I have been on this earth for 50 plus years. In all that time I have never experienced such an emotion packed adventure in my life. As the pastor stood at the podium Saturday night telling us how we may be affected by the Holy Spirit, I was literally living out the exact experience, at the exact moment, in the exact way, he said it could happen. He said that some people may experience the Holy Spirit and begin to cry. He also said you may experience deep breathing. This is precisely what I was going through and I had no control over it. There I sat among 28 or so people I hardly knew except 1, weeping uncontrollably. I wasn’t embarrassed though, I was amazed by the power of it all. That night I surrendered my life to God.
Throughout the weekend listening to others speak about their experiences just made my jaw drop in amazement. For me the retreat was an unbelievable emotional rollercoaster ride. I was crying one minute and laughing the next.
Our marriage and our lives in general have never been the same since. We have experienced a great joy and peace in our lives. We have discovered the power of prayer and it has made a tremendous impact on us.
One of the greatest joys in our lives happened at another recent retreat we just attended. Our oldest daughter Heather and her husband Les came to the retreat. This only happened because of the numerous prayers to God by us and our friends. We will continue to pray for Heather and Les to continue on their path to Jesus. We will also continue to pray for our other daughter, Megan and her husband Kevin to join us and experience the love and joy we have come to know.
I wrote this in "Red" to remind all who reads it that Jesus shed his blood for "All of us".
If my story changes just one person's life I will feel blessed and greatful that it was able to do so.