Born Again -The Stories

2018-08-22T14:45:00.003-04:00

I am fascinated with the stories people tell of how they came into the "born again" experience. Each conversion and salvation story is unique, a miracle story, the story of how the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth reaches down and woos men and women, boy and girls, until they come into the revelation of this great God, who he is, and what his personal plan is for each and every life.

God does have a plan, a specific, personalized plan for each person he brings into the world. Many spend their lives avoiding him for various reasons, but in the humility of God, he continues to woo them with experience after experience until finally the heart realizes that he is the answer to everything ever yearned or hoped for, the only one who can fill that God-shaped void that is in the heart of every human being.

These stories are, by necessity, long, for it takes an overview of a process that often begins many years before the person finally surrenders to God.

I like to print them out and take them to bed with me. It's such pleasant reading while one withdraws from his hectic day and settles down with a story that will encourage, or teach, or guide, or uplift the soul.

See the links to the stories on the side panel.

Simon's Story -A Jew Meets The Messiah

2008-09-28T11:49:00.001-04:00

I had turned him down twice, and here he was again asking me to go for coffee with him. So I decided this time I'd go and explain to him why I was turning him down.

"I'm a Christian, you're a Jew," I said. "It wouldn't be right for either of us."

"Don't get me wrong," he said. I'm not looking for a wife, not even a girlfriend. My wife died 5 months ago and I can't seem to get out of this depression. I am just so alone. I asked God for a friend, man or woman, just a friend, anyone, someone to be with over a cup of coffee."

Funny, I had asked God for the same. At the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem where I worked, maybe a third of the people were married. And most of the rest were young people doing what young people do. So I didn't fit in socially. The people at work really were wonderful. I'd never had a job I enjoyed as much as this one. But after work, I was alone and very, very lonely.

"Well this could work," I said, "if that's all you want. It would be nice to have someone to go places with. Would you be interested in helping me speak better Hebrew?"

"Absolutely!" he said.

As it turned out, that really WAS a good deal for me. I could only speak the language enough to make myself understood, and THAT with many mistakes. Like some other languages, Hebrew words have masculine and feminine forms, among many other things hard to get used to, and anyone with an English background would find it very difficult.

So we began meeting at "Arno's" in downtown Jerusalem every day after work. He would correct my Hebrew, and I would give him companionship. Life was good.

Those of you who aren't as naive perhaps as me, can probably predict the rest of the story. Yes, we grew close. I began to thoroughly enjoy those meetings every day after work, and came to greatly look forward to them. We couldn't be seen in public at first, because he wanted to honor his wife's memory by being discreet. "After the year has passed," he said, "we can start going out in public." And so we did. When the year had passed, instead of meeting indoors, we began strolling the streets of Jerusalem. I couldn't remember how long it had been since I was this happy.

One of the things I loved about Simon was that he was a great conversationalist. He was interesting to listen to, and he was truly interested in listening to me. My Hebrew improved daily. He couldn't speak English at all, so I was forced to speak only in Hebrew and that's truly the best way to learn a language, in fact I couldn't have learned any other way. Books and tapes, even Ulpan (Hebrew school) can only bring you so far. Speaking it is the only way to really learn a language.

Simon and I couldn't marry for quite some time. He still had two sons at home, and they did not want anything to do with me. They had been very close to their mother. On the day of their older brother's wedding, their mother had taken sick. After a period of testing and more testing, the doctors finally concluded that she had an illness common to Jewish people from Morocco, where both she and Simon had been born. The disease destroys the liver, and she eventually had to have a liver transplant. She was sent to a specialized hospital in France, where she stayed a year before she died.

What a sad story that was. She and Simon had started out life from the very bottom. When Simon left Morocco as an adolescent, he was smuggled out and left with only the clothes on his back. He stayed at an orphanage in France until reaching military age, and then was sent to Israel and went into the army. He told me that he remembered being overjoyed that he could count on having three meals a day. He had known what it was to be hungry. After he completed his military duty, he entered into an arranged marriage. They bought a small house. It wasn't anything to write home about, but it was all they could afford at the time. Years later, after working long and hard, they decided to completely redo the inside of the house. His wife oversaw all the details and turned that house into something anyone would be proud of. They stayed with relatives while the construction was taking place, and moved back in shortly before their oldest son got married. That very short period was to be the only time she would get to enjoy her new home. On the day of her son's wedding she took sick. She was sent to France, had the transplant but never recovered and died a year later.

So naturally, when their children found out that their father was seeing someone new, they wanted nothing to do with me. I can only imagine how hard it would be for them to know I would be in their mother's kitchen, which she had so lovingly designed. I never made any attempt to meet his children, because I thoroughly understood how they felt.

Actually it was good that there was a long period of time before we married. Both he and I brought a lot of "baggage" into the story. We were both very intense people, and sometimes that created problems. The "good" was very good, and the "bad" was very bad. Many times I would go to the Lord and stamp my feet and scream, "what on earth are you doing? This man is impossible!"

But it was obvious to both of us that it was the Lord's doing from the very beginning. Simon later told me his version of how we began. He said that approaching me three times was extremely humiliating to him. He said that if he ever were turned down by a woman even once, he would NEVER approach her again. "But," he said, "as I walked up Ben Yehudah Street and saw you standing there with those musicians you came to listen to each day, I actually felt as though there were a hand on my back pushing me in your direction. That happened not once, but three times," he said, "I actually physically felt as though a hand on my back was nudging me toward you. It had to be God, because my pride would never have allowed me to do that otherwise."

On my part, I felt a tremendous amount of compassion for someone who had gone through so much in life and was now so alone. Never did I intend it to become more than that, but as time went on I began to see the hand of the Lord in it over and over again, much to my amazement because we were not of the same faith. Several times I tried to end it, and the ways the Lord would bring us back together were absolutely dumbfounding. I even went back to the US after fulfilling my two-year commitment to the Christian Embassy, and those few months I stayed in the US were some of the most painful and frustrating months I had experienced in a long, long time.

I realized I shouldn't have left Israel. I prayed and prayed about this, feeling I should go back, but confused - I couldn't understand why the Lord would want me with a man who didn't share my faith. Finally, I put what some Christians call "a fleece" before the Lord. This is something I do not advise anyone to do except in the extremest of cases. It's one thing to need to know for sure in the case of a major life decision, but quite another to "test the Lord," which the Bible makes clear we are NOT to do.

The "fleece" goes back to the Biblical story of Gideon. Gideon could hardly believe that what God was telling him to do was really God saying it. So he suggested to the Lord some impossible thing and said that if this impossible thing would happen, he'd know it was God. In this story God did cause the impossible thing to happen so Gideon would know without a doubt that it was God speaking to him. In like manner, I suggested to the Lord that if He, God, would cause Simon to call me in the middle of the night Israel time, then I would know God wanted me back in Israel to complete the story he, God, had begun. Well ...shortly afterwards I was speaking on the phone with a friend. It was about 8:00 in the evening which would be 3:00 A.M. Simon's time - the middle of the night there - and there was a beep on the line. I switched over to see who it was. I could hardly believe it, and the hairs stood up on my arms when I heard his voice! It was Simon!!!

So, after a few more clear confirmations that I was doing the right thing, I went back to Israel. I noticed, too, that the date I returned to Israel turned out to be the same date, March 27, I had gone the first time. This in no way was planned by me that way. It just worked out to be the very same date. It was also Simon's birthday.

Before deciding to return to Israel, I had asked the Lord if there was any way He could put my life back exactly as it had been before, as though I had never left. The Lord is so faithful. He'll never let one of his children make huge decisions like this without being very, very clear that what they're doing is the right thing. One way He showed me that, was that not only did I return to the Christian Embassy, but I was housed in the very same apartment I had had before, and slept in the very same bed. The Embassy has more than 25 apartments, so this would have been almost impossible to happen outside of the direct action of the Lord. But that's not all -- at work I found myself at the very same desk I had left. Only God could do that. It just blew me away that after leaving and having someone else take over my job, I was able now to return to it exactly as it had been.

By this time, Simon's sons had left home. One married, and the other went into the military. Still, we didn't marry right away because he wanted me to study Judaism first. I did this gladly for him, because the point was to make me more acceptable to his family and friends, not including his sons, of course. And studying Judaism wouldn't be any threat to my Christain beliefs. After all, Jesus was a Jew, and will return as a Jew - to the Mount of Olives even! Finally, though, we married.

From the very beginning of this story, I told the Lord that if HE had any intentions of bringing Simon to the knowledge of Jesus, HE would have to do it alone because I vowed never to do to him - or to anyone else, for that matter -- what I had done to my first husband. In the case with my first husband, we had been married for nine years before I entered into the "born again" relationship with God. Having experienced God in a most remarkable way, I SO wanted my (first) husband to know him that way too. So I barraged him with books to read and tapes to listen to, and dragged him to this meeting and that conference, so desperate was I to share this new life with him, not realizing that my very efforts were having the opposite effect upon him. Later when I came to understand that, I decided I would never do that to another human being. Not only does it NOT WORK, but oftentimes it will turn the person AGAINST the Lord. Having seen this so clearly, I told the Lord that I didn't know his plans concerning Simon, but that I would not do to him what I did to my first husband. "He's all yours, Lord, but you'll have to bring him to yourself alone, if that's what you intend."

Simon loved to listen to my stories. He asked me about Jesus, "Yeshua" in Hebrew, and all I did was tell him the stories of how the Lord answered my prayers and did wonderful things in my life. He wanted to hear them again and again. I could see that Simon loved the Lord. I didn't "teach" him doctrine, all I did was tell him the stories. He told me stories too, of the Lord's guidance and provision in his own life. He didn't "know" Him intimately and personally as one does when they become "born again," but he knew that God had guided his life and always made provision for him.

One day Simon had a problem. His son had finished his army duty and now wanted to go to college. How to pay for his son's college education? He didn't have enough money to finance it. Would I pray, he wanted to know? He had heard so many of my stories of answered prayer, that it suddenly had occurred to him to ask me to ask the Lord to make a way for him to send his son to college. "Of course I'll pray," I told him.

Not long after, a man on the street stepped out of the crowd, approached him and told him that a relative of Simon's wife had willed his apartment to Simon because he had done some good deed to him along time ago!?!

He came home, stunned. He just sat there in his chair, trying to take this information in. All of a sudden he's the owner of an apartment someone just happened to leave him??? He couldn't believe it! He just sat there shocked. Upon looking into it, he found there were complications to the story. There was someone else who should have inherited the place. What to do? He asked me if I would mind asking "Yeshua" just one more thing, to show him what to do. I did, and of course the Lord came through and he ended up being the recipient of that property, which he rented out and thus had a way to pay his son's college education.

This blew his mind. All the way from not knowing about the apartment, to finding out about it in such an unusual way, shortly after asking for prayer that a way be made, and then to receiving it over the objection of someone else, thus making the ONLY way available to him to pay for his son's schooling! He knew beyond any shadow of a doubt, that "Yeshua" had answered his unlikely prayer.

Simon began telling his friends about how the Lord answered my prayers, and in the most remarkable ways! He told this to his sister, who had been kind, but not welcoming toward me, because I wasn't Jewish. So she spoke to another sister and the two sisters cooked up a plot to test me. His sister who lived in Haifa invited us to spend the weekend with them. Now this sister, Janet, was very welcoming towards me because she saw her brother happier than she had ever known him. Janet had a daughter whose husband was studying to be a rabbi. They asked if I'd like to meet this daughter as well as two other daughters who lived nearby.

So we went to the house of the budding rabbi.

After the initial pleasantries, we settled into the livingroom and in comes the rabbi-to-be, quite intimidating to someone who has never been in the same room with such a one, complete with dreadlocks and all dressed in black. He sat down and made some small talk very briefly, and then he asked me to tell them all why I came to Israel. Well it just so happened that that entire story was an amazing story of God's dealing with a daughter in a very, very sovereign way leaving no question whatsoever that this was an act of God. So I told the story, all in my not-so-good Hebrew (because they also didn't speak English.) The rabbi just sat there and listened intently. Afterwards, Simon said to me, "Now tell them the story of....." and then he asked for another and another of my stories, and the whole family sat there in rapt attention as I told one story after another among the many that he had heard from me.

Little did I realize that this was a setup, from which I'd be judged according to the pronouncement of the rabbi. After telling the last story, everyone's eyes turned to the rabbi. And suddenly I realized what was going on, and that this man was going to tell them what he thought of this Christian woman who had come into Simon's life. It's a good thing I didn't realize until later what was going on, because had I known I was "on trial," I would have been too nervous to tell these stories. But anyway, the moment had come and everyone awaited the rabbi's judgment.

He looked me right in the eye and said, "It's obvious to me .........that the Shekinah (glory of God) has been upon you."

When I look back at that moment, I can hardly believe it happened. They were impressed by my stories of God's guidance and provision, but I was impressed, no - I was shocked -- that an orthodox rabbi-in-the-making would ever pronounce with his lips such an observation about someone first of all not Jewish, and second of all a Christian. The Jewish people have been persecuted for centuries by "so-called" Christians -- and all many of them knew was that we thought of them as Christ-killers. So how God brought this about makes me shake my head in amazement to this day.

But there was a greater story taking place here. Little did I know it at the time, but this was only one part of God's moving upon Simon's heart. This was just a part, a necessary element in the story that would lead him to discover the Messiah.

A few months later, a friend of mine from the Christian Embassy came to visit. Simon liked Glen because Glen could speak some Hebrew and loved to try it out on Simon. So Glen came and sat down in the livingroom with us. After a short while, Glen asked Simon, "do you have a Bible?" So Simon got up and brought him his Bible. And Glen turned to Isaiah 53, which is a chapter in Isaiah that is omitted during the Jewish yearly scheduled readings. It's all about the Messiah.

Glen is an evangelist at heart, fully equipped by God to perform his role impeccably. I'd seen him in operation time and time again and was really awed at the way he reached people. But my heart sank when I saw what he was going to do, because I had never come onto Simon hot and heavy with doctrine. And I knew he was going to resent this. He had told me back in the beginning that he was born a Jew and he would die a Jew, and I had reassured him that I was 100% in agreement with that, and that was the truth. I never played games with him about this, I left him totally in the Lord's hands.

Glen opened up to the 53rd chapter of Isaiah and read it to him phrase by phrase, slowly, deliberately, asking him if there was anyone else who could have fulfilled this prophecy. Simon just sat there silently. Glen got up after awhile to go to the rest room, and Simon turned and glared at me, and I immediately said, "I did NOT put him up to this, Simon, I had NO idea he was going to do this." He believed me because he knew from the beginning that I always speak the truth. Glen returned, finished up the chapter, and then left, much to my relief. I was in no way expecting what was going to happen next.

The next morning Glen came into my office at the Christian Embassy. He said to me, "Do you know where Simon is right now?"

I answered, "at this time of day he would be on his way to the shuk, probably down on Ben Yehudah at this point...???"

"Yes, that's exactly where he is," Glen said.

"He's down on Ben Yehudah Street telling his friends that Yeshua is ....the MESSIAH! He's telling them that he saw it last night in the Tenakh (the Bible)!!!"

I couldn't answer. I was dumbfounded. I had no idea....

The next installment in the Lord's story with Simon took place during the Feast of Tabernacles. Each year the Christian Embassy hosts a week-long celebration of the Jewish Feast of Succot, or Tabernacles. Thousands of Christians from all over the world come to Jerusalem for the Feast. I worked in registrations. By the time the celebrations began, I had registered most of them who traveled in tour groups, usually five or six thousand. But during the seminars I had to sit in the lobby to register the many who came only for single sessions. This particular night was the opening session, and the convention center was packed. All seats were filled, and there wasn't even standing room left. The Prime Minister of Israel always spoke at our opening session.

Suddenly, the Lord spoke to my heart, "I want Simon in there tonight."

"Wha.....??? Lord, you know I can't get him in there, there's not a single place left, not even standing room!"

"I want him in there tonight."

So I decided to just wait on the Lord, because only HE could make this happen.

Simon had come to wait for me to finish up with registrations that night, and then we'd go home together. I said to him, "would you like to see how many people have come from all over the world to worship God in Jerusalem?" I took him over to the door and opened it, and there right in front of him was my good friend Nancy from the Christian Embassy, another of my friends that he liked.

The crowd were singing worship songs to the Lord, and many of them had their arms raised in praise to God. Nancy was standing there, her arms raised in worship, her eyes closed and tears streaming down her face.

Simon stopped short, stunned, and just looked at her. Then a man and woman got up from their seats and left, so he and I sat down. He didn't understand the speech by the Prime Minister because he spoke in English, but he experienced being in the midst of a people who loved God so much they would come to Israel to worship him with all of their hearts. He was very quiet.

Then after we left, he said to me, "Did-- you -- see ....."

"What, Simon?"

"Nancy."

"Yes, I saw her."

"She had tears pouring down her face."

"Yes. So?"

"Do you ....I mean, when you pray, ...uhh, do you pray like that?"

"Yes, why?"

"With your arms raised and tears?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"How come I've never seen you do that?"

"Because I don't show myself to you when I pray, I pray in the morning after you've left the house."

He didn't say anymore. He had witnessed something he had never seen in all his life - that a person can love the Lord so much that they'd pour out worship to Him as though they were standing right in front of Him, in wholehearted abandon with tears like floods flowing down their faces. I saw that realization penetrate his heart deep down in the very depths of him. God himself had touched his heart that night with an impact that would bring him to the edge of the Kingdom.

One other story was to take place in Simon's life, and I guess this is the one I appreciate the most.

Simon was, and had been for many years, addicted to cigarettes. He had asthma and cigarette smoking so weakened his lungs that he had frequent very serious asthma attacks. He knew he needed to stop smoking but he just couldn't do it.

One night after an asthma attack, he sat down with me in the livingroom and asked me to "ask Yeshua" to help him stop smoking.

"Simon," I said, "I've brought so many of your requests to him, and you've seen for yourself how he has answered them. I think it's time now, that you ask him yourself."

He squirmed in the chair, and his face got white.

I said to him, "you have nothing to fear, Simon, hasn't he only given to you kindness?"

He sat there and thought about it. And then very suddenly he got up, went into the kitchen and stood before the window facing the southern end of the Mount of Olives, he raised his hands as he had seen Nancy do, and he said, "Yeshua, please, I ask you to help me to stop smoking."

On witnessing this, my goosebumps had goosebumps. Now I was the one who was shocked.

To make a long story short, several months later his son called and told him he was coming over, he needed to discuss something with him. "Paula's here, b'ni." "I know, but I need to talk to you." So his son came over and I met him for the first time. He was cordial, shook my hand, and went into the livingroom and sat down. I sat down also, but didn't say a word, trying to fade into the background.

After talking for awhile, his son suddenly said, "Dad, where are the ashtrays?"

Simon didn't answer right away.

"Dad, you're not smoking???"

"No," he said.

"How long has this been?"

"About a year."

"A YEAR??? You haven't smoked in a YEAR!!? How did that happen?!?"

He couldn't tell his son that Yeshua had set him free. His son was spiritually where Simon was when I met him. He only said, "Paula prayed for me."

At that, his son slowly turned to me --and said, "maybe you'd pray for me too?"

And I have prayed for him, for him and his brothers ...ever since.

Life was "normal" for awhile, until one day when I came home from work to find Simon distressed. He asked me if I interpret dreams.

"No," I said, "why? Have you had an odd dream?"

"I dreamed," he said, "that I was trying to get to your home. It was across this highway that had a lot of traffic. When the cars stopped for the light, I tried to climb over them to get across to your home on the other side, but I couldn't. So then I tried to crawl under them, and I couldn't. The cars started moving again and I saw there was no way for me to get to the other side, to your home. But then, out of the blue, Yeshua (Jesus) came! He was so tall. He came and went into the traffic and stopped the traffic, parted the way for me, and I went across to the other side, to your home."

I sat there stunned, the hairs standing up stiffly on my arms, chills going down my back. Of course I understood the dream, but I didn't tell him that. Little did I realize that someday that dream would mean a lot to me but for now, I could only wonder why the Lord would give him a dream like that. There's a Scripture that says that Mary, Jesus's mother, when hearing words she did not understand, just kept them in her heart. And that's what I did at hearing this dream of his, I had no idea why he would have such a dream, so I just put it on a shelf in my heart. I knew that this dream of Yeshua parting the way for him so he could go to the other side -- contained the suggestion of the real meaning of "the other side." He was trying to get to my home? THIS was my home, the one I was living in with him. I didn't have any other home, I lived with him! So it was obvious that the dream portrayed a time when Yeshua would make the way across for him, to the other side, to my real home -which would become his real home too.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them."
Hebrews 11:13-16

Simon was several years older than I was. He'd only live to be 63 years old when the Lord would come for him. I was in the US at the time, and received a phone call that he had been found dead. At first I didn't make all these connections, because I wasn't expecting him to die. And I descended into a shocked grief that wracked my soul. Before telling the next thing that happened, I need to lay the context for the reader to understand.

Many years prior to this, I was married to what the Bible calls "a head and shoulders man." In the Biblical story of Israel, the Israelites had demanded a king. God was not happy with them, because till now HE had been their King. But they demanded a king "like all the other nations," so he gave them a king. He gave them Saul, who was a "head and shoulders man," that is, Saul was tall -head and shoulders above most of the other young men - very good looking, charismatic and capable in war, the essence of what humanity would want for a king.

But Saul let them down and was unfaithful to God. This man they had on a pedestal failed them, and he ultimately brought so much wrath upon himself that he lost his kingdom and then his life. Then the Lord told Israel that now HE would give them a King of HIS choice. The prophet Samuel was told that the man of God's choice would be among the sons of Jesse from Bethlehem. So Jesse brought his oldest son before the prophet, but the prophet said, "no this isn't the one." So Jesse brought his next son, only to find that this one wasn't the one God would appoint either. Jesse brought each of his sons, one by one, before the prophet until the prophet said that no, none of these were God's appointed king. Finally, the prophet asked Jesse, "don't you have any other son, because none of these is the one God will appoint." "Well," said Jesse, "there IS one more, the youngest one, the runt, little freckle-face David, he's out tending the sheep, he's a singer of songs, not a man like Saul." The prophet tells Jesse to go get him. And when Jesse brought little David to him, the prophet said THIS IS the one!

God's ways are so far above our ways, as far as heaven is above the earth, he says. God wasn't interested in good looks, or height. David wasn't a man "head and shoulders" above the rest. He was a lowly sheep tender, a singer of songs. A lover of God. And one whom God loved.

A few days after I married Simon, the Lord had spoken to me, "blessed are you for not going after the younger men." He showed me that my first marriage was to a "head and shoulders" man, tall and handsome, successful in the ways of the world, brilliant and powerful, all the things a young girl would swoon at. That marriage, however, was a disaster. My first husband was Saul to me. God showed me when I married Simon, that he would be David to me.

So after receiving the call informing me that Simon had been found dead - he died of an asthma attack - I went to the Lord sobbing, crying my heart out, how could this be?!? "You delivered him from cigarettes only to let him die of another asthma attack?" The grief was overwhelming to me. And the feelings of guilt - if I had been there would he perhaps not have died? I'd been with him through countless asthma attacks and I just cringed at the thought of him going through that alone. I was overcome and overwhelmed with grief.

A few days later, the Lord spoke to my heart. He said to me, "go backwards in your Bible to find the chapter you read on the day Simon died." Feebly, I took my Bible and half-heartedly counted back that many days until I came to what I would have read on the day he died.

The tears stopped, and then started up all over again, this time not from grief, but from joy.

What I had read on the day Simon died, was the story of .......the death of King David!!! The day King David was taken "to the other side!"

And then I knew, I realized -that I had lived out a story that God had wrought from beginning to end. On my part it was learning that it's not height, beauty, or qualifications that God looks at, but the heart. The Lord had taught me this lesson by bringing me first through a King Saul marriage that miserably failed, to a King David marriage, one from God and for God's own purposes. The story ended with this little Jewish man from the other side of the world, who couldn't even speak English, had never met a Christian, but had a soft heart toward God, and incidentally loved to sing and often sang both to me and to God. This story brought him to recognize his Messiah and be led by him across the busy highway and on over, not only to my "home," but to his home now, there to live in the joy of the Lord for all eternity.

One of the characteristics of God's dealings with us is that we almost always are not given to understand the story we're in at the time, but are called to walk it in faith knowing that God brings about blessings beyond our ability to imagine if only we commit our way to him and walk each step in obedience, ESPECIALLY when it makes no sense to us. And it WON'T make sense to us until the Lord sheds light upon it later, sometimes YEARS later.

The story isn't over. The day will come when I'll be taken home, to my home "on the other side," and oh how wonderful is the joyful anticipation of it! No, it's truly not over. I long to see Simon again. I often try to picture in my mind how it must have been for him to stand before his Messiah who had parted the way for him so he could be taken to "my home," now also his home. I am in awe when I relive the story, a story I had no clue about as it was happening. I relish every segment of it and marvel at how the Lord put it together totally on his own, without my pestering Simon, as I had vowed never to do to anyone again.

I think back to the days before I went to Israel, to the days when the Lord told me to start learning Hebrew. At the time it was almost a joke. I had no idea why on earth the Lord would have me study Hebrew -- there aren't any Hebrew-speaking people in my town. But the Lord so kept that direction before my attention that I couldn't get away from it. Sometimes I'd shake my head at the absurdity of taking on the learning of such a foreign and difficult language, and I'd put it aside because what I was doing seemed ridiculous to me. But each time I put it aside, the Lord came right back at me with the command to go back to it. It was uncanny.

So I studied the language - for three years - with no understanding whatsoever why I should do such a thing. Little did I know -- oh boy, how I had NO idea -- that I was being prepared to take the message of the Messiah to one little Jewish man on the other side of the world, one who didn't speak English at all, therefore I had to know his language, one who had never in his life met a Christian. When I sit back and take the whole story in, it just overwhelms me to realize the extents God will go to in order to bring one person to himself.

So husbands, wives, don't badger your spouse. God is well able to reveal his salvation to them, but will be HINDERED if you get in the way and do things or say things that will cause them to feel like they're under pressure. They will only resent you for it. Take yourself OUT of the way! And just pray for them. God is well able to do super-abundantly beyond all that you ask or even think. Trust him.

He is trustworthy.

P Maillet
Maine

When I Was So Alone

2007-08-20T19:40:00.000-04:00

Many years ago I was in the process of having a nervous breakdown. The hardest part about it was that I felt guilty because there was no reason I could see, why I was in this condition, and how could I be so ungrateful when I had everything I wanted in life! Yet I couldn't stop the process from taking me over. I was crying every day, and nothing I did seemed to help.

I tried volunteer work to get my mind off myself, and it only made my condition worse. My husband was like an angel sent from God to me. He never put me down, nor would he accept my condition as being abnormal. He figured I just needed to get out of the house, or...

Anyway, I knew I was very sick. My husband was sent somewhere on duty by the military, and I spent three entire weeks in bed, never getting up for anything except to go to the bathroom. I cried out to God to either take me (I was not afraid of dying) or to do something.
I only knew the love of the Father at that time.

The very next day after I prayed this, I got a knock on the door. It was a neighbor who just moved in next door. She started witnessing to me about how God had set her whole family free from drugs and alcohol. I thought that was wonderful, but I couldn't relate, since I didn't have those particular problems in my life. She invited me to an Amway meeting, and there I was drawn to the speaker and went up to her afterwards and asked her how she could be so happy. I figured it must be that God sent her Amway as a Christian organization and support group, so I decided to go into Amway.

Well ....my husband was furious, and because he wouldn't support me, I quickly got out of it. However, when he was gone, this woman spent an entire week with me in my home talking to me about the Lord. At one point something happened, and I began to receive hope that the Lord could help me. After she left, I noticed a tract that someone had given me with the four spiritual laws, and my eyes were opened to Scripture.

The Holy Spirit started teaching me about Scripture, and soon I was flying high with the truth I had never known before. Ever since then I have been walking closely with God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and no one could ever take away from me the things He has taught me. The truth certainly did set me free, for after I discovered that God’s power could take care of my problems, I was delivered from the bondage of depression I had been under. I came to see that I had been carrying a false burden of guilt that was too heavy for me, and it was literally driving me crazy. When I realized that it was not my own goodness that I had to develop, but rather that which comes by faith in the power of God and the work of Christ on the cross, I was truly liberated from darkness that threatened to destroy me. Nothing good I had ever done gave me the joy I discovered when the truth set me free. Just this joy alone was enough to convince me of the greatness of the work of God I had heard about but had never understood, which is the death and resurrection of Christ and what that meant for ME!

I started to realize that I was not the only one who was experiencing this enlightenment. At that time the Charismatic Renewal was strong in all the denominational churches, and people who spoke of the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” were talking about and experiencing something different than I had ever heard of before. All they wanted to do was go to prayer meetings, sing to the Lord, devour Scripture, and pray for others. I thought I was in heaven. It's all I've ever wanted since then. I truly understand what it means to have the “rivers of living waters” flow through you. They satisfy a spiritual thirst that the natural mind cannot understand or explain.

Faith has the ability to “move mountains,” and I just found it amazing to be among people who believe that their every need is met in Christ alone, who know that He is the answer to every problem in life, and who have the fire of the Holy Spirit burning inside them causing them to have the spiritual desire to pray for others, to love others, and to be transformed into the image of Christ. This manifested to me the unity Jesus prayed to the Father about before He left this earth, praying that everyone be likeminded with the “mind of Christ.” And that proved to me to be a miracle in itself.

Cindy Jacques
California

He Sought Me From Age Three!

2007-08-20T17:01:00.000-04:00

I was born to two sad, worldly people who had no hope. My mom maintained that she was an atheist because she was mad at God for letting her sister - the only family member she was close to - die in a car wreck. (Now that I am an adult, I find that hilarious. How can you be mad at someone you don't believe in?) My dad was simply a man busy meeting his own "needs" (read: philanderer). He left us when I was eight years old.

Even though my mother was "anti" God, she still had an incongruous sense of "holiness." For example, I remember once when I was six or seven that I had lost a toy hammer. I prayed for God to help me find it and BAMMO, there it was! I'm not really sure what happened, but at the time it seemed very clear to me that God had answered my childish prayer by dropping my toy right out of the sky. It was a miracle! When I excitedly told Mom about the incident, she got VERY upset. "You don't talk about God like THAT!" and she grabbed the toy hammer away from me. She wasn't so much upset that I was talking about God as that I was talking about God like THAT - as though He were personal and intimate and cared about a little seven year-old girl (or perhaps, her hurting mom.)

We also had a family Bible which was treated with GREAT respect by this woman who didn't believe in God, but was very afraid of angering this God who didn't exist. Ya know, I think what she really believed was that He did exist, but that He didn't pay any attention to you unless you made Him angry. She was mad at Him AND very afraid of Him.

At any rate, when I was three (or so I am told, I don't remember this personally), a friend of my mom's invited her and my dad to come visit her Baptist Church. My dad wasn't interested, but for some strange reason my mom decided to go. She slipped in quietly and perched on the very back row. Up until that day she had never been in a church except for a funeral, nor had she ever heard the Gospel. Naturally, she brought me with her. The hymns were sung, the sermon was preached. Then the pastor did something my mom had never seen before. He presented the Gospel and gave an altar call: "Have YOU been living in your trespasses and sins? Just ask Jesus into your heart and He will wash away all your sins and forgive you. Do YOU want new life and joy? Do YOU want Jesus in your heart?"

Well, I'm sad to say that my mom wasn't ready yet; she didn't understand it all. BUT, reportedly, I DID respond. And did I respond in a quiet, demure, shy manner? Of course not! I responded in truest Groovy form by leaping off my mama's lap and running up the aisle yelling (yes, yelling in church in 1966!) "I WANT JESUS! I WANT JESUS IN MY HEART!"

Oh! My poor Mother! She was positively mortified! Her plan had been to sneak out quietly right after the last "Amen," but now... Apparently the pastor prayed with me and then dismissed the service. Everyone was bubbling and laughing over the adorable (albeit loud) 3 year-old and they all headed straight for my dear ole mother to shake her limp hand and congratulate her etc. All that time her mind was racing wildly and her heart was pounding. All she wanted to do was grab me and get OUT. It was very traumatic for her! Needless to say, it was a looooooooong time before I ever got to church again!

We moved a lot when I was growing up and we did not go to church. But it seems that almost everywhere we lived God raised up a friend or neighbor who offered to take me to their church. I didn't go often, but I remember visiting here and there with those kind souls.

In the meantime, my dad was gone and my mom was thrown into a world of single parenthood. I became a latch-key kid while she worked anywhere from 1-3 jobs to keep us afloat. She joined "Parents Without Partners," and things took a real downhill slide for her in the "man" department. Her boyfriends were basically a long line of losers! Finally, she settled into a relationship with E.K. He was a REAL creep. He abused her and controlled her and told her if she ever bolted, he'd kill her. Thanks to his filthy influence, there was porn in our home. Softcore Playgirl, which my mom actually showed me and hardcore stuff hidden in the hall closet. She still doesn't know that I saw those. Nor does she know that my brain will forever bear those images!

Having had so little discipleship, and little moral guidance from my mom - she was still trying to figure that out herself - I slid into some very worldly philosophies and sensuality. When I was 11 years-old, my life goal was to become a Playboy Bunny! Fortunately, God had other plans!

Eventually, my mom grew so frightened of E.K. that she pulled out a map of the U.S.A. She had me close my eyes and point. My finger landed on Orlando, FL. She and I packed up our clothes and some personal items, bought (rented?) an RV and moved temporarily to Austin, Texas ...then to Orlando.

Although my moral moorings were confused and weak, I had a strong confidence that there was a God who heard me when I prayed. I had no Biblical understanding of Who He really was or how I fit into His plans, but in my own way, I trusted Him. He was faithful to not allow me to continue wandering in confusion.

In 7th grade a friend invited me to her church, Calvary Assembly of God in Winter Park, Florida. That's where everything began to change for me. As I went to the Jr. High "Rock House" meetings with her and then to "adult" church, God began opening my eyes. I began to see that God was more than a helpful friend to bail me out when I was in trouble, He was the Almighty, the Ruler, the King of all Kings. It was time for me to move beyond believing He existed for me, to believing that I existed for Him! I began to read the Bible on my own at home and listen to Christian music (Is WAJL still on the air?) I tried, clumsily, to put into practice the truths I learned at church and in the Rock House. God had begun to change me, to start that lifetime process of making me like Jesus in heart and mind and action.

Though I was far, FAR from the perfect teen, my mom couldn't help noticing the burgeoning metamorphosis. I was wearing more modest clothing, I wasn't as smart-mouthed with her (I had been a pretty bratty only-child until then!) I was insisting she get rid of the coffee mugs with our horoscope signs on them, I insisted that we pray over our meals, I talked about God and church and the Bible and "Did you know...(insert Bible teaching of your choice)?!?" At first she was scared that I was being brain-washed. I didn't know it until after the fact, but she actually had an appointment for me to meet with a counselor so I could be "deprogrammed!"

But before that meeting she decided to come to church with me one Sunday and see what was going on for herself. The first Sunday drew her right in and within a few weeks, she was even crazier than I was! She asked the Lord to wash away her sins, bought a Bible and started reading it. She quit smoking cold turkey and stopped drinking Wild Turkey. She wanted to be in that church any and every time the doors were open! We were baptized together a few weeks after she accepted Christ and she immediately put her spiritual gift of evangelism to work by LOUDLY telling EVERYONE in the restaurant after church that God had saved her and taken away her urge to smoke and wasn't that amazing and didn't they all want to come to church and get to know Him too ????!!!!!!!!!! We'd come full circle and now she was embarrassing me!

Over the years, we've both had our stumblings and our hic-cups and our rebellious moments, but even when we were faithless, HE remained faithful. He has not allowed either of us to walk away from His Love and Truth.

As the song says, "Although there were times I stepped out of His will, I've NEVER been out of His hands."

Sherry G
Maine

My Walk With The Lord

2007-08-18T18:37:00.000-04:00

By The Very Rev. Archimandrite Gregori

I cannot say that I found Jesus, because I have always felt His call in my heart, from the time I was knee high to a grasshopper. Of course, being human, I haven’t always followed Him as there were times in my life that I thought I knew better as to what path my life should take.

Let me start from the beginning, which would have to go back before I was born. My father was born of immigrant parents and raised Presbyterian, but he was never much for going to church. His father was of French/Lebanese extraction and his mother was German. During the Great Depression, he spent a lot of time moving from place to place in search of work. He only went as far as the eighth grade in school, but back when he was a boy, kids with an eighth grade education were on par with, and in some ways surpassed, 12th graders today. However, during the depression and the war years, jobs were hard to come by. He worked as a farmhand in exchange for room and board, on several farms between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He also played the cello with various small orchestras in night clubs and restaurants. Eventually, he ended up in New York City where he was hired at St. Luke’s Hospital, first as an orderly and then as a nurse.

My mother was one of fifteen children born to a Native American mother (Mohawk) and an immigrant father from Bari, Italy. My mother was raised Roman Catholic and at the age of 17, she entered the convent of the Silesian Order of St. John Bosco. While in the convent, she received training in both the health care and secretarial fields. After seven years as a nun, she decided to leave, which was one year before she would have made her final profession and vows. Upon leaving the convent, she applied and was hired at St. Luke’s Hospital as a nurse.

It was at St. Luke’s that my parents met in 1941. My father converted from Presbyterian to Roman Catholic after meeting my mother. They were married in 1943 and had their first child (my older sister) in June of 1944. I was born the following year, October 1945, and my younger sister came along two years later in July 1947. We, along with my two younger brothers, twins, who came along later, were baptized and brought up Roman Catholic.

In 1949, my father moved us back to Rochester, NY which was his home town. Upon coming back to Rochester, my dad was hired as a nurse at the Monroe County Hospital and my mother worked for several years at Strong Memorial Hospital (which is connected with the University of Rochester Medical School). In 1952, she gave birth to my two younger brothers.

From 1950 at the age of five until the age of fourteen, I attended the Roman Catholic Church and always felt a calling to become a priest. Some of my favorite readings were biographies of St. Maximilian Kolby, Father Damian the Leper priest of Molokai, as well as the missionary work in Africa of Albert Schweitzer and Dr. Tom Dooley, a United States Navy doctor who helped the people of Laos during World War II.

For some reason, even though I still felt the Lord’s call on my life, at the age of fourteen, I began to drift away from Church and started to get into trouble. Nothing really big, I began to skip school three times a week and would do some shoplifting of small items.

On the corner of the street where I grew up, was a small Byzantine/Melkite Catholic Church (an Eastern Rite branch of the Roman Catholic Church), the congregation being comprised of Syrian and Lebanese immigrants. I never paid them much attention as I was always taught that they weren’t really Catholic. This of course was not true as I was to find out later. Any way, right next to the church was a small field and I used to go into it as a kid and hide there and throw stones at the rectory (priest’s home) because I liked to see the old monsignor get ticked off and run out to yell at whoever he thought was throwing the stones.

One day I was just about to lob a stone at the rectory when someone grabbed my arm from behind. I remember shouting: “What the f…..” as I turned around (thank goodness I never completed that sentence) and there was a very tall and young priest holding tight to my wrist. He had jet black hair, really dark brown eyes, and one of the biggest smiles I had ever seen on any one. I was 5’ 5’’ tall at the time, and this guy towered over me. I came to find out that he was 6’ 4” tall. He smiled at me at asked me what I planned to do with the stone. I looked up at him and sheepishly said: “Well, I was going to chuck it through the rectory window.” He said, “Well go ahead and chuck it.” I told him that it didn’t seem like such a good idea any more.

That turned out to be the start of a great friendship that lasted all through my junior and senior high school years. The priest, Father Jim, was 27 and had just been ordained a priest a week before I met him in the field. He told me that he was assigned to serve at the Church and to teach a junior high class of boys at the minor seminary that used to be in our area. He invited me, that first time in the field, to attend the Liturgy at his church on the following Sunday. He told me that if I came, he would have a surprise for me. I figured what the heck; I haven’t got anything to lose.

That following Sunday, I walked down to the church and immediately, everybody there started coming up to me to welcome me to their church and to introduce themselves. When I entered the church building and saw all of the beautiful icons (holy pictures) and smelled the aroma of the incense, I almost had the feeling that I had entered heaven. I had never seen such a church in my whole life. Then the service began with the young priest incensing the church and the people while intoning the prayers of blessings in a language I had never heard before, and the people sang the response in the same language. Then I knew I was right, I had entered heaven or at least as close to heaven as I had ever come. I later learned that the language used at the liturgy was Greek and Aramaic (the same language Jesus Spoke).

After the liturgy, every body went downstairs to the church hall where they served coffee and donuts. Several members of the congregation invited me to join them. While I was talking with one of the altar servers, Fr. Jim came up behind me and said he wanted me to say hello to a very good friend of his. When I turned around, there stood one of my most favorite actors, comedians and just all around great person, none other than the late great Danny Thomas*, (you may know him from the old TV show, “Make Room for Daddy” and as the man who founded St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital), this was the surprise that Fr. Jim had said he would have for me. It turned out that Danny Thomas and Fr. Jim were not only friends, but they were also cousins. Mr. Thomas had lived in Rochester as a young teen, and after making it big in the entertainment industry, he donated a large amount of money to the church and right up until his death, in February of 1991, he would attend the liturgy at St. Nicholas Church in Rochester, whenever he was in the area.

One day, Fr. Jim asked me what I planned to be when I finished school. I told him that it had always been my desire to become a priest. He then asked me why I wasn’t in a seminary if I wanted to be a priest. I told him that my family couldn’t afford the tuition. A few days later, he called my parents and asked if he could stop by and visit them. My mother said why don’t you come on Thursday evening for dinner and bring the monsignor. That Thursday, when he and the monsignor arrived at the house, my father greeted them in Arabic and they spoke with him in Arabic for several minutes. Up until that time, I never knew that my father spoke Arabic. I knew that he spoke German and French.

During diner, Fr. Jim told my parents that I had informed him that I had a desire to become a priest and that I had also said that my parents could not afford the tuition for the seminary. They said that was true. He then told my parents that both Monsignor Halik and the Byzantine Melkite Archbishop have granted him permission to give me informal seminary training three evenings a week, but in return he would like me to help keep the church clean by working as a sextant (caretaker) of the church and grounds and assisting at the 6:00 a.m. liturgy every weekday morning before school. Both I and my parents agreed to this (I had just turned fifteen) and from that point until I graduated from high school I received tutoring in Church history, theology, languages (Greek, Arabic and Aramaic), along with hymnology, on a regular basis three to four days a week. Even after Fr. Jim was transferred, each new priest continued on.

By the time I turned seventeen, Vatican II had taken place and many of the drastic changes within the Roman Church were turning me away from the Church. I had hoped to be ordained as an Eastern Rite priest, but shortly before my graduation from high school, I discovered that according the canon laws of the Roman Catholic Church, if I wanted to be ordained, it would have to be as a Western (Latin) Rite priest because one must be ordained to the rite of their father. When my father converted to Roman Catholic, it was in the Western Rite.

Since the Latin (Tridentine) Mass, the Mass I grew up with was no longer going to be used, and a lot of things were changing in the Church, which I found unacceptable, I had no desire to be ordained as a Latin Rite priest. But since I still had the desire and felt the calling to become a priest, another Ukrainian Byzantine Rite bishop convinced me to become an Orthodox Catholic and then, with his help, I entered a Slavic Orthodox monastery a year after graduating from high school, where I was able to complete my studies for the priesthood.

When I entered Holy protection Monastery in 1965, I was given the name Gregori. I had spent six years in the monastery studying Holy Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments in their original languages of Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek.

Right after graduation, before entering the monastery, I made an attempt to enlist in the U.S. Navy to become a hospital corpsman, but I was turned down due to the fact that I was thirty pounds underweight. After entering the monastery, four later the entire monastic community left for Vietnam to do missionary work with refugees and orphans. Altogether, we spent five years, 1969 – 1975, in Southeast Asia between Vietnam and Laos. Upon returning to the U.S., I completed my studies for the priesthood.

For those who may not be familiar with the Orthodox Church, one of the major differences between the Orthodox and Roman Catholics is that Orthodox Catholic priests are allowed to marry provided they get married prior to being ordained to the deaconate (first step toward the priesthood) and they must be married only once. And, all Orthodox Catholic priests are required to maintain secular employment to help support themselves and their families, unlike the Roman Catholic priests who live off of their parishioners. Only monastic priests (priests who live full time in a monastery do not work at a secular job, they are supported by selling religious articles, such as prayer books, icons, and various handmade items).

I have stated all that to explain the following: I left the monastery a year before my ordination to the deaconate in 1978 to get married. In 1979, my wife and I adopted our first two sons from Vietnam. I decided to return to the monastery on weekends to finish my studies for the priesthood. In 1981, we adopted our third son who is Laotian, and in 1982 I was ordained a deacon. I was assigned to assist an Orthodox priest in the Rochester, NY area and it was at that time that I became involved with working with the Southeast Asian refugees in the Rochester (Monroe County) area. In 1983, I was called back to the monastery by the Episcopal Superior of the monastery, to be ordained a priest, after which I was sent back to Rochester to minister primarily to the Southeast Asian refugees. In 1984 we adopted our fourth and last child, a boy from Vietnam.

Unfortunately, unknown to me at the time, my wife was addicted to drugs and alcohol. This problem only became known to me in 1985 when her addictions grew worse. After she made a few suicide attempts and all efforts at rehab failed, I was forced to seek permission from my Bishop to get a Church annulment and a civil divorce in 1987. I was granted both, but I had to vow to remain celibate and not re-marry if I wished to remain a priest. I accepted that and I was granted full custody of my boys by the court. I continued with my ministry and I raised the boys alone. Today, my oldest is in his 18th year in the Air Force, the second oldest owns his own automotive repair business, the third one is going to college in Florida, studying to be a psychiatrist and the youngest one is the manager of a large supermarket chain. The three oldest boys are married and between them, I have seven grandchildren; two granddaughters and five grandsons. My youngest is just got married in April.

After my last son left home for college, I made the decision to return to a monastic form of living. I became the Hegumen (Superior/Abbot) of an eight member community in up state New York and was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite (also known as an Archpriest or a mitered archpriest) in 1995.

Due to health problems, I went into semi-retirement in 1997, but I am still available in emergencies or if one of our priests becomes ill and goes on vacation I will fill in for them.

As I look back over the years, I can honestly say that I have had no regrets to having become a priest, or in raising four wonderful sons alone. If I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I would jump at the chance. Through it all, I felt that I was right were God wanted me to be and He was right there beside me the whole time.

Very Rev. Archimandrite Gregori
New York