Forgiveness For Former Meth Addict

Mia Evans interviews Heather and Josh Powers:

Heather Powers has traveled the world sharing her music, but most of all she likes quiet moments sitting in front of her piano. Her latest CD, Undone, is a moving collection of original songs.

Heather: I was singing ever since I can remember. I remember singing more than I do talking.

Heather’s childhood days were filled with making music. Her close-knit family lived in a quiet neighborhood, in Orange County, California.

One night everything changed. The peace and security she felt were stolen from her. Heather and her sister were home alone when a man broke into their home. He sexually assaulted 13-year-old heather.

Heather: He was brutal. He was beating on me. My sister was trying to beat him off of me. And I just cowered. I, I crumbled. We were able to scare him off.

Then, two years, later a boy she knew and trusted raped her.

Heather: Those two events so profoundly affected who I was growing into be. The shame and guilt was just overwhelming; I shut down in a lot of ways. I learned to live very externally and to keep pleasing, to keep being the person I felt that everyone wanted me to be, while I was drowning inside.

Mia: You married young. Was that an escape for you?

Heather: I lived in a very small town where everybody got married and it became almost a fantasy that just took a life of its own on. We did love each other, there’s no doubt about it, but we didn’t even know ourselves.

As the problems at home intensified, Heather developed chronic migraines. She added painkillers to an arsenal of mind altering drugs.

Heather: By this time I had developed a pretty strong addiction to oxycontin, vicodin, xanex and all kinds of things that would just kind of numb me out. The doctor that had been prescribing all these other medications finally said to me, “I think there might be some emotional stuff going on. That might be why you’re having such pain constantly.” There was something in me, I knew that the drugs that I was on had something to do with how numb and disconnected I felt from my whole life. And so I weaned myself off of them and in a two-week period of time I had what they determined was a manic break, which I ended up in a psychiatric hospital.

Within a few days, doctors released Heather from the psychiatric hospital. But she was still gripped by the pain from her past and her failing marriage. After nine years and two children, Heather filed for divorce.

Heather: I felt so unredeemable and so unworthy. The decisions I had made along the way, I didn’t feel forgivable. And so I felt like it was easier just to walk out. I was running from me mostly. And I knew what I was doing was wrong.

When Heather was a child, her parents taught her that God was a God of love.

Heather: I know I had experiences with Him, and I know that He was there and I know that I was saved; but there wasn’t that point where it became such a personal thing for me. He was not even in the equation at that point.

Heather continued her self-destructive behavior.

Heather: I was not afraid to try illicit drugs. I was living promiscuously, just anything to numb—for the moment—that sense of how awful and wretched I felt.

Heather’s new boyfriend, Josh, introduced her to the highly addictive drug, meth.

Josh: At that point in my life, I was at a point where I was using a lot and partying, and I kind of brought her into that with me. It’s one of my biggest regrets.

Heather: We’d go on weekend benders where we’d be up all night talking and hanging out with friends and it was a great way to totally not think about the reality of my life.

Josh: I hated the man I had become. And the way I dealt with hating the man I had become was drinking and using.

Heather: For me, one day after about a year, a year and a half, I just came to an end where I realized I couldn’t go on anymore.

Heather cried out to God for help.

Heather: God met me in such a way. He allowed me to know that even while I was in the midst of sin and destruction and the devastation of my life and that of my family’s, that He didn’t love me any more or any less than He had. He allowed me this safety to then begin to build this relationship with Him. That was my “Ah-ha” moment, that I knew He was real for me. And I knew that whatever it was that I was going to walk through, that He was there and that He hadn’t left. It was I who had walked away.

Heather immediately quit using drugs.

Josh: She was able to turn it over to God and really walk away from it and I didn’t have that. I mean, I had a hole inside of me that I could not fill. And it wasn’t until I went to treatment and the idea was put to me that I had to consider having a power greater than myself in my life.

Heather’s father began talking to Josh about the Bible, and Josh, too, became a Christian.

Josh: The most miraculous for me was the desire to drink and use was lifted from me. It was something that I battled since I was 13, 14-years-old. Praise God! It still is not there. It’s been lifted.

Heather and Josh just celebrated their seventh wedding anniversary and more than eight years of sobriety.

Heather: I was the chief of sinners. I was that harlot. His grace was so big that He came in and rescued me when I had walked so far and devastated and destroyed so many things around me. He’s always rescuing us from things, not just big things, it’s little things. He wants us—all of us, not just the catastrophes. He wants every bit of us.

Luann Prater: Needed to Forgive

“I loved my church,” Luann said. “My dad had made us go to church every single time the doors were open.”

Luann Prater always had an innocent view of God. She lost it, though, when she was 13. She was alone backstage in a church production when her youth pastor did the unthinkable.

“We were in the dark room together—he kissed me. I was 13. It scared me,” Luann said.

Then three months later the youth pastor’s wife called to ask Luann to babysit.

“I could feel my heart racing; I did not want to say yes. And she said, ‘Luann, I don’t want anybody else. If you don’t babysit then we won’t go out.’ Well I adored her, so I did. And when they pulled into the driveway when the evening was over I ran to the phone to call my mom. I was on the phone and he walked in the door and took the phone from my hand and said, ‘Wilma, you don’t need to get out tonight. I’ll bring Luann home.’ He didn’t take me home. He didn’t take me straight home,” Luann said.

The youth pastor took advantage of Luann. That night changed her life forever.

“When he did take me home, I stood frozen and forever changed, outside my home. Everything I knew about God had shifted. This man I had trusted betrayed my trust. And now I had no value,” Luann said. “I never sought God’s will from that point on. I just made decisions on my own.”

As an adult, Luann moved from one husband to another, always searching for someone to fill the pain in her heart.

“After being married so many times and feeling like you had not just become a two time loser, but several time loser. And you just get to the point where you think, am I ever going to get it right?” Luann said.

Her 4th marriage was to Dwight, a successful businessman who had a Christian background.

At that time her brother, Lon, challenged her to read a specific book of the Bible.

“I was 40-years-old and my brother, who had absolutely given his heart back to God, told me, ‘Luann, read the book of John and discover the real human side of Jesus.’ And I started doing that,” Luann said.

One story pierced her heart. It was of the adulterous woman whose life was changed when Jesus met her at the well.

“And when I hit chapter 4, I left skid marks. Because when I read the woman at the well this time, I saw Luann standing at the well. Right there, John preserved that story between baptism and healing, just for me. And for all the women out there who have broken lives and broken dreams and broken homes,” Luann said.

On December 6th, 1998, Luann says God spoke directly to her heart.

“God woke me up at 2:00 a.m. and said, ‘Today is the day. I don’t want you waiting around anymore; today is the day,” Luann said. “I was so excited. I got to church that day and guess what our pastor said? ‘Today is the day of salvation. Don’t wait.”

“And what was beautiful, I went home that afternoon and I called my dad. And my mom put the phone down by his ear and I said, ‘Dad, I’m back. Christ found this lost sheep today and I gave my heart back to Christ. I am a new creation.’ And she said he laid there and cried and smiled. Eight days later, he went home to see Jesus and rejoice with Him.
My dad promised us that he never stopped praying for his children. Not one day,” Luann said.

Her husband Dwight saw a complete change in Luann and it changed his life as well.

“After that day and that period of time she became a different person in her faith in the Lord. Through prayer, through the things that she did, it drew me,” Dwight said.

Luann is now a well known Christian writer for Proverbs 31 Ministries. Her web emails reach about 250,000 readers. She and Dwight live in the rolling hills of North Carolina.

“My favorite times, I’ve got to tell you, are when I’m on the big red tractor driving through the yard. And that’s when I can really be still and know that He is God. And He whispers to my heart and says, ‘Luann, when you started seeking me I started giving you all of this. I gave you the desires of your heart when you first got your priorities straight and sought me,’” Luann said.

Can God change your life?
God has made it possible for you to know Him and experience an amazing change in your own life. Discover how you can find peace with God.

Island Vows Renewed

The Bahamas, the number one tourist spot in the world, has beautiful beaches and breathtaking sunsets. But living here holds a hidden danger. They call it "island fever." It's the lure of sex, drugs, and non-stop good times. Island fever trapped Troy Aitken at an early age.

"At the age of 5, I was introduced to pornography through Playboy magazine. Then I started smoking marijuana at age 9," says Troy.

Troy's struggle with drugs took him in and out of prison, but one trip to jail changed his life. He served time at Teen Challenge, a faith-based drug program, and that's where he became a Christian. A changed man, Troy enrolled at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas. While working as a waiter, he met Colleen.

Says Troy, "She would always go off during her lunchtime and write songs poetically to the Lord, and she would share them with me after we got to know each other. I liked that."

"I was praying for a lot of those lunch breaks that the Lord would give him a godly wife," Colleen explains. "It never occurred to me that I would be the answer to that prayer, but that was on my heart to pray that."

Troy and Colleen married and moved to the Bahamas. Eventually Troy achieved success working for his father.

"In the world's eyes, on the outside, I seemed to be quite successful," he says. "We were able to procure this house, establish four companies, and still go to church with a nice car and a nice tie. So on the outward, we fit the bill of the prosperity message, yet my heart was far from Him. When I was at my pinnacle, at my highest fiscal year, I crashed. I began drinking, which led to drugs again, and then my wife and children left."

But even losing his wife and children wasn't enough to make Troy give up the drugs.

"We had money and drugs on the table, and the Holy Spirit came into the room and rested on me," Troy recalls. "I literally, physically, felt a thick presence of grace and truth that gave me the power to say, 'Do you have a Bible in this house?' I took the Bible and held it and hugged it and cried out to God. I said, 'Lord, please forgive me.' That led to me walking to my father's office. I said, 'I want to change. I've had enough.' "

Troy went back to Teen Challenge and opened his heart to the Lord as he'd never done before. And as he drew closer to God, his thoughts turned to his wife and family. Meanwhile, Colleen was on her own journey.

"The day that I left Nassau with my children I was in a place of devastation," Colleen says. "There was a sweet lady who was sitting in front of me on the plane. She turned around and she asked me why I was going to Dallas. I began sobbing, and I told her I was leaving my husband. He didn't want a family anymore. I just couldn't stop crying."

The woman handed Colleen a book that would change her life.

"The challenge in those pages," says Colleen, "was will you cry out for this work to be done? For the Lord will use you mightily if you will allow Him to break you. I wanted to be healed, but the Lord was saying, 'You must be broken first.' You feel God in the process that somehow it is a beautiful experience."

More than two years later, Colleen got an unexpected phone call from Troy's family.

"They called to tell me that he wanted to ask my forgiveness and would I call him," Colleen remembers. "They told me where he was, and immediately I knew the Holy Spirit was saying, 'Call.' "

So Colleen did.

"I was more excited to tell her about the Lord than worry," says Troy. "I tell you the truth. I knew God was up to something."

Colleen had to face what normally would have been a difficult decision: to remarry Troy. But she says she knew it was the right thing to do.

"The Lord made it vividly clear to me that that was His will, and He asked me to trust Him," she says. "He gave me promises, and He said, 'I am not bringing a liar and a deceiver back to you. I am bringing a godly man back to you. You can't look at him. You must trust Me. You must trust the work that I've done in his life.' "

The couple remarried on March 19, 2001, almost three years after they divorced.

"As Troy and I embrace this together and walk forward together, we really are just beginning our lives together in this way," says Colleen.

"We have love now that we never had before. It's not about me. It's not about Colleen and me," says Troy. "It's about how much God loves us, that He is doing something in us, and if we are willing to let Him, He is in the restoration business for anyone who's willing."



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The Agostos: A Marriage Revival

"I wanted somebody that would understand me. I wanted someone that when I said to them what I had gone through that I could have that shoulder to lean on as opposed to being judged."

Linda had just moved from New York to live with family members in Florida when she found that person. At her new school, she met Rafael.

He recalls, “When I got to school that day, I saw a group of friends of mine, and I saw this new girl standing there. I said, 'Wow! That’s a new girl. She’s beautiful.' So I walked up to the crowd and introduced myself.”

Linda says, “As soon as I looked at him, I said, 'Wow.' I liked him at first sight.”

Linda and Rafael felt an instant connection and started spending time together.

“It was just a lot of talking at first. We fell in love that way," Linda says. "Me pretty much airing out all my feelings, all my frustrations and him doing the same thing having gone through the life that he lived.”

Rafael was coping with the loss of his mother. She was a drug addict and died from AIDS when he was 13. Linda had her own problems.

“I looked to alcohol as a refuge due to everything that happened in my childhood with my father drinking and the domestic violence that was in the home," she says. "I was sexually abused at an early age.”

But their troubles were just beginning. Linda was only 16 and Rafael was15 when she became pregnant.

Rafael says, “There were people that were telling me, 'You guys are too young to have a baby. Get rid of it.' 'Don’t worry about her. Women have raised kids by themselves before.' You know, 'don’t throw your future away.' But I was set on it. I was like, ‘I don’t care what it takes. I’m gonna stay with Linda, and I’m gonna raise this baby. We’re gonna have a family.'”

Rafael and Linda moved back to New York to live with Linda’s family. After the baby was born, the young couple realized they weren’t ready to settle down.

“We would still go to the clubs," Linda confesses. "We would still go to the bars. So that life didn’t change. It was like now I had somebody to join me at the clubs. I wasn’t drinking by myself. ”

Just three months after their first son’s birth, Linda got pregnant again.

“Because things were a little shaky at the time, we decided to just get married," Rafael says. "We were like, 'OK, maybe it’s time to make things right.'”

instead, they had more complications.

Rafael continues, “The problems really started once we got married, and things became very, very difficult My stepfather passed away, and we had custody of my brother and [our own] two children.”

Rafael worked hard to support his growing family. Then he met a man at work who made things even harder.

“One day he invites me to his house for lunch, and he pulls out a bag of cocaine. I had vowed I would never do drugs. My mother was into drugs, and she actually died of AIDS when I was 13-years-old. I always vowed that I would never use drugs. So I was like, 'Put that away. Do whatever you want but I don’t do that.' A week later, I don’t know what happened, but we ended up at the same house. He pulled it out, and this time I tried it. From the first time I tried it, I was hooked. I was addicted."

Rafael’s addiction grew. He was soon spending $500 a day on drugs.

Linda recalls, “That’s why we lost everything. Every single dime would go into his habit. We would get income tax check -- sometimes $3,000, $4,000. I never saw them.”

“It was a really bad situation," Rafael says. "Lying to my wife, wouldn’t come home. From the time I would get up in the morning, I couldn’t resist having it. So I’d do whatever it took to get it.”

Again, Linda became pregnant, but she couldn’t take it anymore. She packed up the kids and left.

“I arrived at my sister’s house. He never followed me," Linda shares. "He loved the drugs more than his family -- that’s how I saw it.”

Linda realized that the one who would love her and never leave her was God. She accepted Jesus as her Savior and began praying for Rafael. Just three months later, she saw a flyer advertising a revival.

"It said on the top that if you need a miracle come at 7:30.”

Linda needed a miracle in her marriage. She convinced Rafael to come along.

“We’re sitting way in the back," Rafael says. "He starts to preach his message, then he stops and he says, 'I’m not gonna preach yet. There’s somebody here that’s tired of living the way they’ve been living. The living God tells you today, if you give Him a chance, your life will never be the same.'

“A lot of people came, and they threw like boxes of cigarettes on the altar. But he kept insisting that the Lord was saying that there was still someone. He kept on and on until he finally just stood, right in front of our section. He said, 'Somebody in this section, today is your day.'”

Linda says, "I was just praying and praying. Finally when I opened up my eyes and I looked to the side, my husband was going to the front.”

Rafael opened up his heart to God and was immediately delivered from his drug addictions.

He says, “I instantly felt something change. I felt something right away. I said, 'Whoa, something happened here.' And I cried. I cried in front of that platform. My life has never been the same. I haven’t touched another drug, another drink since that day.”

Rafael and Linda are now teaching their children about God’s power and how He transformed their lives and brought them back together.

“We’ve had our ups and our downs like any family even after being saved. But there’s one thing that I think is the most important thing is that I have them there. I know that it’s because of God. God is powerful. You give your life to God, and God will take care of you."

Psalm 1 - 2

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the season;

Abraham Deng and The Lost Boys of Sudan

“The enemy was running after us, and my best friend was older than me. He was on the other side with me, and he told me, ‘Abraham, get into the water. Cross to the other side.’ But I told him I would not because I didn’t know how to swim.”
Abraham Deng was just 10 years old when he and thousands of other children were driven from refugee camps in Ethiopia.
“So we jump into the water, and we crawled to the other side. I thought I was going to die,” Abraham shares with The 700 Club. “About 2,000 lost boys and girls died in that river as a result of enemy attack. Some were eaten by crocodiles, and some got drown because they didn’t know how to swim.”
This wasn’t the first time Abraham’s life was threatened. The danger began the day he fled from Islamic militants attacking his home village in Sudan. He was just six years old.
He recalls, “As we’re attending cattle, we heard the sound of guns, and we tried to come back to the camp, but we met some kids who were running in different directions. They told us not to go to the camp because we would get killed.”
Abraham and some other boys ran into the jungle.
“I thought there would be a time for me to go back to the camp, and I’d eventually go and see my family in the village,” he says, “but that wasn’t possible, so we stayed in the jungle.”
Most of the children were young men and boys. They became known as “The Lost Boys of Sudan.”
Abraham didn’t know why he’d been separated from his family. He missed them and wondered if he’d ever see them again. Then a man came to their camp and gave him a message of hope.
“After some weeks, there was an Evangelist by the name of Barnabas,” he explains. “He led me to Christ. He talked to me several times and also to the other kids about having hope.”
Over the next decade, “The Lost Boys” searched for a place to call home.
He says, “I didn’t have any clothes. I had only a pair of shorts that I was wearing, and I didn’t have shoes with me. I didn’t know where I was going, so I thought eventually I would die.”
Abraham walked more than 1,000 miles across Africa with bare feet. He stayed in a refugee camp in Ethiopia for four years and in a camp in Kenya for nine. Though he survived the journeys, many of his friends did not.
“Some got killed, and some were eaten by the lion population in the area. Some died of exhaustion; they could not walk farther. Some died of starvation.”
Abraham eventually heard that his own father and five uncles had been killed. His mother’s fate was unknown. Abraham only knew that he missed her.
“There was nothing more significant than to be with your mother. You find [that you are] by yourself, missing all that comfort and parental love and care. It was so difficult.”
It would be 19 long years before he learned what happened to his mother.
Today, Abraham is no longer a little boy trekking through Africa. He’s a young man living in the United States. He was one of nearly 4,000 “Lost Boys” resettled in America.
Once here, Abraham was on a mission.
He says, “I had been praying to God when I was over there that God would make it possible for me to go to school.”
God listened to Abraham’s prayers. Through hard work and faith, he made his way to Southern Wesleyan University in South Carolina. There he began studying to become a doctor.
“I am going to touch people’s lives, spiritually and medically,” Abraham says. “I know for so many reasons that God brought me to the United States to impact the lives of other Christians here and to accomplish what He wants me to do. That is education.”
As Abraham followed God’s will for his life, his prayers continued to be answered. One day he got a phone call…
“I went on the phone and talked to that guy [who] told me, ‘Abraham, you don’t know me, but I have good news for you. Your mom is alive, and she is a refugee in Ethiopia.’ I could not believe.”
His new friend helped arrange a phone call between Abraham and his mother in Africa.
“Mom told me, ‘My son, your siblings want you to come and see them, and besides that, I’m getting old.’ It broke my heart, and I said, ‘Mom, I know you are getting old, and my siblings want to see me. I know God is going to open a way for me to see you all.”
And God did. Through donations from other Christians, Abraham was able to return to Africa in 2006. He finally felt his mother’s arms around him again!
“When I saw my mom for the first time in 19 years, my world was completely changed, and I could not help crying. My mom lifted me up into the air with my sister, and I ran into the small house. [She] has been kissing me and kept calling me all the nicknames she used when I was a little boy. I try to respond to her, but there is not a word that came out of my mouth. It’s very difficult to explain. It was amazing.”
Abraham and his family were overjoyed by God’s answer to their prayers. But Abraham was saddened by his family’s living conditions.“There was a reason why God led me to go there. Not only to see my family, but to see what people are going through,” Abraham says. “My heart was broken when I was in camp.”
His own mother was suffering from both typhoid and chronic malaria. His brother-in-law needed immediate surgery. Fortunately, enough money had been raised for Abraham to pay for his brother’s surgery and to help many others. But Abraham wants to do much more.
“I give my life to God. ‘You do with me whatever You want. Just whatever You want of me, so that people have to come into Your kingdom.’ That is what I consider of myself. The reason I want to be a doctor is because there is a great need for doctors in my country. People die because of simple diseases. People die with no hope, and if I become a doctor, I will impact the lives of these people. I will tell them about God and take care of them medically. If one dies, I will give them that hope to die in Christ. So that’s what my mission is, and I know God is going to let me accomplish that.”
Abraham has returned to college to finish his degree. He plans to go to Africa again to see his family and to fulfill his calling. Though he’s had to overcome intense pain and tragedy in his 25 years, Abraham has also gained an indestructible faith.
“I know God is going to use me in a number of ways, not only in Sudan, but in many places," Abraham says. "Thank You so much for letting me suffer. Perhaps if I didn’t suffer, maybe I would not know God."

COMPLIMENT OF THE SEASON

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL. AND THANKS 4 VISITING MY BLOG.

Fatuma Shubisa: Twelve Hours in Heaven

Fatuma Shubisa works hard to provide for her and her husband’s nine children. She lives in the little village of Alelu in rural Ethiopia. She considers her simple life a gift from God, because it was God himself who raised her from the dead.
Fatuma tells The 700 Club, "For two months, I was very, very seriously sick."
One day Fatuma’s mother came to care for her daughter. But her daughter passed away.
"She came and touched my face. I was cold. My eyes were open. She closed my eyes and straightened my legs," Fatuma says. "My mother cried when she found out that I was dead. Because of that, everybody came and started crying."
The pain Fatuma felt during her long sickness was finally over. Fatuma grew up Muslim but had converted to Christianity. She says after she died, she felt herself being drawn to heaven.
"I was very happy, and I was going with a very merry heart."
Along the way, Fatuma saw someone she recognized. It was her husband’s brother, who had died two years earlier.
Fatuma recalls, "He came and took my hands, and he took me away. I felt like the earth was like an open ditch, but I had gone up very, very high. When I crossed and went away from the valley, I reached a place where everybody was dressed in gold. I looked at the earth as very dirty, but where I was was very free and clean."
Back at her home, more and more people were coming to mourn Fatuma’s passing.
"My relatives had come, and they were non-Christians, Muslims, and they were crying very much," she explains. "But a few Christians were praying."
A missionary named Warsa Buta was walking nearby.
Warsa says, "After my salvation God told me, 'I will raise the dead through you.' With that word, I was praying earnestly from that day onward."
Fatuma adds, "When he was passing by the way, he heard that somebody had died. So he came and started praying. The non-Christians came, and they were asking, 'Why is this Pentecostal man praying over a dead body?'”
As Warsa prayed, Fatuma’s vision of heaven continued.
"My mother-in-law was dead, and she was there in that place," Fatuma remembers, "She was begging them to send me back so that I can raise my children. Those people who were in gold said, 'She is quite young, so send her back. Send her back.'”
By now, Fatuma had been dead a full 12 hours, but Warsa kept praying.
Warsa says, "I had faith the Lord would work through me. I prayed as Peter prayed. 'Fatuma, be raised. I ask you in the name of the Lord. Come to life.' When I prayed that prayer -- 'Fatuma, rise in the name of Jesus' -- she sat up in the bed."
Fatuma says, "Then immediately I found myself in my body. I sat up in my bed and started asking, 'What is this? What’s happening? What’s going on?' Then everybody was surprised. Some were commenting, 'A Pentecostal man can call back a dead soul to a body? If this is real, then we all will become Christians.’ And they were shouting.
"I was a Christian, and my husband was an evangelist. When I died, I died as a Christian. These people called Warsa, and they started commenting, 'Your God is a very powerful God. Now make us believe.'
"I came back, because it was the will of God for me to live with my children. But I would be very happy to go back there. Now I have seen when a Christian dies, he goes to a better place, and his body goes back to dust. For a non-believer that is a place of sadness, but when a Christian dies, he goes to a separate place where everything is good, where everything is very, very happy."

The Big Faith of a Child

It was like an explosion. An SUV speeding at over 100 miles an hour ripped through the concrete wall of a music store. Rick and Teresa Hester had taken their four-year-old daughter there. Little Elise loved to play the drums.
Mom, Teresa recalls, "I was sitting on the drum set in front of her, and she was on the drum set behind me."
The vehicle plowed over the drum set where Elise was sitting and went through the wall into the mattress store, next door.
She continues, "I started to see maybe just two feet in front of me and there were pieces of debris on the floor. I looked down and all of the drums where we were sitting were taken out. Tthe first thought that went through my head was, 'Where’s Elise?" "
Rick remembers,"Teresa hollered Elise’s name out twice with no response. And, at that point, we just knew she was dead."
"I looked down at the floor to see if I could see her feet sticking up. Since pieces of the ceiling were caved in and pieces of the wall, the light was coming in more, and you could see pieces of the wall on the floor," says Teresa.
"I felt afraid. And honestly, this was so strange that in just a few seconds, I could feel so much emotion. But wow, it was like reliving the whole thing. I felt like if she was gone, I didn’t want to be here anymore. I remember that... feeling that I didn’t want to be alive if she was not alive," she says.
But to everyone’s surprise and relief— a little figure appeared in the midst of the dust and debris.
"About 15-20 seconds later, she came running from the very back of the store and was saying, 'I’m right here mommy, I’m right here.' And that was the biggest blessing, seeing that child run through there, that you’ve ever had in your life," says Teresa.
Rick and Teresa started to question little Elise—her story shocked everyone. "I said, 'Are you okay?' And she said, 'I’m fine.' And I said, 'Well, Elise, how did you get off the drums? You were right there on them.' And she said, 'Well, Jesus picked me up and moved me, mom.' She said that when He picked her up, He picked her up with one hand and she said, 'He has really big hands, mommy, and it felt like I was in water.' "
Since then, her story hasn’t changed.
"He kissed me on my right cheek. Jesus is bigger than the whole world," little Elise now says. The local paper reported that a medical condition may have been the cause of the driver losing control of the car. Amazingly, he went to the hospital with minor injuries.
Store clerk, Steve Totten, is still amazed at what he saw that day. "Yeah, the last I saw her, she was sitting at the drum set. It happened so fast. We thought she had gotten covered up by the debris. It’s just a miracle that nobody got hurt or killed. And to know that she was okay, that made me feel a whole lot better. We really thought she was covered up in all that stuff," says Steve.
Rick and Teresa believe that God truly protected their little girl that rainy, summer afternoon.
"I think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when they were in the fiery furnace, and they came out with not even the smell of smoke. She was so protected that she didn’t even have the fear from the accident that we had," says Teresa.
"It’s the most miraculous thing I’ve ever seen in my life. If I never see another miracle as long as I live, I mean, I can actually say I saw one that day," adds Rick.
Do you want to experience God like little Elise? Find out more.

The Writing on the Wall

Like many people in Ethiopia, Yilma Gudini grew up illiterate.
“I lived in a rural area, so I had no opportunity to go to school,” Yilma says.
Instead of going to school, Yilma spent his childhood herding cattle for his family. He was always healthy, but as an adult, Yilma was stricken with a strange disease that he says was demonic.
“Evil spirits bound my legs and closed my mouth,” he says.
For years, Yilma was unable to walk or speak. But when a missionary prayed with him for eight days, he was healed.
“The demons left me, and I could walk and speak again,” he says. “It was a miracle.”
Yilma gave his life to Christ. And just a few months later, he would experience another miracle.
“God told me to fast and pray for 15 days,” Yilma says.
After 10 days, he went to sleep and had an incredible dream.
“I saw the word of God written on the wall,” he says.
But Yilma didn’t just see the word of God. He could read it.
“I read the words for many hours,” he says. “And when I woke up, I got a Bible and I could read it as well.”
Yilma didn’t know if he was really reading or not, so he took the Bible to a friend who could read, and asked him if the words on the page matched what he thought they said. That friend confirmed that Yilma could read. Even though he was an adult, Yilma decided to go to school, but that proved to be a little more difficult than he thought it would be.
“But when I went to school I could not read anymore,” Yilma says. “I lost the ability God had given me. I was very confused. But when I stopped going to school, I could read again.”
Since God did this for me, I have read from Genesis to Revelation. And now I teach the Bible in my church.”
So why does Yilma think God healed him and gave him the ability to read? The answer is simple.
Yilma says, “I know God did this for me because he loves me.”

Forgiving the Man Who Killed Tami

“She was shot three times with a large gun, and the first two shots didn’t kill her. It took over two hours for him to shoot the third and final shot, and when he did, it blew her little chest apart.”

Thirty-two year old Tami Waite had been brutally murdered by her boyfriend.

“I can still see her lying there…”

The tragedy was too much for Carol Johnson to take, especially since Tami was her first-born -- a treasure she’d never be able to replace.

“Tami was very organized. She was career orientated. She really wanted to do something with her life,” says Carol.

Dashed dreams -- for which Tami’s boyfriend showed no sign of remorse.

“This was the same time as the big trial with O.J. Simpson, and the man that murdered my daughter called into his job and said, ‘Well, it looks like I pulled a Simpson’… like it’s a joke.”

Tami’s boyfriend had been drinking and doing drugs. There’d been an argument but he gave no real motivation for the murder.

“That’s hard to take as a parent,” says Carol. “You don’t know why? That’s pretty convenient.”

The more Carol heard in the courtroom, the more bitter she became.

“I hated this man. I thought, I wonder if there’s someway I could get to him. I’d like for him to be hurt like my daughter is. I just want him dead. I said, ‘God, I can’t take it anymore.’”

That’s when Carol remembered a promise from God.

“’You promised me that You would never ever give me more than I can take, and I’m standing on that word. I can’t do it.’ And the minute I said that I felt this huge angel behind me. I said, ‘Oh Jesus, You sent me an angel… Can I keep him?’ He said in my spirit, ‘Of course, as long as you need him. He will be here with you.’”

Carol’s attitude towards Tami’s murderer started to change. She noticed a limp in his walk, and she began to pray.

“I didn’t want to but the minute that I made that commitment and meant it in my heart, it’s just like weights fell off me. I said, ‘Okay, God, forgive me. Touch him, heal his foot and let him know that it’s okay.’ At that moment in time, I knew that something had started inside of me. Some spirit had started to grow.”

It was the beginning of forgiveness -- a journey that would take time and action on Carol’s part to complete.

The court case finally concluded and Tami’s boyfriend was sentenced to 14 years in prison. For Carol, that’s when the real grieving began.

“I just went into a deep depression and went into my bedroom. A lot of days I didn’t even get dressed. I didn’t answer the phone. I didn’t want anybody coming by.”

The only person Carol wanted to talk to was God. After six months, she figured out what He wanted her to do.

“He says, ‘I want you to go into the jails and the prisons, and I want you to tell every inmate you see two things. You tell them that I love them no matter what they’ve done. The second thing is that I want you to tell them you love them.’”

It wasn’t easy, but Carol complied and became chaplain at the local jail. With God’s help, she grew to love her inmates and gradually, her depression lifted.

Then Carol did something she never thought she could. She visited the man who murdered her daughter. Her mission? To forgive him face to face.

She recalls, “When he first came in the room, he had his head down and he wouldn’t look at me. He wouldn’t look in my eyes at all.”

He expected Carol to question and rebuke him. Instead, she just asked him how he was.

“Pretty soon, he raised his head up, looked me right in the eyes, and he said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ I asked him, ‘Will you do just one favor for me? If you ever find yourself in a position where you know you’re going to die, I mean whether it be prison violence or illness, would you just ask Jesus to come into your heart and forgive you?’”

Just a few months later, the man who murdered Tami Waite died in prison from a mysterious illness.

“I started crying, grieving for him because no one was grieving for him. That was the time that I experienced the most love from God that I have ever felt in my life -- when I grieved for the man who murdered my daughter.”

Carol heard that before he died, he did just as she requested and asked Jesus into his heart. Finally, the long journey to forgiveness had come to an end.

“The forgiveness thing is the most powerful thing we have,” says Carol. “You never forget the pain. You never forget how it hurts, but yet you are grateful that God has given you forgiveness. So when you give to others, it comforts you. [When you] can’t do this anymore, that’s when He whispers to you forgiveness because that’s healing. That’s the only way you’re going to heal.”

Heather Gemmen: Finding 'Beauty' after Rape

“The light turned on in my room, and I mumbled something like, ‘Steve, turn out the light. I’m trying to get some sleep.’ The light turned out, and I opened my eyes. The man standing in my bedroom was not my husband.”

It was Heather Gemmen’s worst nightmare.

She, her husband and two children lived in a dangerous neighborhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Crime was everywhere.

"The tension between the Black and White races was tangible. It was very evident, so then you feel threatened,” Heather says -- especially the night Heather was tied up and raped at knifepoint.

“There were a few moments where I simply thought, I’m going to die. It was like it wasn’t real. I didn’t really believe this was happening. In fact, I said that to him, ‘What are you doing here?’”

It seemed like an eternity, but after an hour, the rapist left.

Heather immediately went to check on her children, who were just steps from her bedroom. Surprisingly, they slept through everything and had no recollection of what happened. Heather, on the other hand, couldn’t forget.

“How could he have done this to my life? He was so selfish, so wicked. His words were vile. Disgusting like vomit on me and to think that somebody could do that to someone else... I really wanted to hurt him.”

At the same time, Heather struggled with guilt and shame.

“Any way I could blame myself, I did. Even though logically I knew it wasn’t my fault. There I am in my own home, a man raped me at knifepoint, ties me up, threatens the life of my children. I’m obviously innocent, but I didn’t feel that way.”

Other questions haunted Heather. What if she contracted a sexually transmitted disease or became pregnant?

“All I thought was doom, doom, doom, and I thought, I’m definitely going to be pregnant. I’m definitely going to have AIDS, and my world’s going to come crashing down. I just didn’t believe that anything would be okay again.”

Heather was desperate. So, she followed a doctor’s advice and took “the morning after pill.”

Heather says, “I knew it was wrong, but I took it because I couldn’t bear the idea of being pregnant. I thought, I won’t be able to deal with it. I’m already overwhelmed with the pain in my life.”

There was only one problem…

“I discovered that the pill didn’t work, and I was pregnant as a result of the rape. I felt trapped.”

Would Heather have the baby or have an abortion? Would she give the baby up for adoption or keep the baby herself?

“Here I was with three choices, and none of them worked. I wanted door No. 4, and there was no other option. That’s when God began to just soften my heart and work in me because I finally just turned myself over to Him. [I] said, ‘I can’t do anything, and I let go of this desire for control.’”

Even after surrendering to God, it was still hard. Some of the advice Heather got really made her angry.

“There are times that people would quote scripture to me, [like] Romans 8:28. God will make all things good for those of us who love Him and are called according to His purpose. And it sounds so beautiful but when you’re in the midst of despair, frankly you want to hit people with the Bible because it doesn’t feel true.”

But it was true. Heather had the baby and named her Rachel. Heather decided to keep her. What started out as a gross violation turned into what Heather calls in her book "startling beauty."

“I couldn’t have loved this child and recognized her innocence, seen her beauty, and been able to separate her from the crime if it weren’t for the Holy Spirit working in our hearts. The amazing thing is I have never, ever associated Rachel with the rape itself.”

Since Rachel was born, there have been some changes in the Gemmen family. Sadly after standing by her side through everything, Heather’s husband eventually left.

“I think perhaps he wasn’t given enough care by me or by others in dealing with this. I don’t know. I don’t really understand what happened.”

But Heather pressed on. She remarried and even adopted a boy from the neighborhood named Deshawn, who thinks the world of his sister.

"I love my siser. I just think about how God can do amazing things in our lives," says Deshawn. "Even if it’s the worst thing, He can make it the beautiful-est thing. I think that’s awesome."

The man who raped Heather is now in prison, and she no longer suffers from guilt or shame. She says the love of God set her free from that and helped her to forgive.


“Who am I to say to God this person doesn’t deserve to be forgiven? I realized I needed to forgive him even though I had no way of knowing if he was sorry or not. I just had to forgive him.”

Heather has been able to talk to Rachel about the circumstances surrounding her birth.

Heather says, “She understands what happened, and once in a while she’ll say, ‘Mom, I’m so sad. I don’t like what happened to you.’ And then I’ll say, ‘Me neither. I hate what happened. It was awful, but if it didn’t happen, then I wouldn’t have my little girl.’ She just smiles and tells me, ‘Mom, you’re lucky you have a daughter.’ And it’s true.”

Heather Gemmen has come a long way, and she says all the credit belongs to God.

“God is trustworthy. When we give Him our problems and our bitterness, He is faithful to take care of those things and we can forgive. The restorative power of God’s love overwhelms me."

Naomi Britton: Faith Beyond Fire Insurance

In the words of Naomi Britton:

“I was in the kitchen with my mom, and my dad came in, and they picked me up; Mom was on one side and Dad was on the other, and then they gave me a Naomi sandwich. I just felt so loved. I felt like I was the center of their world. I felt secure and safe. It’s the best feeling; it’s the best feeling in the whole wide world.”

Those feelings became just a memory for Naomi Britton. Her parents divorced when she was five-years-old.

“We were in the car, and we were backing up from the house, and I look out the window and it’s our house, and we’re leaving, and we have all this stuff in the car, and I remember thinking, “Something is not right; there’s something wrong here.”

Her mom remarried, and Naomi lived with her and her stepfather. A few years later she attended a church service and learned about Jesus Christ for the first time.

“And the speaker on Sunday, he said, ‘if you don’t want to go to hell, then you need to accept Jesus.’ I was 12-years-old. I remember thinking, ‘Gosh! I don’t want to go to hell!’ So I ran down and I accepted Jesus, and I felt like, that was that, you know? I didn’t realize, or take in anything beyond that, kind of like a fire insurance type of thing.”

Even though Naomi accepted Christ as her Savior, she didn’t understand what it meant to turn her life fully over to Him. This included her dating relationships.

“About the end of high school, we were intimate and I got pregnant. That was something that scared the living daylight out of me. Just knowing my parents didn’t really see that side of me; they didn’t really know that that was the type of person that I was or the type of lifestyle I was living. So it was really out of fear that I didn’t want to have the baby. I felt a little bit of selfishness because I didn’t want to give up my future.”

Naomi secrectly ended her pregnancy. Soon, feelings of guilt overwhelmed her. She cut herself off from family and close friends, and immersed herself into a lifestyle of partying and drinking.

“I didn’t want anymore relationships. I was sick of that. So, I just got into the drinking and partying, really trying to have that feeling of power and control over the decisions and choices that I made, and I felt like for some reason, that was going to do it for me.”

One morning after a night of heavy partying Naomi came face to face with what her life had become.

“I still had make-up and hairspray and everything going on, and I just remember looking at the mirror in my dorm room; and I remember just seeing this skeleton looking back at me - not my face as it is now, but like sunken in and dark circles under my eyes. I remember just being horrified of what I saw.”

“I felt like God was telling me, ‘You are at a crossroad! It’s either the life that you’re living, which leads to death, or turn your life around and choose me!’”

That day, Naomi chose God. She remembered the decision to accept Christ she’d made years before as a child. This time she turned her entire life over to Him, especially her feelings of guilt from the abortion. Today, she is happily married to Joshua, and wants to share her story with anyone bound by sin and shame.

“If it weren’t for grace, I wouldn’t be standing here talking in front of you . Anybody that can understand the feeling of taking someone else’s life, but then God coming in and say, ‘If you accept me, I’ll give you back your life, I’ll forgive you, I’ll cast that as far away as the east is from the west.’ And that feeling of every morning you can wake up and know you’re free from that bondage - the grace is sufficient for every person who is willing to do that, to accept Him, it’s incredible!”

Can God change your life?
God has made it possible for you to know Him and experience an amazing change in your own life. Discover how you can find peace with God.

Seeing Double Visions

Haji Mohammed Ahmed grew up in a Muslim family and earned the Haji title because he’d gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

“I was a very strong Muslim,” says Mohammed. “In my family, our main purpose was to build mosques and spread Islam everywhere.”

As a leader in the mosque, Mohammed organized small gangs that prowled the streets looking for Christians.

“We would beat Christians who were going to church. In that area, I burned seven Bibles,” he says.

He even attacked one Christian with a knife. That was Mohammed’s life—until one night when he had a strange dream.

“When I was sleeping, some kind of voice came from heaven, Mohammed recalls. "That voice told me that what I was doing was wrong."

Mohammed knew it was the Voice of God. When he told his mother about the dream, she refused to listen and kicked him out of the house. Mohammed grew up in a strict Muslim home, so he refused to follow God.

Then he had another dream, but this time, God was angry. Mohammed still refused to obey, but then became very sick.

“I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t walk. I didn’t talk," he explains. "A very heavy burden just fell upon me. I went to different hospitals to get treatment, but I couldn’t get healed.”

Then Mohammed remembered some missionaries who had tried to tell him about Jesus Christ.

“I was afraid my friends and relatives would kill me," says Mohammed, "but I decided to call the missionaries to talk with them. They told me about the Bible and they encouraged me. I decided to receive Jesus as my Savior. The same day, all of my burdens, all of my diseases, disappeared from my body.”

Mohammed wasn’t the only person to accept Jesus after his visions.

“I told my mother and other family members also about my healing and my peace, and many of them received Jesus,” he says.

Although he knew his sins were forgiven, Mohammed felt guilty for the way he had treated Christians in the past.

“Still I am asking forgiveness for what I have done before,” he says.

Today, the man Mohammed attacked is a close friend. They’ve both been trained by Accelerated International Missions Strategies, or AIMS, to spread the gospel throughout Ethiopia. Mohammed says their friendship and work together could only come about through the healing power of Jesus Christ.

“I don’t have any hesitation that Jesus is real," says Mohammed. "He is my peace, my healing, my ministry, and my Savior."

SEEK YE FISRT THE KINGDOM OF GOD

Kristen Anderson: Suicide Interrupted

Every 30 seconds, somebody in the world commits suicide. Six in ten teenagers think about it. One in ten try. 17-year-old Kristen Anderson fell right into that second statistic. She was the one in ten. But unlike many people who attempt suicide and die, Kristen survived…

"Right before it got there, I made the impulsive decision to lay down on the tracks. I wanted the pain to end. I just wanted it to be over," remembers Kristen. "The police report says that 33 freight train cars went over me at 55 miles per hour. Also that the conductor said to the engineer, 'Did you see that yellow flash?' "

The yellow flash was 17-year-old Kristen Anderson. She was grounded and had sneaked out to spend time with a friend that cold winter night. Rather than returning home to angry parents, Kristen impusively decided to end her life. But somehow, someway, her attempt didn’t work.

"When it was going over me, I felt pain, but more than anything I felt a tremendous weight or wind pushing me down. When it stopped, I opened my eyes and I started to look around to figure out if I was dead or alive. I didn’t know what it was like to die. I’d only seen it in movies. I just didn’t know what to think."

"I looked behind on my right and about ten feet behind me on my right, I saw my legs. And I knew they were my legs because I had these new bright, white tennis shoes on them that I had just gotten for Christmas, and it just seemed unreal to me. It seemed like it was a horrible nightmare."

Even before her suicide attempt, Kristen thought her life was a nightmare. Everything looked fine on the outside. In fact, people were shocked she’d tried to take her life. She’d grown-up with a good mom and dad. She was smart, popular, and successful. Up until her first year in high school, she was the friend others came to for help. Then, her world started falling apart. She lost four of her friends—one had a brain tumor, two died in a car accident, and one hanged himself in a cemetary. Later, her grandmother died.

"I just started to think life was horrible—this world was horrible, and I was going to be miserable the rest of my life. I started to become a lot more introverted, I think at this point. When people would ask me how I was doing, like if I came into work or something at school, I would be like, 'I’m here. Isn’t that good enough?' I started to just lose hope."

After that night on the train track, Kristen felt worse than ever. She was in the hospital for three months. Doctors tried to re-attach her legs, but they were unsuccessful. After a number of surgeries, Kristen was told she’d probably be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

"I just started to cry out to God and for the first time, I asked Him why He would keep me here, why He would want me, even without my legs," she says.

Part of her was mad she hadn’t died on the train track. But in the back of her mind, she was a little glad she didn’t. She had questions about what happens when you die.

"A woman came up to me, who I didn’t know, who had heard about what happened to me and told me that I would have went to hell if I died," she recalls.

This sent Kristen searching for for the truth. She’d grown up in the church, but God always seemed far-off. The concept of a “personal relationship with Jesus” and a loving God was totally foreign to her.

Then a friend of Kristen’s showed her God’s Word. And that explained everything."

"John 14:6 was the verse that stood out to me the most. And when Jesus says, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. There’s no way to the father, but through Me.' And so I knew that the Father was in Heaven. Heaven was where I wanted to know I would have went. But I came to the understanding that I would have been sent to hell if I died. So I realized at that moment that God had given me a second chance to go to Heaven and spend eternity with Him. So, that night is when I became a Christian—I decided to give my life to the Lord. And I prayed. I just realized that my life wasn’t mine to take that night, and I asked Him to forgive me for that and everything else I’d done wrong in life."

Even with a second chance on life, the next three years were tough. There were more surgeries—more medicine, more depression, and still more thoughts of suicide.

"I didn’t realize how important it was to have Christian friends or be a part of a Bible-believing, Gospel-preaching church. And another thing I didn’t understand was how important it was for me to be in God’s Word every single day."

It all started to make sense when Kristen met a Christian woman in the parking lot at her local college.

"She just shined with the love and light of Christ like no one I’d met before that point, and I just had the greatest converstation with her. And when i went home, I was like, 'God, I want to know You the way that lady knew You.' And He basically just told me, 'Kristen, you have to let me be your best friend.' I was still going to all my friends and my family with my problems before I would go to Him."

"Overnight I was like, 'Okay, I’m going to let You [God] be my best friend here.' And I just really really learned what it meant to follow Him as my Lord and keep Him number one in my life," Kristen says.

Kristen started attending church on a regular basis – and helping with both the high school and young adult groups. She enrolled in Moody Bible School and then started Reaching You Ministries. That’s where she works today. Her goal is to keep people from the deep despair that can sometimes lead to suicide.

Now, despite her disabiliy, she never contemplates taking her life...

"I realized that I needed to choose life. I learned how to not be so extreme when something goes wrong. I know it’s not the end of the world. I ended up getting off of all my antidepressants and all my pain meds that they told me I was going to have to take the rest of my life. My life has never been better. I just really try and find my value in God every single day, and I really try to seek Him with everything in me and live for Him completely."

Kristen Anderson says that a train took her legs, but God gave her a new life. For anyone who feels like giving up like she once did...

"I just wanted them to know how real God is, and if they live like He is real, He will transform their lives. And there’s so much more than they see. They just need to open their eyes, and they need to open their hearts. His plans and purposes for them are much greater than anything they could ever dream of. And I know this to be true. Not only because the Bible says it, but because I’ve seen it to be true in my own life."

James Bailey: A Lasting Prison Prayer

James Bailey of Jacksonville Florida spent half of his life in prison for drug use, possession and trafficking.

In the words of James Bailey:

“It’s torment behind the bars because you’re having a mindset that you’re there. But then all of a sudden, deep down in your heart, you want to make it out.”

James was raised by his mom. After his father abandoned the family, his mother was forced to work multiple jobs. That gave James plenty of time to get into trouble. By age 13, he was hanging out with a crowd that drank and smoked marijuana.

“I was sitting out and they were smoking weed and they asked me would I like some and I said ‘yes.’ And I got started getting high with them and it became a normal thing in my life.”

To support his new habit, he started stealing and selling drugs. Finally, at age 18, he was arrested for the first time and spent a night in jail.

“And they started doing the booking and stuff like that. Reality started to set in, like, you know, ‘this is real.’”

James was put on probation, but that didn’t keep him from selling drugs again; this time on a much larger scale. He raked in $3,000 a day.

“It was coming in so fast that it was having money here, money there and get what you want, when you wanted it.”

Then James made the mistake of selling to an undercover cop. He was sentenced to six months in prison for drug possession. He decided he would have to adapt quickly to his new environment.

“I had heard so much stories about being raped and guys being beat up. I’m not soft, so I have got to prove to somebody that I got to whoop me somebody up, or I have to do something wrong, or to the point where I can make an example out of somebody; so I wouldn’t be taken advantage of.”

Ironically, the system that locked James behind bars for drug possession was the same system that made it easy for him to get and use drugs while in prison.

“You didn’t have to sneak them in. It was brought in for you. If you knew how to do it, you had to. If you had enough money, you can do what you want to do. You can get what you wanted.”

Over the next 13 years James was in and out of prison three times for drug possession.

“Prison became a game too. Because you could learn how to work the system instead of the system working you. The fear was, could I make it out alive or was I going to have to spend the rest of my life in prison?”

It was during his final stay, which lasted two and a half years, when he reached a breaking point.

“I got tired of seeing my friends dying; I got tired of seeing my friends in prison. I got tired of going to prison. I got tired of knowing that if I don’t get my life together that I might die soon.”

So James asked God to help him.

“On the night that I gave my heart to the Lord, I was in jail on the side of my bed, and I was on my knees and I started crying out and I asked God; I said, ‘God, if you’re really real, would you reveal yourself to me? And whatever it takes for me to know you, I’m willing to go through it.’ And that’s when God revealed himself and He came in and He touched my life.”

James started reading his Bible every day.

“My mind had started being renewed by Christ. My life started to change to the point where everything that was in me was striving for Christ. Everything in me desired Christ more than the drugs.”

After James got out of prison, he lived at the Salvation Army for six months. There he met a young lady and she also became a Christian. She later became his wife. Today, James and his family attend a church that’s helping them to grow in their faith.

“Being able to stay in the Word of God, being able to be around people that cared about you enough to see you delivered, to see you walking in the things of God.”

James has been drug free for eight years. He’s actively involved in his church and works at an auto detailing shop. He’ll tell you, whether he’s working or taking care of his family, having a close relationship with God is his top priority.

“God was in the middle of everything, as I know today. Even in my mess, God was there because he kept me enough to be able to be standing here today in my sound mind, to be able to know that His hand is on my life. The most important thing that God’s done in me - He saved me and I’m free. I’m a free man, not only in the society. But I’m a free man in God.

Jeff Bright: From Behind His Bars

“Carpe –diem.” Maybe you’ve heard somebody say that before… it means “Seize the day … don’t worry about the future.” In theory, it sounds great, unless the concept is taken too far. It's how Jeff bright lived for years. He didn’t care if he lived or died. In fact, death had no place in his mind at all – until it came knocking at his door.

Jeff Bright of Grants Pass, Oregon has lived most of his life behind bars.

"Uh, handlebars," Jeff says. "It’s just a feeling of incredible power."

Today, biking is a hobby for Jeff, but for many years it was his identity. He dropped out of school when he was 16 and joined an outlaw motorcycle gang. As the youngest member in his club’s history, Jeff got into a lot of trouble.

"I used to say that you know, Harley Davidson was my God and sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are my tools of worship. I looked at the world as just a big playground. I just loved to party and ride my bikes, and I was a wild kid. I carried a .45 automatic pistol."

And he didn’t hesitate to use it. Jeff was quick to defend his fellow bikers. He demanded respect and got into fights all the time. Nothing scared him — not even death. He remembers when his grandpa died, and he asked his father about death.

My father just said, “Hey, don’t worry about it, son. You know, when you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s it, you know?" He said, “Never give it another thought.”

And he didn’t -- until one of his closest biking buddies lost his life.

"It really stepped me back. It was the first time in my life that I ever really thought about ... what’s life really about? What’s really going to happen when I die?"

Jeff started searching for answers. His first theory involved outer space.

"Basically, God is an astronaut or an alien, and he came here years ago. I went to the movies, I read the books, and I was almost convinced that really all it is there is no God -- that you’re going to see or that’s going to come back, but it’s a bunch of alien brothers that put us here," he thought.

One day, Jeff was repairing equipment on a playground, when he heard a voice …

Jeff, I love you.

"I’m looking around and I’m thinking, I mean, there’s nobody out here. And about 15 minutes goes by then, 'Jeff, I love you.' And this time, that voice was all consuming yet, so peaceful. Boy, it just almost buckled my knees."

“I rode to the closest bar I could find, and I just started down, and man, you know the thoughts were racing through my mind. What was that? Who, could there really be a God?"

The questions haunted him for weeks. He tried to get the experience out of his mind by focusing on his alien-god concept. He even talked to his cousin about that.

"He [Jeff's cousin] looked up at me, and his eyes got full of tears and he said, 'Jeff, Jesus loves you,' " he remembers.

Jeff ran away again—but not for long.

"I basically reached the place where I mean, I wasn’t dumb – I realized that something was happening, and I needed to find out about Jesus, you know what this is all about."

When Jeff was ready, he took his questions to his cousin. He told Jeff how he could start a relationship with Jesus... how he had nothing to lose by giving God a chance. And this time -- the only place Jeff ran was to the foot of the cross.

Jeff prayed, "If you’re real and you can take nothing and use it, you know, then I want it."

"It was from my heart. It wasn’t just a play thing. I was very serious. And because of that, I experienced a tremendous conversion."

Jeff stopped fighting, drinking and cursing. He even gave up his motorcycle club membership.

"I wasn’t an outlaw. I just knew that I was now a Christian, a child of God. There was really a God, and He really did love me and save me. Just like the Scripture says that, 'Behold, all things become new. I’d say even the world looked new to me, it looked better.' "

Jeff had tried to read the Bible before, but it never made sense.

"Now I opened that Bible, and it just came alive. It just came off the page, and I read 13 chapters and I slept like I’ve never slept in my life. It was like I felt like a backpack literally had been taken off of me," he says.

Through the years, Jeff has learned that the Christian life isn’t always an easy life -- but that God is faithful, even in the very hard times ... like when Jeff lost his wife and two of his four children in a car accident.

"I can’t tell you that I handled it perfectly. I mean, I seriously had my moments of struggle. But without God, without being able to get on my knees -- to be able to even direct my anger or my confusion to Him, I don’t know how a man could handle something like that."

The loss is still heavy on his heart.

"I see little kids play, you know, and it’ll take me back to my son. But, I also know that I’m going to see him again some day and that gives me tremendous joy. You know, that gives me tremendous peace to know that though they are dead, yet shall they live."

It’s a very different perspective on life and death than Jeff had before. Now, Jeff has hope. He’s happily re-married to a woman named Sherry, and he’s a member of a Christian motorcycle club.

"If you would get on your knees and ask God, 'If you’re real, come into my life' ... you’ve got nothing to lose by doing that. I was lost, and now I’m found. I was blind, but now I see."

Azar: A Muslim Finds the Way to Heaven

In 1978, Azar came to the United States for an education. She planned to return to her native Iran, but political upheaval in that nation denied that. So Azar, a Muslim, remained in America, and worked very hard to be successful.

"When you have to make it in another country, you also focus on needing to be somebody. I wanted to do the best and not just settle for anything," she says.

Azar worked as hard to be a good Muslim, as she did to be a financial planner. She believed her good deeds would earn her a place in heaven. But after years of ceremonial washing and prayers five times a day, she grew tired of the routine.

"All of a sudden, I realized I was standing there covered and I didn’t know what I was saying. Was I talking to God? I felt like this couldn't be it. This can’t be what God wants from me."

For 21 years, Azar had little to do with her Islamic faith. Then some Iranian friends invited her to a meeting.

"Honestly, I’d never heard of Iranians who were Muslims and then Christians. I said, 'What?' "

Still, Azar was intrigued and agreed to meet these people.

"For the first time, I saw Iranians who were Muslims and had become Christians. They were singing to God and worshipping. I thought that it was so interesting that they were so free."

But more than that, Azar was dissatisfied with her life. Even though she had all the trappings of success, something was missing.

"I was working six or seven days a week. I was so driven. What was the purpose?"

Azar thought about the Christian meeting she attended. Soon, she went to another to find out more. There she listened intently to what was being said.

One Christian at the meeting said, "Who here knows that they’re going to heaven?"

"Well, as a Muslim you don’t know if you go to heaven or not, because God is going to review your past, and it depends on how much good you’ve done. He decides. I wouldn’t know. So few people raised their hands and I thought, 'How do you know?' "

What Azar heard was the salvation message of the cross. She didn’t understand and wanted an explanation.

"After the meeting, I went to him and said, 'What do you mean Jesus died for me? I wasn’t there. I die for my own sins.' "

Again and again, she begged God to show her the truth.

"One day out of the blue, I turned the TV on. And I didn’t even know why The 700 Club was on. It wasn’t one of those things I watched everyday. And as soon as I turned it on, Gordon’s face was right on the screen. It had covered the whole screen and he said, 'Some of you are so confused, you don’t know who the real God is.' "

As Gordon prayed, Azar listened intently.

Gordon prayed, "Lord God, I don’t know you. I don’t know if you’re real. But Lord, if you are real, I ask you to show me."

"And then I thought, 'Wow, I didn’t know if I turned the TV off, but I didn’t hear anything after that. Because it was what I was looking for, I was asking why?' "

As the days passed, Azar focused her thoughts on God. Again, the Iranian Christians invited her to meet with them. They encouraged her to read the Bible, and Azar began to experience God in a new way.

"There was something about this Christianity. I didn’t know anything about the Holy Spirit, I never opened the Bible, and I didn’t know anything. But it felt so strong. There was something different about me," she remembers.

The next day, Azar went to church. She couldn’t wait to get there. This time she came face to face with the truth.

"As I was talking to God, I said, 'I have no reason to change. I was Muslim, You were good to me, and I have no reason to change. But if You have any reason, You show me a sign.' "

"I saw a person right in front of me, and his face was right where my face was. I could see his whole body. Gradually he opened his eyes, and they were like two little suns. They got brighter and brighter and started shining on my face."

She recognized that the person she saw was Jesus and prayed to accept Him as her Lord and Savior.

"I felt a way I’d never felt before. I felt like tons of weight was off my shoulders. I was so light and so happy. It was so unusual, so different," she says.

Through her faith in Jesus Christ, Azar has found purpose in life. Since then, she’s been involved in her church and serves in a South Florida jail ministry. Today, she glows as she speaks. She knows the truth that set her free.

"It’s just incredible, it’s incredible. Before, I tried to do it on my own. I tried so hard to please God, to be good, and didn’t know that I’d go to heaven. But now it’s Him. Jesus came down for me, and He’s changing me everyday."

Life

There are only three events on a man's life. Birth, life and death: he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain and he forgets to live. ... Jean de la brumeh

Life

There are only three events on a man's life. Birth, life and death: he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain and he forgets to live. ... Jean de la brumeh

Life

There are only three events on a man's life. Birth, life and death: he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain and he forgets to live. ... Jean de la brumeh

Life

There are only three events on a man's life. Birth, life and death: he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain and he forgets to live. ... Jean de la brumeh

Life

There are only three events on a man's life. Birth, life and death: he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain and he forgets to live. ... Jean de la brumeh

Life

There are only three events on a man's life. Birth, life and death: he is not conscious of being born, he dies in pain and he forgets to live. ... Jean de la brumeh

Bishop speakes

My dreams, like my sleep, are sweet. I sleep like a baby, i dream like jesus-baby.

...... Bishop Leonard Umunna

bishop says

Bishop Leonard Umunna says "Don't wait for things to be better before you start to make, begin now to make it."

FOOD 4 THOUGHT

A woman went boating one Sunday, taking with her some cans of coke which she put into the refrigerator of the boat. On Monday she was taken to the hospital and placed in the Intensive Care Unit. She died on Wednesday. The autopsy concluded she died of Leptospirosis. This was traced to the can of coke she drank from, not using a glass. Tests showed that the can was infected by dried rat urine and hence the disease Leptospirosis. Rat urine contains toxic and deadly substances. It is highly recommended to thoroughly wash the upper part of drink cans before drinking out of them. The cans are typically stocked in warehouses and transported straight to the shops without being cleaned.





PASS THIS MESSAGE PLS

Insight of the Day

Here is your Friday story,

Pessimism: Its Mistaken Perspective

I've heard there are people with such sunny dispositions that they never give way to sadness. The rumor is that they always make lemonade from their lemons. And the boast is that they can always win at cards - no matter the hand they get dealt. They always come out of tough times on the winning side, always cure their own illnesses with positive thinking, and are always loved by all who know them. Maybe there are such people. I doubt it.

Don't get me wrong! There is certainly value to looking for silver linings over getting lost in the dense fog of a dark cloud. In fact, if I had to choose between being a naive optimist and marching to the beat of the pessimist's drum, I would hope to be confused with Forrest Gump over Eeyore.

There is lots of pessimism in the air these days. There's pessimism over the Middle East and the economy. There is Eeyore-like melancholy over the state of world and national leadership. You name it. Somebody is there to tell us why things are worse than they've ever been - and destined soon to get worse still.

Maybe the pessimist lives under the delusion of Golden Age Syndrome. For most of my life, I have had to endure the lament of older people wishing for "the good old days" and "things as they used to be." I've always been skeptical of those people and have been inclined to suspect they have selective memory.

Now that I have lived a while, I'm trying to keep from using those phrases myself. Economics, politics, human relationships, religion - I seriously doubt there has ever been a time when all these things were just right.

Professor Walter Jackson Bate quotes a dejected Egyptian scribe who lived more than 2,000 years before Christ. The scribe commented on the limitations of language and wrote dejectedly of the fact that there were no fresh, new ways of saying things. On his view, "men of old" had created all the phrases that were possible for human language and had exhausted them by his time. Therefore all human expression had grown stale. Language was bankrupt.

As Professor Bate points out, this pessimistic requiem was sung over civilization before any of what we now take to be the world's greatest works of literature had been composed. Maybe the scribe was premature!

If all the pessimists across time had been correct in speaking of their generation going to the dogs, exhausting every creative option, or being abandoned by God, you and I would not be here to reflect on it.

Without either being naive or embracing Gump-ism, there is more value in facing the coming week with a positive, forward-looking spirit than wallowing in sadness over our loss of a perfection that never was.

Rubel Shelly

Rubel Shelly is a Preacher and Professor of Religion and Philosophy located in Rochester Hills, Michigan. In addition to church and academic responsibilities, he has worked actively with such community projects as Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, From Nashville With Love, Metro (Nashville) Public Schools, Faith Family Medical Clinic, and Operation Andrew Ministries. To learn more about Rubel please go to: www.RubelShelly.com

Click here for our printable version

Worth Reading

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well.

The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do.

Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway;

it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey.



He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him.

They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well.

At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly.

Then, to everyone's amazement he quieted down.

A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well.
He was astonished at what he saw.

With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing.

He would shake it off and take a step up.











As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal,

he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey

stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!

MORAL :


Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt.

The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up.

Each of our troubles is a stepping stone.

We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up!
Shake it off and take a step up.







Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred - Forgive.

2. Free your mind from worries - Most never happens.

3. Live simply and appreciate what you have.

4. Give more.

5. Expect less from people but more from God.






You have two choices...smile and close this page,

or pass this along to someone else to share the lesson ....... I did!!


GOD BLESS YOU....!

Just be creative

These pictures u're viewing are made from cable wires, aren't they wonderful...!!!

PSALM 3:3

PSALM 3:3



"But you, O LORD, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head."

A Discussion in Heaven

A Discussion in Heaven

ANGELS,

CHRISTIAN,

GOD,

devil,

JESUS.



This is a discussion you need to read!

Enjoy it. I did!

GOD:

Angels, do you know what I was just thinking about?



ANGELS: What were you thinking about?



GOD: Christians seem to have forgotten what kind of power they have available and the devil keeps on deceiving them!



ANGELS: God, exactly what are you driving at?

GOD : I have made my children in such a way that when the people of the world are sitting, they would be standing, when the world is standing, they will stand out, when the world stands out, my children must be outstanding and when the devil dares the world to be outstanding, my people will be the standards to be used!



JESUS CHRIST: They (Christians) are also forgetting the words in Ephesians 1:3.



GOD: Please read it out!

ANGEL: PRAISE BE TO THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST , WHO HAS BLESSED US IN THE HEAVENLY PLACES WITH EVERY SPIRITUAL BLESSING IN CHRIST .



ANGEL: So what do we do now since the end is almost near?



HOLY SPIRIT: My Presence is still among men and I will teach and remind the Christians of all that we have discussed. I will also make sure that they pass this message on!



JESUS CHRIST: I will also keep on interceding for them and stand in for them even in their weaknesses.



GOD: I will also make sure that I give to all those who ask of me, seek me and try to find me. The blessings I have promised them through my son Jesus Christ will be delivered to all those who discover that I, Jehovah, I am ready to bless them! Not because of any special things that they have done, but just because I LOVE THEM !



JESUS CHRIST: I will also give all my followers who are willing to pass this conversation on, enough strength to carry on!



ANGELS: We are all backing THE TRINITY and even the devil cannot stop us! How funny!



Christians are finally taking over and .......



DEVIL (eavesdropping behind the gates): I hope you all heard! I will deploy more troops (demons) and make sure the Christians pray less, read their Bibles less, preach less and make sure this mail does not move anywhere! Also.....



YOU SURE HEARD THAT! THE DEVIL WILL MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT PASS THIS ON BUT PROVE HIM WRONG AND SHOW HIM THE POWER YOU HAVE IN CHRIST JESUS AS A CHRISTIAN. PRAY MORE, STUDY THE WORD MORE AND PREACH THE WORD!

DO NOT DISAPPOINT GOD! PASS IT ON!



God Loves You!














regards....

Today's Verse

Galatians 3:24-26

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

God says it and I believe it that settled it.

Tell me about the law of gravity that states anything that goes up must come down and I will introduce you to the law of aerodynamics that states that it is possible that something can go up and remain there.

Before this year runs out, u shall find yourself somewhere that u can’t even bring yourself down. Your blessings shall never come down, u shall never fail, the law of gravity will never work in your finances, business, family, all area of your life etc. Stay blessed. The devil is a liar. You may be going through a tough time right now but God is getting ready to bless you in a way that only He can. Keep the faith.
Lord please, take care of the person who is reading this message, their family and their special friends. They deserve it and I love them very much." The love of God is like the ocean, you can see its beginning, but not its end.. This message works on the day you receive it. Let us see if it is true. Pass this on to your true friends. Something good will happen to you; something that you have been waiting to hear.

This is not a joke; someone will call you by phone or will speak to you about something that you were waiting to hear. Do not break this prayer; send it to a minimum of 15 including the person who sent it to you.



Nothing bad will happen if you don’t do it, just that you have disrupted the prayer chain.

EIGHT LIES OF A MOTHER

~EIGHT LIES OF A MOTHER~

1.The story began when I was a child;
I was born as a son of a poor family.
Even for eating, we often got lack of food.
Whenever the time for eating, mother often gave me her portion of rice.
While she was removing her rice into my bowl,
she would say "Eat this rice, son. I'm not hungry".
That was Mother's First Lie


2.When I was getting to grow up,
the persevering mother gave her spare time for fishing in a river near our house,
she hoped that from the fishes she got,
she could gave me a little bit nutritious food for my growth.
After fishing, she would cook the fishes to be a fresh fish soup,
which raised my appetite. While I was eating the soup,
mother would sit beside me and eat the rest meat of fish,
which was still on the bone of the fish I ate.
My heart was touched when I saw it.
I then used my chopstick and gave the other fish to her.
But she immediately refused it and said "Eat this fish, son.
I don't really like fish."
That was Mother's Second Lie.

3.Then, when I was in Junior High School,
to fund my study,
mother went to an economic enterprise to bring some used-matches boxes that would be stuck in.
It gave her some money for covering our needs.
As the winter came,
I woke up from my sleep and looked at my mother who was still awoke,
supported by a little candlelight and within her perseverance she continued
the work of sticking some used-matches box.
I said, "Mother, go to sleep, it's late,
tomorrow morning you still have to go for work.
" Mother smiled and said "Go to sleep,
dear. I'm not tired."
That was Mother's Third Lie.

4.At the time of final term,
mother asked for a leave from her work in order to accompany me.
While the daytime was coming and the heat of the sun was starting to shine,
the strong and persevering mother
waited for me under the heat of the sun's shine for several hours.
As the bell rang, which indicated that the final exam had finished,
mother immediately welcomed me and poured me a glass of tea
that she had prepared before in a cold bottle.
The very thick tea was not as thick as my mother's love,
which was much thicker. Seeing my mother covering with perspiration,
I at once gave her my glass and asked her to drink too.
Mother said "Drink, son. I'm not thirsty!".
That was Mother's Fourth Lie.

5.After the death of my father because of illness,
my poor mother had to play her role as a single parent.
By held on her former job, she had to fund our needs alone.
Our family's life was more complicated. No days without sufferance.
Seeing our family's condition that was getting worse,
there was a nice uncle who lived near my house came to help us,
either in a big problem and a small problem.
Our other neighbors who lived next to us saw that our family's life was so unfortunate,
they often advised my mother to marry again. But mother,
who was stubborn, didn't care to their advice,
she said "I don't need love."
That was Mother's Fifth Lie.

6.After I had finished my study and then got a job,
it was the time for my old mother to retire.
But she didn't want to; she was sincere to go to the marketplace every morning,
just to sell some vegetable for fulfilling her needs.
I, who worked in the other city, often sent her some money to help her in fulfilling her needs,
but she was stubborn for not accepting the money.
She even sent the money back to me.
She said "I have enough money."
That was Mother's Sixth Lie.

7.After graduated from Bachelor Degree,
I then continued my study to Master Degree.
I took the degree, which was funded by a company through a scholarship program,
from a famous University in America .
I finally worked in the company. Within a quite high salary,
I intended to take my mother to enjoy her life in America .
But my lovely mother didn't want to bother her son,
she said to me "I'm not used to."
That was Mother's Seventh Lie.

8.After entering her old age,
mother got a flank cancer and had to be hospitalized.
I, who lived in miles away and across the ocean,
directly went home to visit my dearest mother.
She lied down in weakness on her bed after having an operation.
Mother, who looked so old, was staring at me in deep yearn.
She tried to spread her smile on her face;
even it looked so stiff because of the disease she held out.
It was clear enough to see how the disease broke my mother's body,
thus she looked so weak and thin.
I stared at my mother within tears flowing on my face.
My heart was hurt, so hurt, seeing my mother on that condition.
But mother, with her strength, said "Don't cry, my dear.
I'm not in pain."
That was Mother's Eight Lie.


After saying her eighth lie, She closed her eyes forever!