Friday, November 28, 2008

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 Waite“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.’”

CarolCarol’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.’”

Carol JohnsonIt 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.

Carol“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.”

Thursday, November 27, 2008

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."

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

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.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

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

Thursday, November 20, 2008

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."

Friday, November 14, 2008

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.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

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."

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

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."

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

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