Kathie’s Testimony

By Kathie Smith

Hello. My name is Kathie and I would like to share with you a story of true friendship. Funny thing is that until I had this friendship, I never knew the magnitude of what I had been missing before. This friendship relationship is so significant that it will last forever, never to be parted by physical death but lasting forever into eternity.

I had passed by this new friend of mine when I was in church every Saturday night at mass. I would find out later on that he was always eager to meet me, but I just wasn't given the opportunity to meet him. We always seemed to simply pass by each other and never really truly had the chance to get to know each other personally.

I would pass by him when I would see a person helping another person in need. I would watch him work through the person assisting the other person but again, never was given the opportunity to meet him as I casually just observed from a distance.

I would pass by him when I would hear the kind words being said by a person trying to encourage and lift me up. Once again, I never recognized that it was his voice speaking but rather just heard the voice of the person speaking to me.

I would pass by him when I heard his words preached in the gospel readings during mass. His words were simply words on a page. I never heard His voice talking to me but rather I simply listened to the mere words being spoken.

How did I finally meet this friend of mine, Jesus Christ? Sit back, relax and I will tell you the story of how my relationship with Jesus Christ began.

I was raised by two loving parents who along with five other siblings were brought up in the Roman Catholic Church. We went to church every Sunday and Holy Day, received communion, confessed our sins in confession and were confirmed in the Church. I had an awesome childhood. Our family was very close. My parents were always the types of people who would do anything for us and for others. We all respected them as children and trusted in the belief system that they instilled in us.

After finishing college and working for a few years, I married a Catholic guy from a local town near our hometown.   We were blessed with three wonderful children. We continued our Catholic faith by faithfully attending the Catholic Church and by enrolling our children in the local Catholic school. After living nine years at a thirty minute distance from my parents, we decided to buy property from my grandmother and build a home out in the country to be nearer my family. It was beautiful out in the country and meant a great deal to me to be close to my parents and to allow our kids to grow up with their grandparents living right down the road from them. Everything should have been perfect, right?

Well, the year was 1999. Y2K. People were running around telling others that doom and gloom was lurking at the strike of midnight on December 31, 1999. Stories were circulating that electricity and phone service could cease and that food shortages could occur. I started to dwell on the what-ifs of the whole Y2K thing. I started to doubt our safety and became very scared for what the future would hold. Having just moved into our new house, I started to miss all of our old friends, our old neighbors, our old school and just all of the usual things that I had grown accustomed to at our old home. Deeply troubled over all of these things, I plunged into a state of depression. Any of you who have ever been through this will understand that it is a very difficult time. I was sad and simply could not tell anyone why it was that I was sad. What was I missing in my life? I had everything – a good job, a wonderful husband and family and a beautiful new home. Why should I be in such a state of sadness? I had never experienced anything like that before.

Remember that friend that I had mentioned? Well, you see the friend that I had been passing by my whole entire life, was calling me. He was calling so loudly this time that I finally heard him. My brother emailed me about this wonderful thing that had happened to him. He had found an Internet site addressing salvation through a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. He sent me a simple prayer to pray asking Jesus to start a friendship with me. Being so desperate to dig myself out of the depression that I had been feeling, I humbled myself and cried out to God. I knew that there wasn't anything that I could do on my own to save myself and I asked God to do it for me.

The next day I woke up and I felt different than I did the day before. My depression was gone. I was happy again. It was simply incredible. To this day I can't even remember what it was like to be in that state of mind, but I am just thankful to the Lord for what he had done for me.

I met the Lord Jesus for the first time in my whole entire life. I could feel his warmth inside of me and the friend that I had been passing over all of these years was finally with me.

I had been taught to pray to God ever since I was a little girl. I prayed every day but never felt any response back when I prayed. Now, I finally understand the presence of the living God in my prayers. He had become my friend, my forever and eternal friend.

Are you missing that one true friendship that I had been missing? Maybe you are doing all of the right things as I had done, attending church every week, saying your prayers, trying to obey the ten commandments, and simply attempting to be a good person but you are missing something. Maybe you are attending church simply because it makes you feel good inside because you took the time to go to church. That's how I used to feel. My husband and I used to go to church on Saturday night so we could "get it out of the way" for the weekend. It was merely an obligation that we needed to fulfill every week like any other item on our "To Do" list.

Are you praying just because you were taught that that's what you are supposed to do? We always said the "Catholic Grace" before each and every meal. "Bless us O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen."   I said that prayer so fast and without any meaning for so many years before meals. As I child, I never understood what "thy bounty" meant. It was just merely words spoken, done under obligation before we were to receive any food. Sadly enough, I continued this tradition into our own immediate family and was teaching them to pray out of obligation rather than giving honor to the Lord.   Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:7 "And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words." Are you praying out of simply an obligation to pray or are you truly talking to the Lord in open communication?

We were taught that we were obligated to attend church, obligated to say our prayers and obligated to be the best person that we could be. What is an obligation? Webster defines an obligation as "something that binds one to a course of action; a duty; an indebtedness".   Isn't it true then that after the obligation is complete i.e. course of action completed or duty performed that you have satisfied the debt and do not need to do anything further? That's exactly how I felt. All I had to do was: attend church on Sundays and "Holy Days of Obligation", say my prayers and simply be the best person that I could be. By doing these things, I was satisfying the requirements and did need to do anything further.

I learned that if I performed the things that I had been told were religious obligations, that I would be secure in the eyes of the Lord and be in heaven forever. The problem was, how much was enough in the eyes of the Lord? Should I attend church more than I had been? Maybe I should have been attending daily mass. Maybe I needed to say more prayers. Maybe I needed to try and do more good things. Where would I draw the line? When would I do enough?

On that day in 1999, our Lord rescued me from the vicious cycle of "how much was enough?" My friend, our Lord Jesus Christ had already done everything that needed to be done for me already. 1 John 4:14 "And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world." Jesus spoke his last words in John 19:30 "It is finished." The Father sent Jesus to save us from being eternally separated from Him. He endured the pain and bore our sins when he hung on the cross. He completed the obligation that the Father had sent him to do – to bear the sins of all mankind on the cross. When he completed that, his work was complete. All of the things that I had been doing in my "vicious cycle" did not lead me to my forever friend; but, rather lead me further away from him because I thought that I was eternally secure.

How can you be eternally secure? What does he ask of us to do? Jesus tells us in John 3:3, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." John 3:6, "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." We are born from our parent's flesh into a body made of flesh. The Holy Spirit comes into our lives as a living spirit inside of us when we ask the Lord to come into our lives." We are born once physically. We are born again when we are born spiritually, i.e. when we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Was I born again by attending church every Sunday, praying prayers and attempting to do good things? All I had gained my whole entire life was a "good feeling" inside from all of the things that I had done. I was spiritually dead.   I did not have the Holy Spirit inside of me. How can you become born again and receive God's gift of the Holy Spirit?

1. 1.Recognize that you are a sinner. Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
2. 2.Admit that no matter how many times you go to church, how many prayers you pray or how many good things you do that it will not be enough in the eyes of the Lord. Romans 3:10 "There is no one righteous, not even one."
3. 3.Believe that the Lord Jesus was sent down from heaven by the Father, lived a perfect life, bore all of your sins on the cross, died and rose again on the third day. 1 Corinthians 15:3 "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures."
4. 4.Confess your belief in what Jesus did for you on the cross. Trust in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation. Romans 10:9-10 "That if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved."

Are you being led astray into thinking that being a member of a church will guarantee your ticket into heaven? If you agree with the spiritual truths that I have presented, I now ask you to pray a very simple prayer. This is the prayer that my brother gave me, a very simple prayer that gave me my eternal and forever friend, Jesus Christ. Here is the prayer:

God, I am a sinner. There is nothing that I can do on my own to make it to heaven. God, I accept the free offer that you make to me: Jesus' death on the cross for my sins. You sent your only Son Jesus down to Earth and he died as a substitute for our sins on the cross and then he rose from the dead and I know that he is going to return in glory. I accept this free offer; I want to be with you forever. I ask you to send the Holy Spirit to me. I open up my heart now to the Holy Spirit and welcome Him into my being. As I breathe in I ask the Holy Spirit to come into me and I ask the Holy Spirit to graciously make His presence known to me. I know that there is no amount of good deeds or clean living that could ever make me suitable for entrance into heaven. It is only your sacrifice that makes it possible. I give my life over to you. I ask you to forgive my sins and to guide me so that I can do what you want me to do on Earth. I am here for you now and ready to do your will and accept help from you. I know that through you, anything is possible. You are the most holy, the living God, the one that was, the one that is, and the one that will be. Amen.

Kettle Point

By Jim Hill

Since I came to faith in Jesus Christ I have had several milestone events happen in my life. One of those was a trip that I took in the summer of 2000. It was just after church on a breezy Sunday afternoon when I decided to travel to a place in Canada to do some windsurfing. Kettle Point was a place on the southern end of Lake Huron that was rather famous to windsurfers for having very large waves on windy days. This day was no exception and the waves were forecasted to be ten feet tall! Even though it was not normal for him, my brother decided to ride along to watch. In fact, I can never remember another day that he had gone windsurfing with me.

After the hour and a half journey there, I had an excellent day riding the large, smooth waves in the bay. Just before I was going to stop for the day, I came in for a brief rest. Then I decided to go out for one just more run. My brother was sitting in my truck reading due to the high wind and blowing sand. I had a very uneasy feeling as I was carrying the windsurf board back to the water. I was compelled to pray very hard for God to keep me safe on this final run of the day.

As I proceeded out into the bay where the largest waves were crashing into a bowl-shaped area to the east of the beach, I made a turn on the face of a very large wave. This was like heaven! Suddenly, my sail separated from the mast base on the board that sent my board flying one direction while my sail remained in my hands. Meanwhile the large wave that I had just finishing turning on crashed overtop of me with my sail! I let loose of my sail and soon realized that I was drowning. For a brief instant I hated to let go of my equipment, but quickly decided that the equipment was replaceable. Even though I was wearing a short wet suit, I was unable to float in the bubbly water caused by the constant crashing of the waves. I got very tired in my attempts to grab small amounts of air in between the waves. I knew that I was going to die right there, with my precious brother only a half a mile away on the shore. Once again, I began to pray.

I began to visualize my dead body washing up on the beach. This was very real, and is difficult for me to put into words. I visualized my body from a viewpoint some distance away, above me.

As I was fighting for my life in Lake Huron that day, I made the vivid realization that God was in control. He was the Lord of the universe! Somehow during the events of the past several years I missed that point. While I was drowning I surrendered my will to God. I accepted that He was the Lord of my life. I had accepted Jesus as my Savior, but I had never really surrendered my will to God as my Lord. This was made clear to me while I was dying that day at Kettle Point.

Somehow I came to realize that if I pulled on my wet suit, I could create a small air bubble in my chest area that slightly increased my buoyancy. Also, I saw a white flag on a small floating buoy a few yards away. And there were some jet skiers in the area. So somehow I managed to swim over to the buoy and break the fiberglass rod attaching the flag. This left me with a two-foot long mast with a flag attached. Between the huge waves I was able to wave the flag. After about five minutes of waving, I had still not moved any distance towards the shore, although my board and sail had long ago washed away. I continued to pray, and as one of the jet skis approached I was spotted and rescued. I walked back up the beach praising God to tell my brother the amazing story. My equipment washed up on the beach a few minutes later in perfect condition except for the broken mast base.

Later that evening at a restaurant in Sarnia, Ontario I had my first meal as a truly “born again” man. And although I am much more careful while windsurfing, I recognize now that God is in control of my life.

The Hospital

I remember the night quite well that I first really felt a real love for my twin brother. The night in 1984 began like any other. We were attending college at Western Michigan University and together we had rented an apartment behind the K-Mart. I don’t remember exactly what time he left, but at some point around dinner time he went over to the one of the stores on the main street to do some shopping. I was sitting in my bedroom doing homework when he burst in the door. He was bleeding, holding a cloth on his head and was very emotional, saying something like “I’m hurt, help me, I cut my head.” A million thoughts ran through my head trying to determine who had hurt him. I ran over there to him and quickly decided that we needed to get to the emergency clinic immediately.

A sense of deep sadness and compassion came over me, a protectiveness that I have never felt enveloped my body and I began to grieve deeply for my brother. After I gained a bit of composure I quickly called my parents and told them that we were heading to the emergency room in a city nearby to them. I distinctly remember picking up a sense that this was kind of a bother, an inconvenience for them. Maybe such things became trivial to parents, they had their own set of problems. This was shocking to me, since I was grieving over this incident and would do anything to help my brother. The thought of prayer never even entered my mind. During the drive to the hospital, I got the remaining details on what had happened. He had been walking out of the store through the automatic door when it paused suddenly, causing him to ram his head into it. During this time the sense of compassion that I had for him began to get even stronger.

Many times, I have heard of criminals that were shot while fleeing the scene of a robbery, and after escaping, apparently become so afraid of death that they sought a hospital quite quickly even though they were almost certain to be confiscated there. I have watched movies in which similar things happened, but these failed to produce any of the feelings of deep sadness that I experienced when my brother was hurt. Somehow I always felt that while I was watching these movie scenes that such feelings should occur, but either due to the way in which the event was portrayed or the lack of closeness to the character, I never experienced any of the feelings I felt during my drive to the hospital with my brother.

As a sat here this evening contemplating this event, I wondered why my soul had been dead for so many years. Reflecting upon events in my childhood produced the answer, but as an adult I knew better than to dwell upon the happenings of years gone by. I remember the vast changes that have occurred since my brother and I became Christians. I have a powerful sense of peace and hope that was absent during this event. Without Jesus, we were actually no better than the man that robbed the bank. We were hopeless to save ourselves. Years of faithful attendance of mass at our local Roman Catholic Church didn’t do it. Calling an ambulance to take us to the hospital would not have solved our problem, like it did for the bank robber. No, this was a problem that only God could solve. Both of us were hopeless without the actions of God through his Holy Spirit to call us to repent of our sins and trust in Jesus as our Savior and Lord. For this, we will be eternally grateful.

Jim Hill

Oh But for the Trees

by Jim Hill

Forward

I remember a day way back in the 1970’s when our family was riding in the car on the way to a weeklong summer vacation in Washington, D.C. On this nice summer day my father was driving and I was riding in the back seat of our Ford Galaxy wagon. We were having a long conversation on how various mechanical things worked. Since my father was a high school science teacher he knew a lot about things that interested me. His explanation was always preceded by just one simple word from me: “Why.” I remember that after at least an hour of this discussion, my father started to become agitated as he would explain something, then I would ask “why” again. This led to an endless spiral of a conversation that was soon terminated by my father! I began to understand that without making some rather basic assumptions of truth, nothing in the world was possible to explain. Consider this the next time that you try to explain to your child why an apple came from an apple tree or why up is the opposite of down!

During my studies at Western Michigan University in the field of mechanical engineering, I frequently came across many concepts that initially baffled me. I spent countless hours studying the textbooks and attempting to solve the example problems in order to understand the concept being taught by my professors. One of the fundamental differences between what I studied in engineering school compared to church was that I initially accepted the engineering concepts as true. When I first sat down in the classroom in front of my highly educated professors, only later on did I set out to prove my initial assumption of truth regarding what I was being taught. This was not the case with my beliefs in God. In fact, I approached my religion on the basis that even if God existed, He was under the burden to show Himself and prove it to me with no effort on my part!

Later I set out to study the validity of God and the Bible. During this time I came across a Bible verse which in retrospect I consider paramount for readers of this testimony who are seeking God for themselves. Just like I did in engineering school, I decided to accept the basic premise that this particular verse was true. Then I proceeded to further prove this assumption. After I had done that over the course of several months, I came to the conclusion that my assumption of truth was indeed correct. I ask the reader to read the following Bible verse and accept the basic premise that it is true. The verse is found in the second letter of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians.

Have you ever been deceived? Has anyone ever pulled a fast one on you? The basic premise of the passage is that an evil spiritual leader has the ability and has exercised this power to blind the minds of people whose souls will eventually perish because they do not believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This concept of good and evil is a pervasive concept throughout the Bible. The Bible records that the name of the spiritual leader of the evil forces is Satan, also known in this verse above as “the god of this age.”

This takes me back to my own personal spiritual journey that began in the spring of 1998. Even though I thought that I was a Christian, I almost never read the Bible. Even when I did, I was incapable of understanding it. My church told me what to believe in terms of religion. Because of this, my relationship with God was very impersonal. I viewed the people that showed personal love of Jesus as hypocrites and religious zealots! This is the same way that the religious leaders in Jesus’ time viewed Him!

I pray that through the reading of this testimony you will develop the spiritual vision to allow you to see the forest but for the trees.

James M. Hill

Winona Lake, Indiana