Baptismal Testimony
Life before Christ
My Life before Christ was one of struggling to fit in. Even when I thought I was on the inside, I was an outsider. I felt a big hole in myself and tried to fill it through a variety of ways but nothing could cure it. Indeed I went down too many dead end roads. I had no direction yet as I always felt God had a purpose for me. I used to pray for an instruction manual for earth but what I was really praying for was an instruction manual for life.
What Led Me To Christ
In my early 20s God began to draw me toward Himself through a series of amazing events. I was wholly unprepared for what was beginning to happen. As I moved in to my second apartment, the women moving out was carrying out the last of her things and as she passed me she pushed a large white paper bag into my hands. She said this is for you and she walked away. I never saw her before or after that day. I was moving furniture so I decided to look in the bag later that evening and so I set it aside. When I opened the bag I found a large old family Bible with a carved wooden cover. I had no use for it other than my love of old things so I kept it and it since it was from the late 1800s. I put it on the shelf next to my other books and that was that.
I left my regular job and became a job shopper working primarily in military prototypes. At my new job a man I hadn’t seen in a few years was sitting at his desk, clean cut. This was a surprise since I had remembered him as quite the opposite. I thought wow, what happened to George. Well he walked up to me a few days latter and pushed a big red hardcover book into my hands called Strong’s concordance and said my girlfriend and I think you should have this. He was so sincere that I offered to pay him for it but he refused and indicated that it was a gift. So I took it home and put it on the shelf next to the old Bible. I only knew what it was because it said so on the title page, all of the words from the King James Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew. It was a huge reference study book. It was yet another book I had not use for or so I thought at the time.
Within a few weeks I was off to another job since the part in the project was completed. After I was there for a month or so I was on a Michener book kick and was coming to the end of The Source which was about Hebrew history written in his usual well researched way. So I finished it one night and was going to take a nap at lunch the next day but I guess God had a different plan. When I arrived at work the next morning there it was sitting in the middle of my desk, a King James Bible. I froze and put my hand on it and just starred at the ceiling. I guess maybe I thought that’s where one looks for God. I thought wow this is number three and I set about looking for who gave it to me. It only took a moment because as I walked along the work benches there was a man reading the same private paperback printing. I said John did you give this to me. He said Nah! I asked again and added that I could see that he was reading the same one. So he admitted it. I said I was raised in a primarily Hebrew household, (the Jesus Christ Super Star poster over my bed and my Irish Catholic grandmother notwithstanding,) and that I really couldn’t read it. He looked right at me and said, “Ah just read it kid.” I can still hear him clear as a bell all these years later. I went back to my desk and looked at the Bible and back upward again and thought OK Lord I got the message. So I began to read it and after a while old John gave me his old Navy pocket Bible as well and I read them from cover to cover.
I moved on to a new job and got involved with the occult because part of me was still not convinced. That was an ugly mess but I did learn one thing from it. God is real, period. If all that other dark stuff can exist then it’s a no brain er that God is real. I will leave out the details of their dark practices because they were shrouded in a false light. There was however enough there for darkness to almost sway me. The God who protected me still had no name but being raised in a Hebrew household, “I am” was more than enough. I kicked my girl friend out. Then my social life began to collapse and I was beginning to hurt.
I had kicked my girlfriend out because I was involved with the occult, my best friend betrayed me and that led to isolation and pain, a lot of pain. A broken promise can really cut you loose from humanity. Then one day that same girl called to see how I was and to let me know she had taken up with my friend and I was so upset I slammed the phone down. The pain was unbearable. I shall spare you the gory details of the story but suffice to say one betrayal after another left me in agony, a crying mess on my living room floor.
I pleaded with God to fix everything but he had a better plan. After hours of upset where I felt every bit of me in pain, I remembered that the Bible said that even if you would just believe on the name, it would be enough, so a midst my sobs I relented and invited Jesus into my life. I remember a deafening windy silence that rushed through me as if I was made of window screen and the pain was gone. No tiredness after all that crying and misery, just peace. Perhaps even a dose of mixed emotions over what had taken place. Years later I my eyes were opened to the feelings of the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration so I guess my uneasiness mixed with peace was natural.
Then I felt the steel like hands grip me by the shoulders and pull me up to as sitting position. I thought well one of my friends got into the house and found me on the floor. It was potentially embarrassing. I thought if I just peeked at the hands I would know who it was. We all worked together and we knew each others hands well from all the close quarters work. But as I peered over to see, the hands let go and all I saw was a flutter off to my right as if one were shaking out a handkerchief. I was so sure it was a friend, but there was no one there, Just peace and perhaps a little fear and confusion. Looking back I know it was a friend, a new Friend. Clarity was not to come right away. I hadn’t yet realized the value of the gift I was given. Such incomprehensible value slips my mind from time to time. Grace is difficult for humans to latch on to and we forget and we backslide but the Lord does not.
On my next job shopping post, my coworker gave me a New International Version study Bible and I even went to church a few times but didn’t feel comfortable. That was 1988. I had worked my way up to being a non-degree engineer but it mattered little. I left that with the fall of the Berlin wall and despite the pain from other car accidents, opened my dream Martial Arts school and retail store.
Over the next 8 years I married a wonderful Japanese woman, ran the business and I slid backward and occasionally gained some ground on my Christian walk with Christ until early in 1994. I had just failed my exam in Kendo (Japanese fencing) for the second degree and I was again seeking Christ in earnest. I worked hard and when exam time came again in June I passed with room to spare. I was again on the upswing when two months later my wife and I were in a car accident. The aftermath of the accident caused me to loose my business and almost everything else except my wife. We spent a lot of time caring for each other between doctor appointments and therapy treatments. All seemed hopeless, but Jesus was busy with me. He sent me a friend who had also been in an accident, to walk and talk with me almost daily. His name was Stewart and he gave me a ton of Christian books to read on so many aspects of the faith. He also introduced me to Charles Stanley of Atlanta. The first time I listened to Dr. Stanley he spoke so fast that I couldn’t take it on my ears so I went home and prayed , Lord if you want me to listen to Dr. Stanley then you have to speed up my ears. The next visit to my friend Stuart’s home was a surprise because he put on Dr Stanley and everything was fine. It was all slow and easy and I know that was The Lord’s doing.
I was asked to help put on a Martial Arts demonstration in 2000 at a Church. After a long talk with the Pastor at the end I went on my way. Later I came to him for career counseling and not long after that I was asked to be the Church assistant art teacher. Several months later my small Martial Arts group needed a place to practice and the Pastor invited me to use the Church basement. After a month the junior pastor joined the group and got around to asking me to come listen to him speak the following Sunday. I thought well he listens to me for an hour and a half a week; I can do the same for him one time. The following Sunday I slipped into the back and thought ok fulfill the obligation and get out. Well he decided to introduce me to the congregation. I felt like I had gum on my show that just wouldn’t come off as I shrank into the pew.
I spent two weeks as the assistant then the art teacher left to home school her son. Despite my lack of formal training as an art teacher, Pastor asked me to step in. I reluctant accepted as there was a curriculum in place. I stuck it out for the year. Then Pastor asked me to become a third grade teacher but I thought I really need to get back to school or I won’t have a degree. I didn’t want to repeat my non-degree engineering career because when the company closed so did my status.
The next thing I knew I found myself back in college going for degree in psychology but the Lord had another plan. Pastor and I chatted about direction and one day both he and my college adviser said, you have been talking about an art class for years so just go take one. I took a ceramics class which I hadn’t done in years and I am still at it in the Potter’s house. The psych degree ended up being Art teacher degree with high honors and then finally Master of Fine Arts.
Now its 2015 and I am an usher at my church. I can say that I know when I am near the Lord and when I am distant. There are tough days and easier days and I try to count them all joyful because I have hope for the future, my hope is in Christ. Jesus helped me to be bold enough to declare Him publicly and sometimes even I am surprised at the words coming out of my mouth. In this world of noise, I prefer quiet and I would rather hear the Word as I work than anything else. I also know when The Lord has made the appointment for me to chat with someone or answer their spiritual questions and while I am not a Pastor right now, one never knows what The Lord may do down the road.
As I pray over others situations in my life and ask of the Lord about sharing them then I shall publish more.
God Bless You
Life before Christ
My Life before Christ was one of struggling to fit in. Even when I thought I was on the inside, I was an outsider. I felt a big hole in myself and tried to fill it through a variety of ways but nothing could cure it. Indeed I went down too many dead end roads. I had no direction yet as I always felt God had a purpose for me. I used to pray for an instruction manual for earth but what I was really praying for was an instruction manual for life.
What Led Me To Christ
In my early 20s God began to draw me toward Himself through a series of amazing events. I was wholly unprepared for what was beginning to happen. As I moved in to my second apartment, the women moving out was carrying out the last of her things and as she passed me she pushed a large white paper bag into my hands. She said this is for you and she walked away. I never saw her before or after that day. I was moving furniture so I decided to look in the bag later that evening and so I set it aside. When I opened the bag I found a large old family Bible with a carved wooden cover. I had no use for it other than my love of old things so I kept it and it since it was from the late 1800s. I put it on the shelf next to my other books and that was that.
I left my regular job and became a job shopper working primarily in military prototypes. At my new job a man I hadn’t seen in a few years was sitting at his desk, clean cut. This was a surprise since I had remembered him as quite the opposite. I thought wow, what happened to George. Well he walked up to me a few days latter and pushed a big red hardcover book into my hands called Strong’s concordance and said my girlfriend and I think you should have this. He was so sincere that I offered to pay him for it but he refused and indicated that it was a gift. So I took it home and put it on the shelf next to the old Bible. I only knew what it was because it said so on the title page, all of the words from the King James Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew. It was a huge reference study book. It was yet another book I had not use for or so I thought at the time.
Within a few weeks I was off to another job since the part in the project was completed. After I was there for a month or so I was on a Michener book kick and was coming to the end of The Source which was about Hebrew history written in his usual well researched way. So I finished it one night and was going to take a nap at lunch the next day but I guess God had a different plan. When I arrived at work the next morning there it was sitting in the middle of my desk, a King James Bible. I froze and put my hand on it and just starred at the ceiling. I guess maybe I thought that’s where one looks for God. I thought wow this is number three and I set about looking for who gave it to me. It only took a moment because as I walked along the work benches there was a man reading the same private paperback printing. I said John did you give this to me. He said Nah! I asked again and added that I could see that he was reading the same one. So he admitted it. I said I was raised in a primarily Hebrew household, (the Jesus Christ Super Star poster over my bed and my Irish Catholic grandmother notwithstanding,) and that I really couldn’t read it. He looked right at me and said, “Ah just read it kid.” I can still hear him clear as a bell all these years later. I went back to my desk and looked at the Bible and back upward again and thought OK Lord I got the message. So I began to read it and after a while old John gave me his old Navy pocket Bible as well and I read them from cover to cover.
I moved on to a new job and got involved with the occult because part of me was still not convinced. That was an ugly mess but I did learn one thing from it. God is real, period. If all that other dark stuff can exist then it’s a no brain er that God is real. I will leave out the details of their dark practices because they were shrouded in a false light. There was however enough there for darkness to almost sway me. The God who protected me still had no name but being raised in a Hebrew household, “I am” was more than enough. I kicked my girl friend out. Then my social life began to collapse and I was beginning to hurt.
I had kicked my girlfriend out because I was involved with the occult, my best friend betrayed me and that led to isolation and pain, a lot of pain. A broken promise can really cut you loose from humanity. Then one day that same girl called to see how I was and to let me know she had taken up with my friend and I was so upset I slammed the phone down. The pain was unbearable. I shall spare you the gory details of the story but suffice to say one betrayal after another left me in agony, a crying mess on my living room floor.
I pleaded with God to fix everything but he had a better plan. After hours of upset where I felt every bit of me in pain, I remembered that the Bible said that even if you would just believe on the name, it would be enough, so a midst my sobs I relented and invited Jesus into my life. I remember a deafening windy silence that rushed through me as if I was made of window screen and the pain was gone. No tiredness after all that crying and misery, just peace. Perhaps even a dose of mixed emotions over what had taken place. Years later I my eyes were opened to the feelings of the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration so I guess my uneasiness mixed with peace was natural.
Then I felt the steel like hands grip me by the shoulders and pull me up to as sitting position. I thought well one of my friends got into the house and found me on the floor. It was potentially embarrassing. I thought if I just peeked at the hands I would know who it was. We all worked together and we knew each others hands well from all the close quarters work. But as I peered over to see, the hands let go and all I saw was a flutter off to my right as if one were shaking out a handkerchief. I was so sure it was a friend, but there was no one there, Just peace and perhaps a little fear and confusion. Looking back I know it was a friend, a new Friend. Clarity was not to come right away. I hadn’t yet realized the value of the gift I was given. Such incomprehensible value slips my mind from time to time. Grace is difficult for humans to latch on to and we forget and we backslide but the Lord does not.
On my next job shopping post, my coworker gave me a New International Version study Bible and I even went to church a few times but didn’t feel comfortable. That was 1988. I had worked my way up to being a non-degree engineer but it mattered little. I left that with the fall of the Berlin wall and despite the pain from other car accidents, opened my dream Martial Arts school and retail store.
Over the next 8 years I married a wonderful Japanese woman, ran the business and I slid backward and occasionally gained some ground on my Christian walk with Christ until early in 1994. I had just failed my exam in Kendo (Japanese fencing) for the second degree and I was again seeking Christ in earnest. I worked hard and when exam time came again in June I passed with room to spare. I was again on the upswing when two months later my wife and I were in a car accident. The aftermath of the accident caused me to loose my business and almost everything else except my wife. We spent a lot of time caring for each other between doctor appointments and therapy treatments. All seemed hopeless, but Jesus was busy with me. He sent me a friend who had also been in an accident, to walk and talk with me almost daily. His name was Stewart and he gave me a ton of Christian books to read on so many aspects of the faith. He also introduced me to Charles Stanley of Atlanta. The first time I listened to Dr. Stanley he spoke so fast that I couldn’t take it on my ears so I went home and prayed , Lord if you want me to listen to Dr. Stanley then you have to speed up my ears. The next visit to my friend Stuart’s home was a surprise because he put on Dr Stanley and everything was fine. It was all slow and easy and I know that was The Lord’s doing.
I was asked to help put on a Martial Arts demonstration in 2000 at a Church. After a long talk with the Pastor at the end I went on my way. Later I came to him for career counseling and not long after that I was asked to be the Church assistant art teacher. Several months later my small Martial Arts group needed a place to practice and the Pastor invited me to use the Church basement. After a month the junior pastor joined the group and got around to asking me to come listen to him speak the following Sunday. I thought well he listens to me for an hour and a half a week; I can do the same for him one time. The following Sunday I slipped into the back and thought ok fulfill the obligation and get out. Well he decided to introduce me to the congregation. I felt like I had gum on my show that just wouldn’t come off as I shrank into the pew.
I spent two weeks as the assistant then the art teacher left to home school her son. Despite my lack of formal training as an art teacher, Pastor asked me to step in. I reluctant accepted as there was a curriculum in place. I stuck it out for the year. Then Pastor asked me to become a third grade teacher but I thought I really need to get back to school or I won’t have a degree. I didn’t want to repeat my non-degree engineering career because when the company closed so did my status.
The next thing I knew I found myself back in college going for degree in psychology but the Lord had another plan. Pastor and I chatted about direction and one day both he and my college adviser said, you have been talking about an art class for years so just go take one. I took a ceramics class which I hadn’t done in years and I am still at it in the Potter’s house. The psych degree ended up being Art teacher degree with high honors and then finally Master of Fine Arts.
Now its 2015 and I am an usher at my church. I can say that I know when I am near the Lord and when I am distant. There are tough days and easier days and I try to count them all joyful because I have hope for the future, my hope is in Christ. Jesus helped me to be bold enough to declare Him publicly and sometimes even I am surprised at the words coming out of my mouth. In this world of noise, I prefer quiet and I would rather hear the Word as I work than anything else. I also know when The Lord has made the appointment for me to chat with someone or answer their spiritual questions and while I am not a Pastor right now, one never knows what The Lord may do down the road.
As I pray over others situations in my life and ask of the Lord about sharing them then I shall publish more.
God Bless You