In Celebration of My Thirty-Fifth re-Birthday!

I was brought up in a household where, if anyone knocked on the door and talked about religion, I was to say ‘We’re C of E’ and close the door. Can’t remember ever going to church, apart from weddings and, for a short time, Sunday School (where they gave us flowers to take home for our mums one week, but didn't the next… so I didn't go again). And I can’t quite remember when I found out what C of E meant! To me, though, church was boring. Even assemblies at school had no interest for me.

My teenage years were full of the Occult and Superstition (I even made a few up of my own!). I saw lots that both interested and scared me in equal measure – especially at séances and with Ouija Boards. I'll always remember laughing at the people who tried to convince me I shouldn't go to see The Exorcist….. I also remember the nightmares I had afterwards. By the time I had started work, though, I had decided to give all that up and just take life as it comes.

However, in my early 20s I did read the Bible from cover to cover – rejecting it as irrelevant, at the same time seeing some the things Jesus said as a good model to live by. I still saw Christians as boring and often hypocritical though.

Having broken up with a long term girlfriend, I started taking Sub-Aqua, Piano and Guitar Lessons. At Guitar I met my future wife and the other lessons fell by the wayside. She was a Christian, but I was confident I could get her away from that nonsense. I obviously met a lot of her church going friends. Somehow they didn't seem the same as most Christians I’d met… they seemed to actually practice what they believed.

I had had a beard since I was old enough to grow one, but at that time I was suffering from bad acne under the hairs. Very sore and sometimes very painful. Pat suggested I go with her to a ‘Healing’ meeting the Church were holding. I’d been to some of their big events before and, strangely, thought they were the closest thing to what I had imagined a meeting of ‘believers’ should be from my reading of the bible. So I thought Why Not….

I saw things there that I couldn't explain, just as I had when I had ‘dabbled’ in the occult, but whereas the dark things scared me, this didn't. In fact it made me happy to see people with all kinds of sickness testify to being healed after prayer.

After the meeting I was asked if I wanted prayer for my problem… I said No (but secretly hoped that something had happened). I actually told someone that, if this was what God did then I wanted to know more. In another part of the room, Pat was telling her friends that she was going to break up with me, as she saw that I was breaking her relationship with God.

We had been going out for about a year. An old friend of mine and even my Mum had ‘joined the Church’ (as I called it) during this time, but I was still not convinced.

On Sunday 2nd March 1980, I decided to go with her to the Church, which I had always avoided before. They had a couple of people being baptised that morning and, believe it or not, they had been involved in the occult! The wife had been possessed during a séance and when the husband called for help the only person around was one of the Church Pastors! What happened next led to them to repent, and here they were being baptised as Christians.

At this same meeting they had visiting speakers. They were not English and I didn’t understand much of what they said, but then one of them said quite clearly, ‘If you want to receive a blessing from Jesus, hold your hand up now’.  I sat on mine, as I had no intention of doing anything rash…. He then said ‘Come forward now’ and before I knew what I was doing I was standing at the back of a crowd thinking ‘God. If you are real, prove it to me now’.

At that very moment, the guy reached over the crowd and put his hand upon my head and a ‘wave’ of light filled my body from my head, right the way down to my feet…. Then it came up again and I burst into tears. I KNEW that Jesus was alive and had changed me. All I could do after that was go around hugging people and saying Thank You.

A few people pointed out that the water was still there and that I should be baptised. Although it immediately came to me that that’s what the Bible said should happen, I said No… Then changed my mind and a friend was despatched to my flat to get a change of clothes, while I walked into the water and (figuratively) shared in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, with all my past sin being washed away and buried. I was Born Again!

Since then I have tried to live the life I know is the best for me and my family. Not always succeeding, but knowing I have a loving God (and Christian Family) who accepts me for who and where I am, and will forgive and support me when I make mistakes.

Having written this, it doesn't seem as powerful, or as convincing as I hoped it would be, but it is my experience. If anyone has read this to this point and would like to know more; if it’s caused even a little bit of interest, then feel free to contact me. I’d love to talk more.