Narelie

LFG/Eric...this is Narelie, from Flames.

I just want to tell you I am SO happy for you! I was quite worried for you when you seemed to be so sad around the site all the time...and REALLY was worried when you disappeared almost altogether. But if this is what happened....GO YOU! I cannot tell you how excited I am for you, and how wonderful it is to hear these news. I wish you the best, and would like to extend a /hug to you. You're going to have a very rough time ahead, what with the fires already being stoked from what I see...but stay strong. I will keep you in my prayers, because Lord knows you're going to have to be dealing with some major stuff soon.

<hugs again> Congrats!

Vesania

Having found my way here due to a link on the flames website, I would like to offer the opinion that Eric's hopes are not unfounded.

Admittedly, I had been asking myself serious questions and getting closer and closer to this point well before coming here. Looking back, I feel that God had called me on at least two occasions, but at the time I did not let myself hear Him.

The first, 15 years ago, was when I attended church with college friends during a period when both of my legs were in casts from foot to knee and had been so for 6 months, after my bones inexplicably failed to heal after a surgical correction of a moderate deformity of my big toes. During this 6 months, I had regular x-rays of my feet that showed that the surgical incisions into my bone were as unhealed as the day they had been made. An x-ray was made in the week before I attended the church, confirming that the bones were still unhealed, and I was scheduled for a bone graft over Christmas, which was a week later.

I don't really know why I went with my friends to church. Possibly because it was the Christmas season, possibly due to peer pressure. I know the reasons then were not the right ones. On that particular night, there was a guest speaker - to my shame, I cannot remember his name - who talked about faith healing. At the end of the service, I went up and asked him if he would try it for me. He laid his hands on my casts and prayed - as did my friends. I wish I could say I had a blinding revelation or a tangible experience - I would probably have found my way to God a lot sooner if I had and I suppose that is human nature. I didn't, however, feel any different.

A week later, I went to hospital for my bone graft, only to find that the bones had achieved 6 weeks of healing in the last 7 days. The surgeons were so disbelieving that they opened up one of my feet anyway, only to close it again after a simple skin incision.

Why wasn't this enough for me? I can't really answer that. Thought of the experience has never really left me, however, and was part of the questioning and exploring that I feel I began.

The second time that I believe I felt the presence of God was three years ago, at the funeral of my uncle. He had found Christ in his twenties and became a minister, raising his family in such a wonderfully Christian way that even those of the extended family who were not Christian would look upon them with respect and admiration. Of his four sons, three became ministers themselves. Throughout his life, I found myself wanting to ask him questions, but I never did - to my regret - I think because I was scared then that if I acted upon these questions that I would have to do too much or change too much.

At my uncle's funeral, I expected to feel grief. There was sadness, inevitably, but the church was filled with such an overwhelming sense of peace and love that the sadness paled into insignificance behind it. It was as if someone laid their hands on my head and quieted all the turbulent emotion, telling me that it was alright...because now my uncle was in the kingdom of heaven. I've been thinking about that day ever since - still slightly scared, really, about what it meant.

Finally, I've found the strength to take the first steps and begin to make the wholesale changes to my life that I should have made all those years ago. I still have a long way to go - my bible is in the post and I've yet to attend church tomorrow for the first time (as an adult making the decision to do so for my own reasons, hopefully the right ones); I'm about as fledgling a Christian, I think, as it's possible to be.

The support and shared committment represented by this site will therefore be invaluable on the road ahead, but I wouldn't have found it except for the links from that other site.

Thank you, Eric, both for your testimony and courage.

Eric

Vesania, thank you for sharing your story. It is powerful and touched my heart. I wish you the very best, and hope you will let me know if I can help you in any way here.

Welcome to the site!

__________________

TommyStrand

God loves you so much Vesania. Don't push Him away. =) Great that you came to this site mate.