"God, if I take my life I think you will understand."
I was twenty-four years old when I cried these tear-soaked words. Yet, I knew nothing
about the God to whom I spoke.
I was not raised in any sort of religion. Dad told me that God was just someone old people
wanted to believe in, before they died. Mom said, “there might be someone, or something
out there but no-one knows...”
I grew up scared. My parents loved me, but as soon as I rested in that love it would become
blemished with the abusive acts of an alcoholic dad. Once, after dad physically assaulted
my mother, I threw myself on my bed and screamed out my hatred for him. Suddenly I was no
longer alone. An amazing other Presence was there, comforting me.
Peace enveloped me and I fell into a sound sleep. I was 12-years-old at the time, but I knew
that no matter what anyone would tell me again, there was a God.
After high school I worked in San Francisco and was attracted to the “Beatnik” culture.
They, too, seemed to be searching for the meaning of life. But mostly, they just sat around
cellars writing poetry and discussing the color of red.
Restless and discontent, at nineteen I married a man I hardly knew. Perhaps a husband and children
would make me happy. But it looked as though there would be no children, and I found an escape in alcohol.
When I saw a psychiatrist, I could not even describe my emptiness. I began to look for the God who had
revealed himself to me so long ago.
At first I thought I could find him in spiritualism. It was fascinating, but trying to make my deceased
brother appear scared the heck out of me. So I began practicing Numerology, visiting a woman in the Santa
Cruz mountains who made life charts and “prophecies,” but once again I was scared to continue. I studied
astrology. Then Scientology, but could never “go clear.” I investigated the “religious claims” of UFO’s!
Then, when parapsychology lured me into its clutches, I was spellbound by Edgar Cayce. But,
although each belief system quoted the Bible, nothing answered my questions of who was I and what was I here, for, anyway?
Finally, when I had downward spiraled to that suicidal state I told about, a friend invited me to her
church to hear a guest speaker, John Noble. He would tell about his ten years in a slave labor camp in
Siberia. I listened, transfixed, as his story unfolded.
At the end of World
War II, Noble was a young American who got caught in the Russian occupation
of East Germany and was wrongfully imprisoned. In the depths of misery, he
fell upon his face and asked God to let him die,
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or to give him the strength
to go on. Immediately, teachings from his childhood came to him, about how
a man needed to be “born again” –that is, physically and spiritually.* But,
although raised in a Christian home, he had chosen to walk away from God
and live life on his own terms. Broken in spirit, Noble asked God to forgive
him for this, and for every evil act he had ever committed. Within moments,
despair was replaced by a sense of God’s presence. Noble began studying
the snatches of Bible circulating in camp, and grew in his newfound faith.
For the remainder of his imprisonment he told captors and captives alike,
how through the cross, “God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness
and brought us into the kingdom of the Son...in whom we have redemption
and the forgiveness of sins.”*
Like Noble, I too had felt my life was at the mercy of fate. I too had wanted to die.
Now, I too desperately yearned for a brand new life. When Noble quoted from John 14:6;
“Jesus answered ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father
except through me,” a soft voice in my heart said, "This is the truth you have been looking for."
Jesus was not a spiritualist, a numerologist, an astrologist, a scientologist, or into UFO’s
or parapsychology. He was God’s loving Son, whose death upon an agonizing cross reconciled
sinful man – me! - to a holy God. I whispered, “Yes.” This time, the tears that slid down my
cheeks were ones of joy.
Hope filled my heart. I joined a women's Bible study, and when I was playfully teased for not
even knowing who Moses was, I bought a Bible storybook for children and got clued in.
In time I would have four children, but life did not become a field of daisies. My husband of
many years would walk out on us. Two of my children would become drug addicts.
But instead of wanting to end my life, I clung to a God who made himself even more real as he
counseled me, comforted me, and provided the joy of his strength for every hard time.
Today, I am happily remarried and enjoy my role as wife, mom, step mom and grandma. During all
the years since God gave me new life, he has not failed me in any way.
I want to tell everyone who is looking for God, that Jesus Christ, who said “anyone who has seen
me has seen the Father,” truly is "the way and the truth and the life."*
The way to God,
the truth of God,
and the only life worth living.
All scripture references from the NIV
* Gospel of John, chapter 3
* Colossians 1:13
* John 14:6 NIV
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