SONSHINE: CHRIST PAYS A VISIT TO A CHRIST HATER

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A friend sent this testimony to me yesterday. I know it will encourage you that still hold hope for someone that resides in the deepest of darkness. In one swift swoop, the light of His face brings marvelous love to the most unlovable. Such is it with Byron's story.
Jack

Byron's Story
Before my re-birth I was totally lost in spiritual darkness - an atheistic, God concept hating, Christianity loathing type person. How that led to what I am today makes no natural sense at all. It happened alone in a deserted room after losing the woman I loved and falling into a deep depression for over two years. At rock bottom for months on end, I finally ‘lost it’ one night, rolling around on the floor and spontaneously screaming out for help (to no one in particular) and basically wishing to die very badly. My spirit was crying out over and over and over "What's wrong with me? what's wrong with me?!!". Finally, out of the clear blue I heard this voice inside calmly say "You're starving... to death". A voice??? This was a first. I was absolutely stunned and thinking "wow, did I imagine that?!! What the heck is going on here?" A strange calm came over me. There was a love, a compassion in that voice and as I dragged myself up into bed and drifted off to sleep my memory echoed softly those words over and over again "You're starving... to death, you're starving... to death, You're starving... to death.....

The next morning I started putting 1 and 2 together: 1. I was crying out 2. a voice answered ... so could it be like.... (gulp) maybe... God? Answering? Like a prayer or something? I began to tremble thinking “This is impossible”. I got up and decided to go see a friend whom I hadn't seen in months. Not seeing him was on purpose because he was a Jesus freak who would sometimes tell my friends and I that we needed to 'seek God' and 'know Christ' etc. I was a nice person, but inside it would anger me and I remember wishing that he would just shut the - bleep- up. But now I'm thinking maybe he could shed some light on what had happened. "You're starving... to death"? What in the world was that supposed to mean? It was driving me nuts! So I show up at his door early in the morning, knock, and he is very surprised to see me and says something like "Hey there stranger, what's going on?" All I said was "I think God might have spoken to me last night". That's ALL I said. He invited me in and I was ready to explain what I meant but before I could say another word, He told me to sit down and he'd be back in a minute, and he scurries off into his bedroom. Keep in mind, all I'd told him was "I think God might have spoken to me last night" and I mentioned nothing at all of the "starving to death" thing.

After about ten minutes he comes out of his bedroom with an open bible, and while pointing down to a particular spot on the page he says "Read this". I looked down and read where he was pointing. It said: "I have food to eat that you don't know anything about". (John 4:32) Can you imagine what went through my head? How could he have known??? "Why did you show me that?" I demanded. He replied "I just went back and prayed and felt like you needed to read that verse." And so I start asking him "How did you know?" and he says "Know what?" I was speechless. The stunning truth became clear, it WAS God who had spoken - it had to be. There was no other possible explanation. All the sudden this love came washing over me like waves. I can't explain it - love, forgiveness, compassion. I had done nothing to cause/deserve this. I was crying, couldn't speak, and left back to the deserted room - but now I was in the presence of perfect love. The depression disappeared INSTANTLY, just vanished. I was flying inside - it was like a dream, a fairytale. That night I did have a dream. In the dream I could see underground, a side view, (mmm.. like remember in Jurassic Park - the illustration of the diggers going down into the cave to find the amber? Like that). I saw a man, whom I knew to be Jesus, buried, lying under the earth just below the surface in the darkness. All the sudden he started to glow and then broke upright through the ground and stood (floating) a few feet above the ground in the open air, now shimmering in white light. A voice spoke and said "This is you" and I replied "No it's not... that's Jesus" and I woke up.

I pulled out a bible that my former lady friend had given me from under a pile of junk and started reading - it had opened to Romans. Again a shocking moment came when I got to 6:4 "just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life" and later in Colossians "having been buried with Him in baptism, you were also raised with Him through faith produced within you by God who raised Him from among the dead". All the sudden the "This is you" thing started making sense. For the next couple of weeks I was in the presence of Deity, really, it was like He was in the room with me. Intense Joy had replaced the sadness and emptiness. Physical food became optional as I devoured the scriptures for several weeks and soon saw the "big picture" ie: creation being made subject to vanity - but only for a season, all of creation groaning for the manifestation of the Sons of God, The ultimate restitution of all things etc. I was still in a daze though, why me? I had been basically lazy and self serving my whole life, and yet this all knowing, supernatural ‘person’ is treating me like I was the best thing there ever was. IT MADE NO SENSE AT ALL! I realized one thing for sure: God is sovereign. He planned all this and has great plans for all of His creation, to bring all out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Just as the first Adam chose death for all mankind, Jesus, the last Adam, has now chosen life for all mankind, to be manifested in due time.

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Joian Ruth Schroff

God is good. And Joian, more than any of us, knows this. Our sister, and my best friend, rests in the Father's bosom, today. Dear Joian's sojourn, on earth, ended early last winter, after a period of illness.

Together, Joian and myself began "SONSHINE" in "07". Last June, we took our rest from the blog.

Great battles, were waged this last year, by both Joian and myself. One was taken and one was left. Neither, the taking, nor the leaving, lacks in His perfect providence, afforded each. I can't explain, nor fully understand, how each can be perfect. Never the less, I do know, Joian understands it perfectly.

Today, Joian, more than any, knows God is good.

Jack

PS. Thoughts of your joyful rest relieve my tears, tonight. I miss you, my friend. I'll see you soon.

Great Quotes

Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God, Himself. Madeleine L' Engle
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"If anything about my salvation or right standing with God depends on my faithfulness, I'm toast, damned to hell." Gavazzoni
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Any infinite Being who feels it is their duty to torture me for eternity, should switch to decaf. Joe
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Everyday people are straying away from the church and going back to God. -- Lennie Bruce
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"He took responsibility for all the evils that have befallen man that day He gave His life. This has never been adequately appreciated by religion. It needs to be appreciated." (Roy)
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"Isn't that what man always wants- a divine force he can control? That's actually the definition of witchcraft." (Florian)
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"Christianity is not about polyester and pot roast. It's about Christ and what He's doing in you and me at the moment." (Holly)
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"It's his life for ours. We die, he lives, and then the mystery is that we live again." (Joian)
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"God's Spirit, is a pure motive" (Cardinal)
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"I would rather train twenty men to pray, than a thousand to preach. A minister's highest mission ought to be to teach his people to pray." (H. MacGregor)
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Pretty soon, everybody will get what they deserve, which is Salvation, Reconciliation, Restitution, Restoration, Immortality and Incorruption - now ain't that the coolest thing! (Keith)
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The bible is not an owners manual and trying to apply it to our lives reeks of salvation by works. (Cam)
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I live all the daytime
In faith and in might
And in holy rapture
I die every night (Novalis)
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Where shall we find an abandonment that is as comprehensive as the will of God. (Fenelon)
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He wanted no one but God to witness what he did, just as the only reward he expected was God Himself.(description of Bro. Lawrence)
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The humility of the cross became more desirable to him than all the glory the world had to offer. (description of Bro. Lawrence)
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Prayer is helplessness casting itself upon power; it is misery seeking peace; it is unholiness embracing purity; it is hatred desiring love. Prayer is corruption panting for immortality; it is the eagle soaring heavenward; it is the dove returning home; it is the prisoner pleading for release; it is the mariner steering for the haven amid the dangerous storm; it is the soul, oppressed by the world, escaping to the empyrean, and bathing its ruffled plumes in the ethereal and the divine.(unknown)