My Testimony of Salvation -
How I Met The Lord
I gave my life to Jesus at the age of 40. I am now 65. Here is my life-changing story. I am sorry that it is so long, but there just is no quick way to tell it. Therefore, I have broken it up into smaller parts, the links of which are listed here to the right.
I was working at a print shop as a computer typesetter. At this point in my life I was searching for something more in the Spiritual, but didn’t really know where to turn. I really did not have any religious background. I basically grew up unchurched. I was such a tomboy that I HATED putting on the fancy uncomfortable Sunday dresses for church, and battled with my Mom so bad that she ended up giving up, (if she would have let me wear slacks I would have gladly gone)... so instead I grew up on Sunday morning cartoons. I think when I was age 11, that I did go to church about 5 times with a neighbor’s family (to the local Presbyterian church), and for some reason, in Sunday school, I could answer all the teacher’s questions correctly and was the first one to put my hand up. But it still didn’t “do it for me” so I quit going.
Thru the years, I got into Amerindian mysticism, (back when I wanted to be something that I am not - I’m of Hungarian - Slovak descent).... then years later, I somehow came across the book of Mormon (I tried to read it but it got so repetitive - only the names changed... so that I only got halfway thru the book and threw it out.) Which brings us back to where I began this story, at the print shop. There was an elder of the jehovah witnesses working there, and we got on the subject of religion... When he told me he was a jehovah witness, something inside me got real agitated and I angrily told him, “please, don’t start talking that cult stuff with me, I DON'T want to hear it.” Then a few weeks later, a girl named Kim was hired to work on an envelope jet press in the shop. She mentioned to me that she was a Born-Again Christian, I told her that’s nice, but didn’t really think much about it. We got to be lunch buddies. During lunch one day, she brought up the subject of Faith and asked me questions, to which I gave her answers. She then said to me, “Wow - You have more Faith than ME!!!”
There was another jet pressman there Named Dan-o who was hired around the same time that Kim was, who told me that he was Catholic and Born-Again. One day he invited me to come hear him play his guitar in an ecumenical Thanksgiving celebration that was being held by a group of churches of different denominations in a local town. I said, “Nah, I better not. It’s been so long that the roof of the church might fall on top of my head if I went in there!” He said, “Okay, but if you change your mind, you know where I’m at.” and walked away.
I got to thinking about some things that happened during the summer of that year to my oldest brother Alex and his only two children. First my nephew Sam (Alex’s oldest son) crushed his hand in a drill press.... but he recovered from that and was able to even play his guitar with no problem.... then my other nephew Stevie, the young one, was in a bicycle accident which resulted in a few cracked vertebrae, some bad abrasions on his face, but he recovered from that fine, too. Then to top it off, Alex wrecked his motorcycle while trying to avoid a head-on collision on a back country road.. he had head trauma, almost lost his right arm, and was critical, but he came thru that with only short-term memory loss... and each one of these accidents happened one month apart from each other!!!! It was an awful summer to put things mildly!!!!
As I reflected on all that, I thought, You know... I DO have a LOT to be thankful for... I didn’t attend any funerals in my brother’s family; none of them are permanently disabled, missing limbs or in a vegetative state.... they all are recovering and doing fine.... and for that I am EXTREMELY thankful... so I tracked down Dan-o and said, “You know what? On second thought I have A LOT to be thankful for, so Yes, I think that I will come to hear you play guitar at that service.” Kim was standing nearby and said, “Cool! I’ll come with you so you don’t have to sit by yourself in the church.” I said, "I'm okay by myself, but if you want to come, fine, the more the merrier!"
I had NO IDEA that life as I knew it was about to radically change in a few weeks, or that I would be eternally GRATEFUL to Kim and Dan-O and Pastor Frank Rocco of The Church in the small town of Sutersville, PA!