Hello all
As you probably figured out by now, I'm not at a loss for ideas(You know... The "What's your dream thing...)! Case in point:
As I was reading and responding to WasLost's thread, I thought about starting a new thread, this time about everybody's "Damascus" experience. I am, of course, reffering to your salvation story! I'll start...
Long story short(Well, sort'a...), I was born and raised in Romania, a comunist country who's leaders, especially Ceausescu, taught us there is no God. There were undergroung Christian curches, but I didn't know about them untill after the revolution in Dec. 1989. I always believed there was a God, but I didn't know anything about Him personally. When I was 24 I came to America alone. Here I met a very sweet couple, close to my parent's ages, which took me to church and talked to me about the reality of Jesus. I was very blessed to be initiated by a couple who believed in relationship, not religion, which is why I was immediately attracted to Christianinty, especially to the idea of being loved unconditionally, something I had NEVER known. One day the woman I spoke of, whom I was by then calling "mom", came to my house and prayed the prayer of salvation with me. I accepted Jesus sincerely, but I did not start to change any of my behaviour until 2 years later when my then boyfriend took me to Reno for a thing his company had there. Because of the nature of the trip, I spent my mornings alone, so one morning I just went down stairs to the hotel lobby which was a casino. There I saw a bunch of very elderly people just sitting in front of those slot machines with their cigarettes hanging from their yellowed fingers and their ghostly pale faces and sunken eyes hoplesly watching for that winning combination which never came. It scared me and right there in that lobby I looked up and audibly said: "There has got to be somehing better that this to life! I don't want to be like that when I'm old". To this day I don't know why God chose that particular way to shake me. When I came back from that trip, I said goodby forever to my boyfriend and the life style I was leading, called my spiritual mom, went to church that Sunday, rededicated my life to Jesus and the rest, as they say, is history! That was in the summer of 1995! Because of God's grace, I haven't looked back! So, there you have it! My "Damascus" story. What's yours?
Laura
