I confess I don't remember a specific day and time when I first received Christ as my Savior. I can't remember ever NOT believing in God. What I do remember are specific incidents through the years.

I remember kneeling at the altar for my first communion after confirmation classes taught by a Lutheran church we attended and an overwhelming sense of the presence of God.

I remember the same sense of His presence after almost 10 years in what I call an ODF (Out Dere Flappin') status in which I had turned away from organized religion and never entered an Army chapel unless I was in/out processing or someone had died on the drop zone. I do know that it happened one evening when I was on the top bunk of a room in some transit billets in Bad Toelz, Germany and I was reading a small New Testament that had been placed at my barracks room door a few years before when I had been stationed in Bad Toelz. This time I was on an Special Forces team from Ft. Devens, MA on our way to a mountain climbing course in Austria.

I can't tell you exactly what verse I was reading. I can tell you that I stopped reading because I had a real heaviness in my heart. The words in my spirit were: "OK God, I guess it's time I let you take charge of my life." At that moment it was like a huge warm hand wrapped itself around my heart and the words I heard in my spirit, as loudly as if they had been spoken out loud were: "Allright son, you're mine now." I also realized that He had never left me, but had been patiently waiting for a soldier to come home!

My life has never been the same since. There have been struggles, there have been doubts and there have been detours from the 'straight and narrow'.  There have been 'woodshed experiences' with God, as my long time friend Bob would say. But I have never ceased being His child!

Well, that's the best way I know to tell you how it went down. If I was truly saved that night in Bad Toelz, or if I was a prodigal returning home, God knows. What I know is that might I knew, I knew, I KNEW I was His! I suppose a P.S. to this story would be the pride I had in 'my' decision until a few months later I came across these words of Jesus in John 6:44:

      "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day."

B4B

P.S. #2 - Would you share your 'story' with us?  Here's an old hymn of encouragement - just to tell the story.....

I Love To Tell The Story
(Words: Katherine Hankey; Music: William G. Fischer)

I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true;
It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.

Refrain
I love to tell the story, ’twill be my theme in glory,
To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love.

I love to tell the story; more wonderful it seems
Than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.
I love to tell the story, it did so much for me;
And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.

I love to tell the story; ’tis pleasant to repeat
What seems, each time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet.
I love to tell the story, for some have never heard
The message of salvation from God’s own holy Word.

I love to tell the story, for those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song,
’Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.