Currently Browsing: This Is My Story
Feb 16, 2012
As a newlywed, I was training for the ministry
Other victims of crime will well understand the adrenalin rush. I thought of everything from using karate to jumping out of the car. “If you guys were Christians, you wouldn’t be doing this,” I managed to say. Unhappy with my response, they grunted and cursed.
Jan 7, 2012
Worse than these, though, was my fear of hell. Having grown up in a church that preached the Bible, I was well aware of my spiritual condition. Sunday school memory verses such as Romans 3:23,
I was sitting in a Sunday night church service shortly before my 21st birthday when all of these
“Come to me, all you that labor
Gripped with Fear
“I lived most of my childhood gripped with fear.”
Even though my parents claimed to be Christians and took us to church every Sunday, their relationship was very volatile. Arguments erupted all too frequently, and, often, my parents’ anger with one another spilled over onto their children. Even during relatively peaceful moments, an undercurrent of high tension coursed just below the calm appearance.
Another constant source of fear, odd as it may seem now, was the Cold War. I spent countless nights in the 1970s and early 80′s huddled under the bedcovers afraid to fall asleep fearing this would be the night the Russians would invade, imprison my parents, and persecute the rest of us for being Christians.
As I grew older, fear of a Communist “takeover” gave way to dread of nuclear war. I began reading all I could find about the United States’ military equipment, particularly fighter jets and missiles, in hopes of finding some measure of comfort against that threat.
Worse than these, though, was my fear of hell. Having grown up in a church that preached the Bible, I was well aware of my spiritual condition. Sunday school memory verses such as Romans 3:23, 
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” and Romans 6:23a, “For the wages of sin is death,” coupled with the many sermons I had heard detailing the judgment awaiting the unrighteous cemented in my mind exactly what I could expect when I died.
In order to relieve this particular terror, I prayed repeatedly for forgiveness, but my prayers had everything to do with escaping consequences and nothing to do with repentance.
I was so self-centered, I felt like the victim in the situation since I faced eternal punishment. In my mind, God owed me salvation. I had no concern that my sin was a violation of a glorious, holy God and His law. I didn’t really even want to spend eternity with Him in heaven; I just didn’t want to go to hell.
Meanwhile, I had found other ways of trying to numb my nagging fears. Popularity, rock music, movies, girlfriends, even substances became my gods. While I probably couldn’t have articulated it then, I was trusting in the momentary satisfaction they provided, but I could not find lasting peace.
Eventually, even the temporary peace I could sometimes muster seemed always in jeopardy. The approval of my peers began to seem hollow, relationships with girlfriends were full of problems, and entertainment media was losing its kick, but the real blow came when I was 19. That year my parents separated and eventually divorced. Even though my family life had not been happy, it had been stable enough that I never had any physical needs or wants. Now, though, I basically had to support myself.
I didn’t know then why these things were happening, but God used them in my life.
Through verses like Romans 5:8,
“But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
He began to show me that the work Jesus did on the cross was not something I somehow deserved, but was an initiative of love and grace that He undertaken on my behalf. Through verses such as II Corinthians 5:21,
“For [God] made [Jesus], who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
I began to understand there is no real way to be acceptable to God apart from Jesus’ sinless life, death, and resurrection. I began to realize that trust in anything but Christ’s payment for my sin was worthless and just another offense to a loving God who commanded that we have no other gods before Him.
I was sitting in a Sunday night church service shortly before my 21st birthday when all of these 
realizations surfaced in my mind, and, like the rebellious son in Luke 15, I came to myself. What I needed was a restored relationship with God! All my fears—fear of missing out on fun, fear of losing the approval of my friends, even the fear of hell—receded into the background.
I don’t remember what our pastor preached about that night, but after the service I met with a counselor, and, after talking through some Scripture with him, I prayed once more for God to forgive me. This time though, I was repentant of the sin I had committed against His holiness, and my faith was resting solely in what Jesus had done. I finally understood what it meant to accept the offer God makes to all in Acts 16:31, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.”
One of the results of the peace I have with God through salvation is freedom from the fears that had plagued me for so long. Sure, there are times that I worry about this problem or that, but the lasting dread that has no answer is gone. In addition, I now realize that the situations that caused me such concern were not my real problem.
No matter what my circumstances were, I would never have found lasting comfort outside of a relationship with God. If you find yourself obsessed with fear or anxieties the same way I was, hear the words of Jesus Christ:
“Come to me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.”
(Matthew 11:28)
Dec 12, 2011
Gene was taken to St. Vincent Hospital Toledo where the doctors prepared him for surgery.
This Is My Story: Gene & Lucy Martin
On a Sunday morning in February of 2000, Gene and I prepared to go to church, but we ended up at the hospital instead. This began a very trying time for us but because of our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, He gave us grace.
Gene had gone out to the van. I was ready to go, but he came back in the house and said, “I’m sick.” I wanted to take him to the hospital, as I suspected a heart attack. He wouldn’t go. A few minutes later he got up from the chair, put on his coat, and went to our van. He didn’t speak. I drove to the Findlay Hospital, and he was there for two days. The doctor told me that Gene was a time bomb ready to go off. He had gone through heart attacks many times. I was praying. I knew it was going to be bad, but I also knew that Jesus was with us.
God’s grace not only sustains and comforts us during bad times but also more importantly gives us eternal life.
The Bible says that Jesus “has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”; but He was also “wounded for our transgressions.”(1)
Our transgressions, or sins, have separated us from the Holy God; therefore, when we die, we have to pay for our own sins in hell. The Bible says, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”(2)
We cannot have eternal life unless we believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose again from the dead; we also need to confess our sins to God and humbly accept Him as our Lord. Gene and I have trusted Christ and have the comfort that “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”(3)
This is the reason that God answers the prayers of His children.
Gene was taken to St. Vincent Hospital Toledo where the doctors prepared him for surgery. 
(more…)
Oct 10, 2011
This Is My Story: Bill Logan
In November 2007, my world crumbled…
The doctor told me that I had Multiple Myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. How could this be? I was physically active, reasonably athletic and fairly strong. Since I had seen my sister die from this very same cancer some ten years earlier, I thought that in a matter of months, I would die also.
Having been raised in a Christian home, I was very aware of how the grace of God should be demonstrated in a believer’s life. The Bible shows us over and over the glory of God, but it was because of man’s rebellion against Him that the sentence of death was placed on all mankind. The Bible also tells us that Christ paid this penalty with His own life, and took my sins upon Himself. Though I had received Christ as a young boy, I had been living my life “my way.”
I believe that God brought this cancer into my life to show me that I had not yet fully embraced Christ as the Lord of my life. I started not only reading His word but studying it as well. As I studied, I started highlighting passages that seemed to be speaking directly to me. These passages revealed promise after promise of God’s mercy, wisdom, joy, and peace.
As treatments progressed in early and mid 2008, a stem cell transplant was recommended. My wife and I knew that this would involve a lengthy hospital stay. (more…)
Sep 11, 2011
In My Seat
Take a few moments to watch this powerful story of the American Airlines pilot who was supposed to fly Flight 11 on that fateful morning, September 11, 2001
from Boston’s Logan International airport.
What would it be like to know that someone took your seat on that day of hellish tragedy?
