Nothing Seemed Real to Me

To recall my initial touch with the Lord would take me back to January 1970. I was a 17-year-old student in St. Louis, Missouri, daily wandering through high school aimlessly. Nothing seemed real to me. Everything around me was based on outward and superficial sources. In my heart, I felt lost and lonely; “a square peg in a round hole.” One day as I was heading for class I heard a noisy commotion coming from the other end of the hallway. Two girls were walking down the hall saying, “Praise the Lord,” and “Jesus is Lord.” Their faces were shining. They had a glow of happiness! Some students were saying that they were on drugs. Others said they were in the “hippie” movement. I determined to find out the real story from them. At the end of the day I saw them walking toward their car. They were singing and praising the Lord with no self-consciousness. I stopped them and asked them, “What happened to you?” They told me they had just returned from a Christian conference in California given by Witness Lee and that they had been saved. Being a young Catholic girl, I was unfamiliar with the term “saved.” They asked me if I would like to be saved. “Saved from what?” I responded. They said, “Saved from everything! Saved from eternal death, saved from sin, saved from misery, saved from yourself.” They were bubbling over with joy. I told them, “I talk to God in the heavens all the time but I am not as happy as you seem to be.” They took out their Bibles and read to me Romans 10:9-13. “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart there is believing unto righteousness, and with the mouth there is confession unto salvation. For the Scripture says, `Everyone who believes on Him shall not be put to shame.' For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all who call upon Him; For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” They encouraged me to call on the Lord's name with them.

CH