INTRODUCTION

In honor of the fact that we are now in the great Christmas season (Awesome!!!), I thought I would post a Christmas testimony.

Sometimes we need to learn lessons from children to grow our own faith. Several Christmases ago, that is exactly what I needed to do in order to grow my faith.

FAITH FOR CHRISTMAS SNOW

The year was 1999, and my family and I were living in central New Jersey in the lovely town of Edison. I had finished college in May and was working for Motorola. My wife and I were the proud parents of two of our four children (although one went to heaven before we saw him/her, but we will meet there) who were of the ages of five and three. On Thanksgiving, Katie, the five year old, had told me that she wanted to have a white Christmas. Well, even though we lived in a climate that could have snow on Christmas, my family had not seen a white Christmas in many years. In fact, since my wife and I had been married to this year, we had not seen a white Christmas together. So, when I say that it was unlikely that we would have a white Christmas, it is with earnest. However, my daughter wanted a white Christmas. I did the only thing that a good Christian father who was wanting to instill Christian values in his child and told her that only God could make it snow and that she would need to pray to God for the snow. She smiled and then said a prayer.

I had thought that would be the end of it, but I was wrong. My daughter proceeded to pray for snow every night from day on constantly informing me that God was hearing her prayer and that we would have snow on Christmas. That was all well and good.

Until we got within several days of Christmas and the weather report was unseasonably warm with no chance of even rain let alone snow in the forecast. I began to rehearse in my mind the speech that I would have to give to my heart broken crying daughter on how sometimes God’s answer to our prayer is no. I tried to drop in little hints here and there that she might not get what she was asking for, but she was steadfast and firm on the fact that God was going to give her a white Christmas.

Christmas Eve found my family at our church for a special Christmas Eve service. Silently, I had been saying a prayer that God would help my daughter understand when I explained that he just didn’t want or need to have it snow for Christmas. It was at this point, that the Pastor of the church stood up interrupting the service and announced that they were going to cut everything short because they wanted to make sure that everyone could get home in the SNOW.

I didn’t believe that I heard him right, but when I turned around and looked out the doors, it was snowing outside. And when I say it was snowing, I don’t mean a flake or two was falling, I mean it was really coming down.

I brought my family home and was in total shock. We turned on the weather and every station was reporting how this freak storm just popped up over New Jersey bringing snow on Christmas. Everyone was amazed except for my little girl who told me, “See, I told you God was going to give me snow for Christmas.” By Christmas morning, we had just over six inches of the white stuff on the ground and my kids had the best time playing it in.

SCRIPTURE

My daughter got the concept that if you believe and ask then God will move on your behalf. Of course, you need to ask with the right heart, like my daughter having the heart of a child that wanted to see God move for you. It was a pivotal moment for her where God became real and my faith grew tremendously.

CONCLUSION

If you ask for things in Jesus name with the right heart, you will receive. God is very amazing when it comes to this. I encourage you to bring your requests to God and then trust him handle your request for your benefit.

I want to thank the great guys over at My Life Ministries (http://mylifeministries.org/) for encouraging me and hosting this blog. If you haven’t done so yet, hop over to http://mylifeministries.org/ and take a look around. Join the forums and become part of the family.

Also, if you have a testimony, email it to me at testify {at} fireknights {dot} net. I would love to hear it and I may just post it here on the blog.

INTRODUCTION

God works in mysterious ways and always takes care of us. This was an example of a time when God moved and totally amazed me.

GODLY JOB INTERVIEWS

It was the summer of 2002 and my life was really in a mess. I had been unemployed for about 8 months following the events of 9/11 and the Enron stuff that produced a bunch of layoffs and a massive amount of people looking for jobs. So, you can imagine how hard it was to find a job. Furthermore, I am a software engineer and with Worldcom laying off something like twenty thousand or more software engineers on the market for jobs while no one was hiring making money very tight. To complicate this time frame, my wife and I discovered that even with all of the obstacles in our marriage (several feminine issues) we were expecting our fourth child (although the third went straight to heaven before we got to meet him/her, but will see him/her in heaven). This really was a shock because my wife’s system had by all doctor’s accounts shut down a good six months prior. All of this put together just made trying to find a job all that more difficult and urgent.

By the end of July, I had given up on finding a job within my field and was looking anywhere I could. I had some interviews with retail stores for potential management positions, but they had fallen through. Following this line of job search, I pulled up to a Hollywood Video store not far from my home. I asked the manager if I there was opening in management. She asked if I had a college degree because it was required for a management position (which was not true, because my wife later worked for Hollywood Video as a manager so only God could have made her ask this question). I told her that I was an out of work software engineer and that I needed a job to support my family and was looking anywhere.

At this point in the conversation a very strange thing happened. A man, a customer just happening to be in the store at that moment, piped into our conversation with a question, “You are really an engineer?”

I answered yes.

He then asked, “And you have a degree in engineering?”

Again, I answered yes because I have an engineer degree in Electrical Engineering (BS) from Rutgers and have worked in Software ever since.

“My name is Jeff,” he continued as he proceeded to tell me how his mother was the head of hiring of engineers in the human resource department of Bell Helicopter. You can imagine my surprise when he gave me his mother’s information and took mine.

I walked out of that Hollywood Video praising God because I saw that as just a simple little way that God was showing that he was still in control. Little did I know that God was not through with me yet!

I returned home and attempted to call Jeff’s mother. She was out of the office at lunch and I was instructed to call back later. Jeff gave me her email, so I went ahead and sent her a copy of my resume with a note about running into her son and that I was going to follow up with a call later that afternoon.

The time passed very slowly as I was anxiously waiting to talk with the lady from Bell Helicopter. In truth, I really didn’t expect more then a friendly affirmation of receiving my resume and that it would be reviewed by Bell and if there was a fit I would get a call. In other words, the standard answer that I was receiving from companies that I happened to get a contact name for. This was not to be one of those situations.

It was mid afternoon before I got hold of Jeff’s mother. I said hello and explained who I was and then her response almost literally made me fall out of my chair.

“So,” Jeff’s mother began, “You Pat. I just finished lunch with my son and I was very impressed with how he went on and on about you. In fact, he spent the entire lunch hour speaking about nothing but you and how you were a perfect fit for the company.”

I literally met Jeff for all of five minutes tops. I had never seen him before and to this day I have not seen him again, and yet God made him know enough about me to carry the lunch conversation that Jeff had with his mother. I was amazed.

Jeff’s mother then explained what she was going to do which including directly handing my resume to the software manager with her recommendation mark on it because after all anyone who Jeff recommends so highly definitely has her recommendation as well. I hung up the phone in shock.

True to her word, I got a call from the software manager not long after that for an interview that turned into a job that including health insurance that would cover the remainder of our pregnancy. That job could not have come at a better time for my soon to be son James and my family.

All of that happened and to tell you the truth at the time, I could not believe how everything fell together and I was even more amazed at God and his plan for my life.

SCRIPTURE

God means it when he says not to worry and that he will give you what you need. I don’t know what you are waiting on God for, but know that he is able and willing to give it to you in his time which you will discover is the exact right time that you will need it.

I truly am amazed at the greatness of our God and praise him for it.

CONCLUSION

Our God is awesome! I am excited to be able to share some of what excites me about him with you. Furthermore, if you have testimony to the powerful moving of God in your life where he amazed you with what he has done, then send it to me at fireknights@fireknights.net. I love hearing from all of you and pray over every email and will share what the Lord leads me to.

I want to thank the great guys over at My Life Ministries (http://mylifeministries.org/) for encouraging me and hosting this blog. If you haven’t done so yet, hop over to http://mylifeministries.org/ and take a look around. Join the forums and become part of the family.

Also, if you have a testimony, email it to me at testify {at} fireknights {dot} net. I would love to hear it and I may just post it here on the blog.

INTRODUCTION

Inspiritional stories whether fictional or true can so touch us and help us realize just how much God loves us and the world. Today, I am presenting an inspirational story that my wife was sent this in an email (author unknown and modified by me) and I thought it was a great depiction of our God and his son Jesus. So, I am posting it here for all.

THE MYSTERY VIRUS

The day is over, you are driving home listening to your radio when the news comes on. You hear a little blurb about tribal a village in India where some villagers have died suddenly, strangely, of a virus that has never been seen before. It’s not influenza, but three or four people are dead, and it’s kind of interesting, and they’re sending some doctors over there to investigate it.

You don’t think much about it, but on Sunday, coming home from church, you hear another radio spot. Only this time, they are saying it is not three villagers, its 30,000 villagers somewhere is the back hills of India. The story hits the television news that night. CNN runs a short story on it; people are heading there from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta because this disease strain has never been seen before.

By Monday morning when you get up, it’s the lead story. For it’s not just in India, but also in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. You’re hearing this story everywhere you go and they have coined it now as “the mystery virus”. The President has made some comment that he and everyone is praying and hoping that all will go well over there. But everyone is wondering and talking about it. The most dominant topic is how are we going to contain it?

That night the President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their borders. No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the countries where this thing has been seen. And that’s why that night you are watching CNN before going to bed. Your jaw hits your chest when they are interviewing a weeping French woman who describes a man lying in a hospital in Paris that has contracted the virus. It has come to Europe, and panic strikes.

As best as they can tell, once you get the virus, you have it for about a week before you know discover it. After that you have four days of unbelievable symptoms, and then you die.

Tuesday morning brings the news that Britain has closed its borders, but it’s too late. Cases have already been reported in Southampton and Liverpool. The President of the United States makes an announcement, “In light of the rapid spread of the Mystery Virus, all flights to and from Europe and Asia have been canceled. If you have loved ones that are overseas, our thoughts and prayers are with them. However, until a cure for this virus is found, they cannot return home.”

Within four days the United States is plunged into an unbelievable fear. People are selling surgical masks by the truckload. Talk heard at work, the grocery store, the schools and everywhere is else, is “What if it comes to this country.” Some televangelists are calling the virus, “The Scourge of God” that is supposedly cleansing the heathen world. And everyone is walking around on pins and needles.

Monday night, you are at a special church prayer meeting that is interrupted with someone running in from the parking lot and shouting, “Turn on a radio, turn on a radio.” While the church listens to a little transistor radio with a microphone stuck up to it, the announcement is made that two women are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from the mystery virus.

Within hours it seems, this thing sweeps across the country. People are working around the clock trying to find an antidote, but nothing is working. From New York to California through Oregon and Arizona from Florida and Massachusetts, reports are flooding in of people infected. It is as if nothing can stop or halts the virus’s relentless progress.

Suddenly there is hope on the evening news. The code has been broken. A cure can be found. A vaccine can be made and all it will take is the blood of someone who has not been infected. The Emergency Broadcast system is enacted and everyone is asked to go to their local hospital and have a blood sample taken. That is when you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, emergency vehicles in conjunction with the National Guard and military are going up and down the streets escorting everyone quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals.

When you and your family get down to the hospital on late Monday night, there is a long line. They’ve got nurses and doctors coming out, pricking fingers, taking blood and putting labels on it. Your wife and your kids are with you as they take a sample of each of yours blood and say, “Wait here in the parking lot and if we don’t call your name in an hour, you can go home.” You stand around scared and anxious at the same time. You see your neighbors, and have a small chat about whether or not this is the end of the world.

Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He’s yelling a name and waving a clipboard. You can’t hear him over the sounds of the crowd stirred from his abrupt arrival. He yells it again, and your son tugs on your jacket and says, “Daddy, that’s me.”

Before you know it, they grab your boy. “Wait a minute. Hold on!”

The man and the small group the accompanied him say, “It’s okay, your son’s blood is clean or at least we are pretty sure. We want to take him inside and run another test to be sure he doesn’t have the disease. But we think he is the one we have been looking for.”

Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one another – some are even laughing. It’s the first time you have seen anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor who you notice is not smiling, laughing or hugging anyone walks up to you and says, “Thank you, sir. Your son’s blood is perfect. It’s clean, it is pure, and we can make the vaccine.”

Word begins to spread rapidly across the parking lot full of folks, people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying.

The gray-haired doctor pulls you and your wife aside and says, “May we see you for a moment? We didn’t realize that the donor would be a minor and we need…” He pauses as he is regaining his composure and fear strikes you like it has never struck you before. “We need you to sign a consent form.”

You take the clipboard and are just about to sign when you notice that this would give permission for them to take all of your son’s blood. “You can’t be serious!”

The old doctor looks down and adds, “We had no idea it would be a little child.”

“Yes, my son.”

“We were expecting an adult and we,” the doctor continued, “We just weren’t prepared. I am truly sorry, but we need all of you sons blood.”

“But-but … You don’t understand.”

The doctor raised his head to look you in the eye. “We are talking about the world here. Please sign. You son is our only hope!”

“But can’t you give him a transfusion?”

“If we had clean blood we would. Now, please sign the form so we can get started? “

In a small corner of a crowded parking lot with a great sea of noise, a silence falls upon your soul and for a long moment you just stand there. What choice do you have? If you don’t sign, then everyone in the world dies. On the other hand, how could you sign your only son’s life away. A numbness overtakes your heart as you finally and reluctantly sign the form.

The doctor asks, “Would you like to have a moment with him before we begin?”

You walk back to the room where your son sits on the stretcher. You walk in and sit down next to him.

“Daddy? Mommy? What’s going on?”

You take your son’s hand and choking back the tears as best as you can say, “Son, you know that your mommy and I love you, and we would never ever let anything, happen to you that didn’t just have to be. Do you understand that?”

The doctor comes into the room and says, “I’m sorry, we’ve got to get started. People all over the world are dying.”

You stay as long as you can bear to take. However, as you leave the room, you here the frail thin voice of you son cries out, “Dad? Mom? Dad? Why – why have you forsaken me?”

You rush back into the room, but it is too late. Your son has past away giving his blood to save the world.

The following week, they have a ceremony to honor your son. Some of the folks sleep through it because they don’t see it as important. Some folks don’t come because they would prefer to go to the lake, and some folks come wearing a pretentious smile and just pretend to care.

In the middle of the ceremony, your heart is pounding. Your son gave everything for the world and so many didn’t seem to care. You want to jump up and yell, “MY SON DIED FOR YOU! DON’T YOU CARE?”

SCRIPTURE

Isn’t that what GOD wants to say? “MY SON DIED FOR YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I CARE?”

How much love did it take for God to watch his son be beaten suffer and die for us. How much love does it take for him to continually be putting his hands out and calling for us to receive Jesus’s gift at the cross. God loves us to much there really is no earthly way to measure it.

CONCLUSION

If you have never taken a moment to call on the SON who gave his life for you, please do so now (you can go to http://www.fireknights.net/ICB/index.php?arena=jesusfreaks&page=jesus and read about how to become saved by Jesus the Son).

I want to thank the great guys over at My Life Ministries (http://mylifeministries.org/) for encouraging me and hosting this blog. If you haven’t done so yet, hop over to http://mylifeministries.org/ and take a look around. Join the forums and become part of the family.

Also, if you have a testimony, email it to me at testify {at} fireknights {dot} net. I would love to hear it and I may just post it here on the blog.

INTRODUCTION

I have not posted in a bit because I have been struggling with some issues and would ask that everyone just pray for my family and me. Lately, we have battled sickness, stress, attacks and money issues. While not all of these are resolved yet, we know that God is working for us. So, when you get a moment, say a prayer for us.

Given that almost my entire family was sick and is now feeling better, I couldn’t have thought of a better post then a testimony about how God miraculously healed my son after a nasty fall.

FALLING IN TO THE HANDS OF GOD

In April of 2004, I was home watching television on our second story apartment. My oldest daughter, Katie, was visiting the bathroom while my youngest daughter, Abby, was watching television with me. I had fallen asleep because I was up all night doing something for the church and was very tired. Katie, as I mentioned, was on the bathroom and assumed that Abby was watching my 18-month-old son, James. Abby assumed that Katie was playing with James. James had decided that this moment was the best time to go into Katie’s bedroom and play completely unhindered to do what he pleased (he so loves his sisters). During the course of his playing, and for some reason that I do not know for sure, he leaned on the screen in the window and promptly fell out. When my downstairs neighbor came to the door telling us she found James crawling outside, I had thought it was a cruel joke. That was until she stepped into the apartment holding James in her arms. Immediately I leapt from the couch and examined my son. While I am not a doctor, I do have some medical training and what I found distressed me. His rib cage was not intact, but was solid-floating pieces not securely attached as one’s rib cage is. His eyes were sleepy and listless and his head and neck were not working right probably an indication of severe head trauma. He barely responded to my touch and wasn’t really crying very much. Honestly, I feared the worst as I called my wife at work because we had only one car. While I had waited for my wife, I prayed to Jesus that he heal my little boy. She raced home and we rushed James to the hospital (HEB Harris in Bedford). We got to the hospital and were immediately rushed into a special room that was made of almost all glass. It was obvious that they were watching us. To make a long story short, they ran every test they could including x-rays and that very large thing I can’t remember the name of where they create a 3D map of the brain. During this time, the doctor’s kept coming in and asking us if we were sure he fell out of the window. We were as the front door was locked, and the screen was out of the window that the neighbor found him near on the ground. Finally, they came in and told us that there was nothing wrong with him. Prior to this, I had done another exam myself and discovered that his rib cage had been, well, reformed. His head and neck were fine and he was no longer lethargic. Now, I am sure that anyone would be able to tell if their son’s rib cage was whole or not and James’s was not after falling out of the window. Now, in the hospital, he was fine except for a tiny little scratch on his head barely noticeable. The only difference was my praying over him. Well, I called my family doctor the next day for a follow up ordered by the hospital. He told us to bring James in immediately because he was certain the hospital missed something. The reason was that he saw two kids earlier that week that had fallen (one out of a first story window and totally messed up their face and head, the second out of a shopping cart and had a cracked it’s skull). We brought James in and he did a thorough exam and found nothing. He told us that a fall out of a second story window should have resulted in massive head trauma, neck and back damage as well as most likely, given his size and weight and the distance of the fall, the cracking of many of his ribs which is exactly what I found when I was handed James and yet he was healed. He told us to go and give thanks and count our blessings and we did just that on that day and every day since then.

SCRIPTURE

I can’t express how much more this scripture means to me knowing that God charged his angels to catch my son so that he would not be harmed when it could have ended very badly.

CONCLUSION

The need to have God, Most High, as our dwelling and our refuge in this world is paramount because who among us could really say that they would not like to have angels charged in guarding you so that no harm will befall you. I encourage everyone to make Jesus their refuge, savior and Lord.

I want to thank the great guys over at My Life Ministries (http://mylifeministries.org/) for encouraging me and hosting this blog. If you haven’t done so yet, hop over to http://mylifeministries.org/ and take a look around. Join the forums and become part of the family.

Also, if you have a testimony, email it to me at testify {at} fireknights {dot} net. I would love to hear it and I may just post it here on the blog.