The following testimony was initially written as a letter to 2 very dear friends of mine, but my husband and I came to realize that the narrative and, most importantly the Scriptures cited here, may also be a blessing to others.

My pilgrimage to the Lord’s bosom began as a young person raised by my father and stepmother after my parents’ divorce. I was born in Pennsylvania, and one day my father told my Mother that he was taking me on vacation with my step-mother and never returned. I was four years old. I learned never to mention my Mother again to them.

My half-brother and I were taken to the Lutheran church by my step-mom. I enjoyed church, but never really understood what was going on. The Bible confused me, but I thought I did love God.

When I married for the first time at age 20, my husband and I were working for an ophthalmologist who professed Christianity. So did many that we worked with. I got a bad taste for those claiming to be “born-again” because I was expected to partake in what I considered forced prayer sessions before work, questions about my faith, and the requirement to take notes during work (in surgery) as I was forced to listen (and pay attention) to a pastor being broadcast over the surgery speakers. After growing intensely uneasy with this environment, I left this employ and moved on. However, there was beginning to awaken in me the understanding that I was not close to God, even if I did not agree with the actions and attitudes (platitudes) of those who professed to know Him.

My husband and I began to attend churches in our town. We never really stayed at one very long, and we were trying different denominations to see where we would fit in. It was during this time that I began to earnestly desire to search for my birth mother. I certainly yearned for her my whole childhood, but never really had any idea about how to go about finding her. I had so very little information about her. The only thing that I knew was that I shared her name; her first name is my middle name. My husband was very supportive of this desire and encouraged me to find her at every turn.

I did not have possession of my birth certificate, but had filled out the necessary forms and was eagerly awaiting its arrival when out of the blue, I got a very unexpected phone call from my aunt. I had not spoken to her in many years, as there were always constant rifts in my family, and when my father and stepmother got upset with someone, including a relative, I would not see them for years, maybe never again. After catching up on our lives, my aunt astounded me by mentioning my birth mother. No one in my father’s family had dared mention my mother around me, and my aunt now felt the freedom to do so, since I was away from home and married.

My heart nearly burst with excitement as my dear aunt told me how she knew my mother and actually had pictures of her that she had been keeping for me! I nearly fainted at the news. Shortly thereafter, I was able to see that face that I had long forgotten despite my unsuccessful attempts to hold on to the memory of the woman who was my mother and whom I vowed in my heart that I would never forget, and never stop loving.

Not long after these events, I received my birth certificate. Armed with 3 names that I now knew had belonged to my mother at some point in her life, we headed to a university in Tampa, Florida because we found that they had phone books there from all over the country; no internet back then to make things easy! We realized what a crazy, long shot we were taking. Trying to locate my mother by either her maiden name, the name she used when my father and aunt first met her--she had been married before my father--and lastly, my father’s last name. I thought, surely she would not be using any of these names; she most likely remarried, but I believed that this was at least a start.

The day we went to the library, we decided to start with the Pennsylvania phone book and then fan out from there. (What were we thinking, right?) Well, I compiled 11 sheets of notebook paper, with names and numbers on each page. I was so excited! What if my mother’s phone number was on one of these sheets, I kept thinking over and over.

No sleep came to my eyes that night, and the next day, my husband and I had planned to go boating. He assured me that we could come back home early so I could begin calling names on my list. He went out in the garage to gather supplies, and I went to my pile of names. I scanned them over and rationalized in my mind why she would still be using one name over another. To my way of thinking, she would not have gone back to using her first husband’s name, but as I scanned over and over the pages, one name seemed to stand out to me more than the rest. No matter; I would call this one first. My plan was to call just one name to get it “out of my system”, because you just cannot know how badly I wanted to find my mother and how beside myself I was that I just may have her phone number on my many lists.

So, here I was, supposed to be getting ready myself, preparing lunch, getting drinks together, or so my husband thought I was doing. I pick up a page and start to dial the number. The phone rings once, twice, three times, and a kindly sounding woman answers.

I ask for the name on the paper.

“Who am I speaking to?” she asks.

I answered with my maiden name, as I knew this was the name my mother would know me by. She then began to ask me several questions, “How old are you? Where do you live?”

In my mind, I am thinking, “Well, I called this lady, and she has every right to ask these questions.” But as she kept posing these questions, my heart started to race faster and faster. Could this be my Mother? After several questions, she stopped, and there was silence that seemed to last forever. Suddenly, she asked the most important question of all, “Do you know who this is?” I just burst out from the depth of my being, “Mother!” We began to sob and I just kept repeating, “Mother,” as she kept saying my name. So many years of our emotions just burst through in those first few moments, and when I had gone through almost a box of tissues, I told my mother these words, “Mother, I have never stopped thinking about you and never stopped loving you, and I wanted so badly to find you and tell you that.”

I will never forget what my mother replied to me, "I have been praying that if I never saw you again on this earth, that I would one day see you in Heaven.”

Those words did not shock me at all; I was very moved, but I also realized that my mother seemed to have a strong faith in God, and surely, as I held all those 11 pages of names in my hand and explained to my mother how hers was the first one I called, I had the very strong impression that God had a lot to do with all that had just transpired.

A week later, I was standing on a street in Philadelphia watching a small framed lady wearing large sunglasses, with short, curly hair, and dressed so sweetly in a frilly blouse and long skirt walk towards me. Moments later, I was in the arms of my mother, and as we held each other, it was as if those many years were but moments. The time span just seemed to close up, and if was as if I just returned from my trip after telling my Mother as a small child as she stood there crying, “I’ll be back.”

We only spent a weekend with Mother. I was so amazed to see that she had verses that she had written down and tacked up here and there, and her conversation was always punctuated by references to the Lord or her heavenly Father. Even though I had been offended by all of those who professed a relationship with the Lord at work, my mother’s display of faith did not bother me in the least. To me, she seemed sincere and genuine, and not pushy or fake in her faith. The time passed all too quickly, and we were on the road again back to Florida, but not without me promising that I would be back the next month by myself so we could spend more time together.

During the next few days and weeks, I was just in awe over the whole course of events and how it all unfolded, step by step, as if by some unseen, guiding hand. My thoughts began to turn to God, Who I believed with all my heart had made all this possible, and I wanted to show Him my appreciation and gratitude in some way. The best way, I determined, would be to continue to go to church--that would surely please Him--and maybe get more involved or go more often, and read my Bible.

About a week before I was to leave for Pennsylvania, I was in my car driving to AAA to pick up my plane ticket and decided to stop at the bank drive-through first. I had a cassette in my radio. Do you remember the ones with those black push buttons that you had to push in so hard and so far that you thought they would break? Anyway, I was listening to my favorite group at the time and finished up there at the drive-through window, and the thought came to me to change to the radio and start looking for a station. Well, this was very strange because I loved this group and was enjoying the tape, but the impulse was so strong, that I found myself turning the dial “looking” for a station. This was also weird because I already had my favorite stations preset with those impossible black buttons.

Suddenly, I stopped when I heard a very familiar voice, one I had heard many times working in surgery, for the ophthalmologist. It was that pastor, the one whom I could not stand to listen to. I quickly turned the radio off. My next thought, after listening to many, many of his sermons, was, “Well, maybe I should listen just this once more. Maybe he will say something this time that I may need to hear.”

The moment I turned that dial back on, I heard words to this effect, “Some of you out there think that you are going to heaven, but if you were to die tonight, you would learn that you would have to give an account of yourself to the Lord.” He also said that there were pastors, deacons, Sunday school teachers, and churchgoers out there who would have to answer to the Lord for their sins. Well, this got my attention for two reasons. Firstly, that is exactly how I was thinking, that I was going to heaven. After all, I was going to church. Didn’t that make the Lord happy with me? Also, He had helped me find my mother. However, when the preacher spoke about pastors and deacons, and churchgoers not being right with God, I began to grow a little nervous. Up until then, I had lived a very sinful life and did not even concern myself with what the Lord thought about what I was saying, doing, or thinking.

Now if a pastor may not be right with God, how in the world could I think that I was, when I had only been going to church regularly for a short time, and hadn’t he said that even church goers were not safe either? My fear slowly began to increase as I drove to AAA and pulled into the parking lot and sat there glued to his every word, the same man whom I loathed to hear when I was forced to pay attention to him and take notes.

This message seemed to be for me. One by one, he knocked down all of the “props” that were keeping my so-called faith up, that falsely assured me that I was right with God and that all was well. As each prop was exposed as futile, I realized that I was relying on myself and what I did or did not do to earn my way into Heaven, to have a relationship with God, Who I always felt was a million miles away no matter how hard I tried to be a good person and do what must surely please Him.

I remember sitting there, already feeling such fear and dread, when this man shared a passage of Scripture that literally shattered the remaining hope that I had of ever being accepted by God.

Matthew 7: 21 ¶ Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

There it was, right from the Scriptures, the Lord confirming that all my “wonderful works” were not going to gain me entrance into heaven, not going to earn me any favor with God whatsoever. Now what? I was so tormented and thought that I would surely have a heart attack if this man did not share what to do. Nothing mattered at that moment but that I wanted to be right with the Lord, to be accepted by Him, and to be pleasing in His sight.

I realized that all my efforts at pleasing the Lord fell woefully short of His righteousness and that I could not determine how to come to God, how to be right with Him. Oh, how I could hardly wait to hear how to be rescued from certain eternal separation from the Lord.

Here was my answer in this simple sounding, yet astoundingly complex verse, these wonderful words of life, the full import of which the Lord would, in time, teach me.

Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There was no doubt in my mind, without anyone telling me, that I was indeed a sinner. The Word of God tells us:

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?
I knew in my heart that I was capable of hate, of unforgiveness, of jealousy, of envy and pride, and the list went on and on. However, the Lord commands us to be holy, as He is holy. How could I ever attain to that?

1 Peter 1:16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

Before the Pastor finished his message, something incredible had taken place. I was aware that the Lord had wrought a tremendous change in me. I certainly did not understand the Scriptures at that point, but in time I came to understand that the Lord had had mercy on me, changed my heart, and made me His child.

Ezekiel 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

I decided not to share what transpired that day between me and the Lord, how that despite my ignorance of the Word of God, I knew that the Lord was my savior and my God, that I was now His child, and that His Son the Lord Jesus Christ paid the penalty that was rightfully mine so that I could be right with Him.

2 Corinthians 5:21 For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

The next week I was in my mother’s tiny apartment, sitting across from her after sharing our evening meal. We pushed aside our plates, and my mother began to tell me that she has something on her heart that she just needed to share with me. I had to insist that she listen to what I had to say first, because I knew that whatever she wanted to tell me would pale in comparison to what I was now going to reveal to her.

I still remembered the words she spoke to me on that first day that I found her, “I have been praying that if I never saw you again on this earth, that I would one day see you in Heaven.” I knew that since we were reunited, she still had the latter hope in her heart. I began to pour out what took place on that fateful day in my car in front of AAA. As I reached the part about the change that took place, my mother suddenly jumped up and ran to her room sobbing. She later told me that she had just wanted to express her gratefulness to the Lord for this new and all encompassing blessing. Now she had the answer to both her prayers.

As my pilgrimage with the Lord was in its early stages, I began to seek out a church in earnest, one that more faithfully proclaimed the Truths of the Bible. I did not have much Bible knowledge at the time, but this much I knew: the Bible is the only source of Truth, and in It are the Words of Life.

Psalms 18:30 [As for] God, his way [is] perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he [is] a buckler to all those that trust in him.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God [is] quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and [is] a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

During the ensuing years, I learned to study the Bible, comparing Scripture with Scripture to learn Truth. The Bible was penned by men, but the message contained in its pages is from the mind of God, not man, and man cannot comprehend the mind of God.

2 Peter 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost.

Isaiah 55:8 For my thoughts [are] not your thoughts, neither [are] your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

So, finding a church that taught the Truths of God’s Word and did not mix human reasoning, all the while twisting the message to suit their agenda and conform to their denomination’s dogma, was impossible. Listening to message after message in church after church, denomination after denomination, I realized that the Truth was so diluted and filtered through the minds of men, hence the many variations of denominations and doctrines, that I might never find a church that is faithful to the message of the Gospel. Now I should say that we as a family have come to realize this. Every denomination had a different Gospel, yet they all had one common theme in expressing how one may get right with the Lord, become saved, be born-again, whatever expression they chose to use. The commonality amongst all the religions of the world is that you have to do something to earn your salvation. However, I learned from the Bible, the mind of God, not from man and his sin-clouded reasoning:

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.

As a mother, I yearned to find a church where my sons would learn and grow in the Word of God and not be deluded and deceived. At this time, I was learning from the only Source of Truth, that it is possible to be deceived, even when the one bringing the message seems so trustworthy. These verses kept me in prayer.

2Thessalonians 2:3 ¶ Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
5 Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

After watching for years the deterioration of the Gospel in church after church, and the man-made do-it-yourself salvation plans that mankind have devised to suit their desires, the Lord began to show us in His Word that there would come a time when He would cease to use the local congregations, the churches, to be His messengers, and worse yet, they would be the seat of Satan and would be under His judgment. Again, from 2 Thessalonians 2:4:

Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

And also:

Matthew 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand.) 16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

After seeing the destruction of Truth and the worldliness and humanism seeping deeper and deeper into the congregations, it became apparent what the preceding verses were teaching. Where is the temple; where is the holy place? Wasn’t it in the churches that we were to learn Truth, and worship God? What about all the signs-and-wonders Gospels and name-it-and-claim-it teachings? What about all the televangelists that stand there spouting verses, and claiming the anointing of the Holy Spirit? Back to 2 Thessalonians 2:

6 And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
8 And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
9 Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.

We came to believe the Truth of God’s Word that these verses were warning us that the time would come that the Holy Spirit would be “taken out of the way”, that Satan would take his seat in the temple (the corporate churches), and that God would send a strong delusion that they would believe a lie. That lie is that they would believe that they were worshipping God, but they would instead be worshipping and following Satan.

2 Corinthians 11:13 For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.
14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.

It is very astounding indeed to learn this, that Satan is transformed into an angel of light and that his ministers are transformed as the ministers of righteousness! Additionally, the Scriptures teach that the churches would be under judgment, and those who remain would be deluded and believe a lie. The church would become a very dangerous place to be, and we needed to flee.

Matthew 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand.) 16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains.

So that is where we are in our pilgrimage with the Lord right now. I say we because our family is very like-minded. The like-mindedness that we share in our faith and understanding of what the Word of God teaches is what ultimately led Tony and me together. The Lord has indeed taught us much from His Word, and Tony has shared some of what he has been learning on this website.

We also believe that it is very possible that the Lord may be coming back very, very soon. Serious and historically faithful students of the Bible have worked (one for more than 50 years) on understanding the calendars of the Bible and have put forth a timeline that suggests that the coming of the Lord may very well be in 2011. The Bible does teach that “of that day and hour knoweth no man”, but the following passage should be considered.

1Thessalonians 5:2 For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
3 For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

The unsaved will be taken by surprise because they are in darkness.

Luke 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.

On the day of the Lord’s return when He comes in judgment, the believer will not be in darkness. It will not overtake us as a thief. In this critical time before His return, we are to be ready for His soon return and prepared to give account to Him at any time, whether it be in 2011, fifty years from now, or even tomorrow. None of us is guaranteed another breath. The Bible teaches that at the time of the end, many will turn aside to teachers that give a message that is pleasing to the hearts and minds of men, and those teachers will turn their ears away from the Truth.

2Timothy 4:1 ¶ I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

It is sobering to contemplate that He will return as Judge of all the Earth:

John 12:48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

2 Timothy 4:1 ¶ I charge [thee] therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.

The wonderful mercy of God promises that, for the elect, His chosen, His appearing will bring joy, rejoicing, and peace, knowing that our salvation will be complete and that He will not return for us in judgment.

Hebrews 9:28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

For further Biblical information, please read the following article written by my husband: "Why Can't We Choose To Be Saved?"