Why I became a Christian. A healing story.
I grew up in the Qualicum area on Vancouver Island. There are 8 people in my family — my parents, 5 boys and 1 girl (second oldest). I am the second youngest. I am a year and a half apart from either brother. My parents tried to bring us up with Christian values and often read us Bible stories or mission stories when we were growing up. The problem in our family was probably like many families. My parents grew up in very authoritative backgrounds and never were shown the love that children should have when they are growing up. My dad grew up in a children's home of 100 kids run by his parents.
My mom grew up between her home and different childrens' homes. Growing up we were always living in places that were a little ways out of town. We were home schooled and not a part of any home school association, so the only friends we had were each other. When I was thirteen I was very sad because my older brother had been really mean to me. One particular time I was crying in my tent and asking God for help. I did not really know God, but had heard many things about Him. I did not seem to get any answer, so I made a decision that I had had enough with God and was going to live and try and learn how to make friends the "World's" way. At age 15 I started high school for the first time along with my older brother John, who was 16.
I started smoking just before going to high school and then started drinking soon after coming to high school. At age 19 I moved in with one of my best friends in Victoria on Vancouver Island and started to do what most people my age were doing — going to the bars and trying to pick up girls. I never had any long-lasting relationships though and just kept going because that was where my friends wanted to go.
When I was 19, two of my brothers went to visit our cousins in Switzerland. They were skiing one foggy day and my brother John hit a cross slope ditch that he didn't see and broke his leg very badly. He was rushed to the hospital and had one of the top two doctors in Switzerland operate on him. The doctor's team almost gave up on his leg and nearly amputated it. In the last minutes they were able to put the pieces back together. They put a steel sleeve around his femer because it was fractured so badly.
The doctor told him that he would not be able to play sports at high intensity again. John became a Christian while he was in Switzerland, and our uncle prayed for his leg and told him to never give up praying. He had really seen the Spirit of God do many things while he was there–one reason he decided to give his life to God and also to keep praying.
He came back to Vancouver Island to get his left knee operated on because so much scar tissue had built up in the knee from the time of the break. (He partially tore a ligament and could only bend it half way.) The surgeon told him it would take at least 3 operations to correct the problem to get the knee back to 90% of normal.) A while later he was at a Sunday morning service in a small church in Qualicum.
The visiting evangelist who was leading the service started it off by saying that many people come to healing service to see miracles, but never really give their lives to God. So, instead of him praying for people, the evangelist said they were just going to worship God and Jesus was going to start healing people.
While softly singing the words: 'Hallelujah' and 'Holy Spirit' the evangelist said there was someone in the place who had a torn ligament and restricted movement in their left knee and God was going to heal them if they would have the faith. John said he just prayed: "God I don't have any faith
but please heal my knee." Well, when John left that worship meeting his knee was completely healed. He has all the x-rays to prove it. The doctors could not believe it and of course could not explain it. John told me this, but this did not make me want to change my life and start living for God. At this point I was quite mad at God.
