“I was twenty nine and working in the Careers Service. A most credible and lovely young born again Christian came to work with us for four weeks. She had been a Teacher of Sport and unfortunately had been told that she was ’dying’ - she had an ‘inoperable’ heart condition.
At the end of the first day of working together she witnessed to me and explained that God had sent His Son to die for me and that I could be forgiven all my sins and start a new life! I asked her if he took ’rejects’, she wonderfully told me that He would take anyone! I asked her to ask Him to prove Himself to me! HE DID! I did not go to Him, He came to Me!
The Falklands war was taking place and I had become practically ‘obsessed’ with the horror and sadness of the ‘lost’ lives of the young men who had sailed out on the ‘HMS Invincible ‘and other ships on ‘redundancy’ notices!
If the government didn’t intend to continue to employ them why would it send them to possibly die? Within a couple of weeks, God Himself sent another ’moveable laver’ full of His life-giving water!
Our garden backed onto a tow path along the canal and one night a lady walked towards me as I was returning from walking our dogs with my husband.
Unbelievably she looked directly at me and said “God has told me to tell you that tonight is the night of your salvation!” I couldn’t believe it! My husband carried on with the dogs and went into the house.
The lady went on to explain that she was a born again believer and had been to Church and felt that God had told her to walk back along the canal (which was at the bottom of our garden) and that He had a message to give to someone that night! It was for me!
She asked me if I would be prepared to read a book called the Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, I agreed to read it.
She brought it to my house the next day and when I saw the cover with the ‘jack boot’ and swastika on the front cover I explained that I couldn’t read a book about the horror of the Second World War, and if God loved the Jews what was the holocaust all about!
I took the book and told her it would probably change my life!
I read the first few pages and then rang the office and asked for a day’s annual leave. I read the whole book that day and was thrilled and more than delighted to hear how God had put Corrie and her beautiful sister Betsie in the concentration camps to minister the living Word of God!
I realised that many Jewish people were hearing the good news of Jesus Christ and then dying! But not being lost, but saved forever, even if they went into the ‘gas chamber’...
What wonderful ‘moveable basins’ He had wheeled in their direction, what mercy, what love, what grace!
A little later the lady rang and said she thought it was time I saw the vicar! I really didn’t want to put her off for a few weeks, but she persisted and the day came when I met the vicar at her house.
He prayed a simple prayer and thanked God that I had began to think about Him and he asked God to reveal the truth of Christ to me! He also told me to go and buy a bible and a David Watson booklet called ‘Start a new life’.
I went to the Christian book shop the very next day during my lunch time. As soon as I walked into the shop which I had never been in before, the lady behind the counter who was talking to a customer looked in my direction and declared “Here’s a born again Christian!” I said “I’m not a Christian!”
She looked at me and said “By tonight you will be a Christian!”
I could not believe it!
She held my hand and told me “You already believe in HIM in your heart!”
I bought the bible and booklet and left the shop...
That night I opened the booklet and read the prayer and asked God to forgive me all my sins and cleanse me in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ! Hallelujah!
I was baptised in the Holy Spirit three months later in my bathroom and I have never been the same since!”
