Just to be real...

I did not become a Christian until I was in my late twenties, but Jesus started working on me long before that. Neither through fault nor credit of my own, I had the opportunity to travel, and one day, I found myself in the city Minsk, Belarus, waiting to board a bus for the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre. The year was 1988, I was 17 years old, and the country was the communist Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.). Somehow, while I was waiting with a small crowd of other tourists, I met a young man. We'll call him Andre. He spoke Russian. I spoke English. We both spoke broken Spanish. We only had a few minutes, but in that time, he managed to ask me if I had a Bible. Having a Bible in the Soviet Union was not illegal, but it was most definitely not encouraged, and people had been severely persecuted for less. I did not have a Bible with me. What I did have, however, was a wonderful memory, much better than I have now, and stored in that adolescent flip file were Bible verses, and a great many other things, that meant little to me at the time. You see, I had gone through a class at the church I had attended, and even though I was not a Christian yet, the Bible verses stuck. I promised Andre that if he met me the next day before I left for another city, then I would have some Bible verses for him. 

After the ballet, I returned to the hotel and wrote down every Bible verse I could remember, and the words of some hymns, too, just for good measure, on Intourist--the official travel agency of the Soviet Union--paper. The next morning, I waited for Andre in front of the hotel. He showed up...just before I got on the bus. He looked at me. I looked at him. I don't think we said anything to each other. I simply handed him the papers. He shoved them inside his jacket, turned around, and ran. 

It was an impact event. 

An impact event changes your life. 

The size of the event itself does not matter. Its impact changes your life forever. 

I didn't know much, but I knew that Andre had just risked everything, quite possibly his very life, to get his hands on some information that I had not quite randomly stored in my head. It was years before I understood why. Today, the Bible, the Word of God, is my lifeline. 

Andre, wherever you are, and wherever you were going, I hope you made it...and thanks. 

What happened?

After my brief, but life-changing, encounter with Andre, I did what a lot of Americans do. I graduated from high school, finished college--with a degree in English and secondary education--, and got married. Then I went to graduate school. Those are stories for another time. What happened after graduate school, however, is the story for now. 

Not long after I graduated, Jesus sat me down...quite literally. Pain in my feet knocked me off of them and into a wheelchair. It wasn't that I couldn't walk, but I couldn't walk without a lot of pain, and that's what the doctors had me do. It was a dark time, but light shines best in the darkness, and one Wednesday morning became painfully bright. 

That morning, I had a dream...

I was walking along the beach pushing my bike, a symbol for my life. Jesus ran up beside me. He wore blue running shorts with white trim, and my dream never showed His face, but I knew it was Him, and He asked me one question:

"Can I push your bike for you?"

I told Him, "No." That was wrong answer. I did tell Him, however, that He could walk with me, since we were going to the same place. I pushed my bike all the way to a short wooden dock with a small wooden raft tied to it by a rope. Jesus got on the raft. Meanwhile, I leaned my bike up against one of the dock's posts. When I tried to step onto the raft, the rope that had held it to the dock became a snake, wrapped around my ankle, and bound me to the dock. When I looked up, the raft had drifted away with Jesus on it. 

"Wait for me, Jesus!" I cried. 

"I can't," He called back. 

Then I woke up, and I knew. I knew that my sin--the snake--chained me down, and that if I had died at that moment, I was not going with Jesus. I was not going to Heaven. I was going to Hell, and it was my own choice.

"Jesus, save me!" 

He did...and then I understood why Andre had risked everything to have His words. 

John 6:63 KJV says, "...the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." 

He wasn't kidding, but they are not just for me. They are for every person, in every place...They are for you.

I would love to tell you that after I became a Christian, life became so much easier.

Nope. 

It actually seemed to become one crisis after another...again, stories for another time. An acquaintance, however, showed me that I was looking at things the wrong way...I was not living from crisis to crisis, but from glory to glory...because through everything, Jesus has been with me. He was, and still is, changing me to be more like Him, though I have a l...o...n...g way to go. He wastes nothing, and knowing Him is worth it all. 

I know neither your back story nor what you are going through now...but if you are not facing a challenge, just wait. One will show up, and it may not be one that I have faced. That said, you don't have to face it alone. I am hoping that Every Place Press may have something to encourage you, but if you don't see it yet, don't worry. Jesus is in every place...He sees you. He hears you. He loves you.  

You matter...

because Jesus says so.