Testify!

[Jozefo]

This seems like the right place, so here goes…

I hope you don’t mind, but I grew up in a very conservative Baptist family, and part of what we did in church in those days was hear testimonies from people in the congregation. They would talk about pretty much anything, but generally relating to how God was present in their lives. So here’s my little story about how God proved he needed me for something.

One day I was driving my pickup on the interstate just outside of Cincinnati during a rainstorm. It was around 2:00 or so, and traffic was light, but the rain was keeping us all close to the speed limit. All in all just a regular day with some rain.

I was listening to the radio and thinking about work, just toodling along when all of the sudden I felt a hand on top of my head. It was like someone picking up a basketball one-handed, fingers all spread out, and the hand squeezed. Hard. Keep in mind I was in a small pickup with no back seat.

I freaked. I reached up to grab the hand - I just knew someone was grabbing my head - and pulled my foot off the gas. As this was happening, I was approaching a rather hard curve in the highway. Not sharp, but I couldn’t see too far beyond the curve. As I slowed down, waving behind my head with my fist, I was frantically looking all around for whoever was grabbing my head. If not for the hand, I never would have slowed down.

I rounded the curve and the hand left my head. I was still looking around, but had one eye on the road, and looked up to see a station wagon full of kids spinning 360 degrees around in the road in front of me. I still remember a young boys face plastered against the the back window. I saw his mother (I suppose she was his mother) desperately trying to regain control on the wet pavement.

My speed had slowed enough that I avoided being hit. We continued for a few hundred yards, her spinning and me totally confused by it all. Finally she straightened out and pulled over to the side of the road. As I passed, I saw her checking her kids. I knew they were fine; I saw the whole thing.

So I continued on my way, still freaked out about the hand on my head, causing me to slow down. I realized that if I had not decelerated, I would have been in a wreck with that woman’s station wagon and her kids!

I chalked it up to God. There was no other explanation. Nothing else made sense.

 

[Gliggle]

lol I like your disclaimer, I need one of those, is it copyright? =-)

Good story, maybe it was your Guardian angel, or someone in the station wagons

 

[SecretaryMonday]

I don’t have a miraculous story, but it’s still kind of cool. Once I was driving home in a half-rural area in the winter. I had an SUV and I was driving behind a young woman in a little car. Two or three miles from the point where I would be turning off the main road, I suddenly thought, “She’s going to turn onto that dirt road with the snowdrift and get stuck.” Earlier that day, I had taken this same road to get into town, and I had managed to get through in 4WD (plus I hit the snowdrift with a little speed so I wouldn’t get stuck), but I was going to take a different road towards home, a more popular one that was plowed regularly.

I thought, “That’s ridiculous. She’s driving a tiny car, and if she lives around here, she’s going to know which roads are safer and which to avoid at the moment.” But even so, I KNEW she was going to get stuck in that snowdrift. So a few miles later, she turned onto that unplowed road, and I followed her even though I was going to take the other route home, and the little car got stuck in the middle of the snowdrift, and I got a shovel to dig it out.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I’ve had a few spiritual experiences, some of which I’ve related on various occasions. But there’s one that I haven’t. It’s nowhere near as interesting or thrilling as the OP’s story, but here goes anyway.

Way back in my Presbyterian days we held a party for a youth group we were leading. It was held in the workshop of one of the leaders who had his own mechanical business at the time.

The next morning I received a phone call from one of the girls mothers saying she’d lost one of her rings at the party, and would I be able to help her find it. I pointed out I didn’t have a key to the workshop, but she said that was OK as her daughter said she lost it outside.

So I went and picked this kid up and we returned to the workshop.

The girl proceeded to walk to the footpath just outside the workshop, and explained she’d been waving her hands around talking to somebody and this ring just flew off her finger.

So we looked around the footpath and found nothing.

She then suggested she loosen one of the other rings she still had on her finger, and wave her hands around again. Now next to where we were standing was a chain wire fence, and the grass on the other side was about three feet high. If her ring flew in there, it was gone - full stop. And on the other side was the road and a dirt and gravel area where customers normally parked their cars.

As far as I was concerned her idea was a sure fire recipe for disaster, and I’d be taking her back to her mother to report she’d managed to lose both rings.

However she insisted, loosened the ring, and started to wave her hands around. But just as she started to do so, I had this very brief, subtle feeling of time standing still, almost as though God was saying “I’m going to pull a swifty here, and I’m not going to let you see how I do it.”

Anyway the ring flew off her finger and away it went. I didn’t even see it go, and so wasn’t going to be much help in finding it. But she saw it, and said it went across the road (at least it hadn’t gone in the grass to my relief).

So we both proceeded to walk across the road to the gravel parking area. We searched around for a couple of minutes, and she suddenly said, “Here it is!” And she bent down to pick up the ring she’d just thrown off. But as she did so, I saw the ring she’d lost the night before no more than a few inches from where she’d just tossed the second one. I couldn’t believe it, but there it was.

By all the odds, she should have lost both rings. Instead she got both of them back.

I was a bit slow on the uptake, but I was able to witness to her mother when we got back to her home. Whether it had any lasting import I don’t know, but I still remember the subtle sense of “I’m going to pull a swifty here etc…” I think God directed the flight of the second ring, so that it landed almost next to the ring she’d lost the night before. And I think what He had in mind was that I would witness to her mother.

Not a very glamorous story, but I’m sure God had a hand in it, even something as small as that.

 

[Carlan]

I’ve had a few spiritual experiences, some of which I’ve related on various occasions. But there’s one that I haven’t. It’s nowhere near as interesting or thrilling as the OP’s story, but here goes anyway.

Way back in my Presbyterian days we held a party for a youth group we were leading. It was held in the workshop of one of the leaders who had his own mechanical business at the time.

The next morning I received a phone call from one of the girls mothers saying she’d lost one of her rings at the party, and would I be able to help her find it. I pointed out I didn’t have a key to the workshop, but she said that was OK as her daughter said she lost it outside.

So I went and picked this kid up and we returned to the workshop.

The girl proceeded to walk to the footpath just outside the workshop, and explained she’d been waving her hands around talking to somebody and this ring just flew off her finger.

So we looked around the footpath and found nothing.

She then suggested she loosen one of the other rings she still had on her finger, and wave her hands around again. Now next to where we were standing was a chain wire fence, and the grass on the other side was about three feet high. If her ring flew in there, it was gone - full stop. And on the other side was the road and a dirt and gravel area where customers normally parked their cars.

As far as I was concerned her idea was a sure fire recipe for disaster, and I’d be taking her back to her mother to report she’d managed to lose both rings.

However she insisted, loosened the ring, and started to wave her hands around. But just as she started to do so, I had this very brief, subtle feeling of time standing still, almost as though God was saying “I’m going to pull a swifty here, and I’m not going to let you see how I do it.”

Anyway the ring flew off her finger and away it went. I didn’t even see it go, and so wasn’t going to be much help in finding it. But she saw it, and said it went across the road (at least it hadn’t gone in the grass to my relief).

So we both proceeded to walk across the road to the gravel parking area. We searched around for a couple of minutes, and she suddenly said, “Here it is!” And she bent down to pick up the ring she’d just thrown off. But as she did so, I saw the ring she’d lost the night before no more than a few inches from where she’d just tossed the second one. I couldn’t believe it, but there it was.

By all the odds, she should have lost both rings. Instead she got both of them back.

I was a bit slow on the uptake, but I was able to witness to her mother when we got back to her home. Whether it had any lasting import I don’t know, but I still remember the subtle sense of “I’m going to pull a swifty here etc…” I think God directed the flight of the second ring, so that it landed almost next to the ring she’d lost the night before. And I think what He had in mind was that I would witness to her mother.

Not a very glamorous story, but I’m sure God had a hand in it, even something as small as that.

Peace, Carlan

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I’ll relate two stories, both from Baptist ministers, as my wife is Baptist, and so I sometimes go along to her church. However the first minister’s testimony dates back a few years. His first name is Alan.

When he was still a school age teenager, he said he twice had his life saved by supernatural means. On one occasion he was sitting with his back against an old concrete water tower near his school, reading a book. Suddenly a voice said to him with great urgency out of nowhere - “Alan! Run!!” - and he found himself doing a hundred meter sprint in a couple of seconds.

As he did so the tower collapsed behind him. If he’d stayed there he’d have been killed. And the voice did not come from another human being. In any case nobody would have known it was about to collapse.

On the second occasion he was following his father through long grass on their farm property, when suddenly he just could not move. He said it was like being held in a giant hand. No matter what he did, he couldn’t shift. Eventually his father wondered why he’d stopped, and came back to get him, probably a bit annoyed.

But as he did so his father spotted a Death Adder right where Alan would have put his next step. As he said, they strike like greased lightning. And way back then there was probably no antidote. So twice he had his life saved by direct supernatural means.

The other story I heard this morning, and wasn’t quite so dramatic, but it was pretty clear God had a hand in it.

I go to my wife’s Baptist Church about once a month, and I went there this morning.

We were both Protestant when we married, so I tag along for family reasons. Anyway the senior pastor there said his father had a severe stroke about two months ago. It’s been pretty stressful for the pastor as he’s had to fly up and down to southern New South Wales to visit his father in a nursing home, and also act as power of attorney for his incapacitated father.

One of the items to be dealt with is the sale of his father’s home. He also wanted to sell the furniture with the house, as he didn’t need the inconvenience of selling or transporting the furniture separately, from a distance of about 1000 kilometres or more.

Now in his father’s small country town prices are low, and it would apparently sell for about $120,000. Anyway the pastor was in the local bank and the teller was going through the paperwork, and he was standing next to the window, just waiting.

As he did so, another chap was at the next window, and he overheard his conversation with his teller. It seemed the other bloke had sold a one bedroom unit in Sydney, and had about $120,000 remaining, and was looking to buy a house in the town for around that amount. But he complained to the teller that all the homes around that price that he’d been shown were rubbish.

The pastor’s ears picked up, and he waited for the chap outside the bank, introduced himself, and to cut a long story short, took him to his father’s house to have a look. The chap was very happy with it, and wanted the furniture since all he had was a bed and lounge suite. I think right now the sale is going through.

Now the pastor, family and congregation no doubt had been praying for some sort of solution to the problems facing him as he tried to handle his father’s affairs from a considerable distance.

And there was the solution, standing next door to him in the bank. Not only that, but he had exactly what the other bloke wanted.