Michael's Story, Pt. 3

This is conducive was was like a light shines in the darkness the darkness, somewhere in there, there's just a really big faith crisis as well. I think it was more along the lines before I learned about alien righteousness as just a just really struggling with my faith in it was like this really bad broken roller coaster that I just wanted to get off of, but I couldn't. And some days I was convinced that the church was true, and then the next damn like it's completely a fraud and I just kept going back and forth on this and and I finally came to the realization that it that it was false and you don't love the Christians on mind is made such a such a huge impact on me. You're one of one of our friends shout out here to Fred Anson really helped me a lot to you because you he encouraged me said you know if if you're in a submarine and you have a compass, it will always say you're going north because of the magnetism in the in the submarine and you need to get out and use that compass and he encouraged me to get away from the church and look at it objectively and once I did that I was appalled by what I saw, you know, the more I look at the church, the more it looks like a cult. I could understand why people said that about Mormonism and it frightened me quite a bit to look at it from an outside perspective and Paul. You were really big influence on me as well. I remember going through. You know the marriage started going through some some big issues and and that was before I left the church and I am over talking to you about Paul and he said you were going to pray for me with your ISU group at seminary yet. I was actually a church we were on gathering on Wednesday nights for further study and its own evangelism.

In particular, to two Muslims and note that the pastor friend of mine who was leading us to the study, asked if there were any prayer requests and and I know you that you were going through a tough time both with your marriage ends with an of the questions you had about the LDS church and and so asked the group to pray for you that night and we spent the first probably five or six minutes or so that that class.

Part pray specifically for you and over your situation. Yeah so I remember that night you I woke up and this is during it right in the middle. My faith crisis that I woke up in it was the strangest thing because I just felt like the atmosphere was different than normal. It felt like there was singing going on, but it was like in a different plane of existence, but I can kind of tell that it was there. Anyway, it is just unlike anything I'd ever experienced and and I got up and is just like wow I feel good and I just I knew what it was I was like right now I'm being prayed over. I don't know how I knew that but in that moment, I just knew that that's what was going on like this is incredible. This this is never happened to me before and I think you I think is really close to accepting Christ that night I I've been really depressed with the faith crisis and the way things were going in my marriage.

At that point and I member going to my sons bedroom. He was probably 2 1/2 at that point, and I knelt by his bad and I realize that in the state that I was in. I couldn't be a good parent to him and I just know the the realization of how pitiful I was just washed over me and I was just like I give up.

God you I can't do this, but I didn't take the next step in actually accept Christ as Lord and Savior my life. I just like I give up. You know I can't do this. It's I kinda reached rock bottom in the air, but I member you can ask you if you had prayed for me the next day and you're like yes we did, and select confirmed that something really was going on that night that I was there was a really interesting time to to be kinda close to you and become your friend through through what you're going through the obviously we have similar journeys in terms of leaving the LDS church, but your experiences is different than mine in several ways in just remember you mentioned that you are. You belong to, like a supersecret Mormon apologist Facebook group will know we we had our own Facebook messenger threads going.

As as evangelical Christians during that time and you were often the topic of discussion on those threads because a lot of us could tell that you were really wrestling with the question of grace and and your salvation and that you were we could sense that you were sincere about it. You know sometimes when you're in the in the head of the trenches of of witnessing to Mormons you experience people who will just say that I agree with just about everything you say you can tell that they really don't record the just looking for that that kind of pat on the back.

Okay your Christian to kinda feeling that we could sense that you were you were not in that place you were you were sincere.

I member having one late night conversation with you over messenger I was working on a paper. You mentioned that I was going to seminary at the time and I was I was up late working on a paper I worked all day and and but I could just sense, through our conversation that you were you working through something and we were talking about Grayson and I brought up the passage. Another we were dead in our sins and trespasses and I asked you check-in a dead person do anything, you know, because we are talking about clerks, righteousness, and just just those conversations that was just it was a real pleasure to be involved in and not wholly experience of seeing you go through go through then seeing God drawing to tell himself. Yeah I'm I'm grateful that you were there at the right time in the right place. I mean there were, there are a couple you know people that just I know God put them there and and you are one of them settled really really good stuff cussing and I like that.

Like I wish I could've been there. Just hearing all this is just an incredible story of Michael coming in on coming to faith in Christ and by just makes me think that like