by Linda Beach
Becky Kelley’s video takes me back many years to 1954. As I close my eyes, I see a young girl seated on the floor in front of the TV, mesmerized by the sight of a transformed Ebeneezer Scrooge.
Ebenezer throws open his window and shouts to the boy below, “What day is this, my boy?”
“It’s Christmas, Sir,” the boy replies.
“It’s Christmas!” Scrooge shouts in triumph. “The spirits have done it all in one night.” Then Scrooge invites the boy to go shopping with him. For his clerk, he purchases a huge Christmas goose with all the trimmings, toys for the children, and a special gift for Tiny Tim.
The girl’s mouth drops open as she watches the stingy old man joyfully canceling debts owed to him by neighborhood merchants and giving a generous offering to the men he had thrown out of his office the day before. In her spirit, she hears a voice saying, “Someday you will be changed, just like Scrooge.” The child was me, and the voice was God.
From that day on, God used many experiences to draw me to Himself. First, I returned to school to find a substitute who loved to pray. Every day she led our class in repeating “The Lord’s Prayer. It was also the year the Gideons traditionally gave New Testaments to fourth-graders, so for the first time, I owned a Bible.
Then God spoke to me “through the rocks”. Let me explain. In those days people wrote Bible verses on rocks along the highways between our home in Ohio and my grandparents’ home in West Virginia. During our trips, I began to read them. “Ye must be born again!”, “Repent and be saved!” “God is love.” As I thought about their meaning, God would whisper, “You need to be saved!.”
From fourth grade to ninth, God kept probing my mind and spirit with questions, like… “If you died would you go to heaven?” “How do you really want to live your life?” “Why don’t you go to church?”
In ninth grade I began going to church with a neighbor, (who by the way, had been inviting my parents to church from the day we moved into the neighborhood). When I heard in Sunday school class that Jesus died on the cross for me personally, and that I could have a fresh new start by receiving Jesus as Savior, I knew that I had discovered Ebenezer’s secret! He had been “born again”.
Six months later, I knelt at an altar on a beautiful spring day and received Jesus into my life. Wow, did He make a difference! From that day on I never felt alone, for he has always been present. He became my purpose for living, my hope for the future, and my strength through every trial. So as watched the video, http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=OExXItDyWEY&vq=medium, I realized that the “line to see Jesus” started for me in front of the TV with Ebeneezer Scrooge.
About the Author:
Linda Beach
email: lbeach7@neo.rr.com
I am a freelance writer specializing in writing children’s Sunday school curriculum. I have also written magazine articles on health and faith issues. My blog is at linkstoprayer.blogspot.com
Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS
