Jo Heath is a friend of my wife and me. She sent us her story after reading my testimony:
I just read your testimony. I see where your daughter gets her step-by-step logical examination of things! Yours is a brutally honest, logical testimony that is sure to get nonbelievers to, at the very least, pique their curiosity. All that being said, one little part of your story hit me to the core. You and I share the same initial contact with God Almighty!
I grew up on a farm with 8 siblings. My dad loved me, but he was in the fields or in town drinking. My mother hated me. All my siblings will testify to that.
Although I wouldn’t have had the word for it, I was an extremely depressed child. At age 4 I actually made a feeble suicide attempt. One day, when around the age of 7, I had climbed a tree and was simply hanging out with the birds when a thought came to me. Although there was no indication in our home that there were any believers residing there, we nonetheless attended church in town regularly. Tradition, I suspect.
Anyway, I heard about this “God” man but was of course clueless; however, I must have understood that he wanted good for us. So, in the tree I spoke to this possible “God” and told him, “If there really is a God, my life wouldn’t be so horrible,” and immediately I was wrapped in unseen arms with my head tucked into his chest, and I felt a supernatural warmth! I had never been loved on like that EVER! A silent voice told me to “hang in there; when you are 18, things will get better.”
From 7–18 I had numerous dark periods but held on tightly to those words, and sure enough, at 18 my life turned a corner, and I have continued to be blessed by God beyond my wildest dreams. On this side of earth I will not know if I was visited by God himself, Jesus, or an angel, but most certainly I was visited.