Thanks for the invite brother, it has been many years since I was on this site. Truth be told I had forgotten all about it until I tried to register and it said I was already here
Anyway I don't know really where to start but as I seen a few testimonies of how people came to believe in the salvation of all I thought I would start there as a way of introduction about myself and my upbringing for those who do not know me.
I was visiting a church up by London ONT. and was hanging around with some of the young people at that church, I was only about 17 years old a young man at the time myself.
One of those young guys I was with asked me to read a portion of scripture ( don't ask me which one it is though, to many years ago ) he never said anything about what he saw ,just asked me to read and tell him what I saw, when I read it a light went off and the first words that came out of my mouth was , hay its talking about a second chance , being young that was what my first impression of what I later ( much , much later ) came to know people called UR.
Anyway he said that's what I see to; we both got pretty excited about it.
I asked if the rest of the group saw it to, he said he did not know as he just saw it himself.
Why he would ask me (basically a stranger to him) to read those scriptures instead of someone else from his group I’ll never know. (Must have been the Lord).
Anyway we decided to tell the others young people from the group about what we saw.
Mistake number one, we both only had just begun to see this, and were not scripturally sound in our understand of it yet.
The others lambasted us with a load of scriptures that seemed contrary to what we saw.
We got our rear end kicked scripturally, because we were not prepared in the word ourselves for this opposition.
The young man I was with ( I don’t remember his name , again to many years ago ) was persuaded to return to his old understanding forsaking what God had shown him.
Even though I was soundly defeated by the multitude of scripture that was thrown at us I could not let go of what I saw.
I started to look into it more fully in order to have a answer to the scriptures that were used against what God had shown me.
Mistake number two, I brought this up to my parents who are both preachers, and believe in eternal torment.
I thought those young people kicked my rear end scripturally, boy was I in for a treat
You ever want to get into a good fight just try telling a preacher what they believe is wrong, want to get into a even better fight, try it with the preachers you live with.
Again I was soundly defeated. But it did not matter to me, if what I saw was of God He would increase my understanding, I left it with him.
For the next 24 years of my life, I walked down a road all alone except for my wife and children to whom I taught Jesus Christ was the saviour of every man.
My one brother also came to see what God had given me, and it was with him and my wife and children that I could speak freely of what I had seen.
I knew God had to have shown this to others also but I never came across anyone else until about 3 years ago I got hooked up to the net.
I found my way to my first Christian web forum.
And was promptly kicked off.
So I went to another forum , which was where I first heard the term universal reconciliation or universal salvation.
People kept calling me a universalist, so I asked them what they meant by it, and was told it was a term used for people who believed all men would be saved.
So I thought to myself, that there was probably a forum with those of like faith as me so I went looking for some.
What a blessing for me after so many years of walking alone to find others that believed as I did in everyone being saved.
Oh I still have the odd argument with my parents about UR, I have been at them for 27 years, you know like the little widow woman who asked the unjust judge to change his mind kept coming to him until his mind was changed. That’s me and my parents.
P.S. this was written about 10 years ago, since then 3 of my 4 sister and my mom have come to believe in the salvation of all.