This is my story of a miracle that happened to me 20 years ago

[Dirk1540]

I never even glanced at the testimony section of this website before, and I just went to add someone to my 'Follow' list and noticed they had a link to their testimony, it got me to thinking "Oh ok, if experiencing a miracle isn't a testimony what is???" So I will post it here. Also, a short while ago I posted this miracle in a thread, this post was a reply to a member who said this...

i was given really good advice when i was first seeking God and wanting to know if He was real:
"talk to God like He is real - and really there"

it may seem kinda strange at first - but keep doing it -

And the context of the back & forth was 'How can you tell that your 'God Experience' is nothing more than mind over matter?' So I replied to Truthfrees, and then proceeded to go into my story of how I know for a fact that what happened to me 20 years ago was not even close to mind over matter. This was my reply to Truthfrees and to the OP as to why...


I actually had something similar to that advice, but instead of it being advice it was presented as a challenge to me. You gotta understand that 'God and Jesus' were nothing more than arguments to me for a very long time. And I would use an even stronger phrase than 'It may seem kinda strange', I would have called it nothing but faith based nonsense! But strange or senseless as it seemed I took on the challenge and there was surprisingly substance to it. Up to that point in my life I was a very 'Self stressed' over thinking person, I was my own stress enemy, I thought way too much instead of just taking it easy. So I was no stranger to playing 'Mind over matter' head games to try to reach a state of calming myself down. I've tried to think myself into happiness using a ton of psychological tricks. I've done visualizing exercises where I watch the stress leave my mind through a door in my head, I've focused on super happy places, etc.

I did not pull punches with any of these mental challenges and I wasn't about to pull punches and 'Act' like I gave into Jesus, I went all-in. The entire point of the challenge was that it wouldn't work if it was an act. So I didn't act I was sincere (added detail, I was also encouraged to read the gospels too, which I did in tandem with the challenge). Ok the results...there was a very distinct and very extraordinary, and often times a very FAST reaction that came about and it was surreal. It had a unique flavor to it that no other 'Relaxation Head Game' under the sun could even come close to matching, it worked head & shoulders better than anything else I've tried. There was something extra to it for sure. I actually found myself using it as a stress melting tactic for awhile. Was I a Christian from that day forward...NOPE. I truly might be one of the most hard headed and long running conversion stories ever.

I found reasons to do away with that 'Nonsense' and get back to partying, and get away from the 'Straight jacket' of Christianity. Time out, why did I give up a great stress melting tactic?? Ok here's the thing (that I left out of the thread), attached to this Jesus meditation and gospel reading challenge, yes there was the stress melting which was awesome...but there were also some cases of me starting to feel guilt over certain things. Now THAT had to go!! So that explains why I tossed away the tactic.

Now during this whole time I had known a guy who went to Bible college, he was in quite a miserable time in his life himself, he had a really straight arrow Christian wife, but he (and me) were drinking a lot. Looking back you can tell his lifestyle bothered him, he did turn himself around eventually though (he lost a kid). Anyway, so we used to drink and argue the Bible a lot. I thought he did make some decent points on how the Bible might be true, but I had way more objections to it not being true than I had had reasons to believe it was true. I really did enjoy the debate though. I'll also mention this...I also had some atheists since my 'Jesus Mind Games' telling me that there was literally a 'Faith Region' in the human brain that could register such a 'Religious Reaction.' Atheists could really amaze you with some of their logic, however I probably wanted what the atheists were saying to be true at the time, I don't remember exactly, but that counter argument was presented to me.

Anyway, I already said I was an over thinker. Well I had been doing a certain drug that made me feel great sometimes, but other times I would have a very bad and scary high that sent me into a panic mode that I wouldn't know how to explain. Yes I stressed a lot, but I was never a manic person, or bipolar, or anything such as having any kind of mental disorder. I just stressed a lot, and was an over thinker. But, when I had a bad high it was actually like having a little taste of how a person might have a nervous breakdown. In my circle of friends I was actually known as the person who had the worst bad highs ever! Not in a violent way, but in an out of control fear & paranoia way. But, as young and stupid as I was, the move wasn't to quit doing the drug, the move was to 'Mature' passed my paranoia lol. To become better with being high lol. Alas, one of the scariest days of my life happened, it was literally the next day, and I knew that the drug had worn off, but I STILL had the panic mode in me!! Up until that point the one thing I could always count on was that I knew my bad highs expired when the drug wore off. Well this was scary uncharted waters for me, the drug had worn off, but the panic mode still remained. Well, THAT was it, I was DONE! The scary panic mode actually followed me into my sober life, that realization freaked me out so much!

Fast forward to not that long after, I was drunk and found myself in a situation where the drug was presented to me but this time it was in a more concentrated form, a more potent option than I had ever had. I actually was hesitant but gave in. I ruined people's night afterwards with how bad I got. I was literally shaking as if it was 10 degrees in the house. Someone drove me home. My bedroom was on the 3rd floor at the time so I was separated from my family. I paced the hallway all night long. Sleep was not even close to an option, I tried it would not work. It was now literally passed noon. Here I go again, I know that the drug effect was over, yet I am STILL (after the high wore off) in that panic state, but this time much worse than the prior time, WAY worse. It was very simple I was literally inches away from having a nervous breakdown.

During the course of the entire night I tried talking myself down in a thousand ways...prayer did not cross my mind, not only was it only a 'Maybe True at best' for me, but it had been thrown in the backseat for awhile now (this was a few years since the challenge). I was the biggest Michael Jordan fan in the world and there was a live playoff game going on, and there was a TV in my room (NBA playoff game, that's how much time had passed since the night before, usually my high is gone after a few hours). The game, which would normal make me extremely happy, had absolutely zero effect, the TV may as well have been turned off. The basketball game was just another failed attempt at calming myself down. I started thinking about running to my local hospital, wondering if they could put me under, if I did not somehow fall asleep I did not stand a chance, I was going to lose my mind. At this moment (pacing the hallway the entire time), I said to myself "Hmm, how about the Jesus thing?" I hopped on the bed and prayed (I will point out that I prayed to, and said 'JESUS' in this prayer several times).

I almost don't know how to find the words to explain this next part, in LESS THAN 30 SECONDS from the beginning of the prayer I had switched into my current state of being moments away from a nervous breakdown into the most peaceful state I've ever been in in my life! I felt like a kid who had a crush on a girl for years and just found out that she liked him too. Seriously, THAT good!! I had a pins & needles 'Floating on air' feeling all throughout my chest and it felt like it was spilling into my limbs. Just imagine the greatest innocent natural high of your life, that was the state I was in...30 seconds earlier I was about to have a nervous breakdown. I remained in the bed for hours, I just laid there basking in the feeling, and occasionally saying to myself "How on Earth is this possible??? It has to be real!!!"

That game I referred to in the beginning, it was that feeling, but it was that feeling on a level 100 times more powerful...and never again did I ever experience anything even remotely that powerful again. That was 20 years ago. That is what makes me say to people sometimes that I literally witnessed a miracle in my life (so if anyone, I am without excuse as for remaining a skeptic). Some people might argue that only a chair moving across a room by itself or something like that is a miracle, well that was a miracle in my book!

So, was I a Christian from that day forward? Nope lol, unfortunately more hard headedness followed. I told you how hard headed I was. However, after that day, even in the height of me wanting nothing to do with the Bible I was never able to ignore what had happened that day. I later on in the thread compared it to having 100 foot long rope tied to a docked fishing boat. No matter how many times I drifted away, having that memory with me always prevented me from drifting beyond 100 feet, if that makes sense. No matter how many times I wrote the Bible off as false after that, there was always that thought not too far in the back of my mind "But what about that day on the 3rd floor??" I'm of the opinion that God knew how terrible my nature was to cling heavily onto any anti-Christian Bible critique that came my way, so he gave me something...he gave me this experience that became a logical floor for me that I could no longer sink below. That's just my opinion.

I just want to point a couple things out. #1 praying to Jesus was me grasping at straws. My prayer to Jesus was probably my 100th fleeting idea that I had that day to try to calm myself down. #2 i did not really believe Christianity at the time, my belief was a 'Maybe' at best. In fact, that moment itself had become my strongest piece of evidence that Jesus was real. I point this out in order to make clear that a psychologist could never make any kind of 'Mind Over Matter' argument to me about what happened that day. And I will conclude this post with one final detail...honestly 30 seconds is by far the highest end of the time estimate for how long that prayer took, it happened very very fast.

 

[tturt]

Dirk1540, awesome testimony. Yeshua is amazing.

 

[mmksparbud]

This reminds me of what happened to me a few months ago. I went in for colon cancer surgery and afterwards went into respiratory failure. I was on a ventilator for 2 months. At some point, my only recollection is this dream. I was in a room full of water. I was in a huge net made of very thick and heavy plastic, white with green (yes, it was in color)--I was struggling in it, trying desperately to tear it apart and get out of it as I could not breathe. It felt awful--then I just said---Ok--Lord, whatever you want---it doesn't matter. Whatever you want--alive or dead. All of a sudden I totally relaxed, this overwhelming sense of peace flooded me----and I found I could breathe. I fell asleep. That feeling of peace is beyond anhything I had ever experienced before. It was like I was bring cradled in the arms of God. I went for a month to a rehab to learn how to sit up, stand and eventually take a few steps. It was hard work but I knew God was with me.

 

[Take Heart]

What a beautiful, touching story. Thank you sincerely for sharing that with us. I've experienced those 'highs' before. I was never into drugs, but these 'highs' would come at seemingly random times. Like for instance, I remember I was sitting in the passenger seat of our car-my mom in the driver's seat.and we were driving on top of a paved bridge on the highway. I remember looking below at all the cars and I think the 'smallness' of seeing those cars from my view on bridge made me think of how much God loves us despite how small we are (we are like grasshoppers-"It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, And its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in" Isaiah 40:22.) And while thinking of how small we are..He still holds us all in the palm of His hands and actually cares about us. He's not just some distant God who sits up there passively just watching what happens. He literally works in our lives to bring about good to whatever comes our way (due to the choices of others and ourselves and when the enemy attacks). And while thinking of those things..I felt this surreal peace and love and comfort all at the same time and I just wept silently..happily. It was beautiful. At that moment, I felt God's love so powerfully for me and for the entire world despite the current state that it's in. In those 5-10 seconds, I felt probably.. 0.00001% of His love for me. But that was enough to make me cry silently and feel completely safe, whole, and cared for. I can't even imagine feeling 100% of it.

 

[Dirk1540]

This reminds me of what happened to me a few months ago. I went in for colon cancer surgery and afterwards went into respiratory failure. I was on a ventilator for 2 months. At some point, my only recollection is this dream. I was in a room full of water. I was in a huge net made of very thick and heavy plastic, white with green (yes, it was in color)--I was struggling in it, trying desperately to tear it apart and get out of it as I could not breathe. It felt awful--then I just said---Ok--Lord, whatever you want---it doesn't matter. Whatever you want--alive or dead. All of a sudden I totally relaxed, this overwhelming sense of peace flooded me----and I found I could breathe. I fell asleep. That feeling of peace is beyond anhything I had ever experienced before. It was like I was bring cradled in the arms of God. I went for a month to a rehab to learn how to sit up, stand and eventually take a few steps. It was hard work but I knew God was with me.

That's a cool dream story. Isn't it something trying to find a proper analogy? 'Kid on Christmas morning' was one idea I had but also was not strong enough for the description.

By the way I am an extremely active dreamer I know exactly what you mean that you dream in color, I wonder if dreaming in balck & white is a myth, or if it's actually true for some? Anyway, as active as my dreaming is I've never had a God experience in one...I could imagine how surreal such a dream would be! I hope you're rehab is coming along well!

 

[Dirk1540]

In those 5-10 seconds, I felt probably.. 0.00001% of His love for me. But that was enough to make me cry silently and feel completely safe, whole, and cared for. I can't even imagine feeling 100% of it.

So you're saying that it was a 5-10 second burst of an off the charts peaceful feeling, and then it decreased significantly? 0.00001% of God's love, that's a cool analogy! Do you get these 5-10 second fleeting natural highs from time to time or was it a one time thing?

 

[Take Heart]

@Dirk1540
From time to time- but those moments are super few and far between. Very rare. But when it happens..it's amazing.

 

[CrystalDragon]

I never even glanced at the testimony section of this website before, and I just went to add someone to my 'Follow' list and noticed they had a link to their testimony, it got me to thinking "Oh ok, if experiencing a miracle isn't a testimony what is???" So I will post it here. Also, a short while ago I posted this miracle in a thread, this post was a reply to a member who said this...



And the context of the back & forth was 'How can you tell that your 'God Experience' is nothing more than mind over matter?' So I replied to Truthfrees, and then proceeded to go into my story of how I know for a fact that what happened to me 20 years ago was not even close to mind over matter. This was my reply to Truthfrees and to the OP as to why...


I actually had something similar to that advice, but instead of it being advice it was presented as a challenge to me. You gotta understand that 'God and Jesus' were nothing more than arguments to me for a very long time. And I would use an even stronger phrase than 'It may seem kinda strange', I would have called it nothing but faith based nonsense! But strange or senseless as it seemed I took on the challenge and there was surprisingly substance to it. Up to that point in my life I was a very 'Self stressed' over thinking person, I was my own stress enemy, I thought way too much instead of just taking it easy. So I was no stranger to playing 'Mind over matter' head games to try to reach a state of calming myself down. I've tried to think myself into happiness using a ton of psychological tricks. I've done visualizing exercises where I watch the stress leave my mind through a door in my head, I've focused on super happy places, etc.

I did not pull punches with any of these mental challenges and I wasn't about to pull punches and 'Act' like I gave into Jesus, I went all-in. The entire point of the challenge was that it wouldn't work if it was an act. So I didn't act I was sincere (added detail, I was also encouraged to read the gospels too, which I did in tandem with the challenge). Ok the results...there was a very distinct and very extraordinary, and often times a very FAST reaction that came about and it was surreal. It had a unique flavor to it that no other 'Relaxation Head Game' under the sun could even come close to matching, it worked head & shoulders better than anything else I've tried. There was something extra to it for sure. I actually found myself using it as a stress melting tactic for awhile. Was I a Christian from that day forward...NOPE. I truly might be one of the most hard headed and long running conversion stories ever.

I found reasons to do away with that 'Nonsense' and get back to partying, and get away from the 'Straight jacket' of Christianity. Time out, why did I give up a great stress melting tactic?? Ok here's the thing (that I left out of the thread), attached to this Jesus meditation and gospel reading challenge, yes there was the stress melting which was awesome...but there were also some cases of me starting to feel guilt over certain things. Now THAT had to go!! So that explains why I tossed away the tactic.

Now during this whole time I had known a guy who went to Bible college, he was in quite a miserable time in his life himself, he had a really straight arrow Christian wife, but he (and me) were drinking a lot. Looking back you can tell his lifestyle bothered him, he did turn himself around eventually though (he lost a kid). Anyway, so we used to drink and argue the Bible a lot. I thought he did make some decent points on how the Bible might be true, but I had way more objections to it not being true than I had had reasons to believe it was true. I really did enjoy the debate though. I'll also mention this...I also had some atheists since my 'Jesus Mind Games' telling me that there was literally a 'Faith Region' in the human brain that could register such a 'Religious Reaction.' Atheists could really amaze you with some of their logic, however I probably wanted what the atheists were saying to be true at the time, I don't remember exactly, but that counter argument was presented to me.

Anyway, I already said I was an over thinker. Well I had been doing a certain drug that made me feel great sometimes, but other times I would have a very bad and scary high that sent me into a panic mode that I wouldn't know how to explain. Yes I stressed a lot, but I was never a manic person, or bipolar, or anything such as having any kind of mental disorder. I just stressed a lot, and was an over thinker. But, when I had a bad high it was actually like having a little taste of how a person might have a nervous breakdown. In my circle of friends I was actually known as the person who had the worst bad highs ever! Not in a violent way, but in an out of control fear & paranoia way. But, as young and stupid as I was, the move wasn't to quit doing the drug, the move was to 'Mature' passed my paranoia lol. To become better with being high lol. Alas, one of the scariest days of my life happened, it was literally the next day, and I knew that the drug had worn off, but I STILL had the panic mode in me!! Up until that point the one thing I could always count on was that I knew my bad highs expired when the drug wore off. Well this was scary uncharted waters for me, the drug had worn off, but the panic mode still remained. Well, THAT was it, I was DONE! The scary panic mode actually followed me into my sober life, that realization freaked me out so much!

Fast forward to not that long after, I was drunk and found myself in a situation where the drug was presented to me but this time it was in a more concentrated form, a more potent option than I had ever had. I actually was hesitant but gave in. I ruined people's night afterwards with how bad I got. I was literally shaking as if it was 10 degrees in the house. Someone drove me home. My bedroom was on the 3rd floor at the time so I was separated from my family. I paced the hallway all night long. Sleep was not even close to an option, I tried it would not work. It was now literally passed noon. Here I go again, I know that the drug effect was over, yet I am STILL (after the high wore off) in that panic state, but this time much worse than the prior time, WAY worse. It was very simple I was literally inches away from having a nervous breakdown.

During the course of the entire night I tried talking myself down in a thousand ways...prayer did not cross my mind, not only was it only a 'Maybe True at best' for me, but it had been thrown in the backseat for awhile now (this was a few years since the challenge). I was the biggest Michael Jordan fan in the world and there was a live playoff game going on, and there was a TV in my room (NBA playoff game, that's how much time had passed since the night before, usually my high is gone after a few hours). The game, which would normal make me extremely happy, had absolutely zero effect, the TV may as well have been turned off. The basketball game was just another failed attempt at calming myself down. I started thinking about running to my local hospital, wondering if they could put me under, if I did not somehow fall asleep I did not stand a chance, I was going to lose my mind. At this moment (pacing the hallway the entire time), I said to myself "Hmm, how about the Jesus thing?" I hopped on the bed and prayed (I will point out that I prayed to, and said 'JESUS' in this prayer several times).

I almost don't know how to find the words to explain this next part, in LESS THAN 30 SECONDS from the beginning of the prayer I had switched into my current state of being moments away from a nervous breakdown into the most peaceful state I've ever been in in my life! I felt like a kid who had a crush on a girl for years and just found out that she liked him too. Seriously, THAT good!! I had a pins & needles 'Floating on air' feeling all throughout my chest and it felt like it was spilling into my limbs. Just imagine the greatest innocent natural high of your life, that was the state I was in...30 seconds earlier I was about to have a nervous breakdown. I remained in the bed for hours, I just laid there basking in the feeling, and occasionally saying to myself "How on Earth is this possible??? It has to be real!!!"

That game I referred to in the beginning, it was that feeling, but it was that feeling on a level 100 times more powerful...and never again did I ever experience anything even remotely that powerful again. That was 20 years ago. That is what makes me say to people sometimes that I literally witnessed a miracle in my life (so if anyone, I am without excuse as for remaining a skeptic). Some people might argue that only a chair moving across a room by itself or something like that is a miracle, well that was a miracle in my book!

So, was I a Christian from that day forward? Nope lol, unfortunately more hard headedness followed. I told you how hard headed I was. However, after that day, even in the height of me wanting nothing to do with the Bible I was never able to ignore what had happened that day. I later on in the thread compared it to having 100 foot long rope tied to a docked fishing boat. No matter how many times I drifted away, having that memory with me always prevented me from drifting beyond 100 feet, if that makes sense. No matter how many times I wrote the Bible off as false after that, there was always that thought not too far in the back of my mind "But what about that day on the 3rd floor??" I'm of the opinion that God knew how terrible my nature was to cling heavily onto any anti-Christian Bible critique that came my way, so he gave me something...he gave me this experience that became a logical floor for me that I could no longer sink below. That's just my opinion.

I just want to point a couple things out. #1 praying to Jesus was me grasping at straws. My prayer to Jesus was probably my 100th fleeting idea that I had that day to try to calm myself down. #2 i did not really believe Christianity at the time, my belief was a 'Maybe' at best. In fact, that moment itself had become my strongest piece of evidence that Jesus was real. I point this out in order to make clear that a psychologist could never make any kind of 'Mind Over Matter' argument to me about what happened that day. And I will conclude this post with one final detail...honestly 30 seconds is by far the highest end of the time estimate for how long that prayer took, it happened very very fast.

I wouldn't necessarily call it a miracle—prayer and meditation can do wonders on the body whether you're religious or not—but I'm glad you got off that drug point in your life and you're happier now.

 

[Dirk1540]

I wouldn't necessarily call it a miracle—prayer and meditation can do wonders on the body whether you're religious or not—but I'm glad you got off that drug point in your life and you're happier now.

I was never good at meditation, tried 1,000 times but usually it resulted in pretty slow moving minimal results. For me it almost always came down to I MUST COMPLETELY EMPTY MY THOUGHTS! My problem was that my non stop thinking felt like the mental equivalent of curling a dumbbell for 20 hours straight, it was just complete exhaustion! I'm describing my usual situation not that day. Prayers to Jesus had a different feeling to it altogether, looking at it objectively that is weird, why would meditation on one certain thing (Jesus) have a different feel to it than both meditation on any other non-God related thing, or on just trying to empty my mind and think of nothing at all?

Granted one can come back at me and argue that there is a general God who intervenes no matter which religious channel you use to call upon God, but I felt the need to point out that I prayed to Jesus (that 1 day) just for accuracy of the story. Wasn't really going for the debate angle with the story.

But yeah that one day, I seriously would have to have the meditation power of Charles Xavier to replicate that day lol (if we're assuming God doesn't exist). If we're in agreement that God exists than I suppose you can make the argument that it's a general God if you want. But something took over that much I know, because I know I'm a pretty lousy meditator. No way I could have pulled off something so drastic & so fast like what happened. I was not religious many times after that day, and there were times where certain strange conversations would come around and I wanted to tell the story because it was just so crazy, but I didn't because I couldn't really tell it without 'Going Religious' on people lol (that was my frame of mind during my non-religious stages).

 

[CrystalDragon]

I was never good at meditation, tried 1,000 times but usually it resulted in pretty slow moving minimal results. For me it almost always came down to I MUST COMPLETELY EMPTY MY THOUGHTS! My problem was that my non stop thinking felt like the mental equivalent of curling a dumbbell for 20 hours straight, it was just complete exhaustion! I'm describing my usual situation not that day. Prayers to Jesus had a different feeling to it altogether, looking at it objectively that is weird, why would meditation on one certain thing (Jesus) have a different feel to it than both meditation on any other non-God related thing, or on just trying to empty my mind and think of nothing at all?

Granted one can come back at me and argue that there is a general God who intervenes no matter which religious channel you use to call upon God, but I felt the need to point out that I prayed to Jesus (that 1 day) just for accuracy of the story. Wasn't really going for the debate angle with the story.

But yeah that one day, I seriously would have to have the meditation power of Charles Xavier to replicate that day lol (if we're assuming God doesn't exist). If we're in agreement that God exists than I suppose you can make the argument that it's a general God if you want. But something took over that much I know, because I know I'm a pretty lousy meditator. No way I could have pulled off something so drastic & so fast like what happened. I was not religious many times after that day, and there were times where certain strange conversations would come around and I wanted to tell the story because it was just so crazy, but I didn't because I couldn't really tell it without 'Going Religious' on people lol (that was my frame of mind during my non-religious stages).

I admit your post made me smile. Not only because of your optimism and how powerfully the experience effect you when you specifically tried to related to Jesus, but because I've finally met another X-Men fan on these forums!

 

[Dirk1540]

I admit your post made me smile. Not only because of your optimism and how powerfully the experience effect you when you specifically tried to related to Jesus, but because I've finally met another X-Men fan on these forums!

I was just a spectator (with a comment or 2 of my own) to a lengthy YouTube argument about 'Logan' haha