A Tuesday Miracle

On Tuesdays, Nathan Young spends the noon hour at the Jackson Prayer Center. They prayed that God would work in the lives of the unbelievers in Jackson, Tennessee. It felt like a normal Tuesday. Little did he know that God had orchestrated a miracle for Nathan to witness. 

When Nathan returned to The Care Center, Debra was sitting on the front porch reading from the book of Job. She told Nathan that a lot of topics from Bible Study that morning had really hit home. Debra has had a troubled past and has struggled all of her life. When she was a child, she witnessed her father shoot her mother. As she grew up, she made bad decisions that carried terrible consequences into her adulthood. To this day, her heart and mind torture her daily as a result of the life she once lived.

As Nathan walked up the front porch steps, Debra asked him to read what she was writing. It was a letter to God:

Dearest God,

I have been a sinner and I am full of lies.  I often lie to myself so much that I lie to others because I’m not sure what the truth really is.  I will do and say anything to hurt people that I think have or are trying to hurt me.  My mother has used the police against me so much that I fear them.  Yet their job is to serve and protect.  I am my own worst enemy.  God forgive me because when I am angry, I want people to hurt as I hurt.  Then I use drugs and alcohol to cover up my hurt.  I do not ever want to be as I am right now – full of fear and worry.  I want to walk as a strong and carefree person.  Yet I am so paranoid that I don’t care about myself.  When is someone coming for me to hurt me or kill me?  Should I just kill myself?  This is what I struggle with.  But God’s Word says I am worth dying for and Jesus did just that.  So I have to work this out with God or go stark raving MAD as I often feel I might.  My mind has 39 years of evil thought and works.  It is even crazier to think that I should be well over night or after reading a few books of the Bible or a few Bible studies.   But that has to be a start.  But when I start it seems I get even more confused.  Am I crazy for real?  Or am I just that messed up in mind and spirit?  Where do the answers lay?  God is the Salvation – without Him I’m truly dead – not on earth, but eternally.  Hell and fire await me – not just pain of life.  So there has to be a beginning.  So I have begun.

Over the next 45 minutes, Nathan was able to sit with Debra and explain how to begin her relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  She already knew that she was wicked.  Nathan told her that Jesus had died and rose again to take the punishment that she deserved from God for her wickedness. No matter what she did, she would never be worthy of this kind of love.  It is a gift.

The two of them looked at several Scriptures that helped Debra understand repentance, forgiveness, and salvation. Much of the conversation revolved around making Jesus the Lord.  In other words, that Jesus would be the boss of her life and that He would have control.  With tears in her eyes, she carefully wrote down the things that she needed to think about and what needed to be done.  

Debra said that this was deep, but it seemed simple for the first time in her life.  After giving her clear instruction of how to enter into that relationship and answering her questions, Nathan left her to her thoughts. 

Debra later told Nathan that she repented of her sins, asked forgiveness, and put God in control. In fact, she was so happy that afternoon that she even went down the road singing.  

When Debra was asked if she wanted to use a fictitious name in her story, she declined.  She said, “No, I am not ashamed of what I have done.  God is going to use my real name.” God calls her by name and He calls her His child.