From Darkness to Light

 Sorry, it's been so long since you wrote and then I didn't reply.  (You wrote me after my last missive about memories evoked by Billy Graham's passing), or, no, it was after my Easter 2017 missive to the SHS Class of ’66.  I was pleasantly surprised by you telling me you had been at the same crusade that I was at in the ASU Sun Devil Stadium Sunday, April 26, 1964, wasn't it?  

That one crusade really made a difference in my life.  E.g. did you ever get my missive to the Class of ’66 about my nights vandalizing windows and Arcadia doors behind my Sctsdl home?  That was $5,000 damage.  After the crusade where I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved, I began feeling guilty about the crime and though it took 5 years (from my age of 16 until I was 21), I called the Scottsdale contractor on the phone and confessed the whole dark deed.  (I had learned that restitution was something Jesus wanted me to do, according to the Bible.)  The contractor basically said, “Forget it, the insurance company has already paid for that.”  Whew!

And that’s not the only change that Jesus has brought about in my life.  He’s delivered me from pornography and given me the power to overcome that.  My cousin who doesn’t want to be named had our own collection of Playboy magazines, but after I got saved, I tossed mine.  He later became  saved too and destroyed his half. I lived for girls in grade school and high school, but after my salvation experience, I live for God.  One SHS guy, whom I won’t name either, and I paid to go to Cinema Portofino in Scottsdale to see an X rated movie. Paid! And paid dearly, as porn is addicting. I even remember the film’s name though I’d like to forget it forever!   Praise Jesus he saved me from the power of sin!  From my warped view of women, I now have a wonderful view of the opposite sex (1 Corinthians 6:18; 1 Corinthians 7) & a wonderful wife.

I just had inguinal surgery to sew up 2 lateral hernias in my colon.  3 incisions, w/ dissolvable internal sutures (stitches).

I get 4-6 weeks off work!  (Starting 11-1)

And I love it!

 I am still bruised on my abdomen in a couple of places, but then I think that Christ was bruised for me, too, and He hurt a lot more than I do --

But he was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed!  

Christ carried the burden of our sins. He was nailed to the cross, so that we would stop sinning and start living right. By his cuts and bruises you are healed.  

And God speaking to the snake (Satan) in the Garden of Eden, after he had tricked Eve (and Adam followed) into eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, said, "“And I will put enmity (open hostility) between you and the woman, And between your seed (offspring) and her Seed; He shall [fatally] bruise your head, And you shall [only] bruise His heel.”

Have you asked Christ to save you from your sins?