The rapture theory was thought up by Charles Darby in the 1800s in England. Darby took an obscure verse from Paul and blew it up into something it isn’t. No other apostles mention it and only Paul does. The gospels and the rest of the bible don’t mention it. It is not mentioned in the book of Daniel or the book of Revelation. The theory of the rapture was not taught for almost 2000 years. The early church didn’t believe in it. The Catholic didn’t teach it and neither did the Lutheran Church. I feel sorry for all the people believing in this lie because they will be let down and then what will happen to their faith? Jesus will come back, but it will be to judge the people of earth, not to come and rescue people secretly in the middle of the night.
Jesus said people would go through trials and tribulations and that is happening now to more than just Christians. It is happening everywhere and all you have to do is turn on the news to see it. There is so much hate in this world, and I have experienced my own anger when I see all the injustice in the world. I have asked God to take my anger away and he does and then I hear about another injustice and then I get angry all over again. It’s just going to continue to get worse until Jesus comes back to judge the earth.
God let me know how much he loves me one night when I was nineteen or twenty. I was sleeping and a had strange dream and when I woke up in the middle of the night, I didn’t want to open my eyes, because I thought I was dead. I felt so loved and so peaceful. It was almost like God was giving me hug and making me feel the love he had for me. There is nothing like that love! That is the presence of God. God’s very being is love.
I was hearing the still, small voice of God’s Holy Spirit speaking to me saying “open your eyes.” I didn’t want to but when finally did, I was in my bedroom and alive and well. The voice wasn’t audible, it was more of an inner knowing voice that I was hearing in my spirit. It wasn’t my conscious because it seemed like the voice was male. It’s hard to describe the voice, but once you hear it you know it.
I didn’t want to move because I didn’t want the feeling of unconditional love to go away. It is hard to describe God’s love for us. In fact, I can’t because it’s indescribable. You need to experience it for yourself to be able to understand it. One thing I can say is no one loves you that much in this world. Not your mom, dad, brother, sister, friends, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, or child. No One. If you would take the love of a mother for her child and multiply it by a million, it still wouldn’t compare.
God loves us so much. There is nothing he wouldn’t do to let us know that. Jesus loves us so much that he died for each and every one of us. In the beginning when God created man and woman and when they were tempted by the serpent, they gave into that temptation. They committed the first sin because they chose not to listen to God. That separated them from the close relationship they had with God. To get that relationship back with God, God sent Jesus to earth to show people how much He loves them. Jesus showed them the way to get close to Him again so they wouldn’t be separated anymore.
Jesus died a brutal death and shed his blood, for no reason other than the fact that He loves us. He sacrificed himself willingly. He did nothing to deserve death. He only helped people while on earth by healing and doing miracles and taught the way to God the Father. After Jesus died and was dead for three days, He came back to life like He had foretold, and many people saw Him and ate with Him. After he died, he spent forty days on earth then He ascended into the sky and He’s alive in heaven today and will return some day in the same way and at the same place He left to judge the earth.
You can know Jesus as a close friend, someone closer than brother. You can experience His love and peace. All you have to do is ask him to come into your life and forgive you for all the wrongs you have done throughout your life and tell him you are sorry for them. No matter what you have done, God won’t reject you.
Four years and four days after my brother killed himself, my ex-boyfriend killed himself just like my brother did. He recorded himself on a cassette tape, drove out in the country and shot himself. I was at work when one of my friends called me. I was distraught, and left work early that day.
I really fell apart at home and cried and cried. I couldn’t believe it. I had just finally started getting over my brother’s death. I said to God the day before my ex-boyfriend died, “I hope I never have to go through that again.” My ex-boyfriend had gone my brother’s funeral, and he said to me that night that he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to commit suicide.
My ex had called me over a year before his death wanting me to help him quit drinking. He wanted to go out with me again, but he had already left me twice for the same girl, so I did not want to date him again. I wanted to be friends, like we were before we started dating. I agreed to go to a movie in the afternoon that Sunday. On the way home I don’t remember us talking. When he dropped me off, I was going to turn to say goodbye and he looked so hopeful, like he wanted to come in the house or get a kiss. I didn’t say anything but just shook my head no and got out of the car. He never called again. I saw him at a local bar drinking by himself six months later when my friends and I went out one night, and he looked awful.
I tried to go to his wake with a friend and I remember screaming in her car that I couldn’t believe that he had killed himself. I went into the wake, and I remember talking to his brother, then turned and looked at one of his friends and started crying and left. I worked on the day of his funeral because I couldn’t handle going to the funeral.
After he died, I got mad at God, and I was mad at my ex-boyfriend. I decided to give up on God because he didn’t prevent the suicide. I thought if God can’t protect me, I will protect myself! I started reading about new age spirituality, witchcraft and the occult. I used to read palms and I also practiced witchcraft. I had a warped view of Jesus. I didn’t think of him as powerful as God. I thought of him as less than God. I tried to worship pagan gods but still believed in God and included God in my witchcraft along with a Mother Goddess who I saw as the spirit of wisdom that I had read about in new age and gnostic writings. I am sure I offended God. I thought the passage in the bible about John the Baptist as Elijah was proof of reincarnation. I didn’t think of Jesus as God who walked on earth in the flesh. I thought he was less than God. I didn’t understand his sacrifice. It didn’t make any sense to me. Why did he have to die? I thought His death was a waste. I didn’t understand the resurrection.
It wasn’t until much later that I gave my life to Jesus, but before I did I went through some really dark times. Even after I gave my life to Jesus it was not easy. I carried around a lot of guilt and couldn’t accept the fact that God had forgiven me of all the bad things I had done in my life. Getting into new age spirituality, practicing witchcraft, reading palms and rejecting him, were some of the worst things I have done in my life. I cried out to God so I could feel His Presence. It took a long time for me to feel forgiven. But I know I have been forgiven, and I have felt His Presence.
Know you can be forgiven of even the worst sins. No matter what you have done, God will forgive you if you ask Him. No matter you have done what he will forgive you. He isn’t some big meanie in the sky out to get you, that’s what the enemy wants you to think. The enemy the devil hates our guts because we are made in God’s image. God is peace and love. If you want to know what God the Father is like, look at Jesus. And the best way to get to know them is by reading the bible and talking to them.
One of my evangelical friends who lives in a different state had an MRI in August to see if she would be a candidate for back surgery. She has terrible pain in her back and chronic sciatica, along with fibromyalgia. I feel so bad for her because she suffers so much.
After the MRI, the doctor called her and said the MRI showed something. One of the ducts on her pancreas was enlarged so he told her he could not do surgery on her S1 Joint. She was upset. Then she saw her regular doctor who told her she needed to get a CAT scan and to make an appointment with a specialist right away.
She went in for her CAT scan, and that showed multiple very small tumors on her liver and a 14mm tumor on the outer wall of her bladder. When she went in to see the specialist, he said the tumors on her liver were harmless, but he wanted to do surgery right away on her bladder and do a biopsy to test for cancer. She was scared it might be cancer.
The Monday before her surgery on Wednesday I fasted and prayed for her to be healed of her tumor. I had fasted during lent by giving up meat, but I had never done a serious fast for an answer to prayer. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be at first. I think the key to fasting is eating protein for each small meal. I didn’t eat any meat or fish. I had a chik’n veggie burger for breakfast for my big meal, for lunch I had raw almonds and almond milk, then for supper I had pretzels and almond milk which was a big mistake. I think there might be 1 gram of protein in pretzels which isn’t enough to stay with you. By the end of the night, I was extremely tired and felt kind of weak, so I went to bed early.
I prayed the week before her surgery and the week of her surgery. I asked Jesus and the Father to heal my friend and make the tumor disappear and I also asked St Jude and Mary the mother of Jesus to pray for my friend’s healing with me.
My friend didn’t tell many people about her tumor because she didn’t want to talk about it. She told one person from her church a couple days before her surgery, and they put her on the prayer chain. To my knowledge, I am the only one that fasted. Her husband who is a retired pastor did even fast.
Her surgery on Wednesday was at noon, and I knew they were going use some type of anesthesia for her outpatient surgery. I texted her about 4pm to ask if she was awake and if she was in a lot of pain and I didn’t hear anything back, so I assumed she was sleeping. Then around 5pm she called me and said she had texted me, but I never got the text. She told me the surgeon couldn’t find anything. The tumor had disappeared! It was a miracle!
I have given to Hosea’s Heart in Africa off and on throughout the years. It’s an organization that helps exploited children. It’s a home and school for vulnerable children who have been sex trafficked. It is operated and was started by a woman who is from the U.S and now lives in Africa.
I had been going to both an evangelical free and non-denominational Christian for a while, and I had an animosity towards the Catholic church after I was baptized for the second time in the evangelical free church. During the pandemic God kept drawing me back to the Catholic Faith, but I kept leaving. I got so frustrated with the evangelical free and non-denominational church once all the churches opened up again after lockdown. They never brought back the Saturday night service and that made me really angry. I thought to myself ” well the Catholic church still has Saturday night services, why can’t the other church?” It didn’t make any sense to me.
During the pandemic I watched church online. While watching church online, the two churches I had attended didn’t have Saturday night services live online. I found Gateway Church, a megachurch out of Texas and they had live services on Saturday night. I liked it except the pastor Robert Mrris was constantly talking about money. That was a huge turn off. Then in June of 2024 there was a scandal involving Robert Morris. When I found out that he had molested a twelve-year-old girl until she was seventeen-years old I felt physically ill. I didn’t want anything to do with Christianity after that.
Then in the end August early September 2024 I got covid. One night I had been watching YouTube, and someone was talking about Jesus’ Mother Mary on a podcast. I don’t remember what was said or what the podcast was. That night I prayed my usual three Our Father’s and Glory be prayers and I decided to pray the Hail Mary prayer 3 times also. I laid down to go to sleep and all of the sudden I thought of Hosea’s Heart Organization, so I prayed for the organization. Then I sensed Jesus standing by the right side of my bed and I heard the words, “I am going to give her a book.” (I hadn’t heard Jesus speak to me in years) I asked Jesus, “what kind of book?” but I didn’t get an answer. Then I thought maybe Jesus was telling me to donate to Hosea’s Heart in case the owner wanted a book and she couldn’t afford one right now. I thought to myself, “I will make a donation in the morning” and tried to fall asleep because it was very early in the morning. I still couldn’t sleep and after I laid in bed a couple hours, I got up and made a small donation because it felt like I should and God wasn’t going to let me sleep until I did it, then finally I fell asleep.
I contacted Hosea’s Heart and wrote an email the next day explaining what I heard from Jesus and I wrote I know it sounds crazy. Then I called the number on the website the next day and left a message. I felt like a fool.
Someone called me from Hosea’s Heart and when I heard from the woman on the phone that they didn’t think it was crazy and they hear things like that often. I was relieved. Then the person I talked told me the owner was working on her second book. I had no idea she was a writer, and I had no idea she had published a book either. I was very surprised.
The key for me to hear the voice of Jesus is praying to Mary after almost ten years of refusing to do so.
I started worshipping satan the summer I was seventeen. It didn’t last long though and I started in July. The things that led up to it happened when I was 16 years old and were out of my control and I now believe I was a victim of witchcraft. I didn’t understand what was going on, and I thought God hated me, was going to damn me to hell, and I didn’t have any other choice. It was during that time I started seeing visions.
That June before I started following satan, my sister and I used the ouiji board my grandma had and she gave it to my mom. My sister and I used the board once. We started asking questions and got gibberish for answers. I became interested in the occult and witchcraft after we used it. I started reading books about the subject but the more I read about witchcraft, I knew it wasn’t the truth. Witches don’t believe in God or satan. They believe in a variety of different goddesses and gods: idols. I didn’t believe it because I knew that God and satan were both real. I knew that the God of the bible was the real God and that there weren’t any others. I thought God hated me and I was damned to hell, and I had no choice in the matter. I thought I should just worship the enemy because I was going to hell anyway. Yes, I was listening to the enemies lies and I was deceived.
Even though I was raised catholic I didn’t understand the religion, the rituals, or why I had to memorize prayers when I went to catechism class. Because no one explained things about God and prayer I never prayed or talked to God. Throughout childhood, and my teens I lived as an atheist. I never paid any attention to God. My parents did not talk about God.
I started having a lot of anxiety then and I also started seeing visions then. The first one was of an unborn baby in the womb that looked almost full term. I saw that one while I was sitting in my friend’s car while she went into Planned Parenthood to get birth control. I knew nothing about partial birth abortions at that time in my life. The next one I saw was of me and a man. That vision had to do with the biblical meaning of marriage. Then I saw the next vision in September. I saw the exact same vision on the night full moon of every month for three months in a row. I would wake up in the middle of the night in extreme pain. The pain would get so bad I could not lie in bed anymore so I would get up and go downstairs to get something to drink and by the time I got downstairs I felt like I was going to pass out, then I would break out in a cold sweat, and then I would faint but not before seeing a vision.
I didn’t know what the vision was supposed to mean, but I saw the same exact one every time. The vision started with me seeing all black, then I would see a dot of gold light that would move in a clockwise circle until it was a perfect circle of gold light like a halo. After the circle was complete, I would faint. Now I think it has to do with three hours, specifically the third hour when Jesus died after he was crucified.
Soon I started dreading full-moon. I didn’t want to wake up in pain again, but I didn’t know what to do either because I didn’t even think of praying that God would help me. In November I saw a personal ad in the newspaper. It was a personal ad from a man who said he was spiritual and looking for a spiritual woman and there was a number written under his personal ad. The number was a blind box number the newspaper used so people could respond by sending letters to the newspaper, then the letter was forwarded to him. I sent him letter and photo, but I have no clue as to what I wrote in the letter now.He called after about two weeks, and we talked for a short period of time. I don’t remember our whole conversation now, but I know I had told him I worshipped the devil. I told him about the visions and the pain that happened on the full moon. In the want ads in that day’s newspaper there a notice about praying a novena to St Jude and it listed the following prayers: Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be. It said to pray three of each prayer. I asked him if he thought I should pray them and he said he didn’t think it was a bad idea.
About a week later I got a letter in the mail from Jonathan, the man in the personal ad I had sent a letter to. He wrote I was on the wrong path, and worshipping satan was just a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.
I prayed on the night of the full moon in December. I stumbled through the prayers and didn’t think God would even hear me. In the morning when I woke up, I realized I didn’t wake up in pain the middle of the night and I didn’t see any visions or faint. God had heard my prayer and answered it. It changed my life. After that night, I started praying those prayers every day for protection from evil and I never left the house without praying for protection. I would read bible verses in my grandma’s old catholic daily mass bible every morning when I woke up. I also started talking to God all the time.
I wonder if Jonathan was an angel on earth. I don’t mean a heavenly angel but a human doing God’s will because he was at the right place at the right time. After that happened to me, I started asking God to help me be in the right place at the right time.
I know God can use anyone to make a difference in someone’s life. Maybe someday you will be someone’s angel on earth.
MKR Prodigal Daughter Christian Perspectives from a Prodigal 