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Issue link: http://magazine.kcm.org/i/1476594
A doctor in the ER flashed a light in his eyes. With each stroke of light, John saw a vision of himself: • As a young child going through a plate glass door • As a young teen, stranded in a boat in the middle of Long Island Sound • As a young man experimenting with large quantities of illegal drugs. Image after image flashed through his mind of things from which he shouldn’t have recovered. Some that he didn’t remember. Calling his mother, John asked if he had ever fallen through a plate glass door. “Yes, it happened,” his mother said. “It was the strangest thing. You were completely unharmed—not a cut on you.” For some reason, God had kept him alive many times when he should have died. Had he been saved for a purpose? Once the doctor walked away John said, “God, I’m here for You. What do You need me to do? I need direction.” Then he added, “I want to serve You, God.” As a Catholic, John believed in God. He believed that Jesus was the Son of God. What he’d never experienced was a personal relationship with Him. He knew beyond any doubt that what he’d experienced was supernatural. He felt ravenous to know more. Getting Direction “I knew that God had spoken to me through those visions,” John remembers. “I’d asked God for direction and He provided it in an unexpected way. I was referred to a doctor who specialized in soft tissue injuries. He was a Christian, and he worked on more than my soft tissues. “He told me to get a "New King James Version" Bible. He wanted me to read the Old Testament in the morning, beginning in Genesis. He wanted me to read the New Testament in the evening, beginning in Matthew. Within a few weeks I was reading Romans. I’ll never forget reading Romans 10, which laid out the plan of salvation. If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth what the Bible says about Jesus, you will be saved. “Faith rose up in me. I said, ‘Father, I do believe in my heart and confess with my mouth that Jesus is my Lord and Savior!’ My life was never the same from that day. Later, I made a public profession of faith and was baptized. “I’d met a woman, Zalika, who kept me in the ‘friend zone’ because she was a Christian and I wasn’t. However, over time, Zalika saw the change in me and realized I’d had a true conversion experience. “She introduced me to her family. In the words of my pastor, her parents were hardcore, faith-walking, tongue-talking, Spirit-filled, demon-stomping, water-walking, earth-shaking, history-making joint heirs with Christ. Her mother gave me a very old package of 12 cassette tapes. “The tapes were by Kenneth Copeland. I put them in my truck and listened to them over and over. Those tapes were one of the greatest gifts I ever received. What I heard was electric to me. Zalika and I married in 2003. Kenneth Copeland was the main guy for us. We listened to him all day and went to sleep to the sound of his voice. BVOV : 13