MY TESTIMONY
 Rational Faith

    I was born Jewish, in the sense that my mother was Jewish, in the sense that her mother was Jewish, etc. But I certainly wasn't raised Jewish. I rarely saw the inside of a synagogue, and when I did, I had to sit still for hours and hours while people talked in a language I couldn't understand and sang gloomy songs I didn't know. It was like torture for a young child.
     The religion I was raised to follow was the religion of Science. There was little room for spiritual faith in my life. I was taught to question everything and be very cautious about accepting anything as true without sufficient evidence. I was an advocate of the Big Bang Theory, Evolution (both micro and macro), Natural Selection, the Scientific Method, Occam's Razor, and all kinds of Logic. And even though there were things that Science couldn't explain yet, the idea of invoking an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, perfect being went way beyond violating Occam's Razor. So I rarely thought about God or religion. I simply didn't believe they were worth my time.

    When I was in my Junior year of High School, I had a crush on a girl named Allison. One day, I was thinking about her as I was walking through the crowded hall on the way from homeroom to my first class. Suddenly, I noticed that she was right there directly in front of me! I had been following her at a distance of two or three feet without even realizing it. And that was just the first in many coincidences involving Allison. In fact, these unusual events caused me to begin believing that it might be fate for me to be with Allison. But my self-confidence was too low. I had never before asked a girl out, and I found it incredibly difficult to overcome my fears. After a few months, I still hadn't approached her, and the coincidences stopped happening. It seemed that I had failed to fulfill my fate, and so the Fates had abandoned me as a lost cause.

    As I continued high school and then went on to college, I developed a very selfish, self-centered, egocentric attitude. And I was proud of it. I truly believed that living selfishly was the best way to live. Of course, I recognized that a society in which everybody was selfish all the time could never work. But as long as most of the people were sometimes giving and sometimes taking, I could do very well for myself by being a taker all the time. So I gathered and hoarded everything I wanted. I would take all I could, be it money, property, happiness, friendships, love, etc., and refuse to let any of it go. It's true that I would occasionally do something for somebody else, but only if I thought I would get repaid somehow in the future.
     When I was 27 years old, I did the most selfish thing ever. For about three years, I had been working toward my goal of marriage and children. And as I got older, my desire for children grew stronger. I was prepared to do whatever it took in order to get what I wanted So when I found a woman who agreed to give me children and didn't believe in divorce, I married her. I fully intended to use her to get my children. In essence, I used her for her uterus.
    Well, in the end, I didn't get what I wanted, but I sure got what I deserved. The marriage was a complete disaster. There were many many problems. Probably the central issue was that communication was far less than minimal, with days passing in which we didn't even spend any time in the same room. We weren't connected.
    My wife contributed very little to the marriage, spending nearly all of her time sleeping, watching television, and shopping. Her modus operandi was, in her words, "Life is uncertain. Have dessert first." So she had an awful lot of dessert. She spent money like there was no tomorrow. And she did household chores only when she felt like it, which was very infrequent. And, to top it all off, her PCOS prevented her from becoming pregnant, and she wouldn't follow the fertility doctor's advice. My dream of having children had died.
    One of the biggest problems in the marriage was her out-of-control spending. In only four years, my wife spent the $250,000 I had brought into the marriage, and plunged us into debt. I tried everything I could think of to solve her spending addiction. The first time she emptied the checking account, I cashed out a CD early, showed her how much money we lost, and figured that she would learn from her mistake. That was Plan A. The next time she emptied the checking account, rather than bailing her out again, I tried Plan B. If I simply solved the problem for her again, she wouldn't learn. So I told her that this time, she would be responsible for figuring out how to pay off the credit card debt herself. And I said that, if we still had any debt on the credit card in nine months, we would not celebrate Christmas, because we couldn't afford it. I was sure that this would really motivate her, because Christmas was very important to her. I expected that she would spend the months making sacrifices, turning away from all of the expensive things that she wanted. And, in the end, she would manage to decrease the debt somewhat, but she would fail to eliminate it. At that point, I would break out another investment to pay off the debt, we would skip a Christmas, and she would understand how terrible spiraling debt really was.
    Well, that's not exactly what happened. Actually, she made no attempt to solve the problem. She continued spending money whenever she wanted, making no sacrifices at all. So by the end of the nine months, our debt had completely exploded out of control. And, as luck would have it, the stock market was low at that time. I had to take everything out of the market, and I still couldn't pay off the entire debt. A quarter of a million dollars was gone in just four years. Oh, and she went off to celebrate Christmas with her family anyway.
    Plan C was to tell her not to carry any credit cards. But that didn't stop her. She kept carrying "just one" credit card anyway. For Plan D, we created a monthly budget. The initial budget was not balanced, but I thought we would start there and move toward a balanced budget with time. But she wouldn't stay within the bounds of the budget. And after a few months, she decided she didn't enjoy working on the budget, so that was it for Plan D.
    Plan E was to separate our money into different accounts. I hated to do that, because I knew it would only weaken our marriage further. But I had to stop the bleeding. So she got a checking account to do with as she wished, and I controlled the income and household expenses, taking responsibility for the remaining debt. But unfortunately, I found I was unable to balance the budget, let alone pay off the debt. Our expenses were too high. To lower the mortgage rate, I suggested that we sell our huge house and downsize. She flatly refused. End of conversation. So that was that for Plan F.
    So I was out of options. I had tried everything I could think of. I had no more ideas. My friends and relatives suggested divorce, but I refused to even discuss that. My wife and I didn't believe in divorce, so that was simply not an option. That left me with Plan G: Acceptance. We were going to spiral deeper and deeper into debt and I would just have to accept it. For the rest of my life, I would be deeply depressed, constantly worried, and overly stressed.

    Around the time when my life hit rock bottom, I went on a vacation to the World Boardgaming Championships. It was the fourth time I attended this annual boardgaming extravaganza, and I was determined to get as much as I could out of it. I participated in all of the pre-con games I could, planned a schedule in which I would be playing games practically all the time, stayed up late at night to continue playing, checked out all of the vendors selling games, attended the official board meeting, and I even attended the Sunday morning religious service! I didn't have any interest in religion. I only went because it was there, and it didn't conflict with anything else at the convention.
    On the night of that same Sunday, I was driving home from the convention. I had stayed to the very end, until there was absolutely nothing to do, so I was driving late into the night. I was exhausted, as I hadn't slept much over the past week. I was really looking forward to getting home. My plan was to hug my dogs and flop into bed.
    Well, it was a miserable rainy night. And I drove too fast on a small slippery winding road. Well, I lost control of the car and ended up in a ditch by the side of the road --- the left side of the road. Apparently, my car had crossed over the lane that was meant for traffic coming toward me. Fortunately, the road was completely deserted. In fact, I hadn't seen another car for a very long time.
    So I shifted into reverse and hit the gas. But the wheels just spun in the mud. No matter how hard I pressed the accelerator, the car wouldn't move. I got out of the car (which wasn't easy, because there were tree branches pressing against the car door), and I stared at the wheels for a couple of minutes. I didn't know what to do. My exhausted mind was a blank. All I could think about was how much I wanted to hug my dogs and fall asleep in my warm, comfortable bed.
    I went back into the car and stared at the tree branches on my windshield for a while. Then some kids came walking down the street, and they asked me what was going on. I told them I was stuck in the mud. They walked around my car, looking at my tires. Meanwhile, in my mind, I was wailing, "Look. There's nothing you can do to help me. It's hopeless. Just leave me alone in my misery." I had no extravertive energy. I yearned for the dogs and the bed.
    One of the kids suggested I call 911. I was about to say that I didn't have a phone, but then I realized I had brought my wife's cell phone with me. (She had bought it against my will. I was concerned that she would make expensive phone calls on it. I didn't like it at all, and I never used it. But as long as we had it, I brought it with me on road trips.) I called 911 and was told to call my local police. I said I didn't know the police's phone number, and the woman responded, "Call information." I asked "What is the phone number for information?" My mind clearly wasn't working, and I loathed the thought of going through a maze of phone calls, interacting with different people and running up the phone bill.
   While this was going on, a pickup truck passed us... the first car I had seen on that road in hours. Then the truck stopped and backed up. The woman in the passenger seat asked me what was going on. "Oh great," I thought. "More people I don't want to interact with." When I had told my sad story, the woman said they had a hook and asked if I wanted them to tow me out. My eyes suddenly opened wide, and I said, "Wow! That would be great!"
    So, they stopped the truck, and the driver got out. I had no idea what was involved in towing a car, and I really didn't want to help out. But I thought I should at least get out of the car and stand there watching. So I pushed through the tree branches again and walked through the mud. Unfortunately, the rope wasn't quite long enough to reach my car, so the man had to back up the truck up until its back wheels were in the mud. I said something about not wanting him to risk getting stuck, but I didn't mean it. Fortunately, he was willing to take the risk. And a few minutes later, my car was back on the road.
    I didn't know what to do at this point. Should I give him some money? I desperately wanted to hit the accelerator and head for my dogs and my bed. But I stayed there and watched him put the rope away. I said, "Thank you." He didn't ask me for anything. So I said, "Thank you," again, as I slowly started to leave. He still didn't say anything. So I pressed the accelerator and took off. Finally, I hugged my dogs and fell on my bed.
    In the following months, this event haunted me. I tried to understand what had happened, but I couldn't. It just didn't make any sense. If it had been me driving on the road, I never would have even considered stopping. I would have kept my eyes focused directly ahead. Any car in the ditch would be completely hidden by an SEP field. (Douglas Adams claimed that an SEP field was powerful enough to make an entire spaceship invisible. SEP stood for Somebody Else's Problem.) And who were those people anyway? Why were they driving their pickup truck on that road in the middle of the night? Were they out looking for people stuck in ditches in order to help them? It just didn't make any sense. I couldn't fit it into my view of the world.

    Soon after that incident, another incredible thing happened. My wife and I separated, intending to get a divorce. This was truly remarkable, because neither of us believed in divorce. Back in March, 2003, I was completely unwilling to even consider divorce. But by September of that year, I not only believed divorce was an option, but I knew it was an inevitability. How could my principles have completely reversed? I have no idea. I know everything that happened that summer, but it doesn't provide an explanation that is anywhere close to satisfactory.

    While I was still struggling with those two mysteries, I met a woman named Terra. We connected immediately. We talked for hours and hours, deep into the night. At one point, she began telling me about her faith. In my mind, I was thinking, "Cool! I'm always interested in a good debate about religion. What do you want to talk about? Creation vs. Evolution? That's my favorite." And as she talked, responses to counter everything she said were running through my head. But, uncharacteristically, I didn't interrupt her. I just listened.
    At one point while she was talking, my mind relaxed and stopped arguing for a moment. It was as if the logical part of my brain went to the bathroom, and the emotional part took control in its absense. Suddenly, the most amazing thing happened! I had a vision. I can't find words to describe it well, but it was like a tremendously huge... nothing... There was no light, though it wasn't actually black. And it was much much larger than anything I had ever imagined possible. And somehow it felt right. It was absolutely perfect. I knew that this was where I belonged, and it was so clear that, for my entire life, I had been moving in the wrong direction. This incredible place was where I truly wanted to be.
    I could only see it for a couple of seconds, because it quickly overwhelmed me. And then the logical part of my brain immediately started arguing with Terra again. But after that happened, I really wanted to go back to that perfect place. I wanted to live there.
    In the following days, I tried to figure out how I could get another look at that vision. Since I saw it while I was listening to a Christian person talk about religion, I decided to talk to Paul, a particularly religious Christian friend of mine. I told him what had happened, and then I asked if he would take me to his church. He responded, "No. We don't want your kind there." Oh, I'm just kidding! He was thrilled, and he said he would love to take me.
    A few days later, Paul gave me a Bible. He also gave me a book that was written by a man named C.J., who was the head pastor of Paul's church. I didn't find the second book terribly interesting, but the first time I saw its author give a sermon, I was blown away! He is an absolutely amazing speaker. He draws me in and makes a real impact. I always love it whenever he gives a sermon.
    The first time Paul brought me to his church, he took me into the church's bookstore and bought me a CD of the church's music. I have listened to that CD many many times. Two of the songs were sung by a woman named Shannon. I can't begin to explain how much I love her singing. She truly has the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. Occasionally, Shannon sings a solo during the church service. But unfortunately, that's very rare.
    After church, Paul invited me to his house, where I spent the afternoon with him, his wife, and his four beautiful children. He said I could visit them after church every week. Well, the chance to see his children was enough incentive to get me to keep going to church every week.

    Over the next four or five months, I learned a lot about Christianity. I even took a class that the church offered. But I was still agnostic. My beliefs were beginning to lean toward God, but there were some serious questions that were holding me back. And one Friday, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who had been raised religious but had recently decided to be an atheist. While I talked with him about atheism, my beliefs began moving away from God for the first time since I had started going to church.
    The next day, I got together with a few friends to play some games. And we talked about a variety of things. One of my friends, who was named Peter, told us about a time when he was in a bookstore and saw an attractive woman. So he walked up to her and asked her out. I was stunned. I told him that I never could have done anything like that. Well, the woman rejected Peter. But he continued talking with her anyway. And then he asked her out again. I was doubly stunned. Then, when Peter told us that she said yes this time, I almost fell down. "That's something that I'll never experience," I said.
    Later on that evening, we started talking about religion. It turned out that Peter was a devout Christian, When he invited me to visit his church on a certain date, because he would be leading the singing that day, I really wanted to say yes. But it conflicted with my church class, and I couldn't miss any more classes if I wanted to get credit for taking the class.
    I didn't go home until late that night. While I was driving, midnight passed, making it Sunday, May 16, 2004, which would prove to be the best day of my entire life! On that day, God showed me a miracle that was so remarkable that it was impossible for me not to believe in Him anymore.
     In a nutshell, the miracle was a whole lot of coincidences. An incredible number of coincidences happened on May 16, 2004, some big and some small, but all together, they added up to an extremely improbable day. It was absolutely unbelievable.
    I like to describe it with an analogy: I'm in a boxing match with God, but I'm not wearing any gloves, and I'm facing away from God. So God begins hitting my back, where each hit symbolizes a coincidence. At first, the hits are very light and infrequent, and I hardly even notice them. But He gradually starts hitting me harder and faster until finally I spin around saying, "What on earth is going on?" And God says, "There. You can see Me. Now do you believe in Me?"
    I say, "Well... there's certainly something strange going on, but I still have all of these issues." So He keeps hitting me, harder and faster and harder and faster and then the uppercut, and I'm down on the mat!!! And He leans over me and says, "Okay. Now do you believe?"
    I say, "Well... there certainly have been a whole lot of coincidences today. I'm not sure what the probability of all of this happening is, though I must admit that it sure appears to be unreasonably low. But I don't think it's a good idea for me to make a life-changing decision while I'm in this highly emotional state. So, what I'll do is try to write down everything that happened today, and then tomorrow or the next day, when I have recovered my center, I'll estimate the probability to see if it really is as low as I think it is."
    So He continues to hit me. I'm lying on the mat and he's pounding me mercilessly until finally I scream out, "Okay! Okay! I believe!!!"
    ...And then he hits me a few more times, just for fun.

    I would love to list all of the coincidences that happened that day, but it seems that God set it up so that I wouldn't be able to use this miracle to convince anybody that He exists, because, by the time I was ready to start writing down what had happened, I had already forgotten many of the coincidences. I can't even remember the first one, which happened just after midnight on that Sunday as I was driving home. But I'll describe the few coincidences that  I do remember.
    When I was driving to church, early that morning, I listened to a recorded sermon on the radio, as I usually do. On that day, they played my favorite sermon. Although I had heard it twice before, I was still finding more in the sermon that I hadn't noticed before. One of the main points of this sermon is that, if you estimate the probabilities of each of the prophesies of Jesus in the Old Testament being satisfied by one person, the total probability is too miniscule to reasonably believe that they were just coincidences. The pastor then concluded that God must have been responsible. I thought that was an intriguing argument, but I never imagined that I would be using this kind of logical argument a few hours later.
    Then, at my church class that morning, the instructor reminded us that there would be no class in two weeks for Celebration East. (I still don't know what that is.) Looking at the schedule, I realized that the cancelled class was on the very day that Peter had wanted me to visit his church. With no class, I was able to go. (And I did.)
    That morning, for the first time, I stayed awake throughout the entire class. (It's not easy to wake up at 6:30am on a Sunday.) Then, before the worship service began, I was wandering around the information desk. I took a look at the classified ads (which is something I rarely do), and two words jumped off the page: "FOR FREE." The ad was offering a 16-year-old female cat. This instantly reminded me of one of my cats. She was 15 years old, and her name was Athena. Just two months earlier, while my wife and I were separated, my wife took me to court asking for Athena. I tried to argue that the cat was better off with me, because my wife wouldn't take proper care of her. But, to the court, a pet is chattel, which means it's treated just like a piece of furniture. Since there's no such thing as the best interests of a piece of furniture, my argument was considered irrelevant, and I was ordered to give the cat to my wife. One month later, Athena was dead.
    Now its true that Athena was old, but she really seemed healthy when she was with me. I believe she would have lived much longer in the environment I could give her. I had just wanted to provide her with a happy ending. So I saw the advertisement for the 16-year-old cat as an opportunity to give another old cat what I had wanted to give to Athena. And then I did something highly unusual for me... I made a major decision spontaneously. After less than five minutes of contemplation, I decided to adopt the cat. I got out my cell phone, called the number, and left a message. The next day, a woman named Joan called me. She told me that she runs a pet rescue service out of her home. As it turned out, the 16-year-old cat had already been adopted, but she had many more cats who needed good homes. So I adopted a seven-year-old cat named Skipper. And since then, Joan has become a wonderful friend of mine. Several months later, Joan convinced me to adopt a Doberman Pinscher dog named Queen to be a companion to my Golden Retriever, Calvin. And since then, whenever I go out of town, instead of paying hundreds of dollars to leave my dogs alone in boarding, my dogs stay with her and her many other dogs, and I pay as much money as I want to.

    Back to May 16, 2004, I entered the sanctuary and began looking for a seat. Normally, I would sit with Paul and his family, far away from the "stage", but this week, they were out of town. So, for the first time, I had the opportunity to choose my own seat.
    I was looking for a attractive woman to sit near. Maybe that seems wrong somehow, but whenever I see a attractive woman filled with passion for God, I find it to be particularly inspiring. So I looked down at all of the people, but of course, I could only see the backs of their heads. In order to see their faces, I walked up to the very front. When I got there, I realized, "Wow! I've never been this close to the stage before." Then, needing a better view, I went up the first step, thinking "I'm even closer now!"
    I looked in the section directly in front of me, but I couldn't find any particularly attractive women. Then I looked in section to my left and immediately saw a Golden Retriever in the front row. That's my favorite breed of my favorite animal. The dog was clearly a helper dog, because he was with a girl in a wheelchair. Whenever I see a dog, I immediately walk up and pet it. But this time, for some unknown reason, I asked the girl if she would mind me petting her dog. She said yes she would, so I went back to the first step of the platform, very glad that I had asked.
    Looking in the section with the dog, I still couldn't find any women that I wanted to sit near. Then I looked at the section in front of me again, and suddenly, I saw her! Right there, sitting in a seat in the very first row. She was absolutely gorgeous! I was thrilled.
    Then I did something I never imagined I would do. But, remembering Peter's story about the woman in the bookstore, and since I had thought of an opening line, I actually walked up to a woman who was way out of my league and said, "You must be a pretty important person to be sitting in the front row."
    She stood up and nonchalantly said, "No. Anybody can sit here." Then I noticed that all of the seats in the first row had the word "Reserved" on them, except for the last two seats on the left end. She had been sitting in one of them, and there was a pile of books on the last chair.
    After the woman responded to me, she turned away, apparently looking for somebody. So the natural thing for me to do was to turn and walk away, glowing because I had found the nerve to approach such a beautiful woman. And I did start to turn. But then instead, I did something outrageously out of character. Pointing to the seat with the books on it, I asked her, "Is anybody sitting there?" I fully expected her to say, "Yes," and then I would walk away.
    But instead, she picked up the books and said, "No. You can sit there." Walking in a daze, I took the seat.

   Everything I saw was wonderful. I had a front row seat with a great view of the stage, to my left was a beautiful woman, on my right was a Golden Retriever, and there were a pair of cute little girls behind me. I couldn't imagine a better place to sit.
    During the service, for the first time that I had seen, they did a little puppet show. If I had been sitting in the back where Paul and his family sat, I wouldn't have been able to see it very well. But this time, I had a front row seat. After the show, they announced that the church had produced a new CD of music that, interestingly enough, had the same name as the book that Paul had given me. I immediately decided that I would buy that CD as soon as it was in the bookstore, hoping that Shannon would have more solos on it.
    Just as I was thinking about Shannon, the next person to walk onto the stage was Shannon herself! My joy reached new peaks as she sang a solo, right there directly in front of me! My emotions were whirling around with enthusiasm!
    Then the pastor came out and said he would be reading from the book of Peter. I had never even known that there was a book of Peter. And it seemed to be an interesting coincidence that the sermon's focus was on a book with the same name as the man who had inspired me to talk to the beautiful woman. In the sermon, the pastor showed us a painting on the big screen, which was called "The Apostle Paul." He caught my attention when he said it was painted by Rembrandt. This was because, a few years earlier, when I had begun investigating the world of art, I started with the impressionists. First I focused on Renoirs, and at this time, I was just beginning to look at Rembrandt's paintings. And I happened to live near the museum that had "The Apostle Paul". I decided I would go look for it.
    The pastor also made a reference to Pride and Prejudice. That happens to be one of my favorite books. It's the longest book I have ever read more than once. I had also seen one of the versions of the movie, and at home, I had another version (purchased by my wife, of course). I decided that would be the next movie I would watch.
    Another thing that the pastor included in his sermon was The Chronicles of Narnia. I had read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was a child, but I never imagined it had religious undertones. I decided to read the entire series with this new perspective.
    The sermon also included an example involving the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This personality type analysis has been a significant part of my life ever since I discovered it in 1990. And, of the sixteen possible types, the one he randomly selected in order to make his point was INTJ... which just so happens to be my type!

    About halfway through the sermon, I became aware of the fact that there were a whole lot of coincidences happening that day. In my boxing analogy, this was the point where I spun around. And as the coincidences kept coming, I remembered the radio sermon's argument that extremely low probability events pointed to God. However, I wasn't ready to jump to the conclusion that God existed yet. That's a big decision. If I made that decision, I knew I would faithfully maintain it for the rest of my life. So it was not a matter to be taken lightly.
    I tried coming up with reasonable explanations for the coincidences. I considered that, since I was actively looking for coincidences, it wasn't so surprising that I was finding them. However, the coincidences had been happening for hours before I became aware of them. Another possible explanation was that the radio sermon that morning had made its way into my subconscious, causing me to by psychologically primed for coincidences. Or, maybe, at some levely, I really wanted to believe in God, and that caused me to trick myself into finding coincidences. For example, I probably already knew that class would be cancelled in two weeks, but my subconscious mind hid that memory from myself when Peter invited me to his church. But very few of the coincidences could be explained that way. Still, despite the flaws in my alternative explanations, I didn't want to deceive myself. I wanted to know what the truth really was.
    I remembered a probability class that I had taken. The main thing I learned in that class was that our intuition about the probabilities of events is often wrong. For example, when flipping a coin, getting heads ten times out of ten seems pretty unlikely. But it actually has a 0.1% chance of happening, and even though that's small, it isn't really small enough to warrant a belief in God. (The following day, when I told with my atheist friend about how I came to believe in God, he was unconvinced that all these coincidences meant anything. He argued that everything that happens in life is extremely unlikely. To demonstrate his point, he started flipping a coin, intending to then argue that the resulting sequence of heads and tails was only 1 in 2²⁰. However, after the first ten flips were all heads, he said if all twenty were heads, he would believe in God.)
    As all of these thoughts raced through my mind, the coincidences kept on coming. I was enjoying this sermon so much. I wanted it to go on and on. Now, the sermons at this church practically always ended by noon, because that's when the parents need to go pick up the children from their church classes. But to my delight, this sermon ran long. It was probably the longest sermon I have ever seen. When it finally ended, I checked the time on my cell phone. It was exactly 12:12. Interesting...
    After the sermon, I walked over to the beautiful woman to thank her for the great seat. Then came the uppercut in my analogy: The beautiful woman happened to be C.J.'s daughter!
    When she left, I struggled with the decision of whether to believe in God. I realized that I was in a heightened emotional state, so I was probably having trouble thinking rationally. It seemed prudent to write everything down and wait for a day or two until I calmed down. Only then could I really make a sound commitment to believe in God. Meanwhile, the flood of coincidences kept coming, showing no signs of letting up. Soon, I was almost ready to accept God. But all of my unanswered questions were holding me back. In particular I was struggling with the most difficult question, wondering how I could ever forgive myself if I was so irrational that I accepted God while I still had this concern. And that blockade appeared to be impenetrable. Unless I could come up with an answer to this question, I couldn't allow myself to leave the world of rationality.
    Then a thought entered my head that brought down the wall instantly: "Okay. Maybe nobody has ever figured out the answers to my questions. But hey, there are plenty of things that science hasn't explained yet. And we are learning more with every year and with every generation. So, even though my questions were still unanswered, I can believe that some day in the future, someone would figure them out. That someone could even be me. (And in fact, it was. Go here to see how I answered my most difficult question in a way that is satisfying to me.)
    With nothing holding me back anymore, I decided that God existed, and I told somebody right away. I doubt I can possibly describe the incredible joy I felt at that moment. Everything I saw was beautiful. Everything that happened was wonderful. 
    I remained at the church for hours, with an incredible desire to remember everything that was there when I made the decision. I purchased a tape recording of that morning's class. I also got a tape of the sermon, as well as a tape of the previous week's sermon. (I had been out of town that day, and it was part of the same series of sermons.) I went to the information desk and picked up a copy of everything they were handing out. I took photographs throughout the entire church. And to this day, I have kept all of the memorabilia in a box by my bed, which I open on every anniversary of the day that I entered into a relationship with the Holy God, a relationship that has never come close to ending.
    As I toured the church, I found a piece of paper on a table. It was some sort of work order. And it mentioned room 204. So, imagining it might be a sign, I began looking for room 204. After a while, I found it. It was a closet in the sanctuary where the sermon had been given. I sat in the seat that was closest to the closet. And that was where I composed my very first prayer. Since then, I have gone there to pray many more times.
    Finally, I decided to leave the church. As I exited the door, I looked at my cell phone. It was exactly 2:00. When I reached my car, I started taking photographs of the church. Then a car drove up and entered the parking lot. The driver waved at me and then drove away. The driver was none other than C.J. He had never met me before, and here he was, waving at me.
    I finished taking the photographs and drove out of the parking lot. As I passed through the gate at the front of the church grounds, I checked my cell phone. 2:12. Exactly two hours after the sermon had ended.

    As I drove home, I called everyone I knew to tell them my thrilling news. The conversations went sort of like this: "Guess what. God just came to me and showed me a miracle, and now I believe in God! But I can't talk now, because I need to call everybody else." "What? Hey..."
    I have decided that the four inexplicable things that happened between September 2003 and May 2004 were miracles. (See here for my definition of "miracle".) 1) I was towed out of the ditch. 2) I was rescued from my marriage. 3) I saw the vision. 4) Many coincidences occurred on May 16th, 2004. I'm not really sure if the coincidences surrounding Allison in High School were miraculous, because I don't remember what happened then very well. Perhaps God was trying to reach out to me, but I didn't respond. Then, years later, when I attended the religious service at the World Boardgaming Championships, I caught his attention, and so, that night, he began leading me toward him again. And this time, I followed.
    When I got home and opened my front door, the first thing I saw was my laptop computer. It was turned on and open with the screen facing me. I often left my computer on, and it was sitting on the table where I tended to use it. The thing that was very strange was that two lines were highlighted, as if they had been moused over. A few months before then, my cousin Elan had secretly typed them in while I was not around. Later, I found them and moved them to a to-do file. But I had absolutely no memory of reading them recently, let alone highlighting them. That was very mysterious.
    The highlighted lines said, "VISIT ELAN IN ISRAEL!!!" and "MAKE ALIYAH!!!"
   Now the only reason I copied them into a to-do file was because I don't like throwing things away. But I put them in a very low priority file, way below the point that I ever expected to get to in my lifetime. I most certainly wasn't planning to visit Elan in Israel. In fact I would never even have considered it, even if he invited me to a wedding there. I hate traveling. I hate flying. I hate being away from home. I hate being in a different culture. I hate being away from my pets. And I didn't know anybody else in Israel. Why would I go there to visit one person who I wasn't extremely close to?
    "Make aliyah" means "emigrate to Israel." What could have been a more preposterous idea than me, a supremely patriotic American who fears culture shock, ever considering moving to a foreign country. It was way way beyond unbelievable.

    Once I discovered that God existed, I wanted to serve Him in every possible way. I started by focusing on the first verse read in that sermon on May 16th, 2004. It was I Peter 4:10, which says, "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms." I have a pretty good idea of what my gifts are. One of them is creativity. And I have been trying to use that gift to serve others by posting things at this web site.
    During that first week of believing, I was actively searching for things I could do to help other people. I developed new habits in ways that persist to this day. The first thing I picked up was litter --- that is, whenever I find litter on the ground, I usually pick it up and dispose of it properly. Also I significantly changed my driving habits. For example, I slow down to let someone cut in front of me, rather than speeding up to block them out. And when I'm in the left lane in the process of passing another car, I make a point of watching my rearview mirror. In addition, if I see someone approaching me from behind, I pull back and change lanes so that he can pass me. Also, when I see something in the road, I don't just drive around it and keep going, like I used to. Instead, I pull over, get out of the car, walk over to the object, and take it out of the road. Since I met God, I'm often looking for ways that I can serve Him by serving others. And when I find them, I usually do them.

    On May 16th, 2004, everything seemed absolutely perfect. I was in that place that I had seen in my vision. I was exactly where I ought to be and I was doing everything right. But over the course of that week, I gradually slipped further and further away from God, and ever since then, I have been trying to get back to that perfect place.
     Since so many coincidences occured on May 16th, 2004, I would have thought there should be something remarkable about the date. Why wasn't it something like 9/9/99 or 1/2/03? What's notable about 5/16/04? Well, a few months after that day, Terra came to visit me. Naturally, I told her all about what had happened. And when I mentioned the date, she said that she became a believer on May 15, 1994. That's exactly ten years earlier, shifted by one day so that they can both be on Sunday.
    Once a year or so, Terra pops into my life again, but after a short time she disappears just as suddenly. I like to think of her as an angel who came to Earth to help me find God, and then she went back to Heaven.
    Over the years, I watched Pride and Prejudice, read The Chronicles of Narnia more than once, bought the church CD, which has four songs that are sung by Shannon, bought a copy of "The Apostle Paul" painting, and even visited Elan in Israel. And now I am actually considering making aliah --- moving to Israel. That would have been completely unthinkable before May 16th, 2004.  
    I have now been in a relationship with God for more than four years without single break, and I'm sure that it will persist for the rest of my life. He is my father, my leader, my spouse, my brother, and my friend. He is necessary and sufficient. I sing to Him every morning and every evening. I talk with Him for at least 15 minutes every day. I am a member of four different Bible study groups. I have attended several churches, and joined a synagogue. I serve in the synagogue's choir, I visit a nursing home once a week with my therapy dog, and I run a chess club at an elementary school. I have given away tens of thousands of dollars. I bought sixteen bibles to give away to people. I listen to online sermons almost every day. I have been baptized. And even though I don't need any help maintaining my faith, every once in a while, He still shows me miracles, some of which are described here and here.
    Since I discovered that God existed, I have had an intense desire to learn all I can about Him. I have studied Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other religions, in order to view God from a variety of different perspectives. I don't believe everything that any of these religions claim. For example, I'm not sure that God originally gave me life. But one thing I do know is that He rescued me from my marriage. I don't deserve to be divorced. If there was justice in the world I would still be stuck in a horrible life of misery. After all, I made my selfish choices, and I deserved the tragic consequences. I played the game, and I lost. But God gave me a second chance at life. So, even though I had believed that my first life belonged to me, and I could do whatever I wanted with it, this second life belongs to God, to do with as He will. My personal interests are irrelevant, since they all should have been denied anyway. I'm no longer trying to improve my lot. The only thing of value I can do with this undeserved life is to serve God. It's not about me anymore.  It's all about Him.
    Any yet, I can hardly begin to explain how much my life has improved since I entered into a relationship with God. The primary difference was a 180 degree change in attitude. While, before, I had done things for other people only in the hope that they would do something for me later, now I do things for myself only in order to make me more capable of helping others. I was changed from the inside out. I am a completely different person now. And this new person is happy most of the time. When somebody asks me, "How are you?" I almost always answer "Good," or "Very good." And I mean it. Now I'm not suggesting that bad things never happen to me. For example, one time I lost my car, and I was very upset about it. But then, after a few minutes, I remembered that "The Lord is with me." (Psalm 118:6a) so nothing else really matters at all. After that, I called the police, gave them the necessary information, and then went to sleep. I felt just fine.

    In 2003, I was plagued by depression, worry, and stress. Now, my depression has become joy, my worry has become hope, and my stress has become peace.

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