Into Oneness with Christ as My Life, J.J.Y.

I received Jesus Christ as my life on New Year's eve, 1967. My dear Christian grandmother was ending her 5-year fight against breast cancer, and I wanted what I had seen in her during her intense suffering. Although I had gone to the only church in our small rural town of Dittmer, Missouri all my life, I had not personally come to know the Christ she magnified and whom I was seeking to know. As an unbeliever, this search led me to an Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship Missionary Conference, but I didn't find what I was looking for in those meetings. However, by God's sovereignty my conference dormmate, Annabelle, ministered this Christ into me by her speaking. My deep, yet overflowing realization was that now ``I was one with Christ.''

In the next few years, although I tried to read the Bible and sought more of Christ among other Christian groups, I was not growing and was dissatisfied. Eventually, I felt the thing God wanted me to do was to give my life to social work, especially working and living in the ghettos. How idealistic and naïve I was! So much so that I not only was taken advantage of, but I was robbed and almost raped. I came to a point in which I cried, ``If this is all there is to life, then I just want to die.'' During this time, my friend Annabelle and some college Christian acquaintances who were meeting with the local church prayed for me. The letters they wrote ministered their experiences of Christ to me. They encouraged me to come visit the church in Houston for two weeks and fellowship with them. I had enjoyed Christ in their letters so much that I boldly testified to my coworkers that I was quitting my job at Southwestern Bell and moving to Houston to experience Christ as life. ``In Him was life, and the life was the light of men'' (John 1:4). ``I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly'' (John 10:10b).

Engulfed in the love of Christ in the church in Houston, I had the deep sensation that I was home because God was home. He was here indwelling His people. I found a job in Houston with Southwestern Bell again. I loved reading His precious word, the Bible, in the morning, on my breaks and lunch hours, and at night. That was the beginning of a rich and enjoyable feast as the Bible began to open up to me as never before.

That was over 28 years ago. Since then, in the local churches and mainly through the ministries of Witness Lee and Watchman Nee, I have been daily continuing to enjoy the unsearchable riches of Christ (Ephesians 3:8) that I may grow in the life of God for the building up of His Body which will ultimately consummate in the New Jerusalem.