Corpse of steel

The Xperience

"I was a young boy of seventeen when I finally got to believe in the existence of God. I was born in a Christian home. That's a fact. I was raised in the church but I wasn't a Christian." He paused for more effect. He looked around. First at his wife, then at his kids.

A handsome man in his early forties, Mr Cyril was quite a looker. Tall and heavily built,he was the desire of every woman. A philanderer in his early youth,he led a promiscuous life.

"Though my mom took all of us to church,your aunts and I, I never had the conviction. My dad had been a drunk and so never paid attention to us.

I wasn't different from my dad. The little money I got from picking pockets and stealing from my mom,I squandered on girls and drinks.

My mom talked to me severally but I confronted her each time by saying 'if there's a God who claims to care and love us,why does he let us suffer?'

My mom never gave an answer to my question. I guess she never even had an answer. I continued living that way till I turned seventeen."

He stopped talking, poured water into a glass and drank. Tears brimmed in his eyes by now. His wife reached out to dry them but he pushed her hand away gently. He cleared his throat and continued.

"We came back to find our mom lying on the floor, with lots of bruises one day. She was bleeding profusely also. I was angry

I knew my dad was responsible so I dashed out to find him. He had beat her up again and had left her to die.

Throughout my life of knowing him as my dad, he had always abused my mom. He would come back home when we had gone to school and demand for money from my mom and when she refuses, he would beat her up till she gave in.

I looked around for him at all the beer parlours I had seen him in at one time or the other. I was so blinded by rage that I didn't notice an oncoming truck until it hit me.

I felt life leave me. I struggled to open my eyes but I couldn't. When I finally opened them, I saw the face of a man that looked like God. He was leaning over me. Besides me, my mom lay on another bed.

The lights above were very bright so I closed my eyes again. I heard the voice of my younger sisters and my mom who were asking if it was okay for us to be discharged. I then realized I was in a hospital.

While I lay there, I recalled hearing the voice of a man crying, 'Please God, If this boy lives I'll never stop serving you.' I heard that over and over and I wondered if that voice was that of the doctor or the truck driver.

'Cyril!' I heard the voice of my younger sister, your aunt Sophie call. She explained to me all that had happened.

She explained how they had called neighbors after I had rushed out. While they were trying to revive my mom, someone rushed in to inform them that I had been knocked down by a truck and was almost crushed to pieces.

That's how they rushed my mom to the same hospital I was in.

No one had believed I'd survive but the truck driver kept on praying for my survival.

After I got discharged, the next Sunday, I didn't wait for my mom or sisters. I headed straight to church. I sat at the end of the church and listened attentively to the pastor as he was rounding up the early morning mass with a sermon he tagged 'The Great Apostasy' which was based on the second book of Thessalonians 2:1-17.

I'd never forget that sermon in my life. He had explained that though all the things we see happening now signified the world's end as Jesus had stated in Matthew 24, the world wasn't going to come to an end until a man will come and sit and exalt himself as God and even claim to be as great as God or greater than God. He said so many were going to believe hence the falling away of man. Jesus had also stated in Matthew 24:24, something similar to what Paul had said in Thessalonians. He went on to state that Daniel had also made the same statement in three different chapters of his book. If I recall correctly, he made mention of chapter 7,8 and I think 11."

He rushed up to the room. Opened his shelf and brought out a very old diary. He rushed down the stairs, flipping the pages as he went. Settling down back on his seat, he flipped the pages rapidly as his wife and kids looked on, wondering what he was up to.

"Yes! I've gotten it!" he exclaimed.

"Gotten what dad?" Bridget asked.

"I just wanted to check if I got those scriptures right. Well I did. I can't believe I can still remember every thing about that sermon including the scriptures.

Well, back to my story. At the end of the sermon, the pastor rounded up by explaining that so many people believed in God as their beginning and so wouldn't want to believe he had the ability to bring this world to an end."

Returning back to his diary, Cyril flipped over the pages of the diary, cleared his voice and continued.

"After he had finished with his explanation, he then asked some rhetorical questions which some members of the congregation had supplied answers to.

He asked, 'If man evolved from apes or the earth came from a Big Bang, who then created the apes or the big bang?'

He also asked, 'If there wasn't a God, who makes you sleep and wake up each day? Who heals you from your sicknesses? Who saved you from that terrible accident that would have claimed your life? How then can man refuse to see the presence of the supernatural around their life?'

When he said that, I was overcome by tears and quickly had a rethink. Without waiting for an altar call, I went straight to the altar, crying my heart out. I realized there was a God after all. One who loved me even though I never recognized His love.

The preacher's voice came sounding to me as I knelt.

'God does exist. He loves you and is calling out to you. We believe that He had sent His son Jesus Christ to die for our sins. But His time of salvation and love is running out for He would send His son once again with judgement and tribulation for those of you who are yet to believe. Do not let this opportunity pass you by.'

The pastor prayed for me, or so I thought because I realized later, I wasn't the only one at the altar."