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“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

I was raised a Roman Catholic and went to parochial school. My mother was a very devout Catholic and taught the four of us in the way she thought was right. I was taught that the Roman Catholic Church was the true church and that going beyond its bounds meant eternal damnation. This keeps its people under Rome’s power of fear.

When I graduated from high school, I became more independent and rebellious than ever. I left home at 19 wishing never to see my parents again; but I returned home ten months later a nervous wreck from running around with the night club crowd and living loosely. I had been home one month, still not getting along with my parents because of my rebellious and proud nature, when a humanistic singing group came to town and started this movement going. At this time I had been searching for something to fill the vacuum that was growing inside of me. I joined this movement thinking, “This is the answer!” The movement thought that by changing men’s hearts and doing good works you can remake the world. After a year, I became disillusioned with the group and found that it was too hard and, in fact, impossible for man to change his own heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

I then decided to move to Baltimore to live with my younger sister. I stopped attending Mass altogether. I had a full-time job in a bank. It was there through a friend that I was first introduced to marijuana. One evening she invited me to meet her friends and they “turned me on to some grass.” From that I went to LSD and later to pills. I became so restless that I finally walked out on my job and left the city, with bills unpaid. All that I had with me were the things that I was wearing. I began drifting and living in one hippie commune after another. At one point I ended up in New York City. In an attempt to “go straight,” I needed money and began to earn it dishonestly. This didn’t work, though, because I was squandering it faster than I could earn it. A short time later I met a friend, who together with his mother, helped me get off drugs, get a job in an office as a receptionist, and bought me some decent clothes. By this time, I was really confused; I had a miserable past, a bleak future, and a lonely present situation. I had no real friend to talk to and I was too ashamed to face my parents. On the outside people saw a superficial smile to greet them each morning but I knew inside that I had reached the end of my journey.

One morning a young woman walked into the office where I worked. She was there on a temporary assignment. I noticed a certain brightness and wholesomeness about her appearance—something I knew I didn’t have. She handed me a printed tract. Because of my pride, I set it aside until I knew no one was around and I read it through. The part that really spoke to me was this: “When you come to the end of your journey and this trouble is racked in your mind and there is nothing else to do but mourn then turn to Jesus, for it is Him whom you must find.” I became curious as to what this meant and at lunch time I entered her office. She began by giving her own testimony of how she came to know Jesus Christ as her personal Saviour—how Jesus is the Joy of living! Then she said, “Did you know that ‘the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword...’?” (Hebrews 4:12). I asked her to tell me more and she invited me to go to Bible study class that night.

There I heard God’s complete plan of salvation, according to the Bible, for the first time in my whole life: “…how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). I learned that Jesus made a perfect blood sacrifice for our sins. I understood and believed all that had been taught in class that night. I was under conviction of all my past sins. The Bible says, “As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one…. But God commendeth his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 3:10-12; 5:8).

When we left that class that night, my new Christian friend, Eileen Frey, dropped me off at my house, gave me another tract “Where will YOU Spend Eternity?” and asked me, “If you died tonight would you be sure of heaven?” This started me thinking as I walked into my bedroom and that night I received the Lord Jesus Christ into my heart. Just then, my burden of sin was lifted. I repented of my old life and my old ways and gave my life to Christ. “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). For weeks after that, many doubts clouded my head. But, I continued attending evening Bible classes with my new-found Christian friend. Not knowing where to begin, I would pick passages at random from the Bible to read every day. But God’s Word gave me the assurance of my salvation. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12).

The Bible says that we are all sinners. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). No amount of good works, penance, novenas, or human righteousness can get us to heaven. “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags: and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6). “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). The church cannot save neither can you be saved by faith in your local priest, minister, or rabbi. “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Colossians 2:8).

I have found that Jesus Christ is the joy of living. I’ve committed my life to Him in telling others about His saving grace. Won’t you do the same? Do it today! Receive Christ as your personal Savior. Then write us that we may pray for you and send some additional free literature which will help you grow in your new life. —E. Key Davila

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