longer a place of suffering and sorrow. Life was wonderful. Love had consumed me. Life was new. I was in love with the world. I had found the source of truth - God's love. I had found the candle that had been light two thousand years ago. I could think only of the Lord. I wished only to be with God. I could see in every mundane task the purpose behind each day, each event, each minute, each second. My suffering ceased. I had been saved. Christianity had become not a religion, but a personal relationship with God.

I prayed that God would use me as an example. I prayed that God would mold me in the image of his son. I prayed that God would keep me humble, honest, and that he would always make my example exceed my rank and my authority.

5 Through Christ, I could now feel compassion and hope. I could listen to each person I encountered regardless of their position or intelligence. The Lord had revealed to me the Word and shown me that every event and happening is predestined. The color of our hair, our friends, the jobs and positions in life man accepts. The only choices left to man are his piety and his sinfulness. Everything else has been ordained by God before man's creation.

Prayer does not change God's mind, it changes man's. It bends man's will into submission to allow God's will to be done.

6 At the height of my religious ecstasy, my body collapsed. Sickness ravaged my body, pain controlled my life. Illness claimed me. Doctors treated me day and night. I lived in hospitals. I prayed for death. I prayed that God would slay my life and take it quickly.

My body let go of its life and I died. In death, a great white light, brighter than the Sun, stood before me. Unlike the sun, I could look at the light without burning my eyes. All suffering was gone. Love consumed me. All worry was gone. I saw myself floating above my body, and the people caring for me down below. I saw the sorrow in my wife's eyes, and I saw my broken body. I saw Jesus waiting for me, with his large out-stretched hands. I thought perhaps his hands are big because he is a carpenter. Or, perhaps his hands are so large to hold up all the problems of the world. I had arrived at heaven's gates.

Then as quickly as I had died, I was sucked back into the world. Doctors did horrible things to me, and my body screamed in pain.

The death of man's physical body can be compared to a child's whirling ride. We spin till we are frightened, and at this point we lean back until gravity catches. We lose control, and gain ecstasy. Like holding a new born child. We are frightened of dropping the infant, but at the same time we are overcome with joy. We fear losing our bodies, but our souls yearn for the love of God.

7 I had an after death experience documented by science, but now my body was a living corpse. I suffered day and night. Pain was my world. Physicians cut open my body. I lived in one room, no food, no water. I was living at the foot of the cross Jesus had died on. People of all types passed by as I sat at the feet of Jesus. God had answered my prayers. I was now the example. My piety or sinfulness would be the example. God had shown me how Christ had suffered, and had molded my body to mark me as a slave of Christ. All who see me suffer are witnesses to Christ as the Son.
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