Journey: Finding Christ in a Modern World - Paperback

by Mary Jane Stiller (Author)

Mary Jane Stiller's life is best exemplified by a journey to find God. Adopted and brought home at the age of one day, she was raised as an only child in a mainline Protestant home.

She considered herself a Christian by the only definition she knew. But this suddenly changed following a head-on auto accident and an out-of-body experience.

I was instantly put into a position where my theology did not match my experience. Nothing that had happened fit any of the church background I had been taught. Suddenly God was alive and real and I wanted Him to be a part of my life. The problem was I didn't know how to move myself into the relationship with Him I was seeking. I read an autobiography of an evangelist from the 1800s. He spoke of new converts going to the altar and "praying through." Sometimes this took all night. I had never seen this in the church but I told God that if this was real, I wanted it, too.

One night I awoke in the middle of the night. The overshadowing presence of the Lord enveloped me. One by one He brought my sins to mind. This time there was no rationalization, no excuses. As He brought my sins before me, I repented from deep in my inner man. Hot tears poured down my cheeks. When it was done, I heard water pouring into the bedroom as if a waterfall had opened up. My husband and I jumped out of bed and turned on the light. A torrent of water gushed into the room from the base of the wood border along the ceiling. As soon as we saw it, the water stopped. Everything in the room and on the rug was dry except some water held in a small plastic dish. This dish still held the water in the morning. The night sky was clear. There were no plumbing pipes in this area. No natural explanation existed. God had accepted my repentance.

The result has been a continuing quest to know His ways and shape my life to His purpose.