I want to tell the world how I came to have a personal relationship with God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

I was lucky enough to be born into a family that believed in God and taught us about God and Jesus. I was required as a youth to attend church and was even sent to a parochial elementary school that I attended from 1-6^th grade. I was NEVER taught to read the Bible for myself though.

I got so wrapped up into being a good Catholic, that I was an alter boy till I was 17 yrs old. My goal in life was to either be a Catholic priest or a Michigan State trooper. I was working hard at K-mart in the summer of 1973 and saving money to attend St. Mary’s of Orchard Lake Seminary. I was going to work one day that changed my life forever.

There were days in my life that I would hitchhike just for the heck of it. I have always enjoyed meeting new people and you really could meet some different people hitchhiking. Well I was hitchhiking to work this day and a stranger in a new Mercedes picked me up on Ann Arbor Road in Livonia and told me he would take me to the Kmart at Plymouth Rd/Middlebelt.

This gentleman asked me what I thought was a pretty simple question. He said, “If you were to die this very instant, would you go to Heaven or to Hell?” Well, being a good Catholic I knew I had to go to Purgatory and “pay” for my sins before I could go to Heaven. So I answered, “Purgatory” at which this man said, Oh, so you are a Catholic!” ” I asked him how he knew that and he advised me only Catholics believe in this place Purgatory and that it is not in the Bible. We then discussed my Catholic upbringing, and that I trusted the Church, and my family such, that if this is what I was taught, it MUST be true.

This stranger then made a very smart appeal. He said that since I was planning on attending the seminary in the fall, wouldn’t it be a good idea if I got a head start on my classmates and read the Bible BEFORE I went there? Made sense to me. Of course I had to admit I didn’t own a Bible and this man advised I was in luck, because he had a trunk load of them. He also said he was friends with a man named David Wilkerson and that I was welcome to his book “The Cross and the Switchblade” as well. As this man stopped traffic on Plymouth Road in front of the K-mart to let me out, he literally had tears in his eyes and his last words were, “Promise me you will read these books!” I promised, and have never seen this “Angel” again.

That evening when I got home I immediately opened the Bible and started reading. Of course I did not have to read far to start questioning some of the things I was reading. I read things like “Call no man Father, except your Father in Heaven!” Christ’s own words, yet as a Catholic I am taught to address the priest as father??? Then I read where Jesus was the last priest, in the order of priesthood, and there after there should be no more priests! Now I knew that other Protestant faiths had people called Pastors and not priests, but now realized why a distinction

The more I read the more and more I found contradictions in Catholicism to the Bible. Boy was I confused! It actually got to the point that evening, that I put the Bible down and started to read “The Cross and the Switchblade”. God has always blessed me with an ability to read fast, so I finished that book that very evening. The thing I remember to this day that struck me the most in the book was that the Holy Spirit gives people a new life, new power when He becomes part of you. I also realized that whatever this “born-again” stuff was, I had not experienced it.

As a Catholic I was taught that if I kept the “rules” of the Church, that is going to Church every Sunday, and going to confession regularly I had a “ticket” to Heaven. I was never taught I had to be “born-again”!! My unsaved Catholic friends to this day tell me that of course I was born again when I excepted the sacraments of Baptism and First Communion, etc… HOGWASH!!! When Jesus Christ says that being “born-again” is similar to feeling the birth pangs of a woman, then I know that being born again is a DISTINCT EVENT that MUST occur in ALL of our lives, and the scary part for me, is I had not had the pleasure of being born-again. This began what I call the scariest days of my life, unsaved, damned, and not sure how to get saved…

Well I could write for pages and pages about what brought me to the day I was saved, but let me talk about that day. It was at a Bible study in a private home in Westland, Michigan. Those who know me know I sometimes go my own way, and this day was no different. While the Bible study was going on, I was reading on my own and came across some scripture where the apostles asked Jesus who was going to forgive them for their sins after his death? Jesus response was, “Look to the skies and ask my Father for forgiveness!” HALLELUIAH!!! I finally figured out what I was doing wrong! I was trying to figure out what I had to do to get saved – NOTHING!! There was nothing I could do, it was already done!! Jesus’ death was for my sins, and all I had to do is ask God to forgive me!! I looked up to Heaven and quietly said to God, “Please God, forgive me for my sins.” That very INSTANT it was as if a scouring brush entered my body from the top of my head, and passed through me to my toes. I was being TOTALLY cleansed!! I finally was BORN-AGAIN!!! I screamed out in joy – and started crying hysterically and hugged my best friend and brother Chuck Koontz and told him I was finally SAVED!! The Holy Spirit baptized me that day, and since that day, I have been in total communion with God.

THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!

Don’t get me wrong. I am not perfect. I sin nearly every single day. I have been married 3x, yet God forgave me for the sins of my past, the sins today, and the sins I will commit in the future. If you are reading this, and you do not own a Bible I will gladly give you one. Do you want to read the book “The Cross and the Switchblade”? I will give you one…. PLEASE, if you are not born-again, and have not experienced what it is like to walk with God, and talk with God, get a Bible and start reading!!

If you have any questions or you want a Bible or the book “Cross and the Switchblade” please contact me –

tomcat@winthelotto.net