My Journey from
Atheism to Christianity

My grandmother’s funeral was set for December 30th. Life went on as normal for several days after Christmas with little or no thought of the events of Christmas Eve. At the time I was actually working harder than ever—almost 70 hours a week, six days a week, with the seventh day taken up doing mandatory community service to work off an overdue traffic ticket fine. I made sure to get the day off for the funeral, which was to take place in Hemet, California, where my grandparents, uncle and cousins had all lived for many years. Family gatherings always seemed to bring out both the best and worst in me and my kin, so you never quite knew what was in store. But this was different than your average gathering. At the funeral my father read the eulogy he had prepared. He was a great writer and speaker, always chock full of witty little gems. And although we had our political differences, I would generally have agreed with the overall humanistic spirit of his thoughts. But as I leaned...

In the comments section of my first post (Undeniable Divine Direction) , a question came from a skeptic named Michael (I believe this was none other than Michael Shermer, the well-known founder of The Skeptics Society and Skeptic magazine, since a friend of mine said he had just debated the head of a skeptic's society and sent him my link only the day prior to receiving the comment). I thought it worthy of publishing as a short post along with my answer. I may add to this post from time to time as similar questions and answers arise. Q. You claim that all this really happened to you, and for the sake of argument let's say that it did. Why should anyone besides YOU believe it happened (let alone that a god of any kind was involved)? You give a personal testimony that cannot be verified, tested, or repeated. Was your former "harcore atheist" position devoid of such demands for evidence? Do you not see how the former you would find such a story to be incredibly suspect...

Through God's miraculous workings the night my grandmother died and at her funeral, I had just become a Christian. The very next day was New Year's Eve 1993, and I found myself going into 1994 already falling away from my new found faith. At least it hadn't sunk in to the point that it changed my behavior. But God would not let me slip away so easily, and had plans to ignite my faith with the "quadruple miracle" you hopefully read about in my first post . Come to think of it, even the radio sermon I had stumbled upon the night before had the fingerprints of God all over it. First off, I rarely listened to the radio in my room, and then I certainly never listened to any religious radio station. Yet there I found myself feeling prompted to turn on my radio, and it just so happened to be tuned crystal clear to that "preacher dude". The verses he preached on were the same ones that I thought to find in my Bible the next fateful day when God set my faith ...

I would like to take a moment to spotlight something so momentous and astonishing that I would be remiss if I left it hiding on the fringes here. Some readers may have noticed the "my late father" hyperlink in an earlier post , clicked it, and found the miracle-filled account of "The Passing of My Father" . Some may also have noticed it listed over on the side of this blog under "More Miracle-filled Accounts". Short of re-posting "The Passing of My Father" on this blog, I wanted to make sure no one missed it, which is why I am spotlighting it in this post. LENGTH ALERT: "The Passing of My Father" is somewhat longer than my usual posts here, although not for lack of punch. For those of you who might shy away from reading something a little longer for lack of time, you can always start with this shorter excerpt called "The Miracle of the Harp" . As always, thanks for reading.