An Undeniably Miraculous Event

Note to readers: This is an 8 minute read. If you don't really have the time to do it justice, please come back later when you can.

When I gave my life to Yeshua in 1978 the future looked incredibly bright and hopeful, but I was in for a surprise. Instead the road that lay ahead was difficult and painful, but still the course I needed to take. The beauty of it lay in that I didn't have to go it alone. Yeshua made His constant presence as the Holy Spirit evident in many ways and with unending and unexpected answers to the unceasing dilemmas that lay ahead.

I was not in any way prepared for the cold shoulder toward the Holy Spirit that many churches along the way demonstrated. Religion and not relationship, the baffling unspoken message I met with so often. But there were individuals here and there often in those very same congregations that strangely showed up just when I needed them. He clearly sent them, they chose to listen and gladly obey. There was nothing in it for them, so it left me shaking my head, why, why should they be there? Just then, when I needed them so much. It happened too many times to deny that He was behind it.

Still stinging a bit after a brush off from yet another of those unwelcoming faith groups, another blessed person emerged to take the up baton of unending love from amongst them. She listened, she helped, she cared while I struggled to understand the incomprehensible. Then I took the bull by the horns to face into the real problem: I expected them to provide what only He could give . . . answers.

Thousands of questions poured in like a torrent when I became a believer. The most daunting of those questions being Creation vs. Evolution, ultimately the two are simply incompatible, yet I learned in "Christian" schools that the evolutionary process was unquestionable and undeniable. In theory our "faith" was founded on events in ancient history that were recorded in the Bible, but that was then, not now. My 1978 encounter with the living God through His Holy Spirit changed that perspective abruptly bringing those events and the words in that book through something like a time warp into a direct connection with the here and now. More than that, I felt the whisper of the Holy Spirit tell me that those words are His Words and that they are true.

It made no sense, but I could not dismiss it. I expected people to explain what they had no explanation for and worse they feared the very thing I sought, truth. A time span a few billion years wide laid between the truth I learned as opposed to the truth that beckoned. Before the rift, that last church brought the problem front and center with creation teachings unlike anything come across before. They presented the opinions of Bona Fide members of the scientific community that openly question the standard evolutionary model of our beginnings, and come down solidly in support of the Bible with a great deal of scientific research to back their positions. It empowered me to move forward as a Bible believer.

At that same time, I chose to tackle another Bible difficulty that would not leave me alone. In the books of The Kings, the details mostly having to do with time seemed to jump off the pages at me and defy my ability to make sense of them. The various reigns of the different kings just didn't make add up. To confront the problem directly, I began a timeline so that I could see the words I read in graphic illustration. Using a sheet of newsprint I began and soon ended up with a nonsensical mess that sprawled off the edge of the sheet; not much help. The effort went on hold just then when we moved closer to my husband's place of work as a high-school teacher.

After some settling into the new location I was anxious to look into the timeline thing further. A desperation to understand, to feel connection between the words in the Bible and the God who authored them was growing. I felt inside like I was standing on very shaky ground and needed the security of solid understanding.

I opted to start a brand new timeline, from the very beginning. With a team of scientists to back me up I had the courage to believe a six day creation, so I went through the first couple of chapters quickly, but then came to the genealogies and lengthy lifespans of the ancestral line. It called for a separate genealogy tracking line I soon abandoned because of (I Tim 1:4) and (Titus 3:9); both verses indicated that to be a pointless pursuit.

As the book of Genesis closes, the family of Abraham has gone into Egypt. The timeline held together pretty well until that point, but soon after that I was once again faced with facts in the text that didn't hold water. I felt alone, abandoned and confused. On one hand an unforgettable experience of meeting with God and on the other conflicting facts. It defied sanity. How could that be believed?

At a complete loss, but unable to dismiss meeting with a very real and living God, I opted to read on with little hope. As I read through the first chapters of the next book, Exodus, the beginning of chapter 12 read like a new dawn. "This month is to be for you the first month, the first month of your year" (Exodus 12:2). The Israelites were leaving Egypt after centuries and terrible enslavement. Here, God starts a brand new timeline! Elated, I sought to find out where exactly that month should be placed in a calendar. (Exodus 13:4) "Today in the month of Aviv you are leaving." Under the impression that the Old Testament is about the Jews, I looked for a Jewish calendar to find out when the month of Aviv is, but when I found one, there was no month of Aviv on it. Instead I found two "New Years," called Tishrei and Nissan. Perplexity set in once again.

Still in its infancy, the internet was a major boon to the curious masses in 2003. We were using Netscape Navigator as the search engine. I entered the term "Aviv." A page called the Karaite Korner all about the topic of Aviv came up. Elated again, but out of time, I printed a page with all the little squiggly characters on it at the bottom along with the date (November 3, 2003) so I could find it again, since I did not yet know how to use bookmarks or favorites.

A few days later the car needed servicing. Our mechanic, one of those rare golden types that really take care of you and don't charge crazy amounts of money, is in the town we moved from. Not really so far, I still go there now for all of our car work. It is located on a tiny dead end street, certainly not high profile. The waiting room there is tiny and triangular in shape. At that time things were also stored there, so only 3 chairs fit, two on one side, one on the other. When seated, customers were almost knee to knee. On that day, besides myself, an elderly couple occupied them.

As I discussed something through the service window, with my back turned the elderly man commented on the long braid I wore at the time. Clearly an icebreaker, I turned with a smile as he continued to tell me about how he braids his beard, a fairly bushy and long grey fluff. After that intro, he began telling me about the book on his lap. One of a four volume set of interlinear Bible. He continued on to say that he joined the Israeli army so that he could learn Hebrew.

For readers who might not know, an interlinear Bible is a special type of Bible which is written in sets of 3 lines each with an English translation column alongside. The middle line is written in Hebrew script, the top line has the number for each of the words that the Strong's Concordance assigns to it for interpretation. The bottom line then is the English term the word has been translated as. The sentences are not grammatically correct, hence the column to the side.

The fact, that he had the particular volume in his hands, is significant. When I began the first timeline that became such a mess, I was unable to find the beginning of the reign of the very first King, King Saul. As it happened, after the move one day while working on the next timeline, the Bible I regularly used was mislaid. I grabbed a different one close to hand, a different version. It fell open to the first book of Samuel at chapter 13. My eyes fell on the first verse which gave the information about Saul's reign. Certain that it was not in the other Bible, found it and compared them. Sure enough, that verse in the two different versions was so different that one of them at least must have taken liberties.

I will call them Alexander and Christine, not their real names, but I will probably mention them in future blogs. The fact that Alexander happened to have the one volume which had that particular verse in it (I Samuel 13:1) struck me as a nice coincidence, but only that, a coincidence and nothing more. It opened the door however to a very lively conversation that only ended because the work on their car was finished. They were heading south for the winter as many Canadians do, and at that time, we were not even emailing yet. Cell phones were just coming on the scene. None of us used them either. There was nothing for it but to say good-bye to them. I didn't want to lose contact so I made them promise to call as soon as they returned in the spring.

Just as our good-byes were being said out in the parking lot, Alexander mentioned that he has a friend in Israel who has a web page that he wants me to visit. Now this is where it gets really crazy and miraculous. Please remember that this took place in 2003. If it were the Super Bowl or something of that magnitude it wouldn't seem amazing, but it wasn't that. The webpage that Alexander wanted me to visit was none other than The Karaite Korner, the very webpage I came to just a few days before while working on my timeline. I was dumfounded. To me, it was clearly the fingerprint of God, He showed up in what was to me an undeniably miraculous way.

As winter deepened, my husband purchased a beautiful interlinear Bible for my birthday. I was certainly quite pleased because I could look at the words the way they were stated in Hebrew and get a better feel for what God really intended them to say as opposed to what translators decided on. I was able to look at (I Sam 13:1) to see which of my two versions came closest. Still, I didn't own a Strong's Concordance so I could not really use it to the fullest.

Anticipation grew daily as the long winter passed and gradually turned to spring. Finally the call came, Alexander and Christine would come to visit the next week. I was excited to tell them about having my own interlinear Bible mentioning without thought, that I lacked the concordance.

Finally the day came. They arrived, after meeting me on only that one occasion, with a very large, brand new, still in the cellophane "Strongest Strong's Concordance" to add to my amazement. They came with a mission, that being to teach me specifically about that word Aviv that Jewish calendar word I could not find on the Jewish calendar! The incident so reminds me of that Zen saying "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Alexander has since passed, but Christine is my friend to this day. This is a true story that changed my life forever.

This chapter ends here, but it certainly is not the end of the story. In the event that any of my readers would like to read more, please contact me at byDivineDesign@isabout.ca