What makes this testimony even more amazing is that I told it to my aunt (whom I rarely speak to over the phone) around 2 weeks ago; I told her the story of Jana and her friend's experience with God. Later that week my aunt worked at a craft market, where a woman 'randomly' told her about this 14 year old girl who had read the book of Revelation that week and that she was extremely distressed by it. Her mother did not exactly know how to handle the situation. My aunt who is a vice-principle of a school ended up counseling this young lady and her mother by telling them this testimony of Jana's, that I had just told her a few days before hand.
This is Jana's story in her own words:
"I was about 11 years old when my parents first
joined a church. At a conference our church attended I answered an altar call
in a kids service to invite Jesus into my heart. I didn’t experience it as life
changing at that time but from that day I believed that I was going to heaven
to be with that Jesus.
It was at that conference my parents bought me
my first own Bible and my friend’s parents got them Bibles as well.
It must have been only weeks later when we had
a sleep over with a few of the girls from our church at my friend’s house. Our
parents, who were all immigrants from former Sovjet Union countries, had a get
together away from home to go to the sauna, like many eastern Europeans do.
So we were six girls alone at home between the
ages 8-13. It was late and we were all dressed in our pajamas but no one was
tired yet. As I looked around the room I saw my friend’s new Bible. None of us
has read the Bible before, all we knew is what they tell us at school about
Jesus during Christmas time and the Lord’s prayer and some stories from the few
times we all attended Sunday school.
Since we were bored and had nothing else to do
I suggested to read from the Bible. Since we didn’t know how the Bible is
structured and where all the stories were I just decided to read from the end
of the book, that usually is the most exciting part!
So I started reading from the middle of the
book of Revelation, where it talks about the red dragon and the beasts. The part
that really got to us was that it says that everybody will be deceived by the
beast and worship it. We also read that Jesus will come as a thief in the night
and the end can come tomorrow. Being children we simply believed that the Bible
in its entirety is true and none of us questioned the Word or existence of God.
While I am reading, my friends started to get
scared of all this horror they are hearing. We knew that what we were reading
is not just a scary story but it is a prophecy of God about the future. It
became reality to us. So all of us started crying and I couldn’t read any
further. We were genuinely scared that if Armageddon happened tomorrow we might
also be deceived and fall away and go to hell.
So one of my friends said we must pray. We all
sat in a circle holding hands and lifting them up to heaven. None of us prayed
out loud in front of anyone before but none of us thought about it at that
moment. Each of us prayed out loud one after the other with tears rolling down
our faces, crying out to God that we don’t want to be deceived, worship a beast
and wear the number of the antichrist. We wanted to be saved from what we read
in the book of Revelation and saved from our sin which we knew we had. Our
prayer was that we want to go to heaven, no matter what it takes.
After everyone prayed, all of the sudden we all
stopped crying and it felt like something like a blanket came down on us. The
fear was gone and it was like peace and love came in the room and surrounded
us. No one was talking for a few minutes. We all just laid down in bed. Then my
friend turned to me and whispered:
“Jana...”
Me: “Yes”
Her: “Can you feel this?”
Me: “Yes”
Her: “What is this?”
Me: “I don’t know, but it’s the same feeling I
get in my stomach when I’m on a roller coaster.”
Her: “It makes wanna climb on the roof and
shout how awesome God is!”
Me: “Yeah I feel the same way!”
Her: “I also just realized that my stomach ache
went away that I had all day, it felt like a hand touched me and then my pain
was gone.”
Me: “That must have been God.”
When I closed my eyes trying to sleep I saw
something. I saw myself and I was wearing white shining garments. I knew God
gave them to me and not people because they didn’t look like normal clothes.
That moment I promised God that I would keep my clothes clean and I wasn’t
talking about literal clothes I knew it was my life that he made holy and I had
to keep it that way.
I also promised Him that I will never doubt
that He is real no matter what people say. Because what I’ve experienced was physically
tangible and my 5 friends all felt the same thing. But even if they didn’t feel
anything I know I did and nobody could ever convince me of anything different.
I know something real happened to me, I couldn’t imagine that. Not at 11 years
of age.
I didn’t know that the Holy Spirit was a person
and that God’s presence can be experienced in that way, especially not outside
of church. We were not taught in Sunday school to lift up our hands or how to
pray and that God’s Spirit can just come and touch and fill you.
When we told our parents about what happened
they said that it must have been the Spirit of God that came to us.
Even though I received Jesus before this event,
I know it was on that day that He became real to me and that His Spirit was
inside of me.
I never feared hell one day after this. Knowing
I am not perfect, I will always know that I am saved by grace through faith,
because Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost. Not to give us a hope
that we can never be sure of. We can be sure of heaven as long as we are sure
of what Jesus did for us and show it in our lives."
This is a picture of Jana and her friends around the time of this event.
