I wrote about two thirds of my testimony here and AOL booted me off of thecomputer, well we know who does not want this testimony to be shared no doubt.I will try not to be too long winded but I have to allow the holy spirit to speak here so I apologize if it gets too lengthy. Thank you for allowing me to share from my heart the blessings of the great I Am that I have experienced in my lifetime.
My name is Marlene and I live with my husband Arnold and our one and only son Howard in Salt Lake City, Utah. At present, I am 53 years young and am a Messianic Jew. When I was a child I always, always believed in God and would pray to Him. My family although Jewish, were not religious Jews at all and no one spoke of God in my house. They were, how shall I put it, cultural Jews. They had a Jewish identity and I remember my mama made a mean bowl of chicken soup
I was a very avid reader as a child. At nine years old my brother, who is now deceased, came home from the air force with a book entitled the Jewish scriptures. He didn't know what to do with it. He was superstitious and didn't want to throw it out, but he didn't want to read it either. So he gave it to me saying, here sis, here's another book for your bookshelf. Well I read it and reread it and read it again and again and again because I came to find out it was not like any other book I have ever read before. It had power to it and a feeling of holiness every time I would hold it and read it. I would read the psalms alot especially out loud I felt the presence of tremendous love in my room when I would read
When I came to the end of the old testament, I thought in frustration there should be more to this but I couldn't put my finger on it. I didn't know there was even a New Testament out there.
I prayed alot as a kid especially when I was sick. I almost died of a burst appendix when I was ten years old and God spared my life. It would not be the only time I would come to see the hand of God in my life working supernaturally to deliver me out of rough and tough places.
When I was twenty I married a very nice and kind hearted fellow, Arnie who was a Jewish chap, but an atheist. In many respects he was a real mensch (honorable man) but he did not believe in God. We had a beautiful son Howard about two years later and moved to California. In southern California we became involved with the Lubovitcher orthodox movement in orange county and enrolled our son into the Hebrew academy. All three of us soon got a crash course education into our heritage. After a while we moved and relocated to northern California to the Sacramento area. It was here we started to study with the Jehovah's witnesses who seemed to be so kind and such decent folks. We were searching and somehow being a part of a synagogue was not enough to meet our most innermost longings and needs but what we were searching for we had no idea. Mine is a stepping stone testimony because the great I Am took me from point a to point b to my final destination which came in the person of a gal named Maryann
Now at this point of my life, I am no dope, I realize most gentiles aren't comfortable with us Jews and visa versa and also some are down right anti-semitic, so I didn't have alot of friends. Women friends were hard to come by, the gender by nature, is not a tender spirited one. I apologize to anyone who is reading this who takes offense by that, but my own experiences at that point in my life testified of alot of catty. jealous. mean spiritedness amongst that gender of the species. However now I meet this gal who is so unlike anyone I have even met, so different and so real and so genuine, I am dumbstruck by her candor and her gentle spirit >and even though she's a woman and also a gentile to boot I came to grow to love her and respect her Her sister was murdered in Sacramento about six months after we meet and the way she reacted to everything blew me away. It was not natural nor normal human behavior and went beyond the limits of human endurance. It was at this time I started to have an open dialogue with Maryann about the life/death issues of life and death. She never never threatened my Jewish identity, she never never told me I was going to hell, she never never inflicted anything on me.
One day she invited me to her small nondenominational church she attended. Three times she asked me three times I declined but the last time I changed my mind. I knew there was something I could not articulate out loud that was imperative I show up at this invitation. So off I went.
There were several tables and women at each table. They were studying from the book of Mathew, each took a turn reading a scripture. It was from the beatitudes, it still remains one of my favorite books of the entire bible. It came my turn to read, I started to open my mouth nothing came out, I started again and I read, blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted. I started to cry. Up to that point in my life I had alot of cumulative pain. Then a gal got up, very down to earth, no phony airs about her and she shared about her life.
She was pretty explicit, she was very real, she was not a holy Joe. Something, as she was talking snapped inside of me and a spiritual lightbulb went off telling me that this Jesus was more than just a good man, a rabbi (teacher), and that He was exactly who He claimed to be, the Messiah.
At that point in my life I didn't think about being Jewish or gentile or Christian. I saw Him and Him alone. I saw perfect love, perfect truth, perfect justice, standing in front of me, beckoning me to come to Him and I did just that. I invited Him into my heart totally. I didn't say just words, I meant every word I said.
Something inside of me was released and I knew I had done something that would have far reaching consequences for the rest of my life and then some. I did not act out of emotion or intellect, there was just something I had been wanting and waiting for all my life and I knew it was accept or reject time at that juncture.
I went home and told my husband what I did, he was very patronizing. I know he thought I was a meshugganna person (crazy) but he was very tolerant. Actually too passive about the whole thing That year God was not only merciful to me but to my whole family as we were introduced to Jews for Jesus from the San Francisco branch ministry. Arnie met other Jews who also saw Yeshua (Jesus) for who He truly is, not the Ku Klux Klan Jesus or the Spanish inquisition Jesus but the One who was, testified of in the old testament so long ago who came out of the lineage of David ,to set His people free. Without being brainwashed or pressured, Arnie, my devout atheistic hubby. came to know his Jewish Messiah about a year later praise HaShem.
I am 53 years old and after 23 years, there are days I think to myself what if what if I had never gone to my friends church that day What if I had never met a Maryann out there who loved me for me unconditionally? What if I had never gotten that old testament bible to pave the way to the new testament so many years later to complete me as a Jew and as a human being down here?
All the what ifs are taken care of by the great I Am
There are those of you who will hallelujah this testimony and I am so blessed that if anyone is moved here. And there are those of you who will read this angrily or with curiosity or with fear and dismiss it as another Jew gone wrong, but let me share from my heart, that this is a Jew that went right.
All our mitzvahs, and this is the Jewish scriptures not churchianity, all our works are like filthy rags so even my menchy husband Arnold didn't fill the bill with a holy God. I judge no man, no woman here. I have no right to, there for the grace of God goes Marlene.
Here, but for the love of God, I challenge every one who reads this who does not know their Messiah to put away your hurt and your pain and your anger. I know what you are feeling because I have been there and done that , I was the last angry Jew.That's how hurt I was sometimes. Just get introduced to the one called Yeshua, forget about all else. I challenge you to read what He said two thousand years ago and still holds true for us today. I challenge you to find any fault in this One, I challenge you to look into His eyes which are staring right back into yours eyes that are full of love and to turn away from such love.
I have no pat answers here for life's sorrows and woes and sufferings. I cannot wave a magic wand over anyone's pain but there is One who supernaturally comes in the name of the lord to do the impossible.
I am living walking talking proof that HE WILL NOT FORSAKE OR LEAVE YOU, HE IS THE GOD OF THE JEW FIRST THAN THE GENTILE. Write me if you wish, anytime. Ialways answer as long as I have breath I will answer you.
Thank you for reading this and let us all pray right now for the peace of Jerusalem for there will be no true peace until the prince of peace comes back for His bride and for His people Israel
SHALOM, Marlene