Mark! You changed my life!

The book of Mark.
It's changed my life not once but twice---

I was a young teenager and over the last several weeks something crazy happened to me. I encountered the word of God: beautiful and full of truth. I encountered the Word of God: beautiful and powerful. I began to pray, to worship, to search the Scripture. Life was changing. As that summer drew to a close, there was a decision point. It was time to go back to school in California which meant that I would be leaving this community of Christian disciples in Washington. . . . I had the hem of Christ's garment in one hand, and my torn fishing net in the other. What to do? To leave Washington meant basically giving up my faith. I knew that to go back home would be to sound a death knell to this new discipleship. But to stay in Washington meant leaving home, leaving my family, leaving my friends and everything I knew.

Then God brought to me Mark 10:29-31.
"'I tell you the truth,' Jesus said, 'no one who has left homes or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel, will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields--and with them, persecution) and in the age to come, eternal life. Many that are first will be last, and the last first."

That was it. I knew what I had to do. After some thoughtfulness and trepidation, I phoned my mother to tell her I was moving to Washington. I had become a disciple of Christ.