A couple of years after my divorce, I began to experience a strong feeling of guilt and so I began to pray God for forgiveness. I prayed continuously, but guilt gnawed me every day. Every time I took my dog for a walk I used to pray for forgiveness. Then this one time during spring, when I was on a walk praying, I felt this warm wave going through me and it was then when I strongly felt that all my sins had been forgiven by God. A burden fell away and I felt relieved. You can only imagine how happy I was. I also felt touched by Jesus for the first time and so I began to understand matters in a completely different way.

However, I was neither connected to a congregation nor did I talk about the matter with another believer and so I left things just be. Faith started to die little by little out of me. However, the strong knowledge that I had been forgiven, and that all the feelings of bitterness and disappointment had disappeared, stayed. I began to look for God to come into my life. But I was looking for him from the wrong direction without even knowing it. I began to read literature that dealt with intellectual growth. I read everything that dealt this subject, and I imagined that if I grew mentally and became enlightened, God would eventually notice me and accept me as His own. Back then, I did not know that mental and spiritual have a big difference.

A few years later, I took part in a mission weekend. I thought that if an opportunity for it comes, I want to give my life to Jesus. The opportunity indeed came and I prayed with a pastoral carer and gave my life to Jesus. When coming back from there, I knew that I had become a believer and I shared it with a couple of my friends. I took part in one bible study group but it soon stopped and I did not find what I was looking for from there. My enthusiasm run out, I was disappointed. In the course of the years, I quietly drifted on the way of intellectual growth until I moved to Kankaanpää. One Thursday I decided to go for a "Toivon Torstai"-meeting to listen the word of God. There I felt a strong desire to pray and I hoped that a pastor would pray with me, but I didn't have the guts to go and ask. Fortunately he suggested it to me. It was a powerful prayer because from that moment on God begun to bring His work to an end in my case.

In the following week, a pressing pain came to me and I knew that I was on the edge of an abyss. I understood that I had to choose whether to continue in the same way with my life, which I knew would lead to perdition or whether I wanted to make an improvement. I wanted to change my life right then if only I had the possibility. I prayed and apologised for my sins and I asked Jesus to come into my life. Jesus came to my life and I felt the presence of the holy ones. I felt I had to read the Bible and find an important verse. I opened the book and began to read. The letters looked like they were made of gold and I understood that I was given a particular verse. I read it and felt that I had received complete salvation. Jesus is now in my life. This matter was shown to me concretely and so my search has ended and peace has come into my heart permanently. Thank You, Jesus, for taking me as Your own.