Growing up I was a normal kid who liked to run around and play like all kids do. I loved to play baseball and did from six years old until I was thirteen.

When I was a child, my grandmother kept me while my parents worked. When it was time to put me down for a nap she would read me one of two story books (One was of the Old Testament and the other of the New.) Our family background had been Baptist, and of course in one of the books it had Adam and Eve eating an apple, but we didn't know any better at the time.

One day while sitting on the sofa, grandma was reading the story of Noah's Ark. I was four or five. At the end of the story, after me asking questions, grandma told me Jesus gave us the rainbow as a sign He wouldn't destroy the earth with water, but one day Jesus is gone destroy the earth with fire. I remember thinking, "If Jesus is going to destroy the earth with fire, it hasn't happened yet so it is to come." It scared me!

This had always bothered me, and when I would see people building a fire I would get scared because I didn't want it to get out of hand a catch the world on fire. I was just a kid and didn't understand. At the age of ten I was still bothered, and my mama asked my papa to talk with me. He was a Baptist preacher. So I went over still scared and He told me about the Lord Jesus and how to pray and ask him to come in my heart. Well I did it right there in the den sitting on the side of the couch, but I remember I wanted something more. So I asked him how to do it again, and when we prayed again he said all you have to do is accept Him. I believe I did that, but it just seemed like there was more. I prayed and cried more. Before he took me home we went to eat and I was still upset. I went in the bathroom at the restaurant, and when I came walking out down the aisle I had a peace come down in my heart. I remember trying to witness to the waitress and tell her about Jesus. I think they probably thought I was crazy, but something had happened. After this it still bothered me about Jesus destroying the earth with fire. One day my daddy had been listening to Brother Branham's tapes and he got the Bible. He was kind of laying on the sofa with one leg off and I was on my knees beside him. Daddy turned over to Daniel and read the story about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and how Nebuchadnezzar threw them in the fiery furnace and they didn't burn! But when they looked in their they saw Jesus! It came to me that if I have Jesus in my heart, then can't nothing hurt me, and from then on that hasn't bothered me. THANK THE LORD!

I knew Jesus had saved me, and at twelve years old I was baptized at the Baptist church. I tried to do what was right and maintained my confession, but going through middle school you know how the trials are. I could have certainly done better. In the eighth grade, two years to the date of joining the Baptist church, I broke my neck which left me paralyzed from the neck down.

While laying in the hospital, preachers came to pray for me. I didn't know about healing, but I remembered when riding in the car with daddy listening to the tapes, the preacher would always say ALL things are possible to him that believeth. I had many friends come to see me and they were nice, but over a period of time I learned what real friends are. In the hospital, a co-worker of my daddies who introduced my daddy to the Message, came to pray for me. I had remembered what I had heard family members say about him, and I thought he was bad; kind of like part of a cult. You know how the devil does. Well he prayed and I still laid there with no signs. Then I was transferred to a rehab hospital which specializes in spinal cord injuries. I stayed there for six weeks telling them I was gonna walk, but I still hadn't at my discharge date. A psychologist came to me before being discharged and told me, "You told me you were gonna walk, but now we're fixing to discharge you and you haven't walked." I didn't want to listen because I knew I was gonna walk. Looking back I guess she was just doing her job and she probably didn't know about healing.

After coming home and throughout High School, I went with the crowd on a lot of issues, because I didn't want to be the 'poor kid' in the wheel chair who wasn't cool. I still believed I was gonna walk, and I remember one night mama told me "God ain't gonna heal you to do things of the world." I brushed it off, but it stuck with me. It really bothered me when others were getting their drivers license and I couldn't, so I promised the Lord if He would let me get a truck I would listen to Christian radio. Well graduation came around and I still wasn't driving.

I applied and got accepted to a two year college about thirty miles away. The Lord opened up a door where I could get a truck, but in the mean time my mother drove me back and forth to college. After my truck was converted where I could get in and drive it, I drove myself to school. I listened to rock-n-roll and anything but Gospel stations when people were in it with me, but when they were not I'd try to make good on my promise to the Lord and try to listen to Christian stations. While listening to preachers on the radio, I started realizing that one preacher would contradict the next one, and if you listened to him long enough he'd contradict himself.

It really got to bothering me, and I was bothered on other certain issues, so I started reading my Bible. I went from the Baptist church to the Pentecostal church because I knew they believed in healing and also the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. Behind the scene I was reading my Bible, but still couldn't see where the doctrines such as the trinity and speaking in tongues being the evidence of the Baptism of Holy Ghost were in accordance with the Bible. While going to the Pentecostal church, a lady came up speaking in tongues and told me I was going to walk. I was happy because I believed the same thing. Then she came back to me again speaking in tongues, and told me I was going to walk by the end of the month. I was happy thinking by the end of the month I'll be out this chair, but at the end of the month I wasn't walking yet. Then she told me after a church service that the Lord showed her the number three, and I would probably be walking in three days. I didn't know much, but I remembered where the Bible spoke of gifts. I asked her if it was a Word of Knowledge and she said yes. But at the end of three days I still wasn't walking. This bothered me greatly. The devil told me I had sinned away my day of grace and couldn't know the truth.

Scared to death, one day I went to the Voice of God website and started reading Brother Branham's sermons. What I was reading was matching everything I had read in the Bible. I was realizing This is the Truth! I ordered some tapes from VGR that I had heard clips of on the Quote of the Day that really spoke to me, like "Be Certain of God" and "Spiritual Inspiration." I would listen to the tapes over and over. After the Lord revealed to me this Message being the pure unadulterated Word of Malachi four, I felt bad for thinking that my daddies co-worker was part of a cult and a bad person. I hoped the Lord would make a way for me to be able to apologize for it.

One day we got a phone call that my great uncle had died. Well on the day to the funeral I was hoping my daddy's co-worker would be at the there, because he worked with my daddy and uncle who had just passed. In the funeral home I was noticing the people and how some women were wearing dresses and some not. Then I noticed this one lady who went up to the preacher, and they spoke for a minute. She told him she'd sure be praying for the preacher's wife. I had a good feeling about her, you know how it is when you're around believers. Well when we went in the next room, this lady was holding the hand of my daddy's co-worker and friend! (She was his wife.) I was certainly glad. That day I was able to make right my wrong, and I thank the Lord for it. Since then I've been going to a Message church where my daddy's co-worker is pastor, and last year he baptized me in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Although it has been eleven years since I broke my neck, I know the Lord has healed me and I want to keep confessing until my body obeys my confession. I also want to thank the Lord for a Message that has NO contradictions in it. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. I will let you know when my healing is manifested.

God Bless You,

Your Brother in Christ.