By: John - Cedar Knolls, NJ

I first came to Discovering Christ in February 2014. I was looking for a way to have a relationship with Christ, but was clueless how to do it. I had been away from the church for so long that I thought that maybe God checked out of my life. Lucky for me, God was waiting for me with open arms. 

I went to reconciliation a few weeks before Discovering Christ started and asked for God’s forgiveness. Driving home, I felt the same as I did before I went to reconciliation. I thought, "this can’t be right, I should feel something since I just unloaded 25 years’ worth of sins." I didn’t expect the sky to open up and a loud voice say "you are forgiven," but I thought I would feel a little different.

Little did I know that in a few weeks not only would I feel God’s powerful forgiveness, but I was going to have a life changing encounter.

I was participating in a small group discussion with my Discovering Christ group the morning of the retreat day. My team leader asked "what do you think you need to do in order to have a personal relationship with Christ?" I sat there clueless. I thought to myself, "how do you have a relationship with someone you can’t see?"

Later that afternoon, everyone came together to sing the song "Here I am Lord." As we sang, tears started to flow out of my eyes. I looked away from everybody so no one could see my tears. I thought to myself, "what is going on, why am I crying?" I tried to stop, but I couldn’t.

I decided the words of the song must be making me cry. I looked down at the song sheet to see what the words of the song were. I read: "All who dwell in dark and sin, my hand will save." After I read the words again, my tears started flowing faster and heavier at the realization that I lived in dark and sin for all those years that I was away from the church. But it didn’t matter because God was going to save me anyway. I sat there re-reading the same line over and over with tears flowing.

We all went up to the church and sat in different pews away from each other.  We were told to close our eyes and picture in our minds what the reader was reading to us. The reading was the prodigal son through the eyes of the father. I pictured the father looking out the window of his home. He saw green fields. There was a dirt road and in the distance on the dirt road someone was walking. As the person got closer he noticed it was his son. His son was coming home.

As I sat in the pew with my eyes closed picturing this, the scene suddenly changed. In the picture, I was walking down the dirt road. The person looking out the window wasn’t the prodigal father anymore. It was God.

Then it hit me. I felt the overwhelming feel of God’s love and forgiveness. The feeling was so intense that words can't justify it. Tears started to flow. I felt the forgiveness I was looking for when I left confession weeks earlier. All the things I did when I was a way from the church didn’t matter anymore. God loved me. He just wanted me to come home to him. I sat there feeling the power of God’s love and forgiveness. It was a really powerful experience.

I started to walk over to my team leaders who were going to pray with me. As I walked toward them, I felt a powerful feeling come over my entire body. It was so powerful that it stopped me in my tracks. It probably lasted only 5 seconds, but it felt like it lasted a lot longer.

I continued to walk over to my group leaders, sat down and closed my eyes. One of them put his hands on me and started to pray. As he was praying the feeling came back over me and tears started to flow.

At first I was embarrassed because I was crying in front of them. I was going to open my eyes, but something told me not too. I sat there with my eyes closed as my team leader prayed for me, my tears flowing as I felt God’s love. It was truly amazing.

When I left the church, I felt like I could walk on water.

Four hours earlier in the day I was clueless about how to have a personal relationship with Christ and now I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to do four things: pray, read the bible, join more faith formation groups, and go to mass. These four things became the foundation of my personal relationship with Christ. I also knew what the powerful feeling I felt earlier was—it was the Holy Spirit.