Week of October 12
In the fall of 2005, I left my job working as a prosecutor for the
State of New Jersey and contemplated my next career move. I had just started dating a nice man from the
Jersey shore and I considered moving there to start my own business. Before I even began thinking about new
employment, I planned a trip to the southwest part of the US. My intention was to take a journey, not just
a vacation. I told myself (and some close friends) that this was a
spiritual quest. I knew there was a lack
of something in my life. I felt empty
inside, especially after so many failures in my relationships and my career. Even
without a belief in God, I still knew that the longing I was feeling was in the
spiritual realm not the worldly.
I flew to Albequerque,
New Mexico, rented a SUV, and headed towards Sante Fe and Taos. After a couple
of days I rented a mountain bike and followed a trail alongside the Rio Grande
River. I was alone. I liked being by myself. Typically, I was more open to new experiences
and friendships when I was traveling alone.
As I rode the trail high above the famous river, I began to get a sense
of the vastness of the countryside. I
had ridden for an hour without passing a soul.
At one point I stopped just to listen to the silence. All I could hear was the sound of my blood
whooshing in my ears. No cars, no
people, not even the call of a bird. It
felt a bit surreal. And for some reason
I looked up at the sky. I would say in
reflection that God wanted me to look up and I was responding to his unspoken
call.
As I looked
at the deep blue sky with its wispy clouds, my eyes immediately fixed on a
recognizable shape in the cloud directly above my head. My jaw dropped as I picked out the
unmistakable outline of a bearded Jesus with a crown of thorns on his
head. I gaped for what seemed like a
minute but it could have been less.
When the
cloud finally began to break up, I tilted my head back to upright and wondered
about what I had just seen. I was not a
believer in Jesus and having been raised by secular, Jewish intellectual
parents, the face of Jesus was the last thing I was searching for in my
spiritual quest.
That incident stuck with me but not in any
revelatory way. It was just a really
cool thing to file away in the recollection of my journey out West.
When my travels took me to Moab and
Zion, I had two separate encounters with Christians who witnessed to me. In Moab, I was shopping in a knick knack
store – more like a warehouse of strange things – when I struck up a
conversation with the owner, Robert. He
offered to take me to Arches National Park the next day. I agreed and we met at a breakfast joint the
next morning. I thought Robert was a bit
eccentric so it didn’t faze me when he began to mention Jesus on the hiking
trail into the park. The rock formations
were amazing and it was nice to have a companion for once in my travels. When we parted, I took his email
address. Although I wrote a time or too,
it was never to acknowledge his testimony; I just offered a thank you for a
great day.
When I started out on my first day at Zion National
Park, I rose early so I could take in some coffee and breakfast to fortify my
day of hiking. It was a small restaurant
and I recall striking up a conversation with two young ladies seated
nearby. They shared that they were both
attending a Christian leadership camp of some sort. I asked where they were from and we shared
our plans for the upcoming week. As I
began to finish up my coffee, one of the girls shared about Jesus and
salvation. I cannot now remember her
words, but the sincerity was clear as was her longing for me to
understand. I finally extricated myself
and walked to my car. The girl who
shared chased me into the parking lot waving a piece of paper. It was a piece of scripture – typed or
handwritten, I cannot recall. I saved it
for some reason and even remember finding it many years later after I had
become a Christian. I wish these young
ladies and Robert could both know now that I am a follower of Christ. We never know when seeds we sow ripen into
faith
These were the first times I had ever been
witnessed to as far as I can recall. The
incidents happened within days of each other and of the experience along the
Rio Grande. I have pretty specific
recollections of these two people who witnessed to me. I recall even now that they spoke
specifically about Jesus as the way to salvation and a relationship with
God. However, despite the overt purpose
of my journey – to create a stronger spiritual part of my life – the incident
with the clouds and the encounters with the Christians did not cause me to
consider following Jesus even for one moment.
Following the trip, I did not give much thought to Jesus or the
testimony of my new acquaintances.
In a few
months, I would move to the coast of New Jersey and begin to start my own law
practice. I was still dating my nice,
Catholic beau. We discussed his beliefs;
he gave me books to read (The Shack, Conversations with God). And so maybe the path was sown with enough
seeds to allow me to agree, in the summer of 2006, to attend a Saturday night
service at my secretary’s church. She
told me her husband was leading the music and I thought that sounded like a
nice reason to go to church.
As I began
to go regularly to the Saturday night services, the incidences in New Mexico
and Utah began to return to mind. I was
learning that God allows seekers to find Him when they are ready. He puts people and occurrences in our lives
to lead us to Him. I could not see the
big picture while I was an unbelieving seeker; but as the months went by it
became clear to me that God wanted me – specifically, me, as an individual - to
find Him. And Jesus was not some foreign
entity, an object to be dismissed as generations of Jews before me had done
unthinkingly. Jesus was merely the part
of God that is observable, knowable, approachable. I found out in August of 2007, knowing God was
as simple as asking Him into my life and into my heart.
It was more
than a year and a half from when I had begun my “spiritual quest.” I had no idea then how intricately planned
that trip actually had been. I had
nothing to do with it really. But
looking back over the years, I can see the greater picture and how God works so
specifically in each of our lives to bring us closer to knowing Him. Hopefully, by reading my story now, a seed is
planted in your heart as it was in mine.
Let the real Journey begin!
Alison Aaron
Madsen
The New Jersey Shore
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