I was deep in thought about how I had come to the Lord and the circumstances around that. It was very early in the morning, and I was almost finished with my morning prayer. 

The more I thought about my life before I came to know Jesus, the more I realized how lucky I felt. I have written several times about my wild life here on Medium and expressed how amazing He is and the wonderfully radical change I experienced when I met Jesus.

This is a somewhat tricky post because the subject is difficult to describe.

My salvation was a life-changing and life-saving event. Try as I did, I couldn’t find happiness. In that pursuit of joy and fulfillment, I can say that I came close to losing my life two or three times. By age twenty-six, I was trying to change all that by joining the Coast Guard. However, I was one of the older guys on the ship I was assigned to. And I was having a hard time keeping up with life at sea. It’s easy to get lonely in the middle of the Bering Sea. My mind kept returning to what a mess I had made of my life, which led me to a state of hopelessness that I couldn’t shake. 

Well, circumstances eventually led me to turn to Jesus. 

My encounter with the life-saving person of Jesus Christ was nothing short of supernatural. Today, I know the Holy Spirit was flooding my life and bringing life to my shriveled spirit. This is why it’s called being Born Again. You might say I was raised from the dead as my spirit was reborn. 

That experience was the first of many supernatural encounters that became essential milestones in my and my wife’s lives. 

This was what I remembered the other day during prayer. I thought of all the people out there living as I did with that undercurrent of hopelessness. And the odds of me being born again. Why me? Was I lucky or more deserving? No.

I was desperate. That afternoon, Jesus looked like the only person who could potentially help me because life seemed to have abandoned me. In desperation, I realized He was who He says He is. 

I felt lucky, but not so much deserving. I still had a long way to go to that place where I would regain self-confidence. The transformation of my life remains the most important event in my life…by far. 

But it wasn’t because I was lucky. My salvation was a product of prayer. People were praying for my soul. Lots of people. My wife made sure of that. Prayer is a key to saving the souls and lives of the people around you. Now, that memory of my transformation is the spark for bringing people to Jesus so they can have that same experience of the Holy Spirit rocking their world.