My testimony starts with a series of miracles that also inspire my prayers to this day. I remember from when I was a baby, my family got in a horrible car accident and I ended up being the only one untouched. I was scooped up into arms of a nun and I guess she prayed protection over me. Everytime I hear that story, I knew that God had a plan for me. During the 3rd grade me and my class prayed the prayer of salvation. It helped to give me awareness of Jesus Christ, but still I nonetheless felt that I needed to go deeper. There was still something deeper I needed to do. Just saying Jesus is Lord or praying with a dozen other people didn't really connect me tight with the Lord. I needed to journey to Him on my own...
Junior Year
By the time I was 17 I was enrolled in one of the most difficult high schools in all of Newark. If you wanted an idea of how rough it was: I'd say if you pictured my school at face value as one of those inner city ghetto schools, then you'd be dead wrong. However if you imagined the level of work given at my school as being more strenuous than those of the best schools in suburbia...well then you are getting a good idea of what it was like for me. Plus having constantly disgusted parents and classmates who were mostly jerks didn't help things either. In other words, if you were an “A” student at your old high school and you got enrolled in mine, well then you'd be at the level of an average “C” student. Usually the reports that I got back from this school read something like, “your child is failing in *insert name of ultra difficult class here*” or “your child is in danger of being sent back to his district high school”. However sometimes the school was more straight forward and they'd just put a “D” or an “F” on my report card.
Probably one of the worst things about my Junior year at high school was that we were given 2 hours of science class, which everyone was failing at. Let me put it this way, you were not meant to get anything above a C in this chemistry class. And as fate would have it, no one ever did! That wasn't a joke either. The thing is, not just me, but all of my classmates who ever took these classes were failing. So if I ever failed, went to my district school, or had my plans for college ruined, then I would certainly NOT have been alone. But my situation was worse, because I was also failing my Algebra II class as well. Oh yeah---and the algebra 2 class was also at an advanced level similar to the science classes. Because the chemistry class counted as 2 classes, for we had 2 hours of it everyday, the other class would have to be paid for if I ever went to summer school. And my family did not have the money for it.
So there I am sitting with this ever churning knot inside of my stomach that got tighter everyday. I knew that if I failed these two classes I would have been kicked out of this school and my future academics and the such would be kicked out with it. Worst of all it was during the closing of the school year...just to make things worse. One day while I was sitting in homeroom the teacher started passing out cards to everyone. What this card was, was a summer school assignment card. In other words, in order to attend summer school after you failed a class, you had to display this card with you. And on it, it had my name written as clean as day.
Again so there I was, with this ever looming threat of ruin and this churning knot in my stomach. Then I go, “You know what, this year I've had my heart broken, rejected, double-crossed, never given any respect, and been called a failure. But you know what, I'm not going to say die. I'm going fight and this time I'm going to pray harder than ever before. I'm going to ask God to come in and help me. And this time I'm going to have lots of faith.”
So thus began the start of one of the most amazing comebacks I've ever had. The main key of it all was to pray to God and have faith that He will do it. Because if someone prays and doubts God, then how will the miracle occur? Remember when Peter went to meet Jesus outside of the boat. The minute Peter started losing faith that Jesus could hold him above the water, he started to sink. I took that story into account and made sure that I had plenty of faith in God that He would show me through. Keep in mind people that this was before I officially became a Christian. At this time I didn't know much about the Bible at all. I didn't even know Moses from Muhammad from Buddha. But the one thing I did know was that God was all powerful and that Jesus was His Son. That was the one guiding light to me.
Now I was praying all the time during my Junior year at High School but I'm sure God wanted to see a testament of the faith with it. One day in my room I was looking at the summer school assignment card. I knew that if anything happened to that card that I wouldn't be able to attend summer school and that would add the worst implications to my current situation. Who knows? If a person were to lose that summer school assignment card they'd probably be thrown in the same grade of their district school all over again. Yet what I did to this card as a testament of my faith in God was what anyone would call crazy---I tore it up. I tore the summer school assignment card up and I threw it in the trash! Because I knew that with my prayer and my faith in God that summer school or any academic failure was NOT my destiny.
Now do you guys remember when I mentioned how I wasn't the only person in danger of failing Chemistry? That a majority of my classmates were also going to join me in academic ruin? Well I also began to pray for them too. It was interesting as it was at a time when I was just learning about intercession for others. Thus my prayer sounded something like, “Dear God help me pass these two classes I'm failing in. And if you have time please help out my friends who are also failing Chemistry as well.” That was about the best I could pray back in those days.
As another long boring day in class rolled to an end, I heard my friend Hector cheering and hooting about something. He seemed unusually jubilant for your average Junior at Science High. He then explained to me: “Mr. Gray just curbed everyone's grade in Chemistry class! We're all gonna pass!” Needless to say once I heard that, I started cheering and hooting---actually I think it was more on the grounds of an American “Alriiiiight!!!” or a “Yeaaaaahhh!!!”, but you get the picture.
Now all I had left to battle was my Algebra II class. But God handled that as well. He sent someone to help me and I ended up getting through that class too. I passed two huge juggernauts with the help of the Lord almighty. Before I knew it, I was scot free.
I believed in the Lord and the Lord believed in me. Never throughout high school did I ever have a better friend, father-figure, helper, or supporter greater than the Lord. It was after this great victory in my 11th grade Junior year of High School, that I decided I would want to find out more about Jesus Christ. These events eventually led me to my finding Him in my Senior year. I see that year as a corner stone to my life because of the spiritual glory I saw with God.
Senior Year. The Greatest Year
I remember the day before my Senior year at high school started, I went to sleep totally trusting God with what will happen the coming year. I had this gut feeling that He had planned many wonderful things for me in the coming year. And I trusted His plan for me, whatever it was to be. For the first time in my life I was finally was seeing what it was like to be totally at the mercy of God. I fell asleep not trusting in the bed under me to hold me up, nor that the roof above my head will shelter me. But that God almighty had me shielded in His hands.
I remember early in the school year I used to sleep with a devotional field handbook that used to belong to my brother from the Marines. It had prayers in it and to me those prayers looked very sacred. Then I dusted off a New Testament Bible I received a few years earlier and I started reading it. I was totally amazed. You see I believed in Jesus and I believed that He got crucified and then rose from the grave, but when I read the New Testament fully for the first time, it blew me away. Everything about Jesus Christ and His life was so holy, perfect, and full of wisdom. The way He spoke to people was so fearless and omnipotent that I wished I knew about Him more earlier in my life. To sum it all up; reading the words of Jesus Christ and His commandments made me believe that this was the Son of God and there was no other Messiah around the world like Him.
Now you have to keep in mind, I grew up listening to adults and media pundits who did everything but accept Jesus Christ as the Lord. I used to hear these people tell me of their own version of a made up gospel. They used to tell me stuff like Jesus never died, that everyone worshiped the same god, that as long as you believe in a high authority you're ok, that I had to love my parents over God Himself, that I was too young to worry about this stuff, that another guy had better answers. Let me state this plainly for everyone: When I finally saw the truth of Jesus Christ, I realized all that other stuff those people told me was garbage. These adults and TV stars were just full of garbage and they didn't know the truth of the Lord from a can of a paint. All this time they were just giving their opinions. However the Lord was giving me the TRUTH!
Let me tell you about truth for a moment. It is a constant. It doesn't bend or yield for anyone. Truth doesn't compromise or try to pretty itself up because it's current appearance isn't too fancy looking. Truth can be beautiful or ugly. But it's still going to be truth. You cannot make truth by believing in a bunch of lies hard enough. Truth will always reveal itself one day. God spoke truth in existence and God will always tell the truth. Truth is what God revealed to me when I came to Christ. That one truth He showed me was that Jesus Christ was & is Lord.
Back to the story: As I said before, the Bible was the most amazing book I ever read. What made it so special was that it's author, God, was even more amazing. Then it dawned on me that year. I said: “If God loves the spreading of His Word and the Gospel, why don't I do it on a large scale?” This led to me typing nearly the entire New Testament. I typed it and put it painstakingly in HTML format as a website. What I wanted to do originally was to upload the New Testament online so that others can come to Christ. I actually thought that I was going to be the first person in the world to upload the Bible online. Well as the good Lord would have it, there were actually plenty of online Bibles that were organized much much better than the one I was typing in HTML. Remember guys this was 2000, the puberty years of the internet, so everything was still growing online. Even though the plans of uploading it online didn't fall through, I saw a great purpose in showing others the truth of Jesus Christ. Purpose where I wasn't out to just see the Lord's glory but to also show other people to His glory as well. I'm going to tell you what this means in the final part of my testimony.
As I walked hand in hand with God my Senior year I overcame many things I never thought possible before. The Holy Spirit gave me fearlessness over fears I had in the past. Pretty soon things that troubled me before became meager things in my eyes. However the greatest thing I noticed when I walked with Christ was how I overcame sin in my life. Apparently the formula for overcoming sin is actually not focusing on struggling against it, but focusing your eyes on Christ (this was the key I followed when I was 18 but didn't fully realize until I was 27). When I kept my eyes focused on Christ everytime I was typing the Bible, I didn't care for sin at all. Eventually I didn't even watch much TV programming at the time because most my time at home was consumed with typing the Bible. Know that when I was doing these things and spending time in the Lord's presence, I never felt better. It felt better to walk with God than to walk with the world. There were no insecurities with God as there was with the world. As a matter of fact I have the exact day I fully came to Christ written in my old green Bible. It was May 30th 2000. There was historical significance of that day as well. Joan of Arc for example was burned at the stake on that date in history. This kind of explains why I have such an interest in her.
This was my first Bible. A small green pocket version that had the New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs. I remember when I used to type from it, I had to tape one part of it open and then squint my eyes to type from the small letter print. On one of the pages there was a space where you wrote your name and when you finally accepted Jesus Christ as savior. In which case I signed AJ Yaylaci on May 30th 2000.
As my spirit grew in strength my body also followed. I began to grow an ever increasing barrel chest and faster form. I was pushing all my physical endurance to the limit. Most of all I saw an urge to help people out more. I became more charitable and would even take some time to volunteer at the church during my lunch period. I'm not saying things were without hardships, but they all payed off in the end.
This year like the previous one was also challenging. No longer was the looming threat of being kicked out of school in place. This time the threat of not graduating or walking during graduation was the ever present failure at the door. The problematic class was trigonometry. What happened in this class was much more difficult to overcome than what happened in Junior year. The reason was that I was failing so bad in this class that I had to get at least a “B” in both the final semester and on the Final in order to pass. This was a feat beyond anything I've ever done in my career in High School. In Junior year I only needed to pass by the skin of my teeth, but here I actually needed to go above and beyond. Getting a high grade in a class like this was something I never did before. Yeah I got A's and B's in other classes, but this class was my trouble point.
It was time to go to work. My awareness of God was at it's strongest point at the time. I knew that I was going to show even more faith than before, but also I was going to work. Faith and Works go hand and hand. It was time to show the Lord that I was serious about passing and making it. The plan was simple, I was going to work all I could and the Lord would handle the rest. Don't just sit there and wait for a miracle, reach out for them. This is exactly what I did. I went for meetings with my teacher, I studied on my own, I worked my best to understand some of the material that was foreign to me. I worked, but I also believed and God saw it. You must remember that the highest grade I got in that class so far was a “D” and I had to work for at least two “B” grades. So if you're going through the same thing, don't just curl up in a ball and make the Lord do everything. God gave you power too, and He wants to see your faith and works going hand in hand.
Now the Lord had an interesting conclusion to my Senior year ordeal. Somewhere along the lines I felt something tell me “You will fail, but if you continue to have faith despite what man tells you, then you will pass amazingly”. Right then I knew that God was about to set me up for the most legendary comeback and success story of my life.
Alas the end of the school year came around. As I was walking through the hall during my lunch period my counselor came up to me. Her face was down trodden and sad. She said “Joe, you know you failed trigonometry? When you're father finds out he's going to have a fit.” I responded to her: “I didn't fail, just hold them off. Trust me.” She said: “But the grades already went in, this is final.” I continued to tell her: “It's not the end, you have to listen to me. I don't know what it is, but I didn't fail yet.” I walked away telling myself, it's not over. God's still working.
Following my talk with her, I went off to a private place where I could pray. I still needed to tell God that I trusted Him. The only private place I could find was a stall in the bathroom. So there on that bathroom floor, I dropped to one knee. I looked up and told God: “Lord I still believe in you and your power. I know it's not over yet, and You still have a miracle working out”. You see the books and school records said I failed, but God said it wasn't over yet. Of course Satan tried to tempt me at this time. I guess he thought I was about to give up so he tried to tell me: “Just give up. Yeah you might lose your faith but then again you can just go back to sinning and indulging in vice again”. Obviously I just shut the door in his face and continued believing in the Lord.
I continued to go to my trigonometry teacher and pursue the grade I was supposed to get. I continued working and I continued believing. About a week later I was helping my counselor move books to the upper level. That's when I was approached by my trigonometry teacher. She pointed at me and said: “look at what you accomplished! You got a 'B' for the cycle and a 'B' of the final exam!” My counselor looked at me with amazement and over whelming joy. I simply smiled because I already knew who planned this and who had it handled...My King in Heaven. Okay, actually in all due honesty, the moment I got to a room that was private; I did that mid-air dramatic victory jump ala Flash Gordon and went: “YEAAAHHH!!!” all over again.
However this wasn't the end of all the glory that the Lord showed me that year. The more you stick closer to God, the more glory He shines on you. That year I had to wear my suit much more often because God was giving me award after award. I received several awards of excellence and success from my precollege program at Essex County. Afterward I received another 2 awards from my High School. The one I liked the best was a physical education award, because like I mentioned before, if people didn't see me doing school work, chances are they saw me doing some sort of exercising or heavy lifting. I made sure to let people know why I got the award too. When it was presented to me I actually started jogging down the isle towards the stage in my suit and tie! But the final award I received during that year kind of surprised me. It was a “Service Learning Award” or an award given to someone who helped in charity a lot. I was one of only 3 students who got that one. I used to volunteer at the nearby Church, St. John's, to help out when I had break time during classes, but I never let anyone really see me. I also never really told anyone that I do this stuff either. For I remember what the Lord said about charity work. Jesus told us that when you do charitable acts of kindness to not let it be seen before men for vain praise. But God showed me that time, that even though I didn't do those things for the praise of men, that God still saw those times I volunteered. He showed me that even though I tried to keep it secret and not announce it on a horn, it still was seen and loved by God.
I will never forget that year and what the Lord showed me. It will always serve as a testament of why I see the Lord as the only glory left in the world. Everything He touches turns to gold.
Modern day implications to life?
Everytime we read the Bible or hear someone's testimony of the Lord, it's almost as if God is trying to also show us some implications or examples for today. For example when I used to read the story of how Jesus Christ spoke about the wicked and perverse generation from His time, I think to myself: “Maybe He's also referring to how Godless this modern generation acts as well?”. This is why when I look back at the miracles God showed me in High School, I realize why I shouldn't stop today. If God can keep me rolling back then, then He can keep me rolling now whenever I had trouble.
Thus I started thinking. If God would answer my prayer so that all my friend would pass Chemistry during Junior year, then why wouldn't God help me with my friends in these last days? I'm sure we all know some family or friends who don't know Christ yet. I'm sure we also know many Christians who might have back-slided into the world. So when I look back at how God answered by prayers for my friends in my Junior year class, I try to apply the same lesson learned there for my family and friends during these final days. So now I openly pray that God turn the hearts of all my family and friends toward Christ and that they be saved by the Lord. Of course the situation now is much more dire than anything I prayed for when I was 17. Now I'm praying that God save them from spiritual destruction rather than just academic failure. You people reading this should do the same too. Pray for all your family and friends so that they know Christ and that Christ turns their hearts to God. Just like all my Junior Year class friends got saved because God heard my prayers, I also believe that all our friends and family can be saved in the arms of God from judgment.
The same goes for the lessons I also learned from Senior Year of High School. In Senior year God placed in my heart the pleasure to show others the glory of God. This was evident when I used to type my little Bible when I was 18 so I can show others on the internet. Now God has increased my strength and will to show others His glory. For example, if you were to look on my Myspace page, you will see I have over a dozen download links to Bibles in multiple languages. Now I also do these writings you see all the time to tell others and make testimony to the glory of God and His truth. So what God taught me in training before, I am now doing it in more increase today.
Finally there is also the spiritual power that God taught me during Senior year. He taught me back then that with Him all is possible. When man says you have failed, don't listen to man but hold fast to God and overcome in Jesus Christ. So when man these days say that you have cancer and we can't cure you, hold fast to God and overcome in Jesus Christ. When man says, “Christ won't come back”, hold fast to God and wait for the Lord to appear from the clouds in glory. When the devil says “just face it, you can't stop this addiction and you will be in hell with me”, shut the door on his face and stay focused on Jesus Christ. Just like I proved them wrong who said I would fail when I was 18, let's prove them wrong during these times and overcome our addictions, overcome our doubts, lift our loved ones to Christ, and bring glory unto God. As God crowned me with awards and success when I finished my Senior Year in High School, God will crown us with His glorious Kingdom when we endure till the end!
So my friends do not the forget the things God delivered you out of from the past. They can have many implications and set examples for you in the present and future! In a way you can say those hardships and faith that God showed me when I was 17 & 18 was just training for the spiritual combat that I will have to face today in my later 20s.
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