Journey Home - 2017-08-14 - Melissa Zelniker-presser

[Music] good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program I was just mentioning to the guests that we are coming to the end of the 20th season of the journey home program who'd have guessed it after all these years but thank you for joining us again and as I normally do invite you to sit back and let's listen to a story on how the Holy Spirit has guided this guest with a couple pit stops we'll find about those in a moment our guest is melissa is all Nicky Zell nikkor presser is that correct welcome to the journey home it's so good to be here you're listed as a convert from Judaism and non-denominational so you've got a little bit of a journeyman yes I definitely do all right well let me get out of the way let me hear your story well I am Who I was Jewish I still consider myself Jewish that never changed my husband is Jewish and both sides of my family are Jewish so there are no Christians on either side I grew up in a conservative conservative Jewish upbringing but my parents were not religious and I actually might need to get explain that to you so conservative judaism is sort of in the middle you have some more liberal congregations and then you have orthodox which are very religious so I would say it's somewhere in the middle in terms of upbringing celebrating the holidays conservative means holding on to the traditions of the faith I would say it was definitely religious definitely tradition but not up to the point of Orthodoxy so in terms of maybe celebrating Shabbat or some of those things that are continuously celebrated more so on the Orthodox side but I was the way I was brought up was more of a cultural Jew I guess you could say my parents were not religious but I was always very close to God so I would actually ask my parents to drop me off at synagogue on Shabbat and they would drop me off so I could go to Temple I could go to shul and I would go by myself very very young and then I eventually asked them if I could go to Hebrew school so I attended Hebrew school as well so if your parents weren't religious did your genuine interest in God come as a result if it didn't come from them was it grace or was it the experience of the temple you think I think it was I think it was grace I always felt very very close to God I always did I always had a relationship with him and my parents were very spiritual we did speak about God in my house and we did celebrate the Jewish holidays it was important for me to learn Hebrew and I I wanted to be involved in the temple since I was part of a Conservative Judaism movement women weren't necessarily a big part of that but I felt very passionate about it and strong about it to the point where you know as long as I could learn as much as I could then at that point I'd find some way to to get myself into the temple and maybe find a place for myself which was very difficult growing up in the the 80's and 90's and that culture of Judaism so that was a little difficult but yes I did a 10 temple by myself most times and you went on to go through the the rites of passage I did I was bat Mitzvahed so that's the rite of passage into adulthood when you're about 13 years old for girls and boys that was very important to me no my father was also bar Mitzvahed so it is traditional but it is also a celebration and a rite of passage Jesus was Bar Mitzvah yes and so that was a big milestone for me and because you were actually religious you actually had a faith in God and that that had had that other meaning it wasn't merely a rite of passage into adulthood right it wasn't merely tradition for me for me it was something my next phase in terms of getting closer to God and seeing where he possibly would want me because at that point I did have a lot of faith I just was very unsure where God was gonna leave me I was young - yeah 90s yeah dealing with that yeah one other thing I'd like to ask us against those of us that don't have the Judaism per se as a part of our background was your branch of conservative judaism in terms of your faith in god how do you understand God on a day-by-day basis did you believe in an afterlife that you was there hope in life or was he was he there walking beside you as we would talk about from a Christian standpoint I think those were some of my initial questions that God my journey started towards riced I really believed in heaven and that really wasn't spoken about within the temple I also believed in angels and that was also a big kind of I guess controversy in terms of something that wasn't spoken about the other thing was in conservative judaism the services are in hebrew so I was praying but most of the time although I could read Hebrew I didn't speak Hebrew so I didn't know what exactly I was praying I just knew I was praying but I never prayed in English so I didn't really have that personal relationship with God and that way God was more of an entity to me and I had a lot of questions about that because I started to think of eternity saying well I have friends that are not Jewish and I think they're going to be in heaven so that kind of perplexed me as to why that wasn't spoken about in the in the synagogue and why we didn't talk about other other religions and and whether or not they were going to heaven and I felt like well I couldn't be the only one just because I'm Jewish did I jump you had a bit worthies of questions you had when you came out of your body that's very these were some of the questions because after Bat Mitzvah you do prepare similarly too in terms of getting confirmed and go through that confirmation and it was during that time that I had a lot of upheaval a lot of spiritual questions a lot of theology questions and something inside of me just didn't allow myself to get confirmed not that I didn't believe in Judaism or that it wasn't true I felt that my journey was taking me elsewhere and so I never actually got confirmed as a Jewish person or yeah so that that was kind of when things started you know in my mind the wheels started turning well what about these other people and I this vision I guess that all Gentiles were Christians because I came from a very close-knit Jewish community in South Florida and you know we were close in the temple we had a lot of youth group and although I had a lot of friends outside of that it was just a very close sect so I didn't really understand and was never exposed to Christianity I knew who Jesus was but it was never a thought in my mind or something I contemplated so I was ever exposed to it at all and not really challenged to consider at that point in time jumping ship and becoming a Christian no you know I and I think back to myself because a lot of people have asked me you know since my conversion well you know were you introduced to the church or did someone come talk to you and I don't know if my story is unique in that way but I never really had that I never no one ever gave me a Bible no one ever proselytized or evangelized no one spoke to me about Jesus I was very adamant about beliefs about God and that God was what's real and God was present and I was with me but again I didn't have that personal connection God was a big scary person and I was a little peon here on earth and I had to make sure that I did the things that I needed to do as a Jewish person you know to be close to God and those were the places I felt I fell short because we had 613 things we had to do and I wasn't even getting maybe the first 50 right so those were some of the things I tried you know I went and and and tried to keep kosher and I would try to go to shul on on Friday nights and Saturday mornings and learn more Hebrew and I would just try a bunch of these I guess works based religious types of things until I grew very tired did you understand at that point I don't want to take you away from telling us your journey but if you were doing these rules correctly and therefore God was pleased with you did you was your understanding that your life would be blessed or if you weren't doing things then your life wouldn't be blessed I mean did you what was your connection with I never system and yeah I never thought about being blessed for me it was always about doing what God wanted me to do pleasing God I didn't feel like I had to please an audience or I was trying to obtain some special blessing for me I just I was always focused on I know I'm here for a reason there's a purpose to my life God created me for a reason he just didn't have hazards we put me on this earth and he had a very true and specific reason and that was what my frustration was because the only path I knew being a Jewish person and then all sides of the family being Jewish was okay well maybe gods upset with me because I'm not keeping kosher and maybe gods upset with me because I wasn't able to fast on Yom Kippur and fast for those 24 hours and I really didn't know how to pray because my prayers were in a different language so I was praying but I didn't really have that attachment because I was praying in a language that I didn't understand but to me that was the language God spoke was Hebrew because that's what we used when we were in synagogue so it wasn't necessarily like I said to obtain some special place I was really trying to find what my purpose was in life and I was adamant about it that I wasn't going to stop until I found out I got in that area certainly seems like a gift of grace that you would have within you that that sense in which I think it water for a purpose and and and God has a real plan for my life yes I think I said I sought that out every day even at a very young age okay so now we're at the point there journey a youth teenager are you okay so after you know if I'm it's fun trying to figure things out I really I felt very distant from the synagogue because I was a female and I felt that I just really didn't have a place during that time at least in South Florida a lot of the Haab odds were coming into being and Kabbalah was coming about it's very popular and my grandfather died and that was a significant event in my life none of my family was very religious and so when the rabbi came over to pray after someone passes away we have a Shiva so everybody comes over and prays and eats a lot and the rabbi came and said okay it's time to say you know the prayers and he said well I need I need a man for that and I said wait well I'm sitting right here you have me and then we go back and forth a little bit and it just so happened to me that nobody in the room was a male who knew the Kaddish who knew the prayers and so I said well your choice is me or nobody and so I prayed and he watched really yes and that was it was very hurtful but at the same time it was very liberating because it was in it was in my mother's house it was my grandfather and at some point I wasn't paying attention but at some point he joined me in praying because I was I knew I was going to be the one to say those prayers for my grandfather and that was very significant to me because I didn't think God looked at me differently because I was a woman or a female you know my thought was well this is my grandfather who died and who would be the best person to pray for him would be me I'm the only one that knows he you know how to read Hebrew and Freya be ruined and knows the prayers to pray so that was pretty significant all right our guest is Melissa zonocorp presser and so yeah that's a bold move when you're in the midst of a very tight tradition yes and I was young I was sixteen but I was always very bold so that's it that didn't strike my parents as odd yes so I think I continued on that way of course I went to college and and that was when I started to kind of question myself in terms of you know where do I belong I would go to service and especially on the high holy high holy holidays which a lot of people do they don't go maybe every weekend but for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and I would sit at service and I would kind of just feel very alone and feel nothing feel very disconnected from God I was I was away from my parents and I was away from South Florida and I just couldn't kind of find my place but what's interesting and going back in my mind is during that time I was evangelized many many times I did go to church a couple of times and I specifically remember I was I was new i had transferred campuses I've been at one College and then transferred to another one and kind of walking around and there was these two women or girls that were were there and they said well you should come to church with us and I was all about meeting new people and friends I'm very social I said sure so they were I think it was a middle of maybe Christmas time and they were having they were having a play and so afterwards we were talking and they were definitely trying to evangelize me I felt sort of uncomfortable and they said oh we have we have another Jewish person here they're like Annie Annie you know and I was very embarrassed and I said it was you know thanks but no thanks and but it seems like and back then I didn't really make the connection but you know a little little by little there were more people talking to me or just talking about Jesus about Christianity but I still for some reason in my mind thought that only Gentiles were Christian I still had that in my mind so I'm like well why would they be talking to me about Jesus and that a converted you I had never met nor heard of a converted Jew in fact growing up I was told the group Jews for Jesus which is a wonderful ministry I was told that they were a cult and I had to stay away from them and so you know I that's kind of how I was I was taught I don't think it was one person specifically it was just kind of kind of what was on my brain I guess at the time so so yeah it kind of scared me a little bit even to be in a church and and God's gonna hate me and kind of why am I here and why do people keep talking to me about this Jesus don't they know I'm Jewish and I would wear a big Jewish star I don't understand that so I know I had never met a Jewish convert yeah all right well and those if they were very very conservative Christians they would just they would have seen you as a target because you're obviously outside the from their perspective outside the faith and then yeah need to be saved of course yes and so that was kind enough I think the dialogue was a little bit more a little softer I don't think they necessarily talked to me about salvation cuz initially it was well have you heard about Jesus and my first response was so of course I've heard about Jesus I'm Jewish though you know I'm like I'm sure there are plenty of other people you could talk to but I'm not one of them but it happened continually and happened quite a bit when I was in college so that was interesting all right well was there a spark that moved you the next step of your journey yes it wasn't till later I had a big jump in my journey and so I don't think I ever necessarily left God during that time period it really wasn't until 2007 so that's a quite a jump my grandmother passed away she was never sitting that whole period you were still active in temple and I was still going to Temple I would I would go to go for High Holy Days I got married I urged my husband to celebrate Shabbat he was actually he is Israeli foreign and television host Julie I would say he was Jewish by culture but I would say he was definitely more of an atheist so it was an interesting mix but once we had children you know that that was a little bit different but I guess when we first got married was when the next I guess segment happened where we we weren't expecting my grandmother to be sick she was kind of the almost the centerpiece of my wedding she was my closest ally best friend she had a heart attack about two weeks before my wedding and so it was a very difficult time I of course was questioning God in a way well how could this possibly happen but after that she died shortly after my wedding in September of 2007 and so I remember saying to God I wasn't angry with God I just remember saying to him I'm gonna go my way and you can go yours and we kind of parted ways I would never have considered myself an atheist it was more I don't understand God you know in this height of my life and you know getting married to the love of my life and you know my grandmother being the centerpiece of my life you know how you could take her from me during this time but again I wasn't angry I just said you know I've done everything I'm supposed to do again that checkoff list and I've been a good and faithful Jewish person and I've loved you all these years and you took her from me so I almost said my mind and visioned I went to the right and he went to the lab when you say I'll try to get in your mind at that time when you said he took her from you did you believe that she was with God or that there was just no answer to that or I was pretty far from God at that point yeah I don't know you know Jewish death and and Judaism was always again coming back to my childhood with heaven and these questions I always remember a Jewish funeral is just everything being so sad and there was no hope and there was no resurrection and there was no something on the other side so because I didn't understand that I didn't feel like I had any hope and so even at her funeral I I remember I'd gone to a couple of of Gentile hñ tile funerals or Christian funerals and I remember thinking to myself there's so much hope here there's so much love there's a lot of happiness and I couldn't understand that because really like I said it's a very mournful time for Jews and in reverent time for Jews and so at my grandmother's funeral I said to my mom we have to release butterflies we have to release butterflies because there had to be some life that was there I couldn't deal with the darkness of it and I also didn't know where she was and that caused me a lot of pain although I really believed she was still with me in some ways you know I would talk to her or visit her at the gravesite but the paint it was very painful and I also didn't know what to do with that pain and so because I had said goodbye to God I felt that I didn't have a right to go to God with my pain because although I didn't blame him I also thought he had some hand in it so I didn't feel right going back to him at that point so I stayed away from God you're off in a different direction I was completely off in a different direction at that point right so you know I think a lot of my grandmother's death which I assume for a lot of people who have some sort of faith so many questions come up especially when the person is very close to you you know why God and and what am I going to do now and where do I go especially because sometimes it hits us so much harder than we thought it would yeah someone that close dies yes and I think it doesn't matter you know how I got a lot of commentary well you know she was older and you know some things that people say they're very insensitive and I said well you know she was my best friend and in the whole world she could have been 20 I mean it didn't really matter how old she was but I had a lot of problems processing that and so at the time we actually thought after we got married because we had gotten married in June she didn't die till September we actually thought I'd gotten a positive pregnancy test during that time right after we got married so I was able to kind of talk to her in the hospital and I thought I was gonna have a baby and in my mind I thought well she could just know that I'm gonna have this baby that maybe there'll be some some peace there but that pregnancy didn't end up coming to fruition so that was that was very difficult too but once she won she did pass it was really a wide chasm for a lot of pain that I had and a lot of searching and I think that's when God really blew the door wide open I guess so to speak for me to to find my way back but I didn't know where that was all right now just talk about that part of your journey then so the door opens in a different direction I started to explore different things I didn't feel to me Judaism wasn't home anymore although I knew I would always be Jewish that's that's who I am so you know I looked at things like Buddhism and Kabbalah some things that some sects of Judaism that were a little bit different or more spiritual in my mind and in all of those roads just seemed so wrong in a way I don't know why but it was almost like they just stopped and there was just no nothing there and I almost felt God waiting for me to come back kind of saying to me when you're ready you know I'm ready but it wasn't until 2013 that really Christianity entered the picture so we have a very close family friend she's actually not my godmother who I never knew as a Christian I was sitting at home one day just going through a very rough period and I reached out to her out of nowhere that's why the story's so odd to some people because you know wasn't like you know someone's sitting talking to me about Jesus again and I said I reached out to her and I said you know do you go to church and can I come with you and she reached back out to me with of course a long email telling me I had a divine appointment and that yes and then she would meet me and we would go to church together so I was a little afraid to tell my husband but I did I told him yes I'm gonna go there because I was kind of a I was in a bad place at the time in my life and I always knew that at the end of the day that the only place I could run back to was God why why you know I chose to ask to go to a church only the Holy Spirit knows that because I was a little Jewish girl I didn't know anything about churches so so yeah so she took me and it was a very it was a non-denominational Church very liberal people were dressed in shorts and I came in my temple gear who was a very conservatively dressed so I looked very out of place I was very very afraid very afraid I felt like people were looking at me although of course no one's looking at me because no one knows you're Jewish and and I was sitting in the seats and the pastor was a traveling pastor so they their pastor was off on a mission trip somewhere and the pastor starts talking about literally every single thing that's going on in my life and I got very angry and I looked over at my godmother Karen and I said how could do this to me how could how could you bring this pastor in and you told him all of my problems and she just started crying and she said Melissa that that's God now somebody mean that's God and I remember thinking this was like the the the segment Punk'd where you know I was being fooled there was cameras or somebody knew about my story somehow and it was very personal what was going on in my life at the time and she went on to explain to me kind of whispering in my ear as the sermon was going on about the Holy Spirit and how God works and so that was very unnerving to me thinking that God could be present on a stage in some human being I've never met and know that I was supposed to be there that day so that was very scary it was that direct and personal it was that direct personal after the sermon I was of a shaking I was visibly upset and so Karen took me over to a couch and she prayed over me in English and that was the first time I had ever ever heard anybody pray in English and so boldly and and she prayed over me and it was so touching because I understood the words for really the first time and I really thought it was wrong to pray in English in my mind it wasn't the Holy language you're wondering if God knew understood and it was it was you know we were in the middle of this huge church and I didn't care at that moment whether people were watching because I was so just overcome and couldn't believe that it was all happening I asked her afterwards we were walking out and they had a little store and I said well will you buy me a would you buy me a Bible I thought she was gonna pass out you want a Bible I said yes well if I'm gonna become a Christian then I guess I need a Bible I didn't even know what I was really saying but yes she bought me a Bible and that whole week when I went home I just was very obsessed with the cross I was buying crosses I was looking at the cross and when I went home during that period of time that night actually I literally felt Jesus I was crying out to him you know and I said to him it was very scary to think that my whole life was about to change and I said you know Jesus if if you are who you say you are and and you are truly the Son of God I said and if you save me from what's from my life from myself from all of these things that are going on in my life that I promise you I will serve you for the rest of my life and the next day when I woke up it's hard to explain but it was almost if I was completely empty almost like a V you know vase or a VAT that's empty and I felt just completely filled up like a warmth that I can't explain where all of the pain had had receded and it was just inexplicable and I said okay I said that now I know I know where I have to go so I made good on my promise and this was one visit to church one visit one visit and you probably hadn't read that New Testament very far yet I had never read the New Testament in my life but but I and I had I was reading it because I'm a pretty voracious reader but it's strange it's almost like I quit my conversion to the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road it was like immediately because I had all that knowledge you know from all of my my Hebrew school and all of my studies it was like I immediately knew the New Testament I knew the stories they sounded familiar to me which is completely absurd because I had never read that before and I did I was reading just at a very fast pace that week I mean I think I may have just read all through the Gospels one night I don't even recall because it was such a crazy period of time and and my husband said well how was it how was how was church and I said I don't know you know it's amazing and I have to go back and I said and you have to go back and you know he basically said I'm an atheist what do you mean I have to go to church you know or to Jewish people we don't go to church but I did he actually agreed and and I brought him back because he had see that week the change in me I was going through such a painful period and and really truly I'm God did a miracle I mean he truly just cured overnight whatever it was ailing me and to bring me to a place where I could accept him so I was I went back to that church with my godmother and they did an altar altar call at the end and all of a sudden I see everybody walking out the doors and I see myself walking towards the altar and my godmothers looking at me saying where's she going and I I turned around and I said I'm ready I'm ready so I accepted Christ at the end of the altar and and that was it that was it for me I started evangelizing like I had been you know administer all of my life and you know and just started proclaiming the gospel it does sound like Paul it was it was a Damascus Road experience it was it was an amazing conversion and it was fast very very fast and I never looked back because I remembered that promise that I had made to God and there's nothing else that it could ever explain what what he did because there was nothing else I could have fixed my life at that point except for His grace and so I made him a promise that I would never turn around again I would never leave him or forsake him just as he said he would never leave us or forsake us although that's been difficult of course walking forward in the conversion but I always go back to that promise I made to him I I love that again ago in the Old Testament that wonderful verse in the Psalms that when it talks about God giving us the desires of our heart Psalm 37 but if our desires would do his will if that's our desire then he puts in our heart the desire he wants for us he does if we want to do his will if we have something else you want to do well he might give us that it may not be the best thing for us but if our desires for what he wants then he could put and that's what it sounds like he gave to you it was because you know again even though I was apart from God my life's desire was to know what God's purpose was for my life so did I know that he was going to make me a Christian I I mean I could have never seen that coming for a million miles away but when I knew that he had answered that very deep longing prayers almost likes it when say he is signed to the you know my life was one long you know prayer that's essentially what my life was you know although I wasn't maybe cognizant of it or comment you know conscious of it it was it was a deep longing to know why I was created and and to know that I was gonna make some type some type of difference they gave you gave the answer to that let's pause now here but listen we'll come back after the break because you found Christ you've surrendered to Christ I did alright was more to the story we'll get back a little bit all right [Music] [Music] welcome back to the journey home I'm your host Marcus Grodi and our guest is Melissa zelniker presser and I've interrupted you middle of your journey but if you found Christ by the grace of God I did by the complete grace of God and almost infused almost in a spiritually infused knowledge and love of the cross and a love of our Lord Jesus and again like st. Paul he is went when the scales for all fell from his eyes he's out evangelizing Chris people I wonder wait a second what's he doing evangelizing and he didn't know a lot yeah took him a while to kind of get it all together was that your same extreme it was the same experience people were very confused at the time I was still a very big part of social media because remember I had been living in the world and and so I was immediately coming out talking about Christ's conversion salvation people were super confused I got a lot of hate mail it was amazing because it was almost like I couldn't stop myself and it was completely consuming but it was very similar to Paul when his friend said okay maybe you need a year off to go back home and kind of get your thoughts together because he was almost killed which was you know of course maybe that wasn't that extreme for me but I lost a lot of friends that was very painful I had I had kind of separated ways prior to my conversion with some of my some of my friends and I looked back and now I understand why because God God knew that there was going to be way more painful for everything to kind of happen at once but slowly people were kind of falling out of my life the scripture became very real about picking up your cross and following Christ choosing you know Christ over mother father sister brother all those scriptures I was I was living those scriptures the pain was unreal because all these people that had been in my life for so long couldn't understand they thought I had been possessed they thought that something happened to me I was traumatized somehow or brainwashed and they just felt that they couldn't be in my life anymore so that was very different often it's not only that you've accepted an entirely different religion inside different tradition but you're rejecting everything that they are - that's correct like I think they do their mom yes in their mine and I think for Jews to the Holocaust is such a big part of our life we lost so many of our brothers and sisters it's talked about daily it's something that I've always studied and and and obviously been very close to my heart still not understanding maybe why it happened and so I think even for modern-day Jews someone who's converted not only they're rejecting their people but what you know what about all the people that died and now you're you're running to the Gentile side and you're not one of us anymore and you're kind of saying well well no I'm still Jewish you know and Jesus was Jewish and Mary was Jewish and and they don't see it that way and it's hard because you're trying to explain to your children why people aren't talking to you anymore and that was very painful or why kids can't play with you anymore because we were kind of almost like a pariah because during that interim time my husband also accepted Christ months later which was huge because he was he was an Israeli atheist so you know non-practicing Jew and he came to Christ you know just like I said a couple of months later and we were living this Christian life talking about Jesus really evangelizing to our friends and our and our family and nobody could understand they thought we were both completely nuts so that was that was difficult that was difficult nondenominational at this point yes we were still non-denominational very very involved in our church loved our church we have gone to several at that time I didn't understand as a Jewish person what the difference is was between being a Protestant and a Catholic I'm like oh I'm at church they're all the same this is great and so it really wasn't until I started blogging I'm an attorney but I started to I also write I freelance and I started blogging and started realizing oh there's all these other denominations out here and wow this is kind of strange they don't believe maybe what I believe and I just kind of started seeing a lot of spats and you know theology discussions and it was bothersome because I'm thinking well we're unified and the body of Christ and and we're all following Jesus and and and it wasn't so that way so blogging really kind of opened up my eyes to I guess the larger Christian world and some of the issues we face with all the various people and denominations and that's when I started to ask a lot of questions in my mind about what really is nondenominational and some of those more difficult questions okay during that time - I started to miss my traditions I started see because we were still celebrating the Jewish holidays and we still do although we incorporate Christ into them so it's a little bit different but I said to my husband I'm like there's this stage it's not really an altar and there's a pastor there but there's nothing there there's no candles and there's no reverence and there's no and it just the the questions were just endless but I think the to top it off for me what's problematic was I really felt this very strong urge from the Holy Spirit to pray in in a chapel setting and so I asked around and and somebody I think was maybe one of our pastors said oh yeah I know my husband actually told me he's like did you know that we have a chapel here because I was a huge campus and I said oh that's great and I went into the chapel and I and I tried to pray and I sat there and I didn't feel anything and again it was like this blank slate it was some pews and it was a very simple cross and people were kind of coming in and out it wasn't very reverent and that's kind of where my story kind of guided towards Catholicism I started to call pretty much any nondenominational church or non Catholic Church I guess you could say in that greater area and asking them what their hours were so I could come pray and every response I got was our churches closed during the day and then I remember thinking I remember that during temple I couldn't walk into temple during the day pray and so I started talking a lot about this on my blog a lot it was it was almost to the point of obsession and I would sit and say to myself there's there's got to be a wait there's got more Christians there's got to be a place that we can pray in reverence to the Lord and a friend of mine another blogging friend of mine out in Georgia who was raised Anglican she said you have to read these three books about this the Saints she was Jewish and she's a convert to the Catholic faith her name is Anna Stein and she's amazing and you know it never really crossed my mind that she was Catholic there was a lot of in the nondenominational movement in general a lot of anti-catholic rhetoric which I didn't enjoy that either so for me it's always been about what does God want what is God's will for me I never looked at denomination and that was just a very natural next step was to take these books and to read these books and that began my journey home what a person yes yes so I had three books and I started to read about her and I opened the first page and it said Edith Stein was born on October 12th and I dropped the book because that's the day I was born page to Edith Stein's family was described and it's an idol status Stein's grandmother's name was Adel Hyde well my grandmother's name is Adelaide so it was the German version of Adelaide Adelaide being a very I mean uncommon name and I put the book down and I started to cry and I said what are the chances of this you know just that connection with my grandmother at the same day I was born and as I read I almost feel like she was there because our lives were so parallel she was she was a philosopher she was into psychology she was you know brilliant she was you know into schooling and education and education had been my life and just her story was just so similar and and then there it was in the middle of the book the Eucharist and I said to myself well what is what is the Eucharist I've never heard of this beef or I didn't know anybody that was Catholic so I started to read about the Eucharist and and it started to bring up all of these emotions in me because that was one other thing that really bothered me 9 tonight in my nondenominational church was taking communion we took communion I think once every couple of weeks and I found it to be more in my mind of like a new-age meditation more so than it was something holy and it didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time but I also at that point was still trying to figure out theology wise where I was and I was really reading so when she started talking about taking the Eucharist I said to myself that's brilliant that's that's that's amazing and so I said to my husband I got to get a box of matzah and a bottle of Manischewitz wine he said for what sign I said I got to start taking communion every day that's what he eateth did and so I go in my little closet and I have my little Manischewitz Cup and my little matzah and I laugh now of course but I started telling you know mine's a nomination all friends I said you know we have to start taking communion and this is so important and there's got to be a reason for this never thinking in a million years oh you know God's gonna make me a Catholic please he already you know he already brought me to this non-denominational Church and you know half the people don't talk to me so I released my old friends so I did but as I took it every day I said something's not right you know something doesn't feel quite right and as I made my way through the books it was really the last book I read by Diane Chocolat who's a Dean at Seton Hall who's done life study on Edith and I'm like no no Lord I should have a book you know because in the back of my mind I already knew where I was going and I said to myself I've come this far I've gone through so much adversity you know converting you know from being a Jewish person to being a Christian no but nobody really understood what I was at that point you know in terms of the people that had been in my life and I knew that if I made that next step that chances were that the people who were where non Catholic would also reject me and understand and I wasn't ready for that you know I wasn't ready to go it was such a short period of time I mean you're talking only really two years in the nondenominational movement but I was teaching Bible study I was very involved in my church and so I asked a friend at work who was Catholic he was really the only person I knew that was Catholic and we had a church right close to where I work on my police department st. Gregory's and I was so afraid and I would sit in the parking lot on my lunch break and I would cry please God don't make me go in please God don't make me go in until one day he my friend Mauricio said I'm gonna go in with you I'm gonna take you in and he took me in and I didn't know at the time by during that period of time the Blessed Sacrament was there and he he took he took me in and said you know I want you to kneel here and just look just look you know and of course my heart is beating I'm not supposed to be here I'm not a Catholic but there was such a pole and such an aura about that chapel and about that place and whatever I wasn't feeling spiritually in that in that chapel in the nondenominational church was everything I was feeling in that chapel and I remember walking out and saying please God don't please God don't because I I wasn't ready but at the same token I went back to two things which was the promise I had made to God that if he saved me that I would I would do whatever he asked of me for the rest of my life and obviously my earlier years which was whatever God's Will was for my life that I would follow and so a couple of days later my husband didn't know any of this at the fall at this point except I had visited I again on my lunch break said I'm going back in and didn't know what the Blessed Sacrament was didn't know what I was kneeling before and I just I came in and I silently prayed and I cried I don't think they were more verbal prayers than they were tears that were prayers which we know our prayers and and I walked out and I just felt a peace that was beyond anything I had experienced even on my initial acceptance of Christ and I got in the car and I felt somehow I felt different still not knowing what the Blessed Sacrament was and as I was driving out I heard God audibly say to me Melissa it's time to come home so that's when I didn't know and you know but I wasn't afraid it was that same feeling of you know God saying to me do not be afraid for I am with you do not be afraid it just kept it kept coming up and I always thought to myself you know in becoming a Christian now that I had this personal relationship with Jesus the way my life was going the blessings that God had bestowed on me everything that he had healed in my life and changed in my life I didn't care anymore what anybody thought of me I was past that point even if I had to live alone I didn't care I just wanted to do what God's Will was and so that started my journey into the Catholic faith now our Lord says Lena Sermon on the Mount that he had not come to to destroy or to stop the law and the prophets but to fulfill he said there's no words there where he was going to stop everything and start a brand new movement but there was a continuity yes in a unique fulfillment of that were uux in the context of the Eucharist and all of that well it was an action with your path it was Jews who convert we said we would for ourselves as completed Jews it's a full circle and it's funny because I had never been to a mass I never been to a Catholic Church and again the same friend said well I'm gonna take you to Mass I'm gonna take you to me no no no I'm good you know no I don't know you have to go to Mass okay so we happen to go to a parish his parish where they serve the wine as well and when I sat down it was like sitting down at a Passover table with the four cups of wine and the tears again started to pour out had I not been in that parish I don't know that I would have made the connection because some parishes don't you know don't have more than than the one cup and I just saw God and I just saw Passover and I felt like I was back a temple and there was the Bema and instead of a rabbi there was a priest but everything was full circle you know and I remember looking at the crucifix you know where it says in Latin you know Jesus Christ King of the Jews and I remember I met remembered his promise to his people and I was his people and I looked up at him and I said this is this is where I'm supposed to be you know this is where I'm supposed to be and it was just amazing thinking to myself the mass is the Passover table and making a and my mind is going crazy with all of the connections and that's when I started to really hunger for the Eucharist because I couldn't get in that line and I was sitting there you know on an initial visit to that parish saying to myself okay how am I gonna do this and going out to the priest and asking him about our CIA and he said oh well it's gonna take a years of a father I'm a Christian well you know there's other things that you may have to learn and I member saying my friend Mauricio well I'm not ready for all of that yet although God had different plans for me so would your husband aware of all this he was he was aware of it he knows when God is working very prolifically in my life because I go into this frenzy where you know no one else would really know what was going on and he knows I'm being directed by the divine because I wasn't thinking about anything else and he also knew I mean what person in their right mind would accept a rejection like that after they had just gone through this huge conversion and rejection and it was kind of right after that that I started reading up on the Blessed Sacrament that Jesus was really present that blew me away and I remember saying to my husband you know I have to go back I have to go back and visit Jesus and he kind of he just left me alone during that time period you know we really weren't attending a church because we were still kind of in that you know on being unsure and I was afraid you know to tell him that God was calling me to the Catholic Church although I had told him I didn't think that it was gonna happen so rapidly but it did it happen very rapidly so I started praying okay God where do I go I don't even know where there's a Catholic Church and so God had moved us to a different portion of South Florida and he directed me to my current parish and I took my youngest she was having a difficult time at school that day and and we were on campus and father Ed it just happened to be standing there you know as a middle of a week day and he said can I help you and I said no I'm not quite sure whether or not you can help me Father but then he said you know he saw the look in my face the kind of the desperation he said well you know just in case the chapels right over there and the churches over there and then he said those magic words and they're both open they're both open and I remember going back to etus story when she had walked in on the woman who was kneeling and I think she recalls saying something to the effect of you know it was like she was talking to a friend and she also was very taken aback by the fact that the Catholic Church was always open and when she was contemplating her own conversion where she was gonna go she had you know the Lutheran side and she had the Catholic side and that was that was also really prolific during my reading was the fact that the Catholic Church is always open and that's always the way that I envisioned God you know God should always be open so you know my daughter and I it was funny we sat down and and we were you know we were there and the Blessed Sacrament wasn't exposed was but was of course there and I was explaining to her all the different things and she was about five at the time maybe we were sitting there very quietly and she leaned over and she whispered to me mom when does the show start very cute and I explained to her that this was a quiet place to pray and what it was and you know and then she asked me why I was there so then I had to start explaining to my kids what we were gonna be doing so that's when I started to attend Mass at my current parish and what I would do is I would I have three children and I would go to four masses a weekend I would take each one of them individually to a mass and I would go on my own because I knew that there was no way that they were going to understand what it was because they were very young and so as the mass was going on I would explain to them what it was and what was happening and at the time my husband's you know stance was wobble and I will never step foot in a Catholic Church you will never get me into a Catholic Church he has since converted and was brought to the church this past Easter but at the time it was no this is never gonna happen but I knew better you know I knew what God's promises were I knew about the sacrament of marriage and unity and what God had done in my life and so immediately when I was coming to Mass I actually wasn't afraid that my family would be fragmented I wasn't afraid that Shlomi would never come in and I was listening to Catholic radio a lot during that time and learning a lot I actually called into a lot of shows with a lot of questions and I think he was either maybe father Mitch or father Larry said you know pray before the Blessed Mother and just place saw me in her arms and that's what I did every day for about three months so two minutes to go because I want to make sure that you I know as you began the program you made a very important statement to say I was Jewish I still AM Jewish yes talk about the importance of that for you as a Catholic I will never not be Jewish and I think that's the wonderful thing about the Catholic Church is that everybody who knows me well they won't take that away from me either that's where the wholeness comes in and that's what Edith felt Edith never separated herself from her Jewishness and that's and that was so important to her and it's so important to the church as well the way they just really honor Who I am and never make me separate that because I'm just a completed Jew and I'm a Catholic now and that's true the church for non Catholic Christians that come into the church you know we certainly want to correct some misunderstandings and maybe some bad theology along the label away but we celebrate how God has been working in people's lives all along yes all along as he wasn't here in your life yes and I'm very thankful you know for the time I spent at my nondenominational church there are wonderful people I learned so much I had I not had that opportunity I wouldn't it was everything was the right timing for me and I really cherished that time that I had because it was part of that fullness when I came into the church that I had such a great understanding especially of the Bible and of the Scriptures they just did an amazing job in helping me go through all of that during that time period and their lady yes yes Mary became very important in my life as well she's who brought my husband into the church I credit all the prayers that I I gave Shlomi over to her and and like I said he came into the church this past Easter about a year after I came in so our lady has done amazing things in my life very grateful for her Melissa thank you thank you so much for having me sharing wow what a story and it's just to me not really a story of of intellect and knowledge but how the Holy Spirit really can break through a lot of things and just touch someone and draw them home and I tell people that all the time you know I say you just have to pray you pray and and there was someone praying for me I may never know who that person was but they prayed for me all right thank you thank you very much for sharing your story with us and thank you for joining us on this episode of the journey home Melissa talks about a long journey and we're all on long journeys different kinds of journeys the Holy Spirit touches us a different way do we desire to do what he wants for and so we opened to wherever God might lead us that's what he needs from us is an openness to what he will do in our life and he promises to never leave us or forsake us I prayed the her journey there's an encouragement to you god bless you see you next week [Music] you

Channel: EWTN

Views: 28,106

Rating: 4.83848 out of 5

Keywords: JHT, JHT01580

Id: HhFR0LYtP1w

Length: 56min 10sec (3370 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 01 2017