My first Church service, November 6th, 2016
I heard the voice of the Lord, the Lamb of God, and he said to me: “Follow me and I will protect and defend you from the demons who torment you. Go to a church and receive that which I am giving you.”
I walked in to Trinity Lutheran San Pedro and was greeted at the entrance by Pastor Nathan Hoff: “Welcome home! What’s your name?”
“Timna” I said. “Pronounced like baseball TEAM then NAH”.
The Pastor of Formation said; ”I have been to the town of Timna in Israel.”
“My name is spelled differently in Hebrew. It means Hidden Treasure. The town of Timna was a Philistine town where Samson used to go gallivanting with Philistine Harlots.”
The two pastors looked at each other, briefly and stared at me, speechless. I was a Jew and I came to Church because I was asked to do so by the Holy Spirit. He said it should be a Lutheran Church and the first listing of a Lutheran Church I found on line was Trinity.
As soon as I entered through the doorway like a gateway in old Jerusalem, I knew I was home.
Pastor Nathan approached me after the service and asked if he could pray with me. We sat together and he prayed for me and blessed me. I asked if I could be baptized and join the church and could he please give me some Holy Water. He graciously went and filled the small bottle I gave him and he blessed it. No one had ever blessed me before except once when I was eleven, my grandfather blessed me in front of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. I scrawled a wish that day on a scrap of paper and gingerly placed it between the stones of the First Temple. God told me it would be fulfilled. I waited and waited until I forgot what I had wished for. Forty Two years later I was called by the Lord to come to Him as His child, His relative, His Family.
My whole life, I felt His agony. And on the 9th hour His long suffering ceased. I wanted to defend Him, protect Him, to whisk Him away out of harm’s way. I resonated with Jesus as the Sacrificial Lamb, who was humiliated, tortured and died for us all. I still cannot get over him dying even though he resurrected Three days later.
To me he was a pure little lamb and I could hear Him crying for me to come to him. “I am here Lord…I am here to love you and take care of you, defend you and protect you, don’t worry, I am here”. I would speak those words to Him over and over ever since I can remember.
 |
| Membership Ceremony |
And then I realized that the very day I set foot inside Trinity Lutheran Church, I instantly understood that it was the Lord Jesus Christ speaking those very words to me. “I am here…I am here to love you and take care of you, defend you and protect you, don’t worry, I am here”. “Here is your family. You have always belonged here.” He said.
At that moment I remembered the prayer I scrawled on a ragged piece of paper that I stuck in a crack between the ancient stones of the Western Wall of the First Temple 42 years ago in Jerusalem. “Your suffering, anguish and torment Timna, is now ended, it is finished.”
