[And Jesus said to His disciples] "What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety- nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying?" Matthew 18:12

Sex, drugs & rock & roll. Popular American culture of the 1960s and early '70s may have espoused lofty ideals such as world peace, unity and the love of mankind; but hindsight shows us that this era, for the most part, used these principles as an excuse for licentiousness, hedonism and the pursuit of every taboo defined by a Christian rooted society. Ironically, the disillusionment that followed swung the pendulum of humanistic values towards unabashed materialism. These were the times that Marc grew up in. He was born in 1959 to an upper middle-class family in a beautiful, suburban town near Cleveland, Ohio. His dad was a doctor who, spiritually, adopted New Age philosophies. His mom was a housewife who, though she had come to know the personal, saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, was submissive to her husband and his way of life. The family occasionally attended a local Unitarian Church, some years, only on Christmas and Easter. The family's religious traditions didn't seem to have much impact on day-to-day living. Marc recalls that, "As long as I can remember, life was always about materialism and the pursuit of worldly things. That was the standard my friends used to measure 'success'. That was the standard almost all the people I knew used to measure success and it became the standard I used to measure success."

Marc was the youngest of four brothers. When he became of age he left the familiar trappings of the Mid-West, threw off the shackles of conventional living and headed for the sunny shores of California to embrace the open arms of the "progressive" movement. Marc was heavily influenced by the contemporary, yuppie lifestyle of Southern California. "I was too young to understand the totality of the 60s & 70s; nonetheless, I liked the 'sex, drugs and rock & roll' part of it. I started smoking 'pot' when I was 13. By 1980 I was 20 years old and the corporate; consumerism culture, of the day gave credence to my pursuit of the 'all mighty dollar'.

All through the '80s and early '90s I had a lot of girl friends but never got married. As I got older, the party life just didn't have the allure that it used to, and I found myself getting quite depressed. 'Wanderlust' took a hold of me and I started moving from place to place, from job to job. My drug and alcohol abuse became more pronounced in the '90s and it finally got to the point where it affected my performance at work. I was fired from my job. There always seemed to be a high demand for my type of work and it wasn't long before I had another job back in Southern California. I had my troubles but, generally speaking, life was good. I drove a Porsche, had a nice apartment a block from the beach and I made enough money for a comfortable standard of living. Things seemed to be stabilizing a bit; even so, a year later the owner of the company I worked for, after 30 years of business, retired and closed its doors forever. The company had a large customer base so, some ex- employees and I, decided to open an independent consulting firm that catered to the company's former clientele. My first year as an independent consultant, I made $55,000 but my lifestyle was catching up with me. In 1992, partly because of heavy drug use, I made only $12,000. By 1994 I was broke. My Porsche was broke, I didn't have enough money to get it fixed, and my life was broke. I desperately needed help.

Just at the point where my situation seemed hopeless, I received a message from a friend of mine named 'Gabriel'. He worked for a company in Santa Fe, New Mexico and he wanted me to head out there and do some consulting work for him. I readily took him up on his offer and he sent me enough money to buy a plane ticket. Little did I know, I was about to have a life altering encounter with God. Sometimes it's not we who come to God, but it's God who comes to us.

Now, I'm not trying to be mystical or anything but it struck me, years later, that 'Gabriel' is the name of a famous angel listed in the Bible. Every time he is mentioned he is bearing an important message. It also struck me that the English translation of 'Santa Fe' is 'Holy Faith'. Hmm…'Gabriel' gives me a message and the message is that he wants me to come to 'Holy Faith'. Just a coincidence? I think not.

I was somewhat familiar with New Mexico. I had flown in and out of Albuquerque enough in times past to develop a routine for going to Santa Fe. The routine went like this: I would get my luggage from the baggage claim and drag it to a bench that sat just inside the automatic double glass doors of the shuttle entrance. I would sit down on the bench and keep an eye on the curbside loading zone. I knew, eventually, a shuttle would pull up to the curb. That shuttle made the 1 ½ hour trip to Santa Fe and charged only $20. What a deal. Though I had been through this routine before, this time was a bit different. It was midnight and I was one of the last people in the obscure, closed-up, locked tight, metal linked airport. As I sat in the darkness staring intently through the glass doors, I was aware of the acute sense of silence that enveloped me. Normally, the lobby was alive; bright and vibrant with the noise and bustle of busy people running here and there. Now it was hushed and gloomy. 'This must be what it feels like', I thought, 'to be the last person left on the planet'.

About that time the stillness was silenced by a clear, fixed, yet gentle voice behind me. 'Are you waitin' for the shuttle'? Surprised, I glanced over my shoulder. 'Yes', I replied. 'Are you headin' to Santa Fe'? Emerging out of the shadows was a thin, casually dressed old man. 'Yes' I replied. 'The shuttle's over here', he said motioning over his shoulder with his hand. He started to walk away. I grabbed my luggage and proceeded to drag it after him. I caught up to the old man just before he exited an alternate set of double, glass doors. 'Is the fare still $20'? I asked, 'Yep'. That's all I needed to know. I paid the fare and followed him to the waiting transport.

The old man loaded my luggage into the back of the van. As we walked around the side of the vehicle to board, I noticed that this wasn't the shuttle I expected. I had always taken a shuttle called, 'Shuttle Jack'. This shuttle had two, large, intersecting hearts painted on the side and it was called, 'The Twin Hearts Shuttle'. For reassurance I asked the old man, 'Are you going to Santa Fe'? 'Yep' he replied. With my confidence restored, I boarded the van. To my surprise, there were eight other passengers already seated. The old man climbed into the driver's seat, slammed the door and gingerly pulled away from the curb.

As we left the bright lights of the loading zone and melted away into the murky silhouettes of the dark northern road to Santa Fe the old man began to speak.

It immediately became apparent to everyone on board that this man was very religious. He proceeded to tell us that the Twin Heart's Shuttle was owned by his son and daughter-in-law. They came up with the name one evening as they looked at pictures of the sacred heart of Jesus and the immaculate heart of the Virgin Mary. I shifted in my seat a bit, uneasy at the thought of being part of a captive audience that had no choice but to listen to theological ramblings for the next 90 minutes; nonetheless, the old man seemed sincere and he did possess a peaceful demeanor that was unusually calming. He continued by sharing many stories about miraculous healings he had been involved in. Terminal cancer cured; deep, disfiguring scars that even modern surgery could not expunge were completely erased by prayer; lines of crutches along the walls of his church where the lame received healing and left them behind. The stories were interesting but they didn't do much for me. There was, however, something he said, a simple phrase at the end of each story, which hit me so hard, each time, it made my ears ring. 'You know', he said, 'If you want help from God you have to ask!' What an amazing thought! My life, truly, was a mess. Yet, had I ever considered asking God for help? No, the idea had never crossed my mind! My pulse quickened at the thought of it. I could ask God for help tonight! Hope entered my drowned spirit like a resuscitating breath of life. I was losing myself in my own thoughts when one of the passengers, a man of East Indian descent, announced that he too had a story to share. He mentioned that he was a civil engineer and had just returned from India. He was helping to construct an overpass through a congested part of New Delhi. One day, a little boy, maybe six or seven years old, wandered onto the construction site and fell off a platform, forty feet, to the asphalt below. He witnessed the fall but neither he, nor any of the workers, was able to aid the boy. They were too high up and he was too far below. The boy lay motionless and broken in the dirty street. It just so happened that a group of Christian missionaries had been passing by and saw what had happened. They rushed to the boy and laid hands on him and prayed for him. 'To my absolute astonishment', he said. 'The boy got up and walked away as if nothing had happened.' He turned to the old man and laughed. In unison they lifted their voices in amazement and said, 'You know, if you want help from God you have to ask!'

I was the last one off the shuttle that night. The old man drove me to my hotel and unloaded my bags. Before making his way back to the driver's seat, he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face and I heard, 'If you want help from God you have to ask.' But the old man's lips never moved.

Later, alone in my hotel room, I got down on my knees and poured my heart out to God. It was the first time I remember ever praying. I didn't know how to pray. It wasn't pretty but at least it was honest. I tried to make a deal with God. I said, 'Lord, if you will get me a full time job, then I will give up my evil ways.' Yes, it's true, I had a new job in Santa Fe but it was only two weeks of consulting work. Consulting was piecemeal and unreliable at best and I needed a restored sense of permanence. The next morning, at my transitory assignment, I had not been in the office for more that 30 minutes when the front desk notified me that I had a call. 'What?' I asked, 'are you sure?' I didn't tell a soul I was leaving for New Mexico, let alone Santa Fe. I had no friends in the city, no clients as of yet, and even if I had either, how would they know to reach me here? The call was from an old friend of mine, 'Michael' whose family owned a well established company back in Southern California. I know, I know, I thought of it too. Michael also happens to be another famous angel in the Bible. So what divine message did Michael have for me? He offered me a full time job as a research & development engineer with his family's business. I was floored, stunned, overwhelmed. Questions were flooding my mind faster than I could process all that was happening. While my intellect was affirming the reality of God, the fact that He listened, that He cared, and that He answered prayer, I was asking Michael how he found me. He simply said, 'There's no place you can go where I can't find you.'

These amazing events led to my complete surrender to Jesus Christ and I have become a new creation in Him! Praise God! People sometimes ask me at what point I actually got saved. I often tell them that the first time I can remember saying the traditional 'sinner's prayer' was when I answered an 'alter-call' at a Franklin Graham crusade; however, long before that, and shortly after my experience in Santa Fe, I had privately surrendered my heart to the Lord. Upon doing so the Bible, which previously, made no sense to me, seemed to come alive. My heart was softened. I was filled with the Holy Spirit and for a few blissful weeks I was blessed with a supernatural assurance that absolutely everything, to the finest detail, in terms of human activity and beyond, had all been orchestrated by God. Though a mystery, I felt that all things were working together for good. I had never felt so secure. Peace flooded my soul like a river."

Marc related to me some lyrics from a song entitled 'Alabaster Box' sung by CeCe Winans. In it she sings the following:

"I can't forget the way life used to be.
I was a prisoner to the sin that had me bound.
I spent my days pouring my life without measure
Into a little treasure box I thought I found.
Until the day when Jesus came to me
…And healed my soul with the wonder of His touch.
So now I'm giving back to Him all the praise He's worthy of.
I've been forgiven and that's why I love Him so much."

"Those lyrics, those words are my testimony. I still feel that way about Him today. In terms of actual change, Jesus has dramatically altered my life for the better. This new man does not smoke, drink, do drugs nor chase after women. God has worked miracle after miracle in my life and has blessed me beyond measure. Perhaps the most amazing change is that I have gone from being 'self-centered' to being 'others-centered.' The Lord has blessed me with a beautiful, God fearing wife, and four wonderful children who love the Lord. I have never forgotten the lesson that the old man taught me. Perhaps you're reading this and you are in a desperate situation. If so, don't forget the words of a wise old man… 'You know, if you want help from God you have to ask!'