The DVD That Walked!

The year 2009 was difficult for us. My husband, Wylie, and I, along with our 15-year-old son, Jordan, had recently moved into a rental after losing our house to foreclosure in a bank scam. Although losing our home was very stressful and difficult, we still had our health, our careers, friends, and family, and we chose to keep a positive outlook. Wylie and I were climbing the ladder in our respective careers, his in nursing and mine in private practice mental health. We were camping, hiking, and canoeing on the weekends, and active in our church on Sundays. 

Except for the setback in home ownership, we were living the dream, weren’t we? Then why was our life unraveling? Why were we struggling to keep our marriage together? Why was our teenage son going off the rails, choosing worldly and wild friends? Why did we now lack purpose and meaning in all we were doing? We didn’t realize it, but God was about to do a new thing in our lives.

Wylie was a home health nurse at the time, and one of his elderly homebound patients, Ms. Stella, handed him a DVD as he finished his visit with her one day. He told me, “I just took it to be polite. She’s kind of strange; she won’t let me see her on Saturdays.” He said he just threw the DVD in the back of his work car and planned to throw it away next time he cleaned the car out.

God Does a New Thing

Fast-forward six weeks. I’m home alone, dusting around the TV/DVD player, and see a new DVD sitting there on “Final Events.” I pick it up to study its apocalyptic cover with a multi-headed dragon. Curiosity takes hold, and I decide to watch the DVD before Wylie throws it away. 

Since becoming a Christ-follower at age 20, I’d always been curious about the book of Revelation and prophecy, but no pastor I’d met had been able to explain those mysteries to me. As I watched the video, I thought, Who are these people? Why are they saying things that are so contrary to what I’ve been taught about the Bible? The DVD said that Jesus would return loudly, not secretly, along with other things I’d never heard! I flipped it over and saw “amazingfacts.org.”

Again, curiosity compelled me, so I got my laptop and went to the Amazing Facts website.¹ On the right side of the home page, 24 videos on prophecy were advertised. Oh, how I wanted to understand these things! I reasoned that if I compared everything to the Bible, it would be safe to watch the videos. 

When Wylie came home from work, he found me at our kitchen bar with every Bible version we owned, halfway through the videos. Amazingly, these new teachings were in complete agreement with the Bible! I told Wylie I believed we might be wrong about some things. He asked me why I had gone through his car to get the DVD. I replied, “I didn’t. I thought you brought it in.” We were both dumbfounded. 

Wylie wasn’t interested in studying these new ideas with me. He held tightly to what he’d learned in the church he was brought up in. By contrast, I’d been raised in a non-Christian home and was more open to new ideas. I continued watching the videos, comparing every point with Bible scripture, until I finished the prophecy series. I was amazed at how the God of heaven had gotten my attention during this troublous time in my life. I began wondering what to do with this new information that was beginning to transform my heart.

Several months later, I announced I would no longer be attending church on Sundays because I now understood that God’s Sabbath is the seventh day—Saturday. That’s when my husband’s level of concern was raised! He decided he’d better step in and watch the prophecy series himself to “save” me from these “false” beliefs. 

New Truths and New Lives

I began watching the series again with him during the only time he had available—bedtime. Although it would sometimes be late into the night after finishing a video, he’d say, “One more?” Wylie’s mind was troubled by these new truths, and he began waking up earlier in the mornings to watch the next video. 

As the Holy Spirit gave him understanding, Wylie began to see and accept that these new teachings were right in line with the Bible, while what we had previously believed was not. As we discussed worshiping on the seventh day, we were perplexed about where we would go to church. We didn’t know anyone who worshiped on Saturday. Then Wylie remembered hearing of a group called Seventh-day Adventists who did, and of meeting some Adventists, too.

We found a welcoming Adventist church and started attending regularly. Neither of us had to work on Saturday, so keeping the Sabbath wasn’t difficult for us. Within a few weeks, our new church hosted an Amazing Facts evangelistic seminar, so we went through the studies again, this time in person. Our new beliefs were becoming a firm foundation for us. Although we’d been Christians for many years, we chose to be baptized again into our new faith. 

One of the things we truly appreciated about Adventism was learning how to study and understand the Bible. The more we studied, the more we were growing in the Lord, and He began making our crooked paths straight. As we stepped into each new truth we learned, He began to show us new solutions to the tangled-up parts of our lives. 

Our new pastor started counseling with our troubled teenage son, helping him in ways we’d been unable to. We found a Christian book on restoring a troubled marriage and began implementing what we learned from it. As we renewed our relationship with Jesus, He showed us how to renew our relationship with each other and with our son. The once distant God we thought we knew met us at the point of our need. He became so real, so personal in our lives, that we saw He was not only our Creator and Savior but our truest Friend. 

God truly gives us the desires of our hearts, and He’s also provided for our desire to serve Him and others. At church, I serve as the music leader and Wylie as an elder. We especially love serving the Lord in our literature ministry, Wherever You Go. As we run our regular errands, we hand out a variety of magazines, books, and tracts, sharing the great truths of the love of God that we’re so privileged to know. 

God has transformed our lives so much! We’ll be forever grateful to a homebound missionary, Ms. Stella, for handing Wylie the DVD—and to the heavenly angel that moved it inside our house!

Amazing Facts International is a worldwide ministry sharing the gospel and promoting Bible study through a variety of media including radio, television, online resources, and live events. See www.amazingfacts.org and www.amazingfacts.org/media-library.