Please take time to read this story ,  You will need a tissue,
This is a true story that you will never forget! I am sure you are going to send this to everyone that you know. Then Tommy's, story will have served a purpose.

God Bless, Mrs.P


[b][size=18pt][center]"Tommy"

                                                                                                                           
Rev. John Powell, a professor at Loyola University in Chicago
writes  about Tommy, a student in his "Theology of Faith class."
Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the classroom for our first session in the "Theology of Faith."


That was the day I first saw Tommy.
My eyes and my mind both blinked.
He was combing his long flaxen hair, which
hung six inches below his shoulders.
It was the first time I had ever seen a boy
with hair that long.

I guess it was just coming into fashion then.?
I know in my mind that it isn't what's on
your head but what's in it that counts; but
on that day, I was unprepared and my
emotions  flipped I immediately filed
Tommy under "S" for strange,  very strange.


Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in residence"
in my Theology of Faith course. He constantly
objected to, smirked at, or whined about the
possibility of an unconditionally loving
Father/God. We lived with each other in
relative peace for one semester, although I
admit he was  for me at times a serious pain
in the back pew.


When he came up at the end of the course to
turn in his final exam, he asked in a cynical
tone, "Do you think I'll ever find God?"
I decided instantly on a little shock therapy. "No!"
I said very emphatically.Why not?," he responded,
"I thought that was the product you were pushing."

I let him get five steps from the classroom door
and then called out,Tommy! I don't think
you'll ever find Him, but I am absolutely
certain that He will find you!


He shrugged a little and left my class and
my life.I felt slightly disappointed at the
thought that he had missed my clever line:
"He will find you!" At least I thought it was
clever. Later, I heard that Tommy had graduated
and I was dul! y grateful.


Then a sad report came. I heard that Tommy
had terminal cancer. Before I could search
him out, he came to see me. When he walked
into my office, his body was very badly wasted
and the long hair had all fallen out as a result
of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and his
voice was firm, for the first time, I believe.
Tommy, I've thought about you so often--
I hear you are sick", I blurted out.


Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs.
It's a matter of weeks."Can you talk about
it, Tom?", I asked.Sure, what would you like
to know?", he replied.What's it like to be only
twenty-four and dying?", I asked. Well, it could
be worse.", he replied. Like what?", I asked.


Well, like being fifty and having no values
or ideals; like being fifty and thinking that
booze, seducing women, and making money are
the real biggies' in life.", he replied.

I began to look through my mental file cabinet
under 'S' where I had filed Tommy as strange.
(It seems as though everybody I try to reject by
Classification, God sends back into my life to
educate me.) "But  what I really came to see you
about", Tom said, "is something you
said to me on the last day of class."
He remembered!)

He continued, "I asked you if you thought I would
ever find God and you said, 'No!' which surprised me.
Then you said, 'But He will find you.' I thought
about that a lot, even though my search for God was
hardly intense at that time." (My clever line. He
thought about that a lot!) "But when the doctors
removed a lump from my groin and told me that it was
malignant, that's when I got serious about locating God.

And when the malignancy spread into my vital
organs, I really began  banging bloody fists
against the bronze doors of heaven. But God
did not come out. In fact, nothing happened.
Did you ever try anything for a long time with
great effort and with no success? You get
psychologically glutted, fed up with trying.
And then you quit.

Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing
a few more futile appeals over that high brick
wall to a God who may be or may not be there,
I just quit, I decided that I didn't really care
about God, about an after life, or anything
like that. I decided to spend what time I had left doing
something more profitable.

I thought about you and your class and I
remembered something else you had said:
'The essential sadness is to go through life
without loving. But it would be almost
equally sad to go through life and leave this
world without ever telling those you
loved that you had loved them.'"


So, I began with the hardest one, my Dad.
He was reading the newspaper when I
approached him. "Dad." Yes, what?", he asked
without lowering the newspaper.
Dad, I would like to talk with you."
Well, talk." I mean,  It's really important".
The newspaper came down three slow inches.

"What is it?" Dad, I love you--I just wanted
you to know that." Tom smiled at me and
said it with obvious satisfaction, as though
he felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside
of him. "The newspaper fluttered to the floor.

Then my father did two things I could never
remember him ever doing before. He cried and he
hugged me. We? talked all night, even though he
had to go to work the next morning. It felt so
good to be close to my father, to see his tears,
to feel his hug, to hear him say that he loved me.


It was easier with my mother and little brother.
They cried with me, too, and we hugged each
other, and started saying real nice things to each
other.We shared the things we had been keeping
secret for so many years. I was only sorry about
one thing --- that I had waited so long. Here
I was, just beginning to open up to all the people
I had actually been close to.


Then, one day I turned around and God was there.
He didn't come to me when I pleaded with Him.
I guess I was like an animal trainer holding out
a hoop:C'mon, jump through. C'mon, I'll give You
three days, three weeks.'


Apparently God does things in His own way and
at His own hour. But the important thing is that
He was there. He found me! You were right.
He found me even after I stopped looking for Him.


Tommy, I practically gasped: "I think you are
saying something very important and much more
universal than you realize. To me, at least, you
are saying that the surest way to find God is not to
make Him a private possession, a problem solver,
or an instant consolation intime of need, but
rather by opening to love. You know, the Apostle
John said that. He said: 'God is love, and anyone
who lives in love is living with God and God
is living in him.'

"Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know,
when I had you in class you were a real pain.
But (laughingly) you can make it all up to me
now.Would you come into my present Theology
of Faith course and tell them what you have just
told me? If I told them the same thing it
wouldn't be half as effective as if you were to tell it."


Ooh I was ready for you, but I don't know if
I'm ready for your class."Tom, think about it
If and when you are ready, give me a call."
In a few days, Tom called, said he was ready for
the class, that he  wanted to do that for God
and for me.So we scheduled a date.
However, he never made it.

He had another appointment, far more important
than the one with meand my class. Of course,
his life was not really ended by his death, only
changed. He made the great step from faith
into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than
the eye of man has ever seen or the ear of man
has ever heard or the mind of man has ever imagined.

Before he died, we talked one last time. "I'm not
going to make it to your class", he said.
I know, Tom."Will you tell them for me? Will
you tell the whole world for me?"I will, Tom.
I'll tell them. I'll do my best."

So, to all of you who have been kind enough
to read this simple story about God's love,
thank you for listening. And to you, Tommy,
somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills
of heaven --- I told them, Tommy as best I could.


If this story means anything to you, please pass
it on to a friend or two.
It is a true story and is not enhanced for publicity purposes.

With thanks,
Rev. John Powell, Professor Loyola University in Chicago [/center] [/size] [/b]

Very interesting, but very vague.

He turned around, and God was there? How exactly did God find him?

@Goodguy

Don't you think that it takes God's intervention to find a man who has gone astray? . . .
It takes God to relocate him from his past erroneous beliefs & doctrines unto His righteous paths.
To me, I'm sure it takes God to re-direct the steps of such a lost man.

Tommy from this story is an example of such a 'lost' man, moreso, Apostle paul in the Scriptures was once in such pathway before God found him (i.e. revealed Himself to him). No matter how far we've moved away from our Creator. . .I know and I believe that only His Miracle of mercy can draw us closer unto Him. God's gone nowhere. . .He's always there! Only man moves from places to places in search of knowledge, power etc. He's ever faithful. Remember, the farther we are from God, the closer we are to the devil.