My Personal Testimony - Josprel

by Joseph Perrello
Published March 22, 2005

Although I was brought up in a Christian home, I left the Lord at a very young age - thirteen-years-old. My parents struggled with me to get me to attend church, but nothing availed. Though I did not drift into deep sin, I did sin. God, however, does not color sin in shades of black, white or gray. To Him sin is sin, period. Upon completing school at age
seventeen, I enlisted in the Air Force.

Because of my young age, my parents had to sign for my enlistment. This they refuse to do until I threatened to leave home and never return, so my dad signed. If he hadn't, I probably would have left home.

I spent three years - two and on half of them overseas - in the Air Force, serving as an engineer-operator, who operated heavy construction equipment, such as bull-dozers, road-graders, heavy cranes, heavy engineering vehicles, C2 crash-truck-cranes - used to lift and haul away crashed aircraft - and most of the other types of heavy construction
equipment. By my eighteenth birthday, I had attained the rank of engineering sergeant.

During my time in the Air Force, I attended chapel service only once, for the funeral of a buddy who committed suicide while on duty. His fiancé had written him a letter, saying she was pregnant and was going to marry the man who was the father of her child. My buddy killed himself by stealing a jeep and - traveling at floorboard speed - intentionally rolled the vehicle over. He died instantly.

Even this didn't move me towards the Lord.

When my time finally came for discharge, I was offered additional promotion if I would agree to re-enlist. I refused, arriving home at twenty-one years of age, still unsaved.

At home, I took employment in my field as an operating-engineer. It was a very high-paying and well-regarded job in civilian life and I felt I had "the world by the tail." At night I went out with my buddies, though I did not drink heavily and carouse, as they did. I was flush with money, drove a late-model Chrysler convertible, dated pretty girls, and
partied or traveled on weekends.

Then, one night about three A. M., I arrived home with a feeling of futility to my life. My parents were asleep, as were my two brothers and two sisters. I entered the parlor, closed the door and fell to my knees. At that point in my life, I wanted to doubt the existence of God, but never really could. I never could honestly deny that the order I saw in creation meant there had to be an infinite mind behind it all. There in the parlor, with tears flowing down my cheeks, I shook my fist at God and said, "God, if you're really there, prove it to me!" Immediately, just like in the Book of Acts, what seemed like a great wind rushed through the room. It seemed to come from the top corner to my left and it knocked me to the floor and held me there. When I attempted to get up, it pushed me back down. I was terrified and trembling. I literally could feel a presence pinning me to the floor as I pushed again it with both palms, pleading, "Let me up! Let me up!"

Nevertheless, it held me there.

My youngest brother, who was serving the Lord, and who now also is a minister, heard the thud when I fell to the floor. He rushed into the room to see what had happened. Noticing me - unable to sit up and seemingly pushing at empty air with both palms - he awoke my parents, who came rushing into the room and began praying for me.

Now in a cold sweat, I asked, "Mom, what's happening to me?"

I'll never forget her answer, "Joe, you mean to say you have lived in a Christian family all these years, and you don't know what happening to you?"

I knew!

My parents' prayers were being answered, but not in the way they had expected. Their oldest son had foolishly challenged God to prove His existence and God did so in a terrifying manner. Finally, the presence released me, and I staggered to my bed.

The next morning, I knelt before God by the side of my bed, and without speaking audibly, I requested that if He wanted to use me in the ministry, to have some one call me go to a service to sing (Since I come from a family of musicians, I loved to sing.) That evening, I received a phone call from a man - a minister's son - I had not seen since I stopped attending church at age thirteen. He said he was speaking at a mission and needed someone to sing for him. Would I go with him? I was flabbergasted, but I agreed. I even accused my mother of asking him to call me; but I knew she couldn't have done so because only God and I knew what I ask Him to do. I had prayed silently in my room, alone with the door closed; no one but God could have heard me.

Well, that did it for me!

One month later, even though I was born again such a short time, my application to study for the ministry under the G.I. Bill of Rights was accepted by the school of my choice and the rest is Josprel history.

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