Death of a brother leads to life through another brother

I am so thankful for God the Father, Jesus my savior with the Holy Spirit as their messenger. The benefits of knowing God is the knowledge that Jesus is with me always, I have the assurance of heaven when I eave the physical world and a sense of Hope in a life in Him here on earth.

I became a Christian around 7 years old at my babysitter, Mrs Greens house at her fireplace. I don't recall words however I remember thinking "Yea - I want that" and we knelt at her fireplace. From then I knew for certain, barring a few doubting times which we all typically have, that I was a life saved from hell to be with Him in heaven but also to live for Him by drawing others to him. I grew up in an extremely horrible home, full of physical, emotional and mental violence. Counselors would later tell me as I was processing some things that I was suffering from PTSD; it was a virtual war-zone everyday. In counseling you learn about how an alcoholic homes functions; the abuser revolves around the bottle, the enablers revolve around keeping the abuser settled and the supporting cast revolved around the enablers. This was our home however it was a dry alcoholic home filled with rage. I left home the morning after high school graduation finally free. Flash forward to 1997, I was in the Navy and had just returned to Houston to work at the Reserve Training command. I was walking through a promise keepers 40 day pray leading up to the march on Washington. I received a call at the office that my brother, 3 1/2 years older than me, have suddenly died. I was immediately devastated sitting at my desk but what happened next set the tone for the immediate tasks and the future. Not 2 minutes after getting off the call, these two Christian brothers came and literally picked me up from my desk, dragged me into a copy room and began to pray forcefully over me. When I got home later I got off by myself to pray, I said "God, I know you weren't surprised by this so please give me the strength to walk through this, lead my family and let me learn everything I can learn from this process to use later". I believe that prayer from my friends set a course in my heart to remember that nothing is outside the grasp of God, that everything that happens to us first passes through His hands.

I know without any doubt that God has nothing but His total goodness for me. Things will come into my life for my good as well as other things due to the fact we live in a fallen world but HE will always be near.