The Sindon Letters
Introduction
Sliding Into Home
My Personal Testimony: Always Searching
By Pamela Gudgeon
Going back in time in the Word of God is the purpose I feel I was meant to do. Studying about Jesus, the Promise, the Shroud of Turin, and what the future could hold for the Church as a whole has been my focus for a long time. However, going back in time in my life is not so pleasant for me and I have avoided giving my testimony for many years. When I delivered it to a few people and a Pastor or two, well, let’s just say this testimony has not been met with positive feedback.
At this present time, when I think back on my life I remember many sins, but also I see the Glory of God even when I didn’t recognize Him as my Lord and Savior. This is the first fact that has seemed to be a problem within the traditional church in that the Glory of God was revealed before I had a personal relationship with Him.
The second fact will be revealed as you continue reading. If you are a confirmed legalist, you may not want to read this personal testimony.
From the britannica.com:
What is the best way to describe legalism?
: strict, literal, or excessive conformity to the law or to a religious or moral code.
You may not be aware that you are a legalist, though. Once you finish reading this testimony, you will know. The decisions we make in life have a tendency to bring blessing or, God forbid, judgment. So, this personal testimony may throw your theology right out the window, but I will tell you this is a true testimony; I know it; I lived it.
The Great Divide
I was born in Georgia, USA. Long before President Trump was to be in Dalton, GA last night on January 4, 2020, I had a vision from God that I didn’t understand until last evening. I saw myself in a car traveling from Chattanooga to Georgia and when I got to the Tennessee-Georgia line, I had to slow down. The traffic was worse than I had ever seen and it felt like I would never get to my destination. That was the vision. Since I spent all my young life traveling over that Tennessee-Georgia line to visit my Father every other week-end, I finally understood that the Lord wanted me to write and share my testimony, my life and how I came to know Jesus. Of course, this would also include the book I have written concerning the magnificent picture of Christ, the Infamous Shroud of Turin that has been in the Holy Word of God since the beginning.
As you have already guessed, I am from a divorced family. I spent every other weekend in a Pentecostal Church in Georgia with my Father, and at my home with my Mom, well, we didn’t go to Church, only on Resurrection Sunday. Suffice it to say my Mom was raised a southern Baptist and my Dad became a Pentecostal after the divorce. The difference radiated through my young mind. I was taught about Jesus and how to become saved at a young age. I loved the Homecomings, the music, and the people at Church. My mother also sent me to vacation Bible School in the Summers. So, I had a good foundation in that respect. In other words, I knew what to say if I needed the Lord.
Something happened to me around the age of 8. I was asked to memorize Psalm 100, speak it to the congregation, and I would receive a nice, white Bible. I can only assume that my teacher included me with the group class because I could only be there every other Sunday. So, I had two weeks to memorize it. I did it, I spoke it perfectly, and I received a white Bible. I am sure the “white” was symbolic of “righteousness” and not because of any other reason. Honestly, I was never taught prejudice of any kind and was completely protected from news items in the 60’s (born in 1958).
I believe receiving that Bible was a certain beginning, but not a real beginning in my knowledge of God. When I was 9 years old, I remember walking up to receive Christ at a totally different Church and I became Baptized that next Sunday. I went with a friend and neither parent was anywhere around.
Still, I didn’t commune with the Lord.
It was also the age of 9 when I started playing fast-pitch softball. I was in the 4th grade and my coaches placed me on 3rd base, for whatever reason. It was a time in my life that I began to really be confident and good at something.
The batter would hit the ball to 3rd base and I would catch it perfectly, then, with power, I threw the ball to 1st base. The problem I had was not the power throw, but the aim. I would look right at the first base person and the ball would go from the way right to the way left.
My coach told me to put my eyes in the perfect spot (in the glove of the first base person) before I threw the ball. Well, I listened and won the trophy for the Most Improved that first year.
The Lord takes me back to that occasionally and places my aim back if I start thinking on the wrong track. He is so faithful.
This leads me to another analogy that has become important to my “Salvation Story” that I will share.
I became a “catcher in fast-pitch softball” for the next few years and won trophies in certain tournaments. However, there was something that I never learned to do properly and still today, could not do. That something was “sliding into home”. Everytime I slid into home I went feet and rear coming in first and then slipping backward, hitting my head on home-plate. It was the oddest thing. I was told to slide on my side, my leg to the right or left. Well, all of us girls had on shorts, not pants. I guess I was afraid to scratch my leg up. It didn’t feel safe. As it turned out, I knocked myself out a couple of times, but briefly. Terrible.
Before I get to my “Salvation Story” about how I slid into home with the Lord days before I turned 37 years old, I would like to tell you about the first time I used actual words to ask Jesus into my life.
When I was 19 years old I was figuring out that I was a major sinner. I searched and searched for boyfriends all the time. I never was without a boyfriend and sometimes betrayed the ones I had. The good thing is that I never did drugs, but I was a drinker. The parties….the drinks…. the boys….you can only imagine. I rebelled against anything to do with what was right. I was like a floundering fish, searching for water to live. Nothing ever worked.
At 19 years old, I lived in a dorm room at college with a Christian girl that most likely prayed for me. She would try to teach me to be responsible. For instance, she would ask me to walk with her to go eat a bite, then tell me to get my umbrella because it’s going to rain. I went with her, but didn’t get my umbrella. It poured down rain on the way back and she told me that I should have gotten my umbrella. I was drenched when we got back to the dorm, she was dry as if it didn’t rain at all.
Living in the dorm with a Christian that had a relationship with Jesus, was another beginning to my story. I was so miserable when I was there because I couldn’t find a boyfriend and had only her and school, which wasn’t helping me in my search.
No one was around one day and I thought I would try to look out the window at the sky and ask Jesus into my life. I knew that if it were true then I would feel different as I had heard at the Pentecostal Church and the Baptist Church. Well, I said “Jesus, please come into my life and save me”. I was sincere too.
Immediately, I went to my bed and waited to hear, sense, or feel something from Jesus. It was quiet. There was no change. I got up and came to the conclusion that I was still alone…...but I wasn’t as it turned out.
Living in ignorance for the next 17-18 years was what I did. He never let go of me. During that time I had two disastrous marriages that were so bad that I almost ended up dead. God watched over me as I made horrible choices, he saved me by miracles. There were at least 3 times that I almost died: 1. Almost killed myself in my early twenties, 2. Almost, unintentionally, jumped to my death down 25 ft on concrete, and 3. Almost and should have died in a car accident while driving 70 mph. What a crazy life I led, always searching for something that was right in front of me.
During my first bad marriage, I had a vision from God. I saw the back of the head of the man I was going to marry and he was tall; he and I were walking together over a bridge in a beautiful park. (it wasn’t either man in my two disastrous marriages) I said to someone (Jesus) whom I didn’t know, “How is that possible, I am already married?” It happened years later just as the vision from God revealed it to me.
He spoke to me another time when I was looking through a microscope at the kidney. I thought, “how intricate and detailed is the kidney.” I immediately saw a vision of myself coming down to earth from heaven to my mother. I said to myself, “what does that mean?” Still, not realizing that the God of creation was talking to me. He chose me to have a relationship with Him even before I was born on the earth. It wasn’t until I truly was in a relationship with Jesus that I understood the visions.
Everywhere I went, He was there. He was there when a lady asked me what I thought about Christians when I was around 30 years old. She said, “What do you think about Christianity?” I said, “Oh, I am a secular humanist and I think Christianity is for weak people.” Boy, how the Lord must have felt in my rebellion! I was repeating the mantra I had heard in school. And God still loved me and knew exactly how and when I was going to realize my grave sins. God is so faithful and we cannot fathom His great love for us, even me.
He not only saved me physically from dying many times, He also touched my spirit and saved my future as we will see in the next phase of my Salvation.
True Salvation
How did I finally “slide into home?” I have to admit that it was kinda, sorta the same way I literally slid into home in my youth, the wrong way.
I had just finished 4 years of goofing off at college, earning a degree, but never really having a firm foundation of the future. I was 36 years old in December, 1994 at the time of graduation and moved back home, close to where my Mom lived.
Still searching I thought I would go to a sales job interview. Well, as I was waiting in line in a room I started chatting with a woman about the weather and other insignificant things. She said, “Hey, I am learning how to read Tarot Cards, do you want to be my client?” I laughed.
I told her, “You are aware that there is no spirit world, right?” After all that had happened to me and how God gave me visions, talking to me, I still had no idea! She indicated that she could tell my future and I said in my sarcasm, “Well, let’s prove it.”
This marks the beginning of my true Salvation, although I would never advocate for anyone to do this: never, ever! It was how the Lord had to get my attention, I suppose, being deep in rebellion. And, of course, nothing I did was an intentional search in this manner, which was in my favor with God I suppose. I was in ignorance and completely in denial of evil and good at the time. I did this for yet another avenue for fun, not realizing my idea of fun was about to change forever!
She suggested we meet every week on Sundays for a while. This was in the month of May 1995. So, I went to her meeting. When I got there the first time, I didn’t know what to expect, but she immediately sat me down at the table (no small talk) and pulled the cards out. She started turning the cards over and suggested that what she told me was going to happen to me this week to prove to me this is true. I said, “O.K. as I made a small laughter sound.”
Well, I can’t remember everything she told me through the weeks, but I remember that things were happening just like she said. For the first 3 -4 weeks, I saw things happening, but I didn’t believe it.
One Sunday, she told me I would meet someone. That week I started dating another man. Looking back, the way I felt was almost the way I felt in that dorm room, right before I asked Jesus into my life. Something was wrong, and I wasn’t sure what it was.
We continued every Sunday and every week; what she said would happen, happened. I began to consider moving to a more experienced reader, she agreed and wanted to accompany me.
It was July 4th, 1995 downtown Nashville, TN when we finally saw an experienced Tarot Card reader. The celebration of our great country was indeed a sight to behold and a lot of people were around. The experienced Tarot Card reader was on Second Ave with her table and cards.
I sat down. The cards came and she said the truth about everything in my past. She spoke of a family member that had passed recently and what they were speaking to me. All the past was correct. I was amazed!
Then she started telling me of my present life. It was true, I was dating this man and she described him perfectly.
It was when she started telling me of the future that I started laughing again. She said this man owns a castle in Ireland and I will be married there. I politely got up from the table and said thank you, but inside I was laughing so hard because I knew that all of this spirit stuff was a crock at that time!
It sounded so preposterous!!
I told my inexperienced “Tarot Card Reading friend” that I found out tonight that all this is so crazy and wrong. She said, “well, ok then.” I didn’t see her much more after that night, at least not to do Tarot cards ever again. I did see her after my Salvation to tell her that Jesus is real. But that is the last time I remember seeing her. So, for the next few days I went on with my life as usual.
It was what happened on the 3rd day after 7/4/95 which was July 7th, 1995 that started my process of having faith: faith first in the evil spirit world and then ultimately faith in Christ Jesus on July 9th, 1995, a Sunday at 11:00 am!
Continuing. I called the man I was dating on Friday, July 7th. I told him, laughingly, what I had been through with all this spirit stuff. I told him about the fortune teller on Second Ave on the 4th.
I got to the part about the castle in Ireland and the fact that she said that “we are going to get married there” (which I had no desire to do, of course, after what I had previously been through) There was a silence that I still remember to this day. It was like everything I had been through in the last few months was all right there in that silence.
The silence broke and he said, “I just paid the taxes on a large home in Ireland that was in my family.”
At this point I had no clue as to what to say except “good bye.”
For a few days I was in another, yet horrible spiritual world and I couldn’t get out. I guess the good thing, if there is a good thing for this particular week-end, is that I finally believed in the spirit world.
On Sunday morning, the 9th, I heard the word “sorcerer” in my mind. I remember sitting at the kitchen table pondering, “what is a sorcerer?” So, I chose to go upstairs to my beautiful and admired encyclopedias with gold trim. I looked up the word, “sorcerer.” There was a picture of a devil with two horns…..I never got to the definition.
When I saw the picture of a devil, I screamed loudly, “I am on the wrong side!!!”
I closed the book, ran down the stairs as fast as I could, not thinking: I ran and fell on my knees in the living room and said, “Oh God, save me from my horrible future!!!”
This was the first time I saw Jesus standing in front of me, smiling. His first words to me were so gentle and kind, “I scared the hell out of you, didn’t I?”
From that moment on I have loved Jesus more than life itself. I spent 9 months with Him and Him alone, never caring about anything else, or anyone else. Oh the conversations, the learning, the laughter, and the love!!! I never wanted to leave His presence! God is so faithful!!!
I came into the Kingdom of God in a way that I would never wish on anyone!!! My life before Jesus was so painful and empty. I finally had found what I was searching for all my life. I found Him by coming into His door from the wrong side, so to speak, much in the same way that I slid into home in my youth.
From an Evil, Devil Picture to a Holy, Jesus Picture
God’s Saving Grace Always Has a Purpose
In conclusion, there was an important time in my past when I was in college, getting ready to graduate. I had to get my last semester classes approved by an advisor. While I was communicating with him about my final classes, he received a phone call from a news station. They wanted to do a spot on the Shroud of Turin and also wanted an educator’s opinion. He stated, “The Shroud of Turin is a fake.” I was not a believer in Christ at this time, so I had no interest in anything he said, unless it had something to do with my list of classes so I could graduate. However, I always remembered that. Somewhere in the back of my mind and in my deep ignorance was the question, “Why would you say it was a fake?” Years later the Lord brought that back to me and introduced me to my future purpose in the Word of God: writing and studying about the picture of Christ Jesus on the Shroud of Turin.
I was mesmerized by the Shroud because it was and still is a perfect testimony of everything the Gospels said about the Crucifixion and the Resurrection (The Promise). I questioned the Lord “If it is truly You, then why isn’t it in the Word of God so all could see?” My writing and studying future is continually being revealed to me by Him as I put forth the effort concerning the ordered Word of God, precept upon precept. He has spoken and the Shroud of Turin is in the Bible.
The evil picture of the devil that brought wisdom, understanding, and revelation to me concerning Christ Jesus depicted my past before I knew Jesus. He turned me around in my living room that day and gave me a true and good picture of Himself: a (seen) picture of the pinnacle office of servanthood, or the Crucified Christ and an (unseen) picture of the excellency of perfect Light, or the Resurrected Christ. I hope you will continue reading “The Sindon Letters” that unveils the Biblical evidence that the Burial Shroud of Christ Jesus is the tangible remnant left behind.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, whenever you see or however you walk,
Just Make Sure You Make It Home!!! Everything will fall into place with Jesus!!
Love to you in Christ,
Pamela Gudgeon, (Always the Student)
