Shalom! My name is David Abramsky and I'm originally from Ontario, Canada. Here’s how the Lord brought me to faith in Him. I was born into a loving Jewish home in Toronto where we lit Shabbat candles every Friday night, and we celebrated Chanukah and Passover. We belonged to a Reform synagogue in Toronto and that's where I had my Bar Mitzvah. As a boy I desired a relationship with God but no one mentioned God much around the house nor when I visited my cousins who were even MORE religious than we were. Gradually my family stopped going to synagogue or lighting Shabbat candles. I was proud of my Jewish heritage but was confused. At the age of 8, I learned piano and it quickly became my best friend. In high school I excelled at maths and sciences. Yet I realized that the so called scientific "Laws" I was learning about were just approximations and were always being rewritten by the next generation of scientists. I wondered, "Is there any absolute truth" in the universe? I entered university to study engineering. I started to have a real hard time emotionally. My excellent grades and my self-esteem began to slip. I didn't believe in anything and did not know where to turn. Ever the people pleaser I buried my pain, smiled on the outside but was just barely hanging on on the inside. I was living way up in Thunder Bay, Ontario where I tried different ways to find some peace and to heal my emotional pain. For the first time since my childhood I started to pray and I began to realize that God exists--that I was not the centre of the universe. He really started to knock on my door at this point. During one emotional deep low point I was surprised that, in my agony, I called out to Jesus. I wondered why, of all the gods I had tried, His name came to my lips at that moment! But I quickly forgot Him when I felt better! Somewhere in the back of my mind I had heard that we Jews were supposed to be waiting for the Messiah. No Messiah was EVER mentioned in my family or in religious school! On day in my grandmother's house I actually found a New Testament in a pile of books left behind by a live-in housekeeper. I took it by hiding it in a pile of books she said I could take. I was trained in the scientific method yet I had judged the New Testament without having even read it! What kind of scientific method was that? I took the book home and began reading it eagerly and with an open mind. It was not anti-Semitic and it was VERY Jewish. I was utterly amazed. I couldn't help being impressed with Jesus and the way he talked and lived out the Scriptures. My search deepened. I knew there were Jews who believed in Jesus. (In fact I used to drive by the Jews for Jesus office in Toronto and curse it or even spit at it because I thought they were out to convert Jews). There was NO denying Jesus was a Jew and a devout one at that. I continued to be amazed that Jesus spoke to his peers as Jews and did NOT renounce his Jewishness. In fact He was calling them BACK to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I didn't have trouble with the Trinity. After all physics students learn early on to think of light as both particle and wave yet it's still light. Here was one God in three persons. I joined a music band and we moved down to Toronto where I was once again close to my family. I now had it all: friends, family, music, a CD selling in the stores. I should have been happy, contented. Yet I awoke one Sunday morning feeling so low, so lost. But the most unexpected feeling was an inner PULL or COMMAND to get up, get dressed, get in the car and find a spiritual "home". As I dressed I worried to myself, "A spiritual home? It's SUNDAY; only churches are open today! I persevered, following this inner pull which seemed to be saying, “Go to the first church you find”. Oy, there it was! I was so scared but I went in and sat at the back. Here were people singing, worshipping, and asking each other for prayers. Even the worship songs that day were talking about Old Testament prophets like Ezekiel and Elijah...it was too much and I cried! Could God love me so much he would bring me to this place? I also cried because I my upbringing told me it was wrong for a Jew to be getting answers from a church service. The Pastor signed me up for the next Alpha course which I loved! Then I was given the business card of Jews for Jesus in Toronto. I marveled that I now WANTED to call them! I wanted to find other Jews who believed like I do. With Andrew from the Toronto office I publicly professed I believed Jesus was the Messiah. That Jesus died for my sins. I was amazed to learn from Bible study that resurrection is a very Jewish belief. I didn't know that! What encouragement it was to see Jesus being described in Isaiah 53 which talks about the suffering Messiah. And Jeremiah 31:31 blew me away! No one ever told ME God spoke of a NEW covenant. I wish someone had. One night Andrew and his wife Laura invited me over for dinner. I had a flood of emotions that first visit because this house LOOKED Jewish and SMELLED Jewish and they believed in Jesus. You know, I'm grateful for the Christians in my church back in Canada. Through them I've come to have a DEEPER appreciation and knowledge of the Old Testament, the Jewish Scriptures. That was back in 1997, yet my faith in Jesus is still very hard on my family. When I first told them, it was embarrassing and confusing to them. Actually my father cried and my mother THANKED me! Why did she thank me? She hadn't seen my dad cry in years so that was a gift to her. One relative went so far as to say that I "left the race!". As one friend remarked, "Did you turn in your Jewish DNA for another set?" I pray for my family. Clearly I know that I AM still Jewish. I don't use the word "converted" because it implies that I've LEFT something behind. I do not feel I have left anything. I am proud to be a Jew, descended from the line of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and I am so grateful to finally see that Y'shua, the Jewish Messiah is for me!