I Belong At Last
Submitted by Helen Markellos
The Urantia Book came to me in answer to a prayer I had made twenty years before. It hadn’t come earlier as I probably wasn’t ready for it.
I had grown up in an orphanage in England. By I960, when I was 20, I was living alone in London in a bed-sitter flat. It was Christmas day and people all around me were celebrating. As I lay alone in my cheap room, feeling very sorry for myself, I began to pray. “Why am I alone? Why don’t I have a family like other people? Give me someone to love me, please, because I am so lonely!”
After my crying stopped, I sat there listening to the people downstairs laughing and happy. I called out to God, “Do you exist? Why are you so cruel? What did I do? You don’t love me! I don’t even believe you are hearing me! It’s all a pack of lies!” When I calmed down, I said in a small voice, “If you exist, then move something in this room. Show me you hear me.” Suddenly I felt a hand on my head, stroking it slowly. I jumped up and looked around but there was only the wall behind me. The stroking continued for a few seconds, then I felt a warmth inside of me I knew somebody or something was near me in that room. I fell asleep Many years later, in 1980, I was married with four children and living in Greece, in the town of Corinth. It was summer. One day my English friend Pat, who also lived in Corinth, brought an American friend of hers around. Her name was Saskia. They had recently met on a three-day bus trip from London to Athens, and Saskia was now staying with Pat for a while. We all became friends. One evening Saskia began telling my Greek husband George the history of the Greeks, where they came from and who they were.
“Where did you get that information?” he asked, as he had never heard it before.
“From a book that I read,” she replied. I’ll let you borrow it.” And so she gave us The Urantia Book. That first night I sat up all night reading about Jesus. I was shocked, as it was just what I wanted and needed. From the minute I started reading I couldn’t put the book down. It took me three months the first time. I couldn’t wait for the children to leave for school in the morning so I could read it during the day when I should have been doing my housework. I’d go to bed at nine o’clock just so I could read it, and I’d still be reading at three in the morning. I could hardly grasp my good fortune. It was too good to be true. There it was, all my questions about life answered in one book!
Every day I would put the baby in her stroller and walk down to visit Saskia so we could discuss what I’d read the night before. We’d take long walks around the town, talking about midwayers, Solitary Messengers, angels and Jesus. I will always be thankful to Saskia for being my messenger and bringing such joy to me, for delivering the good news all the way from America right into my own home in Greece.
It is now twenty years since I got the book, and even on my fourteenth reading of it, it is just like reading it for the first time. It has given me hope and comfort through this life. Now I know that I do have a family -the whole heavenly host! I belong at last!
I have tried to tell my friends about it, but they are either too busy or not ready for the great news. I have given one to each of my children, as it is worth more than all the treasures on earth. The Urantia Book tells us why we are here and where we are going. What more can we ask?
