Leo Mullen - my story

When it comes to my personal story, the questions that come to my mind are, where do I start? What do I say? Honestly, how much detail about my life would anybody really want to know? Being somewhat of the talkative type I could even find myself imagining that there might even be some who would want all the details, of how I'm the youngest of seven children, my parents names, my brothers and sisters names, my childhood memories, my teenage years…… but I've decided to save all of those things for a book that someday I might write, if Jesus doesn’t return before I have the opportunity to put pen to paper :-)

But seriously, I was brought up in what I would call a typically ordinary Roman Catholic family, brought up to go to mass, respect the church, respect the priest, say my prayers, go to confessions and to live a generally moral good life - and in the most part I would have tried to fulfil these obligations. I had been taught that I became a Christian, a child of God when I had been baptized as an infant. I went through the normal ordinances of the Roman Catholic Church as I grew up and I never really had any reason to question my beliefs. I am not saying that there weren’t times when I was older that I didn’t have questions about God, but over all, I was just happy to go through the “religious motions”; after all I believed that this was all that God really required of me.

In 1981 I gained entry into the army school of music and it was here that God began the chain of events that would eventually lead me to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Living away from home and living with a group of young people of roughly my own age did, however, lead me into some experiences that had nothing to do with God at all. But it was also here that I met someone who talked about Jesus in a way I'd never heard before, and he even quoted some verses from the Holy Bible.

I remember vividly enjoying these, what I would call 'conversations', with this guy but then I would just go back to what I saw as 'normal life'. It's important to mention at this point, that about one year after entering the army school of music, after one of the morning masses that the whole school had attended during a mission week, we were all presented with a Gideon’s New Testament. In a purely religious way I seen this book as a holy thing and decided to keep it safe, not realising then the value of the words that were contained between its covers. In fact, I still have it to this day.

Nearly every weekend I would travel home and then travel back to Dublin on Sunday evening. It was on some of these bus journeys back to Dublin that I met some people I'd known from secondary school who told me that they'd become Christians and they were going to what they called “Christian meetings”. Being the friendly type I was glad to spend some time in conversation with them.Besides, it helped the journey on the bus to go quicker

I discovered one of them knew my Christian friend from the army barracks. I would like to say that it was soon after these conversations that I realised I was a sinner and I cried out to God for mercy and I was wonderfully saved……...but it wasn’t.

I left the army school of music in 1983 and lived life as I considered normal. Then in 1986 a friend of mine began to tell me how he had come to know Jesus as his personal Saviour and how he knew for certain that if he were to die, or if Jesus was to come again, he would spend his eternity with the Lord. I remember over the course of several weeks telling him that a lot of what he was saying to me I had heard before and telling him about the Christians I had met those years before. But thank God he persisted and one night he gave me a booklet called “Jesus Will Come Again” and asked me if I would read it.

That night the 30 of April 1986, I went home and read this booklet and, although every time I had attended the Roman Catholic mass I had said the words “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again” for the first time I really began to ask myself the question: When Christ comes again, or if I were to die, could I say for certain, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would spend eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ?" I knew in all honesty that I couldn’t say yes.

At this time I picked up the Gideon’s New Testament I'd been given some years before. As I began flicking through the pages I discovered just inside the back cover what I now know to be called “God’s plan of salvation.” I didn’t know if I'd ever noticed it before but it seemed as if it was the first time I'd seen it. It contained a number of main headings each of which had bible verses under them.

As I read these verses of scripture I began to realise I was a sinner who needed Jesus as my personal saviour. There was a prayer on these pages and I began to pray it out, it read:

Under this prayer were a number of scripture verses one of which said:

By this time I knew in my heart that God had forgiven me of my sins and that if I were to die, or when Jesus would come again, I would spend eternity with him.

On the 30 of April 1986 I wrote my name on the back cover of that Gideon’s New Testament but more importantly my name had been written into the Lamb’s book of life. [Revelation 20 verse 15]

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