Dad,
I love you – I have to write this letter to you because I love you.
I want you to have happiness and joy forever. This life we are in is temporary – I know you know about Jesus; when you were young you believed in Him and prayed. I think you pray to him now. I want to talk to you about what I know about Jesus and how I know it beyond a shadow of a doubt. I want you to be with me in heaven.
You raised me, and you know how I was when I was going through high school. What you may not have realized is that I studied several major religions during that time and after. Brahmin, Buddhist, Hari Krishna, later in life I investigated Islam – I have attended and studied the religions of several major Christian sects as well – Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist – as well as several cults – Mormonism primarily but also Seventh Day Adventist and the like.
This all started when I was in 5th grade after we moved to Havre. One day I was really sad – I ran upstairs into my room at 910 Kennedy Avenue and was laying on my bed calling out to the Universe in my mind – asking ‘why?’ – why do I have to have all this pain and anger and frustration. I don’t know what it was that put me in that state. I was a pretty sensitive younger kid. Amazingly though, I got a direct verbal answer – I heard the words spoken very clearly ‘Be happy.’
It wasn’t only the words though. After hearing that a sense of peace and wonder enveloped me in a way that I knew God was real, and he gave a message to start me on my way to finding what I needed. Those words were meant only for me – they weren’t a message for everyone; ‘Be happy’ means different things to different people and some can hear that and interpret it to mean ‘do whatever you can to make yourself feel happy’. That’s not what that meant to me – and I started the course of trying to find true happiness.
The biggest thing I learned was that you can’t find happiness alone. I tried – I drank, slept with a bunch of women, used drugs; the whole litany of things people do before I realized finally (I am kind of slow on the uptake) when I turned 25 that those things were empty – boring really. They had no depth to them and were like a pain killer that DID give me moments of release from my pain but that was it. You were there for me and did your best to help me through my stupid moments. None of them were your fault; I was trying to be happy and wasn’t doing really well at it.
I met Rachael then – she was one of the women I decided to sleep with – and I fell in love with her. I asked her to marry me in November of 1993 and she said no – probably smart of her to make that choice then. When she found out she was pregnant early 1994 and I was going to be a father I was scared, overwhelmed, but also excited. I loved her and already wanted to spend my life with her and so when she accepted my marriage proposal it was heaven.
All of this lead me to a new encounter with God. Heather and I talked in detail about what I believed from all I learned about God to that point in time, and she was able to help me coalesce my thoughts around learning more about Jesus. It was clear to me and still is that He was orchestrating my life for a purpose. He does that with all of us and never stops trying to get you to see that He is a real person and He loves you more than you could ever understand.
I can go through all the theology, the study, the things I know that are evidence for the accuracy and truth of the Bible. There are a lot smarter people than I am that have proven its veracity 100 times over. What I want to do is URGE you to start praying.
Nothing formal, or structured. There isn’t a rulebook on prayer. Jesus just wants you to talk to Him so that he can talk to you. Tell him what you honestly feel. Once you are done, listen – He speaks to us in our thoughts, in our environment, through the people around us. If you don’t understand what you are hearing start reading the Bible – or listen to it online. There’s a ton of places now you can do that.
I discovered that finding happiness nothing more and nothing less to do with anything other than becoming friends with Jesus. He wants nothing from you but to see you in heaven when you die. He will do everything you allow him to to make that happen.
Nicholas William George Yonko
2/10/2025