Decades of HIDDEN Faith in Jesus | Mind-Blowing Story

How is this gonna come across to him and what is he gonna say? And so we sit him down and my mom looks at me and I look at my mom and we share the news that we have come to believe in the Jewish Messiah of Israel and I was waiting for his finger to kind of go to the front door and say leave and never come back again. You had a very specific moment where you actually realized that he is actually who he said he was. What was that moment for you? I was in my bedroom and for 14 years, 13 years I had thought I just can't believe in Jesus. It's just a line I can't cross and it was that moment of realizing actually I didn't have to betray my Jewish heritage to believe this and it was this big moment of change for me because I thought my whole life I wanted to believe this. So for 13 years it's like I wanna believe this, I wanna believe this and I can't. I just can't do this to my grandparents. What was holding you back? Well, my grandparents had narrowly escaped the Holocaust and for them that was the ultimate betrayal. For me to say that I believed in Jesus, I would be becoming a Gentile. It was like a knife wound for them and I adored my grandparents. I just felt like I could not do that to them. It was like how could I do this to them if I love them? But how did you hear about Jesus in the first place? I had close neighborhood friends that we went and played at and I used Jesus as a curse word, that's all I knew. And she said to me, my mom said, if you're gonna play at our house, you can't use Jesus's name like that. And so in an instant I knew that Jesus was something very different to them and if I wanted to play at this house, I needed to figure this out. So it just created a curiosity for me of who is this Jesus that's a curse word for me but for them something sacred. Okay, so a curiosity develops into a desire to believe in him. And how did that happen? It was this insatiable hunger to wanna know more and so I figured out that if I sleep over on a Saturday night at their house, I get to go to church with them. And I don't think my mom fully realized this. So that was kind of what happened is I figured, hey, my parents are gardening on a Sunday and there's nothing wrong with gardening but I get to go to hear about God in a place of worship. And so that was how it started for me. What was your family life like? It was just a loving, adoring home and it was because of that that I felt like, how could I do this to my grandparents who I adore so much? I just can't do this to them. And how did you come to know that faith in Jesus was a betrayal to the Jewish people psychologically, in the psyche of the Jewish people? How did you come to find that out? The Holocaust. Because of the Holocaust. My grandpa was 18 years old when he narrowly escaped. The story goes that his brother was in the French Resistance Army at the time and his parents said, here's the money to escape and if it gets worse, we'll come. And none of them escaped. So I grew up with that narrative and then they would talk about that, not often, but I knew, I knew what they had been through. My Jewish identity was not religious. It wasn't even secular. It was cultural and it was because of the Holocaust. And you connected the Holocaust with Christianity. I knew that it was us and them and if I was going to believe in Jesus, I was going to be on the other side of the equation. That makes sense. And what changed then? One night, I read Stan Telchin's book. It's called Betrayed and that's how I had felt my whole life. The title was like, if I believe in Jesus, I am going to betray my heritage. I'm going to betray my people. I'm going to betray my grandparents. And here was a religious Jew who had come to believe in Jesus and I thought I was the only, I really, I don't know why, but I thought I was the only Jew in the whole world who would consider something as crazy as believing in Jesus. And here was someone who was religious, was part of a synagogue, was a leader in a synagogue and was believing this. And I thought, oh my gosh, I actually can believe this. I'm not betraying my heritage to believe this. So my mom reads the book and a number of other circumstances in her life bring her to a place of coming to accept that Jesus was the Messiah. And actually, my mom had a fuller-orbed realization than me for her, her entire life changed. And she then was like, okay, Nikki, you've got me here and you're not leaving me here alone. Like, cause I was kind of like, yeah, this is true. I had my aha moment, but I'm heading off to college and she was relentless. So she became a follower of Jesus and we were baptized together, but we were secret believers. We didn't tell the rest of our family. How long were you guys keeping it a secret? A year. Okay. And then someone lovingly said to us, you know, they're going to find out. We live in a tiny town. My mom was the town hairdresser. Everyone knew everyone. Someone's going to tell you. Someone's going to tell them. It better come from you. So my grandmother was off Plank Ridge that day and we went and told my grandpa. Were you like? No, I was shaking. Trembling? Yeah. I still have a visual remembrance of what that was like. Of what, how is this going to come across to him and what is he going to say? And so we sit him down and my mom looks at me and I look at my mom and we share the news that we have come to believe in the Jewish Messiah of Israel that he is Jesus. And it was this like pause. And I was, my grandpa is bigger than life kind of personality and I was waiting for his finger to kind of go to the front door and say leave and never come back again. So when he was silent, that's what I thought was going to come. And instead he said, mazel tov. I believed since 1949 that Jesus is the Messiah. You're kidding me. Sorry. It's a pretty amazing story. So wait a second, you guys were living in secret but he was also living in secret as a secret believer. Yeah. What was that moment like for you guys as a family to come together? I'm like, well, how did this happen for you? Like what happened? So you shared that in 1949, he was actually in America. He sold a very rare form of fur coat and he was looking to export this product. He was here with my grandmother and on the way back on a ship, he met a Lutheran pastor and the Lutheran pastor sat with him and opened the Bible with him and told him about Jesus being the Messiah. And he said it made sense. See, that's what I'm talking about. A lot of people that come to faith in Jesus come to it intellectually as well. It's not just a, oh, it feels great. I'm part of this community and they love me and it's fun and it's different. And it's not what my parents are doing. It's this makes sense. Let's look at it. Let's open the scripture. Let's open the New Testament, but not just that. Let's open the Tanakh, the Hebrew scriptures and see what it's pointing to and see that it's fulfillment. He had that intellectual understanding that Jesus was the Messiah, but didn't know what to do with it. So from 1949 until 1990, he's kind of dormant in his faith aside from this intellectual understanding. And so he was like, oh, so you're followers of Jesus? What does that look like? And we're like, well, we've been going to church for a year. He goes, I'm coming with you to church. And we were like, wow. And yeah, we're going to get baptized. Oh, I want to get baptized. So it was just this like, you know, well, and then my grandmother comes home that day. She'd known about her husband, but she obviously didn't know about my, and she goes, oh, great. So three generations, my husband, my daughter, and my granddaughter now all believe in Jesus. I mean that she came home from her bridge game that day to find that out. Okay, this just keeps getting better and better. Okay, so. This is all in one year, mind you. Way back in 1990. And so she was one of those classic people that said, you know, I don't need to believe all of this, but I'm not being left in the dust. I'm coming along. And so she came with us to church. She became the Jewish mama of the church. She made her matzo ball soup. She loved on everybody. She loved the songs. And it was a really slow progression of God wooing her to himself. And my grandparents were actually baptized together. Love it, I love it. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Well, I'm floored. They usually say I'm touched, but I'm floored by this amazing story of how God works within families and how we could think one thing our whole life and it's something completely different. And I think it's a good lesson. We don't want to say something because we're afraid of what the consequences might be, but God can use these beautiful moments to do his work. And I think we can help anybody that's watching. We can calm their fear and anxiety about sharing the gospel, realizing that that's just what we have to do. Let's just talk about it and allow God to do his work. I mean, I just think, imagine that we hadn't told my grandpa. Like, imagine we kept it secret. Like, we could have, it was tempting to. If you had told me that my family of three generations would all come to believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah in one year, I would have told you absolutely. Couldn't even have seen it. Of course, of course. It was a work of God. There's no doubt about it. I get that too. Let's just, for an example, I'm sitting with you and I'm saying, Nikki, I'm Jewish. I've been told I'm not supposed to believe in Jesus. I'm kind of curious. What would you say to me? I would say to you, there's biblical evidence for it. So I would say, open the Bible, see what the Bible says, read the New Testament. But I would also ask you to say, God, just show me if it's true, just show me. Because anyone can convince you, but as much as someone convinces you, someone can convince you otherwise. I feel like in my own family, God had his number on each one of us and made himself known to us in a unique way to each one of us independently. And so that's my encouragement is to say, if you really want to believe this, ask God. If Jesus really is the Messiah, I want to believe. If he's not, I don't want to believe it. But if he is, would you show yourself? Would you make it known to me in a way that I, it's undeniable. Amazing, amazing. Yeah, he's good to show himself. Yep, yep. Well, Nikki, thank you. You've blessed me and you've blessed the viewers with this amazing testimony. Thank you for sharing it. My pleasure, my pleasure. Yeah, I appreciate it.