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IS IT NOW? The End of Days! It  tS IT NOW? The End of Days!
 
AUTHOR
NANCY LEE SHRADER
I was born on January 5 1948 in Beckley, West Virginia. I am the daughter of the late Ora Estella Stone Pilkington of Sophia, West Virginia and the late William Thomas Pilkington Jr. of Beckley. Born and raised in Beckley where I was a 1965 graduate from Woodrow Wilson High School. I attened Beckley College in Beckley and Center College in Charleston, West Virginia. I married my husband Dennis on December 22, 1968 at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Beckley. We became the proud parents of four children, one girl and three boys. Laurie Ann, Dennis Guy II, Samuel David, who lost his battle with cancer at the age of three and Timothy Michael.
I began my writing career as an exercise in memory control. I suffer from short term memory loss due to a perscription drug that has been taken off the market by the Food and Drug Administration. My continued writing has made a big difference in my memory problems. My book IS IT NOW? The End of Day! ISBN # 1-4137-8144-6 began as a tool in studing the End Time Prophecies, which soon turned into a book about to be published.
The day I began my search into the prophecies concerning the End Times, wasn’t a day I decided to sit down and write a book for publication. IS IT NOW? The End of Days!, was not intended to become a book. I had only planned to look up a few passages in scripture to confirm what I had read by other authors. For all intents and purposes my hunger for knowledge soon turned into my personal hunger for God’s Word, Soon I found myself spending the entire day combing through the Bible, hungry for the Word of God. Each passage I found made me hungry for more. If I wasn’t sitting in a chair with my Bible in hand, my cassettes were playing or my computer was reading from a site I had found on the internet. When not at home, I would listen to my cassettes in the car while driving to wherever I was going. Sometimes at night my son-in-law and I would spend hours looking up scripture and discussing our beliefs until the wee hours. Well that progressed further. Soon I was talking to myself giving my own interpretations of certain passages. That is when I decided to search the Bible and discover all the prophecies that pertain to the End of Days and write down my personal interpretations of each. This book IS IT NOW? The End of Days!, was born.
 
Let me tell you a little about how I began my road to salvation. I was Christened as an infant at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church and spent my childhood growing up in the faith. However, when I finished High School, I drifted away from my upbringing. I was later married in a church ceremony at St. Stephen’s and started a family. I attended church during those early years very sparingly. You know the kind of Christian? Besides on the days I had my children Christened, Christmas, Easter and when Rev. May, my favorite priest from my childhood, and his children visited, were the only times I attended.
In August 1976, tragedy consumed our family. David, our youngest son, who was two at the time was diagnosed with a rare cancer. Myhusband and I spent the next twelve months watching our baby, as doctor after doctor poked and prodded, leaving him screaming in pain. Of course, I prayed constantly for the life of my child during that year. Wearing out my first Bible, which was worn underlined until the pages began falling out.
When David died the following August, I slowly turned away from the Lord. I’m not saying that I stopped believing that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for the sins of the world. I just believed that God hadn’t been listening that God had abandoned my family. Instead of laying my grief at the feet of my Lord and Savior, I locked my grief deep inside.
My surviving two children became my only comfort. So I became involved in their lives, which was all that kept me from slipping into that dark place where my grief remained buried. My first act was to become my daughter’s assistant Brownie leader, followed by taking over the troop when the leader resigned. I went from there, to Girl Scout Leader, cheerleader sponsor, then Cub Scout Den Mother. I went overboard decorating at Christmas time, attempting to make the holidays without their little brother tolerable. I didn’t have time for reading God’s word. I didn’t have time for church. I didn’t have time for God! God always had time for me but I pushed Him as far from my life as I could.
God in His mercy, sent me another child. A little boy in need of a mother, who was afflicted with ADHD. Timmy would keep me young or make me very old. I wasn’t sure which. He was a real hand full. It’s not my place to know God’s plan. However, if my David hadn’t been taken, would I have had the patients with Timmy that he needed. Many times when God’s answer to our prayers comes in ways we do not understand and sometimes those answers are hard to bear, God is looking ahead to the bigger picture.
Years later Timmy brought me back to God, as I lay dying in an intensive care unit. I bargained with God for my life. In one of my lucid moments I like many others who have stared death in the face, called out to God, when all other hope was gone. My two older children were grown and could have made it without me. My husband would have grieved for me but would have been able to cope. Timmy was eleven at the time and needed his mother to live. At that moment, when I thought of Timmy’s need, I heard a child’s voice, saying. "Tell Tim he owes me one." To this day, I believe that God answered me through the voice of the child whom I had laid to rest seventeen years earlier. What happened next was what I believe to be a vision from God. On the wall I saw a large heart entirely of light. Inside the light dark shadows appeared. Then I heard another voice somewhere in the darkness of that hospital room. It wasn’t a child’s voice this time. In fact, the voice was indescribable. Not male or female, a voice like I had never heard before. The voice said, "open the doors." I suddenly understood that Jesus was knocking on the locked doors of my heart asking to enter. The darkened shadows were sins that were enveloping my heart covering the light of my soul. I asked Jesus to come into my heart that night and to forgive my sins, and this time, I really meant the words I spoke. In that same moment the shadows lifted and the heart in my vision became pure light, almost blinding. Just as the heart disappeared from my sight, a warmth enveloped my entire being. Within my soul I felt an all consuming peace. This peace I found surpasses all understanding. I knew in that moment that I wasn’t going to die, I was going to live and I was going to live for Jesus. The following morning I told my family about my vision, and that I wasn’t going to die because Jesus had healed my body. I guess you can imagine the looks I got from my loved ones. I overheard someone say. "It must have been all the medication that she was given that caused these hallucinations." However, seven days later the doctor confirmed my diagnosis. Even the skeptics had to admit that it was nothing short of a miracle that I lived. So I don’t think I have to tell you who I’m dedicating this Bible Study to but I will. I dedicate this Bible Study to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Light of my heart.
If you are wondering about the three crosses and why I have placed them throughout this website. When my grandson Justin was nine months old we discovered that he had cancer. On the way to Morgantown I cried out to God in the silence of my mind. "Oh God, not again!" At that moment the three crosses appeared on the roadside. It was as if God was answering a prayer that I had not even prayed. That was thirteen years ago and Justin is still with us today. He lost his right eye but we still have our boy. Now I find that each time I need an asnwer from God, I see those three crosses. It's as if God is saying, I am with you always no matter how many miles you travel, I am there.
JESUS
IS THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS
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March, 14 2006
