He Lives in Me — Carter Conlon

Hallelujah. I remember several years ago, actually quite a few years ago, when I was just a new Christian. I remember being in a church one time in a town that I was visiting in, and they were singing that song during the service.

And I remember thinking in my heart, I can't wait until church is over so that I can sing this song the way I feel it's written. And when it was over, I stayed behind with some other folks and just walked up and down the aisle singing this song at the top of my lungs.

Every Believer Has a Testimony

I knew him. I loved him with all of my heart, like I know him and love him today. I've come here today to share with you my testimony. It's a personal testimony that each one of us have in the book of Revelation chapter 12.

Don't turn there, please. Speaking of the church of Jesus Christ, it says they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death. Every one of us have a testimony, irrespective of where we start from.

In this room, there are folks that you've come from different walks of life than I have, and your road and your path has been different than mine. Your struggles have been different. Your successes and victories in some cases have been different.

But every road, every path in this entire world, no matter where it comes from, ends up at Calvary, and that's where you and I came to. Some of us crawled over that finish line. Some walked in and stumbled over it.

Some seemed to get there relatively easily, and others had to go through dark, deep places in this life. But thank God tonight we can say we found that place of eternal life in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah.

Now, a testimony is the most powerful weapon that we have here on this side of eternity to present the gospel of Jesus Christ. I always find it ironic that the Apostle Paul, with all of his knowledge, with all of his biblical understanding, and as you read the New Testament writings of Paul, you realize that he was an absolute brilliant theologian.

And it was the Apostle Paul that God sends to the Gentiles who know nothing about God at all. And Paul, at times when he would be called to present a defense for the gospel, would have to revert back again to the testimony he had.

I was on the way to Damascus. I was there in raids against the church, and I saw a bright light and fell off my donkey. And all of a sudden people would say, oh, you saw a bright light and you fell off your horse.

Well, the God you serve must be real. And God would begin to work through him, and God sent no, nothing, Peter, to the know-everything Jews. And that's just the way the Lord is. Each one of us has a testimony.

Now, a testimony is our story, but really it's not just our story, it's the story of Christ's working within our lives. Any testimony that anybody gives at any time, if it draws to the flesh, it's not really a testimony of Jesus Christ.

It can be a testimony of that person, or his or her exploits, or the things that they've done. And if it draws attention to the person, you're not hearing a genuine testimony of Jesus Christ. A testimony that we give is a testimony of the faithfulness of the one who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

The one who has opened prison doors in our lives and set us free. The one who has healed those areas in our heart where we were bruised by the precious healing oil of his presence. The one who is faithful, the one who sticks closer than a brother.

The one who is the beginning and the end, the Alpha, the Omega, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the bright and morning star. It's a testimony of him. One day we're going to stand before the throne as we sang tonight.

And there's going to be testimony meetings in heaven. There won't be prayer meetings, we don't need to pray anymore. We're going to be in the presence of the Lamb. We're going to be there. There'll be no more sorrow, no more sighing.

The only thing left is the testimony meeting. And you talk about testimony meetings we're going to have in heaven. Every one of us, I believe, is going to have a turn, or more than a turn, because we're going to be there for eternity.

To share with our friends and neighbors, to share around the throne of God. Maybe in heaven our voice is projected so that it can carry in multiple millions at one time, can hear what Jesus Christ has done for us and through us and through our lives here on this earth.

Oh, what a wonderful day that's going to be before the throne of God. Hallelujah. I'd like to pray with you tonight, because I want to share some aspects of my life. I'm not going to share them all. I prayed today that God would just allow me to touch down in those areas that would be of profit and of benefit to you who are gathered here tonight.

There are some areas I could share that would be nice for you to hear, but of no profit to anybody. And so I'm just going to leave that part out and ask the Holy Ghost to give me liberty tonight to share where He brought me from.

And I trust with all my heart it would be an encouragement to you who are here tonight to believe God that through Him all things are possible. He can take anybody anywhere who will simply surrender their life to Christ, irrespective of your talents or abilities or lack thereof or who and what you are or have been or desire to become.

If you'll simply surrender your life to Jesus Christ, the possibilities of what He can do through your life are as limitless as God is limitless Himself. Hallelujah. Father, I thank you tonight for the anointing of your Holy Spirit.

I thank you, Lord, that oft times when testimonies are shared, that in the lifting up of your name it becomes the key to open prison doors to them that are bound. And so, Lord God, I ask tonight that those that are bound and held captive by fears and by darkness, that Jesus, you would be the key tonight that would open these prison doors and set them free.

I ask that you would heal those that are bruised in heart. I ask, O God, that you would touch homes and marriages and children tonight and young people that are in this assembly. I ask, Lord Jesus, that you would be lifted up and held in the highest esteem and that you would be longed for and desired, O God, that you would minister life to every heart, to every mind, to every spirit and soul that is gathered in this house tonight.

I ask, O Lord, that you would help the people that are gathered here to look away from this human vessel, to look away from all human vessels. For, Lord, without you we are nothing. Without you we have no hope.

Without you we have no strength. Without you we wouldn't stand here. Without you we wouldn't have any praise in our voices. Without you we'd have no form of intelligence whatsoever, O God. Without you we'd be dead in our sins.

Help us, O God. Help every one of us not to look to the armor of flesh, not to look to man, O God, but to look to you, Jesus. You're the author and finisher of our salvation. You're the one, O God, that saves.

You're the one that heals and sanctifies. You're the one that justifies. You're the one that holds us in the Father's hand. You're the one that promised to take us home when it's all over. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. I ask again, O God, and specifically tonight, that I may stand behind the cross and exalt your holy name, Jesus. I want to minister to you tonight, Jesus. I want to minister to you. Holy Spirit, enable me to minister to Jesus tonight.

Enable me to minister to the Father. Hallelujah. I thank you for this tonight, O God. Lord, would you come and bear fruit for your namesake. Would you come and release captives and save those that are lost, O God.

Deliver those that are bound by the enemy, O God. O Lord, let strength be given to those that are weak and feeble, and faith to those that don't have any, O God. Lord, let your kingdom go forward, and let the kingdom of darkness suffer great violence.

Hallelujah. I thank you for this now, and I praise you in the precious and holy name. Lord, I declare the triumph of Christ in this house tonight, over every principality and power of darkness. I declare the kingdom of darkness null and void, with zero authority in this house.

Jesus Christ has triumphed. Hallelujah. No prison door can hold anybody tonight. No past experience can blind. No lying spirit can deceive. Hallelujah. I thank you now for the liberty and strength of Christ, in Jesus' name.

Amen. Hallelujah. I was born in Canada, in a province in Canada called Quebec, in a little town called Rouen-Niranda, Quebec. It's a mining town. My father is a very hard-working man. He was a miner, worked in the mines in Rouen-Niranda, Quebec.

My mother's French, and my father's English, so I'm sort of half and half. I guess a product of what that country can produce. I had a nominal church upbringing. When I was raised, I went to a traditionalist-type church.

Never really heard the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. Became very disillusioned with that experience. In my early teen years, I forsook it all and came to the conclusion that, although God may be real, the people who served him weren't, and there was no need to go to church any longer or follow that course for my life.

Fear, Bondage, and the Power of Spoken Words

I remember being a teenager, and a deep, deep sorrow seemed to come into my life. Not a depression, I wouldn't call it that, but a sorrow. I didn't know who I was, I didn't know where I was going. I started turning to alcohol and to drugs to some extent.

I was never very heavy into drugs, but I did, on occasion, try different things. I found that these things didn't satisfy my life. The more I indulged in different things, the deeper I got into bondage.

When I was 15 years old, some of you have known, I've shared this before, I started suffering some very, very horrible panic attacks. If anybody's ever suffered those things, it's because I had a crisis going on in my life.

Not knowing where I was going, not having very much confidence in myself or any abilities. Having an incredible fear of failure having come over my life. It virtually crippled me. I would want to try new things, and I would become so afraid of failing that I couldn't go forward.

Some of you here might know what that's like. It's a horrible prison. Because of it, I started suffering panic attacks. They were very serious things. They lasted probably about 7 or 8 years or so, not quite sure how long.

I had to take drugs called Valium and different things to be able to go to school, to be able to function normally. It was like I was underwater most of the time. The only way I could get out of this thing is by drinking.

Needless to say, even though there were some happy times, I don't want to impress upon you that it was all absolute misery. It wasn't. There were some happy times. I did have somewhat of an outgoing personality.

I had a lot of friends at times. Nevertheless, there were some deep, deep troubles that were in my life. I don't care. I shouldn't say I don't care. That's an expression you pick up in preaching sometimes.

You say, I don't care where you've come from. I don't care how you've struggled. Well, I do care. Sometimes people of other cultures misunderstand that. We do care what your struggles are. That's just a North American expression.

It doesn't really mean what we say. It was a difficult time in my life in the teen years. A lot of confusion, a lot of identity, things not knowing who I was and where I was going. And I remember leaving Miranda when I was in my teen years.

I guess the highlight, one of the highlights, there were several of them, but one of the highlights is when I was a young boy, I was in a lot of trouble in school all the time. I was one of those kids that just delighted in causing grief for the teachers, things like that.

I used to have a teacher that paced between the desks all the time as he taught, and I would flip tacks continuously on the floor as he paced. By the time the class was over, he'd be sliding on the linoleum because of all the tacks stuck on the bottom of his shoes, things like that.

There was a dear homeroom teacher, a godly lady. I didn't know it then, so I think she was a Christian. She used to put up slogans on the board at school and things like that, and I would delight in messing around the words and making different slogans out of them.

Just full of mischief, really, in those days. Now, I'm not suggesting, young people that are here, that you get involved in that. I'm not endorsing it at all. It's not really the way to live. But I remember this godly nun.

She was a nun. Now, she never talked about anything but Jesus. Everything that came out of her mouth was Jesus. Jesus loves everybody, and she would pray, and when she prayed, she prayed to Jesus. And I remember her coming to me one day, and I was just a young boy, maybe 8, 9, 10, 11 years old, and she told me, she said, Carter, you don't understand how blessed you are.

She said, the Lord has shown me he's got a plan for your life, and a great purpose for your life. You're so blessed of God. And here I am, just a lost, kind of a lonely, hurting kid, and I remember thinking, looking at her, I don't want to say what was in my mind when she was saying that to me, but it wasn't complimentary.

I was embarrassed, and it used to disturb me, but the words that she spoke into my life stuck with me over the years. God has a plan for your life. God has a plan for your life. Never underestimate people who are Sunday school teachers, or have a position of influence over young children, even the ones that are the terrors of all of your classes.

Never underestimate what the spoken word can do into somebody's life. God has a plan for your life. God has something he's going to do through your life. And so, I left Miranda when I was a teenager, and headed off to university in Ottawa.

Not so much that I wanted to go to university, but my father in particular had been denied a university education because of the war, and because of his family background, it was a very important thing in our family to have an education.

And so, really to please my mom and dad, I went to university. Now, I didn't appreciate it then, but I certainly do today. It did help me in many respects to understand some things that I needed to understand.

And most of all, I met my wife Teresa in university, so that was the biggest blessing of my life, coming from that place. And I remember going to university, and again, I was suffering these horrible panic attacks all the time.

I'd have to drug myself to be able to sit in a classroom. I had a fear of failure that was overwhelming me. I had a fear of being singled out in a crowd. Some of you might know that. If I was sitting in a classroom and a teacher looked at me, and very often in university, it was a dialogue format, where a teacher would talk for a little while and then turn to members of the respect, because I was in law classes to some degree, there would be very often dialogue back and forth.

And so the teacher would turn to somebody and say, well, what's your opinion on this case or this thing? And I was living in morbid fear that the teacher would turn to me and ask me to speak publicly, and if that ever happened, I'd have to get up and run out of the room.

I couldn't be singled out. There's such a deep fear. You can't understand it until you've experienced it yourself. And I hope you never have to. And so I remember suffering these attacks. They were getting worse.

I was taken to the hospital by ambulance and university three times. One time they took me into the nurse's room. I was there. I'd taken to the hospital by ambulance. They took my blood pressure, and it was 260 over something.

When the nurse took my blood pressure, she dropped the thing on the floor and ran out of the room. She had a panic attack. Told me later on that they were very surprised that I hadn't suffered a serious stroke or died because of the, I don't understand this medically, but because of the way my heart was acting and the blood pressure.

It's incredible what anxiety can do to a person and fear can do in somebody's life. And so I finished university in 1975 and was walking down the street one day just needing a job. I never really wanted to be a policeman.

I ended up being a policeman for 12 years. Never, ever had any desire to be a policeman. But I was walking down the street one day. I'd come out of a restaurant. Needed work. Needed some money. And I walked by this police station.

I had hair down to my shoulders. I had sandals on my feet. I was part of that generation. T-shirt, you know, with a frog or something on the front of it. And there was a poster in the window, and it said, if the hat fits, wear it.

And so I said, well, I wonder what it's like being a policeman. I do need a job. So I walked into the police station. I talked to the recruiting sergeant, and he convinced me to fill out an application form.

And so I did. I never really anticipated hearing from them again. I went back to finish off my exams, and three weeks later, they hired me. And so without even anticipating it, here I am, a police officer now, sent down to police college in a place called Aylmer, Ontario.

They shaved my hair off. I used to have long hair. I've had it for years, and they shaved it all off. It was so short, you couldn't even comb it. And you had to spit and polish your boots at night. And I remember after about two weeks of being there, I'm standing in line on parade at 530 in the morning.

Anybody who's ever been in the military, you know what this is like. And you've got some guy with onion breath yelling at you from this far from your face. And you're wondering, what am I doing here? But you see, God's hand was on my life even back then.

There were some disciplines that had to be brought into my life. And what a better place to learn it than in military police college. And through the years, as a police officer, God did some good work in my life.

Everything, all things work together for good. God's hand was upon my life, and I'm thankful for those years and for those experiences that God gave unto me. We were married shortly after leaving university, and when I joined the police force, Teresa and I got married.

And I was a very, very selfish person. I lived for myself, stepped over people to get what I wanted, did anything I had to do to just be gratified. And after being married for a period of time, I began to deeply regret getting married.

And I wanted desperately out of that relationship. I had a young son at that time who's now a little older. He was just a few months old. And I remember I wanted to get out of it, and I used to scheme as to how I was going to get out of this marriage relationship.

And some of the older policemen at work were only too kind to help me, try to organize my finances and figure out how much it was going to cost. A lot of them have had that experience. And I remember just being so disillusioned just simply because selfishness was governing and ruling in my life.

You're never satisfied when you're living for yourself. I had this little boy that I didn't know how to love. You see, I was a hard man. I was as hard as a stone. As a policeman, I would go to an accident scene.

There'd be bodies all over the road sometimes. I'd chalk the bodies and help pick them up and oftentimes put them in the funeral wagon and head off and just eat my lunch. And it wouldn't bother me at all.

It was just cold, coldness inside, just like a stone. And very often you have to do that as a policeman simply just to cope with what you see every day and what you have to deal with. But I was like that almost naturally, just a coldness, a withdrawnness from people.

And so I just carried on in that particular line of work, that hardness and that coldness. And one day I came home and I said to my wife Teresa, in that circle that we were traveling in, the people we hung around with at that time were into this thing.

I don't know if you remember it, those that are back in the 70s, that you had to travel. You have to expand your horizons. You have to learn about other cultures and other people, intermingle with the general populace, and thus you will fulfill yourself.

And so I began to think that we need to travel. If there's any hope for this relationship, we need to travel. We need to get away. So I went to see my commander and I managed to get six weeks leave of absence from police work, got a ticket to go to Europe, and we were going to backpack it all through Europe.

Jeans, jean jackets, a big backpack with a Canadian flag on the back. Both of us had that and we were taken off for Europe. Now in the interim, Teresa and I had had a house in Ottawa, Ontario, and we had leased out some rooms to some students, and this one student came in that was a Christian.

Now she said she was a Christian. It didn't matter to me what people said they were Christians. I didn't have a whole lot to do with Christians or churches. I had arrested a lot of good church-going people over the years, so, you know, it just sort of kept up my impression of what church people were all about and what they were like.

And this girl was different. She was like Pastor Dave shared one night. Her face was saved. There was something different about her. She was always happy. She was always glowing. It was an incredible thing.

And I didn't know anything, and I really wasn't interested in what she was espousing, but I was sure interested in the happiness that was in her life. And so Teresa and this girl and another girl who was living there began to have a Bible study together.

Not that any of them knew what they were talking about, I don't think, but they began to have a Bible study. And I would come home and they would be sitting on the living room floor, and they had this huge Bible.

Like the bigger the Bible, the more you're going to learn. It was huge. It was this big thing. They would unfold this thing, and they'd be all sitting around. And at that time, you know, with their wooden crosses, you know, the big thing with the big wooden cross, the whole gambit.

You had to put that on. That helped you to learn, I guess. They'd open the Bible, and they would start. They were having a Bible study. Then they would go off on sometimes these seminars and different things like that.

I wasn't interested in these things at all. So I came in, and I had my airplane ticket for Teresa and I, and we had our Urail pass and the whole thing. And just before we were due to go to Europe, Teresa said to me, she said, Carter, I've been starting to go to this church with these girls.

And she said, It's a really nice church. How would you like to go before we go to Europe? And, you know, folks, I didn't go to church. I hadn't been to church for years. As far as I was concerned, if you want to find a hypocrite, go to church.

It never occurred to me that hypocrites go shopping, they buy shoes, they're everywhere. I just felt they were all in church. And I wasn't interested. But the saving factor of the whole thing is that I was so deathly afraid of flying.

I had an absolute morbid fear of flying. Then I thought, well, I'll think it over. If we're going to be flying from Montreal, Mirabel Airport, to Paris, France. And I thought, if the plane should happen to go down in the middle of the ocean on the way over there, and I stand before the pearly gates, at least I can say, well, I was in church the day before we went.

Actually, it would have been the day of our flight. So I thought, well, I've got nothing to lose. I might as well go to church just in case the plane goes down. So we headed off to church. I hadn't been to church in years.

It had been a long, long time. We walked into church. And here I have my jeans on and a jean jacket and a t-shirt and my big backpack. The whole thing. We're all ready to go. We're heading to Montreal.

But this church service is happening that morning. And one of the things that astounded me was the welcome that we got there. I left a little bit rough. I hadn't shaved for a few days. My hair was a little scraggly.

And the way they welcomed us there was really wonderful. They didn't put us in the back seats. They just let us sit anywhere we wanted to. And I'd never been in a church like this. It wasn't one that really was similar to my experience when I was growing up.

We got into the church. We sat down. The service began. Then they began to sing. I really loved the singing. They sang hymns like I just sang out of the hymn book. And I was asking Teresa questions the whole time that we were there.

I was asking her, where's the candles? Where's all of this stuff? Why isn't all this stuff in the church? And then this guy got up to speak with his suit on. Who's he? And what right does he have to speak?

And he got up. And he began to speak. And the balcony went not only to the back but down the sides. And I was over on this side on the balcony. And he began to speak about being under the law and being under grace.

And he had a fire in his soul. He had a fire when he preached. He even had tears as part of his message. And I didn't understand a word he said, nothing. I couldn't understand anything. As a matter of fact, I really never could understand him even after I got saved.

It was hard. But he was talking about the law and about grace. And I was a policeman, and he kept referring to those under the law. And he would point to my side, and I thought it was very good, very good.

I thought, I'm a policeman. I'm under the law. That's exactly where I should be. Thank you. And I kept thinking in my heart, I'm sure glad I didn't sit on that side. I didn't know what grace was. All I'd ever remembered was a prayer when I was growing up.

We prayed to somebody who was supposed to be full of grace. And I didn't know what it was. I didn't even know what grace was. And so I was really thankful I was on the law side. And I was sitting there, and I was stirred because I saw something in the people.

Encountering the Living Christ

You see, what I saw was a testimony of Jesus Christ, but didn't know it. Jesus Christ is alive. The Holy Spirit is a person, the third person of the Trinity of God. He comes and indwells us when we receive Christ as our Savior.

It wasn't the service. I didn't understand the preacher. You have to understand this. It wasn't so much the singing. I had been in good singing groups before. I'd even been playing music myself. I'd been in places where I was moved by song.

It wasn't so much that. It was the people. It was something about the people. What I was seeing, I couldn't quite grasp it, but it was Christ alive and living within this church body. I saw Jesus. That's what a testimony is all about.

Folks, that's what sinners are looking for. It's not so much our presentation. It's not so much how good a church service we can put on. They're looking for the risen Christ. They're looking for a living testimony.

That's what it's all about. They're looking for something tangible they can sink their teeth into and put their hands upon. I was stirred by the people that I met. I was stirred by the ushers. If you're an usher in the house of God, don't ever despise the gifting that God has given you.

You're the first contact with somebody that comes in the house of God. Don't despise that. I was more moved that day by the ushers than I was by the preacher. I saw something in them, the way they treated me.

They were obviously a well-to-do church, but they didn't sit me in the back. They sat me in the front. They took care of me. They asked me if I had different needs and different things. They even took time to hand me a card.

Then my police nature began to take over, and I said, There's got to be a catch to all of this stuff. And I looked on the card and it said, I'd like a visit from the pastor. You know, like church cards always say, I'd like this, I'd like that.

And one of them said, I'd like a box of offering envelopes. And I thought, that's it. Aha, I got it. That's the catch. Then I looked a little farther and said, I'd like to know what it is to be a Christian.

And I thought, well, I think I'm a Christian. I've been raised to say I'm a Christian. If you were to ask me religion, if I was filling out a form, I would have said Christian. But I'm not like these people are.

There's a difference in these people. And so I said, well, I'd like to know what they think it is to be a Christian. So I checked it off and I put it in the offering basket when it came by. I don't know if I put anything else in it, to be honest with you.

At least I put the card in anyway. We left Ottawa, headed for Montreal, and took off for Paris. And something had sparked in my heart. And I began to think on that plane trip, If anybody could put my marriage together, If anybody could help me, could change my life, I'd believe God, you can.

And it began to be unequivocal. It's not like I couldn't have lived the rest of my life like the rest of society does. I could still take my guitar and sing songs and probably would have gone through my police career.

And who knows what would have happened. But there's a deep, empty cry inside of everybody who doesn't have Christ in their lives. You can fool most of the world and you can even fool yourself for a season.

But there are those empty nights when you sit on the edge of your bed, all alone, you and God. And you know the game is over. You're facing God, you don't understand it. But there's a deep, deep hole inside that nothing seems to fill.

And I remember thinking that if anybody could change my life, God, you could change my life. If anybody could meet my needs, I didn't know why or how, but I knew that God could meet my needs. And so, we landed in Paris and we had this Eurail Pass where we had no itinerary.

We just traveled from country to country, from city to city, town to town. And those that have been to Europe, you know it's not the same as here. The towns are maybe a little smaller. And the train station is right in the center of the town and all of the hotels around it.

And so, we began to go from town to town. We started in France and we went to Italy. We went to Switzerland. We went to Austria. We went to Germany. We went to Greece. We went all over the place, all over Europe for six weeks.

And I said, I'm going to find God in this place. God has got to be here and I'm going to find Him. And every time we got off the train, I would get a tourist map and I would look for every church, every cathedral, every synagogue, everything that looked like a church on that map.

And I dragged poor Teresa around for six weeks through Europe to every church. I don't know how many churches we visited. But that's all we did. We visited church after church after church. I'm going to find God.

It's as simple as that. We went into magnificent, beautiful buildings all over Europe. I don't know. I dare not say hundreds of them. But we went all over in all kinds of buildings. And I would go in and they would be ornate.

There would be all kinds of gold. There would be all kinds of different things. But I would get that feeling I had when I was a child, that it's nice but God's not here. I want what I felt back in that church, that little church way back in Canada before we left.

I want to feel the presence of God. I want to know where He is. And so we traveled around. We finally got to Italy. And I remember the whole thing of travel among the people and learn the cultures. I remember we just happened to get into Italy at the time.

The leader at that time, his name was Aldo Moro, was kidnapped and subsequently murdered. And martial law was declared in Italy. It was a very dangerous place to be. There were roving gangs of people on the streets.

They would push us off the sidewalk into the street. And there's nothing you could do about it. You couldn't even complain because the army would arrest you. They could throw you into jail for months on end without even laying charges against you.

And it was a very dangerous place to be. I remember standing on the street corner yelling at Teresa, saying, Travel, travel, travel. Here we got to travel. Here we are right smack in the middle of Italy.

Travel and learn about other cultures. This is going to fulfill me. I said, I don't even like these people. Now don't misunderstand me. I have nothing against Italians. It was just simply the fact that I was trying to express the fact that I'm not being fulfilled here.

This is not doing a thing for me. I need to find God. So finally, in desperation, I said to Teresa, we've got to see the Pope. I said, if anybody knows where God is, he must know where God is. So we headed for Rome.

We got off the train in Rome. We headed down to the Vatican. And we went and visited all the buildings in the Vatican. And then finally waited for the Pope to come out. And we were standing in St. Peter's Square with about 50 ,000 other people waiting for, I don't know who it was.