My name is David, and I have been getting the 11:11 since 1996. Occasionally, I seek out others who are experiencing the same thing, just to see where they are going with it. I am more often than not, disappointed and concerned with the direction some take. But that is between them, and the Creator. I have noticed, that many become followers, letting others tell them what it all means. This is wrong in my opinion, and the exact opposite of what should be happening. In my opinion, the 11:11 prompt is a personal journey and discovery of just WHO and WHAT you are. It is effectively separating the tares from the wheat. The goats from the sheep.
Let me as briefly as I can, tell you about a life-long atheist who set about proving that God does not exist. I apologize for the length of this post.
I was an atheist for over 30 years when I started getting inexplicable encounters with the numbers 11:11. This was back in 1996, and up to that point, not only was I an atheist, but I actively ridiculed the religious as a hobby. I was horrible, and to make matters worse, I felt justified.
A little back-story;
I conscientiously became an atheist when I was eight years old. By the time I was eight, I had already been through some very traumatic experiences. When I was six, my dad left for a job in Toledo, Ohio but instead headed back for California and abandoned us. We ended up living in the projects, in Springfield Ohio. My mother, four brothers and I.
I remember the address well; 311 Lincoln Park Circle. Its where I learned about hatred and racism. Its where My mother was beaten and raped, and I was tied to a tree and beaten. I was seven years old when this happened. An elderly white lady just down the way from us was beaten and murdered. To say it was a time of civil unrest would be an understatement.
This was done at the hands of former Black Panthers who had recently become members of the Nation of Islam. It was 1971.
By the time I was eight, we were rescued from the projects by the LDS Mormons, and ended up in North-ridge, Ohio. My uncle(s) were Elders in the LDS Church, and felt that we should be brought into the fold. After being baptized (eight years old is too young), I started asking questions about Mormonism and God. I had a problem with God. The same problem that I had with santa clause and the easter bunny. I was an eight year old skeptic.
I had noticed that there weren't any blacks in the church, so I asked my uncle Hybert, an elder in the LDS Church, why there weren't any black elders. He explained to me, that it was because the black man is descended from Ham, Noah's son. I decided right then and there, that I did not believe in a God who allowed my mother to be beaten and raped, and seemed to show favorites.
Thats how I justified becoming an atheist...in a nut-shell
In 1996 I started getting these repeated encounters with the numbers 11:11. Addresses for service calls, cashier receipts, clocks, books with exactly 1111 pages, you name it, and it showed up. I quietly thought that I was going insane.
I remember wondering if an insane person actually knows that he is going insane...? I did my best to ignore this thing. I convinced myself that i have just subconsciously acclimated myself to look at the clock at exactly 11:11. I was just to stubborn to realize at the time, that I was getting these repeated encounters in different time zones, and irregardless if the clocks were accurate.
Meanwhile my hobby of ridiculing the religious, got kicked-up a notch.
I was constantly complaining about the LDS commercials, remember those? I had the bright idea one day to call the number to get a free King James Bible, and a Book of Mormon. I decided that I would read these books, and use them to disprove the existence of God. How poetic is that?
Strange things began to manifest, which caused me to remember things that I had forgotten. My very first sin, and every evil act I ever committed came flooding into my mind. Thats not all, I had a childhood friend named "Hankenfonk". I remembered that he taught me to play chop-sticks, and Greensleeves flawlessly on the piano. And I also remember the looks of concern on my mother and fathers face when talking about Hankenfonk. I remembered crying myself to sleep when I was six, blaming myself for my Dad leaving us. I scared them.
I'm not sure when I quit seeing Hankenfonk, but it was before my dad abandoned us when I was six. As soon as remembered my childhood imaginary friend, strange things began to happen. Things that others witnessed. Sometimes when I walk into a room, pictures jump of of the walls. Sometimes its clocks. It made me nervous at first, and I would tell my wife that it was "Hankenfonk", trying to get my attention.
The most astounding occurrence happened at a small grocery store with my wife present, and three other people. We stopped to get a soda. As we were walking to the back of the store, to where they keep the coolers, we walked down a row that had the bread. As I got to the bread, a loaf sitting on the back shelf flew off of the shelf, and landed at my feet. Everyone in the store for some reason, just happened to be looking when it happened. There was a shocked silence, and I know that we just stood there looking at the bread for five minutes or more.
Its weird, what was once making me nervous, was now somehow giving me comfort. It was happening so often, that i would just smile and not give it another thought. My own personal poltergeist. Meanwhile, I finished the book of Mormon first.
I had quickly realized that there was absolutely no way to understand the context of the BOM without a foundation. So, I went ahead and finished it, and began reading the KJV Bible at the begining. While I was reading the bible, the mormons started coming around knocking on my door. I am a very sociable creature, and probably a little too honest. Or maybe i should say that I wield the truth like a baseball bat. Its a character flaw that I need to keep working on.
I somehow felt empowered because I quickly came to the realization that the young men the LDS church was sending to me, did not know the Bible OR the Book of Mormon like I did! How can that be? I only decided to read them, to disprove them! Each time, I would ask them question that they did not know the answer to. Things that they should have known. Things like, if Lehi was descended from Jacob, then how was it that his fathers surname was Ishmael? I would ask them to provide just one example of a son of Jacob with the name of Ishmael around 600 BCE.
Each time this happened, they promised to come the next time with an answer. And the next time, they would bring someone with a higher authority in the LDS church. Every time it was the same thing, up until they actually brought a Bishop to my home. He also did not know the Bible, or the Book of Mormon like i did. Very disappointing.
I quit answering the door.
And do you know what happened? They left my house, and went down the road to a neighbors house. That eventually led to a 90% conversion to Mormonism in my neighborhood. Thats right, about 90% of the people in my community are Mormons! I was absolutely livid when I learned this. Its my fault that it happened. If I had answered the door that last time, the Mormons would not have targeted my neighbors. If I had not called that stupid 1-800 number, none of this would have happened. Instead of disproving God, I was effectively growing the local LDS Church membership. This made me angry.
After the LDS encounter, and I mean RIGHT AFTER, the Jehovah witnesses knocked on my door.
I let them in.
I congratulated them on having seen through the idolatry of Christmas, but asked them why they break the 4th Commandment every week. They started in with the "law is nailed to the cross spiel" and I quickly corrected them with the words of Christ;
Mat 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Mat 5:18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Mat 5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
I pointed out to them, the JW's, that if the kingdom of Heaven is here on the earth, being considered the least in the Kingdom is akin of being one of the worse examples of humanity that we can see with our own eyes today. I think that I offended them. They said that they would bring the head of their local church to speak with me, the next Saturday. I pointed out that this would be excellent timing considering that it is the Sabbath Day. I knew this was a brush-off, so I asked them if they promised to come on Saturday.
They promised.
They didn't show, so as a fluke I called the church thinking that no one would be there on a Saturday, the day they should be there, but lo and behold the head of this local church answered the phone. I explained that I was promised an appearance, but they must have just forgotten about me. He apologized, and said that he would call me for a re-scheduling.
He never did.
I came to the realization that 99% of Christianity was pick-and-choose replacement theology. And apparently, I knew more about the Word than the laity. Much to my shock, I was beginning to defend God, instead of disproving Him.
I read the Tanahk, and realized that though this must be the skeleton of Spiritual understanding, I needed to put some flesh on those old bones. So I got my hands on the Dead Sea Scrolls and devoured them. I studied the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jasher, the Book of Jubilees, I even studied the Nag Hammadi texts.
During this whole time, I was getting 11:11 prompts everywhere. Around 1998, I realized that I was not alone, or insane. People all over the world were slowly coming forward with the 11:11 phenomena. We started corresponding, and comparing notes. But at the same time, some of these people getting the prompts were "going off of the rails on the crazy train". Some were trying to cash-in. I was hearing things which greatly concerned me. Star Gates, Solara, new age occult weirdness... This was a major stumbling block. Just what the world needs, more freaking religions.
In 1999, I was invited to Arkansas to check-out the Passover Feast by some friends that I made while studying the Dead Sea Scrolls. This trip changed my life completely. Its when I discovered who and what I am. My friends wife Juanita had recently had a stroke, and she was bedridden. Paralyzed on one side of her body. On the morning after the first night of Passover, we awoke to find Juanita up and dancing around, very happy to have been completely healed. It was a miracle nobody expected, or even hoped for.
I was shocked. But I was soon rationalizing it as a coincidence. I didn't stay for all of Passover, just two days, before I headed back home. I got home pretty late, and ended up sleeping-in to about 10:00 AM on the third day of Passover. I was still kind of in shock that I had seen someone recover from being paralyzed, it had to be a coincidence right?
I walked out back, and I noticed two little birds on the ground, dead. They were tangled in a piece of cotton string about the length of a cubit. It was a drawstring from a bag of charcoal or dog food. I figured that they were building a nest and got tangled. The string was wrapped around their feet, one bird on one end of the string, and the other bird on the other end. Without thinking, I reached down and picked them up. I held one bird in my right hand, and the other in my left. They both had dried blood on their beaks, around the nostril holes. They were quite dead.
As i held the one bird in my left hand, I untangled the string from around the feet of the bird of my right hand. When i finished the last loop, the bird fluttered and stood up upon my open hand, and proceeded to fly off. I am in shock literally. I could feel an electric charge coursing through my whole body, and it felt so good that I cannot even come close to describe it. But just as quickly as it had happened, I started rationalizing. Questioning if maybe I made a mistake. So I inspected the bird in my left hand and confirmed that it was quite dead. The other bird must have just been exhausted right?
I started unraveling the string from around the second bird, and when I got to the last loop, the bird fluttered and stood upon my hand, and flew off. At that instant, I heard and SAW the words Isaiah and Revelation 11:11.
Rev 11:11 And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them.
Isa 11:11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
11:11 is a wake-up call. It led me to the realization that I am descended from the lost tribes of Israel. It showed me that all of those years that I thought that I was an atheist, I was actually an Atheologist. I do not believe in religion. Religion is man-made and therefor flawed. I walk with God now.
