I first came to know Edward Spiteri and his prayer group some 11 to 12 years ago. My first impression was that he was a superior looking man who frankly knew all about the world at large.

That was my first impression which just goes to show that just as you cannot judge a book by its cover, so you cannot judge a person by his outside appearance.

With just once sentence though, my unkindly thoughts vanished into thin air and it was right about that actual moment that I realised that Edward Spiteri was a genuine man of God.

What is actually a man of God? Very simple really. A man who practices what he preaches, a family man but most of all a man who brings home to us how mankind cannot go through life without God.

I spent four years in Edward's group and the reason I left had nothing to do with Edward himself. I was the problem. Attending Edward's prayer group did not bring about the change in myself that I wanted. I could not turn the other cheek when someone slapped me, I hated the arrogance of some who attended the prayer group itself when I had to miss three consecutive prayer sessions, and who tried to make me feel bad.

Extremist as I am, I allowed myself to believe that everything was a sin and that having fun, merry-making and excessive laughter meant that I was participating in the work of the devil.

Edward Spiteri had absolutely nothing to do with these negative feelings, only the positive ones that I have learnt to live with. I no longer follow Edward Spiteri although I make it a point never to miss his programmes on television.

It was thanks to Edward Spiteri that I learnt that if I tried my best and my best was not good enough I was to leave it in the hands of God. Again it was because of Edward Spiteri and his healing sessions that I learnt that if there was no filament in a bulb there is no light, therefore if God is not in one's life, there is no life.

Edward Spiteri, the man of God, taught me the ultimate: that if a task is performed in the consciousness that God is my companion, then the impossible is possible.

Being a good listener is a gift from God that this human being possesses; maybe that is why his followers increase daily.

It is because he is a man of God that he is doing God's work and God's work is praying to him to spare us from terminal illnesses, trouble in the family, marital problems.

What Edward possesses is a very rare quality of believing in the power of God absolutely and that is what makes him a genuine man of God. Frankly, I find it absolutely asinine to show your appreciation for someone after his death when you could do it now when he is among the living.

Edward Spiteri, thank you for being a magnet of peace thus attracting peaceless souls. Thank you for teaching all who attend your prayer sessions that if wealth is lost, nothing is lost, if health is lost, something is lost but if character is lost, all is lost. But most of all thank you for showing your viewers and all who follow you that if man cannot find peace within himself, there cannot be peace in this world.

Who knows, maybe one of these days I may pluck enough courage to enter the fold again – the fold of prayer sessions and healing services.

Valerie Borg

VALLETTA