1,825

One thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days. Forty-three thousand, eight hundred hours. Two million, six hundred twenty-eight thousand minutes.  This is the amount of time that has passed since I made the best decision I have ever made.  This is the 5 year anniversary of the day that I was baptized in Jesus name. 

For forty-two years, I had lived my life of walking an aisle to take a preacher by the hand to say that I needed "saved" or I needed to rededicate my life to Christ. If I wasn't taking them by the hand, I was hitting my knees at the altar talking to God and begging Him to let me "feel" something, anything. 

Each time I would do one of these things, I would feel better for about the length of time it took me to take the man by the hand or kneel down to pray. I longed for more but never knew what the more was that was missing. 

There's an old contemporary Christian song that said "There's a God-shaped hole in all of us and the restless soul is searching. There's a God-shaped hole in all of us and it's a void that only He can fill." That's what I had. There was a hole within me that God longed and desired to fill but I was going by man's way of filling it. Repeat after me and you'll be saved. Just believe and you'll be saved. Give your heart to Jesus and you'll be saved. I heard all of these so often and even am guilty of saying them myself to others.  

I remember the first time I heard someone praying in a heavenly tongue. As a teen-aged Baptist girl at the time, I knew this was something different and powerful. I went home from the place I was in and wrote about it in my journal that night.  The next encounter was a few years after that when I was at music school in Nashville.  The power of the Holy Ghost fell upon the sanctuary where we had gathered for evening worship and for me, I was in awe. I had never felt anything like that before and never wanted to leave from that moment. Time passed as the instructors told us quietly that we could " take it with us" but stopped at that point. No one ever took it farther to tell us how to take it with us. So reluctantly, I walked away back to my dorm and back to all the feelings of inadequacy. 

I thought I had found it when I went to my last church. But as I sought the Lord for what these people now said I could have, that anticipation of receiving it was devastated when a pastor told me I had received all would or could ever get.  I wasn't satisfied. I felt there was more and it remained just out of reach everytime I took a step towards it. 

Then I gave up. I stopped trying. I stopped seeking. I stopped going. If I could never attain what I was so desperately searching for then why even bother with it. I felt it was obvious that I had just done too much, been too bad and that God never wanted me to begin with. 

But, one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days ago, everything that I had so desperately sought after for all of those years was brought to life within me. As I went down below the waters in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of my sin that had been confessed in repentance, everything opened before me and my life has not been the same.  That God-shaped piece that was missing had been set into its rightful place. 

As these years have passed, can I say that my life has been perfect? Absolutely not. I still struggle and I still fall but the difference is repentance.  I now know that all those times of running to a preacher to rededicate my life or spent crying out to God in the alter was exactly where I should have been and what I should have been doing. This is a daily grind. The apostle Paul said that he died daily: that is allowing the flesh and its desires die so that Christ can live in and through me. 

I have made it through the first 5 years by His grace and mercy. Its time for another 5. And this time, it's all God. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life ends and a new one begins

You never know when an end will come. Sometimes, you have some warning that things are in the final stretch while other times it hits you out of the blue. Scripture tells us that our life is but a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow.  I know the feeling of that as I talked to Matt between 6:30 and 7:00 pm on the evening of his passing. While he was sleeping, he did awaken and talk to me. I was hurrying as I usually do on my break: taking the time to get the dog outside to potty, using the bathroom for myself and coming to check to see if he had a need of anything. Did he need food, drink, need to get up to go to the bathroom himself? He told me he was good, he didn't need anything. I asked him if he was hot because he had kicked out from under the cover and his reply was that he was burning up.  After seeing where Shiloh had gotten BBQ sauce all over my side of the bed, I gently told him that he would have to get up when I got off at 10 so I could change the sheets. He shook h...
Read more

A Christmas poem for my LAPC family

In March of 2021, I was as lost as I could be. I had no purpose, no plan and felt that all I had was me. While I had people around me, outwardly appearing just fine, no one knew that I felt dead inside. Then by chance a video came across my Facebook feed, hearing a preacher speak directly to me. Things I had heard before in what I felt was another life, opened my eyes to what had become my plight. As the days slowly passed till I could speak to this man, the words which he had spoken were kept close at hand. Replaying and rewatching clinging to every word, wanting to leave no doubt as to what it was that I heard. Once I stepped foot slowly inside of that hallowed place, the Spirit I had longed for stood stong in my face. As I crumpled in tears in the presence of pure grace, knowing He had kept me protected while He led me to this place. As these years have passed since walking through those doors, He has given me a family here and so very much more. I have friends that are closer than ...
Read more

Naked or Covered

Last weekend, our visiting evangelist shared a story with pastor over dinner. This story became the basis for the message pastor shared during Matt's memorial service on Saturday.  Oh, yeah, I haven't shared that on here. I unexpectedly lost my husband, Matt, on September 19. But this writing is not about his passing, rather the lesson we can learn. This story was that of a man named Truth. Truth was on his way back into town after he had been on a long journey. Walking down the long, dusty road, he found himself covered in dirt and had some dried patches of what had been mud where the dirt had dried in the sweat he was dripping from the heat of the day. He happened to come upon a crystal clear pond where he thought, "I'll take a quick dip in these waters and get cleaned up before I arrive. The water will be refreshing after the long walk in the heat."  He quickly removed his garments and put them by the side of the pond on a rock and walked carefully into the coo...
Read more