EYES OF COMPASSI0N
For those 38 years leading up to that momentous day October 17, 1981, I lay in the spiritual gutter of sin, wallowing in its muck and mire…utterly destitute, hopeless and helpless, without hope and without God. On that wondrous day, Blessed Jesus, You saw me lying there and, with eyes of compassion, reached out Your nail-pierced hand to me, inviting me, “My child…come with Me. I have prepared a place for you in My Father’s House.”
The moment I reached up and took hold of Your hand, You drew me to Your Bosom and embraced me. You removed the filthy rags of sin that clothed me, and immersed my body and my soul in Your Precious and Priceless Blood…to soak there in Your Blood. You soaked away all the filth that was caked up on my soul…all the sin, all the wretchedness, all the degradation. You bathed my body and my soul in Your Own Blood…washed me, cleansed me, and made me clean. Then You dressed me in the white robes of Your Own Righteousness, and presented me before the Father. As I stood there before the Father…washed in the Blood of the Lamb, dressed in the white robes of Your Own Righteousness, pure and holy now in His sight, without spot or wrinkle or blemish, accepted now in the Beloved…I heard, with ecstatic wonder, the Father say, “My child…this day I have adopted you…through birth and by Blood…into My Family. You are now and forevermore My child, and I am forevermore your Father and your God.” Hallelujah!
A NEW CREATION
My life was never again the same…a wonderful journey into the depths of God ever since! This Scripture became a literal reality: Therefore, beloved, since you are now joined together in a living union of oneness with Christ Jesus My Son, you are a new creation. You are no longer the same person you formerly were…your previous moral and spiritual condition has passed away. Behold, a fresh, new life has begun!
For so long…so many, many, years…I had sinned against God. I had sinned against Him so often…so very often, and so deeply…so very deeply. Up to that point in time at the age of 32, for those 13 years of my adult life, I had tried everything to fill that felt-sense of emptiness…a void, a relentless aching…in the depths of my soul for something…I knew not what…that was missing. Nothing satisfied that emptiness; nothing filled that void. Having been raised Catholic, I came to the conclusion that it must be God that I was missing. But how do I find God was the pressing question of my heart. I wondered, Who am I that God would care about me, or have any concern for me? I wasn’t somebody who was important or significant that God should have any thoughts about me. That was my mindset in those years.
Even so, I set out on an intense, consuming search to find God…a relentless search that would continue over the next six years. I didn’t really know what “finding God” actually meant; I just knew that whatever it meant, I needed to find Him. I went to different priests and asked them, “How do I find God?” They weren’t much help; actually, they didn’t really know the answer. Sometimes they would point me to a book to read, written by a priest. I would read the book, and a number of times I made an appointment to meet with the author of the book…even traveling out of State to meet with him! Still…even they had no defining answer to offer. I diligently tried practicing different methods I had read about…“Centering on God” and other types of meditations and concepts…all to no avail. I became involved with pursuing several different philosophies concerning God…such as “The Power of Positive Thinking,” and even had sessions with Albert Ellis, a prominent psychologist who had written numerous books on a new theory he had developed called “Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.” All of my desperate searching came up completely empty.
Meanwhile, my life was spiraling downward at warp speed. By October 1981, in absolute desperation, I reluctantly accepted a suggestion to meet with a local Baptist minister. For a Catholic in those years, this was absolute rock bottom; a Catholic would not be caught dead talking to a Baptist minister, let alone meeting with one! But I was desperate.
On Saturday morning, October 17, 1981, I poured out my heart in Pastor Lester’s office concerning my desperate, yet fruitless, search to find God. He patiently listened, and when I had finished, presented so simply a child could understand…what I had spent six long, intense years searching for! He asked if I would like to follow him in a prayer to accept Jesus as Lord of my life and Savior of my soul, and enter into a personal relationship with Him. As we prayed, there were no flashing lights…no sound of bells and whistles…just a deep satisfying sense in the depths of my soul that now, at last, I had found God…or rather, more accurately, that God had found me. On that day the Scripture verse became true for me:You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. [Jer 29:13]
OVERWHELMING GRATITUDE, ETERNAL THANKS
Abba Father…I owe my body and my soul to You. If it were not for You, my body would be in the grave, and my soul would be in Hell long ago…15 times I should have been dead that I am fully aware of and can testify to, and surely many more times that I am not aware of. Though I had sinned against You for so many years, so very often, and so very deeply…even so, You Personally, consciously, and deliberately intervened in my life to stay the hand of death! If it were not for You, Father, I would be in Hell right now…and I knew I full well deserved to be there! The angels of Heaven would have acknowledged Your righteous and just judgment. But in Your fathomless Love, boundless mercy, and infinite grace, You would not have it; You were not willing that I should perish. How many times Satan had come for me to claim my life and to claim my soul, but You would not permit it. No…You were my Shield and my Protector. You protected my soul, and You kept me safe, even from the very pit of Hell…until that wonderful day of my salvation!
Thank You, Father, that at this moment in time, after all my years of sins and failure, mistakes and imperfections,I stand before You just as pure and innocent and helpless in Your sight as I was on the day I was born. By virtue of the Eternal Power and Eternal Worth of the Blood of Your Divine Son Jesus, poured out on my behalf on that cross at Calvary for the forgiveness of my sins, You have forgiven me of all I have ever done! By virtue of the Blood of the Sacrificial Lamb of God, You have blotted out the entire record of transgressions proven against me…erased the entire record of my sins! You removed my sins from me as far as the East is from the West, and have cast my sins into the depths of the sea, never to remember them against me again. You have expunged all of my sins from the record; there is nothing written against my name in Your Book, just as if I had never sinned! AndYou have conferred upon me thejudicial status of eternal righteousness as an accomplished and finished fact.
JUDICIAL STATUS OF ETERNAL RIGHTEOUSNESS
Sin can NEVER AGAIN stain my soul and separate me from God, because the Blood of Christ Your Son envelopes my soul, and sin cannot penetrate it.Thank You, Father, for washing my robes anew in the Blood of the Lamb…for continually washing my garments as they become soiled with sin and I bring them before You in confession and repentance, making them clean again…dazzling and white. Thank You for washing my feet with pure water…for washing the dust of sin off my feet, enabling me to stand before You, to abide here with You in the Holy Of Holies in the inaccessible Light of the Glory of Your unclouded Presence, having been washed in the Blood of the Lamb, dressed in the white robes of His Own Righteousness, pure and holy now in Your sight, without spot or wrinkle or blemish!
And thank You for giving me fine, radiant linen to wear…dazzling and white…which are my righteous acts… my righteous deeds…which Your Holy Spirit alone works through me, with me, in me as I give Him free reign to do so. This wonderful blessing, so that my light would so shine before the souls of men that they may see in me, as a mirror of the Almighty, the God-ordained origin of the moral excellence being continually wrought in me by Your Holy Spirit…my praiseworthy, noble, righteous acts and good deeds which Thou hast wrought for them that trust in Thee before the sons of men. They shall indeed thereby recognize, honor, praise, and glorify You, Father, in Heaven, for all You alone have done in the hearts of Men wholly surrendered unto You down through the unfolding generations of time since Your creation of Adam. [Matt 5:16] Hallelujah!
TOKENS OF DIVINE LOVE
I don’t know whether in the depths of your heart you really believe there is a God in Heaven or not, but this I do know…for six years I desperately searched for God and did not find Him…until that momentous day He found me and revealed Himself to me!
PURITY, HOLINESS, RIGHTEOUSNESS
My life has been completely transformed by the Living God! And now, the most intense desire of my heart going forward is to be pure, holy, and righteous in living out my every day life…in living out my visible physical life, my unseen physical life, my life in the spiritual realm, and especially my hidden life in my heart…in my mind, my thoughts, my imagination!
Blessed Holy Spirit…You are the Divine Nature dwelling in me, Whose Power in me continually guarantees and secures my capability to live my everyday life:
faithful to my solemn marriage vows as the eternal bride of Christ;
faithfully within the Holy of Holies and the unclouded Presence of my Father in our Sacred Covenant relationship!
UNBEARABLE EMOTIONAL AGONY
A few years later, on that late February, 1984, winter night on Long Island, I lay on my bed crying out to God…immersed in deep sadness and sorrow, intense crying and pain, overwhelming grief, loneliness, and broken-heartedness over a deep sense of loss that had just blind-sided my life. I had only just become the bride of Christ 28 months prior, on October 17, 1981. And now this was the third night of intense emotional agony. I remember thinking that if Hell were like this…and I knew instinctively it was ten thousand times worse, infinitely worse…I couldn’t bear it. The emotional pain I was experiencing was entirely debilitating…I don’t know how I made it through the work day. I felt hopeless and helpless…crushed and immobilized by a consuming sense of loss. When I got home in the evening, all I could do was collapse on my bed, crying out to the Lord in utter despair. A whole array of verses from Psalms went through my mind as I just poured out my broken heart to Him.
AWE-FILLED PRESENCE OF GOD
Quite suddenly…out of nowhere…the Lord walked into my room! I didn’t visibly see Him; my room was just as dark as it was before. But I was so filled with His Presence entering into my room and into me I felt like I was going to explode! My physical body could not contain His in-dwelling Presence! I remember exclaiming in awe, “Oh Lord…I can’t bear any more! I feel like I am going to burst!” Not that I wanted Him to leave; I was just expressing how I literally felt…that my human body just could not contain Him for any longer and live! At that moment, it didn’t matter to me whether I lived or died…I was experiencing an eternal weight of Glory beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent Glory and blessedness in His Presence!
The inaccessible Light [although there was no literal light] of the Glory of His Presence lasted maybe five or six seconds…but that experience is just as fresh in my memory today as it was in reality those 40+ years ago! At that moment…the heretofore unbearable, debilitating emotional pain I had been feeling did not diminish in intensity, nor was it removed. It just became so insignificant and so meaningless in the light of what I had just experienced, that I literally thought, “Who cares!” And from that point on, though the source of the pain was never removed or resolved, it never again mattered to me, nor bothered me. I had seen the Lord; with my own spiritual eyes, I had seen Him! I would never again be the same!
Just one second in the inaccessible Light of the Glory of His Presence…a foretaste of Heaven itself…even now here on Earth is more than enough to wipe every tear from our eyes…all of our sadness and sorrow, all crying and pain, all grief and loneliness and broken-heartedness!
And in that glorious coming Day, the ransomed of the Lord will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away. [Isa 35:10]
Beloved…don’t become discouraged and lose heart!For your light and momentary troubles during this life are achieving for you an eternal glory beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness nevermore to cease! [Cor 4:16-18]
EPILOGUE
Abba Father…it is literally true, and I really know and believe that it is literally true: my body would be in the grave and my soul would be in Hell right now…and many times over during the course of my life since birth…had You not Personally, consciously, and deliberately intervened in my life to stay the hand of death.
Words can never sufficiently express the depth of gratitude due You as I begin to fully realize that I literally owe my soul’s eternal destiny of Heaven solely, only, wholly, to You…to Your boundless Mercy, Your infinite Grace, Your fathomless Love. How could I ever possibly give You sufficient thanks for such an incomprehensible eternal blessing…a River of unceasing glorious and rich eternal pleasures at Your right hand… eternal pleasures at Your right hand beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations…rich eternal treasures that no eye has ever seen, nor ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of Man to ever begin to imagine, what wondrous things God has prepared for those who love Him…a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness nevermore to cease!
RICH ETERNAL TREASURES GRANTED TO GOD’S CHILD
Friends & neighbors; brothers and sisters…
It is my prayer that you will feel the leading of the Spirit to seek these rich eternal blessings with all your heart. You will most assuredly experience these same blessings for yourself, and will have this same testimony to share:
I proclaim to you Christ Jesus…the One Who existed from the beginning, from Eternity Past, Whom I have heard with the ears of my own inner being, and have seen with my own spiritual eyes. I have gazed upon Him and have spiritually touched Him with my own hands. He is the Word of Life. His Life is continually being revealed to me; I have seen it and testify to it, and I proclaim to you that He is the One Who is Eternal Life. He always existed with the Father, and is now continually being manifested afresh and anew to me. I proclaim to you what I have personally seen and heard in the depths of my soul, so that you also may enjoy this same fellowship together with us. The fellowship I continually enjoy is with the Father and with His Son, Christ Jesus. I am writing these things so that you also may fully share together with me in this fullness of joy! [1 John 1:1-4]
This is our birth-right as children of the Most High God! Hallelujah!
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Holy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcx2O9WXvn8&feature=youtu.be
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