The Creator used His Words to speak life. I aim to learn to do likewise, though sometimes I despair of achieving consistency. Guess it's better to aim at something and miss, than to aim at nothing and hit it.
It was late one night in November 1976 (or thereabouts). My new husband was, once again, on "Whereabouts Unknown" status.
I cried out to God, alone in my bedroom, "I know you are out there somewhere! Would you please come into my life and take over, because I have royally botched it up!"
Don't ask me how or why, but He showed up. My life was never the same after that moment.
Moments before that prayer, I was grieved, tormented, distressed. Just afterward, I felt a weight lift off me (sin?) and fell peacefully asleep, like a baby without a care in the world. I awakened the next morning to a New World-- a New Me. I had no idea what had happened, but I had been born again--was a newborn child of God.
Our friends came by with a bag of weed as usual, that week. I stared at it curiously for a moment, and verbalized what was flowing through my mind, "I don't think I need that. I'm already high on something." My seven-year-street-drug-habit had just evaporated. There was never again any desire for any of the numerous illegal substances which had so fascinated me. I had built my social life around them, but that, also, began to change.
If there was more of whatever THIS was, I wanted THAT! Someone invited me to a home prayer group, and I ended up in the "hot seat", where the folks prayed for me to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Now I was a newborn Christian on fire! - with more fervor than knowledge, but hopefully God was able to use that time, anyway.
I landed smack-dab in the middle of the Jesus-Freak Outpouring, and Kingdom Riches were as easy to find as a toddler's egg-hunt. Miracles, answered prayer, for-real prophetic utterances, healings--and best of all, the Presence of God that often drew me into a glory-cloud of pure Love, alternately weeping on my knees, or dancing like a child for sheer joy. I took all this for granted, as the normal Christian experience.
Forty years later, I've sobered up a bit. This world has been generous with (figurative) punches to the gut. It turns out that both God, and Satan, had a plan for my life. In the latter's case, the plan was confusion, distraction, discouragement, depression, destruction. Thankfully, he's not the boss-o'-me.
And God is good - all the time.
It was late one night in November 1976 (or thereabouts). My new husband was, once again, on "Whereabouts Unknown" status.
I cried out to God, alone in my bedroom, "I know you are out there somewhere! Would you please come into my life and take over, because I have royally botched it up!"
Don't ask me how or why, but He showed up. My life was never the same after that moment.
Moments before that prayer, I was grieved, tormented, distressed. Just afterward, I felt a weight lift off me (sin?) and fell peacefully asleep, like a baby without a care in the world. I awakened the next morning to a New World-- a New Me. I had no idea what had happened, but I had been born again--was a newborn child of God.
Our friends came by with a bag of weed as usual, that week. I stared at it curiously for a moment, and verbalized what was flowing through my mind, "I don't think I need that. I'm already high on something." My seven-year-street-drug-habit had just evaporated. There was never again any desire for any of the numerous illegal substances which had so fascinated me. I had built my social life around them, but that, also, began to change.
If there was more of whatever THIS was, I wanted THAT! Someone invited me to a home prayer group, and I ended up in the "hot seat", where the folks prayed for me to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Now I was a newborn Christian on fire! - with more fervor than knowledge, but hopefully God was able to use that time, anyway.
I landed smack-dab in the middle of the Jesus-Freak Outpouring, and Kingdom Riches were as easy to find as a toddler's egg-hunt. Miracles, answered prayer, for-real prophetic utterances, healings--and best of all, the Presence of God that often drew me into a glory-cloud of pure Love, alternately weeping on my knees, or dancing like a child for sheer joy. I took all this for granted, as the normal Christian experience.
Forty years later, I've sobered up a bit. This world has been generous with (figurative) punches to the gut. It turns out that both God, and Satan, had a plan for my life. In the latter's case, the plan was confusion, distraction, discouragement, depression, destruction. Thankfully, he's not the boss-o'-me.
And God is good - all the time.