Immanuel...

...God With Us...

...what can I say about Jesus, except what He has done for me, knowing full well that mine is only one of numberless stories. I have no other authority to speak of the Son of God. He intersected my life at just the perfect time which, translated in my case, means the worst time of my life or close to it. I was now open to being rescued, saved from myself, let alone, as I found out later, from much more than that.

I went to a party and through one of His people, felt His Presence with every sense of my being. I knew only that I needed that Presence terribly in that moment, more than I had needed anything or anyone in my life before. I was overwhelmed by the unmistakable conviction I was dirty through and through but, at the same time, I felt a saving Love I had never felt before. The next morning, we were invited to Church and I was trembling inwardly. It was my first Church service ever. As the choir stood up to sing, everything broke inside, any vestige of keeping it together (a favorite phrase of our generation) forever gone. After being led in private prayer at the end of the service (my sobs would not stop), the inner war that had raged on for so long stopped and all was calm. It was a pervasive calm I had never experienced before.

He transformed my obsession with my own misfortunes, my inward pain and my inability to fulfill my role as wife and mother, to a sense of Fullness, an abiding Joy (I have to capitalize these because none of that came from me). The wounds didn't all leave me but the Fullness inside me so far outweighed them I forgot for a time they were there.

Instantly and instinctively, I stopped taking all drugs or alcohol and have never started again; a vibrant devotion to others (particularly my husband and my children) was birthed in my heart that day. These were gifts made to me as surely as the Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh were made to our Lord: they have proved invaluable in the nearly 30 years since. He didn't remove my imperfections but my faults and I had been forgiven; the peace I felt was palpable on a near atomic level. With this new indwelling Presence (it was so strong I could barely eat for three days) nothing seemed impossible to me. I was accepted.

Coming home to our humble apartment after that Church service I saw everything with new eyes. I did in fact feel like a new creature. It was a miracle of salvation in January of 1981 and I have never recovered.