When God began to draw me to Himself, He put in my heart a desire to know the Truth. I knew that there were many "truth systems" in this World, but they all contradicted one another. So which one was True? What could I rely on, without being tricked into believing something that wasn't True?
I had heard that the Bible was God's Word, so I bought a Bible and started to read it. When I read a book, I start at the beginning and read it through to the end, not skipping any part. So I found myself reading about all these "Bible stories" I had grown up learning. But soon I got into a section of "begats." I knew that "begat" means "was the father of," but I didn't understand why there was such a long list, chapter after chapter, of all these names that meant nothing to me. I didn't know what this was all about, so I put down the Bible and began to investigate other "faiths" that were drawing me.
I looked into seances, hauntings, poltergeists, and such. I even read about a man named Edgar Cayce, who read the Bible through each year and went into trances, diagnosing people's diseases like Cancer to be the result of some unforgiveness in their lives. But he also promoted the idea of regressing back into "past lives" for reasons for problems as "karma." This is not Truth.
All these "truth systems" were interesting, but none of them convinced me.
Finally I ended up back home, with my Mother and younger sister. I realized that I was at the "hub of the wheel" and could go out in any direction I choose. This was very freeing, but which way do I want to go? What would make me happy? Had I ever been happy? Well, when I was in High School, I told the counsellor that I was contented, so what did I have then? I had religion. But religion hadn't been my answer, so maybe it had something to do with God?
Okay, when I started to think about God, He reminded me of something I had read in the Life Magazine at work. This was during the 60's when students were burning their campuses. This cover story was on the anomaly, students who were happy, singing and riding on one another's shoulders. So I read the article, and one kid was quoted as saying, "All you need is Jesus!"
So God repeated to me over and over, "All you need is Jesus!" over and over. Okay, God, I'll think about Jesus. I'd always known all about Him: Born of a virgin, lived a perfect, sinless life, died for the sins of the World, rose from the dead, and ascended back into Heaven. But as I thought on Him, one thing was different.
I'd always considered how many people there are in the World, and every person has a whole lifetime of sins, so that's why He had to suffer so much when He died on the Cross, a little for each. But that had me comparing and contrasting with others on how much it would be for each.
Then God showed me Jesus on the Cross, and I knew that He didn't deserve any of it because I deserved all of it! He took MY PLACE there, the death I deserve! And I had been living my life totally against what I knew were His ways, but THAT'S how much He loved me anyway! That's what broke my heart!
But I still didn't know "what to do with my life." which was the question that started all this. Since God was right there with me in that room, I talked to Him for the first time. I said, "Since You're God, and You made this life I have, and gave it to me to live, You know why You made it, I don't. Every time I try to live it, I mess it up, so I don't even want to try any more--if You want this life You gave me to be lived, You'll have to live it, because I refuse to!"
I half-way expected lighting to strike me at that moment, talking to God in that way! But God took over my life, from that moment on!
I walked out of that room floating, because, as I learned later, God took the weight of all my sins off my shoulders and placed it on Jesus on the Cross at that point in Time.
And all those truth-systems I'd been looking into? Now I could see why they hadn't convinced me--each one had some kind of deception mixed in.
Everything around me changed, though nothing around me changed. I saw everything with new eyes, like I had been seeing in Black-and White and now I could see in Full Living Technicolor! (Like when Dorothy stepped from Kansas into the Land of Oz, but much better!).
My boyfriend came over that night, and I told him we could be just friends. He was not pleased, to say the least! I told him I didn't have to do those things any more, and he said I never had to, I chose to. So I agreed with him that I had chosen to do what I did, but now I have a new choice I didn't seem to have before, I could chose to do what was right, and not do what I knew was wrong. And I had the power to make that choice!
I found that I didn't need a boyfriend any more. One day I was reading on my Mother's couch, when her boyfriend and his friend arrived. They left, and the friend stayed, to talk with me. So I thought I'd freak this guy out & got out my Ouija Board, it hadn't worked for me since I "gave myself to God." But it didn't freak him out, and after that he stopped by every night after work.
Long story short, that is the man who became my husband of 30 years, who died 16 years ago.
This is the core of my story, how God drew me to Himself in spite of my doing my best to do myself in. God started a good work in me that day, and He continues to work in me, on me, and, I hope, through me. All for His glory, because He is the One Who is doing everything.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
