I am where I need to be right now.
I don't know what my future holds but I do know that whatever or wherever my future is God will be with me, guiding me and protecting me.
I feel comforted, cushioned and protected, I feel his love surround me, I'm wrapped in it and it's amazing.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Saturday, 26 April 2008
For My Husband
You know the kind of family I was raised in, religion was always part of my life from an early age and I am grateful that I was raised this way although sometimes I think the way of life we had then was too restrictive but I always accepted it and am grateful for the things I was taught from an early age, it’s hard to describe and you probably think I believed in God because my parents taught me but that’s not right, I’ve always known with clear certainty that every word I was hearing was true. My parents also taught me about the tooth fairy and Santa Claus but I never once remember believing in them.
At the point in my life when I met you I knew I was a sinner and I also knew that if I died right then I would go to hell. Simple as. I also was at a point where I thought I’ll become a Christian one day, when I’m old (I’m not old now ok), but not yet, there’s too much fun to be had, there’s plenty time for all that. Even though I knew Heaven and Hell were real I de-realed them in my mind. I know that’s not a word but it’s the only one I can think of right now. I made them almost cartoon-like in my head, dulled them down a bit. Heaven was all fluffy clouds and hell was a nasty man poking you with a big stick.
That was fine for a bit. You know what I was like, I didn’t go to church for years and I didn’t even think about it at all to be honest, I still had the foundation that my parents gave me but I cast everything aside and I honestly thought I was ok.
When we would go home on holiday my ma would nag me about going to church and I know she wasn’t really nagging me, she was just doing it out of love but at the time I wished she would just shut up about it, I was fine so far right?
Anyway, one Sunday morning in Stornoway about 6 years ago, I think we had been out the night before and I had a hangover so I had made some excuse not to go to church and I was having a long lie, something made me get up and go down to the kitchen. I used to have this habit of picking up the bible and just opening it and reading the first verse I came across, I hadn’t done it for ages though. When I went down to the kitchen the dictionary was sitting on the table, it was the Collins Concise English dictionary, the great big thick version that I had got for Christmas when I was about 10 and I don’t know what made me do it bit I just let the dictionary fall open and read the first word I came across, now the dictionary has more than 70,000 words in it and I know because I just googled it ok, anyway, the first word my eyes fell on was “retribution” and the definition was “to pay the price for your sins”. I thought that’s weird. So I did it again, I let the dictionary fall open and the first word my eyes fell on was “atonement” and in the definition it said the re-uniting of man with God through the forgiveness of sin.
I knew that hadn’t happened by chance, I knew God was speaking to me, those exact 2 words out of 70,000, really, how could that not be a message. Don’t ever tell me that God doesn’t have a sense of humour because I wouldn’t read the bible but he got me with a dictionary! It’s mental!
Anyway, having just had this profound experience I turned around and went back to bed and went to sleep and promptly forgot all about it. What a fool!
So I just went on the way I had been but I started to get more conscious of my own mortality and to be honest with you deep down I was terrified. When we moved to down south these feelings seemed to get stronger, you know if I heard a noise in the sky in the middle of the night I used to wake up in a panic in case it was the second coming. I used to wake up praying as hard as I could, almost begging in fact “not yet, please not yet God, I'm not ready, I need more time” and then I realised it was just a plane taking of or something, bearing in mind we were living next to a runway this used to happen quite a lot. When I realised it was nothing and I was safe for the moment I would turn over and go back to sleep and in the morning it would be like nothing had even happened.
You see Hell had become so real to me, it’s a real place, as real as what your experiencing right now, how aware and conscious you are right now that’s how aware and conscious you will be in hell. It’s a physical place and it’s never-ending. It says in the bible that you will cry out to die because of the torment you are in but there is no death, it’s eternal. And the thing I find most scary is you will remember everything. Every time someone spoke to you about Jesus and you ignored it you will remember every conversation you ever had about the bible and you will know that if only you had taken that chance you would have been spared. That is just so horrific to me. Nobody that I love is going to end up there, you included and I know that for a fact.
Do you remember that film Event Horizon, that film really disturbed me, I watched it once and remember I couldn’t watch it again, well that’s because it depicts Hell and you hear people screaming and wailing, it terrified me and yet I know that the real thing is a trillion times worse than anything man could ever dream up.
And still I went on the same way until one night about 4 yers ago I had a dream, it was awful and I can’t really speak about it even now, that’s partly the reason I am writing this down for you because I don’t want to cry.
Our son was in my dream, he was being raised up into the air and I was reaching out to him, I knew he was being taken away to be with God and I was being left behind, I will never as long as I live forget his face in that dream, he was so beautiful his face was just shining and as I reached out trying to cling to him he looked at me like he loved me so much but he pitied me because he was leaving, he knew he had to go and he wanted to go and I couldn’t be his mother anymore. That dream broke my heart and I sobbed for days afterwards, I hid it from you of course and I don’t think I could have told you even if I tried, I wouldn’t have been able to get the words out. I know that these things that I had experienced was God talking to me and there have been many other instances of this which I will tell you about another time if you like.
I cannot pinpoint a time and say that’s when it happened, that’s when I became a Christian because it wasn’t like that with me, it was more like a slow gradual process, there was no flashing lights and no sudden lightning bolt from heaven, God was being patient with me because he knows what a slow coach I am.
I knew I had to change, I knew it with complete certainty but I also know that I couldn’t do it by myself so I began to pray “Lord, please change my desires”, I prayed this probably even a little half heatedly if I’m honest but boy, when God answers prayers he doesn’t do it by halves.
First I began listening to Gospel music and then I found that’s all I wanted to listen to. I remember standing doing my ironing one Sunday afternoon (slap on the hand) and getting mad with myself because I couldn’t watch MTV, I kept flipping over to see what was on the God channels. I couldn’t understand what was going on.
I used to feel envious of my sister because I could see what a deep passion she had for the Lord, she just wanted to speak about him all the time and she loved him so much, I used to think I wish I could be like that but I would get bored I could never keep it up and that’s true, I would have done but ever since I made the decision and said sorry for my sins and asked forgiveness the love has come to me, when I actually thought about what Jesus did for me, and shed tears for him and the pain he experienced because he loved me so much I am just overwhelmed by it. When he hung there on that cross with the weight of the world’s sin on his shoulders dying an excruciating death, he knew my name and if I had been the only person in the world he would have done it just the same because he loves me so much.
How could I not love someone who would do that for me and you know what it’s like when you’re in love, you want to be with that person all the time.
I remember when I met you I used to think there could never be a love bigger than this and then the babies came along and I thought no way could there ever be a bigger love than this and then I met God and I know that no matter how much we love his capacity to love is a million trillion time more than ours, it just can’t be measured and that’s such a good job because I can be hard to love.
Anyway, I’ve wanted to say all this to you for a while but I kept putting it off because the thing is I love you so much I don’t just want to spend the rest of life with you I want to spend eternity with you too and I know God has a plan for your life, he will do it in his own time but I pray for you constantly and I know that no matter how much I love you God loves you more and he didn’t bring us together against all the odds to separate us again.
The reason I am writing all this down today is because of a dream I had last night. I was at my mothers and our wee man came running in and said come outside and look at the sky it’s so beautiful so me, the wee man and my mother ran outside, it was dark but the sky was all lit up like fireworks or the Northern Lights and as we stood looking at it in amazement these letters appeared in front of me hanging in mid air and the spelt out “NEAR HEAVEN” and I knew I had to get to you, I wanted to run inside the house and tell you everything before it was too late but I couldn’t move my legs and I knew it was time and I hadn’t told you.
I believe God was speaking to me and so I’m telling you it all now and you might think I’m crazy but I still love you. So much.
At the point in my life when I met you I knew I was a sinner and I also knew that if I died right then I would go to hell. Simple as. I also was at a point where I thought I’ll become a Christian one day, when I’m old (I’m not old now ok), but not yet, there’s too much fun to be had, there’s plenty time for all that. Even though I knew Heaven and Hell were real I de-realed them in my mind. I know that’s not a word but it’s the only one I can think of right now. I made them almost cartoon-like in my head, dulled them down a bit. Heaven was all fluffy clouds and hell was a nasty man poking you with a big stick.
That was fine for a bit. You know what I was like, I didn’t go to church for years and I didn’t even think about it at all to be honest, I still had the foundation that my parents gave me but I cast everything aside and I honestly thought I was ok.
When we would go home on holiday my ma would nag me about going to church and I know she wasn’t really nagging me, she was just doing it out of love but at the time I wished she would just shut up about it, I was fine so far right?
Anyway, one Sunday morning in Stornoway about 6 years ago, I think we had been out the night before and I had a hangover so I had made some excuse not to go to church and I was having a long lie, something made me get up and go down to the kitchen. I used to have this habit of picking up the bible and just opening it and reading the first verse I came across, I hadn’t done it for ages though. When I went down to the kitchen the dictionary was sitting on the table, it was the Collins Concise English dictionary, the great big thick version that I had got for Christmas when I was about 10 and I don’t know what made me do it bit I just let the dictionary fall open and read the first word I came across, now the dictionary has more than 70,000 words in it and I know because I just googled it ok, anyway, the first word my eyes fell on was “retribution” and the definition was “to pay the price for your sins”. I thought that’s weird. So I did it again, I let the dictionary fall open and the first word my eyes fell on was “atonement” and in the definition it said the re-uniting of man with God through the forgiveness of sin.
I knew that hadn’t happened by chance, I knew God was speaking to me, those exact 2 words out of 70,000, really, how could that not be a message. Don’t ever tell me that God doesn’t have a sense of humour because I wouldn’t read the bible but he got me with a dictionary! It’s mental!
Anyway, having just had this profound experience I turned around and went back to bed and went to sleep and promptly forgot all about it. What a fool!
So I just went on the way I had been but I started to get more conscious of my own mortality and to be honest with you deep down I was terrified. When we moved to down south these feelings seemed to get stronger, you know if I heard a noise in the sky in the middle of the night I used to wake up in a panic in case it was the second coming. I used to wake up praying as hard as I could, almost begging in fact “not yet, please not yet God, I'm not ready, I need more time” and then I realised it was just a plane taking of or something, bearing in mind we were living next to a runway this used to happen quite a lot. When I realised it was nothing and I was safe for the moment I would turn over and go back to sleep and in the morning it would be like nothing had even happened.
You see Hell had become so real to me, it’s a real place, as real as what your experiencing right now, how aware and conscious you are right now that’s how aware and conscious you will be in hell. It’s a physical place and it’s never-ending. It says in the bible that you will cry out to die because of the torment you are in but there is no death, it’s eternal. And the thing I find most scary is you will remember everything. Every time someone spoke to you about Jesus and you ignored it you will remember every conversation you ever had about the bible and you will know that if only you had taken that chance you would have been spared. That is just so horrific to me. Nobody that I love is going to end up there, you included and I know that for a fact.
Do you remember that film Event Horizon, that film really disturbed me, I watched it once and remember I couldn’t watch it again, well that’s because it depicts Hell and you hear people screaming and wailing, it terrified me and yet I know that the real thing is a trillion times worse than anything man could ever dream up.
And still I went on the same way until one night about 4 yers ago I had a dream, it was awful and I can’t really speak about it even now, that’s partly the reason I am writing this down for you because I don’t want to cry.
Our son was in my dream, he was being raised up into the air and I was reaching out to him, I knew he was being taken away to be with God and I was being left behind, I will never as long as I live forget his face in that dream, he was so beautiful his face was just shining and as I reached out trying to cling to him he looked at me like he loved me so much but he pitied me because he was leaving, he knew he had to go and he wanted to go and I couldn’t be his mother anymore. That dream broke my heart and I sobbed for days afterwards, I hid it from you of course and I don’t think I could have told you even if I tried, I wouldn’t have been able to get the words out. I know that these things that I had experienced was God talking to me and there have been many other instances of this which I will tell you about another time if you like.
I cannot pinpoint a time and say that’s when it happened, that’s when I became a Christian because it wasn’t like that with me, it was more like a slow gradual process, there was no flashing lights and no sudden lightning bolt from heaven, God was being patient with me because he knows what a slow coach I am.
I knew I had to change, I knew it with complete certainty but I also know that I couldn’t do it by myself so I began to pray “Lord, please change my desires”, I prayed this probably even a little half heatedly if I’m honest but boy, when God answers prayers he doesn’t do it by halves.
First I began listening to Gospel music and then I found that’s all I wanted to listen to. I remember standing doing my ironing one Sunday afternoon (slap on the hand) and getting mad with myself because I couldn’t watch MTV, I kept flipping over to see what was on the God channels. I couldn’t understand what was going on.
I used to feel envious of my sister because I could see what a deep passion she had for the Lord, she just wanted to speak about him all the time and she loved him so much, I used to think I wish I could be like that but I would get bored I could never keep it up and that’s true, I would have done but ever since I made the decision and said sorry for my sins and asked forgiveness the love has come to me, when I actually thought about what Jesus did for me, and shed tears for him and the pain he experienced because he loved me so much I am just overwhelmed by it. When he hung there on that cross with the weight of the world’s sin on his shoulders dying an excruciating death, he knew my name and if I had been the only person in the world he would have done it just the same because he loves me so much.
How could I not love someone who would do that for me and you know what it’s like when you’re in love, you want to be with that person all the time.
I remember when I met you I used to think there could never be a love bigger than this and then the babies came along and I thought no way could there ever be a bigger love than this and then I met God and I know that no matter how much we love his capacity to love is a million trillion time more than ours, it just can’t be measured and that’s such a good job because I can be hard to love.
Anyway, I’ve wanted to say all this to you for a while but I kept putting it off because the thing is I love you so much I don’t just want to spend the rest of life with you I want to spend eternity with you too and I know God has a plan for your life, he will do it in his own time but I pray for you constantly and I know that no matter how much I love you God loves you more and he didn’t bring us together against all the odds to separate us again.
The reason I am writing all this down today is because of a dream I had last night. I was at my mothers and our wee man came running in and said come outside and look at the sky it’s so beautiful so me, the wee man and my mother ran outside, it was dark but the sky was all lit up like fireworks or the Northern Lights and as we stood looking at it in amazement these letters appeared in front of me hanging in mid air and the spelt out “NEAR HEAVEN” and I knew I had to get to you, I wanted to run inside the house and tell you everything before it was too late but I couldn’t move my legs and I knew it was time and I hadn’t told you.
I believe God was speaking to me and so I’m telling you it all now and you might think I’m crazy but I still love you. So much.
Friday, 25 April 2008
Going to the dentist is a blessing
I am absolutely terrified of the dentist, not just scared but completely terrified, once when I thought I had to go for a check-up i started crying at the thought of it.
When I was in school we had a complete butcher for a dentist and that woman traumatised me for life, I remember once she pulled out one of my teeth and honestly, the struggle she had getting it out and she wasn't gentle, I'm surprised she didn't stick one foot on my jaw for some leverage whilst she was at it.
Anyway today I had to go for two fillings.
I have known for weeks that it was coming up and I tried not think about it but as it grew closer I began to panic a bit, I even asked hubby to come with me because I couldn't go by myself. That's what a big baby I am. So this morning I got up and even thought about cancelling the appointment but then I started praying about it and it suddenly dawned on me that I should be grateful that I CAN go to the dentist. I thought about all the people in the world who can't afford dental treatment, who can't even afford food for their children and here I am moaning and whining because I have the privilege of appropriate medical care when I need it. What a stupid selfish girl I am. So I started thanking God for the dentist (how crazy is that, I'm thanking God for the dentist, even I can't believe it) and the fear just totally went. I wasn't scared anymore and this is a big thing because what I actually mean by scared is crying-wailing-locking-myself-in-the-bathroom terrified. But I just wasn't scared anymore and all the way there in the car I was saying in my head "thank you Lord for the dentist, thank you Lord for the dentist" and you know what, it wasn't even that bad.
The injection was a bit sore but I started remembering books I'd read about prisoners in concentration camps where they pulled out their teeth and all sorts without anaesthetic and I started praying in my head "thank you Lord for the injection, thank you Lord for the injection" and it was over before I knew it and I had my two fillings and I didn't feel a thing.
Isn't prayer a wonderful thing!
When I was in school we had a complete butcher for a dentist and that woman traumatised me for life, I remember once she pulled out one of my teeth and honestly, the struggle she had getting it out and she wasn't gentle, I'm surprised she didn't stick one foot on my jaw for some leverage whilst she was at it.
Anyway today I had to go for two fillings.
I have known for weeks that it was coming up and I tried not think about it but as it grew closer I began to panic a bit, I even asked hubby to come with me because I couldn't go by myself. That's what a big baby I am. So this morning I got up and even thought about cancelling the appointment but then I started praying about it and it suddenly dawned on me that I should be grateful that I CAN go to the dentist. I thought about all the people in the world who can't afford dental treatment, who can't even afford food for their children and here I am moaning and whining because I have the privilege of appropriate medical care when I need it. What a stupid selfish girl I am. So I started thanking God for the dentist (how crazy is that, I'm thanking God for the dentist, even I can't believe it) and the fear just totally went. I wasn't scared anymore and this is a big thing because what I actually mean by scared is crying-wailing-locking-myself-in-the-bathroom terrified. But I just wasn't scared anymore and all the way there in the car I was saying in my head "thank you Lord for the dentist, thank you Lord for the dentist" and you know what, it wasn't even that bad.
The injection was a bit sore but I started remembering books I'd read about prisoners in concentration camps where they pulled out their teeth and all sorts without anaesthetic and I started praying in my head "thank you Lord for the injection, thank you Lord for the injection" and it was over before I knew it and I had my two fillings and I didn't feel a thing.
Isn't prayer a wonderful thing!
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
No More Night Terrors
Before I was saved I was scared. I was scared of everything. Life, death and everything in between.
If I heard a noise in the sky at night I would wake up in a panic in case it was the second coming. Seriously. I would be praying and praying, almost begging in fact "not yet God, please not yet, I'm not ready, I need more time" and then I'd realise it was just a plane flying over the house or something and I'd calm down and go back to sleep.
Bearing in mind that I live beside a runway this used to happen quite a lot.
But you know the worst part, I used to get up the next day and just put it to the back of my mind, I'd laugh at myself for being silly and just get on with my life. What a fool. Praise God for being persistent because I would have given up on me a long time ago.
Now I know I'm saved because I'm not scared anymore.
How amazing it is to have that assurance.
If I heard a noise in the sky at night I would wake up in a panic in case it was the second coming. Seriously. I would be praying and praying, almost begging in fact "not yet God, please not yet, I'm not ready, I need more time" and then I'd realise it was just a plane flying over the house or something and I'd calm down and go back to sleep.
Bearing in mind that I live beside a runway this used to happen quite a lot.
But you know the worst part, I used to get up the next day and just put it to the back of my mind, I'd laugh at myself for being silly and just get on with my life. What a fool. Praise God for being persistent because I would have given up on me a long time ago.
Now I know I'm saved because I'm not scared anymore.
How amazing it is to have that assurance.
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