Dear friends,
Today morning as I woke up, God put in my mind one word DOOR. And I could see in my mind’s eye all the closed doors in my life that have been slammed on my face for the past few years. Though my posts are usually cheerful, optimistic and give encouragement & hope, sometimes you may have sensed the stifled cries of a soul in anguish, and an undercurrent of pain & suffering, I’ve never really shared with you any of it simply because I never got the direction from God to share it with you.
But today, God tells me that my time of "open doors" has come. In addition to the picture that came to my mind, I got a reconfirmation when I checked my Daily Reading from Journals of The Heart. Click here for today’s reading; key verse in this post. You may believe or doubt me, that is totally up to you. I do my part and though hesitatingly, I do so – trusting that the grace of God will never take me where the love of God will not keep me. I would rather talk to you about Him than about myself but today as the Holy Spirit leads in complete obedience to Him, I share with you some of my Story. Get ready to give HIM all the Glory & Honor, for He has been faithful and He alone is worthy.
John 3:30 “It is necessary for Him to increase and for me to decrease.”
“God is too wise to make a mistake. God is too good to be unkind.”- Babbie Mason
The Glorious Beginning:
I accepted the Lord during my Pre-degree days (1996) while at a College in a Catholic Camp that I didn’t really want to go to. Can you believe that it was actually a LIE that got me saved? Read on to see the amazing way in which God calls those whom He has chosen.
John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit-fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”
We had a college hostel program and needed time for Practice, so 3 of us went to our warden and lied to her about a Camp we had to attend and requested her to postpone the Program. Actually we were all eagerly waiting to go home for the weekend, we had no intention of going anywhere else ; let alone a Catholic Camp – the “smart” girls we were, we had decided to cancel immediately after getting the program postponed. The warden agreed and we thought we had fooled her! Imagine our shock, when the time came and our “Smarter” warden would not allow us to go home reminding us that we had to go for the Camp. We watched all our hostel mates go home; grumbling & angry we got on the bus to go to the camp site. To make things worse, it was pouring heavily and we reached the place drenched, furious and late. Then the Music began, and we liked the Catchy tunes of the REX band and this quieted us. This was followed by Testimonies, Skits and Workshops but the thing that really touched me and I've already mentioned it in the TESTIMONY link was the genuine love that the JESUS YOUTH had for us .We came to know later that while we were enjoying the Camp there were many who had been kneeling in prayer for us in the Chapel during the whole of this time, unknown to any of us. To this day I believe that it was those prayers that saved us for I know without a doubt that I definitely did not want to be there, let alone saved. Oh the POWER of Intercession! To sum up, by the time this 3 day program was over, all 3 of us accepted Jesus as the Lord of our Lives and we decided to attend the next year too. We went back to the Hostel and started a small prayer group. All 3 of us coming from Protestant backgrounds believed in Direct Intercession and avoided Rosary and prayer to Saints. There was power in the prayer and soon many others including 2 Hindus joined us. It was that sweet and sunny time of immediate answers and the happiness of First love. Everyone began to notice a peace, radiance and joy in our lives. Quite unexpectedly, I even won the Award for MOST PLEASANT FACE in the Hostel! ;) In addition, God also blessed me with Honors in Academics and Extracurricular activities. I had too many friends to count. Once, one of my friends told me as she walked with me to Class from Hostel- "Laura, you have so many friends that walking to class and stopping to talk to each of them is like travelling in a bus that makes so many stops to get passengers off and on.” Yes those were some of the happiest days of my life. Another friend remarked that there used to be a light shining from my face. I didn’t understand it then, I thought it must be sunlight but now I understand that it was the Glory of the Lord shining through me. Such was the wonderful phase 1 of my love walk with the Lord Jesus. Life was just beautiful ! Little did I know what was coming….I truly don’t know if I would ever have been ready had I known! .......
- To be continued Click for Part 2 : CLOSED DOORS ONLY
Click here to enjoy this Song which says all that I have been trying to tell you.
Take Care, God bless,
Sparky Laurie
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