As I knelt down this morning for some time before the Lord, it occurred to me that 19 years ago today, on the other side of this very same city of I knelt before Him for the very first time in surrender. In a little apartment off of Sweetwater Road I was saved on August 4, 1994 after many years of refusing the truth, resisting His grace, saying No! to His offer and hardening my heart to His pursuing love. On that Thursday morning nineteen years ago I could do those things no more and I fell before this relentless Savior who loved me unto my end. God had made an appointment with me that day and I look back today with tears of gratitude and a heart of wonder at His mercy to me. A rebel was made His child.
This morning I have the unspeakable privilege of knowing Him more intimately, yet feeling as though I barely know Him at all. He has allowed me to experience so much beyond His saving grace yet I still feel today that there is nothing He has offered me that diminishes my wonder at His initial act of having forgiven me. My life is full and He is the fullness of it. It is almost comical that I will stand in a little while to speak of Him before others because there are likely dozens of other people seated in the congregation who are more fit to do so than I… yet I am grateful that He has appointed me to the task because when I speak of Him I sense His great pleasure and, of course, I sense my own pleasure in Him. Thank you, Father, for allowing me to enter the process which makes me to know You. You are my chief delight and, when I remember this, I am most blessed and happy. Let my joy in You grow more deeply if You allow me another nineteen years. If I cannot enjoy You here like I should then please bring me to Yourself to that realm where I know I can do nothing else but rejoice forevermore in my great God and Savior. You are awesome to me and I cannot believe that You have loved me so. Thank you for so rich a salvation and so blessed a life.
I LOVE that you mark the day and the time following!
Remembering where I was helps me not to return to that sinister place.
Thanks for helping me remember – your gratitude is contagious!
Such a tender blessing and a memory that will never leave you.
I am thankful with you! Both for you and myself. The Lord’s mercy endures forever and it is a very, very good thing that it does!