TWENTY-SECOND

*The following excerpt is from the chapter titled 'Twenty-second', in my book Chasing Love.

I sat there on the floor trying to come to grips with what had just occurred. Unable to gather enough strength to make it to my feet, I crawled from the hallway toward the bedroom. I was so weak that I barely made it to the foot of the bed. I planted my face in the carpet and began punching the floor. I exploded with wrath as I cursed God’s name over and over, screaming at the top of my lungs! If God was real, then what was He doing to me? Why was He torturing me like this? Why had He ignored all my prayers? Where had he been hiding all these years? Where was He in that high school bathroom, or with my Mom’s gambling and Dad’s drinking, or when my friends betrayed me or when Amanda left? Where had God been all this time during my deep dive into drug addiction? Or while I cried myself to sleep every night? Where? Where? Where? I wanted to believe that there was a God, a good God that cared about me. But time after time He had failed me and I hated Him for that. But now, what was I supposed to do with what I had just heard?

The floodgates of emotion had been opened and there was no way to control the tears. The weight of anger, fear, hurt, shame and loneliness was crushing me. The memories tortured me, like a permanent visit into Hell and I was trapped with no way out. Everything, from the inner demons of insecurity to every worldly pleasure that failed to satisfy me, came pouring out as I let out deep cries from the deepest part my soul. “I can’t take this anymore! I just can’t. I have nothing left to give. There is nothing left. I want out. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow feeling like this. I can’t do this anymore.” I continued screaming but seemingly out of nowhere, my anger turned into a plea for help, a cry of desperation. “God, if you’re real, if you’re really who you say you are, please, I’m begging you to show up tonight. I can’t wake up tomorrow like this. I need your help, I can’t do this anymore. I need this to be over.”

As I laid there sprawled out on the carpet, the anger that had fueled years of rebellion toward God shifted toward an intense degree of remorse, unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I didn’t want to fight God anymore. I didn’t want to be mad at Him anymore. I wanted Him to help me, to pull me out of the sorrow I was drowning in. I felt like a helpless child, needing God to tell me He loved me and that I was going to be okay. I was at the end of myself and with nothing left to hold on to, in absolute desperation, I let go, in complete and utter surrender. “I’m so sorry, God, I’m sorry for all the bad things I’ve done, all the bad things I’ve said. I’m sorry for all the mistakes I’ve made. I’m sorry for hating you. Please, God, if you’re real, please help me, please just fix me, please clean me up. Jesus, please forgive me of my sins.”

The feeling began in my toes and worked its way slowly up to my legs, into my stomach, through my chest, up my arms and through the top of my head. The best way to describe it was as if I was being filled with something. I had never felt anything like this before. I lifted my head from the carpet that was now soaked from my tears and looked at my hands trying to make sense of the tingling feeling vibrating throughout my body. Next came a wonderful warming sensation that filled my heart. It felt like a fire had been lit inside of me and the heat warmed up my entire body. Then there was the weight, or lack thereof. All that pressure I had been carrying for years – I could feel it being peeled away, layer by layer. The drug addiction, the money problems, the sadness, the years of insecurity and all the immoral things I had done to erase it, everything. Each worry was being removed off my shoulders, one at a time. I could absolutely feel the heaviness on me dissipating. And then I felt an embrace, as if I were a child being held in the arms of a loving parent who was protecting me. All my senses were heightened and each feeling was more overwhelming than the previous. I was absolutely engulfed in the moment, but still able to focus on each feeling separately yet simultaneously. I wasn’t sure what to do, or what to say, but I knew that everything I was experiencing began after I had asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins. And with childlike faith, I looked up to the ceiling and spoke the only words I had left inside, “God…is that you?”

“Yes.”

I immediately jumped to my feet. What had I just heard? Did I seriously hear that voice? I ran toward the bathroom. Standing in front of the sink, I began splashing cold water on my face and smacked my cheeks a few times, trying to calm down. Had I really just heard a voice? I sincerely thought I had lost my mind and that all the emotions were causing me to have a mental breakdown. I was losing it, I was sure of it. I was in such a fragile state of mind and, in desperation, I must have made it all up, right? There was no way to logically explain hearing a voice except that I was so desperate that I convinced myself that God spoke to me. But there was a problem. All the feelings that had started while on the floor in the bedroom were still there. The tingling, the heat, the absence of heaviness weighing on me and a feeling, an amazing yet unrecognizable peaceful feeling that had washed over me. Something was definitely different. It took a few minutes to gather my composure and when I finally did, I slowly tiptoed my way back to the bedroom. Still unsure if all that happened was real or just a figment of my imagination, I dropped to my knees. With my elbows on the mattress, hands clasped in a praying posture at the foot of the bed, I took a deep breath and a long exhale. “God…is this really you?”

“Yes, it’s Me. I’ve always been here and I’ve been waiting for you.”

Nothing in my life up to that point or since has ever sounded so beautiful. There was nothing loud or overwhelming about it, but those words resonated in the deepest part of my being. The voice, God’s voice, was soft and wrapped in gentleness. It was assuring and loving and His words ushered in a flow of tears, but these tears felt different. These were not the tears of bottled up anger, frustrations, depression and sorrow that had all but devoured me. These were cleansing tears washing away what my life had been. There was no more doubting, or wondering, or hoping. In that moment, for the first time, I knew God was real. It was April 22, 2004, and everything had just changed. Everything.

Dear Reader - All it takes is one word to change your life forever, and it can happen at any moment. So open up...and let the light in.