AWE

When I was 7 I made my first communion. Disappointment flooded me because I had expected a personal encounter with Jesus. As I knelt and prayed, like I'd been religiously taught, I didn't find Him.

Later that day friends were driving my parents and me along with their daughter through the Palos Verde Peninsula in Southern California. I was looking out the window thinking, "Is that all there is?" when my mother asked me if I was happy. I knew better than to tell the truth so I lied and said, "Yes" with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. For years I did all the right religious things according to the church that man instituted and NOTHING happened except I grew more rebellious and cold hearted. At some juncture I remember wondering what it would take to change my cold hard heart because I wasn't able to.

After having 5 children in less than 4 years I ended up divorced. 3 years into that divorce I found out that the Bible says I'm saved by grace through faith, not works. Right then I received Jesus as my Savior and many things changed but there was still some hardness of heart that I didn't want and I still didn't have a PERSONAL relationship with Him, even though I said I did. Experiencing God was frowned upon. I still don't know why.

Three years after being saved I met my husband. He married me and took on 5 teenagers too. (That's a whole other story). Ten years later God moved us to a little farming town in S.E. Georgia. It was a very different environment from Southern California. He put us in a church with precious people and dried us out really good. He wanted us to be ready to take a good drink of His Spirit. We did but still I could not feel God's love. A MorningStar prophet told me that and as I cried like a baby she wrapped her warms around me because Father told her to hug me for Him. That started a little crack which would later become a full blown fisure.

During the next few years God did things gently with me. Once during a worship time at a church we were involved with I felt laughter bubbling up and since I was the only one who seemed to be experiencing this I tried not to give in believing it was my flesh. However, God finally pursued me until I fell on the floor laughing so hard I was almost crying. Two days later I realized that what I had been sensing within the core of me as a concrete urn with concreted hands holding it in place had totally vanished!

Process was still happening! Then about a year ago I realized that the Bible says I love God because He first loved me and that in order for me to be truly transformed and to really love Him I had to have a revelation of that love--a life changing revelation. I prayed for it and told a group of people it is what I wanted. Finally, all these years after expecting a personal encounter with Jesus (40+) I have a personal, deep relationship with my Lord and it's only the beginning. God used many wonderful people and things including Don Milam's book, The Ancient Language of Eden which touched me deeply, to help me in my process. I'm so grateful for all of them.

Then He directed me to Graham Cooke's ministry and his Cd's have opened up God's love for me in that life changing way I had prayed for. Today I've begun doing a Graham Cooke Journal called Living in Dependency and Wonder and in the introduction he talks about being taken back in a dream to a time of sin when suddenly Jesus stepped into the picture. His shame was incredible but Jesus told him, "Grae," He said gently, "it wasn't your disobedience or your rebellion that grieved Me. Son, I dealt with those issues on the cross. What grieved Me is that you never saw what I wanted to be for you. You never understood what I wanted to give you".


I wept because I didn't understand that either, BUT GOD is opening all that up to me in wonderfully loving new ways. He is wonderful beyond description, He is too marvelous for words and I do stand in AWE of Him and His wonderful process continues. . .