Born again!

My sister did indeed ask me to go to the meeting with her and I accepted. I thought ‘why not? I might just get some comfort there.’ I had never been to one before, didn't know what a "Gospel" meeting was. and the only concern I had at the time was that I would bump into someone I knew (the shame of it!). So three days later, on the Friday, I went. There were quite a few people there and the lady who owned the house made me feel very welcome.

If I had been uprooted and planted on the moon, I couldn’t have felt more ill at ease. I sat on an armchair and waited. The meeting started and a man, Clifford Law, began to talk about the Bible and God. He talked about something I needed to hear. As an athiest I didn't believe in Adam and Eve and the fall of mankind. I didn't believe God created the world. But as this whole evening was what you might say, orchestrated by God, and God knew this about me, this is where I had to start. I had to hear the truth about God's love and how he created us for HImself, created us to be perfect and how, in time sin entered the world. I had to be taken through the baby steps so I could better understand God and us humans and what He did to bring us back together to Himsself. The speaker told us all about Jesus and why He came and died on the cross for us. He explained how much God loves us and how much of a sacrifice the death of His Son was to Him. I never thought of it in quite this way before. I had never thought of it as being real before now, to think somebody, let alone God, would do that for me, die for me, well it’s humbling. But not just die for me. He explained that when Jesus was on the cross, already beaten and whipped, God the Father poured out His wrath, His anger onto Jesus for every single sin I ever comitted against God. Every sin I had committed in the past and every sin I was ever going to commit. Yes, God punished Jesus instead of me so when I die I will go straight to heaven because God will not punish twice for the one sin. He will not punish Jesus and me. No. He punished Jesus for my sinfulness and when God sees me, He sees Jesus' holiness on me so to speak. He sees Jesus righteousness when he looks at me so there is no portugary, no hell: I go straight to heaven. When he was finished another man got up. His name was Willie Fenton, and he too gave a talk about the Bible, God and His Son, Jesus. He mentioned that the evening before a man had dropped dead in his office in Newry. He was only thirty, about the same age as Sean was when we lived in Newry. Hearing him talk of that man's death brought all the pain back to me. When I thought that I was going to find any comfort there I was sorely mistaken. I spent most of the evening upset and on the verge of tears, I felt awful. Clifford said that he was going to confess his sins to Jesus and if anybody wanted to join in, they were welcome to do so by repeating silently after him. He started by saying that he was an awful sinner. I thought about some of the things I had done in the past, things I had long buried with the hope of forgetting, things I was desperately ashamed of. I said in my mind to God that I too was a sinner, and I really meant it. Then he said that he was very sorry, and in my mind I told God I was sorry too for all my sins. Everything he said sounded very heartfelt and genuine and, in turn, I was very genuine in my confession, although I didn’t realise the implication of what I had done until many weeks later.