Meeting the new family

Two weeks later I went to the Dundalk Baptist Centre. It was wonderful! It was just lovely! Never before had I heard grown men and women pray and talk with such love and softness in their voices, as they talked on a one-to-one basis with God. It really touched me. They didn’t rhyme off long impersonal prayers like I had been used to hearing. It was nothing compared to the mass I had attended in years past. I had begun to think there was no peace to be had, and that any peace and happiness that I had had in my life was in the past and gone for good. Listening to these people praying and singing uplifted me. I know this sounds contradictory, but it also had the opposite effect on me, as it reinforced just how much my life lacked grace and beauty, peace and contentment. I felt that every wrongdoing I ever did was written across my face for all to see. I felt my sins so keenly that I thought all someone had to do was look at me to see them. I spent a peaceful day with family and went back to for the Sunday evening service. Again I felt light-hearted and at peace with myself, but also, there was a feeling of brokenness and a deep sadness lying heavily on me.

A day or two later I got my mother’s old Bible and thought I might glance through it. I hadn’t looked at a Bible in years let alone read one but after reading some of the New Testament for a short while I laid my two hands on it and said out loud, ‘This is exactly what I have been looking for all these years!’ I felt full of wonder. All of a sudden I knew that everything in this book was true. In a way that souonds a little incredible, God 'revealed' three things to me. He showed me that the Bible was trustworthy and true, He revealed that everything I need to know that pertains to this life can be found in the Bible, that I don't need to look anywhere outside the Bible for answers and He impressed upon me very stronglly that God is three in one, Father, Son adn Spirit. I know it sounds like such a cliché, but I started to cry with happiness. Up to this point in my life I only just believed that God was real, just enough to be saved, 'faith the size as a mustard seed' as the bible says, but now, for the first time, I felt His real presence in me. This was amazing to me! For years I was told that God was real, but it wasn’t until God choose to show Himself to me, save me and reveal Himself through His word that I knew it for sure!