Finding My First Love

Zealous For Yeshua

When I first came to faith I was 9 years old. Natalie, a childhood friend, shared about Yeshua with my sister Teri, and as a nosey little sister I was all ears.

She described God’s holiness and that our sin separates us from God. She said the punishment of our sin is death and that Yeshua took the punishment for us.

My unembellished response was, “I believe that.” It seemed logical enough.

Natalie told Teri that in order to be saved from the punishment she needed to believe with her heart and confess with her mouth that Yeshua is Lord, stop sinning and be baptised.

“God will then give you mercy to live with Him,” she said.

I thought in my heart, “Ok.” It seemed like an easy enough way to get out of the punishment.

And I liked what I was hearing about God and wanted to be closer to Him.

Moma and Daddy felt the weightiness of such a decision and wanted me to wait until I was older to decide.

The Lord used my strong-willed nature and made my little heart zealous to accept and follow this One Who took my punishment.

A childlike faith erupted in me that made me hang on to what even I as a child knew to be true.

My parents’ decision for me to wait only solidified my beliefs and increased my desire to follow Yeshua.

For a year I stubbornly continued to tell my parents that I want to give my life to God and follow Yeshua. A year of pleading was evidence to them that I was serious and not going to let this go.

April 1, 1984, nine days before my 10th birthday, I was allowed to give my life to Yeshua.

My Heavenly Abba

A month later in May, Moma and Daddy called Teri and me to the kitchen in our country home. They told us that Daddy was moving out and that soon they would be divorcing.

It is impossible to express with the written word the love and emotional bond that Daddy and I have. My little heart was shattered that he would no longer be at home.

I remember sitting on my bed and understanding that God had foresight that Daddy’s move and the divorce were coming.

It was God Who had been pursuing me because He knew my world was about to change. For a year He intentionally set His heart on making me His.

With compassion and tears He drew near to me as a 10 year old little girl who felt a deep sense of loss in her life. That night on my bed God became my heavenly Abba.

Healer of My Broken Heart

After several heartbreaks, broken promises and tragedies, at 21 years old I found myself in a hidden depression.

If you were to ask others from that time in my life, they most likely would not have known. I was succeeding in nursing school, and as a dancer I had been trained to perform.

The show must go on.

As a bulimic youth and college minister, I taught about following God while a war raged on inside of me that I was failing to conquer.

When the doors to my room were closed, tears would automatically begin.

After opening up to Linda, my friend’s mother, she asked me to go with her to a conference.

Sitting in the car in the conference parking lot with my friend Missy I confided in her, “I feel like God is mad at me all the time. I know that bulimia is wrong, but I can’t seem to stop.”

Missy was aware of the tragedies, broken promises and ultimately my broken heart.

She responded with wise words that I yearned to hear and, yet, wrestled to believe, “God is not mad at you. He loves you, and He is going to heal your heart.”

Holy Spirit

The woman leading us in worship appeared as if Yeshua were standing right in front of her. I told Linda, “If I could have that with the Lord, then I know I could live.”

She responded, “‘That’ comes with the baptism of the Spirit.”

To be completely honest, I rolled my eyes inside. The “baptism of the Spirit” was not what I was looking for.

The people who proclaimed they had been “baptised by the Spirit” appeared unquestionably bizarre to me.

I merely wanted the intimacy with Yeshua that I perceived the worship leader was experiencing.

As I walked down the aisle with trepidation, I prayed, “God, protect me from the demons in here. Protect me God. Protect me God.”

People were being prayed for, and they would fall over. It really freaked me out.

Nevertheless, as I gazed upon the worship leader interacting with God, I longed for the discernable intimacy she had with the Lord.

Keeping my head down, I petitioned for God’s mercy as I walked into the space near the stage.

A God in Love

In all the worship services I have ever attended, something out of character and amazing happened.

The worship leader set down her microphone, came off the stage and made a straight line toward me. She introduced herself as Lily, and asked me what I wanted prayer for.

I told her that I wanted the baptism of the Spirit.

As she began to pray, I sensed the same presence of God that I usually felt in worship but only stronger.

The magnitude of God’s Presence literally brought me to my knees and then I was lying on the floor.

I began to weep deeply and bitterly in public nonetheless. At the time I honestly did not care that this side of me that I had kept in the dark was now being observed by others.

The cry was a groan deeper than I had experienced in my room.

I told Lily, “I don’t know why I’m crying.” She reassured me and said that it is the Holy Spirit going deep and that He wanted to heal me.

Someone lifted my hair off of my ear and whispered, “The Lord says that you are the Rose of Sharon and that He wants you to read the Song of Solomon.”

That night on my bed I read the Song of Songs and was in awe. My head swirled and then clarity came.

“So, You are not a God Who just wants me to be good all the time but You are actually a God in love.”