JILL SOTO
He
sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He
delivered me from my strong enemy, from those who hated me, for they
were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the Lord was my support. He also brought me out into a broad
place; He delivered me because He delighted in me. (Psalm 18:16-19)
In
my earliest memories I can recall feeling God’s presence. He was
always swirling about me with a tantalizing glory that created a
longing deep inside of me to be chosen. When I was young my parents
would often debate the topic of God’s existence. My mother would
talk about heaven and hell and the Old Testament prophets who had
been swept up into the heavens to see God’s glory and my
unbelieving father would use his intellectual arrogance to belittle
her faith. Still, God was carving out a place in my heart of deep
hope and longing for a walk with Him that would be full of adventure.
I wanted to see God and experience the intricacies of His nature, and
deep within, I always felt He created me just for that purpose.
When
I was a young girl I often wondered if God would choose to reveal
Himself to me. Sometimes I would sit quietly in the sun porch and
pray, “Jesus, please let me see You.” I would squeeze my eyes
shut as tight as possible and then I would suddenly open them, hoping
to see Him standing right in front of me. I wanted to know Him. I
wanted to look at Him. Time after time I would squeeze my eyes shut
with all of the faith I could sum up and open them only to find that
He was still choosing to be quiet and invisible.
These
longings to know God remained steadfast in my heart throughout my
youth, but somehow in my young adult years they were dimmed as
curiosity led me into compromise. My life took turn after turn, from
one poor decision to the next, and before I knew it I found myself
deep in darkness. I remember waking one day with an acute awareness
that I had thrown everything away. I felt the weight of my sin
hanging on my frame like a sopping wet rag and I understood that I
had traded my godly inheritance for what now felt like unbearable
shame and guilt. For a long season I walked around in this depressive
state. The crazy thing was that I continued to feel God’s presence
in the same way I felt it as a child. He still hovered around me and
watched my every move. The sad difference in our relationship was
that I no longer hoped to see Him there when I opened my eyes,
because now all I had were ashes and stains to give to Him. Often I
would quietly cry for what I had thrown away.
My
darkest hour was truly the beginning of my Christian experience
because it was in that hour that I looked to the heavens for a God of
mercy who would take me just as I was. It was in that hour that He
finally answered the prayers of my childhood and revealed Himself to
me. The old familiar longing in my heart had become an incessant
ache. Stirred deep within my heart, I became overwhelmed with emotion
as memories of pain flooded my mind. Rather than fight the emotion, I
leaned into the experience of God and I closed my eyes. The tears
streamed down my face as the longing to be one of His children ached
so deeply that I could almost hear it crying out. I sat quietly with
God and let the emotions of my pain and longing be exposed before His
eyes, and slowly a strange vision began to emerge in my mind’s eye.
With clarity, I could see myself standing on the shore of an ocean,
and falling from above through the dark night sky I saw an enormous
gleaming double edged sword piercing the darkness and ripping through
the dividing veil between the physical realm and the heavenly realm.
It was bursting through the heavens to pierce my heart and take hold
of me. Terrified, yet completely surrendered, with arms outstretched
and head lifted high, I prayed for God to save me.
Within
seconds the Sword of God pierced my heart with His love and
ownership. He lifted me up and I sensed weightless freedom as I gazed
at His beauty in utter fear and awe. As the vision continued I sensed
a miraculous ability to forgive those who had harmed me because I
knew that facing God’s love would be far more terrible than facing
my own bitter heart. Slowly the vision began to fade and release me
from its grip. A moment later, I found myself to be in an open field
and I could see Jesus holding me, cleaning my wounds and praying for
me to be revived. I was able to see Him. The childhood longing of my
heart was answered as God came crashing into my sin-sick life to
repair me. He gave me eyes to see Him so that I could understand how
to relate to Him and interact with Him.
For
months and years following this experience, Jesus regularly visited
me with His presence and led me through stages of healing and love.
He placed me in a season of deep rest, and He kept me in that place
until I understood that His purpose for creating me was so that He
could delight in me. He showed me how to remove the old garments of
shame and replace them with His robes of righteousness. Jesus
redeemed every portion of my life that had been drenched in sin and
He traded His beauty for my ashes.
The
desire of my heart continues to be that I would see and experience
God so I can tell others the magnificent stories of His beauty and
love. I believe that Christianity is not to be a religious routine,
but rather an experiential journey of blood, sweat, tears and
laughter as we find the heart of God hidden within the trials and
joys of life. (shred of my journal 2005)
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