HE DELIVERED ME FROM MY STRONG ENEMY

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)