Transformation.

       Last week, during our Fall ELN retreat, God gave me a vision that tore down some of my tallest, most resilient walls. This vision was perhaps the most perplexing, beautiful, powerful example of God’s love that I have ever experienced. On the last night of our retreat, the interns were asked to think of a time that we experienced rejection, and then walk through a seven-step healing prayer. I did not think of a specific rejection experience, but instead, thought of all the abuse that had happened to me as a child and a teenager. As we walked through the steps, I saw snapshots of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. I was digging deeper than I ever had before.
      When we got to step 5, we were told to ask God where He was in the incidences. I closed my eyes and lifted my hands towards my Father. I asked, in anger, “Where. Were. You?” Perhaps this is the question I had been holding onto all these years. The wall came down and suddenly, I saw. I saw myself, fifteen, drugged and drunk on the forest floor. I saw a monster on top of me; I felt the pain. And I saw the physical manifestation of Jesus Christ come in anger and fury and throw this man off of me. I saw him pick me up, cleanse me and put me in a white robe and a white veil. His furious love was present now and had been then. I saw scene after scene, all ending the same way. He picked me up, hugged me, stroked my hair and clothed me in white.
I saw myself at the age of ten, waiting in the rain for my parents who had once again forgotten me, and watched as Jesus walked up, sat next to me and held me. He waited with me.
Every instance of abuse, every time I had been wronged, He was there, claiming justice over my heart. Proclaiming redemption over my soul. He held me close, and after all of these visions, spoke to me in a clear, soft voice. “This is how I see you”. Pure. Clean. Whole.
    Today, I feel more free than I ever thought imaginable. After four, long years of recovery and healing, I finally feel whole. I finally feel as though I have been restored. I look onward now, into the future that God has in store, and I see pure, powerful hope. I know that the healing is never over. But I now know where God stands. He stands in Love, forever. He cannot be moved out of Love; he cannot be shaken or swayed. He is Love. In my pain, He is Love. In my regrets, He is Love. In my disobedience, He is Love. And He is in Love with me as I am in Love with Him.