a Documentary was being held at my church, called "Furious love" (trailer seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyfH3T8HXZg) It was a documentary ( I guess a second documentary) by this guy who I am not sure was a believer in God before he made his movies.
In this Documentary, they traveled to the darkest areas on Earth to test and see if God's love was what it claimed to be, and if His light could be shown even in the darkest, and scariest of circumstances...
They went to places of great war, they went to places where witch doctors were redeemed by Jesus, where a Satanist was delivered from Satanism after she miraculously saw the Light of God,
People think these are things of science fiction, that God is just a fairy tale that people made up because they needed answers, because they needed to design something to give them hope, to bring them out of misery.. that God is just an Earth created figment of the human imagination that is here to give us some kind of "redundant purpose".
People believe that the only joy you can have is things from this Earth you obtain in THIS LIFE, that this is the only thing you have.. this life on Earth, the things in front of you, the material you possess, the circumstances you are handed.. that there isn't more than this..
I, in a way, thought this same or similar thing at one point of my life....
When I became a Christian everyone I knew at that point kind of scoffed at the idea... Not a lot of the people in my life really gave me the time of day, I tried to explain to them what had happened to me, of the things I had seen, heard, felt.. that brought me to Jesus, but the truth was there aren't words to explain in full detail how I went from being in a carnal world of drugs, alcohol and a sense of worthliness to a being who believed in a historical man that rose from the dead, and then transformed my life.
I grew up in a very secular home, my mother was a believer at one point, went on mission trips, the whole shebang but somehow fell away and will not tell me about it. My father i've heard people comment (whether they were joking or not) that he was/is athiest... I don't really know although he always seem/ed to believe in guardian angels.... but anyway
I wouldn't even have known of the concept of God if it weren't for my grandmother who became a Catholic late on in her life and would take me to Catholic church on Sundays when I came to visit her... and I HATED IT! in my young eyes it was; waking up super early to see a bunch of old people, here my grandmother singing off key and watching a bread eating/wine drinking ceremony that I couldn't partake in because evidently I was not "baptized"... so needless to say I would be bored out of my mind, and I would DREAD sundays.
I would also go to bible camps, and the mission would be "memorize scripture and get rewards!" "your homework assignment would be to accept Jesus into your life by the end of the week" and so I would.. to obey the "teachers" and I would go home saying things like "I'm a Christian", "I've been saved" and I could recite random scripture, but none of this meant ANYTHING to me.
later on in my life my dad met my step-mom who went to a Lutheran church, and after they got married it was incumbent upon me to attend with her as I saw it as a way to "bond"... plus there was sunday school and youth group that went on trips, and it was a way to meet cute guys... but during this whole time I never knew what anything meant.. i'd read the bible, I'd say the words, I'd pray the prayers.. but my heart never stirred.. it was all in my mind. I thought since I was such a noble church goer that I should get baptized.. so I did.. at the Lutheran Easter Vigil service when I was 15, and it was a big ordeal, the family came out, we had a huge party.. etc...
but just days before the service when we were meeting with the pastor to go over things I got overwhelmed with doubt, I didn't think I could go through with it anymore, I think the holy Spirit stirred inside me to tell me I was doing it for the WRONG reasons.
Christianity isn't a religion in your head, it's a relationship with Jesus in your heart.
But I would not learn this until I was 19.
after my baptism I stopped attending church.. I started college in 2006 and immediately got sucked into the party scene, the drugs, the booze, the guys with their pick up lines, the themed parties where the skankiest you dressed the more attention you got... and I would fall deeper and deeper into this secular world until all I could see was darkness. I did not know who I was, I wasn't sober half the time, I couldn't remember certain nights or weekends.. I would write things in my Journal that I couldn't recognize myself in a mirror, that I would walk around feeling invisible like I was nothing but a pile of make up strolling about Earth.. and I would be shocked if someone acknowledged my existence for I hardly acknowledged my own.. and I think I was merely waiting to die. I was living for the moment, not caring about the next, not respecting my body, my heart, my mind, my soul and I was just waiting for it all to end. I didn't even know it then.
One day after a pretty heavy partying weekend I went to my ballroom dance class and there was this boy in one of the classes that drew me to him like a moth to flame, I could not take my eyes off him, I wanted so much to talk to him, but even the extrovert social butterfly in me was afraid to.. but finally one day after I smoked a bowl and took a shot and went to school I saw him sitting on campus and walked over to him, he was with 3 other people, 2 I recognized, 1 I didn't... and I started to talk to them, I don't remember what I said to them but today they tell me it was some sort of confession.. I just started confessing to them everything I did, day in and day out.. "I do drugs, I get drunk, I_______(fill in the blank)" I told them I was attempting to fill a missing void in my life with ballroom dance.
I could NOT have been further from the truth of what was going to, and what always wanted to... fill that void.
I casually invited them to ice cream sometime and they accepted my offer and I walked away. What possessed me to be drawn to the four of them like a moth to flame would not be clear until later.
Another crazy party weekend went on, and I could not remember what I did for 72 hours straight.. I woke up on Monday feeling like my body had been hit by a semi truck, I didn't even want to look at my shadow that was being cast on the wall, and I wanted so badly to call someone, to have a friend to talk to, but there was nobody in my life I could truly call friend.
I never felt so lonely...
that Wednesday after 2 zombie droned days I went to my ballroom dance class, and afterwards as I was sitting against the wall putting on my shoes I looked up to see that boy I had made an attempt to talk to on campus, along with the girl that was with him at that time.. they were playing with the giant fan that circulated air around the room and laughing and being joyful and so child-like.. before I knew it my feet were leading my body towards them and before my mind could think my mouth was inviting them to ice cream.. again... Something else was leading my steps, guiding my heart... and these people.. whoever they were.. I NEEDED to be around them.
So we went to ice cream, and I was surprisingly quiet the entire time.. I just sat and watched and listened, sorta detaching myself from the scenario but at the same time taking place... I found out that the light and the Joy they had was all due to their "love" for "Jesus"... the minute I heard them say that I immediately felt ostracized.. I wanted to run away, "I don't do the whole Jesus thing it's not my thing" I said.. "but good for you guys"... and then I sat back into my seat and continued to watch the scenario playout in front of me, these friends conversing, being joyous over ice cream.. glowing in fact.. and I felt something on my face... when I went to brush it away I realized I was crying.. I didn't know I was crying.. but I was crying really hard.. something inside of me was breaking, something unknown inside of me was aching, calling me to it. I had this unrecognizable longing, this undefinable heartache... I didn't know if I wanted to scream, or run, or hide... just then I realized that one of the girls was looking at me.. I immediately felt ashamed that I was crying.. embarrassed even. I apologized to her and said "I don't cry in front of people, this isn't me" and she looked back at me and said "it's ok to cry"
and then followed that with "I won't tell anybody".... later that evening we went back to the girl's place who is now my really good friend Kendra Johnson... everyone sat around the living room of her duplex listening to soft music, drinking tea and talking to each other. She didn't have a tv, there were no drugs, no alcohol present and yet everyone was happier than anyone I had seen in what seemed like a century.
I then heard this comment from one of the boys there Maxx who stated that he was the first person ever to have frozen g0-gurt... and before I knew it I was laughing uncontrollably... rolling on the floor, laughing as if I had never laughed before, and as i laughed this weight completely left my body I felt weightless, peaceful, warm... I laid there on the ground and stared at the light on the ceiling and then turned to the boy on my left who is my friend Brendan Finn and I said "do you ever feel like a chapter of your life is ending and another is beginning?" he hesitated but then responded "yes" and I said "I think that is happening to me right now"... when the boy who initially attracted me to the group Nick drove me home that night he stopped his car in the middle of the street and told me he and everyone else I hung out with that night loved me. I looked at him like he was crazy. I kept telling him "you can't love me, I don't love myself" and when I said those words out loud I started sobbing. I said "You can't love me, I do bad things to myself, I do drugs, I get drunk, I abuse my body in so many ways.. you can't love me, you can't" and he just responded "none of that matters, I do" I was silent the rest of the way home, but when we got to my apartment Nick walked me to my front door and wouldn't leave until the door was safely closed behind me. If he had been any other man in my life at that point in time he would have told me to walk home and would have not cared if I got mugged or raped on the way... but in this small act of walking me to my front door, I knew all his words about loving me, were true.
I decided from that moment on that I might be worth something, if these strangers could find it in their hearts to love me, it wouldn't be until later that i would see that it was the holy spirit inside them that attracted me to them and enabled them to love me so clearly. It would not be until much time later that I would see how much God was always present in my life but how by free will I chose not to acknowledge it. I learned that God and Love were simultaneous for one another, that anything sinful was anything apart from God and anything apart from love.
I would go to churches where there would be thousands of prostitutes and drug addicts repenting and kneeling at the alter seeking redemption, and deliverance from their broken lives, and I would be there with them singing and worshiping the same Lord.. and a woman would come up to ME and tell me truths about myself that she could not have possibly known if it weren't for God telling her or speaking through her.. it would be moments like this that secured my faith in God.. that would break me, sometimes make me fall over, I would be so swept by the spirit in instances that my world would tremble my legs would weaken.. and I knew there was NO turning back...
The day after Nick walked me to my front door, I found out my grandmother was dead.. and in that travesty I had no other place to turn than the only place I had seen love and that was in Nick and my friends I hung out with the night before. So I called him, he hardly knew me but he came over and watched me cry and sob and even gag or vomit because of how upset I was over her passing, and he along with my friend Nikko, just sat there in silence, or prayed silently, or read scripture to me, and I welcomed Jesus into my heart... for real this time, and I felt my whole world shift.. there is NO way of explaining it.
God uses all of us to minister to one another, he built us all for relationship, and he is a God who loves above all things he LOVES.
The Documentary Furious Love could not have depicted this in a more beautiful or more stabbing way, Earth shaking way. Wake up Church, wake up body of Christ, we are His bride and He is always pursuing us... just most of us turn our heads the other way.
To know what I know, to see what i've seen, to explain in more detail everything I tried to inscribe here would take lifetimes, but to experience it for yourself just say YES.
Say I WANT TO KNOW MORE! SHOW ME MORE! SHOW ME WHO YOU ARE JESUS! and it WILL happen. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."-Matthew 7:7
"My heart has heard you say, "Come and talk with me." And my heart responds, "LORD, I am coming."-Psalm 27:8
after watching this documentary tonight I was paralyzed to my seat, I could not stop the tears from eyes from falling, nobody moved in the theater, everyone was still and said nothing, until one voice spoke out.. and that voice said "What now?"
We all have a divine purpose, we must choose to pursue it, a relationship with Jesus is just like any other relationship, with tribulations, challenges, ups, downs, upside downs, inside outs.. it's not always easy.. and having a relationship with Jesus does not secure the safety of you possessions on Earth, not only good things will happen to you, but all the bad things that do happen to you, and that have happened to you, will turn around and be for the better good... just you see.. how many rainbows have you seen after a storm in your life.
I speak the Truth Brothers and Sisters.... PRAISE HIM!
if you have any questions just ask me. I don't know everything, I am not a sunday school graduate, but I have wisdom that could speak truth into certain situations that are called to find me.
I love each and every one of you. God Bless.
