Many years ago I was in the process of having a nervous breakdown. The hardest part about it was that I felt guilty because there was no reason I could see, why I was in this condition, and how could I be so ungrateful when I had everything I wanted in life! Yet I couldn't stop the process from taking me over. I was crying every day, and nothing I did seemed to help.
I tried volunteer work to get my mind off myself, and it only made my condition worse. My husband was like an angel sent from God to me. He never put me down, nor would he accept my condition as being abnormal. He figured I just needed to get out of the house, or...
Anyway, I knew I was very sick. My husband was sent somewhere on duty by the military, and I spent three entire weeks in bed, never getting up for anything except to go to the bathroom. I cried out to God to either take me (I was not afraid of dying) or to do something.
I only knew the love of the Father at that time.
The very next day after I prayed this, I got a knock on the door. It was a neighbor who just moved in next door. She started witnessing to me about how God had set her whole family free from drugs and alcohol. I thought that was wonderful, but I couldn't relate, since I didn't have those particular problems in my life. She invited me to an Amway meeting, and there I was drawn to the speaker and went up to her afterwards and asked her how she could be so happy. I figured it must be that God sent her Amway as a Christian organization and support group, so I decided to go into Amway.
Well ....my husband was furious, and because he wouldn't support me, I quickly got out of it. However, when he was gone, this woman spent an entire week with me in my home talking to me about the Lord. At one point something happened, and I began to receive hope that the Lord could help me. After she left, I noticed a tract that someone had given me with the four spiritual laws, and my eyes were opened to Scripture.
The Holy Spirit started teaching me about Scripture, and soon I was flying high with the truth I had never known before. Ever since then I have been walking closely with God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), and no one could ever take away from me the things He has taught me. The truth certainly did set me free, for after I discovered that God’s power could take care of my problems, I was delivered from the bondage of depression I had been under. I came to see that I had been carrying a false burden of guilt that was too heavy for me, and it was literally driving me crazy. When I realized that it was not my own goodness that I had to develop, but rather that which comes by faith in the power of God and the work of Christ on the cross, I was truly liberated from darkness that threatened to destroy me. Nothing good I had ever done gave me the joy I discovered when the truth set me free. Just this joy alone was enough to convince me of the greatness of the work of God I had heard about but had never understood, which is the death and resurrection of Christ and what that meant for ME!
I started to realize that I was not the only one who was experiencing this enlightenment. At that time the Charismatic Renewal was strong in all the denominational churches, and people who spoke of the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit” were talking about and experiencing something different than I had ever heard of before. All they wanted to do was go to prayer meetings, sing to the Lord, devour Scripture, and pray for others. I thought I was in heaven. It's all I've ever wanted since then. I truly understand what it means to have the “rivers of living waters” flow through you. They satisfy a spiritual thirst that the natural mind cannot understand or explain.
Faith has the ability to “move mountains,” and I just found it amazing to be among people who believe that their every need is met in Christ alone, who know that He is the answer to every problem in life, and who have the fire of the Holy Spirit burning inside them causing them to have the spiritual desire to pray for others, to love others, and to be transformed into the image of Christ. This manifested to me the unity Jesus prayed to the Father about before He left this earth, praying that everyone be likeminded with the “mind of Christ.” And that proved to me to be a miracle in itself.
Cindy J
California
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