The highest point of my life and the major turning point in my life are one and the same and both occurred at the lowest point in my life. Twenty six years ago, after a lifetime of abuse and abandonment, constant fear, deep shame, and an all consuming self-hatred, I finally came to know true love.

Yes, a man came into my life. A man who swept me off my feet and lifted me up. A man who accepted me just as I am with all my flaws and fears and failures…and sins. A man whose love is truly and unreservedly unconditional and never-ending. A man who set my heart on fire, and my soul free.

Yes. It was Jesus. He rescued me when I was at the uttermost rock bottom of my life. I had no home, no job, and despite many desperate attempts to find love – no significant other. I spent weeks curled up in the fetal position on a bed in my sister’s apartment crying. I felt utterly powerless and completely alone. 

I’d spent years trying to find healing and wholeness through new age practices, counselling and therapy, books on Jungian psychology, college courses, and a search for the perfect mate and the perfect job. I’d read countless self-help books about the importance of loving yourself, but every one left me feeling angry and frustrated because they never told you how to do it! Nothing I tried filled the boundless empty sucking void inside of me.

At the age of 46, I had come to the end of my own wisdom and my own strength and self reliance. I’d done everything right according to the wordly wisdom of the time. I didn’t know how to go forward. I was baffled. I lay curled up in a ball in the depths of despair for two weeks. Finally I did the only thing left for me to do. I began to cry out to God for help.

Gradually I began to emerge from my cocoon of hopelessness. I joined Alanon and then began attending Codependents Anonymous meetings. I learned the 12 Steps of AA and began to follow the program and worked the Steps one at a time with a sponsor, focussing especially on Step Three: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.” It was difficult for me to “let go and let God”, but it was all I knew to do so I persevered.  I learned to pray every day, starting with “Help me,” every morning and “Thank You,” every night.  I struggled to believe that God heard my prayers until I began to notice that when I prayed for help or for what I needed, my prayers were often answered. God heard me!

Life did not change immediately. I still suffered with intense bouts of anxiety and self-hatred, and continued to make the same mistakes over and over again. But because of the encouragement I was receiving through the answers to my prayers, I was able to keep plodding – and praying – on. Gradually I became more and more aware of the presence of God with me and around me. 

One afternoon I went out for a walk after a late winter storm had just passed and the sun had returned. As I circled the athletic field, I was captivated by the beauty of a line of clouds sweeping along a ridge of mountains on western side of the Cowichan Valley. The clouds were dragging brilliant white trails of hail along the mountainsides which gave the impression of angels flying along in a procession with their trains touching down on the earth. The sun was beginning to set and created a soft pink hue which settled on them. The beauty of that scene took my breath away and I stopped in my tracks and exclaimed, “Oh God! Your creation is so magnificent!” Lofty words, I know, but they seemed appropriate for such a spectacle.

And as I stood there in awe on that wide open field I heard a voice respond: “Are you not one of My creations?” I fell down on my knees in the grass and began to weep. As small and shameful and as wretched as I felt I was, God Himself was telling me that, as one of His creations, I was magnificent too. 

While working through Step 2, “Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity,” I began attending an Anglican Church nearby where four months later I came to know the love of Christ, which the Bible says is so great it surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:19). It happened in the midst of a large group of 30-40 bikers who came to speak to us one Sunday. I found out laterhey belonged to The Christian Motorcycle Association. 

During the service, a couple of the men got up and shared their stories and about their ministry. One of them gave a short sermon. He recited a couple of verses from the Bible, Romans 10:9-10: “…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” He called them the TNT of the Bible.

Those words were TNT to my heart and soul! Something began to happen inside me as he spoke. I suddenly had an awareness of the Spirit of God moving among us – and in me! He then invited us all to pray with him telling us to close our eyes and bow our heads, and to raise our right hands in the air if we wanted to know Jesus. I wanted to know Jesus but I didn’t want anyone to see me raise my hand. Shame was still holding me back. But the biker preacher gently reminded us that everybody’s eyes were closed, and so slowly I raised my hand. 

He invited us to repeat after him an invitation to Jesus to come into our hearts and lives. And as I said those words, intense heat – and what felt like love – started to flow down through my arm and spread through my body, penetrating into my heart – which felt like it was about to burst. For the first time in my life I felt truly and profoundly loved. I wept uncontrollably out of joy and wonder. I knew in that moment, “Jesus is alive!” I’d always wondered how the church people around me could love and worship some guy who died on a cross 2,000 years ago, but now I understood – and all I wanted to do was worship Him too! 

The love that poured down on me and into me that day has never left me. It has sustained me through all the trials and tribulations I’ve experienced in the past twenty five years – and there have been many. It has healed me and held me and comforted me and guided me throughout a long and wonderful journey of letting go of the past and learning to walk with Jesus, trusting Him in every circumstance. 

He lifted me up, and has never let me down.

Psalm 40: 1-3

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he inclined to me and heard my cry.
He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
    out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
    making my steps secure.
He put a new song in my mouth,
    a song of praise to our God.