It was April 7th, 2009 when I was involved in a semi-truck roll over accident.
I received very few injuries, a few stitches in my head behind my ear and a tiny scratch on my left shin. Instead of being in a physical coma, the Lord has had to awaken me out of a spiritual one and this additional time has allowed me that opportunity. I awoke today having been given 4 additional years to be with my beautiful family to which I am eternally grateful. I am thankful nearly every minute, that I am alive, and that I had been spared. I have been permitted to tarry for a wise purpose, maybe only known to God, but for this purpose do I still seek those answers.
I have not always treated well the days of my probation and in some regards, have floundered during these past few years. In some definite ways, I exchanged folly for godliness but in others, yet I had truly not changed my stripes completely. I had not become the new creature, in Christ, that I could have become. I had ceased to care and then subsequently, the spirit of the Lord had withdrawn from me until a great fear had come over me. This past month and a half, I decided to make a change that would alter my course for the better and that this would be the ultimate life changing decision that I feel that my father in heaven would have me do. That I would confront my past in a way that I had never done prior. That I would not only hold fast to the decisions that I had made to be valiant and to remain on the Lord's side, but that I should also have every right and authority to be there acting in full favor of the Lord and under no hypocrisy.
I walked the streets of my neighborhood allowing my soul to be harrowed up in unfortunate events that became my story and that in turn, became my past, and that those errors in judgment and outright rebellion against God and against the things I knew to be true, I found myself in the gall of bitterness and with a dark cloud surrounding me. My soul ached and my eyes were gushing with tears as I described to the Lord my sincerest hopes that perhaps the destroying angel could pass me by and that perhaps I could be redeemed, for I had feared that I too, may have committed the unpardonable sin of denying the Holy Ghost, and sinning against the greater light of knowledge, which I had been so entrusted to bear up in a more triumphant manner. My thoughts brought me all the way through my neighborhood and I found myself pleading and yearning in a way that I previously had never done. The very thought of not being able to return home was demoralizing to me.
I made a choice, and if successful. It should completely release me from the bands of death and hell and abolish the evil one and his hold on me, forever! I came home and recounted to my wife about the things that I had done and about the awful state I had gotten myself into and confessed to her my desire to make this a permanent life long decision and I confessed to her of my fears and my worries. I let her hold me as I rid my eyes of all of my tears until they would no longer flow; they had dried up. We held each other. We prayed together. We resolved to stay together and to be a forever family and that we would work harder to find ourselves once again, in the temple of the Lord and to know that we should be faithful to those covenants and that we would be faithful to each other!
Where I have trembled because of my iniquities, Satan now trembles as he sees one of the weakest saints upon his knees.
I do not glory in having a colorful life but having gone to the furthest of the outer limits and have charted my course towards the great brightness of the heavens at the heart of God's love, I will pick up some stragglers along the way and show them the peace that can surely come so long as my repentance is a faithful and an enduring one.
Today, nearly 4 years after the crash, I declare my independence from the bands of death and of hell. Today, I square up with the Lord and covenant with him that my mistakes should be a thing of the past. That the sins that did so easily beset me are no more and that I dare not offend the Lord. I have set my back towards my days of err and of self-deceit.
I no longer droop in sin. I no longer give cause to the evil one that he may pluck from me the joy and happiness that truly is mine to have, if I would allow it and I do.
I am no longer reminded about my past by anyone that matters but I may remind the devil and all of his angels about their futures and that I will have no part in it. They can count me out. Table for the 1/3 of the hosts of heaven previously cast out now minus 1...
I would like to thank one of my heroes; and thank Nephi for his words as they were recorded and numbered to be 2 Nephi 4:17 til the end, I should think... and also for James. For his words during his short sojourn upon the earth. He taught me to not be double minded. To not try and be of the world and still be of God. I am guilty of the many things, he wrote, in James chapter 4 but as of this Sunday coming, I am guilty of those things no longer!
It is my solemn testimony that God lives, and that Jesus is the Christ. NO force beneath the earth or on the earth can remove me from my place. I have buckled myself in the chair. If I need to use the restroom, I may just hold it. I want NOTHING to remove me from this seat again. Next stop, Eternity!
I say hereby write this and testify to you of these things, and that these words are true and faithful, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!
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