It is, with the deepest gratitude that I stand before my ‘tormentors’! Such a soft feeling now, when the wounds have healed, and the scars are replaced by new growth! When the heart is filled with love and resonates with His words, “I will not leave you nor forsake you because you are precious in my eyes.”
Three times they stamped me “guilty”. There is no way that I can deny that I did anything wrong, I am only human and I reacted to my circumstances in a fully human way. But from where I fell, face down, into the chasm of wrong-doing , I looked up…. and saw.
On the one side there were these people, former friends, who were looking gleefully into my anguished state, and on the other side, A Light, A Presence, A Calm. My Lord! Jesus looked at me, straight into my eyes, straight into my soul, with the deepest love and with outstretched arms.
My friends looked on as if to say, look at those unholy stains, there is no going back, there is no redemption, just dirt and depression, this is the way!
Quietly, but firmly, My Lord said to me, “I Am the Way, I am the Truth, I am the Life!”
And I chose to live, to live His Way, to live His Life, to live His Truth. I chose to surrender before His all-encompassing forgiving love. Once that decision was made, a huge chasm opened and His love caressed me and His happiness filled me. I was renewed. Into that empty shell of my life He began to write a new lesson in living! Gently He purged the former me with the power of His life-breath, His Holy Spirit empowered my every tentative step back into living a life of freedom, into a life full of forgiveness and a life throbbing gently with His peace.
Bringing people to me, who radiated His gospel truths in their simple everyday lives, He gently threw back the curtains of yesterday and invited me into the sunshine-kissed way of the Cross. Life was not that proverbial bed of roses but every thorn brought a new opening, a new way of thinking and the essential freedom to choose to live! Embroidered into His Body of Life with the threads of His Precious Blood, I let Him write anew, through me,
“Father Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. Into your hands I commend my spirit.” Mother Mary, My mother, thank you for teaching me to love your son. Amen
Written by Anju Vincent