Fullness of Joy

My Mistake

I used to be a very religious person. I was in the Roman Catholic Church, attended Mass every Sunday and sometimes during the week; went to Confession; was Parish Secretary and organized the fund-raising events, my mistake being that this was the only way I could see to serve God.

I had been feeling dissatisfied and empty for some time. We did not have Bibles, we had Mass sheets on which were the Epistle and Gospel for the day. Somehow the things that were standing out from them were the promises of joy and life in abundance, and I couldn't see either of them in the services or the ritual.

One Good Friday morning, one of the more miserable days, I knelt down at the back of the church after Mass and just cried out to God " Lord, there must be more to it than this - please show me that you are there!"

From that time on, I felt as if I were travelling along a road. I read in the Catholic newspaper that our Bishop was speaking on the Charismatic Renewal in a nearby town, so I arranged to attend. I listened with growing excitement and when he said he was arranging a Renewal Day in Milford Haven and I decided to go. There was a song sung there that day based on Isaiah 61 which opened up the Bible to me and I went out and bought one - I did not realize then, that at that meeting, I had been baptised with the Holy Spirit. Some time later I moved and of course, changed church. The priest there had started prayer meetings where he encouraged us to seek God for the gifts of the Holy Spirit - not very successfully, as there was a definite resistance from some of the participants who attended because they felt they 'ought' to be there.

I went to my priest, who by this time wondered what on earth he was supposed to do with me. He said, "Why don't you become an intercessor". I replied that I did not know what an intercessor was, so he told me that I should make a list of people to pray for and spend half-an-hour a week praying for them in the church, but I was not supposed to pray for myself. So I armed myself with a list, made my way to the church and knelt to carry out this new duty! I started on the first name, which happened to be one of my sons but as I opened my mouth nothing came out but "Glory be to the Father, glory be to the Son, glory be to the Holy Spirit....." and this went on for two and a half hours and it hardly seemed like five minutes. A whole new way of life had opened up for me - it was wonderful!

You can see from my testimony that I have come a long way from there, but it is only recently that I crossed the line of total 'all or nothing' commitment.

The reason I am telling you this is that, within the traditional churches, we are generally not taught that we need to make a personal commitment to Jesus Christ before the power of God is released into our lives. We hear of people being 'saved' or 'born again', not realizing that we also need this to happen to us. Secure in our habit of church attendance and duties, we are unaware that this is not sufficient to ensure eternal life with Christ.

We have to make the step of faith and ask Jesus to forgive us for all the things we have done wrong, ask Him to take control of our lives and to bring us out of the kingdom of darkness into His kingdom of light.

I thank Him with all my heart that He showed me the way and I hope my sharing this with you, will encourage you and open up a whole new way of life for you!

Joy