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What Does Salvation mean to a Christian?
by Marijo Phelps Could I say that life was good? It should have been. I really did enjoy working as an RN after several times of changing majors in college I finally found one which "fit". I loved biology, science and people. I remember back to the time I was five and my sister was in the hospital for a prolonged period of time. She had polio before the vaccine and before the big epidemic of 1952 and no one was sure how to treat her disease. We came to visit and she was sobbing. Seems that no one answered her call light and she wet her bed, she was then told if she didn't stop crying her mom and dad would never come to see her again. As she sobbed out her trauma to us it became permanently etched in my heart and mind. This was the main reason I finally ended up in my chosen career of nursing. I remembered and wanted to make a difference for my pediatric patients, one that my sister hadn't been fortunate enough to have with her nurse. I was married to a guy I thought the world of but we were partying too much. We drank each and every day. When we tried to quit for a week we made it only a day and a half. Wine coolers, booze in the blender with ice cream calling it desert, mixed drinks loud music and friends who did the same. I was a mean drinker and would zero in to slice up "friends" with my tongue. The next morning I always felt terrible about what I had said the night before. Tom and I had lived together 2 years before getting married and had been pretty heavily into smoking marijuana too but had quit that when he decided to go back to school. He noticed that friends who were doing any kind of drugs lacked serious motivation in college. He was maintaining a straight A average. I was a professing atheist. In retrospect I was professing "there is NO God" a bit too loudly. Our marriage was stressed with me working 6 days a week, all the drinking we were doing and the fact that I became a "mean" drunk. One of the gals I worked with was a born again Christian. She knew not to talk to me about her Jesus but would tell me about her friends at church and what they did. It was evident from her smile and care for her patients that she knew how to love. She patiently listened to me telling her how I thought that smarter beings from other planets came here and did things on earth with and for the people who lived here. They taught us etc. She would always gently tell me that she hadn't found what I was talking about as truth. I got to the point where I was really seeking some answers. I had been into Eastern religions, transcendental meditation, astrology, and things which were really into the occult. It came to the point where I was praying to the god I didn't believe existed. Crying out and telling him I had made a real mess of my life and asking him to forgive me, to take over the control of my life as I was really making terrible choices yet never seemed able to change. The Lord Jesus Christ met me where I was. To say he changed me would be a total understatement. I sensed a lifting of a weight that had pressed me down for years. I got a Bible and began reading, devouring the Word. Within 3 weeks the Lord had pulled me feet first out of the bottle of alcohol I lived in without going through any withdrawals. I was a serious alcoholic and totally set free. I began to be kind to my friends. My mouth which had been filled with profanity became cleaned up. I quit swearing and realized I had a choice in vocabulary. God began showing me a bit of my feminine side that I had lost touch with for years. I actually bought a couple "granny" dresses at a garage sale and enjoyed wearing them. At first I wouldn't go to church but attended a Bible study that the gal at work invited me to. I learned and asked dozens of questions and studied every spare moment. God helped me to enjoy my best friend's infant son. I remember spinning around the front yard holding him and singing to Jesus. I was clean and forgiven. Jesus Christ had set me free and made me new, different, whole. I began to get a glimpse of the fact that He really did have a plan for me and purpose. That was now over 36 years ago. Walking with the Lord has been a challenge and dynamic that I never regret. I am still learning and growing. Coming to salvation through the shed blood of Jesus Christ is the single most incredible things which I have ever experienced. It was His sacrifice on Calvary which paid that price I couldn't pay. He is God and sinless so He could effectively die in my place for all the times I had broken His heart. I had to ask His forgiveness, believe He was God and accept His death on my behalf. Salvation, can there ever be a more perfect love than that which Jesus has for you and for me? My blog is: http://myincrediblelord.blogspot.com/ (C) Marijo Phelps all rights reserved. Use with proper credits. About Self Saved by His grace in 1974, from 9 years of professing atheism into His loving arms. RN for 23 years, missionary with YWAM then statistical analyst for Every Home for Christ over 9 years. Living with my husband in the middle of a mountain meadow. GRIN! Wanting to spread the good news Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |