There was a bright light in the middle of a black, dark space. A voice said, “Imagine Him looking at your eyes, He isn’t telling anything; He was looking just straightly at you.” Suddenly, a familiar face emerged in front of me. It was Jesus.
This was the encounter I did not expect today – even for the retreat where I opted to spend my weekend with. I have been from several retreats when I was still studying, but never had an encounter with my Lover and Number One Fan as powerful as this.
It happened when I opened my hands and prayed.
It happened when I opened my hands and prayed.
“He embraces you. He touches your hair. You feel the rhythm of His heart. You listen to Him speak right in front of your ears.” I experienced the love of Jesus and felt his embrace as clearly as Ate Mara uttered these phrases. I talked to Him, asked Him several things, bargained with Him, made a deal with Him, and uttered a vow to Him. This lasted for minutes, and the sound of worship praises playing in the background made my encounter with Jesus even sweeter.
I sobbed uncontrollably, dampening the band of tissue on my hands. Well, He knew everything about me. My life goes naked in His eyes. He knew me from the top of my head to the sole of my feet, and I couldn’t hide anything from Him. He knows my weaknesses, my insecurities, my guilty pleasures, my failures, my unfinished businesses, my broken promises, my unfulfilled covenants, my mistakes and mishaps. Above all, He knows my sins. He knows my bondages. DESPITE THESE, He opened His arms to me. He embraced me. He loved me. He allowed me to feel the rhythm of His Heart, and he fine-tuned my heartbeat to His in order to calm me and tell me, “Sssshhh. I love you.”
It amazed me how He gave me answers promptly and simply to questions on career, family, and love, among other things. There were Yeses, Nos, and It’s Up to You. I wished I had a RAM in my head that could record and store our conversation verbatim, but I only had a limited storage capacity in my brain. Yet again, even though I could not remember the exact words He had uttered, I could vividly remember how He made me feel during that moment. I was forgiven, I was set free, I was loved. How priceless.
All the more I felt his embrace when Ate Lissy prayed over me. This was the time I cried – really cried, in all the sense of the word – neither because I was in pain nor I was hurt, but because I was set free. The mercy and goodness of Jesus Christ was simply overwhelming you couldn’t contain it in silence. You really had to let it out.
I can now say I am growing up, but never growing old. Age is just a number that tells how long we have lived our life on Earth, but it doesn’t measure the love of our Jesus Christ that sustains us everyday while we are alive. I believe we are made not to count years, but to count how we have loved ourselves, others, and God. Most importantly, God knows no age for people who want to seek Him and want to find Him. I believe people whose hearts are open for genuine love and service always remain young and fresh. I know many of them; some of them are even amongst God-sent angels to me.
I pray that I sustain this and cling onto my promises as Jesus reveals His plans to me everyday of my life. Just as even for the times I have questioned, for the times I have doubted, for the times I have broken vows, I have felt His Love. As it has been said, “Where sin abounds, Grace abounds even more.” I have received that grace, as sinful as I am… as unworthy as I am.
