Catherine's
Story - I Was blind but now I see
I
am the eldest of four and have lived in Lewis all my life. I went
to church with my granny as a child and stopped going when she
died, I was about ten years old then.
I
met my husband when I was eighteen and we were married three years
later. We now have two sons aged 17 and 14.
My
life was good, I did the usual weekend stuff e.g. going out to
pubs, looking for parties, having a good time.
I
had a hip replacement in Jan 2003 and during the recovery time
I remember thinking about my life and thinking is this all there
is to life and is there something else I can do.
Guess
what? God heard my thoughts! And this is what happened.
I
came under conviction of sin in August 2003 although at the time
I didn’t know what it was, I felt the guilt for sin in my
life, and knew I had to say sorry to God. This went on for a week
and all the time I was telling God how sorry I was and then the
guilt just left. I didn’t know where it went, I only knew
it had.
There
were a couple of people in my life who I needed to forgive, and
I did so.
In
November I heard a song by the singer Dido called ‘Life
for Rent’. I started to think about the words of the song
– ‘but if my life is for rent and I don’t learn
to buy, well I deserve nothing more than I get. ‘cos nothing
I have is truly mine’. I had to buy the CD which I listened
to over and over again. I was asking, ‘is my life for rent?
Who am I renting from? What do I need to buy? The line- ‘I
deserve nothing more than I get’ – made me think about
Hell. ‘Nothing I have is truly mine’, we can’t
take anything with us when we die.
Looking
back I now know what the Lord was telling me through that song.
I had to buy the truth that was, believing and trusting in Jesus
Christ. If I didn’t then I deserved nothing more than I
got.
One
day as I talked with a friend who had recently been converted
she started talking about the Bible. My Bible knowledge was very
limited so she said she would buy me a Bible for Christmas. I
realized, as Christmas was getting closer that I was looking forward
to getting a Bible.
Christmas
came and went and I didn’t get my Bible. Maybe she would
give it to me for my birthday, which is the week after Christmas.
No,instead she took me out for a birthday meal!! Yes, I know,
very kind but all I could think about is where’s my Bible?
Every
night, for about two weeks, when I was making dinner I asked God
“where is my Bible”. I have always believed in God,
I knew about Him but I had never heard anyone’s testimony.
I didn’t realise that we could actually know Him and have
a relationship with Him, that if we drew near to Him, He would
draw near to us!
At
the end of the two weeks my son came home from school wit a Gideon’s
New Testament. He said, ‘look what I got at school mum’
as he handed me the book. I could hear God saying to me ‘There
is your Bible Catherine’. I put it on the table deciding
to read it later.
That
weekend I was tidying the house and getting things ready for the
next day when I hurt my back. I finished what I was doing and
went to bed. On Monday morning I could hardly get out of bed with
the pain. I had to cancel my childminding work for the week.
I
managed to get my own children ready for school and I sat next
to the table where I had put the Bible. I picked it up and started
to read, I was only reading it so that I might learn something
that I might talk about with my friend. I loved it; I couldn’t
put it down, so easy to read in plain English I didn’t know
such a Bible existed!
I
read it all day Monday and all day Tuesday. On Tuesday I felt
something move in my heart (I think now it was my soul coming
alive as it was being fed with the Word of God).
When
my husband came home I wondered if I should tell him what I had
felt that day. I argued with myself, tell him – no don’t
tell him, he’ll think I’m crazy having just picked
up the Bible the day before. Anyway I couldn’t keep quiet
and blurted out ‘I felt Gods love today’. ‘Where
did you feel it’? He asked. ‘In my heart’ I
answered and that was the end of the conversation!
I
kept reading for the rest of the week, and by the following Tuesday
I had reached John 5:42 – ‘But I know you. I know
that you do not have the love of God in your hearts’. I
remembered the conversation from the week before, and when Jesus
was talking to the Pharisees, it was as if he was speaking to
me. I felt so hurt that I closed my Bible and asked Jesus ‘how
can you say that to me? That hurt and this is not how you’re
going to get me’!
I
went into the kitchen where my husband was, he started talking
to me but I wasn’t listening. All the time I was talking
to and questioning Jesus. When my husband was finished talking
I said ‘I see’, that covers most answers when you
are not listening to someone. When I said it a line from the song
Amazing Grace came to mind – ‘I was blind but now
I see’.
I
had not known what these words meant until that moment, and then
I felt my heart open and filled with Gods love, peace and joy.
All this kept pouring into my heart, it felt like it was swelling.
I thought it wasn’t going to stop, my heart felt like it
was going to burst! It was so amazing! It was as if God was saying
‘now you have my love in your heart’.
I
had this wonderful, joyful feeling for three weeks, I couldn’t
sleep I was so happy, it was a whole new level of happiness! I
had to tell everyone. I wanted everyone to have this I couldn’t
keep quiet. For me this was, and still is, the most amazing experience
ever!
I
was 36 years old when I was converted on 27th January 2004.
I
didn’t want to go to church, I told God “You are my
teacher, you can teach me”. In March God gave me the desire
to go to Church. I had to ask God if it was ok for me to wear
jeans to Church. He showed me 1 Samuel 16:7, ‘The Lord does
not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward
appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart”.
It
wasn’t long after that I started going to the mid week service.
I wanted more of God; I needed to find out as much as I could,
I felt Sunday to Sunday was too long to wait! I went forward to
The Lords Table in August. It was what I knew I had to do; I don’t
think I told my friends I was going to go. It was a case of blinkers
on no distractions!
He
is an awesome God and He is our God!
So
much has happened since then in my walk with God and so many amazing
things! It’s the best life, it’s a busy life, and
He is the way the truth and the life!
