RAISED UP FROM THE RUBBLE
My mom died 1 month after my 16th birthday. Needless to say, I was devastated. My privileged life seemed to come crashing down around me suddenly like the World Trade Center on 9/11. I wandered aimlessly the year after she died. I was looking for something to take away the loneliness and pain. After that year of emptiness, I decided that life wasn’t worth living.
The day I was going to “end it all,” was in May of 1985. As I sat in my living room, I contemplated what I was going to do. Through the tears and sorrow I noticed a small paper sitting on the coffee table in the middle of the room. I picked it up and read these words:
Dear Friend:
How are you? I just had to send you this letter to tell you how much I love you and care about you. I saw you yesterday as you were walking with your friends. I waited all day, hoping that soon you would want me to walk along with you too.
As evening drew near, I painted you a sunset to close your day and whispered a cool breeze to refresh you, and I waited. You never came. Oh yes, it hurt Me, but I just kept on loving you.
As I watched you fall asleep last night, I longed to touch your brow. I spilled moonlight upon your face, trickling down your cheeks as so many tears have. Again I waited, but you did not even think of me. I wanted so much to rush down so we could talk. I have so many gifts for you.
The next day I exploded a brilliant sunrise into the glorious morning for you. But you awakened late and rushed off for the day. You didn’t even notice Me. My sky became cloudy and my tears were the rain. Oh, how I LOVE YOU!
Today you looked so sad and so alone. It makes my heart ache because I understand. My friends let Me down and hurt Me many times too. Oh, if you would only listen. I really LOVE you. I try to say it in the quiet wind as it whispers my love throughout the treetops and spills into the vivid colors of all the flowers. I shout it to you in the thunder of the great waterfalls, in mountain streams, and I compose love songs for the birds to sing for you.
I warm you with the clothing of my warm sunshine and perfume the air with nature’s sweet scent. My love for you is deeper than any ocean and greater than the biggest want or need you may have. If you’d only realize how much I really care.
We will spend eternity together in heaven. I know how hard it is on earth. I know because I was once there. I really want to help you.
My Father cares for you and wants to help you too. Fathers are just that way. So please, call on me soon. Just call Me, ask Me, talk to Me. It is your decision. I have chosen you. No matter how long it takes, I will wait forever because I LOVE YOU!
Your truest friend,
Jesus
There on the bottom of the page was a scripture reference; Psalm 139:13-16. It reads:
“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”
That day, I cried out to God and gave Him my heart. Through the rubble of my emotional wreckage, rose the demonstration of God’s love – Jesus Christ.
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 NLT