A Look Back For A New Forward | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: A Look Back For A New Forward | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mary Billings
04/30/09
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The pressure on Hannah’s chest felt like something she had never felt. Her creative mind had come to an interesting decision about it. It felt like God’s finger was on her chest lightly applying pressure. What was she to do? She had only been a Christian for a few years and there was so much she did not understand. Compelled to go to a professional, she did something that her timid self didn’t usually do; she went to see her pastor.

After some answering some questions he asked her to do an exercise. “Look back over your life, as far back as you can and recall past sins and ask for God’s forgiveness. When you come across situations that seem darker than the others. Pray this way: “Lord, please free me from all physical, mental, spiritual connection by the blood of Christ.” Hannah and her pastor prayed for sometime, but the heaviness on her chest did not leave her.

This assignment was not a small one. Being in your mid-thirties and not raised in the church could leave quite a trail of sins. So Hannah dug into her past looking over her life like a scientist looking for clues for the latest virus. She discovered discretions that were new to her. The path was long, some places were dark and remote but onward she prayed. Tending to her three children did not seem to slow her down. We could say that she was on a repentful roll.

Hannah continued on for a day and a-half. Finally, she cried out to the Lord. ‘What more do you want me to see?” Just then she had a vision. She panned the city streets and looked down a brick alley. Everything seemed gray and dismal. Looking closer into the alley she saw trash spewed all over, trash cans tumbled over, and behold there was something else. Lying on a heap of trash was a person. Emancipated, dirty, and not too sure if she is alive, Hannah looked closer. Could this be? The person lying on the garbage was her. It took her breath away. “Now what”, she asked the Lord? ‘Yes, that is how dead I am in my sins, but what else do you want me to do with it?’ She thought about this picture of herself through the evening as she put the children to bed.

At the end of the night she laid down her head and thought again about the picture of herself in the alley. Then something changed. Reaching down on bended knee Jesus picked her up and held her in his arms. He started to wipe her face and arms clean. He continued to wash the filth from her. Next he reached into her chest and pulled out her heart. It was shriveled, black as coal, and small. He placed her heart in her hand and started to wipe it clean. Right before her eyes her heart grew into an incredible rosy, beautiful, enormous, tender, vibrant heart. Jesus looked at Hannah. Hannah said to him, “It won’t fit.” He smiled at her as she placed it back into her.

Next she was in a white robe kneeling before him. Jesus placed his hands on her and said, “Well done my child. My seal is upon you.”

The next day Hannah found this passage as she was reading the Bible.
Ezekiel 36:25-26 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” NKJV

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