I love reading conversion stories, so I follow Julie D’s link to the Historical Christian blog to read Aimee’s story. I was really captured by Aimee’s reflections on discovering who Jesus is, especially this passage:
As I read and studied scripture over time, one passage about Jesus gradually emerged into my consciousness, and one day I stopped and really read it, from the first chapter of Colossians:
He is the image of the invisible God.
In him all things were created, in heaven and on earth.
All things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.All things were created through him. In him all things hold together.
In my mind�s eye, I began to see a different image of Jesus than I had seen before, an image I have pondered since: not just standing before me personally, but standing above, beyond, and around all creation. In my mind�s eye the whole earth, and all creation, took shape within Jesus and emerged into visibility through him; and yet continued to remain fully within Him, being held together in Him. I saw Christ surrounding all creation with His whole person, His whole being, encompassing it, through His inner life and reality giving creation existence and cohesion within Himself. And another line of scripture sprang into my mind:
In him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)
I saw that all creation, even now, is being held together in and by Christ, within Himself, continuously. He is holding us, the earth, this desk I sit at and computer I write at, the yard outside my window, me and you and all creation, within Himself, and continuing us in being, constantly. Christ is not somewhere else, nor are we apart from Him. We are inside of Him, right now, living and moving and having our being inside of Him.
Previously, I had thought of God and creation as being like two things in two places. We read in Genesis 1 that �the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters,� and think of God above the waters, and the waters in a separate place, below God; we do not think of the waters as being within God, and God all around and encompassing the waters, the waters emerging and having being within God.
We are accustomed to space, to the separation between things in space, and so think of God the same way: the space between us and God. But space itself is held within God (perhaps this is why, as scientists have observed, space is curved); there is no direction we can go that is truly away from God; though we may not see Him, we are always facing Him.
One thing that strikes me about this reflection is how well it answers the new-agey god is everywhere, god is you and god is me mumbo-jumbo. The thing is Christianity has what they claim to have, what so sadly many people think Christianity is lacking and so go looking for elsewhere, only far, far better.
The other thing is how sad it is when I hear a Catholic turned protestant say that they never encountered Christ in the Church, they never received him into their heart in a personal way. What a tragedy! If only they knew, had known, had been taught.
I loved it! So true, huh?
Indeed. It reminds me of my maternal grandmother. She loved watching birds and always saved the stale ends of bread loaves to put out for them. She could complain sometimes, and sometimes that’s what one is tempted to remember of her. But she also had a great love for birds, for books, and above all for God and at the end just longed for him to call her home.