In recent days, I have listened to many stories of ex-Muslims who have been transformed by encounters with Jesus…sometimes in dreams, sometimes in person, and sometimes even in death. Every meeting with Jesus that has led to profound change, has ended with an instruction…

”Tell your story!” 

Of course, we have all have a story to tell because, every time we meet Jesus and He speaks, He sets us on course for a whole new life…a new season… and a new episode in our own story…

…and God still speaks. I know He speaks because I’ve heard His voice…not in my ears from the outside but in my spirit on the inside, many times.  He has told me things that have shaken me…changed my thoughts…and beliefs…and altered the direction of my life. So, I want to tell you some bits of my story…

…in episodes…not in one continuous tale but in a series of encounters on specific occasions that corrected…adjusted…explained…and instructed me…by a loving Father who is determined to keep me on track until I reach my destination…forever… in His realm…with Himself. 

My story may seem disjointed. I tell the highlights as I remember them because each one may touch you,  my reader, in some significant way. 

My first story is about a tiny child who went to Sunday School long before she could read or write. God was preparing me for a lifetime of living and growing under His care and authority. My earliest memories of those times on a Sunday morning were…learning to recite the Lord’s Prayer. 

Why was this so important to me? This seemingly random experience was the link between God and me…the bridge I crossed on the day my life changed forever. 

There are two things that have been my anchor throughout my life and more so as I get older…prayer and the Word of God. God began to lay the foundation in those very early days when I had no idea of what He had in store for me…sitting on a little wooden chair, my legs too short to reach the floor, listening to stories I thought were fairy tales…and memorising the Lord’s Prayer. 

Only as I grew order did I realise that those stories were about a real-life person called Jesus. My heart was slowly beginning to awaken…the first glimmers of light in a life that was already darkening with the thoughts and works of a sinful nature with which I was born. 

My Sunday School days extended from toddler days through childhood, adolescence, teenage, and into young adulthood. Those Sundays paralleled my school days because, as I learned my lessons in school, so I was learning the Word of God in Sunday School. Every year, faithfully, without a break, I wrote the Scripture exams prepared and provided by my denominational authority. How grateful I am that I was laying down, by God’s grace, a solid foundation of Bible truth upon which I built my life in later years. 

Then, one day, as a teenager, all the fragments, the strands of my life up to that point, came together. As I reflect now, I see how gracious was the hand of God in my life. Sin had spread its tentacles deep into my soul already. No, I was not an evil child. I was obedient and compliant in my home and at school but…in secret…I was stained. 

God could have rightfully snuffed me out…but He didn’t. Instead, He was moving me, slowly, inexorably, towards Himself. Guilt, shame, fear, could have alienated me from Him forever…but loneliness drew me to Him…and the early in my toddler life, I was learning the Lord’s Prayer…the trigger. 

Jesus promised…

“All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”

‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭37‬ ‭NIV‬‬

…and

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

‭‭John‬ ‭6‬:‭44‬ ‭NIV‬‬

How mysterious are God’s ways! Young and ignorant as I was, the Father drew me…and I began to follow…until the moment everything changed…in an instant…forever…on a day I can never forget…the day the world calls “April Fool’s Day”. 

To be continued