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The icy wind cut through the air like a laser, causing the polythene that was placed over the old rusty skylight window - a crude attempt to ward off the all consuming cold - to flap back and forth ferociously The attic room was small and damp. There were other rooms in the house, rooms with central heating but these were reserved for the privileged kids. ‘She’ stayed in the attic. If walls could make utterances they would have screamed out at what they had witnessed.
The girl was almost fifteen but in many ways she felt older than her years. She didn’t say much generally and was branded ‘the trouble maker.’ Deep down she knew it wasn’t true and that she was not as ugly, fat and stupid as they made out, but at times she chose not to think too deeply. On occasions she would cut herself in a futile attempt to alleviate the pain but mostly she just wished that she had never been born. Things were no better at school, the place where insults flew, where she was spat upon daily and ridiculed for her jumble sale clothes. If only they knew! Some of those clothes had actually come from a rubbish dump but then again she was not worthy of anything better. Not long ago she’d walked home alone from that place, contemplating suicide but she knew the reality of a Christless eternity. She felt trapped and counted down the months until she could leave. She’d been counting since she was ten. This kept her sane although in the dead of night when the terror struck and she envisaged ‘him’ standing beside her bed, she felt mad.
Now she entered the room. It was almost the New Year and she was troubled. Another year had passed, another year without God. She knelt to pray but didn’t quite know how, unable to comprehend the concept of a being that was compassionate and approachable, but her body succumbed to the elements and she crawled into bed.
As she lay there trying to will heat into her frame a voice from somewhere whispered saying "God speaketh once yeah twice and man perceiveth it not." This caused her to reflect upon two previous instances, times when she’d tried to obtain this salvation and she remembered with burning shame that she’d had the audacity to blame God when she felt she had done all that was required of her to no avail. Laying there a sense of urgency gripped her and she stumbled back out of bed onto her knees.
In her simplicity she considered the situation and concluded that her difficulty lay in a lack of faith. Again a voice seemed to come uttering … “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God” so she opened His Word but it seemed profound, far beyond her understanding and the reference to ‘faith’ only yielded a list of genealogies which were puzzling. In despondency she closed the book but again the voice said “Faith cometh by hearing ....” This time she spoke in a whisper and asked God to show her the way. Her bible fell open in Ephesians and this is what she read:
‘For by grace are you saved, through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God. Not of works lest any man should boast.’
She read and reread the first verse unable to comprehend it, but the latter part seemed oh so clear and it dawned on her soul that her previous ineffectual efforts had been all her own. For the first time ever she was conscious of what her sin must have meant to a Holy God and acutely aware of her worthlessness. Whilst crying in repentance suddenly her minds eye was drawn upward to view one dying on the cross as her substitute. The knowledge that it was finished, the work completed, her redemption secured and a peace never experienced before engulfed her very being. The light of Gods love, revealed in the gift and death of his Son Jesus Christ on the cross dawned on her heart, filling it with joy and as she lay back down she thanked God that it was well with her soul. That night the girl rejoiced without realising the full extent of what had transpired in that dingy, cold room, as that night angelic beings were rejoicing. All of heaven was full of joy over the lost sheep which had returned.
750!
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