Life’s Love Story

Perhaps life’s experiences can only be explained when viewed by light of the Word on one’s path in life. For who can explain life’s events using only human logic?

Certainly, not I.

You may be able to see your life experiences in my story, for I am convinced the hand of the Master Craftsman, my Lord, Jesus guides us through life’s journey.

I am the first born child of a young couple sandwiched between the Great Depression and World War 11. Sheltered in a rural community with extended family, I am unaware of the horrors of world events. A coupon book is used for rationing, but in my rural upbringing, food is supplemented with fish and game. Without televised newscasts to showcase the evils of mankind, my world allows me to view problems and effects only on people I know.

My parents teach me moral laws. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Do unto others as you have them do unto you, etc.

When very young, I see a beautiful redbird land and cock its head upward on the bare branches of a small tree outside my window. In that thrilling space of time, I know, “God creates.” I pray. An acknowledgement of God as Creator begins.

Although reared in the shadow of a church some of my extended family attend, most of my spiritual education is occasionally overheard at the dinner table and in Bible stories from my third grade teacher.

Man’s condition, my condition, and need for a Savior elude me.

* * * *

In my teen years, I leave the highway on a “Y” leg of a dirt road under construction. The car fishtails on loose sand and beyond my control rises on its two left wheels. In the space of that two wheeled car ride, my conscious thoughts are, “This is it!” and “ Unto thou hands, I commend my spirit.”

The car careens into the ditch and plops right side up. A vehicle with three men pulls up. As they get me out of the car, one explains they had seen the black smoke from the highway and expected someone to be badly injured - or worse. They say I had been driving too fast.

In a community where everyone knows everyone, it is strange that I don’t know them. I ask them who they are and if they know my dad. Unhurt, I worry what he will say when they tell him I had been driving too fast. They do not know my dad. They are just passing through on their way home.

Surveying the car from the safety of the road, I see that the car entered the ditch and now rested between a huge pine log and its severed root. The car has only a long indented scratch on the driver’s side. I know I am one fortunate girl.

The men get the car out of the ditch and leave.

I tell my parents about getting in the ditch, but I leave out the car rising on two wheels and my thought about life ending.

But I remember that day my life is saved. I know today what I had been ignorant of then, that I am a sinner and I need a Redeemer, a Savior.

* * * *

It would be some years before I know I am lost. I struggle to balance what I am hearing with my life’ s beliefs . I try to read the Bible because I have to find the truth.

I learn that my righteousness is as filthy rags. I believe I am a sinner. Still not understanding the love of God and the work of Jesus Christ, I, then, feel that God is angry with me. The search continues.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life; 

Truths and promises like these and others kindle a desperate flame of faith in Jesus: I confess, repent, and accept Jesus as my Savior.

* * * *

I leave my life story to hear yours for I know the Lord seeks and finds.

“For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.(Matt. 18:11-14).

How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them

be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth

into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And

if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more

over that sheep than over the ninety and nine which went not

astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven,

that one of these little ones should perish."

no man cometh to the Father, but by me. John 14:6

… Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. John 6:37

But as many as received him, to them he gave he the power

to become the children of God, even to them that believe 

On his name. John 1:12.

Carolyn Collins