My First Christmas

My first Christmas was something different which I remember it afresh till date. Whenever I think of my first Christmas, especially during the Christmas season, my heart longs to race back to it and linger there for some time.

My first Christmas was during my first year in college. I was lonely, without friends. It was the time I accepted the Lord new. When the Christmas drew near, I spent the time alone with Jesus in my room, speaking to him and writing lots of journals or letters to Him. I didn't know how to worship Him. I didn't belong to a Church to attend service. I did not have any believer friends for fellowship. It was just the Lord and I.

My first Christmas was a quiet Christmas. I wrote love songs to the Lord. I prayed the way I knew. I worshiped Him passionately like a lover lost for words. He was the only One to whom I clung like a baby to his mother. I know that I loved Him (I still do) passionately. And when I recollect my first Christmas, I pray that the Lord would give me the same love everyday to love Him passionately for who He is...

I love my first Christmas because though it did not have any celebrations and the usual clamor, it was just the Lord and me. Sometimes I enjoy that solitude with the Lord and I long for more of such times. I always want my heart be the like the way when I first accepted the Lord, passionately loving Him and longing to know Him more. And make Him the center of my life and being...

The Power of His Word

All of us have fears of some kind. Some say it out, others deny it, while others may brag about being fearless. Like any common individual, I have my fears which I share it with the Lord. Rather than trying to fight out my fears I believe in submitting my fears to my Savior who is aware of my human weakness.

Every day during my quiet times, I pray for my family, claiming God's promises. And as I pray Psalm 23, I leave out verse 4 on purpose.

Psalm 23:4 (New American Standard Bible)

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil, for You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

Deep down in my heart, the fear of any sickness (plague) befalling my family was dwelling and hence my reason to avoid Ps 23:4. However, life's lesson teaches us the value of every single verse in the word of God useful and included to minister to us...

When my dad fell ill, y'day, I was reminded of Psalm 23:4 and the Lord ministered to me in a powerful way. And as I claimed that word for my dad, it gave me a kind of strength within me which I had not experienced till date.

God does not guarantee us a life free from problems or sickness, but there is the power available to sustain, heal, restore and build. The Lord indeed took us (me and my family) out of valley of death, while rescuing my dad from a major health trauma. While His power worked for my dad in a marvelous way, the Lord dealt with my fear in a way which helped me to see His sovereignty in our lives...

An Amazing Dream or a Prophetic One?

Early this morning, I had an amazing dream. A dream which I never had all these 15 yrs (since the time I was saved) . In my dream, I was in the midst of praise and worship in a church, when suddenly the Lord walked in. I was not sure how many did really see Him. He walked in a radiant light as if descending down a unseen stair. I was enthralled to see Him for I had only pictured Him in my mind all these years (though I experience His grace, presence, love and intervention in my day to day life).

When He walked close to me, I wanted to ask, "Lord, will you be there with me all the time?". But thinking that to be an absurd question, I said, "Lord, I thank you for being there with me". Then I wanted to hold His hand and kiss Him on His palm. But hesitating I kept quiet. Yet knowing my thoughts, the Lord asks, "Why do you hesitate to hold my hand? Do you doubt my love for you?". Then tears rolling down my cheeks, I held my Heavenly Father's hand close to my cheeks and kissed His palm.

In an unexpected way, the Lord told me that He is going to do a miracle in one of my relative's life for whom I had been praying for years. Delighted I tell the Lord that I had been praying for him. But the Lord told me that I should pray for my relative the way I responded to Him when I met Him. The Lord revealed a radiant truth in this dream to me...When there was no need for me to doubt His continual presence in my life, and the way I chose to reciprocate by thanking Him for His presence (when I met Him), so should my prayers be.

I realized this wonderful truth that whenever we enter into a time of fellowship with the Lord, whatever we may have to share or ask, we need to do that in an attitude of thankfulness because of the assurance of His goodness. As long as we don't doubt His love or presence, we don't need to doubt good tidings in our lives.

Philippians 4:6 (New Living Translation)

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.

My First Christmas Gift

I have been waiting for long to share about the most wonderful gift of my life. Somehow it did not come to me naturally since this long, to write about my first Christmas gift; which I had waited in prayer for years and received it from Christ as per His promise- the man of my life.

Right from the time I came into a wonderful relationship with Jesus (when I was 18) , I had been waiting for the man of my life. I was assuming that the man of my life would first come into my life as a friend and then become my man. However, long after did I realize that my infirmity (diabetes) stood in the way.

When it came to my marriage, I got rejected a couple of times because of my diabetes. I was disappointed and heart broken, yet I did not lose hope. I believed in the One (Jesus) with whom all things are possible. I started claiming God's promise as per James 1:17.

James 1:17 (New International Version)

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

Whenever my proposal was turned down (the time when my parents started looking for a match for me), I only reasoned saying, 'Perhaps, he is not the perfect gift. I shall wait for the perfect gift...my Christmas gift'

I had named my man as Christmas gift for he was the first gift I had ever asked God. But things didn't happen immediately. I received my gift when I was 26. I had to wait for long to receive it. The waiting period was not easy. Disappointments, rejections, pain and humiliation were all a part of life's phase. But the result was glorious.

All that I prayed with respect to my man was that he should be a person who loves Christ and he should have the faith to pray for my healing. Everything that I desired to see in my man, I saw them in Joshua and I still see them. Right from the very first instance I conversed with him on chat, he said that he had started praying for my healing (without me mentioning about it and that was a amazing confirmation to me that he was the Christmas gift)...And he hasn't stopped his prayers for me till date...

Indeed Josh is a perfect gift for me. No fault can be found in the gift that God gives. The only testimony I can share about Josh is this- 'That he loves me more than himself and takes care of me like a mother would of her child'. He never saw me or my infirmity as a burden, though he faces a lot of challenges with respect to my health.

Josh is the very promise of God fulfilled in my life, which reminds me everyday that God is good and faithful. And I am not finished yet, for I have another heart touching testimony to share; the second gift, an Easter gift- my little daughter, who is a demonstration of God's power, faithfulness and God's promise which came true for me again.

Chief of Sinners

When I came into the Lord, initially I had the mind set that the Lord chose me because I longed to know about the truth and the life. Since I held good motives in me, I felt that could be the reason for God choosing me. How seriously mistaken I was to think that something good in me made Him choose me!?

Two years later (during mid 1997), when I started knowing Him (Jesus) through His Word, did I get a realization of the truth. I understood that the Lord chose me purely by His grace and love for me rather than seeing anything good in me. It dawned upon me like sun rising on a dark horizon as how bad I was. Dwelling full in a self-righteous and judgmental attitude, I always was the one who was more ready to look into the spec in others eye, rather than the block in my own eyes.

If I were to talk about the greatest blessings and miracles, the Lord did in my life, there are many... And that is the reason why I chose to write them here. But to start with, the greatest miracle of my life is the inward change He brought in me, along with the realization of Who He is...

The Lord has not finished with me yet. His work is an ongoing task in me...And I stand in awe of Him because of the truth, that His love never diminishes for me in spite of all my shortcomings. All through these 12 yrs of my life in Him, I have tried to be my best for Him. But I have come to realize that I cannot live a blameless and spotless life without His grace and from the help of the Holy Spirit. I still see so many shortcomings in me such as quick tempered or responding in anger, impatience, instability of decisions made, judgmental attitude at times, etc.

And all that I do is: cling to Him and His grace, so that I know Him more, love Him better and live a life pleasing Him by becoming more like Him...

And I claim His Word for me everyday

Jude 1:24 (NIV)

To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.

How I met Him...

Many know me now as Irene, a Christian by faith. And many others too who have known me since birth or as a college goer, know me as a teen who chose to follow Christ during college days. People have their own assumptions for me choosing to follow Christ. Some assumed that I chose Christ, because I tried to escape the dejection of my diabetic life, some thought I chose Christ through Christian influence.

But the truth is only I and a few of my family members know what factors drove me towards Christ. Even as child, I know that I was a deep thinker. Many of my friends and my sister have acknowledged and teased me of my thinking and imaginative levels which at times go extremes.But Christ is not my imagination...which many of them who have experienced Him know.

Being a thinker (by His grace), I thought deep about things of life such the meaning of life, truth etc. The questions which usually splashed my mind were:

Is there a purpose to my living?

What is the truth?

Is there a God to relate? (for even before I came to Christ, I related to an molten idol I worshiped)

Is there value for true love, honesty and integrity?

Will there be some who will truly see and respond to these things?

As a teenager, I held on to values and expected the same from others. But to my dismay I rarely found anybody outside my family to show me real love. I used to wonder whether I will find someone in my life who would love me for my heart overlooking my looks. I was content about my tom boyish looks and never looked down on myself, neither suffered any complexes because of my diabetes. I looked for my soul mate but never had any friends for I was an introvert. I had one or two female friends who were like me; not outgoing or freaking out types. We only used to talk serious stuff about life, families and problems very unlike the gals of our age. But my heart longed for a soul mate. That was the time I came to know about Christ through my Christian friend. Though I did not fully dive into Christian living, I accepted Christ and was relating to Him as a friend. My Christian friend failed in her efforts to make me go to church or involve me in prayer meets.

I knew that I found my soul mate, one who loved me for what I am. It is said that the deep spiritual longings and deep spiritual thirsts a human can have, can only be met by a divine love. And this agape (unconditional) love that I received in Christ made me stick to Him for life. When I accepted Jesus into my life I had a very limited knowledge about Him but I knew that my journey of my new life had begun with Him...