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...