"I Am With You" (Part 3)

Over the next two years, I cried more tears than I had thought possible. I tasted an anxiety that made me sick to my stomach. Some mornings, I did not want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to start a day if I could not start it with Jesus. It wasn’t all horrible. I was still a kid in a loving family. I did have some fun. But always, there was an underlying sense that nothing mattered - not if I couldn’t have Jesus.

When I was twelve, my family visited a Bible Camp near Vancouver. We were considering going into fulltime  ministry, and my sisters and I were so excited. At the Camp, I encountered something different. It was these young people who worked at the camp - they had something that I didn’t - peace. The day my family showed up was a rest day in between camps. The young people were gathered together, confessing their sins to God. They were repenting together, preparing to share God’s love with the kids who would be coming. They talked to Jesus like He was right there in the room with them. Little did they know what He was about to do for one young camper through them that week.

I got to be in a cabin that week, and I was very excited, but still of course, troubled. That trouble never seemed to leave me. It was the last evening of camp. The leaders brought us to the campfire. Two of the cabin leaders pulled out a guitar and a cello and began to play worship music. They prayed for us and told us to listen to the music and to listen to God. 

And that’s when I heard four words, gently whispered in my heart. “I am with you.” I began to weep, closing my eyes and just letting those words sink deep into my heart. I could see a cross burning brightly in my mind’s eye. It was a very tangible experience. If God had just told me that He was with me, then He must have told me through His Holy Spirit! If the Holy Spirit was talking to me, then He had to be inside of me! If the Holy Spirit was inside of me, then I had to be a child of God! If I was a child of God, then I had not blasphemed His Holy Spirit two years ago!

Later on, both my sisters (ten and seven) told me they had undergone similar experiences at the campfire, tangible interaction filled with the Holy Spirit. And we felt so full as though He had washed over us, all together, all at once. And none of us were ever quite the same after that.

It seemed too good to be true, too wonderful to be real! I wept on and on, literally feeling God’s arms around me. I had never experienced anything quite like that! Soon, the other kids were gone, having embarked to have an ice-cream party. I didn’t want ice-cream. Nothing seemed like it could ever be as wonderful as that moment! 

My cabin leader came to check on me. Why the tears? Why wasn’t I joining the other kids? I told her as best I could, but how could I explain it fully? There was just no way. She told me that I should write down what God had done for me. I tried, but I couldn’t. Words escaped me. I didn’t want to write - I wanted to just bask in God’s love for me. I guess the writing part came later…

But everything changed that day. The next morning, I was so excited to get up! I was excited to live! I was excited to die! The best thing that could ever happen had happened: God told me that He was with me!

In the years to come, my family went through an intense trial. I learned what it was like to be hated, scorned, and mocked. I found out what rejection tastes like. I also had a physical bike accident that almost killed me as I received a gash that was three millimeters from severing my femoral artery. I had to walk two kilometers with an impact hernia and internal bleeding, and so, for the first time, I tasted intense physical pain. From then on, my body began to function differently. My digestive system was messed up. I couldn’t eat like others could.

Indeed, I still wept over my Bible. But these tears were so different from my old ones! I could cry because of the pain (physical and emotional), but also out of joy because the Holy Spirit would speak to me. The Scriptures would soothe me. I was filled with hope, and for the first time, I experienced pain not as something that caused despair, but to be the very instrument of God to draw me closer and closer into His arms.

Yes, something had indeed changed, and the trials had tested what God had done for me at that simple camp fire. The revelation had proved to be genuine. God had changed my life. And all through four words - the best four words that one could ever hear from Jesus: “I am with you!”

I had no idea what challenges were still to come, but God had brought me one step further towards realizing that I was not unpardonable. This was just the beginning.