Oh, this great thing You do.... this precise miracle of planting love inside of us and clearing away the dross of life and sin and hate..... Oh praise Your name....!!!

How I love you, Lord. Your mercy and forgiveness astound me. How could you love someone like me? I have sinned greatly and yet, your Word says that I'm forgiven... and 'redeemed' by the Blood. How do you come up with such greatness? I'm humbled, I'm ecstatic. 'Thank you' isn't nearly enough... not even a poor beginning. I worship You, Lord Jesus. The sacrifice, oh the totality of the torture and pain you surely suffered for someone like me! It's so hard to take in when I think of how selfish and spoiled and self centered I've been. And then there's the rest of us. How many of us feel the same? How many love You with the devotion and earnest aching inside for something, anything to show the gratitude? But, of course, You already know what's in our hearts. You made us.

As you all can see, I've been in Ephesians again. It doesn't matter how many times I read Ephesians 2: 8-9, I weep inside. Those were the words God was saying to me as I lay on that gurney in that ambulance suffering a 6 1/2 hour heart attack in 1992. The sheer gravity of the situation was nothing to me at the time. I was at peace inside and trying desperately to recall the words of those two scriptures. I think He was keeping me busy, as it were, to get my mind off of the pain and the severity of the moment. He's like that you know. Just when we think the world around us is about to cave in all around us and swallow us with disaster, He steps in.

Suddenly, all is well and it's as though it was only a bad dream; and sometimes it is. I can't count the bad dreams. Innumerable.

Oh, but the relief I feel when I think of how He loves me. How He just makes peace out of nothing and spreads it like crunchy peanut butter on the bread of my mind. I know.... where'd that come from? I don't know. It just jumped out of my fingers onto the page..... Who woulda thought?

I slept well for a time and then the cares of this world and 16 other things popped into my mind and I couldn't lie there another minute. I had to roll back the warm blankets and get out my Sword.

I'm not always faithful to read. I've been negligent. That's me 'Negligent John'.... again. And yet, He still loves me.... right? I can  always go to Him, always. There has never been a time since that day in that jail cell when I got down on my knees and asked Him to forgive me and come into my life and 'fix it", that He hasn't 'been there'. NOT ONE TIME. That's 52 years now.

It's good to look back in one sense only. To the day you surrendered control to the Creator and became the 'clay' that he could mold and shape and smile at. In my case He probably laughs.

Do you trust Him? Do even believe? Oh, you should. Your life will be so much the better for it. I can't begin to explain the joy I feel about being accepted into 'the family'. It's everything to me. It's life itself my friends, you should try it. 
And for those of you that know what I'm saying here, bravo.... blessings and peace to you, as you know so well.... just more of it...

Well, I guess I've rambled on long enough. I know you have other things to do.... but, at any rate, I am so thankful for those of you that might read this.... when ever that is.