The path of the righteous is as the first gleam of day, shining ever brighter until the perfect day.
I got saved on the 19 march 2001. It wasn't really memorable! Everyone knows i take forever to make up my mind. So i was going through trauma and even though i could have broken i was actually going through an internal battle of going bad (remember Rihanna song "Good girl gone bad") or staying good (Who is really good anyway?).
My sis (one of them) and practically everyone (friends) around me was saved already. I did not want to get saved because i did not want to look or act like deeper lifers (Who can blame me? They are so judgmental, i know some good ones sha!).
Okay, it wasn't memorable at all, i had battled and battled internally, gone through like a million altar calls i was determined not to answer because i had not done anything wrong so why must i go out and confess my sins declaring Jesus. (I grew up Catholic and i had been praying to Jesus from the time i was 6, i can remember that far, i was basically good so i didn't need God)
I was very smart, skipped three classes in pry school to proof it. I was always tops through secondary sch in every thing all without reading or sweating. I was just naturally smart and could figure out anything, just not crooked in any way. Well i listened and analyzed 10 dozen or so salvation prayers and they still could not convince me on why i needed to say a sinners prayer. I finally said the prayer at 2 am or so one morning gazing into the TV set during a Turning Point Program. The next few weeks when my sis came to preach to me, i told her "Hey don't bother, i have already given my life to Christ, you act as if i hate God or something" (I was/still am very cocky if you get it out of me)
Here is what is dramatic. I received the Holy Ghost in-filling (because i know He came when i got saved. I just couldn't give Him expression no matter how i tried cos i was just too brilliant and logical for him).
I was at a program at Unilag and maybe it was Alvin Slaughter or whatever (I could not be bothered with knowing the name of Gospel artistes then...) and we were singing this song (You are the air i breathe) and i was singing along "I am desperate for you..." and then i feel a presence surround me like i was being hugged or something. I stop singing and i look around me because i can see nothing but i can feel a presence (Now i am scientific in my thinking so...) I put my hand on my head and i can't feel it but when i remove my hand, i can feel a presence again. (In my mind i am wondering what's up? These bible hugging folks have started, what the heck is going on? Every one else is praying while i am checking what's happening?)
Suddenly the huge black overweight African American guy picks the microphone and says "You are a young lady and you have been raped..." all the other words blurred because i was crying and i couldn't worship any longer.
I am determined to not go out because i mustn't need anyone and in my mind 'Christians are these cold people who talk about Jesus all the time but are so bigoted, i know Jesus just isn't like them'. Anyway i am determined not to go out but i can feel a presence lifting me off the ground. (I know you don't believe this and neither did i at the time but it happened to me). In the end i am carried out and i jejely cooperate and go out and this guy mutters some words and there are about 10 or 20 words but the entire atmosphere is so charged up i know it is something more than the words this guy is saying, something bigger than the physical is in operation here.
To cut a long story short i received the Holy Ghost that day and for the first time i begin to speak in tongues. I laugh when i think of all the folks that had prayed for me to receive the Holy Ghost and as they are praying, i am wondering how they are going to make gibberish come out of my mouth. They used to make me laugh but that day i encountered the One they met and He made all the difference. After that day, i did a kind of interview for all the fellowships in school and i pick the fellowship i had been going to for the last three years but i become a worker because the guy mentions the word 'commitment' and says 'i must be commited to grow' (This is while he is preaching to the 20-30 people who got saved... I was one of them and shaking in my shoes, i was a teenager but in my head, i was a fish out of water, i was in a place where i knew there was lots i did not know).
Anyway from then onwards, the presence (The Holy Ghost) was with me day and night (I forgot also that was the day i stopped looking behind me 20 or so time wherever i was and i started going out after 6.00pm again, i was still scared but not filled with terror any longer). I knew something had happened and then anytime i slept i would be dreaming i was killing snakes from dusk till dawn. Prior to then i had been praying and meditating on 2 Tim 1:7, "i can quote it in my sleep, For God has not given me a spirit of fear but a spirit of power, love and a sound mind...". All the while i am quoting it, i would be thinking how weak and helpless i was because i couldn't save me what can this do anyway but my pastor had convinced me that the word works so i kept at it. My fellowship never stopped speaking in tongues (a heavenly language, they are word the Holy Ghost can take advantage of and make you walk like a supernatural man. Supernatural means beyond the ordinary).
I grew so much but most of the time i could not understand what was going on, but then i was fighting a very private battle. I would be in tongues dusk till dawn some days because i knew i must win. I would cry for 2 hrs steadily during fellowship o! in front of everyone no stopping me, no embarrassment whatsoever. Funny thing about it is i blubber when i cry but my voice would be so steady that this cry was definitely special but who would believe me if i told them. (since i don't drink water, i hardly drink water i mean, i wonder where the tears were coming from). If you asked me why i was crying i couldn't answer, all i knew was that i responded to the anointing of God's spirit that way and i had no answer, i wasn't crying because i was hurt, i cried because that was my response to God's spirit. I would wake up muttering scriptures i had no idea was in the bible. (As Catholics, we knew the word (specific words rather) but we did not know the bible, let me say, i knew nothing about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Many supernatural things happened till i was convinced that God had come to be with me because he knew i would turn to no one else, i had no one to trust and when i thought i would fall, He was there.
My pastor was just a couple of years older than me and he tormented me with word of knowledge about some girl who was raped, he knew my life history, he knew my family, he knew the things that only i knew, he knew anything and everything, he knew what i did everyday. Every meeting ended with me saying 'I was never going for fellowship again in my life' and the next time saw me running for fellowship because i practically needed the word of God to get through everyday. I had a word everyday about me, about my work, specific words about the things God was teaching me about the bible. My pastor and i were 'in sync' everyday. If i wondered about a particular scripture, he would teach about it, if i wondered about hearing fron God, he would teach about hearing from God. If i wondered about baptism, holy spirit, that would be the topic for that day, it was eerie!
Its not finished, every day is another walk with the Holy ghost full of adventure. I used to get burdens, if there was a need to pray, i would just KNOW and i would find out the reason i prayed later on. I am so jealous of that girl then because she was so sensitive to the spirit of God, her heart was so soft. I would get mad and because i had a personal r/ship with the Holy Ghost, He knew how to get my heart soft with His presence and then showing me scriptures that told me what to do. He was my very best friend and i have been neglecting Him, we are not quite as close as we used to be. If i was angry or hurt or afraid, time spent praising and worshipping God or just meditating on scriptures usually solved that, but it was mainly the worship i longed for because i could let go and just go to another realm where the pressure in the world couldn't touch me, i was always refreshed. The Holy Ghost is just so cool and coming from worship, i could do His word, do anything He said, i felt big, bigger than anything i was facing. (Preachers call it looking at things from the mountain, that problems are so much smaller because that is how they really are and God is so much bigger)
Doing something about it though. presently reading Yongi Chou's "The Holy Spirit, My senior partner", I need to work on my relationship with Him because though we still talk, we don't talk as often as we used to, He still speaks to me in dreams. Last year, He was speaking to me by inward witness and that is so much faster than dreams. With dreams, you have to cream em' because it could be the enemy of my soul speaking. With all i have been through, no one needs to tell me how much my enemy hates me.
Pastor L (she's a she) was the first person to tell us (Me) that the Holy Ghost is a person, "He is not just a spirit, he is a person and he loves to be loved and hates to be ignored". The Holy Spirit is the One person i am totally sure has got my back. I love you "Holy Spirit"
I miss all the workers training we used to have, so building but now when i miss the fellowship, i go and fellowship with scripture, read my bible so my inner man is not starved.
