In Chapter 1 of Walk the Land, I talk about God appearing to me before I endured my trauma. Have you ever had an experience like this? If so, I’d love to hear about it. How did God prepare you for what was to come?
I found the first chapter of Walk the Land to be extremely powerful, particularly the part about God appearing to you to help strengthen you for your future trauma. God is so good! I've had several similar experiences, but the one that sticks out in my mind is what happened to me when I was about eight years old.
I was always very devoted to my Catholic faith, with a very strong connection with our Blessed Mother. Then, when I was about eight years old, for reasons I can't fathom, I suddenly developed a very intense and serious fear of losing Jesus. At the time, I couldn't even imagine losing Christ or falling away from him, therefore I didn't know why I was so scared, but I was. This holy fear propelled me to pray nightly to both Jesus and our Blessed Mother, begging them that if I ever strayed from Christ, they would bring me back.
Fast forward many years. I left the Church, and got involved in many different spiritualities, including New Age. The New Age movement is very dangerous and evil, and can open a person to demonic influences. Yet I was protected through it all. It would take too long to explain how I was protected, but suffice to say, Jesus and Mary answered my prayer and never let me stray too far, and repeatedly did things to bring me back home to the true Faith. Again, it would take too long to explain it all, and I realize this babbling post likely makes little sense. But, in a nutshell, the suddenly holy fear I was given as a grace from God at the age of eight became a prayer answered at the age of 30 to lead me back to Christ. He and His Mother never let me stray too far--because I'd asked them so many years ago never to allow me to be lost. And the asking, in itself, was a way of God preparing me for what was to come.
I found the first chapter of Walk the Land to be extremely powerful, particularly the part about God appearing to you to help strengthen you for your future trauma. God is so good! I've had several similar experiences, but the one that sticks out in my mind is what happened to me when I was about eight years old.
I was always very devoted to my Catholic faith, with a very strong connection with our Blessed Mother. Then, when I was about eight years old, for reasons I can't fathom, I suddenly developed a very intense and serious fear of losing Jesus. At the time, I couldn't even imagine losing Christ or falling away from him, therefore I didn't know why I was so scared, but I was. This holy fear propelled me to pray nightly to both Jesus and our Blessed Mother, begging them that if I ever strayed from Christ, they would bring me back.
Fast forward many years. I left the Church, and got involved in many different spiritualities, including New Age. The New Age movement is very dangerous and evil, and can open a person to demonic influences. Yet I was protected through it all. It would take too long to explain how I was protected, but suffice to say, Jesus and Mary answered my prayer and never let me stray too far, and repeatedly did things to bring me back home to the true Faith. Again, it would take too long to explain it all, and I realize this babbling post likely makes little sense. But, in a nutshell, the suddenly holy fear I was given as a grace from God at the age of eight became a prayer answered at the age of 30 to lead me back to Christ. He and His Mother never let me stray too far--because I'd asked them so many years ago never to allow me to be lost. And the asking, in itself, was a way of God preparing me for what was to come.
Indeed, God is so good, and so merciful!