A MOVING EXPERIENCE

At the risk of sounding like my imagination has run wild with me, I am going to share something that just happened to me about an hour ago. I was using the exercise bike in rehab. While riding I had my eyes closed, as I often do. It is not a quiet place in a physical sense because I'm surrounded by people, but I escape to the "inside me"and no one else is paying attention. But my experience today while riding the bike is something so amazing I scarcely know how to put it into words because I'm going to sound crazy.

What I experienced reminded me of the movie THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus. Caviezel says it was a life altering experience, a kind of calling. I don't think you can watch it without being deeply touched. Caviezel, himself, experienced much pain and many injuries in the making of it, yet he describes making the movie as a kind of "calling", and he was so persuasive in his role that one character, playing Barabbas, actually physically saw Christ when he looked at Caviezel. As a result of this intense experience he went from being an atheist to being a Christian. The actor who played Judas also went through the same kind of transformation from atheism to Christianity. In one scene where he is hanging on the cross for a long period of time in very cold winds as they were trying to get the perfect shot, Caviezel said he heard Jesus ask him: AM I TOO CLOSE? Caviezel's answer: NO, GET CLOSER. Can you imagine hearing those words and feeling the way he felt?

Now, I am no celebrity, but I know that Christ wants to be close to me if I am willing to invite him into my life. I've had lots of time to think about these things in all these months in the rehab/nursing home. I keep a spiritual journal where I "talk" to our Lord and Savior. I pour out my heart about all my concerns, admit my weaknesses and shortcomings and ask forgiveness for them.

I ask for the strength to see through all difficult circumstances to the TRUTH beneath them: we are Divine beings having a human experience, and it is our Lord's great pleasure to give us our heart's desires if they are good for us. If we listen He will guide us in making better choices. It requires deep listening. I'm not always good at that. But I spend a lot of time doing "spirit-centered"drawings which I've shared with people here, and I have several hanging in my own room and on the door. Drawing is like praying for me. It always has been.

But I am a typical human who loses faith from time to time and needs to be reminded who I am and to whom I belong. That happened today while I was riding that bike. I've been doing this on a regular basis for all the time I've been here. It is one thing which is giving me the strength to live independently again ... that along with a strong will to leave here. As unbelievable as it sounds, this is the third nursing home I have been in in my entire life. And when I leave here I do not want - no - make that stronger - I do not INTEND to ever be in one of these places again. And that is with the help of God, of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit.

And as I was riding today, I turned off the noise of everyone around me. I had a smooth rhythm going. The AC was keeping me cool and I tuned out the chatter. I started thinking about that movie, and I remembered that scene: "Am I too close?" Caviezel's answer, "No, get closer."

For the remainder of the time I was riding the bike today I felt the strong presence of Christ standing behind me. He was talking to me as surely as a human being would talk to me, even though no words were expressed verbally. He assured me He was right there with me, with his arms around me, holding me tight against his chest and whispering that he is always with me, that I am a good person, even when I doubt it (as I did today when I got angry with the people working here who seem to have no heart for what they're doing.) There were tears in my eyes, it was so real.

Feeling those arms around me made me feel safer than I've ever felt. And it reminded me just how close our Lord is to us if we are open to feeling His presence and hearing his words. But we have to want to experience it. We have to want to put ourselves in a position to "hear" what He is saying to us. That means getting quiet. I try to get quiet a lot each day. And today, for the first time, I discovered that I can go deeply into quiet while I'm riding. I hear the chatter around me, but it is merely background noise to the words being "spoken" directly to my heart by my Lord and Savior. I didn't want to stop pedaling, even though my 40 minutes was up. Yet, the glorious truth: I can always go there again and again, bike or no bike. That is how available to us is our dearest Lord.