mardi 23 décembre 2003
"I love Thee, Lord Jesus"
I was so tired after coming home from church yesterday that I slept through the night. That explains why I didn't post my Monday Memory thing. So, here it is:
All throughout elementary school, I was in the school choir, an activity I loved and miss to this day. I forget what grade I was in when this happened but I know it was sometime in Division I (grades 1-3). We were getting ready for the Christmas concert and I remember practicing a lot of carols for weeks beforehand. Even though most of them didn't make a lot of sense to me because I was raised in a non-Christian family, I still sang every song with all of my heart. It was one particular song that struck me the most that Christmas season, and it was "Away In A Manger". I don't know why it did, since it's not my favourite carol or anything but there were some verses which got me thinking about Jesus. These lines still jump out at me today: "Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask Thee to stay / Close by me forever / And love me I pray."
Now, I knew absolutely nothing about the life or death or resurrection of Jesus when I was little. If you asked me at that age who Jesus was, my mind would have been a complete blank slate. But as I sang these words, I knew there was something significant in them. I can't really describe what happened, but I think God opened my heart just a bit when I sang this song for the concert. It was as if He took my heart in His hands and softened it, preparing me for what was to come. I'm sure this was one of the things that allowed me to be truly open about Jesus Christ in my teenage years, leading me to be ready to hear the gospel and accept Him later on.
I love that God was at work in my life early on, before I even knew who He was!
