♥ ♥ ♥
no greater love…
by: Rachael Lampa
before i knew Your name, You knew my every breath. before i found my way,You knew my every step. before i knew everything that i need You gave it all to me. no greater love than this, that You should lay down Your life for someone such as me; i’d spend a lifetime wondering why. the beauty of heaven is here in my ♥ and i know there can be no greater love than this.
i never understood how merciful Love could be until i felt His Flame light every part of me. and i would give everything that i am cause i have been saved! yes! i have been saved.
no greater love than this, that You should lay down Your life for someone such as me; i’d spend a lifetime wondering why… the beauty of heaven is here in my ♥and i know there can be
♥no greater love than this.♥
when i was little, my views about God were a little bit different than what i’ve come to realize in adulthood. somehow, growing up with strict Catholic beliefs, going to a strict Catholic school i couldn’t help but feel a little confused about who He was & what He was to me. I knew that (in my child’s eyes), being accepted by God was nothing more than a few scripted responses, a lot of standing, sitting & knealing & fulfilling that strong obligation of making it thru Sunday mass. don’t get me wrong… even as I child, I knew that a life without God was not a life at all. i believed that there was indeed a higher power that created me, tests me & sees me through but I couldn’t feel. and that’s where that sentence ends… i just couldn’t feel. all i knew is that even in a world i couldn’t understand, my being there was enough so that he would notice me. then i got that unrelenting reality check that if he did notice me sitting there… he’d notice a girl fidgeting, distracted & who’s mind has wandered off ; far away from her body that sit there waiting impatiently for that final “Amen”. and I know, yet again, that I was not pleasing in His eyes… 
i also had strong convictions about repenting for my sins. i knew that with that, came the realization that in order to be forgiven i would need to confess my sin. but not to God, but to the priest who served as a middle man & issued my sentence of 3 hail mary’s, our fathers etc… that would somehow absolve me. but i didn’t want to tell him what i did wrong. i knew that even though he sat there & listened calmly & replied in that reassuring tone that God was a forgiving God… i felt a little intimidated by the stranger who i’ve just bore my soul to; who would see me in the pews the next few Sunday’s looking at me like he knew exactly who i was & why i was there. and i never understood what his purpose was… other than tormenting my already heavily convicted soul. Why did he have to know if God already knew?
I was also later raised by my grandparents for a period of time in my childhood who were not Catholic but Iglesia ni Cristo. INC believed in the same God yet their doctrines were not the same. In that short period of time, my grandfather told me that my belief in Catholicism (though it wavered & was not firmly set in stone) would “send me to the fiery pits of hell”. i can still hear those words as if it were yesterday. oh God, i know he meant well instilling his beliefs in a child who was still impressionable enough to be saved from eternal damnation. but that was me… i wanted to believe in a God who would do just that. Save me. My grandparents had very strong beliefs in the INC doctrine. I wanted to have that same fervor that they had when they spoke about God & about the man who will lead them to Him. But it wasn’t as easy as voicing out your desire to be a part of what they had. I needed to go to classes, take tests & pass the class with flying colors before my name could be added to the INC roster. That roster signified acceptance into all that is holy & just; where men & women are segregated in the pews & attendance is an absolute must. Because that acceptance is a privelege that can be revoked at any time. it was a lot of pressure & i was still that little girl who longed to be pleasing in His eyes.
through my search for religion and my desire to know him i’ve fought an uphill battle trying to find the peace that i’ve found when i wasn’t even trying. there was a time at my lowest when i dropped to my knees & i yelled…at God. Yelled at Him for making it so hard to hear Him, to get to Him or to believe that He even cared. That even at my lowest, i needed to go find a priest to help me through because I’ve had too many absences at INC to go back to Him. I couldn’t understand why he couldn’t just see me. See me without the middle man. why couldn’t he just hear me?
..He did. 
it took me a long time to truly understand what it meant to please God. i know now that it’s more than just my actions or the process of making all things clean again. it’s the ongoing process of fulfilling the purpose that God has set forth for me. it’s the sinning because we are sinners, yet it’s repenting & believing that we have been saved already. it’s acknowledging that He is not unreachable because He is there always. it’s that personal relationship that has always been offered & the HIM that if accepted can make your heart whole.
i am a girl who believes… not in religion but in a God who takes me as I am. Who accepts me even in my inequities. i am a girl who believes, that God is real in my everyday & who in little ways, but in HIS great magnitude prepares me for the eternity that He has promised. I am still that little girl who longs to be pleasing in HIS eyes but I am the woman who now knows that He loved that little girl all along.
… i believe.
(acts 16-31)
