He Loved Me, Lucia L. Morgan

In 1981, I was a freshman at a Long Beach community college not really knowing why I was there. I had come from a pretty unhappy family situation in which most of my siblings were on drugs or in trouble with the law. My dad was a very stern disciplinarian (I have four sisters & one brother) and my mom always told us not to ask her to choose between him and us. I wasn't aware that I was alone, unhappy, insecure, and getting unhappier every day. I didn't love myself, and I didn't believe anyone else could love someone like me. No one, I believed, ever had. This is why I was completely surprised when a Christian sister I met at college began to take interest in me. I had heard about God all my life, however I had also heard about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, mythology, astrology and a bunch of other things. All of this was something I had heard about however it didn't really mean anything to me. None of it had really touched my heart or being.

It wasn't until a Christian sister meeting with the church in Long Beach told me that God could be eaten like the food I was eating (John 6:57), that I even began to think that there was something more to this God thing than I had previously realized. There was a glow about her that I had never really seen before with anyone else. She was happy, and she was always singing love songs to the Lord. This happiness attracted me. I began to go to a Monday night Bible study across the street from Long Beach City College. I started reading the book of John and for the first time in my life I heard the gospel according to John. I was encouraged to confess the Lord's name right away and to begin to pray and talk to the Lord. I was also encouraged to begin reading the Bible. As I began to read the Bible, I inwardly realized that God loved me. Even though I was weak and ungodly, Christ died for me, which meant to me that I was loved and important to Him (Rom 5:6-10).

This love was not only something that I read about in the Bible. It became my daily experience with all the Christian sisters and brothers who met with me in the Monday Bible study meeting, the Tuesday night prayer meeting, and then the Friday night young people's meeting. My prominent memories during this time were: (1) the verses in the Bible in which I discovered I had a human spirit in which God as the Spirit now resides. (John 4:24, Romans 8:11, Romans 8:16, 1 Corinthians 3:16); (2) the singing and prayer in the meetings in which I learned to exercise my spirit and contact the Lord in my spirit; and (3) the love from all the brothers and sisters which, I believe, began to heal all the wounds within my soul. This love began to grow in me and make me live. As I grew in the Lord, I discovered that every verse in the Bible was for me. I discovered that I who knew so little about the Lord could have fellowship with the very God who had died on the cross for me. I also discovered that the Lord did not want to stop with my initial contact with Him. He wanted me to grow and mature in His life (1 Pet 2:2).

It is now 1999 and I still love the Lord with all my heart. The Lord has knitted me and fitted me together with others in His Body (Ephesians 4:16). Together we attend meetings, conferences, and endeavor daily to contact the Lord in the Word. I now know that the purpose of my human existence is to contain and express God in life and nature. God did not just save me so that I could live a happy life and be a better person. God needs an expression on this earth and I desire very much to be a part of that expression and to be a participant in bringing the Lord back. Praise the Lord for His mercy, grace, and “His great love with which He loved us” (Ephesians 2:4).