By Victoria Ostrosky
A poignant scene in the Gospel of Mark is set against the backdrop of a lesson Jesus taught his disciples about the importance of having faith like children. It’s a quick little scene typically used as a stepping-stone to the ‘bigger lesson’.
Kenneth Wuest, a Greek scholar, in his The New Testament, An Expanded Translation, Mark 10:15-16 reads, “Truly, I am saying to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God in the same manner as a little child, will positively not enter it. And having taken them up in His arms, He kept on fervently blessing them, placing His hands upon them.”
Just picture it – Jesus, placing His hands on little heads, fervently blessing them, speaking words of life into their futures. Chances are the blessings were tailored specifically to each child. And what are the chances, then, that those same children, blessed individually by their Creator, grew up to be followers of the Lamb and evangelists for the Kingdom? God’s words are never idle. Each blessing was unique and purposeful.
He still does the same today, speaking life and blessing over His children, longing for us to be filled with His love.
For 25 years, Rachael Cannon didn’t feel God’s blessing over her life. She was a drug addict and involved in a homosexual relationship, living as a lesbian for 30 years. She says, “for 13 years I woke up having withdrawals from drugs or alcohol. I woke up sick and needed a fix to start my day.” Rachael talks about living a bankrupt identity, always looking for love from anyone who would offer it. “The whole time, I believed in God but was angry with Him. Why wasn’t He listening to me?”
Rachael was angry and said awful things to God and about Him. But even through her addiction and incarceration for eight different felonies, God “listened to everything I said and still loved me.”
About 8 ½ years ago, Rachael found herself in another faith-based rehab that wasn’t working. She went to hear a woman at a church giving her testimony. After hearing her story, Rachael felt the stirrings of hope once again.
She was invited to live in a women’s home and through the love she experienced there, felt herself coming alive. She met the Lord, gave her heart to Jesus, and hasn’t stopped smiling since.
“One day,” Rachael says, “I had a vision during worship.” She saw herself as a bride in a white dress and when she looked down the aisle, there was Jesus waiting for her. “The love told me that I wasn’t gay.” Little by little God, with gentleness, began to reveal to her her own femininity, delivering her from homosexuality.
“He is madly in love with us and has stopped at nothing to show Himself to us. I’m starting to believe that God really loves me.”
Since becoming a follower of Jesus, Rachael has learned that sometimes being miserable can push you toward change. “Let your painful time draw you to your Heavenly Father. Love changed my behavior,” she says. “Seeing the love of Jesus changed me.”
The Apostle Paul, in his letters, talked about this same desire – that we would know Him deeply and thoroughly.
“On this account I bow my knees to the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would grant to you according to the wealth of His glory, with power to be strengthened through the Spirit in the inward man, that the Christ might finally settle down and feel completely at home in your hearts through your faith; in love having been firmly rooted and grounded in order that you may be able to grasp with all the saints what is the breadth and width and height and depth, and to know experientially the love of the Christ which surpasses experiential knowledge in order that you may be filled up to the measure of all the fulness of God.” (Kenneth Wuest, The New Testament, An Expanded Translation, Ephesians 3:14-19)
You can hear Rachael Cannon’s entire interview, learn about the books she’s written, and listen to many other incredible stories on the weekly Road to Redemption radio show and podcast at www.rtrdestiny.com.
Author: Sowal Editor
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