rescue

most of my life i have heard about being "saved". who's "saved" and who's not, pray to be "saved", stay "saved", saved, saved, saved. "saved" from WHAT? saved from hell, i suppose? you hear it so much that it becomes as mundane as the commericial on TV that repeats itself every 10 minutes. i admit there was a time when my heart became hard to the notion of being "saved". it just didn't seem to be that one could pray a prayer and receive his/her ticket to heaven, thus being "saved" from hell. i became a skeptic.

god met me in my skepticism. over time, my eyes have come open to see--or at least BEGIN to see--my need to be "saved". so, if someone would ask me if i am saved, i would reply, "yes...i have been rescued. many times. and probably will be again." for whatever reason, god in his mercy, chose to rescue...to SAVE me. even when i didn't see the danger and when i didn't believe.

god has literally picked me up--rescued me--many times in my life. he surrounded me with love in my high school years and rescued me from a life of rebellion. a few years later, through heartbreaking circumstances, he rescued me from what could have potentially been a crippling relationship. he took me to a safe place for many years where i could learn to love my husband and to be a wife and mother. and then from that place he rescued me from a church situation that could have killed my faith. these are major examples that i have come to see god's hand in my life. but i'm sure to there are the everyday things that i have no idea how god came to deliver me--to rescue me.

i'm still not sure about the whole notion of getting my ticket to heaven. if thats true, then great. but what matters more to me is that i have one who sees me here in this lifetime and watches out for me. in his grace and in his might, he deems me worthy of being rescued. i will offer my devotion to him and pray that i would not "neglect so great a salvation". his ways are higher than mine--his thoughts above mine. many aspects of god i will never understand. but i hope that even in my short-sightedness and ignorance, i will continue to be able to see evidence of god's rescue from the beginning of time to today and to put my trust in it for tomorrow.