When God healed my body in 1982, He changed everything! He took away fear of death and gave me HOPE of eternal life through a relationship with Jesus. He gave me a PURPOSE for my life! No matter how dreams fell apart, nor how the enemy tried to defeat me, I have “stayed-in-love” with Him and He has never failed me.
Each year I love to tell a story which reminds “grads & teams” to be ready DAILY for the return of Jesus! This was the first time since we began APM Retreats that I have not been able to attend the event, but I wrote a “love-note” for Jill to read. I’m delighted to share the story with readers from Earlene’s Corner. It is from Randy Alcorn’s book called HEAVEN.
In 1952, young Florence Chadwick stepped into the waters off Catalina Island of the Pacific Ocean, determined to swim to the shore of Mainline California. She had already been the first woman to swim the English Channel both ways. The weather was foggy and chilly, and she could hardly see the boats accompanying her, yet she swam for fifteen hours.
When she begged to be taken out of the water along the way, her mother, in a boat alongside her, told her she was close and that she could make it. But finally, physically and emotionally exhausted, she stopped swimming and was pulled out. It wasn’t until she was on the boat that she discovered the shore was less than a half-mile away. At a news conference the next day, she said, “All I could see was the fog…I think if I could have seen the shore, I would have made it.”
For believers, that SHORE IS JESUS. It is being with Him in the place He promised to prepare for us…where we will live with Him forever. The SHORE we should look for is that of the New Earth. If we can just see through the fog, and picture our eternal home in our mind’s eye, it will comfort and energize us. No matter how rough life gets, if you draw your strength from Jesus Christ, you will make it.”
Revelation 21:1 “And I saw a new Heaven and a New Earth…”
Revelation 21:5 “And He that sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new…”