Out of Turmoil - Sam's story

There was a time in my life when I felt really low self-esteem, where I really genuinely didn't like myself and this had snowballed over a few years and it got to the stage actually of some quite dangerous things; self-harm, a lot of addiction to different things Over a period of years I actually craved death. So it got quite bad. I found myself actually at crisis point where I was unable to speak and I lay in bed for about three days terrified and, mechanically I just couldn't talk it was really scary and in that place I just had to admit that I couldn't sort it out and for the first time in my life I really let go, I really said to God 'God if you exist, you do it' 'because I can't. I've got nothing I've tried everything' 'and I can't do this' and gently over the next few days I became able to speak again but actually I chose not to I decided that I would need to listen. So I began listening and God said two specific Bible verses to me I had gone away on retreat effectively so I'd just gone to the coast and the first one was a Psalm of David just saying 'I come to the coast to do business with you Lord' 'declare me innocent', and that was was all I wanted I wanted to be declared innocent I had spent so many years declaring myself guilty, and I was unable to declare myself innocent the second verse said 'I come to your altar oh Lord', and I realised that I was sitting on top of a hill and I was sitting on some stones at the top of this hill that were the perfect altar they were like, it was textbook: two cubits wide, you know it was like a perfect altar, like big slab of rock In the last day I just sat and read Hebrews, and in Hebrews I got the notion the concept that perhaps my value didn't change. Perhaps it wasn't up for grabs, and I walked up the coast path and I came up these massive cliffs these beautiful cliffs, it was just a windy day and I just stopped suddenly really aware of the height of these cliffs and I heard God saying 'What?' and I realised then I feel fear I feel concerned for my own safety for the first time in years, and I realised then that means that I must have value. If I didn't have value I wouldn't be worried about falling off the cliff. I heard God say, 'Bless that thought', and as he said that I got hit by a wall of water Splosh! and what happened was a gust of wind had blown up the cliff face and had just lifted one of those little trickles of water you get over cliffs and had got me bodily; knocked me sideways a few hours earlier I just finished reading Hebrews and at the end of that it references this moment when Moses spritzes the people of Israel. They get right with God and to kind of commemorate the moments they get kind of early form of baptism and that's exactly what happened to me and I come to the end of years of turmoil and the one thing that I craved was peace and I realised that that was kind of the conclusion in Hebrews that when you get right with God you get to enter God's Rest and that was the one thing I craved was peace and it descended on me like a grand piano made out of hummingbirds it was unbelievable, I just lay in this meadow on top of this cliff for like 40 minutes and just I guess was restored.