ABOVE “REALITY” is a partial autobiography… my personal story of growing up lost, always wondering about God, and hearing His voice in a pained plea for Him to prove Himself.
God was not a subject for discussion at home, growing up. I often escaped reality in dreams of becoming a musical star. But, marrying too young, I went from battered wife to struggling single-mother of three, and later to Nashville music performer still hungry to know God.
In 1984, having lost everything, God became real, and everything changed!
The following is the introduction to my book, Above “Reality”: Where Miracles Happen and Healing Begins. If you’ve longed to know God; if you’ve heard Corrie ten Boom’s and others’ testimonies of faith, and wondered how they could be so sure of Him, I hope you will also read my story. Yes, God is real!
“You’re going home, Susan!” The voice spoke to me as clearly as anyone ever had in my life. It was the second time I heard those same words as I sat frozen, unable to move from my place in the sprawling sanctuary of Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville. Fear gripped me at the sound of the bodiless male voice that spoke so calmly, but with such unnerving authority. It was not at all how the movies had ever portrayed the voice of God. No thunder, no heavy reverb, but with an unmistakable finality that caused my heart to pound wildly and my resolve to begin to crumble like a snowy peak breaking up before an avalanche.
Near panic, I thought to bolt for the door, but even the slightest movement made me fear I would shatter into uncontrollable tears and humiliate myself before so many strangers. My life had been out of control for so long, and I felt certain these “do-gooders” (I called them) would not understand or care that I had lost all but the last bit of heart to live. I could not have guessed what God was about to do that would change my life forever!
The One I was always told was “unknowable” showed me that Sunday morning in 1984, He will move heaven and earth in our lives. And sometimes speak right out loud, if we earnestly seek Him. He wants us to know Him! He CAN be known!
The most brilliant among us in this world lives out our years with little more than a philosophy about why we exist at all, and calls it “reality.” Our perception of truth is limited by our waning physical strength, fickle emotions, self-motivated opinions, and a short supply of any faith that counts.
Most tragically for many, reality is a prison of seemingly impossible circumstances forged by our own or others failings apart from the One who loves us most of all. It doesn’t have to be that way!
In my book I share some of my own experiences, believing God. Were they miracles? I’ll leave that to your own faith to consider. I offer them in my book, just as they happened.
We were created to live connected to the One who created us… without that connection, understanding this life is impossible! But, with God ALL things are possible!
God loved me at my worst, and I can’t help but love Him back. He loves you, too! I pray you will seek after Him and not stop looking until you find Him, then hang on for dear life. You won t be disappointed!
The Lord knows my weaknesses and my fears. He hears my complaints and my prayers. He admonishes me regularly, that I might grow up to be more faithful. And, most amazingly, He extends His all-sufficient grace to me when I least deserve it.
If I accomplish nothing else with this book, I pray that every reader will be impacted by a deep understanding of God’s amazing GRACE. He invites even the worst of sinners to surrender that “worst” to Him; to look beyond what we call reality here, and share a personal relationship with Him, even now, above “reality,” where miracles still happen, and healing begins!
I pray now you will seek to know Him. It’s a life or death matter!
He is the reason Corrie ten Boom was able to survive three concentration camps in 1944; the reason she shared God’s love there during the Holocaust and all over the world, in person and in her many books, including “The Hiding Place.”
In these times, when the world seems as shadowy as in those World War 2 days, there is peace to be found, and assurance of God’s love in Jesus Christ. [Matthew 7:7-8]