I didn't realize for some time what had happened to me, but as I've mentioned here before, the next morning I woke up with a transformed view of the world. I felt new and clean. The first thing I did was wish joy on every person in the world.
As the day wore on, my sadness took over in waves, but something had changed forever.
All these years later, I see that there's a deeper significance in that "first morning" than I had realized:
On November 1, 1971, for the first time ever, the Holy Spirit opened His eyes in my room, and looked out at the world from my body. What was the very first message He had to share with me about Himself from this new vantage point? PEOPLE. He wanted to reach out to people, to shower them with love and grace and kindness. No theology or doctrine I would ever learn later would improve on this message:
Love one another, just as I have loved you.
It's a command -- it's not optional:
"This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you."
(John 15:12)
Yet we are not the source of the love we are to give one another -- He is -- so this is two commands in one: "This is My commandment, that you let Me be Lord of everything you are, so that I may love other people through you, just as I have loved you."
He keeps saying it. We so often find ways to do anything but obey it. Does He need to rephrase it? I think when we finally get this, it begins to flow out of us like it did that first morning when He looked out at the world through my eyes.
I have such a long way to go to get back to the beginning.