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By Celine Wood Meador

Guest Columnist

I lived in the Cayman Islands for a few years beginning in my late twenties. It was an extraordinary place filled with new experiences and adventures (including more than a thousand dives in water as clear as gin), but none even began to compare with my experience of getting rescued.

Having grown up Episcopalian in a small Alabama town, I avoided the religious people who frequently harped on being saved. Saved from what, I wondered. Being judgmental, hypocritical, joyless? No, thank you. I loved God, and wanted to know Him and His power, if possible. (I was told that it was not – but for the record, it is.) I wanted more than platitudes and what seemed to me meaningless rules. If God were real, I wanted the big stuff.

After I left Birmingham and moved to the islands, my now ex-husband got “saved.” This was exhausting and offensive to me because he had been consistently irreverent and unfaithful during the eleven years of our marriage. Now he was suddenly spouting the same Bible verses and platitudes I had avoided in my youth. He was also sending me books.

I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away, because they were about God, so they sat on my shelf for quite some time, until one day I had nothing else to read and picked up the first one, Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis, the famous Oxford Don. Basically, it is the intellectual argument for Jesus as the only son of God. I found it pretty convincing in its premise that Jesus was either exactly who he claimed to be, or a liar and the greatest conman of the ages.

Then I read the second book. It was written by disgraced political heavyweight of the day, Chuck Colson, one of Nixon’s supposed political henchmen. His story, Born Again, told of his salvation experience in prison and how much more powerful and real that the man Jesus was, than any of the powerful people he had encountered in his time in Washington and the White House.

Finally, I read a simple little book called Something More written by Catherine Marshall, the wife of Peter Marshall, an Irish chaplain for the U.S. Senate many years ago. He was also a close friend of the faithful runner in the 1981movie Chariots of Fire.

Catherine Marshall’s book was simply a collection of a dozen stories of people who’d had unmistakable radical and supernatural experiences with God. That was the kind of thing I had longed for my whole life. I was consistently told it was impossible in today’s age. (For the record, it is not.)

Late that July night, after finishing the last book, I went into the children’s bedroom. It was my custom to kneel by their beds and say “The Lord’s Prayer” for them. In my heart of hearts, I knew God was out there somewhere, and I hoped He was listening. On that particular night, after reading that particular book, I felt an overwhelming need to pray to Jesus. Jesus. I don’t think I had prayed to Jesus since I was three or four-years-old.

It was a supremely awkward moment. I was alone, and yet I felt the eyes of the universe looking at me while I struggled with this small seemingly insignificant decision. Finally, perhaps because I am stubborn, I decided I had a perfect right to pray to Jesus if I wanted. I said these exact words. “Jesus, if you are real, if you can be in my life, what you have been in the lives in this book I have just finished, you can have everything. My children, my hotel, my belongings, my friends, family, my whole life.”

I was very tense saying this prayer, but suddenly it felt as if warm honey were pouring out of the heavens onto my head, covering my entire body and bringing peace so  incredible that I looked up at the ceiling, and uttered, “You’re kidding!” Thinking back, I’m sure that remark must have made Jesus smile.

That was the day I was rescued by Jesus. That was the day that changed my life forever, and it happened here in the Cayman Islands, where I am writing this and feeling such gratitude.

Rescued!

Long ago on Calvary’s cross,

Jesus, God’s son, suffered loss.

He chose to die. He died for me.

Because he did, I’ve been set free

And rescued.

Rescued from both sin and death,

Rescued from a lesser self

To life abundant, undeserved,

To love eternal, unreserved,

I’m rescued.

Not because I’m good or pure,

Because I’m not, be very sure.

Not for deeds that I have done.

I did not earn this prize I won.

Just rescued.

Some would call me saved, I know

And biblically, indeed it is so,

But many run from that word “saved.”

They rush, unknowing to their graves.

Not rescued.

It’s such a simple thing, you see,

To take His gift and be set free,

To live a life of peace and joy,

To never fear death anymore.

Be rescued.

(C) Celine Meador

Generally, I don’t publicly share such private slices of my life, but I feel a great global shift is at hand in our world – and that having a true spiritual foothold is increasingly important. If you haven’t already, please consider Jesus and his incomparable gift to each of us. There is nothing to lose and everything to gain. ~ Celine Meador

(A member of ECHS Class of 1963, Atmore native Celine Wood Meador is also a published author, phenomenal artist, businesswoman, wife, mother, grandmother, sister, and friend. Best of all she is saved!)