Tom, Susan, Heidi, Tom’s parents, and a dog named River, several months before Susan’s new birth experience.

By Susan Shanklin

Hello victorious, overcoming saints of the Most High! I bet you make it! If God is for you, WHO can be against you? Take a deep breath and make your nostrils swell with some fresh oxygen. Stand up and lift those hands that hang down. You serve a living, perfect, all-knowing God! Does He not see you? Does He not see others? YES, He does!

Straighten your helmets and get into formation. Lift up that mighty sword and shield. Don’t act like it weighs a million pounds. Smile at the guy next to you even though you don’t agree with them and say, “ He’s got this, and we are in this together!”

Right? He’s got this. Focus. I mean, really focus. Put on your night goggles because it’s really dark out there. God is the shining light, and in Him, there is no darkness at all. If you see darkness, you must be looking in the wrong place. 

Start praising the Lord and stop praising the devil and magnifying his deeds. 

“My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for He will lead my feet from the net.”

I am in the fighting mode today. I’m sick and tired of the devil causing me fear and anxiety. 

Oh, I remember the day I got saved from my wicked, miserable, sinful life. I was hopelessly drowning. I was dying a very slow death. My sin was so heavy that I could not sustain normal mental health or relationships. BUT some people who had the answer were praying for me. Loving me beyond what they saw in the natural. They invited us to church over and over again. They knew the answer for my sinful state without pointing out my sinfulness. 

No one needed to point out my sin. I was very aware of my condition. I was in darkness. I needed light but didn’t know where to find it. 

Since birth, my God, my Savior, had a rope around my waist, gently pulling me. Yanking me from flames of death many times. 

I almost died once in an automobile accident in college. They didn’t think I was going to make it, and a passing Catholic priest gave me the last rites on the side of the road. 

Another time, I was on a runaway horse and ducked not a second too soon to miss a metal wire strung across a yard. Tom and I once traveled over mountains covered in snow with one tire chain, and me 9-months pregnant. Many times the devil had his death laser dot focused on me to take me out … BUT God.

BUT God loved me. BUT God saw my value. BUT God had a plan.

You see, God chose me. I didn’t choose God.

Gently tugging, my God did rescue me. I came out of darkness and into the light. I was repentant of my sin. No one can repent for another’s sin. It comes from the will inside a person. Prayers of the saints added strength to the pull of the Lord on my heart, but ultimately it was me saying, “YES, LORD.”

YES, LORD!

Rain from the right hand of the Father fell on me and washed my sins away forever and ever. I now had that golden rope tied to the cross of Jesus. 

I remember it like it was an hour ago … the day I got saved. I went from utter despair to sweet peace and uncontrollable joy. 

I didn’t know what to do. I just sat on the curb of Main Street, Spring Grove, Minnesota, with my newborn, Nathan, and greeted passer-byers with, “Praise the Lord!” 

I could not stop smiling. I was clean. I was free. I was NORMAL!

Jesus Christ makes you normal, fresh, new, unblemished, unpolluted with a clean slate and says, “COME and follow me.”

I was outfitted with the total armor that day. I took a lot of angels early on to keep that armor on, but I chose to learn how to keep it polished, greased up, and ready for action. 

The sword wasn’t to be used on my brothers and sisters in God’s army or on other people, but against principalities and powers in the air who are tricking and deceiving creatures of the flesh just like in the days of Noah.

God is pulling those ropes of mankind. He’s pulling on the hearts of children. Are we praying for them or chopping them up with the sword? Giving them a word of peace or smacking them with our shield?

God has a plan for you. God has a future for you. God is speaking to you. Are you and I saying, YES Lord or NO Lord? 

I would like the Lord to say “YES” to me and not “NO.” So, He would like me to say “YES” and not “NO.”

Praise God! Praise God! It’s a good day to be alive and serving the living King. 

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