In late August, 1956, I found myself in a dark and lonely place in my mind.  I was young, and lonely, feeling the world was to big and lonely for me.  I knew about Jesus, and I knew about heaven and hell, but it really didn't come together in my mind what it all meant. 

In my hurt and confusion, the devil whispered in my mind that the only way out was to die. I found myself looking out a fourth floor window into the dark night.  As I prepared to open the window and let myself drop over the edge, I heard an audible whisper next to my right ear.  It said, quite clearly, "You are jumping into Hell!"  I was  startled.  The voice was plain and clear.  But I went again to open the window.  Again, a second time, I heard the whispered voice, loud and clear, by my ear.  "You are Jumping into Hell!" This time I was so frightened that I ran away from the window.  I grabbed a short stubby pencil and a piece of paper, and wrote a poem that expressed my heart's lonely cry for the Rest that Jesus had promised. 

Come unto Me, Jesus said in His word, and I will give you Rest.  But where was my Rest?  I had no peace of mind. I had no peace of soul.  I had no Rest.  I will give you Rest, Jesus had promised.  But I had no Rest. 

Then one day, I got invited to church.  It was a church full of the praises of people who had found the Rest of Jesus. 

The pastor saw me sit down in the pew, and shouted at me, "Young lady, God wants to save your soul, right now!" 

I burst into tears. 

He got the whole church praying for me, as he came down to pray for me in the pew.  He put his hand on my back and shouted at the devil to leave me, and I felt suddenly a lifting of a chain on my Will. 

The pastor led me up front, and I knelt down to pray, with the whole congregation shouting their prayers behind me.

I told the Lord, I know I've hardened my heart against You.  Will you soften my heart so I can let You in? And when You have, put a smile on my face".

My sobs and tears instantly stopped, and I broke into a pure, joyful laughter. 

The Lord had taken my soul from dark night to glorious light.  It had been as though I was lost in a dark night at the end of a blind alley at midnight.  But the Lord exploded in my soul like a Fourth of July .  

If you will call on Jesus, and ask Him to forgive your sins, He will answer immediately, and pour His precious blood over your soul, and you will enter into the newness of life that He promised.

Many of today's churches have forgotten what they exist for.  Churches do not exist to give preachers a good steady paycheck, or to sooth people to sleep about their souls.   Christ came to set men free from the bondage of the power called sin. Sin is the power inside your soul that makes you mad when people tell you to obey God's laws.  It is the power in your soul that makes you nervous when people pray. 

And Oh! how you hate it when the Bible is held up as the Word of God! "I don't want to believe God that way!"  Your  mind makes the excuse.  "If I admit that Jesus Christ actually is the Savior of the world, God in the flesh, then I might feel the need to repent of my sins!"

But still, we are faced with the words of Jesus, "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you Rest.  Take My yoke upon you. Learn of Me.  You will find rest to your souls."  He promises Rest.  REST.  REST.  Rest of soul. Rest of mind. Rest of Spirit.

When Jesus died on the cross, it only took three hours for Him to suffer and die, and take the eternal punishment for our sins.  Hell is everlasting, because we were made to be everlasting souls.  From within, out of the heart of man, comes the evil thoughts, thefts, adulteries, lies, betrayals, and all the cruelties that Jesus calls Sin.  If we refuse to repent of these fires in our souls, when we die they are still a part of us, and we take them with us.  We are dragged away from God by the fires of Hell that are already in our own souls, created by our own souls.  God did not make the fires of Hell.  We make them ourselves, and they become an eternal, everlasting, part of us.  When we call on Jesus to forgive us, He pours His Holy Blood over our souls and puts out the fires of Hell, and cleans us up.  We then become filled with His spirit, and when we die, we are drawn to Heaven.