The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.” John 4:6

It was in December and the needle had just touched down on the album I was playing……that’s how you know this was years ago. It was albums and cassette tapes back then, not CDs. I remember looking out the window and seeing the ghostly white  fog as it enveloped the street. I felt cloaked in it, safe almost. The neighborhood seemed hushed, shrouded.

As the first strains to O Holy Night filled the air, I may have been praying or I may not have, I really don’t remember. All I do remember was that one minute I was listening to the song, and the next minute the Presence of the Holy Spirit appeared in that room. The words to that song were like hammer blows to my heart.

My soul was pierced. I didn’t see Jesus on the cross, but somehow I felt the magnitude of what He did and the depth and weight of His love was overwhelming. It was the deepest sense of humility I have ever felt before or since, and all I could do was bow my head to the ground and weep.

I thought about all the times in the Bible when angels revealed themselves and all the people could do was fall at their feet. I wept and cried from a place deeper than I ever thought possible. It was confusing, it was beautiful, and it was agony in the Spirit all at once because I felt the sorrow of God like an offering.

Wave upon wave it engulfed me. And it could have lasted 5 minutes or it may have been an hour. I lost track of time.

I remember the song ending  and I desperately didn’t want that Presence to leave so I played it again, and He stayed for a little while but then like a vapor He was gone. Like the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, He came and went like the wind.

And sometimes I still try to figure out why.

Why that particular day, why me?

And then I accept it once again for what it was……..a gracious gift from a God who loves me. If I ever doubted His presence before, I never did after that day. It remains a pure and untarnished moment as clear now as when it first happened all those years ago when Heaven came down.

How about you? Do you have a similar story of a time in your life when God came near? I would love to hear about it.