I BELIEVE

Amazing Grace: And Its Effect on Me

Pat Cirrincione

It was twenty years ago this past January that I first heard the hymn “Amazing Grace.” I remember it as if it were just yesterday.

I remember the week after Christmas, when I had made my profession of faith in front of everyone at the midnight mass back in 2001, and I broke down crying as I stood at the lectern to do the reading. How was I to know, that within two weeks’ time I would be sitting in a worship service at College Church listening to this song that described “a wretch like me.”

Truthfully, I had not intended to write this story. I was pretty sure I was going to write about the “bent woman” in Luke 13:10-12, or about the rebellion in the Bible and how God holds an olive branch out to his people in hopes that they will take a hold of it, follow him, and quit sinning. However, God had a different story for me to write as John Newton’s hymn kept floating through my mind as I tried to sleep. The words nudging me awake as God kept reminding me of this wonderful gift he had given me so long ago in a brand-new church, surrounded by a Christian community I still knew nothing about.

Back to January 2002. I was sitting in a pew with a friend when the hymn began:

Amazing grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me I once was lost, but now I’m found Was blind but now I see.

Seriously? How did God know about me? I was clueless about the sovereignty of God, but he did know that I was a wretch and that I had been lost—and he found me, even though I had steered so far from him and didn’t know who he really was. I was so very blind. If I read the Bible, it was all gibberish to me. A totally foreign language that I couldn’t understand at all. But slowly he allowed me to see more of who he was, and what I had become, without even being aware of how far I had traveled away from him. But I digress.

I’m embarrassed to say that my first Sunday at College Church, I probably disturbed people sitting around me. At first, I was just quietly crying, and then some rather loud sobs erupted from my inner being. I tried to restrain myself, but I suddenly felt so blessed and loved and in awe of this mighty God who had saved my life! So, forgive me if you were one of the church members sitting next to me in the early days of my salvation, I really wasn’t a nut case who was about to lose it all. It was just at that moment I knew that I was being redeemed into a new creation and into a new life and it was quite a shock to my system.

The hour I first believed God’s grace “taught my heart to fear, and his grace my fears relieved.” That gift was, and still is, so precious to me. It continues to bring me through many “dangers, toils, and snares” and I know that it will continue until it brings me home.

However, until that happens, I continue to fight the sin battle while on this earth, but I no longer feel lost and adrift like I did those many years ago, when I wanted to try something new and experience as much of life’s smorgasbord as possible. Now I want to experience him, through his Word. I love knowing that I can talk to him about anything on my mind, just as David did in the psalms.

Without God’s love, I might be in a whole different place right now. I have lost wonderful parents and just as wonderful in-laws. I’ve lost wonderful aunts who were there for our family in every way my parents were. I have lost two of my dearest friends and close cousins. When my dad passed away, his new wife spread lies about me to the rest of my family, and all but one aunt and her family stopped talking to me; the rest of the family judged me and never asked for my side of the story.

Our third granddaughter has suffered seizures due to the incompetency of the medical staff at the hospital that did not treat her correctly and she not only had a seizure but a stroke while they did nothing. To top it all off, a medication I took created a fibroid in my breast to turn into a mushroom. This occurred in March last year, and it took the doctors until September to remove it. I thank the Lord that during that time things did not get worse but, because the medical staff did not listen to me about my drug sensitivity, I had a lengthy recovery that could have been avoided. In the end, I had stage zero, non-invasive breast cancer, and was told that I did not need to go for any treatment unless I chose to do so to be on the safe side. I opted for fifteen days of radiation, where I learned to focus exclusively on God while I received treatment. Through it all I had my immediate family, church friends and God to rely on (not in that order). All this to say that

Satan will throw anything he can at you to let you think that God doesn’t care about you. Don’t fall for his lies.

Remember God’s amazing grace that he shows us again and again in his Word. You can count on him. He has been my saving grace through all of this and more, and if there is one huge thing (among many) that I have learned it is this: When Jesus first saw someone, he looked at them; then he answered their request, which gave them hope. That’s what he has done with me: he saw me all along! And he taught me how to pray and gave me hope in him in every facet of my life, even knowing that my past would be used for future stories of grace. I am now doing what he always wanted me to do, loving him and trying to do his will—although he still has to hit me over the head every now and then to let me know that I need to do what he is asking of me.

I’ve learned not to fall into the depths of despair when dangers, toils and snares that surround us go on the attack. God’s amazing grace will bring you to safety and safely home to him. I am so glad he saved me from myself and the risks I used to take so easily. Was it worth it to sing my praises instead of praising my God and Savior? No, it wasn’t. I would now rather take the risks he wants me to take, instead of hiding and procrastinating with all the detours life throws our way. I’d rather listen to him.

I guess all along I was that bent woman, being crushed by the follies of life. But the words to “Amazing Grace” remind me that it is God who has brought me safe thus far and it’s his grace that will lead me home.