When You Look Into YOUR EYES In The MIRROR, What Do YOU SEE ?

I remember them well, past moments in time when God used the words, the looks, and the touch of people along with the strength, power and beauty of nature…to plant seeds of faith into my heart.

Seeds that grew deep into my heart in my early childhood; when my mind, heart and soul were open and innocent before God. Seeds that were watered by the Holy Spirit through the years to prepare my heart to accept the call from God to respond to HIS Words …”Come—Follow Me!”

I wear glasses and recently I was caught in the rain. Water droplets collected on the lens. The droplets are like memories to me. They float before my eyes, containing events of the past. I can focus on each individually and go back to those moments in time captured by each drop and see the hand of God in my life. God used my unbelieving Jewish family to plant many seeds into me at a very young age. The following are a few, very few of those moments.

I was 12, just one year away from my Bar Mitzvah. I had caught a very bad flu that kept me home for over a week missing school. My Aunt brought me a picture book and a comic book to occupy my time.

The picture book was leather bound and sewn with an embossed padded cover. It was thick with pages and pictures of paintings by Renaissance artists…all with biblical themes. The book began in the Garden of Eden showing Adam and Eve leaving the Garden with an angel wielding a flaming sword at their backs.

The next page was a scene from the flood of Noah. The Ark was in shallow water with hundreds of naked people trying to hold on as the raging waves of water rose, and lightning filled the darkening skies.

Another was the view of what looked like the shape of a woman on a hill. Her posture was that of one looking behind her. It was Lots wife whom God turned into a pillar of salt because she looked longingly back at the destruction of Sodom in the valley below. In front of her looking and walking forward were her husband Lot and their two daughters, leaving her behind.

Another was the scene of Moses and the Israelites walking through the midst of the Red Sea with walls of water rising on either side, filled with sea creatures. The sky was raging along with the sea and back in the distance were the pursuing Egyptian horsemen on chariots with the sea closing in on them.

This book of pictures helped my imagination begin to live out the Old Testament that later in life would become the foundational pillar of my faith in Christ the Messiah of Israel…the Son of God.

The paintings of major events in the Old Testament made it clear to me that God is not only a God of love, but also a God who is to be feared. He is a God who will chasten His wayward children to bring them back on course. He is a God to be feared, loved and obeyed.

The comic book I received was also very special to me. It was unusually thick and perfect bound. It was released prior to the Grand Opening of the Cecil B. DeMille movie called the “Ten Commandments” with Charlton Heston playing Moses.

This comic book was like a storyboard of the entire movie. I spent hours and hours reading and re-reading it. Weeks later my parents took me to see the movie. It was shown in a new theater with a giant screen. Moses was almost 20 feet tall as I watched from the first row seat of the upper balcony.

I was so small and the screen and characters so large that I felt like I was part of the movie. God ignited my heart, my mind and imagination at that movie. Even then I was able to understand how awesome and huge God is. My memories make HIM even more special to me today because I know He loved me back then. And now HE has called me to serve HIM in so very many unique ways that I truly am experiencing Joy in my journey.

Later when I was a teenager my Aunt visited our home. I do not recall what happened but she was extremely upset. She came to visit my Father. My Dad was a good, kind and gentle man. The family often came over to speak to him about their problems, to ask his advise.

My Aunt seemed calm as she prepared to leave. She came to me and said how much she loved my Father and that if I looked into his eyes I would be able to tell that he was a very Old Soul.

Her comment to me echoed in my mind the last time I saw my father alive. He was in the hospital. It was the day before he died. I visited him. His eyes were filled with tears as he looked at me. Tears that came forth from the eyes of an Old Soul formed water droplets filled with the memories of his life-gone bye. God truly had hammered him on an anvil of pain and suffering throughout his life. He lived through the Holocaust but lost his wife and children in the camps.

He knew he was dying and that he was going to leave me behind. He carried the guilt for the death of his former wife and children even up to these last precious moments of time. And in some strange way the thought now of leaving me was more than he could bear.

And so tears filled with memories came forth form those eyes. I looked deeply for the last time into the windows of this Old Soul. I was overcome with compassion and love as we talked and I watched the unfolding of the mystery of the end of life for his body. But I could see the light of eternity in his eyes.

Ironically this was to be the defining moment of my new beginning to seriously read the Old Testament. It would take the death of my father to spark the flame of life that God had started in my heart.

God through the years had been planting seeds in my heart. They were like glowing embers in a fire. The embers waited for over 30 years for just this moment to burst into flame and begin to illuminate my hearts yearning for God. The Light from the flame in my heart lit the darkness before me so I could see my way through the Messianic prophecies He left for me to follow in the Old Testament all the way to HIS home.

You and I are children of the living God, children of the King of the Universe. If you listen quietly you will hear His Call as He says to you…

You may not know me, but I know everything about you
I am familiar with all of your ways
In me you live and move and have your being

My plan for your future has always been filled with hope
Because I love you with an everlasting love
My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore
And I rejoice over you with singing
I desire to establish you with all of my heart and all of my soul
If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me

When we look deep inside ourselves through eyes that are windows to our soul we will find tears. They are water droplets filled with memories of precious moments in time that have gone by. Some of our souls are filled with Pure and HOLY eternal light. Others of us have eyes filled with a combination of both light and shadows…yet still eternal.

God has created every soul that has ever been. Ultimately He calls each one back to take residence within the place they have chosen to spend eternity in.

You and I …WE …are all OLD SOULS.

When you look into your own eyes in the mirror… what do you see?

Grandpa Ernie