A Person of Interest
The following story reveals how, due to fear and confusion, Emily deliberately avoided an encounter with a "person of interest." She had missed an opportunity to touch this person with the power of God's unconditional love. Yet Jesus came and redeemed the disappointment she was feeling in herself. This happened when the Holy Spirit activated her "holy" imagination to create a redemptive, intercessory vision. Recently, God confirmed to Emily that what she saw in her vision is true: the power of God's redeeming love is in fact "the force" that ultimately changes everything. Here is her story:
I saw a man dressed as a woman at Sprouts the other day. That’s putting it mildly. If you know what I mean.
Timely, because I’ve been thinking for weeks about God’s passionate, fiery love—and how this love frequency, the most powerful in the universe, is the only thing that can really alter a person’s course, transform his mind, or remove his spots. Mine included.
This is what I’m learning: When I know in my knower that my spirit is “joined” to God’s Spirit—and that my heart is all tangled up with His heart—this same passionate, powerful love force pours through me. The oft forgotten reality is that this love force changes everything it touches.
It’s the love Jesus exuded when he encountered the woman at the well. (By all accounts, Jews were not to associate with Samaritans, especially female ones, but He did it anyway.) The woman was so overcome by His love, she left her water jar behind and her questionable life, too. (John Chapter 4)
It’s the same love that came out of Jesus’s mouth when He said, “Lazarus, come out!” Yes, the love of God literally drew that dead man out of the tomb, his grave clothes still intact! (John Chapter 11)
And, of course, it’s the same extravagant Love that sacrificed a Son so image-bearers like you and me could walk in “rightness” and freedom. (Download the “Rightness/ Wrongness Chart” , a companion piece to Invite Jesus into Your Traumatic Memories.)
Now, back to the person of interest at Sprouts. I had seen this person a bit earlier, over in the meat section. And I had been thinking the entire time about her, what I might say to her. I knew I needed to say something. But what?
I couldn’t think. I was feeling conflicted. Confused. I have blessed people in stores before, many times. However, this person was different.
Or was she?
I rounded a corner near the produce. There she was, picking through the apples, filling her cart with virtually the same items I had in mine. I moved past, pretending to check out the sweet potatoes, trying not to stare.
It was just a normal day at the supermarket.
Then God said, “He is the same as you, made in My image. Body. Soul. Spirit. But his spirit is trapped, covered up completely, by a web of lies. His wounded soul screams for attention because he’s desperate, suffocating, crying for help. But no one is really noticing. No one really cares.”
I wanted to go up and give that guy a big hug. And slap the enemy in the face, on the way.
Instead, I turned abruptly to go down another aisle. Why did I turn away? I needed to tell him that there’s hope for a future that is good! That God loves him so much!
I thought about turning around and going back, but that was as far as it went.
I confess. I darted out of the store shortly thereafter, lamenting, “Lord, I could have invited you to come! You would have told me just the right thing to say!”
At home, hours later, I was still feeling disappointed that my cowardice, indecision, and lack of wisdom had gotten in the way, throwing me off and keeping me from having an encounter with that troubled soul.
“Jesus, come!” I needed redemption from my feelings of disappointment and failure.
I closed my eyes and imagined that Jesus was standing there with me, taking my cowardice, my indecision and unreadiness, my mental anguish, my failure. I sensed His loving presence and patience, as I always do. Then came a flood of relief, true peace, shalom.
Suddenly, I was back at Sprouts, standing near the person previously described. There he was again, placing his apples in the cart. But this time, something in me had shifted. Now my heart was bursting with compassion that could not be contained. I strode over, looked him in the eye and said, “I hope this won’t embarrass you. But I feel compelled to tell you that. . . I love you. I love you. That’s it. I just wanted you to know you are loved.”
In my “holy” imagination, the same man I had seen earlier, made up heavily, fully breasted, and scantily clad, was moved. He didn’t say anything. He just clasped his hands and drew them in over his heart. A tear formed in one eye and ran down, smearing one of the large black triangles he had painted at the corner of both eyes.
I extended my hands. “I bless you in the name of the One Who has loved you since before the foundation of the world, the One who is love.”
“Who?” was the man’s simple response.
“He’s right here. It’s Jesus.”
At that moment Jesus came and stood between us. Then He reached out and touched the man, calling him by name. Uncontrollable tears of relief followed. Jesus took him in His arms and comforted him.
A few seconds later, they melted into each other and vanished from my mind’s eye.
“Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. Love never stops loving” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8a TPT).
“Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him” (1 John 4:7 TPT).
Read the article and/or listen to the video that confirms what God showed Emily about His unconditional love here. (An ex-Satanist testifies that Jesus appeared to him in a vision—a week after a Christian had gone out of her way to extend unconditional love to him at work. He knew this Jesus was real when he recognized the force of His love. It "matched" the energy he had felt when the woman hugged him the week prior. These two back-to-back experiences overwhelmed him to such an extent that his life immediately changed!)
Author Emily Gardner Foppe helps people “exchange” wrong thoughts, feelings, and emotions for “right” ones. Her book, Invite Jesus into Your Traumatic Memories, discusses the use of holy imagination to help hurting individuals engage with the God who made them—the One Who loves them and Who wants to see their “divisions” healed so they can be made whole.