She Had A Vision Of Jesus On The Cross That Changed Her Life Forever

This miracle story was sent to me via email, and she requested that I use her pen name, Jessie Paisley. As she says, she wants this to be “about Him, not me.” Her story is of an incredible vision of Jesus on the cross that she had that changed her life forever. Read her incredible story and the passionate message associated with it below.

After getting engaged to the man that I loved, I still felt like something was missing in my life. I can’t explain the hunger I felt. It was like an emptiness, and I could sense that it was dark. Void. My local church was small and within walking distance from the house, and as I sat through one very boring meeting, with a feeling that somehow God was the answer, I couldn’t quite understand the meeting that was taking place around me. I had read about God in my children’s bible and He was certainly not boring! He spoke to people personally. Whenever He was involved, supernatural things took place. People’s lives were completely turned upside down after encountering Him, and they couldn’t keep quiet about it! They were healed, restored, and changed direction with power and purpose. So I really couldn’t tie the two things together in this meeting.

They spoke words of love, depth, and life-changing encounters, but I was surrounded by people who weren’t reflecting what they were talking about. I couldn’t see their actions. Where were their life-changing testimonies of God meetings and conversations that they couldn’t wait to talk about? Where were their Angelic visitations? I struggled to understand this meeting. It’s one thing to say these things, but it’s a completely different thing to live them. Jesus had to tell people to keep quiet after He’d healed them, trying to keep things under wraps to a degree, but no one here seemed to be bursting at the seams to share anything. It was like they were disconnected somehow from the words they spoke. Just like being around my adoptive mother, who said she loved me, but her actions and attitudes spoke a very different story. So I left the meeting disappointed, but not deterred. A month later, I tried again, hoping it was just a ‘blip’ of a meeting, but it was the same result, and then again, the same result. At least I was persistent!

“I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.” Proverbs 8 v 17

(I have heard it said that we all find God in our own way. However, WHEN you find Him, your life will never be the same again!)

Then a friend of my fiancé, whom we hadn’t seen for a while, ‘accidentally’ bumped into him one day, and his friend explained with passion how he’d now become a Christian, which had changed his life. He was offered an invitation to his friend’s church. So when I heard about this, I jumped at the chance.

I arrived at the church with an expectation to see something different, but I can’t remember much of the meeting! As the Preacher, standing at the front of the church, started sharing “the good news of the gospel”… whatever that was… and spoke of the things I’d read about as a child, “Jesus dying for my sins”… whatever they were… everything suddenly changed.

It was like a huge TV appeared before me (I can assure you, there was no TV in the room!), like a window into the past suddenly pulled back its curtains. All those feelings I’d experienced growing up, a sense of being outside of time, suddenly came to life in detailed 4D clarity. I saw Jesus dying on the cross, and He was looking straight at me! The reality of that encounter awakened every sense in my body. It was like I was there, feeling it, breathing it, hearing Him, as though I’d stepped into a time machine. I was now living a part of history as it played out before my eyes, and I couldn’t escape it. He moved me to my core.

Truth of His love suddenly flooded that dark void inside me. Like a dam bursting its barriers with such ferocity, I was powerless to hold it back, because without any doubt, I could see the love He had for me was real. I could see it in His eyes. They were deeper than any ocean I have known. His love was total. I didn’t need to conform to be accepted by Him, and I didn’t need to put on my ‘best behavior outfit’ to be approved by Him either. He just loved me—all of me—just as I am. It was personal, very personal between Him and me, because for the first time in my life, I could see His eyes recognize and see me for who I am. At last! Here was the God of my children’s bible I’d been searching for—El Roi, the God who sees me.

There were no disapproving looks and no criticism, just pure unconditional accepting love; even my fiancé’s love seemed shallow in comparison. Tears started to roll down my face as my heart finally found home, and that deep longing to connect and be loved was ultimately met on such an unparalleled level.

Those ‘scales of love’ that need to be balanced with equal measurements on both sides, I soon realized, could never be matched by me. He would have to do something remarkable, because this love was beyond any human measurement I’d seen, and I basked in it.

Even though years previously a lady had interrupted my Saturday to tell me that “Jesus loved me,” and had spoken the truth, her words could not cut through the years of lies that had surrounded my heart since birth. Second-hand information is not powerful enough to believe in, because we presume it’s the kind of love we think we already know.

That whole experience was beyond words. When I say “God loves me,” I’m not quoting words from a book that I’ve read—I’m speaking from a reality that was so powerful it changed everything for me. It’s now a truth that has become the bedrock of my life, a truth that no one could ever take away from me, no matter what they say or do. I also noticed that the dark, empty void inside me had vanished.

A sadness then suddenly started to wash over me for the way I’d been living my life, and it wasn’t guilt I was feeling either—it was much deeper than that. I knew guilt, because my adoptive mother had placed enough on me to last a lifetime. Guilt usually comes with a sense of being judged harshly for things I’d done wrong, by having it thrown in my face time and time again, because there is no forgiveness involved. Guilt is also used as a tool to manipulate others, but this was more like a grieving for a ‘life lost’—the life I should have had. However, the grieving was coming from Jesus toward me, and it overwhelmed me. He had made me for something better. He had made me to be ‘Perfect Love’ in His image. So He didn’t list ‘sins’ like I often see Christians do. He didn’t point the finger as if ‘sin’ is a list of actions. He just accepted all I was—BROKEN—and then showed me how much more I’m meant to be.

And so, in that treasured moment of my heart colliding with His, He gave me a straight swap with no conditions attached. He coated my heart with His Perfect Love, so I was now acceptable to be close to Him, like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that could fit together, as He changed the shape of mine, filling in those missing gaps that had been chipped away over the years. As He took on the full punishment of anything I’ve ever done wrong, or would ever do wrong, in the Spiritual Courtrooms of time—past, present, and future all rolled into one.

The revelation was profound. It was the revelation that had evaded me as a child when I’d looked at pictures of Jesus dying in my children’s bible. I knew it meant something, but in my childlike understanding then, I was not ready for the depth of what He was doing and who He is.

It is this very revelation that Jesus says His church will be built upon.

No amount of bible teaching will give you that, and no amount of bible study will give you that. Only God can give you that when He connects His heart to yours, and that’s why the first church I visited wasn’t ‘living it.’ I didn’t want someone to tell me about Jesus; I’d already read about Him in my children’s bible. I wanted to meet Jesus Himself, and so I did. After all, He is alive.

“I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.”
Galatians 1 v 11–12

Whilst having this revelation from Jesus, I asked Him to help me do things His way from now on. I could see that my ‘measurement of love’ was so inaccurate that only His perfect standard had to become my compass. If I were made in His image, then I no longer wanted to feel that grief of a ‘life lost.’ I desperately wanted to have the abundant life He’d died to give me. Only His love could show me how to love myself and others in equal measure, setting back that boundary line to its rightful place. People often think that world peace can be found with ceasefires, understandings, tolerance of other cultures, or government laws, but the truth is our very identity of Perfect Love being restored, which has been so badly corrupted, is where the answer lies.

“That’s when God’s Word entered my life, became part of my very being.”
Psalm 40 v 8

It was a cold, frosty January morning in 1984 when I woke up thinking about what had happened the previous night. My thoughts followed a line of questioning: “Was that real? What happened? Did I dream that? Did I really experience an encounter with God—the Creator of the whole Universe?” Many thoughts and questions were swirling through my mind as I prepared for another day at college.

As I stepped outside, the sky was a pastel clear blue, and the sun was low—not warm enough to dispel the white sugar coating of frost on the trees and grass that had formed overnight—and that’s when I started to notice the difference. The fir trees looked so alive. It was like they were breathing life. Creation around me was awake and living, and I could feel it. Everything just looked different. The colors were so vibrant, and as I looked up at the sky with my head still full of questions, I was overwhelmed once again with His love. It flowed down from heaven like living waterfalls with such power that it nearly knocked me off my feet. This had not been a dream—this was real. It was like I had woken up to LIFE after a bad, soul-numbing nightmare that had lasted many years. The Lord Jesus Christ was now with me, and suddenly everything became crisp and alive—not just the trees covered in frost.

I spent my whole day being my usual self, but this time I was doing it in company—God’s holy company. I lost count of the number of times I apologized as soon as I did something unloving, as my whole day was spent in a state of repenting and cleaning up (and it has been ever since).

His very presence was shining light in my soul, as my heart connected with His, and in that light I could see myself so much more clearly. It was hard to take on board the image I was witnessing, as His PURE PERFECT LOVE highlighted so much corruption in mine, as He slowly began to restore my heart to align with His.

He was so patient with me. It didn’t matter how many times I messed up with my mouth, my attitude, or my actions; all He was interested in seeing was my constant, determined desire to change—not wanting to hold onto my old ways. Repentant. It was a heart that longed to be like His.

He was never condemning—never judgmental in the way I’ve often seen Christians behave in recent years when quoting scripture to correct another, so quick to speak judgment instead of encouragement. Jesus certainly doesn’t point out EVERYTHING wrong in one go. It would be too much to bear. The fall of mankind from our original design is extensive.

In the bible, found in all four gospels, John the Baptist talks about the One who baptizes with Fire—the very presence of God dwelling in a person—and it’s a holy, all-consuming fire that burns corrupted love with such a deep grieving it makes you feel uncomfortable. You just don’t want ‘sin’ (broken love) in your life anymore. He does the work of cleaning you up bit by bit, giving man no room for taking praise upon himself.

As we know, people can try harder to be more loving in their own strength and by their own choice, keeping God well out of the picture—but what standard of ‘good’ can we measure up to if it’s not Him? How can those scales of love prevent people from getting hurt if everyone has a different measurement?

Our starting point has to be all the same, but reading about it is certainly not the same thing as experiencing it. We, as a human race, have no idea what it looks like anymore. We have fallen so far from our original design; it’s now lost in the past without knowing Him. It certainly was an interesting first day as a Christian without a doubt. That’s the difference between seeking God and finding Him. He was leading me, guiding me, changing me—and He was doing it all in unconditional love.

“I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” Ezekiel 36 v 25-27

What God does for mankind is beyond belief! His love was what I’d been longing for my whole life, and it was only His love that satisfied above and beyond any human capacity. He set a standard in me, in those early days, of what it means to be a Christian that has never left me. Salvation was all about Him and what He did for me. I couldn’t earn it with good behavior, reason with it, or try to add to it; I just needed to submit to His lead, and accept it, lock, stock & barrel!