Amazing Grace

By Patricia Damans

I dared to put my hand into the hand of a great and awesome God, and He proved His fatherhood to me. This is a candid expos of my walk with Him and a testimony to His goodness. I took Him at His Word, and He watched over His Word to perform it in my life. He is my delight, the lover of my soul, my redeemer King and Lord who taught me to trust Him in the midst of chaos and pain. He walked with me in the cool of the day and watched over me in the still of the night. What He did for me He will surely do for you and more as you put your trust in Him. He is able.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Oct 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781482803372

Patricia Damans

Patricia is the third youngest of six sisters and one brother. She was a shy and solitary child who preferred her own company; that is until she had an encounter with the Living Lord. She then became a radical Christian who couldn’t wait to tell people what the Lord had done in her life. She serves on the leadership of International House of Praise and continues to serve the Lord and acclaim His praises.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The Day I met Jesus

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

Hebrews 13:8

I was 10 years old when I found myself standing on a dusty road, near a tree, amidst a large crowd of people. It was a stiflingly hot day and the red dust from the sandy road was swirling about and, as the rays of sun caught these dust particles, they glinted as flecks of red gold.

There was a lot of excitement in the air and the many voices formed a constant drone of noise. I had no idea what all the excitement was about and as I looked around at all the people with whom I was standing, I was amazed by their style of dress. Each person wore an ankle length robe, with coloured borders and matching coloured sashes. Everyone was wearing open toed sandals.

There seemed to be a procession of sorts coming down the street towards where we had congregated. As this procession neared where I was standing the noise seemed to reach a crescendo. The atmosphere was charged, the air vibrated as with electricity and sound waves and a great deal of tension and excitement. Everybody seemed to be waiting with baited breath, for what, for whom, I had no idea.

I could barely contain myself and was desperately trying to stay in front of the crowd so as not to miss the procession as it passed. With all the commotion and the pushing and the shoving I was losing my place and I found myself weaving in and out and around legs and long robes when suddenly the noise seemed to stop and right in front of me was, Jesus. Wow, He was beautiful. I just stood there, tongue tied, staring at Him. He stretched out His hand, placed it on the top of my head and smiled at me and then he moved on without saying a word.

I opened my eyes to find myself in my bed and realised that it was just a dream, or was it? I could still see the red sand, hear the noise, and see His eyes, His smile, and His long brown hair. I could still feel the impression of His hand on my head. Did I really dream it all? It was the beginning of many dreams to come.

Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

Psalms 107:8

It was not long after this, that I had another dream, this time I found myself in a house with a myriad of rooms and long passages. People were lined up against the walls of these rooms and along the passages. I found myself standing against the wall of one of the passages. The people were of all ages, male and female. Nobody spoke.

Out of the corner of my eye a caught a glimpse of movement, down the far end of the passage to my right. I stuck my head out to see what was the cause of all the commotion but couldn’t, everybody else was standing erect and staring straight ahead of them, so I mirrored their actions.

I soon realised that it was Jesus walking down the passage. He was surrounded by these magnificent beings – angels, but in contrast they looked ordinary compared to Him. He was beautiful.

Jesus stopped in front of each person and gave them their rewards and still nobody said anything. Not a word was spoken except by Jesus Himself and so He continued down this passage towards me. Finally, Jesus and this entourage of angels were standing in front of me.

By this time, I was quite excited wondering what my reward was going to be, and I looked up at Him with great expectation. I cannot begin to explain to you what He looks like. I would not do Him justice. His eyes are very, very blue and they shine with iridescent rays of light each time He smiles, His smile is quick and unreserved, his compassion when he looks at you brings tears to my eyes even now just thinking about it.

Jesus looked at me with such tenderness in His eyes and said, You have to go back.

I was horrified and bitterly disappointed at the same time. What did He mean? Why did I have to go back? Why could I not stay? Why was I was not getting a reward like everyone else?

But again he repeated, very gently, you have to go back, you have not completed what I sent you to do.

I awoke from a deep sleep, disappointed and distressed wondering what He could possibly have meant by that? For a ten year old this was totally beyond me and very difficult to accept let alone comprehend. Sad to say because I didn’t understand I believed a lie; that God had favourites and that he couldn’t be trusted.

I learnt early on in life that this was not the kind of conversation you had with anybody so I kept this to myself but never forgot this experience. Years later I found this scripture;

And, behold I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.

Revelations 22:12

I grew up in a home with 6 sisters and one brother and had a Catholic upbringing. Going to mass every Sunday, back then, was considered having done your duty and yet to this day I have never forgotten the teaching I received in Catechism.

"Who made you? God made me.

Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next."

The dreams took a turn in that I would wake up and recall my dream only to find that whatever I had dreamt came true within a few days. I became afraid.

The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.

Psalms 34:7

One day, I was sent to the shop for a quart of milk. On the way back home and in my childish mind, decided to walk down the road with my eyes closed just to see if I could walk all the way down the road and stop in front of our gateway without opening my eyes.

I walked across the road, and with the bottle of milk in my hand and my eyes closed started the walk down the road. Rather gingerly at first but as I became a bit more confident in my self-imposed ability was soon walking merrily along. Suddenly, I felt a strange sensation on my wrist and felt that I was being very gently pulled to the left. I took two steps to the side and then two steps forward before I realised that somebody was holding my hand. I opened my eyes to see who it was and found myself quite alone. There was not one single person along the deserted street. On looking down at the ground I found that the manhole cover was missing and if I had not taken the two steps to the left I would have fallen into the manhole.

I was terrified and ran the rest of the way home. I promptly burst into tears when I saw my mom and was incoherent as I tried to explain to her what had happened. She was annoyed with me at first for being so silly, but soon realised what a fright I had and tried to console me by telling me that it was probably just my guardian angel protecting me.

We lived in a very safe neighbourhood at a very simple time in time but for goodness sake invisible people holding your hand. This I could not handle and I begged God to take it all away. He did and I was very pleased with this outcome.

I did not have another dream or visitation for many, many years to come.

"And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible."

Mark 10:27

Many years later although I was still attending church, I was not living a Godly life. I was running a small business responsible for production and salaries and everything else. This particular Friday I knew I was in serious trouble as I did not have sufficient funds to cover the wages and that would have serious consequences as far as the Industrial Council were concerned not to mention the staff.

Somewhere along the line somebody had given me a book by Oral Roberts and in this book he spoke about tithes (which I had never heard of). Anyway he went on to explain that you had to give God your best and then expect God to give you his best… the greater the sacrifice, the greater the blessing. Hang, what a notion, but what did I have to lose, so I decided to try it. I had exactly R 15.00 in my purse so I sealed R 10.00 in an envelope. I decided to keep the R 5.00 for cigarettes, just in case! Well, what if God didn’t come through, at least I’d have cigarettes. I then felt guilty that I was not placing much faith in God so I put the R 15.00 in another envelope, wrote across the envelope for God and asked my nephew to take it up to the church. Little realising that I was about to meet the God of the impossible.

So, we waited. The closer it got to the time when we needed to be processing the wages, the calmer I became.

My sister arrived as she usually did on a Friday to help with the processing of the wages and she asked, Where is the money? And I replied, We’re waiting.

She asked For what?

I answered For God.

Of course she thought I had completely flipped. She was still standing there looking like a surprised goldfish, when the front doorbell rang. I opened the door to find my auditor standing there. He had decided to come down personally to hand me a cheque from the Receiver of Revenue for R 1000.00 more than I needed to pay wages. God had come through.

I became an avid reader of anything and everything Oral Roberts. I even started writing to him and I continued to do so for many, many years. I had never read anything quite like this before, this man knew God! Oh boy did I have a lot to learn, I had no idea that you could have a personal relationship with God.

The business was prospering, even during recession the factory was working 7 days a week.

I was still living the high life, jetting here, there and everywhere. Sad to say I did not give God another thought but we were soon to meet again.

Working all those long hours I was exhausted and took ill. I had bronchitis but still I was going to work. Ten days later I had a relapse. I returned to the doctor who gave me an injection and told me I had just 3 minutes to get home. Still, I went back to the factory and passed out on the couch. At close of business that day I was carried out of the factory down two flights of stairs, placed on the back seat of my car and driven home. This was all relayed to me when I eventually surfaced.

I woke at 10pm that night not able to remember a thing. Everyone was asleep. I was thirsty so I drank some milk and went back to bed. At about 3am my mother was disturbed by strange sounds she heard coming from my bedroom. On investigating she realised that I was the one making the weird noises. My mother could not wake me and after contacting the doctor, my Mom together with my sister rushed me to hospital where we were met by the doctor.

I was transferred to a hospital bed and even though I could see my sister standing next to me I was completely paralysed. I wanted to lift my hand to touch her to tell her that I was very thirsty, that I wanted some water, but I could not move my body let alone my hand, I could not speak. I was having an allergic reaction to the injection that I had been given and was lapsing in and out of consciousness.

I started making those weird noises again and by now my mother was really upset and kept asking the doctor why, why was I making those weird noises, what was wrong with me? The doctor explained to my mother that my brain was functioning normally, in that I was aware of my surroundings, but my body was not responding to my brain so I was getting hysterical. He was also not happy with the fact that my heartbeat was elevated and had sent for a cardiologist to examine me. I gained consciousness later that afternoon but had a terrible headache. The nurse gave me an aspirin and I immediately lapsed back into unconsciousness. This time I woke up the following day strapped to the bed as I had succeeded in pulling out all the drips. I remained in hospital another day before being discharged.

A few months later I had a severe case of gastric flu and because I had been advised not to take any kind of medication was very weak by the time I reached work. I asked the supervisor to try not to wake me and once again fell asleep on the couch.

This time I found myself moving with high speed covering a great distance, almost as if I were flying. I was travelling in this mode for days, weeks, and months but it took a short period of time to do so. Having travelled backwards I stopped at a particular point in time in front of a flight of wooden stairs that were old, and well used. I could see the nails were rusted but still sturdy, secure. The strangest thing about this staircase was that it did not start on the ground but was suspended in mid air and went way, way up into the clouds.

I