Open Up

Open up
By Amy Gentry

I can remember the doctor standing over me with a long set of forceps in his hand and they had a huge wad of gauze at the end.  He began trying to pry apart my jaws so that he could shove this set of forceps down my throat to apply pressure to the rip in the back of my esophagus to control the bleeding long enough to get me into the operating room.  I would not budge.  I could not be persuaded.  I would not open my mouth.  As a matter of fact, I was quite irritated at the thought that the doctor might break my braces by the way we was pulling and tugging trying to get my mouth open.  The nurse called my parents into the room to help hold me down.  My dad held down my legs and my mom held my arms.  It was then that my mom looked deep into my eyes and said, “Open your mouth or you are going to die.”

In the operating room, I crashed.  I guess I died.  I remember two things: brightness and warmth.  Some think that this is the bodies natural reaction to extreme blood loss, but I KNOW that I was approaching Heaven.  Heaven is where I ultimately want to be one day, but that was not God’s plan for me on that day.  As I got older, I wondered how was it that I could get to Heaven one day, then the words of my mom came back to me.  “Open your mouth or you are going to die.”  I knew I had to open my mouth and pray.

Ÿ  First, you must pray and admit to God that you have sinned, that you have done things that you are ashamed of or things that you know were wrong.

Ÿ  You have to believe that Jesus was God’s Son and that he was crucified.  And during the crucifixion he took on all of the worlds sins past, present and future to make you clean of all unrighteousness.  Ask Jesus to be the Lord and Ruler of your life.

Ÿ  Finally, pray and confess, tell God about how you have sinned against Him and that you do not want to do those things anymore. 

After you have opened your mouth and prayed, then you need to tell someone about your prayer, a friend or a local Pastor of a church.  Get connected into a local church and seek God through reading the Bible.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 NLT

 I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said.  He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.