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Above “Reality” – A Personal Introduction…
“You’re going home, Susan!”
The voice spoke to me as clearly as anyone ever had in my life.
It was the second time in several minutes I had heard those same words as I sat frozen, unable to move from my place in the sprawling sanctuary of
Near panic, I thought to bolt for the door, but even the slightest movement made me fear I would shatter into uncontrollable tears and humiliate myself irreversibly before so many strangers.
My life had been out of control for so long, and I felt certain these “do-gooders” would not understand or care that I had lost all but the last bit of heart to live anymore. I could not have guessed what God was about to do that would change my life forever!
It's hard for me now to describe the complete hopelessness I felt then. Telling how I got to that point is like relating someone else's story, but I'll share some of the more painstaking details later.
Some extraordinary incidents have happened in the years since then—you might even call them “miracles.” Blessings, I call them!
That's really what this book is about.
God showed me, that Sunday morning in 1984, that He will move heaven and earth in our lives—sometimes speak right out loud—if we earnestly seek Him. He wants us to know Him. He can be known!
| Even the most brilliant among us live out their years with little more than a philosophy about why they exist at all—and call it “reality.” Our perception of “truth” is limited by self-motivated opinions, our waning physical strength, fickle emotions, and a short supply of any faith that counts. Most tragically, for many, reality is a prison of seemingly impossible circumstances forged by our own or others' failings apart from the One who loves us most of all. |
I submit that God, who provides the miracle of the very air we breathe, is the Answer to all of our deepest questions, if we would only seek to know Him. We were created to live life connected to Him—without that connection, truly understanding this life is impossible.
But with God all things are possible!
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In my book—Above “Reality”—I have written about some of my own experiences before I knew much, if anything, about God—and about some extraordinary experiences in my life, since. Were they miracles? I'll leave that to your own faith to consider. I offer them here just as they happened.
God loved me at my worst, and I can't help but love Him back. He loves you, too! He wants you to know Him as a real Father. I pray you will seek after Him, and not stop seeking until you find Him.
Then hang on for dear life—you won't be disappointed!
The Lord knows my weaknesses and my fears. He hears my complaints and my prayers. He admonishes me regularly that I might grow up to be more faithful. And, most amazingly, He extends His grace to me when I least deserve it.
If I accomplish nothing else with this book, I pray that every reader will be impacted by a deep understanding of God's all-sufficient grace.
Jesus Christ—Y'shuah the Messiah; God with us in person on earth—invites even the worst of sinners to surrender our all to Him. He wants us to look beyond what we call “reality” here on planet Earth, to share a personal relationship with Him, even now—above “reality”—where miracles do happen, and our personal healing begins!
…Susan Meredith Beyer
Above “Reality” Excerpt – Chapter 6…
“Do you believe in angels, Mom?” I remember my son Wade’s question as if it wasn’t nearly forty years ago. He was at an age that can tend to weary a young mother—but it was a time in our lives I would give much to revisit, if only for one precious moment. An especially curious boy, this son who had been insistent that I call him by a nickname “Mike” had questions for everything, thinking apparently that anyone taller than him was surely all-wise. My response to his question then was a decided “No!” I personally had never seen an angel, and had long-since placed the possibility of such a creature along side Santa Claus and other childhood fairy tales.
It would be a long time before I would read a Bible and find the verse in Hebrews that says, “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels.”
It had been several months since the Lord broke into my misery and spoke so plainly to me at
Above “Reality” Excerpt – From Chapter 13…
From my vantage point, high above the crowd—my vision all but obscured by the coagulated blood forming around my eyes—the faces of so many blur at times. I know each face; each heart; each of their dreams; what causes them joy; every tear ever shed. I know the fear in some who would rather I died, taking with me the knowledge of their secrets, than to confess the shame that placed me here.
The pain that wracks my physical body, nailed here as i am, is nothing compared to that which has taken over my mind. My eyes meet theirs as the depth or shallowness of each heart is consumed in me. My one link to Sanity is distant now—grieving, and yet too holy to look on the sin I willingly take upon myself. The eyes below are unable to grasp what is happening at this critical hour; or why I came. I know why each life is here—how it began; how it ends.
Some have come to empathize with me and—having forsaken their own way—to trust. They mourn my impending death, having yet to understand the need of it. Many look on me and suffer deeply within themselves, for themselves, what they can not let go of—can not forgive. Still others are here to watch curiously, my nakedness twisting, rising and falling, as I struggle for one more breath. I hear the anguished cries below me, above me, inside me. And the mocking. They wanted it this way.
But I know who and what they are. I created them. I love them, even as they struggle to disconnect—part of them wanting to be free of me; part of them wanting to believe I would never leave them, nor forsake them—even now.
In this moment, so close to dying, I willingly lay down my life for all of them—from the foundations of the earth; throughout millennia to come—taking to myself every tear, every earthly pain; every vile and merciless act—until it seems my heart will burst.
And now, before I finish this, I make one last plea on their behalf, as their true Friend.
To say, with every fiber of my being, words that echo through my pain-wracked head and mingle with my own Blood, "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do" — I would have to be God.
I Am.
I awoke early that Saturday morning, thinking about the book you hold in your hands, and how to begin this chapter on Forgiveness. As I lay there—my husband sleeping peacefully beside me—I thought about how far I had come in my personal window of time, and how blessed I am, after all. I have been forgiven much…
Above “Reality” Excerpt – From Chapter 18…
Grace is but glory begun, and glory is but grace perfected.
Jonathan Edwards
It seems I had died.
The dream began with me standing alone before an enormous set of gates. Closed and rising skyward like a mountain peak, the top of the gates was obscured by great,
Suddenly, I found myself standing inside—the still-closed gates now behind me. A man wearing a white robe stood some ten or more feet ahead with his back to me. As he turned, I recognized Him somehow as Jesus. His eyes were sad as they gazed back toward the gate and I turned to see what He was looking at so intently.
I saw many hands reaching desperately through the grillwork far below the winged creatures—their haunted eyes filled with pleading. Although their lips moved, I could not hear their voices. I turned again to look at Jesus, but He had dropped his head and was walking away. Those are the hands of many you were meant to tell about Me and didn't, I seemed to understand.
Jesus was gone now. It struck me deeply that He had not said what I'd hoped to hear—“Well done, good and faithful servant.”
I had made it safely inside the gates—but the hands that were reaching toward me had not.
I awoke somewhat disturbed by the dream, wondering what it might be saying to me. Not that I believe all dreams have some deep meaning, but this one seemed so real!
Surely, unlike in my dream, Jesus will not ignore anyone who “enters into his rest” or “into His joy,” as the Bible says believers will do—otherwise there would be tears in Heaven, and His Word promises there will be “no more tears, no more crying.”
The good thing was, the dream caused me to reflect on any earthly good I’d done, and I wondered—considering my vantage point beyond the gates of heaven—what else might I have done or said while on earth that might have made any difference for those who were (at least in my dream) eternally left outside the gate?
What might I do NOW? …
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