A Wonderful Sense of Peace

I had the experience of a lifetime today and I am not sure how to describe it.

It was both so wonderful but in the end it was terrifying.

Before noon Mass, I arrived at 11:30am and decided to remain in my car for a while and pray to prepare myself to receive Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist.

As I prayed, I was slowly overcome with a wonderful sense of peace. As I continued in this meditation, the peace enveloped me and I experienced the sense of leaving my body. Although I knew I was still in my car, my normal body senses were much different and pretty much non-existent. That is the best I can describe it. I was fully immersed in the love of God. I prayed to Jesus to be submersed in His ocean of mercy and I was !!!

I must have been in this state for quite some time because when I opened my eyes it was nearly 12:00, and it only felt like a few moments. I tried to come out of this meditative state slowly but I was unable to. I then fell quickly into a terrible panic state. I am sure it was the shock of letting go of God's love and coming back into my body.

I was terrified. I tried to remain calm the best way I could by breathing slowly and relaxing myself. My heart was racing and hot waves shot across my body. This was very very scary. I saw a friend of mine going into the church. "Fred ! ", I wanted to cry out to him and run for help, but then I knew he couldn't help me. He would be confused and call an ambulance or something.

"OK, I've been here before", I kept telling myself and I knew this would leave me in a little while if I could just keep calm. It worked. In about 5 minutes, I calmed down enough to function again. But I was extremely exhausted. I could hardly walk straight and I had to really focus and concentrate on walking properly.

I went inside the Church for Mass. At this point I was relatively calm, but as soon as I heard the priest talking the panic began building again, but this time it was much less and it left me in a few minutes.

I was mostly calm throughout Mass, until it was time to go down the aisle to receive Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Then the panic came again. I grew worse and worse with each step I took and when I was just a few feet from the priest, I was so was so filled with fear and my heart was racing and pounding so loudly. I thought that everyone could hear it. I almost took off away from the line, but instead I kept on trusting and stayed.

I received the Body and Blood of Our Lord and then I began to calm down very quickly. I knew it was Jesus calming me and then I returned to my seat. Whew !!!

The rest of the day was up and down in calmness and panic as a result of my visit with the Lord.

One note: When the power of the Lord came over me at the farm last year with Ruth Ann, I did not experience the panic or fear after the blessing. What is the different about these blessings with the panic fears compared to the one from Ruth Ann?? Why am I having these anxiety attacks?!?

Dear God please help me grow closer to you in a more calm way. And please teach me about these experiences of love and terror that I am so confused about. Love always, Ken