Amanda's Story
The story of One By One co-ordinator Amanda Marrow
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A hunger for more
I was sat in a Grapevine meeting in 2002 listening to a little blonde woman talking, when something in me felt like I had to get out of the meeting, a frustration began to well up within me realising there's more to this relationship with God than I've got! From then on, life began to take a different direction for me. I had attended church for years and loved Christ but didn't know Him and certainly wasn't aware of His love for me. A search began in my heart as this little blonde woman talked about her own intimate relationship with Jesus, I longed for the same.
Never the same again
Then in May 2004 this same little blonde lady was coming back to England, she was coming to a small church in Chesterfield and I knew I had to be there. Rolland and Heidi Baker were missionaries in Mozambique, they had set up orphanages and churches all over that nation and were being mightily used by God. But there was something more to this couple, they carried the Father's Love in a way that I had longed for in my heart since childhood but never realised was attainable with God himself. It was here in this little church that my life was transformed, God seemed to shower His love over me, it was so tangible and real, my heart longed for more and more of this love and it felt like the more God showered His love over me, the more I longed for. It was here I had a revelation of God's love for me personally.
The vision begins
The Monday after this incredible encounter I went into my room, I was determined this wouldn't turn into a conference blessing and then back to the normal hum-drum lifestyle of not knowing God! All alone in my bedroom I cried out to God, all of a sudden I was taken into a vision. I saw two people running through cornfields, all I could see was the lower part of the people, just their backs and legs and they were holding hands, running together. The Father revealed that this was His hand and mine, we were running together and so in love. This melted me in a way I could never express in words. Suddenly I realised that just as I had being longing for an intimate relationship with Him, so He had been longing for an intimate relationship with me. God showed me that He loved me so passionately that he has been wooing me to himself for years. I was never the same again!
Never satisfied
Since then I am still longing to know Him more, you can never be satisfied, there's always more with God. New Realms, new levels of relationship, of intimacy and more of His love. Every time I look into the eyes of the orphans or the eyes of the poor and needy I see the same longing within them that I had within myself, a longing for love and acceptance that can only come from God. I now cry out to carry this love of the Father that other broken lives all over the world might come to know Him. This is my heart for One by One, that one life at a time, desperate people will experience the love of Christ in a powerful way that will change their life and their nation forever.
