Ex-wife of Rolling Stone Mick Taylor, Rose Taylor tells how an old hymn touched her life.

John Newton

I've always loved music - I can look back to the early days of my childhood, and the memories that stand out all have a song, or a melody, or sometimes even a symphony that accompanies them. I'm sure many of you would agree that music is something that has a really powerful influence on us - to enhance, entrance, and sometimes transform us. Not always for the better, I may add - but that's another story....

In 1974 my life had hit the all-time low. I had just got married to the father of my three year-old daughter, in a last ditch attempt to save our relationship. He had just left the Rolling Stones; but the oppression and the evil legacy of a life overdosing on sex and drugs and rock and roll was still very much with him - with us both. We were both having terrible problems with drugs; the marijuana and the pills and the booze had led us inexorably to cocaine and heroin, and try as we might, there was no way off that treadmill that we could find. Well, he left home with the lady drug dealer, and I took to my bed - I just wanted to die. In desperation, I prayed to the Jesus that I remembered from my childhood to help me. He did. He sent a lovely Christian lady who had a ministry of healing and deliverance to my bedside; where she prayed and laid hands on me, asking Jesus to fill me with His love. I had to get up then - to rush to the loo to be very sick indeed, but it was a tremendously cleansing thing to do, for I experienced none of the terrible withdrawal symptoms that I had gone through every other time I had tried to stop taking drugs. Jesus Christ had literally and completely taken the addiction from me. Praise His wonderful Name! The next morning I awoke, and I felt like a new person. I dressed, and went downstairs and heard some music coming from the living room. It sounded wonderful - gorgeous black soulful singing, belting organ and guitar accompaniment, and Aretha Franklin soaring over the top. I've always admired Aretha, but she sounded different this time. I asked my friends what we were hearing and I was told it was a recording of her singing "Amazing Grace" in her father's church; and as I listened to the words, they were just for me - "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see..." and I knew that Jesus Christ had saved me - He'd proved his love and power to me. He was
real! It was He who had "Brought me through the many toils and snares", and thank God, I knew that "His grace would lead me home". As I stood there, weeping mingled tears of grief, repentance for all my unbelief, and also great joy, I knew it was God's grace - I had done nothing to deserve such love - and Jesus had done it all for us by His death on that terrible Cross. What amazing grace. Even now, every time I hear this wonderful song, I am flooded by awe and gratitude for the love of such a God as ours.

AMAZING GRACE
John Newton
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we've first begun.