Spiritual History

For a few days, I'll go into my "spiritual history." These are things that have shaped my life.

The evening before my baptism, Children’s Day 1959, my family went to the drive in movie to see The Ten Commandments. The parted water collapsing down on the Egyptians was a pretty impressive scene on that big screen.

As I was lowered into the waters of baptism the next day, I saw, again, parted water coming together and collapsing over my eyes.
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The summer I was nine, my age group was invited to a junior high camp at Lake Doniphan, in Excelsior Springs, MO.

I went childlike to the camp and enjoyed swimming every chance I got. I made lanyards; I ate Popsicles; I listened in the religion classes and enjoyed the campfires. The week was long and busy and exciting.

The last day was Saturday. We had a dedication service ended by prayer walks. We walked in groups to different spots on the campground. As my group arrived at out place we joined hands in a big circle and began praying silently for each other. For the first time, I felt the sweet spirit of God’s Love descend upon us. I was in awe. This was a spiritual as well as physical sensation. I cannot remember my prayer, but I know that I rejoiced greatly in that overpowering Love.
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As a young wife with small children in the early 70s I became fearful of what lay ahead. I had listened to sermons that seemed to say that scary things were soon to come to pass. I wondered if I should save food, make sure my appliances were not electric, buy extra supplies. I became quite worried, and one night a voice whispered to me that I would live by my faith. I had two dreams shortly after that night that comforted me greatly:

There was nothing but dust for miles and miles in the empty expanse of West Texas, not a soul in the arid heat as my husband and I drove north.

The radio, which had been blaring music the minute before, was suddenly silent. Then an announcement was made that cataclysmic earthquakes had rocked California. Communication with California had ceased.

Then my husband shouted, "Did you see that?"

I looked to the left where he was pointing. Something like lightning--I called it sheet lightning--flashed in the sky. It was the middle of the day, not a cloud in the sky.

The radio blared again. Something about "in the event of earthquakes....."

The lightning flashes increased, but remained on the western horizon. The man on the radio suddenly announced that they were unable to receive anything from New York. Then he was replaced by static. All the stations were static.

Rumbles in the earth now accompanied the ever-increasing lightning that was drawing nearer. To our left, to the west, the earth was rolling, rising and falling as waves in the sea.

My husband pulled the car off he road, although it really didn’t matter anymore. We looked at each other, tears in our eyes. "This is it, isn’t it?" I sobbed. He held me. "Here we are, God," he said.

The second dream:

There were still many lost and wandering individuals in Central Texas. I ached for them, feeling their hurts and wishing with all my heart that I could help them. They had to want help.

Dressed in a white robe, my feet not touching the ground, I followed groups of them across barren wastelands. They followed a leader like cattle. They searched for food and water, and for shelter from the damp, yet dry terrain. Sometimes one would stumble. He or she would be trampled on as though not seen. Sometimes it would be a child. The others would wander on in the darkness, not even the mother noticing.

When I took these people, when I gently picked them up and gave them nourishment and water, they saw me for the first time. We walked in Light which expanded, as our group became larger. We sang praises to God, which seemed to fuel the Light. Their limping and exhaustion left them. When I had a group of a dozen or so men, women, and children, I quit following the group and we started for the "Camp of the Saints."

My husband was there. He was also in the Light and dressed in white, the leader of this outpost in East Texas, where people were helped to become fit enough to travel to the Center Place.

I rejoiced to see him again. Our love for each other was much more than we had ever dreamed it could be. But the Love we felt wasn’t just confined to ourselves. It expanded to all those we helped, to all those we wished to help. The Love did not emanate from within us, and what we received, we gave.
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After a time of intense stress, I realized I needed to repent and ask for forgiveness from God. I had no excuses for my actions and inactions. I was guilty! Through prayers and tears, I tossed and turned on that hot June night. Searching for the cool side of the pillow, I finally stopped to listen. God spoke as a cool breeze that started at my head and descended to my toes. I knew I had been forgiven.
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There were Mormons at my door as I was rushing to get David off to school. I invited them to wait till I got back from driving him the couple of blocks and back. They said no. They would come back tomorrow.

That afternoon I pulled out the only book I had about Mormons: The Truth and the Evidence. I read it all the way through in preparation for meeting with the elders. The next morning I fasted and prayed that I might be a good witness.

The elders came shortly after I took David to school. I had just put three-year-old Lara down for a nap. As they entered, I felt excited. I continued in silent prayer as they seated themselves and began to ask me questions in a conversational manner. Very soon we switched to talking about their beliefs and ours. I had The Truth and the Evidence out. Every question or comment they made I was able to answer or refute. I was able to find every reference in the book, after only having read it once. I felt supernaturally charged; everything I said came out right. One of the men was very interested in the Reorganization. He was excited about finding answers. The other man looked worried. When they left, the first man had the Herald House address and phone number, and names of books he wanted to buy. The other man seemed glad to leave.

As I watched them go, I felt the "supernatural" strength leave me. I fell to the couch exhausted. I could not move for perhaps 10 minutes.
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I had been reading and studying the scriptures every morning and evening as well as fasting twice a week. Someone had suggested a book by Catherine Marshall: The Helper. I loved her books, and so I began reading this one in the evenings. One night, about 11:00 I had a most unusual experience.

One of the chapters spoke of JOY. I couldn’t figure it out. What was the difference between joy and happiness? I pondered this question as I headed for my bedroom where my husband was already asleep. As I turned the corner in the hallway, I asked, "God, what is this JOY?"

At the doorway to my room, I felt something like liquid JOY and LOVE splash over me. Perhaps it was like the "living water." It was not really wet, but I was overcome by hypersensitivity expressed in extreme pleasure, physical as well as Spiritual. I praised God as I climbed into bed.
Praises and prayers went up as I marveled that I was not repeating myself. At one point I saw something I can only describe as a fire. It was bright white. The brightness and the love that emanated from it was so intense that I could not get as close as I wanted to. I knew that I had not exercised my "spiritual muscles" to the point where I could endure the presence of the Lord.
The physical and spiritual sensations were so strong that I begged the Lord to turn it down a little. I looked at the clock and realized it was 2:00. I reminded the Lord that I had to get up in three hours to get ready for the day and get the children off to school. I begged him to let me retain some of the Spirit the next day. I finally slept.

In the morning I still felt the presence of the Spirit, but not to the intensity of the night. I thanked God for the experience. For showing me His JOY.
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For years I had wondered why there was a need for Christ. I had God. Why did I need Christ? I asked people, who gave me all kinds of answers, but none of them made sense to me. I asked God, but he was silent. As a child I had always had God, a grandfatherly type who let me climb in his lap for unconditional love. He let me cry and He wiped away every tear. As an adult I had experienced his JOY. I loved Him.

One afternoon after church I flopped down on the bed, intending to take a short nap. Instead I began to "see" a picture taking shape. A man had sinned. The sin was the size of a walnut, but it chased him. He ran and from time to time looked behind him as the "walnut" turned into a man with a spear. This "sin-man" shook his spear at the sinner and shouted, "You are mine!"

The sinner ran harder and faster, with the fear of doom upon him. He ran desperately. Suddenly he could see ahead of him a bright light. The bright light took the form of a man as he approached it. Fearfully, he flung himself into open arms. Christ smiled at him.

The sin-man hurled his spear. Christ turned in order to protect the sinner. The spear entered his side and his blood poured out on the sinner. He cried to realize that his sin had caused the death of Christ.

Through my tears, I saw the living face of Christ, my Grandfatherly God.
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Driving in my car, I sobbed from desperation and cried out to God because of my husband’s actions and my inability to stop them. I heard a voice say: "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."

I’d heard the verse before but I didn’t even know where to find it in the scriptures. When I arrived home I was able to find it using a concordance. Romans 8:28. I had hope. I now had hope that the horror that I was experiencing would somehow work out for good. I knew I loved God, but I only later, much later, understood that I had been called according to his purpose. This verse sustained me in the years that followed as I walked alone through a valley of despair.
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Lara was perhaps 18 when she came home in the middle of the day, drunk. She was loud and angry. She wanted a certain blouse and stormed through the whole house looking for it. At one point she put down her keys and I took them. She turned and saw me and roared for me to give them to her. She was bigger than I was and in a drunken rage. Although I feared what she could do to me, I feared what she might do to herself and others more.

She began to chase me through the house. I had started down the stairs when she caught up with me. I worried that she would lose control and we would both go tumbling down. For "some" reason, I turned and spoke to her. I said, "Jesus loves you."

She stopped, and I said it again, "Jesus loves you."

"Don’t say that!" she yelled, but I said it again.

Lara turned and headed back up the stairs. In awe of the power I had tapped into, I followed her and told her again and again, "Jesus loves you."

Lara fled, begging me to stop saying that. I pursued her to her room where she went to the farthest corner and collapsed with her hands over her ears, still begging me to stop. I was overwhelmed with the knowledge of the power in the name of Jesus. I didn’t know what to do at that point. I left her to fall asleep in the corner as I contemplated what had just happened.
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A couple of years ago I had a strange experience regarding lost keys. I was in a hurry to get to work and couldn't find my keys. I emptied my purse on the piano bench. No keys. I looked in every nook and cranny where I thought they could possibly be. They weren't there. My husband and children took up the search. We couldn't find them. They also looked through my purse.

I had been praying, but kind of as a joke, I said out loud, "Lord, remove the demon that is sitting on my keys." I looked at the piano bench, and there were my keys on top of my purse. This really scared me--the thought that I had demons in my house. I didn't want to believe this, nor that I had stumbled onto a Biblical principal. I stored this information in the back of my brain, hoping never to have to think about it again.

Fast forward to July 1, 2004, Leia’s seventh birthday. My daughter has a tiny lightweight black purse. She uses it as a wallet and for her keys. After the birthday celebration she couldn't find this purse. She looked for a few minutes then enlisted the help of everyone else. We turned the house upside down looking for the purse. Eventually my husband offered to drive her to her house (45 minutes away) so she could get her spare keys. She accepted.

I was upstairs going through the recliner where she had sat when she first arrived, when it occurred to me to pray out loud for the demon to get off the purse. Afterward, I went downstairs to the kitchen and my eyes were directed to my other daughter's essential oils bag (she's studying to be a massage therapist). I looked in the bag and there was the purse. I was absolutely stunned. How did it get there? I called my husband's cell and let him know I had found it. My mother and my younger daughter were astonished. They had both looked in the bag. There were actually only three bottles in the bag, but they reported seeing many more bottles. When my older daughter returned, she said she had also looked in the bag, which was full of bottles of oil.

I don't want to believe that these things exist, but yet I know they do. I had just imagined they would be in unbelievers' houses, not mine! I am just as astounded at the power available through prayer. Apparently these things have to flee when we pray outloud. There have been times when I couldn't find my scriptures before going to church. I have always blamed it on a lousy memory. Maybe that's not the case.
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In the fall of 2003 I taught English in Oaxaca, Mexico with Frank and Patti Frye. One rainy afternoon I fell as I was walking down the stairs. I hurt my back, my shoulder, and my hip. This pain did not go away over night. I worried that the pain would distract me in my teaching of a class that evening. I asked Frank to administer to me.

During the administration I remembered that my faith had something to do with the healing and I began thanking God for the healing. As I did I felt the pain leaving my body. I was pain free, even from a hip injury from a car wreck over 10 years previously.

It was brought to my mind again, that stepping out in faith includes thanking God for what he is already doing.