I had to protect my second daughter from the occult. That is for sure. She was the catalyst that put my family on the radar for those in the dark arts or occult. My problem child was actually my first daughter. She was also born prematurely but without the protection and support of the deacons at my church in Kansas City. She was born in Columbia, MO before we were finished with our college degrees. She has 3 kidneys. There is a full renal duplication on the right side and all three kidneys refluxed. Renal reflux means the urine from her bladder could and did flow back up into her kidneys when she expelled it from her bladder. The reverse flow of urine causes serious kidney infections. My first daughter died 7 times her first year. She went through 10 hours of surgery to repair and create 3 ureters one for each of her 3 kidneys when she was 18 months old. She is my first and most dynamic miracle baby. By the time she was 8 years old she had undergone over 50 surgeries. She is a walking miracle in her own right. By the time her sister showed up we were at our wits end and needed some help.
One of my ex husbands coworkers kept telling him about a church in Kansas City that did “faith healing” and had prayer languages. I was raised southern Baptist. I would not have any of that devil talk in my home. As far as I was concerned speaking in tongues was of the devil and anyone who did it had a demon. My ex husband put this guy off for weeks and months citing my absolute refusal as his excuse. But my first daughter was not thriving. We needed help. Our pastor in Kansas City that was so miraculous in prayer for her little sister was mostly ineffectual for my first daughter. It appeared we needed even more fire power for my first daughter than we were getting and that saved her little sister.
My ex husband kept talking and talking and talking to me about this church he wanted to visit. I was not interested because we had services at our church every time they had services at this other church he was hearing about. One Sunday night there was a Billy Graham convention in town. Our pastor closed our service at our church so our congregation could all go to the stadium for Billy Graham.
I was fussing around in the kitchen and my ex husband came to me and said, “Wife”. Now that may not seem too unusual to you because I was in fact legally married to him before God and man so I was his wife. But he had never ever called me that or spoken to me in that tone with that intensity. “Wife” he said. He has my attention. “We are going to go to the other church. Get yourself ready and the girls. We are going there now.”.
I don’t remember saying anything. I just got the girls ready for church. The second daughter was much easier than her big sister. But I successfully wrestled her around and we were on the road to this place he had been talking to his friend at work about. His friend did not go to this church. He just knew about it. My ex husband insisted we use this opportunity to get my first daughter healed. I had never been in a place like that. It held 4000 people in theatre seats. I did not know it when I walked in but the service would last 4 hours and my hyperactive child would sit through the whole thing and not make a peep. That in itself is a major miracle.
The music was lively, much livelier than I was used to. There was a band on stage with guitars and drums. People walked around easily and talked wo each other instead of coming in and immediately sitting down. We chose seats in a middle right section a little more than half the way back. A man came to the pulpit and announced we would begin the service. He led us in prayer and we began signing. We did not have hymnals. There was an overhead projector with the words of the songs on a screen. Ok. I can do this I thought. The tunes were simple and somewhat repetitious. I picked them up very quickly and no longer needed to watch the words on the screen. It freed my perspective from the screen to just singing and entering in with the others around me.
Not long into the first lively song the whole congregation of 4000 people started jumping up and down in time with each other. Step Hop. Step Hop. The cement floor literally sprang up and down as they bounced together one foot and then the other. Step Hop. Step Hop. My ex husband started skipping with them. So did my two girls. Soon we were jumping together in rhythm as a family and the girls were clapping and laughing. What fun!
Then the music started slowing down. The lyrics became more reflective. We sang of the Love of God. We sang about end of time and our trip home.
Then sort of without warning all singing stopped and a hush fell over the crowd. Slowly one person after another got up and started heading down the aisles toward the front of the church. I had no idea what was going on. They were heading for two microphones hanging from the ceiling at the end of the two main aisles. One by one they approached the microphone and they spoke.
OK. I thought. I get it. These are “testimony mikes”. I had seen them and even given my testimony before at one of our tent revivals when I was a kid back home.
After a number of people spoke a man who had been singing up on stage came to his microphone and said, “God told me there was a special message coming to us tonight. And none of these are it. Would all of you be seated who are waiting to speak, please? We are going to sing and dance again. Members pray. This message is coming from a new prophet. Someone unawares. They do not know they are a prophet. This is their first time so it may take a while. No matter how long it takes. We are supposed to keep singing and praising until the prophecy comes.”
Wow. That was new. Never heard anything like that before. I wondered what the Spirit of Prophecy was. There was a hushed chatter across the auditorium. I was glad when the music started up again. We jumped up and down Step Hop Step Hop and sang going through the same process as before of getting quiet and reflective through song. Then without any notice all together the crowd went quiet a second time. More people went up to the microphones to “testify”. The man on the stage again asked everyone to sit down. He said he knew the message and the messenger were there. He said we would sing and praise and dance all night if that was what it took to free up the new prophet God had specially called that night.
We started singing and another lively song but this time I started feeling very heavy. My arms and legs felt like they weighed a ton and my stomach had a wrecking ball in it. I could barely breathe. It was like the air got too think to inhale. And suddenly I knew I was supposed to go give my testimony. I don’t know how I knew. I just knew.
I told my ex husband about it. He said absolutely not. You do not know what is going on here. I absolutely forbid you to go. I said ok. End of story. But it wasn’t. The congregation went through another cycle of praise and worship and the man at the stage told everyone at the mics to sit down. We would start again. This time I thought I was going to faint. The weight in my arms and legs increased. The message to go give my testimony was so loud and strong in my spirit I thought my neighbor to my right was hearing it too. My ex husband looked down at me finally and said what is wrong with you. You are absolutely blue all over. I answered I had told him I was supposed to go give my testimony and he told me not to. I would obey him but I would probably pass out if this stuff kept up. The man on the stage again said he was waiting to for this first time messenger to come to the microphone and speak. My ex husband looked at the stage then he looked at me. He slumped for a second and let out a long sigh. Then he said, “Ok….go.”
I did make it pasthim into the aisle. I did walk to the front of the church. There were three or four in line in front of me. I thought thatwas great because the man on stage would probably tell us all to sit down before my turn and it would all be over.
Uh uh. I walked up to the microphone not knowing what to say and out of my mouth came:
“OUT OF YOUR MOUTHS COME BLESSING AND CURSING. MY CHILDREN THIS SHOULD NOT BE SO.”
I turned and headed back to my seat. As I was walking I heard the man on the stage declare I was the messenger and that was the message they were waiting for. He repeated the sentence over and over for the crowd. The elders surrounded the place where my family was sitting. I found out later the man on the stage was the pastor. Ernie Gruen. He ended the meeting. The elders took us all back to the pastors private offices. He asked us a few questions about where we attended church. He knew our pastor and called him about us. We had just been approved by the Southern Baptist Mission board to be foreign missionaries and were in the process of finding out where to go. We were leaning toward Yemen.
Our Southern Baptist pastor answered the call from Ernie Gruen. Ernie told him he had one of his couples in his office. Told him what had just happened. Our Southern Baptist Pastor said he knew my husband had visited the “healing church” before. What none of us knew is that my ex husband had gotten into one of our closets one night and prayed to get what Paul got the way Paul got it on the road to Damascus. A bright light filled the dark closet. He felt warmth flood his body and soul and he spoke in a new language for the first time. He had been praying in tongues for weeks.
The more he exercised this new freedom in the Holy Spirit the more concerned he was I would never go for it. So he told God if I did not come along he would dump the whole thing as a hoax. The “testimony” of Jesus through me at the “healing church” was the confirmation from God my ex husband had been looking for and he knew his experience, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and tongues were real.
As it turned out, my ex husband was led into the fullness of the Spirit with evidence of tongues so that he was leading the family from the front. He got it and used it while I was still dead set against it as being from Satan. Also, it meant my ex husband, my covering and authority in earth, was ready for me when my awakening happened. If he had never known or experienced tongues and the fullness of the Holy Spirit, he would prevented me from coming into my calling and my appointed time that Sunday evening service at the “healing church”. We might never have ever been there at all.
God made the way. God always makes the way to fulfill his purpose.
God made a way for me to go to the new “healing” church. As it turned out I was used to deliver the testimony of Jesus for the first time that night. My Southern Baptist pastor and the new pastor got on the phone and talked about our family. The two decided that the new church was better suited for our growth in the movements and manifestations of the Holy Spirit and for training us in service to Jesus in tongues and prophecy than our Southern Baptist Church. That was NOT a rejection. We learned that night our Southern Baptist Pastor was a tongue talking prophesying Holy Spirit filled ex missionary himself. Wow. Who knew? Well all the deacons of the church! All those deacons and elders and people who showed up at the church to wait for a call to learn why they had all been assembled there by the Holy Spirit the day my second daughter was taken off life support are and were Holy Spirit Baptized Tongue Talking prophesying spirit filled true sons of Creator GOD!
I resigned my positions at the Southern Baptist Church whose deacons and elders prayed to God when my second daughter was miraculously healed and we started attending the new church. The Southern Baptist convention recognizes in secret the fullness of the Holy Spirit and the Second Chapter of Acts, Pentecost, and tongues. In fact, when the Southern Baptist Mission Board sends new missionaries into the mission field they are expected to experience the Holy Spirit and the power gifts even speaking in tongues or they do not make it in the mission field. But they have to get it after they are in the mission field. Since we got ours with evidence of tongues before we made it to the mission field we were no longer eligible to go. The official stance of the Southern Baptist convention was that all of that was not happening now. In the span of one week our family was not going to Yemen and we were attending the healing church. We were fast tracked into leadership. I continued to bring the testimony of Jesus in the congregation. I became a recognized prophet for the healing church. My ex husband was in leadership. They called it “leaders of TEN”. We had a home church that met every week. My ex husband and another man in the church led our group together in our home.
It is written your “gifts and calling” will make a way for you. Well in my case it has for sure done that. But along with Gods favor I have drawn the attention of the red dragon himself and those minions in rebellion with him. I was in boot camp and my time there in the healing church ended up being very short.
