It isn’t only the Catholic church that prays to saints. The Greek Orthodox church, Coptic Chistian church in Egypt, the Syrian Christian Church, Armenian church and the Ethiopian church pray to the saints. The Anglican church believes in praying with the saints which is asking for intercession and praying with the saints, which is what I believed in.
Martin Luther had prayed to the saints but then changed his mind. John Calvin who started the Calvinism movement was against praying to saints. He believed in predestination which I do NOT believe in. I don’t believe God predestines some people to go to heaven and some people to go to hell. If that is the case, how to you explain free will. God wants all His children to go to heaven, and He gives all of us that chance.
Some modern mainstream Evangelical protestant churches talk about how the Catholic Church is leading people astray. And they say that praying to the dead is a sin. The reason why they think Catholics are sinning is because King Saul consulted a witch and asked her to contact the dead to know the future. That is NOT what Catholic’s are doing.
Another year just went by for me. My birthday was recently and I can’t say that I look forward to getting older, but the people in my life who make the day special, make it better. More than once, I have heard different pastors say ask God for something on your birthday, so today I told God I wanted to be able to hear Him better and hear his voice. I rarely hear the still small voice of God, but when I have, it’s unmistakable. Once you hear that voice you will never forget it. I haven’t heard it with my ears but within my spirit. Some people have heard God’s voice out loud, usually in a situation that immediately needs their attention, like if they are in danger.
One year on my birthday, I asked God to let me see what He looks like. I was working in the late 1989 and one of my co-workers gave me a photo someone in her church had given to her. A nun had taken a photo from an airplane window when it was storming. The photo showed dark clouds, lightening, and Jesus in the clouds and I was so happy to get it.
I asked God to see Michael the Archangel on my birthday in March of 1987. One morning December after taking a shower I was about to walk up the stairs to get ready for work and so I turned the light on and looked up. All of the sudden all I could see was light, then I looked down then up again then everything looked normal. All day long I wondered why I saw that light, and I couldn’t figure it out. It reminded me of Jacob seeing a heavenly staircase and angels going up and down on it with the Lord at the top of the stairs. Not long after seeing that light, I started to feel the peace that only comes from God. It was like God had a bucket filled with liquid peace that he poured on the top of my head, and it would wash over my body. I was twenty-two years old then and I still didn’t have a driver’s license because driving made me very anxious. Long story short, because God gave me His peace during the next four months, I was able to finally get my driver’s license in March of 1988.
When your birthday rolls around try asking God for something that will glorify him and help you in your spiritual life. I am hopeful I will hear God’s voice better this year.
I have dealt with physical pain since I was a teenager. I started getting terrible pain in my stomach when I was fifteen years old. I did not know what was causing it. I had a test done at the hospital that consisted of drinking a white, chalky, terrible tasting liquid and getting an x-ray of my stomach. The doctor didn’t find anything wrong with me. Years later, I heard about irritable bowel syndrome, known as IBS, which is what I have.
Years later in my forties, I developed excruciating pain in my thumbs, near my wrist from work. For years the doctors told me I had tendonitis but never did an x-ray. After dealing with that pain for 4 years, I was adamant about getting an x-ray. and it showed arthritis. Then my shoulder started hurting and I had a good doctor then, and she ordered an x-ray. I had arthritis in my shoulder.
I fell down the stairs in 2021 and as a result of that I ended up with a sprained right ankle and a terrible case of sciatica on the left side of my lower back, hip, and leg. It was the worst pain I think I ever had. I had to walk on my sprained ankle because I couldn’t use crutches because I couldn’t put weight on my left leg. I was miserable.
I tried everything; physical therapy, chiropractor, and drugs, but nothing took the pain away completely. I did a lot of praying for healing, but I still deal with pain. I am not mad about it now. After the first five months of having really bad sciatica I did get mad at God and yelled at him when the pain was bad. Then I asked to be forgiven because I felt bad. There I was yelling at God, and I don’t even deserve Jesus.
Now I know better than to get mad at God and yell at Him. I take comfort in the fact Jesus understands our pain. When He was whipped and beaten and nailed to the cross it was very painful for Him. He has experienced extreme pain, and He understands how we feel.
Jesus went through everything we have gone through in our lives. Some people have experience worse things than others. He was homeless for three years. He experienced pain, hunger, depression, stress, anxiety just like everybody else. There is a medical condition that is extremely rare, that people go through when they are under extreme fear or stress where their body sweats blood called, hematidrosis. Jesus sweat blood the night before He was crucified because he was so anxious and felt so much stress.
I fell down after I missed the last step when I was walking down the stairs without the light on and I didn’t have my glasses on saturday night when it was starting to get dark. I ended up landing on my hands and knees. A first my right foot hurt, so I wore my compression wrap on it, and that helped a lot. I have a big bruise on my knee, but it doesn’t hurt to walk. My Sacroiliac (S1) joint which is the joint that connects the back to the pelvis bone hurts a lot. I have bilateral arthritis in it anyway and most times it does not bother me. I experience sciatica pain on the left side of my lower body most of the time. But right now, the lowest part of my back hurts the worst and it is chronic pain.
When I am in pain, I think God is punishing me for my sins. Then I wonder if He even loves me at all. Back in 2022 when my sciatica pain was at its worst I yelled at God and called Him a liar and rejected the love God had shown me when I was in my early twenties. I think I said to God “you don’t love me.” Then I repented after that, but it’s like God put a block in my mind so now I can barely remember that love now.
Another thing happened a month or two later in 2022. I decided to pray a prayer of protection over this home. I looked up prayers for protection over a home online, and I found a bunch of them, and I prayed them out loud. As soon as I was done praying one of the prayers, I felt the presence of Jesus. His presence was so strong and I felt so peaceful, I couldn’t have worried if I tried. That feeling stayed all afternoon and most of the night. It was so wonderful. I thought, “this has got to be what heaven feels like.”
I know what it says in the bible about God loving us. I know Jesus would have gone through the torture he endured and the crucifixion just for me, but there are times I doubt. I have had depression and anxiety for years and the physical pain just makes it worse. I take medications for anxiety and depression, but the antidepressant I take makes me feel emotionally numb most of the time and I rarely cry now. The last time I really cried was when I was mad at God and yelled at him and called him a liar.
Jesus gave me a gift when He let me feel his presence of peace so strong. I can remember that presence, and I need to cling to it. When He was being whipped, beaten, and crucified, His pain was a lot worse than what I am going through. But He understands our pain and I take comfort in that.
This year I didn’t know what to give up for Lent. First, I thought I will read the bible more every day, then I changed my mind. I finally decided the day after Lent started and I gave up Facebook. I thought would be hard for me to do so I have been praying for strength and so far, it’s been ok. It’s difficult in some ways, but easy in other ways. I have had a love-hate relationship with Facebook for quite a while. I feel less angry and less stressed because I have not gone on it. Recently, Facebook had not been good for my mental health
I have one friend who is giving up all kinds of things, so I said to him, “What are trying to do become a saint?” I could never give up all the things that he gave up for Lent. I have friends who are not catholic and they are not giving anything up. I have a friend who is Methodist she still hasn’t decided, but it is better late than never to start.
One night I prayed and asked God for protection, then I laid down for a little while. I heard the following bible verse in my spirit: “Jesus is my strength and my shield.” After I heard that I immediately got up and went to my computer to look up the verse. The verse is Psalm 28:7, and it said, “The Lord is my strength and my shield.” The only thing that was different was God’s title. But Jesus was God on earth, He is God incarnate and He is God resurrected from the dead.
What other god sacrificed himself for people because he wants to be with them in heaven? What other god changed the world so much? What other god is continually healing and providing? What other god is constantly is creating? What other god loves you and only wants the best for you? What god gives you peace? What god calls you, his child? What other god rose from the dead after being dead for three days? I have studied a lot of different religions, and I can’t ever remember reading about any other god but God of the Christians. Not Hinduism, not Buddhism, not Islam, not Greek mythology not Egyptian mythology, or native American spirituality. None but Christianity.
God let me know how much he loves me one night when I was nineteen or twenty. I was sleeping and a had strange dream and when I woke up in the middle of the night, I didn’t want to open my eyes, because I thought I was dead. I felt so loved and so peaceful. It was almost like God was giving me hug and making me feel the love he had for me. There is nothing like that love! That is the presence of God. God’s very being is love.
I was hearing the still, small voice of God’s Holy Spirit speaking to me saying “open your eyes.” I didn’t want to but when finally did, I was in my bedroom and alive and well. The voice wasn’t audible, it was more of an inner knowing voice that I was hearing in my spirit. It wasn’t my conscious because it seemed like the voice was male. It’s hard to describe the voice, but once you hear it you know it.
I didn’t want to move because I didn’t want the feeling of unconditional love to go away. It is hard to describe God’s love for us. In fact, I can’t because it’s indescribable. You need to experience it for yourself to be able to understand it. One thing I can say is no one loves you that much in this world. Not your mom, dad, brother, sister, friends, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, or child. No One. If you would take the love of a mother for her child and multiply it by a million, it still wouldn’t compare.
God loves us so much. There is nothing he wouldn’t do to let us know that. Jesus loves us so much that he died for each and every one of us. In the beginning when God created man and woman and when they were tempted by the serpent, they gave into that temptation. They committed the first sin because they chose not to listen to God. That separated them from the close relationship they had with God. To get that relationship back with God, God sent Jesus to earth to show people how much He loves them. Jesus showed them the way to get close to Him again so they wouldn’t be separated anymore.
Jesus died a brutal death and shed his blood, for no reason other than the fact that He loves us. He sacrificed himself willingly. He did nothing to deserve death. He only helped people while on earth by healing and doing miracles and taught the way to God the Father. After Jesus died and was dead for three days, He came back to life like He had foretold, and many people saw Him and ate with Him. After he died, he spent forty days on earth then He ascended into the sky and He’s alive in heaven today and will return some day in the same way and at the same place He left to judge the earth.
You can know Jesus as a close friend, someone closer than brother. You can experience His love and peace. All you have to do is ask him to come into your life and forgive you for all the wrongs you have done throughout your life and tell him you are sorry for them. No matter what you have done, God won’t reject you.
Four years and four days after my brother killed himself, my ex-boyfriend killed himself just like my brother did. He recorded himself on a cassette tape, drove out in the country and shot himself. I was at work when one of my friends called me. I was distraught, and left work early that day.
I really fell apart at home and cried and cried. I couldn’t believe it. I had just finally started getting over my brother’s death. I said to God the day before my ex-boyfriend died, “I hope I never have to go through that again.” My ex-boyfriend had gone my brother’s funeral, and he said to me that night that he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to commit suicide.
My ex had called me over a year before his death wanting me to help him quit drinking. He wanted to go out with me again, but he had already left me twice for the same girl, so I did not want to date him again. I wanted to be friends, like we were before we started dating. I agreed to go to a movie in the afternoon that Sunday. On the way home I don’t remember us talking. When he dropped me off, I was going to turn to say goodbye and he looked so hopeful, like he wanted to come in the house or get a kiss. I didn’t say anything but just shook my head no and got out of the car. He never called again. I saw him at a local bar drinking by himself six months later when my friends and I went out one night, and he looked awful.
I tried to go to his wake with a friend and I remember screaming in her car that I couldn’t believe in he had killed himself. I went into the wake, and I remember talking to his brother, then turning and looked at one of his friends and started crying and left. I worked on the day of his funeral because I couldn’t handle going to the funeral.
After he died, I got mad at God, and I was mad at my ex-boyfriend. I decided to give up on God and rebelled against him. I started reading about new age spirituality and witchcraft. I used to read palms and I also practiced witchcraft. I had a warped view of Jesus I didn’t see him as he was. I still believed in God and included God in my witchcraft along with a Mother Goddess that I had read about in new age and gnostic writings. I related the passage in the bible about John the Baptist as Elijah as proof of reincarnation. I didn’t think of Jesus as God who walked on earth in the flesh. I thought he was less than God. I didn’t understand his sacrifice. It didn’t make any sense to me. Why did he have to die? I thought His death was a waste. I didn’t understand the resurrection.
It wasn’t until much later I gave my life to Jesus, but before I did that I went through some really dark times. Even after I gave my life to Jesus it was not easy, I carried around a lot of guilt and couldn’t accept the fact that God had forgiven me of all the bad things I had done in my life. Getting into new age spirituality, practicing witchcraft, reading palms and rejecting him. I cried out to God so I could feel His Presence. It took a long time for me to feel forgiven. But I know I have been forgiven now, and I have felt His Presence.
Know you can be forgiven of even the worst sins. No matter what you have done God will forgive, if you mean it when you tell him you are sorry you committed sins against him. No matter it is what he will forgive you. He isn’t some big meanie in the sky, that’s what the enemy wants you to think. The enemy the devil hates our guts because we are made in God’s image. God is peace and love. If you want to know what God the Father is like look at Jesus. And the best way to get to know them is by reading the bible.
One of my evangelical friends who lives in a different state had an MRI in August to see if she would be a candidate for back surgery. She has terrible pain in her back and chronic sciatica, along with fibromyalgia. I feel so bad for her because she suffers so much.
After the MRI, the doctor called her and said the MRI showed something. One of the ducts on her pancreas was enlarged so he told her he could not do surgery on her S1 Joint. She was upset. Then she saw her regular doctor who told her she needed to get a CAT scan and to make an appointment with a specialist right away.
She went in for her CAT scan, and that showed multiple very small tumors on her liver and a 14mm tumor on the outer wall of her bladder. When she went in to see the specialist, he said the tumors on her liver were harmless, but he wanted to do surgery right away on her bladder and do a biopsy to test for cancer. She was scared it might be cancer.
The Monday before her surgery on Wednesday I fasted and prayed for her to be healed of her tumor. I had fasted during lent by giving up meat, but I had never done a serious fast for an answer to prayer. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be at first. I think the key to fasting is eating protein for each small meal. I didn’t eat any meat or fish. I had a chik’n veggie burger for breakfast for my big meal, for lunch I had raw almonds and almond milk, then for supper I had pretzels and almond milk which was a big mistake. I think there might be 1 gram of protein in pretzels which isn’t enough to stay with you. By the end of the night, I was extremely tired and felt kind of weak, so I went to bed early.
I prayed the week before her surgery and the week of her surgery. I asked Jesus and the Father to heal my friend and make the tumor disappear.
My friend didn’t tell many people about her tumor because she didn’t want to talk about it. She told one person from her church a couple days before her surgery, and they put her on the prayer chain. To my knowledge, I am the only one that fasted. Her husband who is a retired pastor did even fast.
Her surgery on Wednesday was at noon, and I knew they were going use some type of anesthesia for her outpatient surgery. I texted her about 4pm to ask if she was awake and if she was in a lot of pain and I didn’t hear anything back, so I assumed she was sleeping. Then around 5pm she called me and said she had texted me, but I never got the text. She told me the surgeon couldn’t find anything. The tumor had disappeared! It was a miracle!
I have given to Hosea’s Heart in Africa off and on throughout the years. It’s an organization that helps exploited children. It’s a home and school for vulnerable children who have been sex trafficked and sexually abused. It is operated and was started by Mary-Kate who is from the U.S and now lives in Africa.
One night in September of 2024 I prayed then laid down to go to sleep and all of the sudden I thought of Hosea’s Heart. Then I sensed Jesus standing by the right side of my bed and I sensed the words, “I am going to give her a book.” (I hadn’t heard Jesus speak to me in years) I asked Jesus, “what kind of book?” but I didn’t get an answer. Then I thought maybe Jesus was telling me to donate to Hosea’s Heart in case Mary Kate wanted a book she couldn’t afford right now. I thought to myself, “I will make a donation in the morning” and tried to fall asleep because it was very early in the morning. I still couldn’t sleep and after I laid in bed a couple hours I got up and made a small donation because it felt like I should and God wasn’t going to let me sleep until I did it, then finally I fell asleep.
I contacted Hosea’s Heart and wrote an email about what I had heard the next day. I wrote how crazy I knew it sounded, but someone called me back the same day and I was surprised to hear from anyone, I thought I would be written off as a crazy person. Then I was told that Mary Kate was writing her second book and I was surprised. I had no idea she was a writer.
Recently I contacted Hosea’s Heart again through email to see if the book had been published, and I heard back from Mary Kate. She said she had finished the book and it was it still in the publishing stage. She said she had been having a lot of problems with the publisher unfortunately. I had prayed she would get a publishing deal, instead of having to pay to get her book published because self-publishing can be pricey. Apparently, this time it wasn’t God’s will.
MKR Prodigal Daughter-Christian Perspectives from a Prodigal 