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.
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.
I started worshipping satan the summer I was seventeen. It didn’t last long though and I started in July. The things that led up to it happened when I was 16 years old and were out of my control and I now believe I was a victim of witchcraft. I didn’t understand what was going on, and I thought God hated me, was going to damn me to hell, and I didn’t have any other choice. It was during that time I started seeing visions.
That June before I started worshipping satan, my sister and I used the ouiji board my grandma had and she gave it to my mom. My sister and I used the board once. We started asking questions and got gibberish for answers. I became interested in the occult and witchcraft after we used it. I started reading books about the subject but the more I read about witchcraft, I knew it wasn’t the truth. Witches don’t believe in God or satan. They believe in a variety of different goddesses and gods: Idols. I didn’t believe it because I knew that God and satan were both real. I knew that the God of the bible was the real God and that there weren’t any others. I thought God hated me and I was damned to hell, and I had no choice in the matter. I thought I should just worship the enemy because I was going to hell anyway. Yes, I was listening to the enemies lies and I was deceived.
Even though I was raised catholic I didn’t understand the religion, the rituals, or why I had to memorize prayers when I went to catechism class. Because no one explained things about God and prayer I never prayed or talked to God. Throughout childhood, and my teens I lived as an atheist. I never paid any attention to God. My parents did not talk about God.
I started having a lot of anxiety then and I also started seeing visions then. The first one was of an unborn baby in the womb that looked almost full term. I saw that one while I was sitting in my friend’s car while she went into Planned Parenthood to get birth control. I knew nothing about partial birth abortions at that time in my life. The next one I saw was of me and a man. That vision had to do with the biblical meaning of marriage. Then I saw the next vision in September. I saw the exact same vision on each full moon of every month for three months in a row. I would wake up in the middle of the night in extreme pain. The pain would get so bad I could not lie in bed anymore so I would get up and go downstairs to get something to drink and by the time I got downstairs I felt like I was going to pass out then I would break out in a cold sweat and then I would faint but not before seeing a vision.
I didn’t know what the vision was supposed to mean, but I saw the same exact one every time. The vision started with me seeing all black, then I would see a dot of gold light that would move in a clockwise circle until it was a perfect circle of gold light like a halo. After the circle was complete, I would faint. Now I think it has to do with three hours, specifically the third hour when Jesus died after he was crucified.
Soon I started dreading full-moon, I didn’t want to wake up in pain again, but I didn’t know what to do either because I didn’t even think of praying or that God would help me. In November I saw a personal ad in the newspaper. There was a personal ad from a man who said he was spiritual and looking for a spiritual woman and there was a number written under his personal ad. The number was a blind box number the newspaper used so people could respond by sending letters to the newspaper, then the letter was forwarded to him. He called after about two weeks, and we talked for a short period of time. I don’t remember our whole conversation now, but I know I had told him I worshipped the devil. I told him about the visions and the pain that happened on the full moon. In the want ads of that day’s newspaper there a notice about praying certain catholic prayers. I asked him if he thought I should pray them and he didn’t think it would be a bad idea.
About a week later I got a letter in the mail from Jonathan, the man in the personal ad I had sent a letter to. He wrote I was on the wrong path, and worshipping satan was just a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.
I prayed on the night of the full moon in December. I stumbled through the prayers and didn’t think God would even hear me. In the morning when I woke up, I realized I didn’t wake up in pain the middle of the night. God had heard my prayer and answered it! It changed my life! After that night, I started praying those prayers every day for protection from evil and I never left the house without praying for protection. I would read bible verses in my grandma’s old daily mass bible every morning when I woke up. I also started talking to God all the time.
I wonder if Jonathan was an angel on earth. I don’t mean heavenly angel but a human doing God’s will because he was at the right place at the right time. After that happened to me, I started asking God to help me be in the right place at the right time.
I know God can use anyone to make a difference in someone’s life. Maybe someday you will be someone’s angel on earth.
When I was a little kid, my family went to the catholic church every Saturday night. We always sat in the front of the church three rows back on the left side. That was our spot. I didn’t like sitting up front because I was very shy. I must have been about four years old when the priest got mad in church. I never forgot it either, still to this day I can see the look of rage on his face. Some kid was making noise in church, and the priest came down and was standing in front of us, and suddenly yelled, “Children are to be seen and not heard!” It scared to me to death, and I was afraid of him after that happened. Thank God my parents didn’t make a big deal about my first communion.
Maybe the reason why I ignored God throughout my younger years had something to do with that priest. I had no concept of God, and I am not sure why. I never prayed or talked to God. My mom told me when I was in first or second grade, I was asked to say grace before a meal I started out with “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America” then everyone laughed.
Learning to pray has been a process for me. I remember being in catechism with the nuns during church summer school for a week we had to memorize the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary and the Glory Be prayers. I didn’t know what I was saying, I was just repeating the words without any meaning behind them. They never explained why we had to pray or what they meant. we just had to memorize the prayers. I really wish someone would have explained what the prayers meant.
One good thing about summer school with the nuns was I learned about heaven. I think that is the only thing I learned. One of my classmates asked one of the nicer nuns if she could see Elvis in heaven and the nun said, yes and you can see anyone in heaven. I thought heaven sounded nice. As a teenager I started reading books about near-death experiences. In high school I remember reading Raymond Moody’s Life After Life book, and I found it fascinating. One book called My Glimpse of Eternity written by Betty Maltz who was clinically dead for 30 minutes was a good one. In the book she described heaven like the book of Revelation describes heaven.
There is life after death, and we all make the choice if we are going to heaven or hell. If you accept Jesus as your savior, ask to be forgiven and repent, you are on your way to heaven. Like God told Moses and the Israelites, “I put before you a choice between life and death, between a blessing and a curse, chose life.” And Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
When I was 21 years old my brother committed suicide, because the girl he had asked to marry him turned him down. There wasn’t much warning when he did it. There was about a week he was really suicidal; my parents didn’t tell me what was going on until the day before it happened. I wish they would have told me sooner maybe I could have talked to him. We were not getting along well though, so I didn’t say anything. But one thing I did do was pray.
I had a feeling he was going to do something stupid so the day before he died I prayed and prayed and prayed. I prayed every prayer I could find in my grandma’s New Marian Missal. The New Marian Missal is an old Catholic daily mass book from the 1950s. I prayed all day and all night until about 11 o clock p.m. then I went to bed. I wasn’t praying that he wouldn’t take his life, I prayed for his soul.
That night in the middle of the night I awoke to Jesus speaking to me. He said to me, “I prayed your brother would be filled with the Holy Spirit.” After hearing that I knew my brother was dead and he was in heaven.
The next morning when the police came to the door, I already knew why he was there. My parents were so upset, but I didn’t cry. I knew my brother was in heaven because when Jesus prays, He prays God’s will.
I don’t know what brothers last words to God were, but I think he asked to be forgiven and that is all it takes. If you don’t ask God to forgive you. you will end up in hell . God is very merciful, and He forgives when you ask. Ask Him. He can change your life if you reach out to Him. Jesus loves you so much He willingly sacrificed himself. He didn’t run away from what he knew was going to happen to him. He died for you and me so we can be right with God so we can have a relationship with Him. Talk to Jesus. He is waiting to hear from you.
MKR Prodigal Daughter-Christian Perspectives from a Prodigal 