I WENT FOR A PERMANENT AND CAME OUT

 PERMANENTLY CHANGED

    Whilst we try to force our beliefs on others, we must consider the fact that those outside of GOD's calling can't hear us. It's like they are deaf and cannot read lips. We can preach all we want, but they have spiritual blindfolds, they cannot see it, even if the brightest of our own lights shine on it. I know this because I was spiritually blindfolded from the ages 0-26 years old. My “spiritual blindfold” was ripped from my eyes way back in 1989. I understand making it all the way to adulthood as a non-believer, if one can call the twenties adulthood. I more think of it as extended adolescence in our current culture. I was just minding my own business, carrying on with life as a wife and mother, when this “wind” of the Spirit knocked me sideways and brought to me what I never saw coming.  I will share my testimony as briefly as I can, without cutting too much out of the miracle. 

   Way back in 1989, I had a friend who got involved with this “Christian cult.” Her parents came to me, because her behavior had changed so drastically. I was her best friend, so they thought I could be the most influential. She got caught up in a Christian cult that encouraged separation from everyone. In my conversations with her she kept throwing Bible verses at me. I knew nothing about the Bible. I had been “witnessed” to by some holy rollers, as we called them in Massachusetts. I even became dear friends once with a bona-fide, loving Christian who shared the love of Christ with me, not the wrath of GOD. I couldn’t fight fire with nothing, so I had to get some fire of my own. I had NO idea what was coming next!

    It was July 1989 and I had an appointment to get my hair permed on July 14th.  Yes, that dates me. My stylist was a former pot-head who was now a Born-again believer. I was very excited all week about this appointment, and I had no idea why. I planned on questioning him and picking his brain about this cult. It was well-known cult in the Boston area at the time. I had no idea that my excitement was GOD getting my heart ready for some Holy Spirit fire that would fill my heart, light me up, and so completely change my life. But He knew, didn't He? He knew this was the week I was coming into His Kingdom as a permanent future resident.  PUN INTENDED!

    After a very long and deep conversation, because I had very long thick dark brown hair, I asked him to show me where it said in the Bible that one has to be “born-again.” It took him forever to find it.  He finally did, in John 3:3. Jesus himself said, you must be born-again to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Well, that was it for me. There it was right there in red and white, spoken by Jesus himself, and I believed what I read. He talked about getting saved for my child’s sake, and that put a whole new twist on it. That was the very first verse I memorized!  

   Later on that evening, I had decided that I was going to get saved for my daughter’s sake. I had no idea, that I already had been, the moment I read those beautiful words in red and white and believed them to be truth.  I also had no idea that it was GOD's intent for me to get saved on 7/14 the year I was 26 which are the numbers in His name YHVH.  They call that synchronicity.  I call it Divine Coincidences, planned before I was even conceived. 

   My stylists had invited me to church on that next Sunday, but that weekend, we were planning on going to our friend’s house to party and smoke pot, like we always did. We always spent the night because we were responsible party animals.  So, we packed up the porta-crib and off we went. GOD had a different plan, though. He wanted me in church that weekend, so He saw to it that I was going to go. He overruled my free will and made me sicker than I've ever been. Nothing could get rid of the pain in my stomach, no matter how many remedies I tried. I tried for hours to be relieved of this gripping pain in my stomach.  The whole time I kept hearing the only Bible verse in my head that I had ever heard, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death...," and that was all I knew of that verse. Truly, I had never opened a Bible in my life. 

   This is further proof that we need to add GOD's Word into our heads to hear it over and over again in our spirit. If the Word isn't downloaded, we cannot call it to mind.  Hence, every question we ask of GOD, the answer will be in a verse we've downloaded into our RAM!  Back to the story:  It wasn't until we got on the highway, seconds later that I felt perfectly fine. My husband asked if I wanted to turn around and go back, and assuming this was GOD's way of getting my attention, I decided not to play with fire anymore, the fire of GOD. I ended up going to church that weekend, my friend was there, and I was invited to a Sunday night Bible study.  I thought it best not to refuse. I did not even own a Bible, so I borrowed a Living Translation Bible, (before they revised it to the New Living Translation).  I went to that Bible study and for the first time I learned what the "fear of GOD," really meant.  Not only had I learned the meaning of it, I had experienced it for myself that weekend.  That was the first of many miracles I've seen of GOD's Hand these thirty-six years.  

   That week I opened up that Bible, poured through the entire New Testament and some of the Hebrew Scriptures and absorbed every word like a sponge.  I got down on my knees, told GOD that I wanted all that was in that book and the rest is as they say history.  I had no idea that I was born-again, because all of that jargon was Greek to me.  Looking back, I know that GOD had intended for me to become who I am today and write these very words 35 years, 11 months, and 28 days later!  

   In three days it's my 36th birthday in the Kingdom. 

Happy Kingdom BIRTHDAY

 to me!