I was ready to give up on everything one day that I believe to be good and was about to hold up a little store when God wake me up and showed me the love the two store keepers had for each other
so I took the little money I had and purchase three cokes and three candy bars and I took one coke and candy bar and told them the others where for them and left
The people may never know how close they came that day but to me it was a turn back to the right direction after believing all was without value and without hope
This is a bit very bizarre so you have to bear with me 'til the end.
I have posted this a couple of times before and it still even sounds wacky to me.
Hope you don't get mad by my telling this.
After I had been to a couple twig fellowships(They met spontaneously back then, so we're probably talking about 3 or 4 days.) something happened to me that I was extremely thankful for. I had heard SIT was good for giving thanks so I spoke in tongues for the first time right then and there. I was by myself. Then, the next twig fellowship, the leader asked for tongues and interpretation. I just jumped in. I didn't know you needed a special class. In fact, I hadn't even signed a green card at that point. Well, my twig leader, who had not been present at that time, got word of it. He took me aside and told me about "lift lists". He gave me a list of people and things to SIT for. At the top of the list was VPW. I didn't even know what he looked like so the twig leader gave me a Way Magazine with a picture of him behind a podium in a suit and tie. I think I prayed for a couple of other things first but then I tried to picture VPW and SIT for him. As I did, I saw him there in front of me, though I knew it wasn't real or a hallucination. He was wearing one of those neck scarves. He had a really evil grin on his face. He looked me point blank in the eye and gave me the finger.
It really shook me. I never had anything like that ever happen to me before or after that time. I didn't even know there was such a thing as revelation and I had only been speaking in tongues for a couple days.(off and on)
I told my twig leader who then convinced me it was "unrenewed mind", which he had to explain because the term was brand new to me. For a long, long time I struggled with that image because it had been so vivid. Every time I tried to do a lift list I could see that image, but only as a memory like a bad car crash you see on the highway that stays with you.
I'm not really sure what to make of it. Except, I think it might be like the gallon of milk you buy when you grocery shop. You know it will be used at some point but you certainly aren't going to stand in the bodega and drink it on the spot. Maybe I saw it so I could share it on GSC, I don't really know.
My apologies for taking this in such a non conventional direction.
I was ready to give up on everything one day that I believe to be good and was about to hold up a little store when God wake me up and showed me the love the two store keepers had for each other
so I took the little money I had and purchase three cokes and three candy bars and I took one coke and candy bar and told them the others where for them and left
The people may never know how close they came that day but to me it was a turn back to the right direction after believing all was without value and without hope
thank you
with love and a holy kiss blowing your way Roy
Thanks for sharing that! God is so good, he probably saved your life that day!
This is a bit very bizarre so you have to bear with me 'til the end.
I have posted this a couple of times before and it still even sounds wacky to me.
Hope you don't get mad by my telling this.
After I had been to a couple twig fellowships(They met spontaneously back then, so we're probably talking about 3 or 4 days.) something happened to me that I was extremely thankful for. I had heard SIT was good for giving thanks so I spoke in tongues for the first time right then and there. I was by myself. Then, the next twig fellowship, the leader asked for tongues and interpretation. I just jumped in. I didn't know you needed a special class. In fact, I hadn't even signed a green card at that point. Well, my twig leader, who had not been present at that time, got word of it. He took me aside and told me about "lift lists". He gave me a list of people and things to SIT for. At the top of the list was VPW. I didn't even know what he looked like so the twig leader gave me a Way Magazine with a picture of him behind a podium in a suit and tie. I think I prayed for a couple of other things first but then I tried to picture VPW and SIT for him. As I did, I saw him there in front of me, though I knew it wasn't real or a hallucination. He was wearing one of those neck scarves. He had a really evil grin on his face. He looked me point blank in the eye and gave me the finger.
It really shook me. I never had anything like that ever happen to me before or after that time. I didn't even know there was such a thing as revelation and I had only been speaking in tongues for a couple days.(off and on)
I told my twig leader who then convinced me it was "unrenewed mind", which he had to explain because the term was brand new to me. For a long, long time I struggled with that image because it had been so vivid. Every time I tried to do a lift list I could see that image, but only as a memory like a bad car crash you see on the highway that stays with you.
I'm not really sure what to make of it. Except, I think it might be like the gallon of milk you buy when you grocery shop. You know it will be used at some point but you certainly aren't going to stand in the bodega and drink it on the spot. Maybe I saw it so I could share it on GSC, I don't really know.
My apologies for taking this in such a non conventional direction.
Waysider, no apology needed. I believe you had a vision, could have been a warning to beware of VP, that he was going to "xxxx you over" so to speak.
I remember getting help,it was around 10 yrs after I had left The Way International
I had come to a place in my life that I could not deal with alone,I had not spoken of
my past in any way,in any churches I had visited or belonged briefly too,because I
couldn't stay in a place,to worship because I still had deeply felt I had betrayed God!
It didn't show on the outside,of my little family attending a non denominational church
You see I wanted and craved to know Truth,but more than anything I wanted my children
to know Jesus,so their would NEVER be a chance of them getting involved with a group
such as THE Way International.
Ofcourse I knew the bible and the scripture like all of ex way people do,and it is impressive
to some people,but for me at that time I was wanting to really know Jesus and not to walk
around feeling I had betrayed him with a kiss.
At the time of realizing I needed help (meaning some serious psychotherapy)
I was a religious activities director at Fort Bragg,and my job was to help guide new families
on base to the religious preferance(including satanism, muslim etc......)
My preferance of worship was Protestant,and I was involved in Fort Braggs Protestant Women
of the Chapel and went to bible study every tuesday and meeting with all the Army wives
and totting my little 2yr old baby boy,while his brother abd sister where in school where
barracades had been put up because Operation Desert Storm had just began and there Dad
was sent out to fight.
I was doing a bible study I had started using Billy Grahams book,and as I was reading it
out loud to other wives whose husbands were also gone to fight.
That is when it became REAL for me, and I knew it was time to knock off all the scripture
memorizing everything is great and get REAL.
You see there was something blocking my ability to go on and accept the God who loved
me,....without all the programs and classes and what should I wear or nametags!
Great testimony OKC!
That reminds me of a time when we were thinking about joining a church, but I was still confused about who Jesus was and how I should relate to Him. I was reading John 15-17 and something inside just broke and I could accept a real relationship with Him.
Like waysider mine is a bit bizarre and because of that I have never told anyone this before.
So for some crazy reason I feel like sharing it now on the internet no less.
I believe I was around 5 or 6 at the time, I was the youngest in a family of 11. Most of them had left by now but my Dad had remarried since my Mom died when I was 2. We lived way out in the boonies and as some would say we were so poor we could not even pay attention. I was outside playing in the rain one day when I saw an unusual looking cloud that looked like a huge hand. The hand then extended down towards me which totally freaked me out. I can't explain to this day what it was or what it meant but through all the trails in my life I have been delivered time after time. Just surviving the first five years was an accomplishment, then a bone disease that almost crippled me for life, two abusive stepmothers & one abusive brother in law/guardian. I've done all the wrong things according to some by getting married my senior year and having 4 kids by the time we were 22. But I am so humbled because as feeble and weak as I have believed and trusted in God he has always had his hand on me. That includes my time in TWI. I have an incredible family and have been married to the most loving woman for 38 years. I am more at peace than ever and I can't help but believe that the hand that I saw when I was young was indeed from God. I believe all of this including discovering GSC is still part of that process. I can't help but be excited as to what lays up ahead.
Like waysider mine is a bit bizarre and because of that I have never told anyone this before.
So for some crazy reason I feel like sharing it now on the internet no less.
I believe I was around 5 or 6 at the time, I was the youngest in a family of 11. Most of them had left by now but my Dad had remarried since my Mom died when I was 2. We lived way out in the boonies and as some would say we were so poor we could not even pay attention. I was outside playing in the rain one day when I saw an unusual looking cloud that looked like a huge hand. The hand then extended down towards me which totally freaked me out. I can't explain to this day what it was or what it meant but through all the trails in my life I have been delivered time after time. Just surviving the first five years was an accomplishment, then a bone disease that almost crippled me for life, two abusive stepmothers & one abusive brother in law/guardian. I've done all the wrong things according to some by getting married my senior year and having 4 kids by the time we were 22. But I am so humbled because as feeble and weak as I have believed and trusted in God he has always had his hand on me. That includes my time in TWI. I have an incredible family and have been married to the most loving woman for 38 years. I am more at peace than ever and I can't help but believe that the hand that I saw when I was young was indeed from God. I believe all of this including discovering GSC is still part of that process. I can't help but be excited as to what lays up ahead.
Jeast, I seriously got goosebumps and tears in my eyes when I read this. The hand of God is truly on your life. Thanks so much for sharing it!
Last year my son Cody went to sleep while driving home from work. He worked 3rd shift at the time.
This used to be a Silverado full size extended cab pickup. He had it on cruise control and went through an busy intersection
on 4 lane highway 37 south. No other vehicles were involved but the huge metal pole that supports the stop lights did not budge.
He climbed out the side window and walk away. We had him checked out at the hospital to eliminate any chance of hidden injuries and there were none. This blew our minds.
Like waysider mine is a bit bizarre and because of that I have never told anyone this before.
So for some crazy reason I feel like sharing it now on the internet no less.
I believe I was around 5 or 6 at the time, I was the youngest in a family of 11. Most of them had left by now but my Dad had remarried since my Mom died when I was 2. We lived way out in the boonies and as some would say we were so poor we could not even pay attention. I was outside playing in the rain one day when I saw an unusual looking cloud that looked like a huge hand. The hand then extended down towards me which totally freaked me out. I can't explain to this day what it was or what it meant but through all the trails in my life I have been delivered time after time. Just surviving the first five years was an accomplishment, then a bone disease that almost crippled me for life, two abusive stepmothers & one abusive brother in law/guardian. I've done all the wrong things according to some by getting married my senior year and having 4 kids by the time we were 22. But I am so humbled because as feeble and weak ats I have believed and trusted in God he has always had his hand on me. That includes my time in TWI. I have an incredible family and have been married to the most loving woman for 38 years. I am more at peace than ever and I can't help but believe that the hand that I saw when I was young was indeed from God. I believe all of this including discovering GSC is still part of that process. I can't help but be excited as to what lays up ahead.
Jeast, especially, I was sent this in email, and I thought you would like this one because it has a cloud in it:
Story of Andersonville Prison:
The grievous time of the Civil War remains the most convulsive, destructive, and still compelling chapter in United States History. By 1864 the conflict was in its third year, and the North’s strategies, in combination with its resources and resolve, had begun to finally subdue the South. Union victories on the battlefield had grown more numerous, and the war of attrition as envisioned by Lincoln, along with the Anaconda Plan as originally conceived by Winfield Scott, were proving brutally successful. An extension of the attritional war included the decision by Lincoln and General Grant to put an end to what had been large general exchanges of prisoners-of-war between the two sides. This action succeeded in further eroding the manpower which had become the Confederacy’s last natural resource, while it also resulted in tens of thousands of soldiers from both armies languishing hopelessly in what became little more than death camps in both North and South.
Despite the unconscionable conditions which existed in the prison camps of both sides, the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia has come to symbolize the worst of all of the camps; and, by extension, it serves to represent the very worst aspects of America’s vicious war between countrymen and brothers.
Andersonville is about 110 miles south of Atlanta. From its inception as a prison camp in February of 1864 until the war’s end in April of 1865, a total of 45,000 Union prisoners-of-war passed through its gates. As many as 32,000 men were interned there at one time. In a vast outdoor pen of about 26 acres, surrounded by a 15 foot-high stockade made of upright rough-hewn pine logs driven straight into the ground, those poor souls within its confines were provided with little food, and no shelter whatsoever. The winter months were cold and relentless, and in summer the scorching sun and heat were deadly for the already weakened captives.
Men who arrived without tents or blankets, or any crude utensil needed for the digging of hovels into the hard red Georgia clay died unattended on the open ground; and from the very first, prisoners died by the hundreds. Untreated wounds and disease, the incessant hunger and thirst, as well as a mortal despair, all combined to leave the tragic legacy of a death toll of more than 13,000 men. What had been the sleepy railroad town of Andersonville became a name synonymous with a veritable hell on earth, a nightmare of unimaginable dimension, unreal and impossible to ever fully describe even by those who were there.
By 1864 food was scarce throughout the South, and scarcer still for the ill-fated Union prisoners. But, as is ever the case in the history of such human misery, it was the lack of water and the torture of continuous thirst which became most destructive to body and mind. At Andersonville there simply was not enough water for so many men. In fact, because of poor planning and design, and the influx of such unexpected numbers, there was no clean water at all.
Stockade Creek was the name for the pitiful stream which ran through the lower third of the prison ground. With the exception of several small wells dug by prisoners, it was Andersonville’s only source of water; but before it ever entered the prison it was befouled by the cooking and contamination from the adjacent Confederate guards’ camp outside the stockade. The low banks and areas all around Stockade Creek became a vast and fetid morass in a very short time, for it was also used as the prison’s open latrine.
With no officers among the unfortunates at Andersonville, there was no formal leadership or organization. The basics of survival became the responsibility of the individual prisoner, and the sole occupation of each man. Beyond the deathly sick and the wounded, those without any sort of personal purpose or direction were inevitably the first to die. Within such an incubator for the worst sort of human suffering and misery, the actions of the individuals at Andersonville ranged from the extraordinary to the unforgivable.
While some prisoners became part of the feared gangs which organized to exploit and brutally prey upon their comrades, such as the notorious “Andersonville Raiders,” other men dedicated themselves to providing as much assistance and comfort as possible to the infirm and dying. Also, as the long months passed within the camp, religious activities became an important part of many of the prisoners’ lives. Interest in prayer meetings and growing attendance enabled them to be held each night in different parts of the camp, and preachers of all sorts emerged from the desperate ranks to hold services and to minister to the wavering hopes and spiritual needs of the forlorn men. An Andersonville Sunday School was even established; and even as the camp’s horrid conditions became worse, the numbers of the faithful grew.
June and July of 1864 brought weeks of searing heat, and the number of dead steadily grew. Loaded in crude carts and carried outside the stockade to what was known as the Dead House, they awaited a primitive mass burial in the long, shallow trenches dug by their comrades. Such was the particular hell of Andersonville that, although surrounded by tall Georgia pines, the prisoners had no wood to boil the filthy water; and in the midst of what had once been rich farmland, they had no food. And men within the stockade were dying from thirst only yards from the clear, free-flowing waters of Sweetwater Creek which ran just outside of the south wall of the prison.
But in early August the rains came.
The blessed relief began as light showers which came down and rinsed the mass of 30,000 prisoners as they lie about the seared open acreage. Then, as the rain grew stronger, the men looked skyward and opened their parched mouths. Soon, all those who could began to hold up battered canteens and tin cups, and any other vessels they could find to hold the clean, precious rainwater. The downpour soon became a torrent which soon turned the prison’s 26 acres into a vast quagmire. As the heavy rains continued, Stockade Creek rose higher, overflowing its banks and carrying away large quantities of the camp’s accumulated filth and mire with its strong new current.
Survivors testified after the war that the stream rose five feet in one hour. Eventually the surging water carried away portions of the east and west stockade walls. Although the Confederates hurried to arms in anticipation of the threat of a mass escape, the prisoners were simply too weak to much more than avoid the rushing water, and to revel in the relief from the torments of thirst and the burning sun.
After five days of intermittent rain, on August 13, the great cloud appeared. Distinctive for its tremendous size and sharply defined shape, it was said to be like a giant mountain in the sky, its color like that of blued gun metal. Approaching from the east, the cloud moved slowly westward until it was directly over the camp. As thousands of men watched with a growing sense of awe, it seemed to stop and hover directly above the bough-covered Dead House, before moving slowly towards the North Gate.
Even the nervous guards were compelled to stare in wonder as the cloud loomed, over the prison, still and powerful. By this time most of the camp’s crude shelters had been washed away by the rains, and the prisoners had been soaked to skin for days. Now, as the emaciated men stood staring heavenward, for the first time at Andersonville Prison there was complete silence. Even the endless drone of misery from the sick and dying became muted, and then seemed to disappear. As the cries of suffering quieted, a soft rain could be heard falling gently upon earth and man.
Psalm 135:7
“He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses” NIV
Suddenly, there came a thunderous, deafening roar.
From men who knew the sound all too well, it was said to be like the explosion of a thousand cannon. It was so powerful that the weaker men standing near the west wall were thrown to the ground. Then, from the heart of the deep blue cloud, came a great, blinding flash – followed nearly immediately by searing bolt of blinding white lightening. It too exploded from the sky, violently striking the earth just within the stockade at a notorious point known as the Dead Line, beyond which no prisoner could pass without being shot. At the place where the fiery lightening struck there was another tremendous explosion and a stunning eruption of earth and steam filled the air. Instantly, torrents of fresh water gushed from the blasted, broken ground, pouring forth and coursing into the prison. This awesome water was cool and clean, and its flow was to become a permanent thing.
The thunderous lightening had found the highest point of an underground stream, and the name of Providence Spring emerged nearly as quickly as the waters came forth to the relief of the thousands.
On that same day the rains stopped, and the stockade walls were soon repaired. No attempts at mass escape were ever made, nor any effort made for the prisoners’ liberation by Union forces, even when Sherman’s army was within 20 miles of Andersonville on their “March to the Sea.” The imprisonment and harsh conditions for thousands of Federals continued through another long winter and until the war’s end in April of 1865; but throughout that entire time the miracle waters of Providence Spring continued to flow at the rate of about 10 gallons per minute. All who were there knew how rare a thing it was, but among the religious and newly religious in the camp, there was the special knowledge that the prayers of men in the most desperate sort of need had been answered. The awareness and belief that plaintive supplication could be heeded from even such a forsaken and miserable place as Andersonville was infinitely gratifying.
Shortly after war’s end, Clara Barton and a former prisoner by the name of Dorence Atwater went to Andersonville as leaders of a dedicated group whose mission was to exhume, identify, and then properly rebury the scores of Union dead from the mass graves. Atwater, known as “the Clerk of the Dead,” had worked in the Dead House and somehow managed to record and secrete thousands of names. Incredibly, all but 400 of the 13,000 men who died there were successfully identified by this inspired effort. In the midst of such gruesome work in the sweltering heat of a burning July, those courageous and inspired humanitarians joined the prisoners who had gone before them whose bitter thirst had been quenched by the cooling, mysterious waters of Providence Spring.
Today, Andersonville is a very quiet place. Still a part of the rural Georgia countryside, it is a National Historic Site administered by the Park Service. There is a modern Visitors Center with affecting displays that communicate the tragic history of the place effectively. There is also the Andersonville National Cemetery. Originally dedicated by Clara Barton’s group in 1865, the cemetery continues to provide a final resting place for American veterans today.
A visitor to Andersonville today can tour the 515-acre expanse by foot or by car. Beyond the modernity, once close to the impressive site of the actual stockade, one rather surprisingly becomes aware of a pervasive sense of rare quietude, as a curious sort of peacefulness seems to emanate from the place. It is as if the fiery heat of a great mythological furnace had somehow burned away all of the worldly dross from this one sacred point on earth, leaving an area of serene tranquility. When asked about this impression, a receptive Park Ranger acknowledged that even in summer there comes an unexpected, cooling breeze from the west; and during the coldest of Georgia winters, the area within the lines of the stockade always seems to be a bit warmer than anywhere else.
Walking the now cleared, rolling land where so many men had been left to their fates and struggled to survive in such deadly misery, one can still see traces of half-dug wells and hovels scratched nearly by hand in the hard red Georgia clay, and the remnants of hopeless efforts at escape tunnels. There are also the more recent covered trenches of the archeologists who have discovered large pieces of the stockade’s original wooden palisades beneath the earth; and since 1987 the National Park Service has reconstructed portions of the stockade to “enhance visitor understanding of the prison and prison conditions.” And along the lower portion of the boundary of the west wall, just below the North Gate, there is an impressive shrine made of rough-hewn granite stones surrounding a fountain. With an appearance like a small chapel, it was built and dedicated in 1907 by Union veterans and survivors of Andersonville. The memorial rests at the mouth of Providence Spring, and the clear water still flows at the rate of about 10 gallons per minute. The water there is always cool, and is said to be especially invigorating.
The symbols of the history of our relatively young nation are continually challenged by unconscionable development and ignorance, but meaningful places possessed of great spiritual resonance still exist throughout the land. Of such sites, Andersonville is easily among the most prominent. For those who are aware of it, there is a responsibility to learn from the entire experience, to share the saga with others, and to urge a visit.
To know the story of the Miracle of Providence Spring is to understand that there remain accessible, powerful mysteries and rarified spaces where rare things have occurred, and where they continue to resonate on what can only be described as hallowed ground – at least at a place called Andersonville.
Kit, I love that account because it is so balanced--rare indeed for War Between the States accounts, but thankfully, more have been forthcoming in recent years.
Especially significant, imo, because the water source remains today as a continuing testimony to what the Lord will do when his people call upon his name.
I have one that I have only shared with a few trusted friends.
This one takes a long time to set up. I even hesitate to share, as it is pretty dark in the telling, but then I sometimes wonder if when you have been wounded the deepest, that is when God arranges the most spectacular deliverance to reach out and salvage your shattered soul.
I almost deleted all of the more miserable parts, but then, I think that diminishes the impact of what I was delivered out of and how far God will go to reach out to one of us when we are suffering and debased to the point where we can`t even look up to seek him.
I have told the horrible side of this before, I guess now is the time to share the deliverance side.
That being said.....If you want to skip down to the *God* part...go to the last post :)
I was very young when I got involved in the ministry. I went out wow as soon as I turned 18. I was discouraged from going back home because I was told there weren`t any fellowships and that I would die *spiritually* if I returned.
I moved into a way home with the city coordinator who was interim corp. I had a wonderful year being gently taught. The hardships of an Alabama girl learning to live in the brutal North Dakota climate were made bearable by the wonderful lady who lovingly cared for all of the believers under her watch.
At the end of her year, She asked would I keep the house and accept the new interim leaders family as my room mates.
I eagerly agreed, thinking that God had another year of action packed adventure and growth in store for me by allowing me to live once again with leaders.
Whew, what a disapointment. The new leaders arrived and were immediately dissatisfied with every aspect of the house, the town and the believers.
Our home that had been so carefully chosen with fellowship and classes in mind had a huge great room, it was centrally located to all of the believers, it was in one of the nicer sections of town. The Wife hated it, she hated, Fargo and most of all she hated me.
The dishes weren`t to her liking, the cooking utensils not complete to her satisfaction...Though I paid one third of the rent, I was required to share a bed room with their 6 yr old daughter.
Whatever I did, it was done wrong, why hadn`t I done it thus and such way. I was 18 maybe 19 yrs old at this time, and jobs in Fargo were scarce, especially for someone who had only been a waitress. There were two restaurants in town and I fortunately had a job on 3rd shift.
Well, my job was evil because I was out after midnight, I was a loser because I couldn`t find anything better.
She wanted the entire house vacumed by 8 am every morning. I would vacume every night before I would leave for work, but then they would eat pop corn and make a mess all evening. Well, I got off at 4 or 5 am and would come home and sleep.
She would then wake me up at 8 snarling at me for not having taken care of my daily responsibility. I would be harrangued about my laziness and being a sluggard and my lack of believing in not having a job during decent hours....I would numbly vacume, exhausted mutely bearing the brunt of her criticizm. Broken because I had been taught that leadership spoke for God. That God told leadership how to best help us...and this lady let me know just what a screw up I was
I couldn`t figure out how I had become such a bad person so quickly. I tried desperately to be the believer that God wanted me to be.
It all came to a head one morning after about three months of meanness. I had once again vacumed the house gone to work and put in a full shift/ i had returned home and only slept an hour when the morning routine began.
Something snapped inside and I told the woman to please leave me alone, that I would take care of my responsibility when I got up at noon.
What was this? the lowly peon dared to talk back?Huh Oh my goodness, the woman went ballistic, she was incensed, and grabbed my leg and hauled until she pulled me off of the bed and I landed on the floor with a jolt.
I jumped up and told her to leave me the he ll alone! OH geeeze The woman started shrieking hysterically to her terrified 6 year old daughter standing there to *leave the room* *This person was POSESSED*!!!
Something died right then and there in side of me.....I was absolutely sickened with shame and horror. I will never forget the look of terror in the little girls eyes as she fled. Hell, I wished that I could have run away from me too. It of course never occured to me to doubt what this leader said.
She was rebuking Satan and swearing at me. It was all surreal...like a night mare.
I brokenly just started packing my things up. I started loading my car. I had some vague half formed plan of driving myself and my two dogs off of the red river bridge and drowning. I know that this sounds nuts...but I didn`t WANT to live if I had darkness inside of me.
I did NOT want to be alive if I was possessed. I did NOT want to hurt any body with my evilness. Most of all I couldn`t live with the shame of all of the people who so lovingly nurtured me as a young Christian knowing how vile I had become.
I cried brokenly, not understanding how I could go from a beloved valuable family member in the body of Christ in three short months to being possessed by satan.
It took me an hour to gather my most important belongings. I left them the house, rented in my name with all of the deposits, the utilities and their deposits, the phone, the furniture, dishes etc.
I took my most personal belongings while she followed me screamimg, rebuking, darned near frothing in her rage. I took my two dogs and got in my car and left. Broken ... I did not know how I had become possessed. I couldn`t understand how to not be possessed. I couldn`t go to anybody and TELL them that I was possessed. I was so desperatly alone...I couldn`t even turn to God...how dare I, if I were possessed? I was just a stench in his nostrils, a disapointment, a spiritually nasty vile being.
I was horrified, I was ashamed, I loathed myself, I couldn`t live with being evil and not even knowing that I was evil and not having a clue as to how I had gotten that way ...when I had done my very best to be a doulos to God...what if I inadvertently infected someone else??
I drove to the Red river bridge and just sat there. I cannot describe the depths of the despair that engulfed me. I wanted my bible. I wanted to seek the familiar comfort there, only to realize in horror that I had set it down as I was loading and had left it. My beautiful cambridge bible that I struggled for so long to save for and that so I dearly loved. Was back at the house. I just didn`t dare return for it.
I found out later that she gave it away declaring that it was the PROOF that I was posessed or I never would have left it. I was stunned when the gal who had been given it, the next year at roa .....offered the tattered water soaked worn book that had once been my most prized possession. The dearly loved book that I had handled with the utmost care and gently stored in the box when not in use had been ruined it.
It was devistating.
Well anyway, as I sat by the bridge deciding whether to drive the car into the river to protect the rest of the body of Christ from my vileness....too ashamed to seek help, too filled with self loathing to ask God...
As I sat there, immersed in shame and self loathing, I decided that since I was told that I would die spiritually anyway if I returned to my home town, (because there were no believers there) I was dead already, and since there were no believers there, I reasoned that I would be no danger to anyone.
I began the long trek to Alabama. I stopped at Rome City campus to visit my former leader who was completing her final year of training.
I couldn`t tell her what had happened, I couldn`t tell her why I was going to Alabama. I was deathly afraid that she would detect my spiritually putrid nature. I think she knew that something bad had happened because she was incredibly kind, insisting that I spend a night there. She tried to reach out to help, but I had retreated deep inside my self loathing and contempt. I couldn`t even look other wholesome believers in the eye.
I lived in terror worrying constantly that someone would detect my horrible secret while I was there and denounce me in front of the whole campus.
I left as soon as I could get away.
I arrived in Alabama and went to stay with my mother to await the physical death that I assumed was to soon to follow my spiritual death.
I know that this all sounds so melodramatic, but I had been taught to believe that these people spoke for God, I was very naive, never dreaming that a Christian would deliberately or dishonestly hurt another. I assumed that the leader as I had been taught.....spoke for God.
Well, my friend at Rome city did some checking and found out that wows had been sent to my city, and contacted them, asking them to get in touch with me.
As ashamed as I was of myself, I still desperately wanted to be healed, to be pleasing to God, so when the wow called with an invitation, the lure was irresistable.
I went to fellowship, half hoping that I might get deliverance from the evil that infested me, more terrified that they would detect my vileness.
Imagine my surprise when I was greeted with kindness treated with love.
I went to fellowship that year, trying hard to serve God, but inside still convinced of my depravity. I hated myself, I was ashamed.
The ROA was approaching but I entertained no thoughts of going. I was afraid that somebody there would detect my secret. I was afraid of meeting the woman who had so visciously denounced me.
Just before everyone left, I was asked to ride up with a mother that needed help driving and her young children, and would I give her a hand. I really was afraid to go, reluctant ...but wanted to help....so I agreed unenthusiastically to accompany her. I thought that maybe I could lurk in the tent and listen to the teachings from the big top over the loud speaker.
I don`t know how to explain the depths of the self loathing and shame that had entirely engulfed every fiber of my being for almost an entire year, I was so deeply immersed in my mental anguish that I couldn`t hear, couldn`t accept that God could care for me.
I tried to time my presence after we arrived on grounds to when I thought there were the fewest people. I would go and get food and drink and go back to my tent before any who knew me might see me. I still was afraid of someone pointing their finger at me and yelling *possessed!* and having everyone turn on me with the same loathing and disgust in their eyes that I felt for myself.
Ok...after all that....lol ....here is where it gets interesting.... :)
One day I was walking back to my tent when the wierdest thing happened. Everything in my field of vision faded and was replaced with a crystal clear picture that obscured everything alse out....it was the most insane thing....It remained for a few seconds and then normal sights, smells and sound returned....Whew...I ....shook my head and laughed at at the rediculous picture that had just played before my eyes...and continued back to the tent.
That evening I was walking across grounds...and it happened again. The same insane picture obscuring everything within my field of vision....I thought THIS time...*damn man, I must REALLY be losing it....and laughed...and continued on.
That night I went to bed thinking that I had always wanted to ride in the motor cycle cavalcade, a tour of about two and a half hours that vp usually led once a year. They would travel and point out areas of interest and significance to the ministry around the county.
I had been told once that if you arrived early enough that sometimes a rider would take a passenger. I thought dreamily...*I oughtta try that someday* as I fell asleep.
Well 4 am bright and early the next morning my eyes flew open and try as I would, I couldn`t go back to sleep. So I got to thinking, I ought to wander over where the motor cycles are getting ready to leave and see if someone would let me ride with them.
I really had no hope of anybody actually taking me, as spiritually dark as I believed myself to be, but thought it would be fun to admire all of the motorcycles any way.
So I walked all the way to the parking lot where they were gathering. I found a fellow willing to take on a passenger. I was thrilled. Dr, and Mrs. Wierwille arrived with much pomp and celebration on the brand new Harley that people had pitched in and bought for him that year.
We were all standing around receiving instructions and I was trying to stay back out of view, still uncomfortably aware that I wasn`t worthy to be in the presence of these great Christians.
At the end of the meeting the man said....Dr says that Mrs. Wierwille is going to sit behind him and that there is room for someone in his side car. Would anybody like to ride? Well I see him look up right straight at me.... and nod his head...WHAT? Huh?? In stunned disbelief, I look over and notice that MY hand is up in the air...(how the heck did THAT happen??, I sure didn`t remember raising it) I wouldn`t have, I was terrified that with the founder and president`s hightened sense of spiritual awareness that I would surely be denounced and cast out.
I numbly stumbled forward as he turned and mounted his bike and people are slapping a helmet on me and helping me into the cart.....inside I am terrified, I am screaming ...NO this is a mistake...you don`t know who I am..how evil I am.....
Well Mrs. Wierwille turns to me with the most merry of smiles, possibly sensing my terror and begins to make me feel right at home...vp asked me a single question, grunted coldly and turned to his driving.
I hunched down miserably scared and lonely feeling like surely he must know what a loser I was and that it was the grace of God that he didn`t throw me out.
He never said another word.....and my discomfort grew acutely through out the ride.
Mrs. Wierwille on the other hand kept up a merry chatter, sharing with me incidents from her childhood and places that held meaning for her as we drove through the county.
I have to say that she was a wonder, an incredible hostess, doing her best to treat a guest like royalty even on the back of a motor cycle.....lol. God bless her heart, I do not think I could have endured that long cold ride without her cheerful demeanor.
So we arrive back at headquarters and people are lining the streets, cheering and whistling madly...it seemed like the crowds went on for miles, people enthusiastically greeting us, admiring the new motor cycle.
The thought struck my like a sledge hammer....there isn`t a single believer here in all of these tens of thousands of people that wouldn`t give anything they had to be right there where I was.
My heart failed thinking of how many people were so much more worthy and deserving than I....when all of a sudden...the sun burst brilliantly through the heavy gloomy cloud cover, showering us with brilliant rays as we approached central grounds and the thickest crowds....the cheering the loudest and suddenly I understood....I felt it...a voice inside said...but YOU were chosen. I gasped it was almost like being hit physically as the vision shown to me the day before returned in blinding flashing technicolor!! It was the very same picture both times...of what was happening right then and there. A picture that when I saw it the day before was so outragiously unlikely, I had dismisssed it out of hand and mind. In the picture, I had been riding with Dr. and Mrs. Wierwille in the brand new motorcycle before wildly cheering crowds.
I knew it, all of a sudden as the sun beamed down on me, as we motored through the roaring crowds....out of all of the people who could have been chosen for that privilege, Not ONLY had God chosen me that day, but he expressly showed me not just once, but TWICE ahead of time that he was going to do it so that I would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a speacial, personal message from him...that there could be no room left for doubt....as debased and wretched as I believed myself to be....that in SPITE of what that woman had said...that He God loved me and that there was no evil too great to separate me from his love.
I bawled in joy, everybody had tears from the cold wind...but the ones coursing down my face were pure happiness. The icy coldness of fear and self loathing that had encased my heart for almost a year melted away to be replaced by the most intense joy. The humble reality of feeling the hand of God directly in my life.
The fact that vp had not said two words to me, or the feeling that he may have dissaproved somehow ...made no difference. This was a special message, an *I love you* gift from God to someone who had been wounded so deeply that she was beyond the hearing of his voice.
That he had gone to such extraordinary measures to bring me back to him was humbling. Geemany...how could I hate myself when he loved me enough to go to such extreme measures to heal?
There was a photographer (our own hcw I believe) that took a professional picture of me at the end of the ride sitting in the side car beside wierwille.....the sun shining down gloriously down around us, but paled (I think) by the brilliance of my beaming smile.
HCW somehow found out who I was and where I lived, and had a copy of that photo sent to me.
Nobody knows the significance of that picture to me. Since then...whenever I have had trouble with people telling me I was a screw up, or not good enough, or that I didn`t have the heart to be corpes...was salt that had lost it`s savor...etc....I know...I know what God showed me that day....and it seems like the barbs couldn`t hurt me like they used to.
Even now nearly 28 years after the fact. When ever I am feeling beaten down or struggling in life, no matter how much of a failure I may feel that I am, no matter what doubts arise as to my ability to handle what is piled on my plate......I just have to look at the picture to once again be reassured, to be warmed by the comfort and knowledge that God not only cares about us in a unique and personal way...but even more humbling....he is willing to go to such great lengths to show us that love....
I know that it sounds nuts...but sometimes it is hard to communicate why something is so uniquely personal and healing.
That picture says it all. What a great miracle that your son walked away from that!
Kit,
What a great testimony, sounds like a good place to visit, I'll bet there's a holy atmosphere all around that place.
Excie,
Amen to that testimony of God's love!
And Rascal,
That was inspiring. Not a just a single vision, but twice so that you couldn't mistake where the grace came from, and that you were specifically chosen for blessing. What a crock of garbage that person from North Dakota spilled all over you. Thanks so much for sharing that.
(I think I was a passenger on the cavalcade of motorcycles that year. It was really a fun ride.)
Thanks guys. I think that was what was so humbling, the fact that God cared enough that I recieved the message, that he made darned sure that the self doubt, the recriminations, the self loathing couldn`t return and steal that peace from me.
I tried to time my presence after we arrived on grounds to when I thought there were the fewest people. I would go and get food and drink and go back to my tent before any who knew me might see me. I still was afraid of someone pointing their finger at me and yelling *possessed!* and having everyone turn on me with the same loathing and disgust in their eyes that I felt for myself.
Ok...after all that....lol ....here is where it gets interesting.... :)
One day I was walking back to my tent when the wierdest thing happened. Everything in my field of vision faded and was replaced with a crystal clear picture that obscured everything alse out....it was the most insane thing....It remained for a few seconds and then normal sights, smells and sound returned....Whew...I ....shook my head and laughed at at the rediculous picture that had just played before my eyes...and continued back to the tent.
That evening I was walking across grounds...and it happened again. The same insane picture obscuring everything within my field of vision....I thought THIS time...*damn man, I must REALLY be losing it....and laughed...and continued on.
That night I went to bed thinking that I had always wanted to ride in the motor cycle cavalcade, a tour of about two and a half hours that vp usually led once a year. They would travel and point out areas of interest and significance to the ministry around the county.
I had been told once that if you arrived early enough that sometimes a rider would take a passenger. I thought dreamily...*I oughtta try that someday* as I fell asleep.
Well 4 am bright and early the next morning my eyes flew open and try as I would, I couldn`t go back to sleep. So I got to thinking, I ought to wander over where the motor cycles are getting ready to leave and see if someone would let me ride with them.
I really had no hope of anybody actually taking me, as spiritually dark as I believed myself to be, but thought it would be fun to admire all of the motorcycles any way.
So I walked all the way to the parking lot where they were gathering. I found a fellow willing to take on a passenger. I was thrilled. Dr, and Mrs. Wierwille arrived with much pomp and celebration on the brand new Harley that people had pitched in and bought for him that year.
We were all standing around receiving instructions and I was trying to stay back out of view, still uncomfortably aware that I wasn`t worthy to be in the presence of these great Christians.
At the end of the meeting the man said....Dr says that Mrs. Wierwille is going to sit behind him and that there is room for someone in his side car. Would anybody like to ride? Well I see him look up right straight at me.... and nod his head...WHAT? Huh?? In stunned disbelief, I look over and notice that MY hand is up in the air...(how the heck did THAT happen??, I sure didn`t remember raising it) I wouldn`t have, I was terrified that with the founder and president`s hightened sense of spiritual awareness that I would surely be denounced and cast out.
I numbly stumbled forward as he turned and mounted his bike and people are slapping a helmet on me and helping me into the cart.....inside I am terrified, I am screaming ...NO this is a mistake...you don`t know who I am..how evil I am.....
Well Mrs. Wierwille turns to me with the most merry of smiles, possibly sensing my terror and begins to make me feel right at home...vp asked me a single question, grunted coldly and turned to his driving.
I hunched down miserably scared and lonely feeling like surely he must know what a loser I was and that it was the grace of God that he didn`t throw me out.
He never said another word.....and my discomfort grew acutely through out the ride.
Mrs. Wierwille on the other hand kept up a merry chatter, sharing with me incidents from her childhood and places that held meaning for her as we drove through the county.
I have to say that she was a wonder, an incredible hostess, doing her best to treat a guest like royalty even on the back of a motor cycle.....lol. God bless her heart, I do not think I could have endured that long cold ride without her cheerful demeanor.
So we arrive back at headquarters and people are lining the streets, cheering and whistling madly...it seemed like the crowds went on for miles, people enthusiastically greeting us, admiring the new motor cycle.
The thought struck my like a sledge hammer....there isn`t a single believer here in all of these tens of thousands of people that wouldn`t give anything they had to be right there where I was.
My heart failed thinking of how many people were so much more worthy and deserving than I....when all of a sudden...the sun burst brilliantly through the heavy gloomy cloud cover, showering us with brilliant rays as we approached central grounds and the thickest crowds....the cheering the loudest and suddenly I understood....I felt it...a voice inside said...but YOU were chosen. I gasped it was almost like being hit physically as the vision shown to me the day before returned in blinding flashing technicolor!! It was the very same picture both times...of what was happening right then and there. A picture that when I saw it the day before was so outragiously unlikely, I had dismisssed it out of hand and mind. In the picture, I had been riding with Dr. and Mrs. Wierwille in the brand new motorcycle before wildly cheering crowds.
I knew it, all of a sudden as the sun beamed down on me, as we motored through the roaring crowds....out of all of the people who could have been chosen for that privilege, Not ONLY had God chosen me that day, but he expressly showed me not just once, but TWICE ahead of time that he was going to do it so that I would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a speacial, personal message from him...that there could be no room left for doubt....as debased and wretched as I believed myself to be....that in SPITE of what that woman had said...that He God loved me and that there was no evil too great to separate me from his love.
I bawled in joy, everybody had tears from the cold wind...but the ones coursing down my face were pure happiness. The icy coldness of fear and self loathing that had encased my heart for almost a year melted away to be replaced by the most intense joy. The humble reality of feeling the hand of God directly in my life.
The fact that vp had not said two words to me, or the feeling that he may have dissaproved somehow ...made no difference. This was a special message, an *I love you* gift from God to someone who had been wounded so deeply that she was beyond the hearing of his voice.
That he had gone to such extraordinary measures to bring me back to him was humbling. Geemany...how could I hate myself when he loved me enough to go to such extreme measures to heal?
There was a photographer (our own hcw I believe) that took a professional picture of me at the end of the ride sitting in the side car beside wierwille.....the sun shining down gloriously down around us, but paled (I think) by the brilliance of my beaming smile.
HCW somehow found out who I was and where I lived, and had a copy of that photo sent to me.
Nobody knows the significance of that picture to me. Since then...whenever I have had trouble with people telling me I was a screw up, or not good enough, or that I didn`t have the heart to be corpes...was salt that had lost it`s savor...etc....I know...I know what God showed me that day....and it seems like the barbs couldn`t hurt me like they used to.
Even now nearly 28 years after the fact. When ever I am feeling beaten down or struggling in life, no matter how much of a failure I may feel that I am, no matter what doubts arise as to my ability to handle what is piled on my plate......I just have to look at the picture to once again be reassured, to be warmed by the comfort and knowledge that God not only cares about us in a unique and personal way...but even more humbling....he is willing to go to such great lengths to show us that love....
I know that it sounds nuts...but sometimes it is hard to communicate why something is so uniquely personal and healing.
Thank You Rascal for sharing this; and each and Everyone else who has ever shared It melts my heart...Everyones courage and GOD's Love!!!
GOD heals the brokenhearted; and like You said (except in my words ) being touched by GOD's hand of Love is so healing, so sustaining so individual and and specially
unique! He really sees our hearts. It makes me want to cry at how very much I don't understand of GOD's Love or His ways and His thoughts near enough...Will I ever have enough time
to learn all I want to and need to?
Yet invariably, He still Loves us and helps us like no one else can or will! He Loves us when no one else will... not even ourselves sometimes!
He has saved me and healed my broken shattered, and uncooperative heart countless times throughout my life and reminded me that His word is true since Iwas a very small child. I
owe Him more than I will ever be capable of giving Him or giving through Him!!! Amazingly, He still sees my heart and understands...so I can and always will keep going on no matter
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year2027
God first
Beloved wrdsandwrks
God loves you my dear friend
ok I will try
I was ready to give up on everything one day that I believe to be good and was about to hold up a little store when God wake me up and showed me the love the two store keepers had for each other
so I took the little money I had and purchase three cokes and three candy bars and I took one coke and candy bar and told them the others where for them and left
The people may never know how close they came that day but to me it was a turn back to the right direction after believing all was without value and without hope
thank you
with love and a holy kiss blowing your way Roy
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waysider
This is a bit very bizarre so you have to bear with me 'til the end.
I have posted this a couple of times before and it still even sounds wacky to me.
Hope you don't get mad by my telling this.
After I had been to a couple twig fellowships(They met spontaneously back then, so we're probably talking about 3 or 4 days.) something happened to me that I was extremely thankful for. I had heard SIT was good for giving thanks so I spoke in tongues for the first time right then and there. I was by myself. Then, the next twig fellowship, the leader asked for tongues and interpretation. I just jumped in. I didn't know you needed a special class. In fact, I hadn't even signed a green card at that point. Well, my twig leader, who had not been present at that time, got word of it. He took me aside and told me about "lift lists". He gave me a list of people and things to SIT for. At the top of the list was VPW. I didn't even know what he looked like so the twig leader gave me a Way Magazine with a picture of him behind a podium in a suit and tie. I think I prayed for a couple of other things first but then I tried to picture VPW and SIT for him. As I did, I saw him there in front of me, though I knew it wasn't real or a hallucination. He was wearing one of those neck scarves. He had a really evil grin on his face. He looked me point blank in the eye and gave me the finger.
It really shook me. I never had anything like that ever happen to me before or after that time. I didn't even know there was such a thing as revelation and I had only been speaking in tongues for a couple days.(off and on)
I told my twig leader who then convinced me it was "unrenewed mind", which he had to explain because the term was brand new to me. For a long, long time I struggled with that image because it had been so vivid. Every time I tried to do a lift list I could see that image, but only as a memory like a bad car crash you see on the highway that stays with you.
I'm not really sure what to make of it. Except, I think it might be like the gallon of milk you buy when you grocery shop. You know it will be used at some point but you certainly aren't going to stand in the bodega and drink it on the spot. Maybe I saw it so I could share it on GSC, I don't really know.
My apologies for taking this in such a non conventional direction.
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wrdsandwrks
Thanks for sharing that! God is so good, he probably saved your life that day!
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wrdsandwrks
Waysider, no apology needed. I believe you had a vision, could have been a warning to beware of VP, that he was going to "xxxx you over" so to speak.
Totally appropriate for a testimony.
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cheranne
I remember getting help,it was around 10 yrs after I had left The Way International
I had come to a place in my life that I could not deal with alone,I had not spoken of
my past in any way,in any churches I had visited or belonged briefly too,because I
couldn't stay in a place,to worship because I still had deeply felt I had betrayed God!
It didn't show on the outside,of my little family attending a non denominational church
You see I wanted and craved to know Truth,but more than anything I wanted my children
to know Jesus,so their would NEVER be a chance of them getting involved with a group
such as THE Way International.
Ofcourse I knew the bible and the scripture like all of ex way people do,and it is impressive
to some people,but for me at that time I was wanting to really know Jesus and not to walk
around feeling I had betrayed him with a kiss.
At the time of realizing I needed help (meaning some serious psychotherapy)
I was a religious activities director at Fort Bragg,and my job was to help guide new families
on base to the religious preferance(including satanism, muslim etc......)
My preferance of worship was Protestant,and I was involved in Fort Braggs Protestant Women
of the Chapel and went to bible study every tuesday and meeting with all the Army wives
and totting my little 2yr old baby boy,while his brother abd sister where in school where
barracades had been put up because Operation Desert Storm had just began and there Dad
was sent out to fight.
I was doing a bible study I had started using Billy Grahams book,and as I was reading it
out loud to other wives whose husbands were also gone to fight.
That is when it became REAL for me, and I knew it was time to knock off all the scripture
memorizing everything is great and get REAL.
You see there was something blocking my ability to go on and accept the God who loved
me,....without all the programs and classes and what should I wear or nametags!
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wrdsandwrks
Great testimony OKC!
That reminds me of a time when we were thinking about joining a church, but I was still confused about who Jesus was and how I should relate to Him. I was reading John 15-17 and something inside just broke and I could accept a real relationship with Him.
Thanks for that.
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jeast
Like waysider mine is a bit bizarre and because of that I have never told anyone this before.
So for some crazy reason I feel like sharing it now on the internet no less.
I believe I was around 5 or 6 at the time, I was the youngest in a family of 11. Most of them had left by now but my Dad had remarried since my Mom died when I was 2. We lived way out in the boonies and as some would say we were so poor we could not even pay attention. I was outside playing in the rain one day when I saw an unusual looking cloud that looked like a huge hand. The hand then extended down towards me which totally freaked me out. I can't explain to this day what it was or what it meant but through all the trails in my life I have been delivered time after time. Just surviving the first five years was an accomplishment, then a bone disease that almost crippled me for life, two abusive stepmothers & one abusive brother in law/guardian. I've done all the wrong things according to some by getting married my senior year and having 4 kids by the time we were 22. But I am so humbled because as feeble and weak as I have believed and trusted in God he has always had his hand on me. That includes my time in TWI. I have an incredible family and have been married to the most loving woman for 38 years. I am more at peace than ever and I can't help but believe that the hand that I saw when I was young was indeed from God. I believe all of this including discovering GSC is still part of that process. I can't help but be excited as to what lays up ahead.
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anotherDan
Jeast, that is so cool. God does indeed have His hand on you!
Words, you too!
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wrdsandwrks
Jeast, I seriously got goosebumps and tears in my eyes when I read this. The hand of God is truly on your life. Thanks so much for sharing it!
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jeast
wrdsandwrks
Thank you for starting this thread.
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jeast
Last year my son Cody went to sleep while driving home from work. He worked 3rd shift at the time.
This used to be a Silverado full size extended cab pickup. He had it on cruise control and went through an busy intersection
on 4 lane highway 37 south. No other vehicles were involved but the huge metal pole that supports the stop lights did not budge.
He climbed out the side window and walk away. We had him checked out at the hospital to eliminate any chance of hidden injuries and there were none. This blew our minds.
Again God has delivered.
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Kit Sober
Jeast, especially, I was sent this in email, and I thought you would like this one because it has a cloud in it:
Story of Andersonville Prison:
The grievous time of the Civil War remains the most convulsive, destructive, and still compelling chapter in United States History. By 1864 the conflict was in its third year, and the North’s strategies, in combination with its resources and resolve, had begun to finally subdue the South. Union victories on the battlefield had grown more numerous, and the war of attrition as envisioned by Lincoln, along with the Anaconda Plan as originally conceived by Winfield Scott, were proving brutally successful. An extension of the attritional war included the decision by Lincoln and General Grant to put an end to what had been large general exchanges of prisoners-of-war between the two sides. This action succeeded in further eroding the manpower which had become the Confederacy’s last natural resource, while it also resulted in tens of thousands of soldiers from both armies languishing hopelessly in what became little more than death camps in both North and South.
Despite the unconscionable conditions which existed in the prison camps of both sides, the Confederate prison at Andersonville, Georgia has come to symbolize the worst of all of the camps; and, by extension, it serves to represent the very worst aspects of America’s vicious war between countrymen and brothers.
Andersonville is about 110 miles south of Atlanta. From its inception as a prison camp in February of 1864 until the war’s end in April of 1865, a total of 45,000 Union prisoners-of-war passed through its gates. As many as 32,000 men were interned there at one time. In a vast outdoor pen of about 26 acres, surrounded by a 15 foot-high stockade made of upright rough-hewn pine logs driven straight into the ground, those poor souls within its confines were provided with little food, and no shelter whatsoever. The winter months were cold and relentless, and in summer the scorching sun and heat were deadly for the already weakened captives.
Men who arrived without tents or blankets, or any crude utensil needed for the digging of hovels into the hard red Georgia clay died unattended on the open ground; and from the very first, prisoners died by the hundreds. Untreated wounds and disease, the incessant hunger and thirst, as well as a mortal despair, all combined to leave the tragic legacy of a death toll of more than 13,000 men. What had been the sleepy railroad town of Andersonville became a name synonymous with a veritable hell on earth, a nightmare of unimaginable dimension, unreal and impossible to ever fully describe even by those who were there.
By 1864 food was scarce throughout the South, and scarcer still for the ill-fated Union prisoners. But, as is ever the case in the history of such human misery, it was the lack of water and the torture of continuous thirst which became most destructive to body and mind. At Andersonville there simply was not enough water for so many men. In fact, because of poor planning and design, and the influx of such unexpected numbers, there was no clean water at all.
Stockade Creek was the name for the pitiful stream which ran through the lower third of the prison ground. With the exception of several small wells dug by prisoners, it was Andersonville’s only source of water; but before it ever entered the prison it was befouled by the cooking and contamination from the adjacent Confederate guards’ camp outside the stockade. The low banks and areas all around Stockade Creek became a vast and fetid morass in a very short time, for it was also used as the prison’s open latrine.
With no officers among the unfortunates at Andersonville, there was no formal leadership or organization. The basics of survival became the responsibility of the individual prisoner, and the sole occupation of each man. Beyond the deathly sick and the wounded, those without any sort of personal purpose or direction were inevitably the first to die. Within such an incubator for the worst sort of human suffering and misery, the actions of the individuals at Andersonville ranged from the extraordinary to the unforgivable.
While some prisoners became part of the feared gangs which organized to exploit and brutally prey upon their comrades, such as the notorious “Andersonville Raiders,” other men dedicated themselves to providing as much assistance and comfort as possible to the infirm and dying. Also, as the long months passed within the camp, religious activities became an important part of many of the prisoners’ lives. Interest in prayer meetings and growing attendance enabled them to be held each night in different parts of the camp, and preachers of all sorts emerged from the desperate ranks to hold services and to minister to the wavering hopes and spiritual needs of the forlorn men. An Andersonville Sunday School was even established; and even as the camp’s horrid conditions became worse, the numbers of the faithful grew.
June and July of 1864 brought weeks of searing heat, and the number of dead steadily grew. Loaded in crude carts and carried outside the stockade to what was known as the Dead House, they awaited a primitive mass burial in the long, shallow trenches dug by their comrades. Such was the particular hell of Andersonville that, although surrounded by tall Georgia pines, the prisoners had no wood to boil the filthy water; and in the midst of what had once been rich farmland, they had no food. And men within the stockade were dying from thirst only yards from the clear, free-flowing waters of Sweetwater Creek which ran just outside of the south wall of the prison.
But in early August the rains came.
The blessed relief began as light showers which came down and rinsed the mass of 30,000 prisoners as they lie about the seared open acreage. Then, as the rain grew stronger, the men looked skyward and opened their parched mouths. Soon, all those who could began to hold up battered canteens and tin cups, and any other vessels they could find to hold the clean, precious rainwater. The downpour soon became a torrent which soon turned the prison’s 26 acres into a vast quagmire. As the heavy rains continued, Stockade Creek rose higher, overflowing its banks and carrying away large quantities of the camp’s accumulated filth and mire with its strong new current.
Survivors testified after the war that the stream rose five feet in one hour. Eventually the surging water carried away portions of the east and west stockade walls. Although the Confederates hurried to arms in anticipation of the threat of a mass escape, the prisoners were simply too weak to much more than avoid the rushing water, and to revel in the relief from the torments of thirst and the burning sun.
After five days of intermittent rain, on August 13, the great cloud appeared. Distinctive for its tremendous size and sharply defined shape, it was said to be like a giant mountain in the sky, its color like that of blued gun metal. Approaching from the east, the cloud moved slowly westward until it was directly over the camp. As thousands of men watched with a growing sense of awe, it seemed to stop and hover directly above the bough-covered Dead House, before moving slowly towards the North Gate.
Even the nervous guards were compelled to stare in wonder as the cloud loomed, over the prison, still and powerful. By this time most of the camp’s crude shelters had been washed away by the rains, and the prisoners had been soaked to skin for days. Now, as the emaciated men stood staring heavenward, for the first time at Andersonville Prison there was complete silence. Even the endless drone of misery from the sick and dying became muted, and then seemed to disappear. As the cries of suffering quieted, a soft rain could be heard falling gently upon earth and man.
Psalm 135:7
“He makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth; he sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses” NIV
Suddenly, there came a thunderous, deafening roar.
From men who knew the sound all too well, it was said to be like the explosion of a thousand cannon. It was so powerful that the weaker men standing near the west wall were thrown to the ground. Then, from the heart of the deep blue cloud, came a great, blinding flash – followed nearly immediately by searing bolt of blinding white lightening. It too exploded from the sky, violently striking the earth just within the stockade at a notorious point known as the Dead Line, beyond which no prisoner could pass without being shot. At the place where the fiery lightening struck there was another tremendous explosion and a stunning eruption of earth and steam filled the air. Instantly, torrents of fresh water gushed from the blasted, broken ground, pouring forth and coursing into the prison. This awesome water was cool and clean, and its flow was to become a permanent thing.
The thunderous lightening had found the highest point of an underground stream, and the name of Providence Spring emerged nearly as quickly as the waters came forth to the relief of the thousands.
On that same day the rains stopped, and the stockade walls were soon repaired. No attempts at mass escape were ever made, nor any effort made for the prisoners’ liberation by Union forces, even when Sherman’s army was within 20 miles of Andersonville on their “March to the Sea.” The imprisonment and harsh conditions for thousands of Federals continued through another long winter and until the war’s end in April of 1865; but throughout that entire time the miracle waters of Providence Spring continued to flow at the rate of about 10 gallons per minute. All who were there knew how rare a thing it was, but among the religious and newly religious in the camp, there was the special knowledge that the prayers of men in the most desperate sort of need had been answered. The awareness and belief that plaintive supplication could be heeded from even such a forsaken and miserable place as Andersonville was infinitely gratifying.
Shortly after war’s end, Clara Barton and a former prisoner by the name of Dorence Atwater went to Andersonville as leaders of a dedicated group whose mission was to exhume, identify, and then properly rebury the scores of Union dead from the mass graves. Atwater, known as “the Clerk of the Dead,” had worked in the Dead House and somehow managed to record and secrete thousands of names. Incredibly, all but 400 of the 13,000 men who died there were successfully identified by this inspired effort. In the midst of such gruesome work in the sweltering heat of a burning July, those courageous and inspired humanitarians joined the prisoners who had gone before them whose bitter thirst had been quenched by the cooling, mysterious waters of Providence Spring.
Today, Andersonville is a very quiet place. Still a part of the rural Georgia countryside, it is a National Historic Site administered by the Park Service. There is a modern Visitors Center with affecting displays that communicate the tragic history of the place effectively. There is also the Andersonville National Cemetery. Originally dedicated by Clara Barton’s group in 1865, the cemetery continues to provide a final resting place for American veterans today.
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Kit Sober
More on Andersonville:
A visitor to Andersonville today can tour the 515-acre expanse by foot or by car. Beyond the modernity, once close to the impressive site of the actual stockade, one rather surprisingly becomes aware of a pervasive sense of rare quietude, as a curious sort of peacefulness seems to emanate from the place. It is as if the fiery heat of a great mythological furnace had somehow burned away all of the worldly dross from this one sacred point on earth, leaving an area of serene tranquility. When asked about this impression, a receptive Park Ranger acknowledged that even in summer there comes an unexpected, cooling breeze from the west; and during the coldest of Georgia winters, the area within the lines of the stockade always seems to be a bit warmer than anywhere else.
Walking the now cleared, rolling land where so many men had been left to their fates and struggled to survive in such deadly misery, one can still see traces of half-dug wells and hovels scratched nearly by hand in the hard red Georgia clay, and the remnants of hopeless efforts at escape tunnels. There are also the more recent covered trenches of the archeologists who have discovered large pieces of the stockade’s original wooden palisades beneath the earth; and since 1987 the National Park Service has reconstructed portions of the stockade to “enhance visitor understanding of the prison and prison conditions.” And along the lower portion of the boundary of the west wall, just below the North Gate, there is an impressive shrine made of rough-hewn granite stones surrounding a fountain. With an appearance like a small chapel, it was built and dedicated in 1907 by Union veterans and survivors of Andersonville. The memorial rests at the mouth of Providence Spring, and the clear water still flows at the rate of about 10 gallons per minute. The water there is always cool, and is said to be especially invigorating.
The symbols of the history of our relatively young nation are continually challenged by unconscionable development and ignorance, but meaningful places possessed of great spiritual resonance still exist throughout the land. Of such sites, Andersonville is easily among the most prominent. For those who are aware of it, there is a responsibility to learn from the entire experience, to share the saga with others, and to urge a visit.
To know the story of the Miracle of Providence Spring is to understand that there remain accessible, powerful mysteries and rarified spaces where rare things have occurred, and where they continue to resonate on what can only be described as hallowed ground – at least at a place called Andersonville.
Source: The Bivouac Banner Volume V, Issue 2 2006
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excathedra
thank you my friend kit
--
every day for me is a testimony of how god jesus christ love me
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waterbuffalo
Kit, I love that account because it is so balanced--rare indeed for War Between the States accounts, but thankfully, more have been forthcoming in recent years.
Especially significant, imo, because the water source remains today as a continuing testimony to what the Lord will do when his people call upon his name.
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rascal
I have one that I have only shared with a few trusted friends.
This one takes a long time to set up. I even hesitate to share, as it is pretty dark in the telling, but then I sometimes wonder if when you have been wounded the deepest, that is when God arranges the most spectacular deliverance to reach out and salvage your shattered soul.
I almost deleted all of the more miserable parts, but then, I think that diminishes the impact of what I was delivered out of and how far God will go to reach out to one of us when we are suffering and debased to the point where we can`t even look up to seek him.
I have told the horrible side of this before, I guess now is the time to share the deliverance side.
That being said.....If you want to skip down to the *God* part...go to the last post :)
I was very young when I got involved in the ministry. I went out wow as soon as I turned 18. I was discouraged from going back home because I was told there weren`t any fellowships and that I would die *spiritually* if I returned.
I moved into a way home with the city coordinator who was interim corp. I had a wonderful year being gently taught. The hardships of an Alabama girl learning to live in the brutal North Dakota climate were made bearable by the wonderful lady who lovingly cared for all of the believers under her watch.
At the end of her year, She asked would I keep the house and accept the new interim leaders family as my room mates.
I eagerly agreed, thinking that God had another year of action packed adventure and growth in store for me by allowing me to live once again with leaders.
Whew, what a disapointment. The new leaders arrived and were immediately dissatisfied with every aspect of the house, the town and the believers.
Our home that had been so carefully chosen with fellowship and classes in mind had a huge great room, it was centrally located to all of the believers, it was in one of the nicer sections of town. The Wife hated it, she hated, Fargo and most of all she hated me.
The dishes weren`t to her liking, the cooking utensils not complete to her satisfaction...Though I paid one third of the rent, I was required to share a bed room with their 6 yr old daughter.
Whatever I did, it was done wrong, why hadn`t I done it thus and such way. I was 18 maybe 19 yrs old at this time, and jobs in Fargo were scarce, especially for someone who had only been a waitress. There were two restaurants in town and I fortunately had a job on 3rd shift.
Well, my job was evil because I was out after midnight, I was a loser because I couldn`t find anything better.
She wanted the entire house vacumed by 8 am every morning. I would vacume every night before I would leave for work, but then they would eat pop corn and make a mess all evening. Well, I got off at 4 or 5 am and would come home and sleep.
She would then wake me up at 8 snarling at me for not having taken care of my daily responsibility. I would be harrangued about my laziness and being a sluggard and my lack of believing in not having a job during decent hours....I would numbly vacume, exhausted mutely bearing the brunt of her criticizm. Broken because I had been taught that leadership spoke for God. That God told leadership how to best help us...and this lady let me know just what a screw up I was
I couldn`t figure out how I had become such a bad person so quickly. I tried desperately to be the believer that God wanted me to be.
It all came to a head one morning after about three months of meanness. I had once again vacumed the house gone to work and put in a full shift/ i had returned home and only slept an hour when the morning routine began.
Something snapped inside and I told the woman to please leave me alone, that I would take care of my responsibility when I got up at noon.
What was this? the lowly peon dared to talk back?Huh Oh my goodness, the woman went ballistic, she was incensed, and grabbed my leg and hauled until she pulled me off of the bed and I landed on the floor with a jolt.
I jumped up and told her to leave me the he ll alone! OH geeeze The woman started shrieking hysterically to her terrified 6 year old daughter standing there to *leave the room* *This person was POSESSED*!!!
Something died right then and there in side of me.....I was absolutely sickened with shame and horror. I will never forget the look of terror in the little girls eyes as she fled. Hell, I wished that I could have run away from me too. It of course never occured to me to doubt what this leader said.
She was rebuking Satan and swearing at me. It was all surreal...like a night mare.
I brokenly just started packing my things up. I started loading my car. I had some vague half formed plan of driving myself and my two dogs off of the red river bridge and drowning. I know that this sounds nuts...but I didn`t WANT to live if I had darkness inside of me.
I did NOT want to be alive if I was possessed. I did NOT want to hurt any body with my evilness. Most of all I couldn`t live with the shame of all of the people who so lovingly nurtured me as a young Christian knowing how vile I had become.
I cried brokenly, not understanding how I could go from a beloved valuable family member in the body of Christ in three short months to being possessed by satan.
It took me an hour to gather my most important belongings. I left them the house, rented in my name with all of the deposits, the utilities and their deposits, the phone, the furniture, dishes etc.
I took my most personal belongings while she followed me screamimg, rebuking, darned near frothing in her rage. I took my two dogs and got in my car and left. Broken ... I did not know how I had become possessed. I couldn`t understand how to not be possessed. I couldn`t go to anybody and TELL them that I was possessed. I was so desperatly alone...I couldn`t even turn to God...how dare I, if I were possessed? I was just a stench in his nostrils, a disapointment, a spiritually nasty vile being.
I was horrified, I was ashamed, I loathed myself, I couldn`t live with being evil and not even knowing that I was evil and not having a clue as to how I had gotten that way ...when I had done my very best to be a doulos to God...what if I inadvertently infected someone else??
I drove to the Red river bridge and just sat there. I cannot describe the depths of the despair that engulfed me. I wanted my bible. I wanted to seek the familiar comfort there, only to realize in horror that I had set it down as I was loading and had left it. My beautiful cambridge bible that I struggled for so long to save for and that so I dearly loved. Was back at the house. I just didn`t dare return for it.
I found out later that she gave it away declaring that it was the PROOF that I was posessed or I never would have left it. I was stunned when the gal who had been given it, the next year at roa .....offered the tattered water soaked worn book that had once been my most prized possession. The dearly loved book that I had handled with the utmost care and gently stored in the box when not in use had been ruined it.
It was devistating.
Well anyway, as I sat by the bridge deciding whether to drive the car into the river to protect the rest of the body of Christ from my vileness....too ashamed to seek help, too filled with self loathing to ask God...
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rascal
As I sat there, immersed in shame and self loathing, I decided that since I was told that I would die spiritually anyway if I returned to my home town, (because there were no believers there) I was dead already, and since there were no believers there, I reasoned that I would be no danger to anyone.
I began the long trek to Alabama. I stopped at Rome City campus to visit my former leader who was completing her final year of training.
I couldn`t tell her what had happened, I couldn`t tell her why I was going to Alabama. I was deathly afraid that she would detect my spiritually putrid nature. I think she knew that something bad had happened because she was incredibly kind, insisting that I spend a night there. She tried to reach out to help, but I had retreated deep inside my self loathing and contempt. I couldn`t even look other wholesome believers in the eye.
I lived in terror worrying constantly that someone would detect my horrible secret while I was there and denounce me in front of the whole campus.
I left as soon as I could get away.
I arrived in Alabama and went to stay with my mother to await the physical death that I assumed was to soon to follow my spiritual death.
I know that this all sounds so melodramatic, but I had been taught to believe that these people spoke for God, I was very naive, never dreaming that a Christian would deliberately or dishonestly hurt another. I assumed that the leader as I had been taught.....spoke for God.
Well, my friend at Rome city did some checking and found out that wows had been sent to my city, and contacted them, asking them to get in touch with me.
As ashamed as I was of myself, I still desperately wanted to be healed, to be pleasing to God, so when the wow called with an invitation, the lure was irresistable.
I went to fellowship, half hoping that I might get deliverance from the evil that infested me, more terrified that they would detect my vileness.
Imagine my surprise when I was greeted with kindness treated with love.
I went to fellowship that year, trying hard to serve God, but inside still convinced of my depravity. I hated myself, I was ashamed.
The ROA was approaching but I entertained no thoughts of going. I was afraid that somebody there would detect my secret. I was afraid of meeting the woman who had so visciously denounced me.
Just before everyone left, I was asked to ride up with a mother that needed help driving and her young children, and would I give her a hand. I really was afraid to go, reluctant ...but wanted to help....so I agreed unenthusiastically to accompany her. I thought that maybe I could lurk in the tent and listen to the teachings from the big top over the loud speaker.
I don`t know how to explain the depths of the self loathing and shame that had entirely engulfed every fiber of my being for almost an entire year, I was so deeply immersed in my mental anguish that I couldn`t hear, couldn`t accept that God could care for me.
I just numbly plodded through each day, in shame.
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rascal
I tried to time my presence after we arrived on grounds to when I thought there were the fewest people. I would go and get food and drink and go back to my tent before any who knew me might see me. I still was afraid of someone pointing their finger at me and yelling *possessed!* and having everyone turn on me with the same loathing and disgust in their eyes that I felt for myself.
Ok...after all that....lol ....here is where it gets interesting.... :)
One day I was walking back to my tent when the wierdest thing happened. Everything in my field of vision faded and was replaced with a crystal clear picture that obscured everything alse out....it was the most insane thing....It remained for a few seconds and then normal sights, smells and sound returned....Whew...I ....shook my head and laughed at at the rediculous picture that had just played before my eyes...and continued back to the tent.
That evening I was walking across grounds...and it happened again. The same insane picture obscuring everything within my field of vision....I thought THIS time...*damn man, I must REALLY be losing it....and laughed...and continued on.
That night I went to bed thinking that I had always wanted to ride in the motor cycle cavalcade, a tour of about two and a half hours that vp usually led once a year. They would travel and point out areas of interest and significance to the ministry around the county.
I had been told once that if you arrived early enough that sometimes a rider would take a passenger. I thought dreamily...*I oughtta try that someday* as I fell asleep.
Well 4 am bright and early the next morning my eyes flew open and try as I would, I couldn`t go back to sleep. So I got to thinking, I ought to wander over where the motor cycles are getting ready to leave and see if someone would let me ride with them.
I really had no hope of anybody actually taking me, as spiritually dark as I believed myself to be, but thought it would be fun to admire all of the motorcycles any way.
So I walked all the way to the parking lot where they were gathering. I found a fellow willing to take on a passenger. I was thrilled. Dr, and Mrs. Wierwille arrived with much pomp and celebration on the brand new Harley that people had pitched in and bought for him that year.
We were all standing around receiving instructions and I was trying to stay back out of view, still uncomfortably aware that I wasn`t worthy to be in the presence of these great Christians.
At the end of the meeting the man said....Dr says that Mrs. Wierwille is going to sit behind him and that there is room for someone in his side car. Would anybody like to ride? Well I see him look up right straight at me.... and nod his head...WHAT? Huh?? In stunned disbelief, I look over and notice that MY hand is up in the air...(how the heck did THAT happen??, I sure didn`t remember raising it) I wouldn`t have, I was terrified that with the founder and president`s hightened sense of spiritual awareness that I would surely be denounced and cast out.
I numbly stumbled forward as he turned and mounted his bike and people are slapping a helmet on me and helping me into the cart.....inside I am terrified, I am screaming ...NO this is a mistake...you don`t know who I am..how evil I am.....
Well Mrs. Wierwille turns to me with the most merry of smiles, possibly sensing my terror and begins to make me feel right at home...vp asked me a single question, grunted coldly and turned to his driving.
I hunched down miserably scared and lonely feeling like surely he must know what a loser I was and that it was the grace of God that he didn`t throw me out.
He never said another word.....and my discomfort grew acutely through out the ride.
Mrs. Wierwille on the other hand kept up a merry chatter, sharing with me incidents from her childhood and places that held meaning for her as we drove through the county.
I have to say that she was a wonder, an incredible hostess, doing her best to treat a guest like royalty even on the back of a motor cycle.....lol. God bless her heart, I do not think I could have endured that long cold ride without her cheerful demeanor.
So we arrive back at headquarters and people are lining the streets, cheering and whistling madly...it seemed like the crowds went on for miles, people enthusiastically greeting us, admiring the new motor cycle.
The thought struck my like a sledge hammer....there isn`t a single believer here in all of these tens of thousands of people that wouldn`t give anything they had to be right there where I was.
My heart failed thinking of how many people were so much more worthy and deserving than I....when all of a sudden...the sun burst brilliantly through the heavy gloomy cloud cover, showering us with brilliant rays as we approached central grounds and the thickest crowds....the cheering the loudest and suddenly I understood....I felt it...a voice inside said...but YOU were chosen. I gasped it was almost like being hit physically as the vision shown to me the day before returned in blinding flashing technicolor!! It was the very same picture both times...of what was happening right then and there. A picture that when I saw it the day before was so outragiously unlikely, I had dismisssed it out of hand and mind. In the picture, I had been riding with Dr. and Mrs. Wierwille in the brand new motorcycle before wildly cheering crowds.
I knew it, all of a sudden as the sun beamed down on me, as we motored through the roaring crowds....out of all of the people who could have been chosen for that privilege, Not ONLY had God chosen me that day, but he expressly showed me not just once, but TWICE ahead of time that he was going to do it so that I would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was a speacial, personal message from him...that there could be no room left for doubt....as debased and wretched as I believed myself to be....that in SPITE of what that woman had said...that He God loved me and that there was no evil too great to separate me from his love.
I bawled in joy, everybody had tears from the cold wind...but the ones coursing down my face were pure happiness. The icy coldness of fear and self loathing that had encased my heart for almost a year melted away to be replaced by the most intense joy. The humble reality of feeling the hand of God directly in my life.
The fact that vp had not said two words to me, or the feeling that he may have dissaproved somehow ...made no difference. This was a special message, an *I love you* gift from God to someone who had been wounded so deeply that she was beyond the hearing of his voice.
That he had gone to such extraordinary measures to bring me back to him was humbling. Geemany...how could I hate myself when he loved me enough to go to such extreme measures to heal?
There was a photographer (our own hcw I believe) that took a professional picture of me at the end of the ride sitting in the side car beside wierwille.....the sun shining down gloriously down around us, but paled (I think) by the brilliance of my beaming smile.
HCW somehow found out who I was and where I lived, and had a copy of that photo sent to me.
Nobody knows the significance of that picture to me. Since then...whenever I have had trouble with people telling me I was a screw up, or not good enough, or that I didn`t have the heart to be corpes...was salt that had lost it`s savor...etc....I know...I know what God showed me that day....and it seems like the barbs couldn`t hurt me like they used to.
Even now nearly 28 years after the fact. When ever I am feeling beaten down or struggling in life, no matter how much of a failure I may feel that I am, no matter what doubts arise as to my ability to handle what is piled on my plate......I just have to look at the picture to once again be reassured, to be warmed by the comfort and knowledge that God not only cares about us in a unique and personal way...but even more humbling....he is willing to go to such great lengths to show us that love....
I know that it sounds nuts...but sometimes it is hard to communicate why something is so uniquely personal and healing.
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waterbuffalo
Shine on, girl! This reminded me of Jet's Shine On lyrics:
And if the moon had to runaway
And all the stars didn't wanna play
Don't waste the sun on a rainy day
The wind will soon blow it all away, ya
So many times I planned
To be much more than who I am
And if I let you down
I will follow you 'round until you understand
That if the moon had to runaway
And all the stars didn't wanna play
Don't waste the sun on a rainy day
The wind will soon blow it all away, ya, oh ya
When the days all feel the same
Don't feel the cold or wind or rain
Everything will be okay
We will meet again one day
[ Shine On lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com ]
And I will shine on, for everyone
So please don't cry
Although I leave you here this night
Where I go how far I don't know
But I will always be your light
That if the moon had to runaway
And all the stars didn't wanna play
Don't waste the sun on a rainy day
The wind will soon blow it all away, ya, oh ya
When the days all seem the same
Don't feel the cold or wind or rain
Everything will be okay
We will meet again one day
I will shine on, for everyone
Shine on, for everyone
When the stars all look the same
Don't feel the cold or wind or rain
Everything will be okay
We will meet again one day
I will shine on, for everyone
Shine on, for everyone
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Belle
(((((RASCAL)))))
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wrdsandwrks
Jeast,
That picture says it all. What a great miracle that your son walked away from that!
Kit,
What a great testimony, sounds like a good place to visit, I'll bet there's a holy atmosphere all around that place.
Excie,
Amen to that testimony of God's love!
And Rascal,
That was inspiring. Not a just a single vision, but twice so that you couldn't mistake where the grace came from, and that you were specifically chosen for blessing. What a crock of garbage that person from North Dakota spilled all over you. Thanks so much for sharing that.
(I think I was a passenger on the cavalcade of motorcycles that year. It was really a fun ride.)
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rascal
Bumped...as per requested.
Thanks guys. I think that was what was so humbling, the fact that God cared enough that I recieved the message, that he made darned sure that the self doubt, the recriminations, the self loathing couldn`t return and steal that peace from me.
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RainbowsGirl
Thank You Rascal for sharing this; and each and Everyone else who has ever shared It melts my heart...Everyones courage and GOD's Love!!!
GOD heals the brokenhearted; and like You said (except in my words
) being touched by GOD's hand of Love is so healing, so sustaining so individual and and specially
unique! He really sees our hearts. It makes me want to cry at how very much I don't understand of GOD's Love or His ways and His thoughts near enough...Will I ever have enough time
to learn all I want to and need to?
Yet invariably, He still Loves us and helps us like no one else can or will! He Loves us when no one else will... not even ourselves sometimes!
He has saved me and healed my broken shattered, and uncooperative heart countless times throughout my life and reminded me that His word is true since Iwas a very small child. I
owe Him more than I will ever be capable of giving Him or giving through Him!!! Amazingly, He still sees my heart and understands...so I can and always will keep going on no matter
what...!!! Love to All!!!
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anotherDan
(((((((( Rascal )))))))))) thank you so much for sharing your wonderful testimony. RG's response spoke my own heart. I love you.
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