My sister and my parents delivered the Tempest. My father suggested I have the oil changed. One day that week, I dressed the children in their winter coats and hats. As I turned the key, the car would not start. I asked a neighbor if she could loan us cables to start my car. She had none. Now, what were we going to do? I didn’t really want to have to go through the preparations again on another day, so I asked my husband if he would turn the ignition while I laid hands on the hood of the car and prayed. My husband thought I was crazy, but acquiesced. After three tries, the car started. I told my neighbor that we started the car. When she asked how, I told her. She didn’t doubt me, because everyone else in our small apartment complex was away at work. Then, our little family drove off to the repair shop. Later that afternoon, she told me she found a Bible and was going to start reading it again.
We didn’t have the Tempest long due to a mechanic’s error, so we were back to one car. That winter, my husband had a car accident. A work colleague, Frank, saw the whole thing and stopped. He drove my husband home and told me that my husband’s car slid on the ‘black ice’ and just missed going into a ravine. Now we had no car. The next day, I could feel my husband’s anxiety. He was a manager and needed to get to work. I reminded him that we prayed. Just then, we received a phone call from my husband’s sister, Viola. She heard about the accident from my mother-in-law. Viola offered the loan of a car until we were able to find a new one. Her 14 year old Volkswagen Beetle had more than 220,000 miles on it. At least he could back and forth to work. After purchasing a used car, we returned the Beetle seven weeks later. Within two weeks, the Beetle totally died.
The babysitter’s Mom, a Roman Catholic, phoned me with a prayer request for her next door neighbor, whose husband left her to live with someone else. About three weeks, later the babysitter’s Mom phoned again. She told me, “Nothing has happened yet.” I was stymied and told her that maybe God wanted her to attend a prayer meeting. The next Friday night, she and her sister came to the prayer meeting bringing that neighbor, MaryLou. After we moved, Marylou would visit me and we would pray. Two years to the day he left, Marylou’s husband knocked on the front door of their house and asked if he could come home. They went to their Presbyterian pastor, had counseling and remarried. Five years later, one evening they phoned me to say that they were celebrating their Fifth Anniversary of being together again.
Someone at the prayer meeting told us about a nice parish near-by. So, we drove to check it out. We attended for some months and then decided to purchase a home in that town. We were saving for a home, so every penny mattered to a young couple with four children. They needed sweaters, so I asked the Lord to provide. That weekend we went to visit another sister. She gave me a bag of clothing as we left. When I put the children to bed, I opened the bag and there inside the bag were four sweaters. I was learning that God truly did answer prayer.
We found our new home in a small town near the Church we had been attending. It enabled me to meet more ‘Catholic Charismatic Prayer Meeting’ people. I attended the prayer meeting in the Franciscan Retreat House every Friday night and occasionally the prayer meeting in Terry’s house … both in the next town. Both prayer meetings offered the Lord praise and worship, which God loves.
One Saturday morning, I attended a breakfast meeting in the ballroom of a local Ramada Inn. The Speaker closed with a prayer. As I listened to the prayer, a mental image of Hell appeared in my mind. It looked like fire on top of water with men and women screaming at me, yelling “Tell them it’s real. Tell them it’s real.” I was startled. It was the 70’s and I remember Priests telling us that Hell was really just a ‘state of being” where we could never be in God’s presence. That vision in my mind settled it for me and I’ve never forgotten that moment. Since that day, I shudder when people joke about Hell.
(To be continued)
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