029 - Chapter 29
From this moment on
(Illustration: Photo from my CD ‘Giving it all to you’)
A short time after that Day of Renewal, I went home one lunchtime to do a few jobs at home, to give our flat a quick once over with the hoover, so the house would be tidy to come back to at tea time. That’s when those words came to me, which changed the course of my life.
“Put the hoover down, go into the bedroom and pray!”
These words came to me three times!
I just knew that if I ignored these words a third time, they might not come again.
Wasn’t this how God spoke to the boy Samuel in the Old Testament, he called him three times, no four actually. And Eli the old priest realised it was God’s voice. So he sent the boy back to respond and listen to God, when next he spoke.
(1 Samuel 3)
So, with that story in mind, I turned the hoover off, marched into the bedroom, knelt down by the blanket box in front of the window, and waited. . . and waited.
Nothing happened immediately.
So I said quite impatiently, and irreverently,
“Right, you’ve got me here, now what is it you want . . . God?” (Adding the word ‘God’ on at the end, was my way, at least, of showing some respect.)
Almost immediately a certain person’s face leapt into my head, like some coloured slide being put into a projector. It was a very clear picture of someone I had begun to dislike intensely and resent. She was someone who had been making life very difficult for me, and was often quite often offhand.
I realised that God was asking me to pray for her. It was then I became aware that my unloving attitude was a blockage to receiving more of the Holy Spirit. As I prayed for her, the hateful attitude and resentment inside me just evaporated, and by the end of that prayer I was filled with such an intense love for her, which amazed me. That’s when the ‘golden rain’ came upon me again, this time without any laying on of hands this time!
The next thing to enter my mind was a Bible reading, from Matthew 14, where Jesus, who had been walking on water, had summoned Peter to walk to him, taking one step at a time.
I felt that God was inviting me to take one step out of the boat too, and put my foot on the water, to trust him for whatever came next.
I remember then uttering just one simple sound; “Tha!”
This time I wasn’t making it up.
I trusted God to give me another sound “la” then another, and suddenly the sounds increased and a new language came effortlessly to my tongue, I could hear full stops, pauses, capital letters, sentences, phrases. I stopped! And then the exact same words came to me all over again!
I was in fact speaking in tongues!
There was no wind, no tongues of flame, no ecstasy, no trance. It was all so simple and easy.
I had once prayed, “If you show me you’re real, I will surrender my entire life to you!
And now God had!
I sensed in that moment I was saying goodbye to my old life, and nothing would be the same again. My life belonged to God! I now knew that he existed. What happened at Pentecost to the disciples in Acts 2, had happened to me too.
The Bible was real! God was real! All his promises about eternal life, were real!
In that spirit of wonderment and with tears of joy, I went rushing into school to tell Val what had happened. I was so excited, and so was she.
But what would God’s demand of me?
I decided I would take it all on board, and trust in him, one step at a time.
From that moment on I began to live my life centred on what God wanted, at his direction. My life wasn’t my own anymore.
I told Bob that night about this new gift from God, when he got in from school, but again I got the impression he wasn’t really wanting to know, and I totally get that! I understand!
Was he thinking, "Is my wife a religious nutter now? Is she becoming a fanatic?
God had touched my life, without a doubt, and only time would tell.
Over the next few months, I must have put pressure on Bob, to experience this too, and so I kept on trying to convince him of the reality of God, for he was very much an agnostic.
It would take a Christian friend of his later, to silence me, by telling me, “Let go of him, and let God!
So I did, and I simply trusted God, that in time, he would do a work in Bob’s life too.
One day a passage of scripture jumped out at me at that time, from Mark 16:
' Jesus said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”
Obviously it wasn’t the snakes or the poison that caught my eye, but if tongues could still be given in today’s church, then surely healing could be too?
My prayers for my dad had been ineffectual, but I hadn’t known about the power of the Holy Spirit then!
Although on reflection, my dad had asked my uncle for prayers at the end of his life; hadn’t he? So it could be argued that my prayer had been answered; for in death, came peace and the final healing of all!
I knew of someone at the time, from Station Road Methodist church, who was quite ill. Margaret Storey was in hospital and she had been losing an awful lot of weight.
I didn’t know her all that well, but I couldn’t get her out of my mind, and I just ‘knew’ God wanted me to pray for her. All I had to do was go and visit her in hospital and do just that, to pray for her. Besides, by then I was filled with so much faith.
Now it’s one thing to have faith, it’s another thing altogether putting it into action!
I reasoned with myself:-
“But you hardly know Margaret!”
‘She’ll wonder what on earth you’re doing visiting her in hospital!’
"If you do visit her, how would you ‘place hands on her’ and pray for her?"
“She’ll think you’re crazy!”
Later as I walked along the hospital corridor to her ward, a voice of reason began asking me:
“Sheila what are you doing here in this corridor?”
“What on earth are you going to say when you reach her bed?”
“This isn't going to work!”
Margaret was actually pleased to see me, and so I sat with her and asked her about her illness. She shared with me that she’d planned to go on holiday some months before, and had wanted to lose half a stone. So, she began to diet, but she found that even though she had resumed eating normally, she went on and on losing weight. I noticed that her arms were unbelievably thin. She told me that she desperately wanted to be home by Friday, but the doctors had said she wouldn’t be allowed home, unless she began to put weight on.
She had been put on a high calorie diet, day and night, but was still losing weight.
As she told me her story, I placed my hand on her arm, and silently prayed for her healing. It was the coward’s way out, I know, I don't think I told her at the time, that I was praying for her, but my faith was huge, and so was the God I believed in, and I was so sure that because I had obeyed that inner voice calling me to be there and pray, that she would get well.
Margaret was discharged from hospital that same Friday. I was over the moon!
Of course, the thought then entered my mind:
‘Well she would have been discharged without your prayers, she was on a large enough diet Wasn’t all this just a coincidence?”
It may well have been. I’m a believer in medicine and healing prayers going hand in hand, but it was a lovely coincidence!
Some years later, Margaret, who had become a close friend of mine by then, and who babysat for us, confided in me that she and her husband had tried to have a family, but it was proving impossible. She thought she’d never conceive.
By then, I was more open and had shared with her about the laying on of hands when she was in hospital, and so we prayed together this time, asking God to help her to conceive a child.
Later that year, she gave birth to a daughter, and a few years later, a son!
I’ve prayed for many people over the years, and the lovely thing about it is that these ‘God coincidences’ kept happening time after time, even when all seemed hopeless.
Let me stress this, I am not someone who heals people; that power belongs to God alone. But what I did possess was to know when to pray for someone, and ‘tongues’ gave me a sense of how to pray. Looking back, I’ve seen many mini miracles of healing, some of which I’ll share later in this book.
But Margaret’s recovery was the very first.
This is how she remembered that special time:
(Margaret Storey, a missionary now in Nicaragua confirms this story in an email below:-)
“Wow! I never knew I was your first healing! I do remember you coming to the hospital, I can even remember exactly where my bed was - and you’ve got it spot on. I remember the high calorie drinks and being tube fed and getting weighed the next morning after being fed all night and still losing weight. I remember not being allowed out bed at all so I wasn’t burning up any energy. I can’t remember the reason I wanted to be home that Friday but I knew there was no chance of that ......or was there??? It came as such a shock when the doctor came in and said ‘you can go home!’
I seem to recall you prayed for me, but obviously you had also done your ‘secret’ laying on of hands prayer as well, that I knew nothing about.
That visit, through obedience to God, secured our friendship and I’ve always said you were one of the influences in my life’s journey, that I believe I am where I am today partly because of you......and that’s not soft soaping you - it’s true!
I’ll certainly look forward to buying your book .....a signed copy of course!!!
(I replied to her email:-)
Well I'm not classing it as 'my' first healing Margaret, but it was the first time that I had real faith that God would heal you. Do you remember us praying together about your anxiety in conceiving as well? I don't want to write about it, if you can't remember that. And do you mind me mentioning your name?
love Sheila
(She sent word back, saying:)
Yes I can remember you praying for me to get pregnant. I’ve also never forgotten your Stephen, when Eric and I used to babysit for you, as we took him to bed, he would finish his prayers with ......and a baby for Margaret and Eric!
From then on my desire to tell of the love of God, and to pray and praise, even sing and dance, simply soared!
I suddenly began writing songs, and they kept on coming thick and fast; one of these songs meant a lot to me, it told, of the experience of surrendering to God, and receiving so much more back in return. It's called ‘From that moment on’.
It tells of the way I once held my life in my hand, like a precious jewel, but my fist was tightly closed around it, so as not to let God have all of it!
But then my hand slowly opened, like the petals of a blossom, and I offered everything to God. My wrongdoings were washed away, and I discovered limitless gifts of his grace.
It tells of my experience at that Day of Renewal.
I recorded one this in 1992, and made a video of it in 2020.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_UvwV9eFDI
It says:
From this moment on I raise my hand,
my clutching hand to you
My life is in that hand,
I give that life to you.
From this moment on,
I open up the hand I offer you
From this moment on,
I give that life to you.
Take my open hand,
throughout my life,
take all the wrong you see
From this moment on,
take all you need from me.
Into my empty hand,
You place your life,
abundant life so free
I'm open to receive
the gifts you're giving me.
**************************************
It may be worth mentioning, that I personally feel that the Charismatic Movement then, unintentionally, brought about a certain amount of division.The established church, on the whole, were deeply suspicious, and gave no credence to such supernatural gifts or experiences, and sometimes, some, not all, felt threatened by those who preached being ‘born again’ and the experience of a ‘second baptism in the Spirit’, whereas in fact, what was being experienced was more the 'fulness' of the Holy Spirit.
‘Charismatics’, on the other hand, failed to stay put within the love, protection and fellowship of the established church and work from within it; they were not patient enough, and formed offshoot groups which became known as ‘house churches’; they took their ball away, so to speak, and many creatively gifted young members of the congregation followed, leaving the church bereft. The movement also, over the years, sometimes opened itself up to certain extreme elements. God's word was set rigidly in stone that could not be interpreted any other way than theirs.
There was much arrogance, pride and hurt on both sides, a lack of communication and love, and a lack of understanding of what the Holy Spirit was trying to say to us all.
I stood in a market place abut ten years ago, when someone with a leaflet asked me if I was a Christian.
I replied that I was, but then he added, “Ah yes, but are you born again?”
Was he assuming that some have ‘it’, and some ‘don’t?
Jesus did say we must be 'born again', but how do we define that, as Christians? Who was Jesus talking to at the time? A fellow believer? No. This was Nicodemus, a rabbi, someone steeped in Jewish law, who believed, God's word was written in stone?
We’re not on some conveyor belt, all being churned out the same! God loves our uniqueness, and the infinite ways in which we choose to come to him. The most important thing is, is that we come to him, and learn how to pour out his love on his world today?
Jesus once said;
I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. (John 17. 21-24)
We must all pray whole heartedly for that oneness one day, and an end to our sad divisions.
Here's a song called 'The Dividing Line':