A Voice in my wilderness

                                       

I have neglected the gift the Lord gave me so long ago.  It was years ago, when I was just a little girl, that I stole off to the barn with a No. 2 pencil and a piece of paper and wrote my heart out.  It continued sporadically throughout my life, eventually resulting in creation of a blog, publication of a book of poetry, and various and sundry other things.  But today I heard the Voice of God again, and so now I will tell of that.  Because He has been calling me back.  Back to writing, back to the gift He first gave me.  It is all for His reason and His purpose that I tell the following stories. 

The first time I heard this Voice, I was standing in my kitchen doing dishes and my three month old daughter was sleeping in her crib.  As I washed and set the dishes to dry, I heard a voice behind me in my right ear.  Not loud, but just as though that person was standing right behind me.  The Voice said, “Aasia is going to get meningitis.”   I whirled around to see who was there, but there was no one.  I went cautiously through my apartment checking each corner of each room and checking on my sleeping baby.  No one was there.  My assumption?  I was hearing things.  DOH. 

8 months later, I woke up early so I could get my baby girl off to the sitter before work.  But when I went to her crib and touched her, she was burning up with fever.  And I heard the Voice, “This is it.”  Then I knew it was the voice of the Lord, warning me. 

I packed up some baby necessities and rushed her off to the pediatrician.  He examined her, gave her medicine, bathed her in ice, but still the fever held.  At that time he told me to take her home and let her sleep, and if she got worse to take her to the Emergency Room.  Do you think I had the courage to tell the doctor that I had heard the voice of God tell me she had meningitis?  No!!  I was more worried he would think I was insane!  But I followed his orders, and called in to work saying I would not be in, then laid down with her to sleep. 

When I woke, I checked her and she was unconscious, with her eyes rolled back in her head. In terror I snatched her up and drove like a mad woman to the hospital.  And second miracle (because the first was God speaking to me), there was a doctor standing at the door!!  He saw me carrying in her limp body and took her from me, asking “What’s going on with her?”   I blurted out, “She has meningitis!!”  And he looked at me, cocked his head and said “How do you know this?”  Believe me, at that point, I had no problem telling him, or worrying about whether he thought I was crazy or not.  And I blurted out, “God told me!”   He looked at me in a strange way, but said he was taking her immediately for a spinal tap.  When he came back into the lobby where I was waiting, he said that the second the fluid came out he knew that is was indeed meningitis and that they were admitting her.  I cried and cried, walking up with her to the Pediatric ICU, and then cried as I watched them insert needles in her skull and arms.  The prognosis for her recovery was dim.

But doctors are not God.  God had a plan for my baby and for me.  A month later, I took her home with me and we celebrated her first birthday.  It is true, she had to relearn walking and all that, but I can tell you that since that day, nothing has stopped my girl from what she set her mind to do.  She had some physical issues because of it, but nothing to stop her from anything she wanted to do.

And as for myself, I was not only grateful to the Lord for warning me and saving her life, but just for speaking to me.  For indeed, He showed me the path to life.  It would not be the last time, either.  

Perhaps one of you has also heard His voice?  

1 Timothy 4:13-15 New King James Version (NKJV)

¹⁴ Do not neglect the gift that is in you"

 To be continued