My exodus started with a trip to the temple in 1979. I came home and started reading the Bible to figure out who this God is that would have us saying and promising such stuff. Then I read No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie. Next came Mountain Meadows Massacre. Also during this process, I read the BOM and was like, “Hey…I read these exact verses in the Bible!”
Next was the D&C which totally contradicted some of what the BOM taught. I was also reading LDS positive books in attempts to stay faithful, so I was honestly trying to stay faithful to LDS church. But there was just too much stuff on the shelf and it broke. Unfortunately, I went the agnostic/atheist route for 20+ years. But God!! I was 90 % atheist and maybe 10% unsure.
One day, I heard Bible teacher on the radio talking about Biblical grace….and I understood it for the first time! This was the exact message I needed to hear at that time. My life was coming unraveled with marriage and teenage kid problems, and I was turning into a person who I did not like. I started listening to her off and on for a year or so because I took her more as a self-help kind of person and I needed help!
I said one prayer with her at the end of her broadcast because I thought, “What can it hurt?” I can’t say I had any more faith than that. Then the wild and unexplainable started happening to me the next 2 weeks. I tend to be more logical, skeptical, and analytical, and stuff started going on that totally messed with that part of me. At the end of 2 weeks, in my car, a verse from the Bible was read that not 10 minutes before had popped into my head after a conversation with a client. I thought that was just me thinking it….10 minutes later it was on a Christian radio program that I had tuned my radio to about a week before when wild and whacky things started going on.
When that verse came out of the radio, I couldn’t explain everything away anymore. I put my head down on my steering wheel (I was at a stop sign on a non-busy road) and said, ” You ARE really there.” And WHAM! The presence of God filled me and the entire car….it was very “weighty” for a lack of better explanation. I knew!
I literally felt like an alien invasion had occurred in my body. Things in the world were different than before. For instance, a spider’s web in my garden – it was spectacular! Before it would maybe be like, ” Oh that’s cool.” But now it was on a whole different level! No….I don’t do drugs and am not a drinker other than a drink on a special occasion. My daughter said she thought I was going through a midlife crisis because I was so different. She also said she couldn’t explain why I suddenly wasn’t the angry “Mad Mom” that I had been the last couple of years prior.
Prior to my salvation experience, my husband was attending a church where he enjoyed fellowshipping with other Christians. But the people there were strangers to me as I wanted nothing to do with religion, church, or God ever again. I just thought my husband was attending this church for the social aspect of it. He never really talked about the details, nor did I ever care to ask. Plus, I wasn’t looking for that kind of social group. But it wasn’t until a week after becoming saved that I discovered that my husband and several other members of that church had been praying for me to get saved for a few years. God is amazing and truly does answer prayers even when we might not be aware of his work.
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