After my father passed away, I got on the next available flight to Saint Louis to be with my family. A friend of mine, Bill Hinds, heard about what just happened, left work and rushed to the airport. He actually stopped the flight from taking off and persuaded the airline attendant to let him on the plane to let me know he was there for me. (This would never happen today since 9/11) Wow! What a great friend. He even got on a flight a few days later and met me in Saint Louis. What unconditional love he had for me to spare no expense and be there for me in this emotional time in my life. After the funeral and things settled down, I returned back home to Tulsa.
Now being on the mission team to start a church was a passion I felt and a way I saw to help others. I felt as if I was following what the “Light of Love’s” will for me was. However, week after week and month after month I would get calls from my brothers telling me I needed to move back home. You see my mother became very depressed, none in my family had ever seen her in a state so severe before.
In my mind I knew she was going through the stages of loss, which everyone experiences to some degree. When I had conversations with my mom on the phone or when I visited home in the months that followed I didn’t get why my brothers were saying I needed to move back. My experience with my mom was that she was searching for peace and to be happy again; she joined several support groups and began to build new friendships. She talked to me about her new friends and what they were doing. She was keeping herself busy and occupied her time with relationships that supported her recovery.
However, every conversation I had with my bothers left me feeling that I was letting down the family as if my life in Tulsa was more important than mom. With this weighting heavy on my heart, I sought advice from several people from church and prayed about it daily. My friends from church, talked about the commitment we made to being on the mission team, I was reminded of many scriptures one of which was Mathew 19: 29 “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” I was told that everyone on the mission team left their homes to preach the gospel of Christ and that I was not the only one who had family that wanted me to move closer to home. I felt that my calling to help start a church in Tulsa was a way I could love others and teach them what the Bible taught about Jesus and how we should live our lives.
This is what I knew: I went on the mission team to live out what I believed was part of my purpose when I experienced a knowing that I was here to help others that happened during my “Light of Love” experience. I also felt that I was living out my purpose from what I read in the Bible. However, I loved my family and deep down inside I felt the tug (I describe the tug as an invisible rope tied around my waist and on the other end God is pulling me in the direction as to what I should do) to return home. What I was experiencing was two different competing commitments, both of which were pulling me in different directions. One commitment was based on what I believed in my head my purpose was and the other commitment was to extend love to the one that brought me into the world. I reasoned that I could still love my mom and live in Tulsa.
Conflict continued to haunt me and I felt whatever I chose to do that I was making the wrong choice. What would Jesus do? He left his mother and father to teach, love and help people. How was what I am doing any different?
I was reading in the book of Judges about how Gideon asked God to show him His will. He said to God “I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand.” The next morning Gideon got up and found that the fleece was full of dew and the threshing floor was dry. When I read this, I thought I needed to ask God, what His will is for me. I felt this would be the only way I could experience peace within my heart and do what I felt I needed to do.
What should I request from God? I thought. I wanted it to be something that when it happened I would not have any doubt. Well, now I have lived in Tulsa for 3 or 4 years and I have never seen a deer. So in prayer I asked God if it was His will for me to move back to Saint Louis then let me see a deer in the next week. As the week went by I kept looking for deer, everywhere but none were seen. Friday had come and I felt that God was letting me know that I should stay in Tulsa. That weekend I was going on a trip with some friends. It is now Friday evening and the drive out to the lake was a couple of hours away. In the back of my mind I was still aware of my prayer and search all along the road for deer, but none were seen. Dark came upon us as we were approaching the cabins. We made a right turn on to an old rock road, on the right side of the road appeared to be a big field, I was not too sure being it was pitch dark, however I thought I saw something move and felt the need to turn the car around to see what it was. As I turned the car around and shined the head lights into the field I couldn’t believe my eyes not just one deer but a whole herd of deer were in the field, the entire field was filled with deer. I felt a leap of joy in heart, knowing that this was God’s answer to my prayer. I sat there staring at the deer in amazement thinking that when God’s answerers a prayer He does it all out. The rest of the weekend was nothing less than amazing as it unfolded; deer showed up everywhere I went. I have never seen so many deer in my life. Knowing now that I needed to move back to Saint Louis was oblivious or so I thought.
In the weeks that followed I shared my experience with other friends from Church and to my surprise I did not really received the reaction I had expected. I was told that it is not okay to test God that way, that I had to be careful and it was most likely a coincidence. This created doubt in my own mind as to what I experienced. Was I wrong to ask this of God? Was it really a coincidence? Again I felt like I was being torn by two different competing commitments between loving my mother and listening to my family or staying and help other people find God.
I recalled that back in the book of Judges, Gideon went back to God and said, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.
I did not want to test God as my friends were suggesting, but at the same time I did not want to ignore my experience either. I knew I wanted to ask God for another sign, but not seeing a deer was so common for me, I didn’t think that just flipping the request around like Gideon did would really give me what I was seeking.
Now, I drove a school bus while I was going back to school. It was a great way for me to attend my classes and still earn a living and pay my bills. This particular morning I was parked in my usual spot waiting for the time to arrive for me to leave for my first pick up. The sky was filled with dark thunder clouds and the rain was pouring down hard from above. I was feeling distraught over my inner conflict, so I began to pray on the bus and this time I went to God one more time and asked for a sign so that I could put an end to this inner conflict. Next to the lot where I parked the bus was a gas station, and it was not uncommon for me to use the restroom there. I prayed that if it was God’s will for me to move back to Saint Louis then when I walk over to and back from the gas station to use the restroom that I would remain dry (like the fleece) but to let it continue to rain all around me. I thought that this prayer would be specific enough that if it happened I would have no doubt God was answering my prayer. Well, I opened the bus door and what happened above the bus was amazing; a hole in the clouds appeared and as I walked to the gas station I remained dry, yet I could see a within few yards all around me it had not stopped. As I walked over to the gas station excitement fill my soul the same way it did when I experienced the deer in the field. A joy and peace came over me. Here I am walking outside the bus and I’m dry. On the return trip back to the bus from the gas station the hole in the clouds above me continued to keep me dry. I climbed onto the bus and then pulled the handle to close the door and it started pouring down just as hard as before. There was no mistake God was not only answering my prayer but once again replaced my inner conflict with joy and peace.
Now, I realize that tug I felt to move back home was love calling me to respond with love to the crisis my mom was experiencing. Just by my being present in Saint Louis, a shift occurred not only in me but also in my mom. My family and my mom’s friends communicated that my move home was the healing that she needed to start living her life again. From the day I arrived home her depression completely disappeared. She was filled with joy that her son came back home.
Living in Tulsa was a choice that provided a life experience that sought me to seek out Love, but once I started to live the experience the need for me to stay in Tulsa was no longer necessary.
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