Dawn P.

What I tell you I haven’t told many people because when I do tell someone, they look at me like I’m a nut. But I promise you that it is the absolute truth. I’m 45 now.

When I was age 20, my friend and I had gotten my very large car stuck and didn’t know how to get it out. We were trapped in the mud, rocks, and in the car in a place where there was no one around for miles. We were very frightened and began to cry. I happened to have an antique rosary hanging on my mirror and holding it I said to my friend, I think we should pray. I’d never in my life prayed with anyone. I was not a ‘good’ girl and my family never went to church. I was very afraid and out of options. We closed our eyes and simply asked for help. With our eyes still closed, I heard a knock on my drivers side window and looked to see a pale faced, curly white-haired young man smiling at me. Instantly, I thought, ‘It’s an Angel!’ I had no doubt in my mind and no fear of this Being. He asked us to slide over so he could drive us out of the mess I’d gotten us into. We slid over and he said, ‘fasten your seat-belts’. We both did what he asked. He put his arm over my seat to look over his shoulder and gunned the gas . We violently bounced around the front seat until suddenly we where out of danger and on flat ground again. The young man got out of the car and so did we to thank him. When we had thanked him and gotten back into the car, we looked around. He had disappeared. We could see far into the woods through tall, skinny trees so we knew nothing was obstructing our view. One minute he was there, the next he was gone.

A few years later, I was leaving the home of a friend who lived high up a hill. Some of the streets leading down the hill were very steep. It was an icy night. My boyfriend at the time, was sitting next to me as I drove down the steep hill. I lost control of my car as it was sliding fast and heading straight into an oncoming pick-up truck. I knew if I didn’t hit the truck, I’d go over the guardrail and crash down a steep hill on the other side of the street. My thinking became slow and calm as I calculated it all. I said in my mind, ‘I don’t want to die!’ As if a hand reached out of the sky and picked up our car. In a flash, we where amazingly at the bottom of the hill, parked on the side of the street and the truck was safely passing us.

After my father died in 2001, I was so angry with him. He was a mean drunk and not at all a good father or a good man. That night after the funeral, I was lying in my bed and seething with strong anger. I felt him around me and I yelled for him to get out of my life. Eerily, in my mind’s eye, I saw a dark black shadow get sucked off and away from me. I only remember regretting having said that because I knew he was gone from me.

Fast forward to 2002. I was a miserable person, having had a painful childhood. I married the first person who asked me because I was trying to find happiness. I did love him and he loved me but I always had a pitiful emptiness inside of me. I began looking for God. I read everything I could get my hands on, Mormon, Jewish, Koran the Bible, but I was so afraid that I’d pick the wrong religion that I was frozen and unable to decide between them. One day my husband said, ‘Stop sitting on the fence and just pick something.’ At work in the office one afternoon, I explained my predicament to a lady friend and she suggested I go on a website for a church in my neighborhood that she thought I’d like. I did and on the site was a prayer that was to accept Jesus. At that time I was the most broken, messed up girl you could imagine. I’d done things to be so ashamed of that I could barely live with myself. Most days, I wanted to take my own life. In that moment, as I sat at my computer and for the first time ever, I had given up trying to be happy because I knew nothing I did would ever fix what was wrong with me. I read that prayer, asking Jesus to take over for me and I closed my eyes. Suddenly, there was a brilliant Golden light. It was something I can’t describe because there isn’t a word that is beautiful enough. With the Golden light came peace that filled like warm liquid accompanied by a feeling of rejoicing in heaven. I thought to myself, ‘I’ve never felt so good in all my life.’ I took a deep breath not wanting to ever leave that moment. I kept my eyes closed as long as I could until I realized I’d better open them before someone came into my cubical. Opening my eyes I went about my business, only vaguely thinking how odd that was. On the way home in my car that day, I noticed that unlike my usual drive home, I didn’t want to smash my car into the guardrail. It was as if someone had taken the blinders off the sides of my eyes and pulled away the clouds that hung dark over me. I said out-loud to myself, It’s going to be OK. Not long after, people began to comment that I’d changed for the better.

In 2009, I had another experience. My cousin, a meth addict, had lost custody of her first two children to their father. She was and was again pregnant for a third time but by a different man, only this time to a drug-dealing convict. Neither my cousin or the man were fit to care for a baby. I hadn’t talked to my pregnant cousin in over a year but knew from an aunt she would be having a baby. I prayed constantly for the safety of her baby and only had a vague idea of when it would be born – sometime in the fall.

On an afternoon while shopping with my mom and four year-old son, I had this nagging feeling that persisted all day to the point of absolute anger. I didn’t know what my problem was, but I felt as though someone kept prodding me without touching me. My mom who at the time lived up north, was sleeping over at my house that night and she shared the bedroom with my son while I was on my bed reading a book. At three in the morning, unable to sleep because of the persisting annoyance, I finishing the book I was reading and closed it. As I set it on the nightstand, I heard in my head as clear as if someone was in the room with me, ‘Pray.’ I didn’t know what to think and so pushed it away. But again I heard ‘Pray.’ I tried to ignore it. Then a third time it was as if someone hollered at me, I heard. ‘Get on your knee’s and pray!’ I was never so scared in my life. It was like a fire was lit under me. I jumped out of bed as I said, OK! OK! and I was on my knees asking, ‘What should I pray for?’ Again as if someone was in the room with me, I heard ‘Pray for your cousin and the baby.’ Frantically I prayed, ‘Please take care of them.’ Clear as a bell the voice said, ‘Call your Aunt Debbie tomorrow.’ I said, ‘OK.’ Then, just like nothing ever happened, all the anxiety and stress I’d felt all day was gone. I climbed in bed and was fast asleep within a moment. The next morning I called my Aunt Debbie who said my cousin had her baby taken away from her because the baby had meth in her system. My cousin wanted my family to foster her infant. We did foster her and she has been a joy in our lives ever since.