The prodigal daughter

Sometimes Fridays and Saturday nights can be difficult . It feels like all you do is shuttle drunk people but part of the reason you do it is because you shuttle drunk people. If they’re in your car they’re not killing other people or themselves.

I have a lot of people say you’re Mormon aren’t you, what do you think about being out here with all these drunk people? I tell them that I believe that if Jesus was here he’d be making sure that they got home without hurting anybody. It’s the right thing to do. Then I ask them who would you rather have drive than a good member of the church who’s never had a drink? Then we have a good laugh.

Amongst the drunks and partiers occasionally I find people that have been roofied. I did a story earlier about a man that had been roofied and robbed. It’s happened five times this year that I have given rides to people that have been roofied. Each story is sad and horrific in its own way.

It usually starts with someone making a choice to be in a place where they shouldn’t be, doing something that they shouldn’t do, although they never plan on doing drinking to the point where they lose control. Inevitably somebody slips the drug in their drink and the next thing they know it’s five hours later and they’ve lost control.

At this point they panic and that’s when I get there. This happened to me on a recent Saturday night. I was clear out in Herriman on a consecutive streak which made it so that I couldn’t drop the ride I was presented. This is where they take advantage of you and make you drive 30 minutes to pick someone up that normally they would never ask of you because they know you would reject the ride. The bonus was only nine dollars and I considered seriously rejecting the ride anyway but the spirit impressed on me the importance of this ride and I decided I needed to obey the prompting.

So I took the ride and started driving clear from Herriman over to Cottonwood Heights. I exited I-215 in Cottonwood Heights and drove deep into the neighborhood, parked and waited to pick up my ride.

I tried to call and this lady wouldn’t answer the phone, in fact it went right to voicemail. I sent her a text because I wanted her to know I was there and after just a very few minutes we can leave. Believe me I will leave! Something told me that I was not going to leave and that I was going to stay. It was the spirit.

I waited for another few minutes and then very quietly a woman slipped out of the door of the house and ran down the driveway and got in the car and said, “let’s go quick.” I started to drive and ask her what’s wrong? Do we need to call the police?

I felt that there was something off, that she was losing her mind and that something terrible had happened. She said no. I just need to get home. The spirit prompted me to ask her, do you think it would be OK if we say a prayer? She paused at that and said, “I would love that. Would you pray for us?” I said yes! She said I need to feel like I’m going to be OK. She said I feel comfortable in your car but I need to feel like I’m going to be OK.

Now as I describe this woman she was an attractive woman in her early 30s and she was drunk or had been drinking you could tell that she was losing her mind. We stopped and I prayed and I felt the spirit of God in the car and I felt the love of God for this woman rush in the car. This woman that I just picked up from a party at 1 AM at a guys house.

I asked her what she was doing there at that party and she started to cry. She said they drugged me, I think they drugged me. I asked, did they sexually assault you. I told her that if they had I was calling the cops right then. She said no she fought them off. She said that as soon as she felt that she lost control from the drug she called me to come. She said I got there just in time.

About this point I was really happy that I had listen to the spirit and hadn’t canceled the ride. It likely would have been at least an hour before someone else could have picked her up. I asked her if she was feeling better and she said I feel safe and comfortable now in your car. I don’t drink normally. I shouldn’t have drunk tonight. I asked her if she realized that this was an answer to her prayer and that her heavenly father was listening to her and making miracles happen on her behalf even though she had rejected him. She said, yes.

I said what does this mean that you need to do? And she said it means I need to reevaluate. I need to get back to where I was happy.

I told her that I agreed with that. She said did you know that I used to be a sister missionary. I said no. Where did you serve? She said I served at Temple Square years ago. I asked her how that was and she said it was marvelous. I asked her how she got here tonight from there.

She said she had a lot of things happening in her life, a lot of problems and she had left the church and she decided for the last two years that she was an atheist. I told her that this new life brought with it a lot of dangers that she was well aware of. I felt impressed to say that this was really hard for her heavenly father to watch because he loved her.

I felt that she had been raped recently on a previous occasion and that this was part of the reason her reaction was so strong here. I asked her if she had been raped before like this and she said yes! She said I can’t let that happen again. She said that She was just glad God sent someone here to protect her from that tonight and she thanked me.

She said that she hadn’t prayed for two years until tonight when she prayed that God would send her a priesthood holder to drive her out of her peril. She said that if I hadn’t shown up they would’ve raped her for sure.

It’s one thing to be roofied in the club where there are bouncers and waiters and waitresses and other friends to keep an eye on you but when you are in a persons house and they drug you, it’s a very dangerous and sketchy territory. When the chips were down this woman had reached out deep into her soul for the one thing she knew, even though she had rejected it and that was that her father in heaven loved her.

As we started driving we started talking about how she was divorced and had two children, a nine-year-old autistic boy and a four year old girl and they had been taken by their father for the weekend so she decided to go out and party. She went to the house with some people she had just met online and was having some drinks and she just started going crazy.

She said that she knew she shouldn’t have done that all along but that she had learned to quiet the voice and quit listening to it all together. I told her that God had sent me there tonight. I told her that I was going to cancel the ride and it would’ve been nearly impossible to get someone to drive out there at that time of night. She said she waited a long time and she knew that was true. I told her that God was looking out for her and this should be to her a sign that God still loves her.

She said even after I left the church? Even after I drink? Even after everything? I said yes, God loves you and if you’ll turn to him as your father he will show love back and that’s why he sent me tonight, not to rescue necessarily a perfect person but to save his daughter. She started to cry. She said I feel his love in your car but I also feel the affect of these drugs. I don’t know what to do about these drugs. They’re in my system.

She said tell me some stories. We were headed to American Fork which was where she lived and I knew there would be plenty of time for stories and I knew telling stories in the car would bring Spirit of God so I decided that wasn’t such a bad idea. I started sharing conversion stories of some people that I know where the will of God and the power of his hand had been evident.

We turned from I-215 to l-15 and got just a little ways up the road when I started feeling like we needed to get to a hospital. I turned to her and said do you need to go to a hospital instead? She said that’s what I need to do, I need to go to the hospital. These drugs are making me feel like my heart’s going to be beat out of my chest and like I’m going to die. I need to go to the hospital. I exited on 90th south and went up to Alta View Hospital on 94th south in Sandy. I got her out of the car and she clung to me like she was clinging on for dear life and we walked into the emergency room.

At this time I realized that she hadn’t even brought her shoes. She’d escaped from that home with such haste that she didn’t even bring her shoes. We walked into the emergency room and she just started crying to the nurses saying “I’ve been drugged” “I’ve been drugged” “please help me I’ve been drugged.”

They took her and went back and admitted her.

As I drove away I thought about a couple things

One. God doesn’t put limits on his love for us, we put limits on God‘s love for us. He is willing to step up anytime we reach out because he’s a father and that’s what fathers do.

Two. We may think the things we’ve done make our heavenly father so mad that he will not answer our prayers but that is not the case. God is waiting with open arms to bless us if we reach out. Even if we’ve done things and said things that we know are wrong. A father always will save his child if he can.

Three. The prodigal son is not just a story in the Bible. It’s an indication of the depth of love and forgiveness that our heavenly father has in store for each one of us if we will turn to him. Even if we turn to him in our hour of need, unworthy as we may be, he will send rescuers to lift us and be his hands.

I didn’t hear anything back from her that night. I really didn’t expect to but I kind of had a feeling I would hear something at some point. The next day I was cleaning my car. I do that every day. I clean the seats and the floors. I had taken about six groups of passengers after I had dropped her off at the hospital and so the car was pretty dirty.

When I went back there and started cleaning I found in the crevice of the seat a car key. It was one of the car keys with the fab and everything that’s really expensive. I knew immediately that it was her car key and I don’t know why I knew that. I knew that it was the spirit telling me that but I didn’t know how it could be hers because I’d had so many people in that seat after I dropped her off.

I looked in the app on how to contact somebody for a lost item and tried to get a hold of her. I couldn’t. The thought crossed my mind, try the other people that were in your car and then I had the spirit tell me no it’s hers keep trying. Finally that night I got a hold of her and it was her key. She had forgotten everything but feeling the spirit of God in our car and the love of God that she felt.

I laid out for her the miracle that had happened to her the night before and the Lord’s hand being revealed in her behalf. I talked to her about how everything went and she started remembering and crying. I told her that if she’d ever seen a great big huge sign that said God loves you and he wants you back this was it. She said I know I will.

I know this is true