Tell her how much I love her

I was in Midvale and I got a ride going 46 minutes north. Clearly I didn’t want to go 46 minutes north but I felt prompted to do it anyway. I picked up a woman outside of the 7-Eleven who was smoking talking to a bunch of ne’er-do-well looking dudes. She had a bunch of her clothes in a bag which indicated to me that she was borderline homeless.

She got in the car and we headed up to Ogden. I could feel right away that there was a lot of pain in the car. I could feel desperation and I could feel a lost soul. The spirit let me feel these things but then I felt the words from God to me “I want her to know how much I love her.”

She talked to me about her life and drug rehab. She talked about her two little girls who live with her parents right now. She said that they charge her half of her paycheck. She talked to me about how she had lost her apartment and that she was moving from one house to another right now so that she didn’t have to sleep on the streets. This is why she was going to Ogden.

She thanked me for picking her up realizing that a lot of times it’s hard to get rides and she was in a desperate situation. I asked her if it would be OK if we talked about God. She said I guess it would be OK, my parents are atheists and I had to sneak out to go to church a couple times when I was a kid. I just quit fighting it at one point and accepted that I guess I am an atheist.

I asked her if she wanted me to tell her what her real relationship with her father in heaven looked like and she said yes. I talked to her about how for thousands of years they had a father daughter relationship and it was beautiful and unique to them. I talked to her about the love she has for her daughters and how her father in heaven has love for her just like that only many many times more intense.

I asked her if I could tell her about why I believe an addiction is so hard. She said yes! I discussed with her my belief that the spirit, that feeling of being with her Father in Heaven, is the center of our soul and unless the spirit of God fills that space it’s hard to have the willpower to fight the evil that is the addiction. I said, addiction is a disease that is both spiritual and physical and if you don’t fight it on both fronts it’s very difficult to win. She said that’s exactly right! I’ve never heard that but it makes so much sense.

I felt a prompting to ask, “so you want to know why God lets bad things happen?You want to know why good people have to suffer? You want to know why your life is where it is and much of that is a result of bad decisions by other people? You also don’t feel like your own decisions have made you anything close to a person that would be valuable to their father in heaven?

That was straight from the Lord to her ears and she recognized that. She said, no one has ever talked to me like that, you hit the nail on the head and you were right on with exactly what I was thinking and feeling. How did you do that? I said, we’ll talk about that later but right now I want to talk about the atonement of Jesus Christ.

I told her about the atonement and how in the atonement Jesus had paid for not only our sins but the angst, injustice, pain, illness, and addiction. He suffered it all so that we could lean on him. I told her that he was a God and when he died he gave up his spirit. He was not killed. In the Garden of Gethsemane, what he suffered would’ve killed us but he knelt there and took it until he bled from every pore. No human could’ve done that but a God, who could not be killed, allowed himself to suffer to an extent far beyond what any human could possibly do.

I told her that because of this suffering that he did for her he could understand the pain of not being with her daughters, the rejection, the abuse and everything that she had suffered and he could lift her.

I told her about the people of Alma and the Lamanites. I talked about how they were captured by their enemies and enslaved. I explained to her how through their faith those burdens were lightened to the point where they barely felt them. I told her that this is why we have the atonement.

I told her that everyone has their agency, it’s a great gift from God. When someone misuses their agency, and we all do, God has given us the atonement so that we can look to him for relief. That way we don’t have to turn from God in anger but we turn to God in love. She said she liked that.

I could feel the spirit very strongly in the car and I could tell she was feeling it too. Imagine that! Feeling the spirit when you’re talking about the atonement. Ha.

I didn’t miss the chance to ask her what she was feeling and identify it to her as the spirit of God.

I told her about how a mother will try to even out the amount of juice in glasses so everybody has the same amount but God doesn’t do that for us on earth. Instead he gives us the atonement so Jesus can come as if with a huge pitcher and just fill everyones glass who turns to him and that way everyone is equal before God. She said she never thought of it that way.

She said she thought it would be great to get to where she understood this. She said that she had heard that Jesus was resurrected but was that all she knew. She couldn’t believe the amount of love she felt right then in her heart.

I taught her that God was a perfect, all powerful father. I asked her if that God would love everyone and she said yes. I asked her if that God would be restricted to specific geographic areas and she said no. I asked her if it seemed right that this God would only have prophets in Jerusalem and that he would only send his son to that one spot. She thought about that she said no, God would want all of his children to be taught. I talked to her about the Book of Mormon and how it was the writings of prophets in America and it talked about Jesus coming to America and then going to other places because God loves all of his children not just the children in Jerusalem.

She said that makes sense. I told her that the Book of Mormon would bring her closer to God and would help her feel the spirit. I asked her what she was feeling and she said I’m feeling hope. Maybe for the first time in years I’m feeling hope right now. I said as you read the Book of Mormon and then go to church you will feel this more and It will heal you. This is the spirit of God that you are feeling and that’s how you feel his presence. I said, he sends you his spirit so that he can bring you home. She said, I need that. I asked her if she wanted a Book Mormon and she said yes. I told her about the Book of Mormon I have prepared by Sister Secrist and how they have questions of the soul and the tabs indicating where to find the answers to those and I asked her if I gave her one, would she promise to read it. She said she would love to. She said she loved to read and she would love to read that book.

I revisited her question from earlier on about how I knew the words to say that were right on and she said that no one could’ve guessed that. I told her that when we’re baptized we get the gift of the Holy Ghost and it protects, us guides, us and gives us the words to say. I told her that it gives the gift of prophecy and that those things were whispered to my heart by the Holy Ghost. God did this so that she would know that the things that I said were God’s words. That way she would know that the things I was saying were from God too. She said, I believe that.

I asked her if there was a church near where she stayed and she said yes. I said will you promise that you will go there on Sunday at 9 AM. She said that would be good because she gets off work at 8 AM and can just go straight over. I said that’s exactly right, if you do that you will feel this hope and peace that you feel right now in the car. She promised she would do that.

I felt prompted to say, there are things that you’ve done to survive, there are other things that were done to you and you are thinking that they make you unworthy of love, unworthy of God and unworthy of good things. I told her that that this is not true. I told her that Jesus Christ showed us how to be baptized and when we are baptized we are clean. I told her when she gets to that day she will be clean from her sins and guilt, they would be washed away. I said this would also help with the healing of the issues from the past. I told her that the horrible thing that happened to her was never from God but that it was from Satan. I told her that the person used their free will to follow Satan. I told her that the problem has always been Satan. He tries to get us to ignore God and he wins both ways. I told her not to let that happen.

She said, when I was 13, something happened to me that no one should ever have to go through. It sounds like you knew that. I said that I didn’t know but God does. Had a prompting that she had always felt someone there with her, helping her. I said, I feel like I should tell you that there was someone there with you during this time and at critical times since. She said YES, my grandmother. She always told me that I had something special to do and I can’t imagine what I could have to offer to anyone. I told her that just like God sent an angel to Jesus when he was in the midst of the atonement, God sent her grandmother to her to strengthen her and that there was a work God would have her do. She said, yea and grandma was Mormon! She said it with excitement and joy.

I said that it is important to know that Satan was the one that hurt you when you were 13. Don’t spend the rest of your life running towards him after what he did to you.

I said, can you imagine the powerful example you’ll be to those daughters when you get baptized, when you clean up, when you live a worthy life. Those daughters and their children and their children’s children will look back at their grandmother is an example of faith and courage. I said how much more of a blessing can you be. I told her about how I’ve looked back on the examples of my ancestors and told her that she could be a great influence.

Her grandmother had been a good member of the church but her parents became atheist and I told her that I really felt like her grandmother’s hand was involved that night. She said I feel her here tonight.

I did too!

She said I really needed this. I didn’t know how I was going to go on but now I do. I know that God sent this message to rescue me and I thank you for bringing it. She promised one more time that she would go to church on Sunday. I believe that she will. Grandma will see to it!