One Saturday night I was driving in Salt Lake City. I got a ride over on the west side of I-15 about 13th South. When I pulled up, I saw this young lady sitting on the corner waiting for me. She opened the door and got in the car.
Immediately I felt an impression that she was in crisis. I felt like she was lost and has strayed away from the church. As I looked back in the mirror I was thinking about what I was seeing and how the promptings didn’t seem to agree. She seemed fine.
I asked her how she was doing and she said good. It was a persuasive answer and spoken in a confident tone but in light of the prompting I was receiving it was not convincing. I asked her if she had fun that night and she said yes. I knew she wasn’t telling me the truth.
My understanding about how the spirit works with me is that it doesn’t give me prompting to be ignored. I have thousands of people in my car that are going through all different types of crisis and trauma in their lives. I don’t receive promptings very often based on the overall number of rides I give. My understanding with the way the spirit works with me is that when I receive a prompting to act I need to do the thing. So I did.
I asked, do you mind if I tell you what I’m feeling right now? She said, that’s a little bit different than your basic ride, but go ahead.
I said, this was a really hard night for you. You felt betrayed and you felt like your good heart was abused. You are distraught and in turmoil on the inside and trying to hold it together on the outside. You feel like you’re drowning and you feel like you’re in trouble.
She said, do you know that because you picked me up on the corner? I said, no, I pick lots of people up on the corner. I know that because God revealed it to my heart and I want you to know that he sent me to pick you up to give you a message.
Now that’s as bold as I can be. She was clearly taken aback. I continued, God loves you. He is your father and he sees that you are struggling and he wants you to know that he’s there for you.
By this time I had a pretty good assurance from the spirit that she was a former member of the church. Part of that was the spirit revealing it to me and the other part was I felt like those words landed a bit.
I said, there are things going on in your life. There are sins that you have committed that make you feel dirty. You have also put yourself in bad situations in addition to having had others thrust upon you. You feel overwhelmed and like you don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I said, satan is whispering things in your ears. He’s telling you that you are worthless and that you are in a hole. He is telling you there’s no way out. That’s why we have the atonement of Jesus Christ. He can lift our burdens
I have to describe her voice when I first picked her up. It was a soft, higher register almost joyful voice. She sounded happy to see me but a little unsure in her voice. It was the voice of a normal 30-year-old woman just having a conversation.
After I started talking about the atonement and its power for a bit, I began to feel agitation coming from the backseat. Something was changing. All of a sudden, out of nowhere she started in and it was a very different voice. It was a lower register, very firm and determined voice.
She said, I don’t believe in your sky genie. I don’t believe in a magical man that sits in heaven and hands out magic. That man doesn’t exist. I don’t believe in God. I said, you don’t believe in God? How do you explain the fact that he put you here. How do you explain the fact that he let me know about you and your struggles just now?
She said, I believe that God is the universe so you are God, I am God, everyone is God. She said, I was raised Mormon. She said, I know your playbook and I know everything you’re about. My mom took me to your church as I was growing up and I did all of the things but not anymore.
As she was talking, I searched my heart and racked my brain trying to come up with a way to approach that. I prayed for help to know what to say. The spirit had changed in the car and there was definitely a war going on. The war was happening inside of this woman and around her in the backseat.
At the same time, I knew that God hadn’t put her in my car and given me those promptings just to have a fight. I had the thought, remember when you were on your mission? Whenever anyone confronted you venomously or angrily you bore your testimony. Remember teaching missionaries that their testimony was their greatest tool. Now get to it. One thing for sure is that we needed a temperature change right then. It had gone from warm and loving to cold and angry really fast.
I bore my testimony that God was real, that he was her father and that he loved her. He knew what she was going through and that’s why he sent me today. He sent me to bear this testimony. I told her again that the atonement is for you and the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ is more powerful than any issue or circumstance because he descended below it all.
I told her that Jesus suffered all things so that he could have the power to redeem us from all things. I told her that the atonement gave him power to lift us through sickness, injustice, pain, evil, and sin. I told her that Jesus Christ is the light in the darkness that she was looking for. I told her that she had been diverted into other pathways by satan and had lost sight of that light.
As I bore my testimony of the atonement with power, she became less combative and then not combative at all. As I testified, I felt the intensity of the opposition lessen and dissipate. The power of testimony clearly confounded that spirit. She started to listen and the temperature in the car changed again. Her voice changed back to the way it had been earlier and the spirit filled the car.
I knew that this girl was in a battle right now. I received some additional promptings that I decided to verbalize. I said, you were hurt deeply by people you knew in the church and your reaction was to turn away and blame God. I said, don’t do that. He’s reaching out to you today and he wants you to use the atonement of Jesus Christ to soften your heart and then change your heart. He wants to be able to walk with you.
I said, right now you are embroiled in a couple of issues that seem almost too much to bear. You need the atonement and the power of God in your life to be able to withstand what is in front of you. You know you can’t do this alone and God doesn’t want you to do this alone.
She said, “again, how do you know these things”? I said, because the Holy Ghost is whispering them to my heart. I don’t know these things. God knows these things, but he gave them to me so that you can know that the rest of the things I say are true. He gave them to me so that you can know that in your darkest hour, God loves you and he is reaching out to you.
I asked her to think about the way she felt in her heart right then versus how she felt when she got in the car. She thought for a minute and then she said, I feel a peace, almost as if I’m resting inside. I said, that’s the spirit of God. It has been here with us to testify. He wants you to know that he is here. He is real and he loves you. She said, right now I believe what you are saying.
I said, you mentioned earlier that your mom took you to church when you were younger. Does she still go to church? She said, yes, every week. She’s kind of a little bit fanatical about it. I said, parents get that way. They’re fanatical about saving their children. Your father in heaven is also fanatical about saving you.
I said, you should go to your mom and tell her about this ride. You should go to your mom and tell her what you felt. You need to ask her to teach you about the atonement. I asked, will you do that? She said, I can’t believe I’m going to say this but, yes, I will.
She said, even with all of the problems I’ve got in my life that have been weighing me down, right now I feel light. That’s how I want to feel. I said, this is how you can feel through the atonement. This is how you can feel when you are in the presence of the spirit of God.
I said, tonight you have felt his spirit. Tonight you felt him fight for you and tonight your spirit has rested in his presence. You need to do this more often. Your mom can help you get back and learn about the atonement. This way you can be cleansed of sin and lifted through your trials. This is the extra power you need.
You had worried about being able to confront the issues in your life, this is your answer and you know that tonight. She said, I believe you’re right. This is my answer. I will go talk to my mom. I will do what she says.
She said, this has not been the ride I expected but it’s been the ride I needed. I’m glad that God put me in your car tonight. I don’t believe is was an accident. I thought it was the universe doing all these things but tonight you have a point. I need to talk to my mother.
She thanked me and got out of the car and went into her mother’s house.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 