God will find you, even in Tooele

One Monday night, it had been unusually slow. I had been out quite a while and it was very late. I was in Salt Lake trying to get as much money as I could but it was no use, there were not a lot of rides.

I got a ride to Tooele. I never want to go to Tooele if I can avoid it. It is a long way, they don’t pay much and whatever they pay is almost irrelevant because you come back without a passenger so you end up loosing money. I felt a prompting that night telling me that I should go so I took it. It was an act of faith.

The ride was a guy going out to get on the semi truck that he was driving coast to coast. He parked it in Tooele and came into town. He had been struggling to find a ride back to his truck. We had a nice ride and a good conversation but I didn’t feel any prompting so I didn’t pursue a religious line in our discussion.

Just as I was about ready to drop him off in Tooele at the truck stops by the freeway, I got another offer for a ride. This is not normal out there but welcome on such a slow night and maybe a way to offset the cost of gas. This one would take me south down deep into the heart of Tooele and would be quite a distance. I looked at my gas gauge and it was way low. The gas light had come on. Due to the fact that I was almost out of gas, I reconsidered it for a second but I felt very impressed that I needed to take this one ride.

The thing is I would lose the ride if I stopped to get gas. I felt compelled to ignore the light and go. I took this one not knowing why but knowing that I was supposed to, that is why I was there. My mind was wandering and wondering what could be the purpose here.

I drove about 12 miles down a road and took a left out into the boonies. I went around the corner and there was the young lady who I was supposed to take. She got in the car and seemed pretty excited that I was able to find her. She said no one could ever find her. She said 6 drivers had cancelled and she had been trying to get a ride for two hours.

I told her that I never walk away from somebody that needs help. I knew this lady was the person that God wanted me to talk to, the real reason for the trip and the words that came to my mind just flowed. I said, you don’t think you’re good enough. You don’t think you are enough and you don’t think that you’re worthy of love. Especially God’s love.

I started in immediately talking about our father in heaven and how we lived with him in the preexistence for thousands of years. He loved us and we felt that love. I told her that we knew that feeling and loved it. It was the most important and stabilizing feeling in our existence. I told her that when we came to earth, we forgot that and we missed that but our souls have a place where that feeling belongs. I said , when that feeling fills that spot we feel whole.

I got the impression that she was using drugs but felt like I shouldn’t say anything just yet. I felt like she needed to feel the spirit of God and his love right now.

I said that Satan fills that hole with, she interrupted me and said evil. I nodded my head in agreement.

She said, I don’t know how you knew that I use drugs but somehow you knew. I told her that God had brought me clear out there and put her in my car. I told her that he gave me the words that I had said. She said, I have no doubt that he gave you those words because there’s no other way you could know.

I said that God didn’t just put me there so that I could say those words. He put me there so that I could tell her and she could know that he loves her. I said, he wants you back. We hadn’t mentioned the church yet but the spirit indicated that she was a member of the church. I said, you are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, so you have been taught these things.

I told her that I felt like she had quit praying then she started falling away. She said, it’s been a long time since I went to church. I am not worthy of God’s love.

I said, God is a father! He loves us, no matter what we’ve done. I told her that God is a loving father who works endlessly to bring his children home safely. I told her that he loves her and when he says that it’s his work and his glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, she is part of what he is talking about. This is his work and you are his glory, his child that he loves so much. You are his work and God doesn’t quit on the job. I told her that he wants to hear from her. He wants her to pray.

I said that her Heavenly Father had sent me so that she could know that he loved her and that there was a way out.
I told her that Satan had lied to her. He had filled that hole in her soul intended for the spirit with drugs, alcohol and riotous living. He takes away the gift of agency given to us by our father through addiction. I said that Satan has always been the enemy of our agency. I told her that our Heavenly Father is all about freedom and that he wants to free her from that curse.

I told her that if she will fill that hole with the spirit of God, it will lessen her craving so that she can fight and win if she will. I asked her if she could feel the spirit of God that was burning in the car like a furnace on a cold night. She was crying profusely and she said, yes. I haven’t felt this in years but yes. I told her that her father in heaven was giving her a hug and that hug was giving her power.

She said, you don’t understand where I am in my life but you seem to know everything about me. I told her that she needed to go to church. She said, my parents are very Mormon but I can’t go to church with them. She just couldn’t do that after everything that had happened.

I told her, you start out going to church somewhere! Go to church every week! I told her to go to church and eventually the spirit will change her heart and she will be able to go with her parents. I told her to work up to it. She said, I think I can do that.

I told her that I could feel that her big hesitation was that every time she drove by a church satan whispered in her ear that the people there are judgmental and hypocritical. She said, that’s very true.

I told her that most of those people aren’t thinking about her or talking about her. They are busy with what’s going on in their own life. Besides that, I said, if someone is judging you, it’s a perfect opportunity to not return the favor and not judge them. Judging them for their actions makes you every bit as judgmental as you say they are! I said, you don’t want to be a hypocrite, do you?

She laughed and said, you’re right! I said, the thing that works for me is to go up and put my arm around people who I think are judging me and tell them what a great example they are. This softens their heart every time and mine too.

She laughed and she said that she should try that. She said, I know that God sent you here tonight. I know that he sent his spirit with you. I can tell because I feel it so strongly around you and in your car.

I said, while you’re feeling that spirit, I want you to pay attention to your cravings. Are they as strong as they were? She thought for a second then had a huge smile and said, no! They are still there a little bit but they are not nearly as intense like they were.

I told her that this is the effect of the spirit of God filling that hole in her soul where it belongs. I told her that with this power filling her soul, she would have the strength to conquer the impulse to feed her addiction. I said, you have to be all in thought. If you leave an inch Satan will exploit your weakness and drag you down.

I told her the church has an addiction recovery program and she needs to be in it. I helped her find info on it and told her to ask the bishop to help her get hooked up there. She told me that she would do that.

I had received a prompting that she was contemplating a decision to commit suicide. I told her that she had considered doing some awful things to herself and that God wanted to stop this now. He still had work for her to do and he knew she was worth saving, even though she saw no value in herself. She was stunned and crying. She muttered, ” I didn’t tell anyone that”.

We were at the place she was going and I ended the ride with the same phrase I began the ride with, I said, you’re good enough, you matter and your father in heaven loves you.

She said through her tears she wished she could give me a hug. She reached up and grabbed my shoulders. She said, I know that every word you said here was true tonight. You told me things about myself that you couldn’t know and I know that God is with you. She said, Heavenly Father sent you just in time.

She said, I’m going to do these things. I’m going to go to church and pray so I can have the spirit in my soul.

Addiction is a hard thing and the people who are addicted, feel trapped and lonely because Satan has beaten them, lied to them and left them discarded. To watch the spirit pull them back into it and give them a fighting chance is a wonderful thing. That’s what happened that night.

As soon as the ride was over I got gas. There was a Maverik one block away like God had placed it there himself. Then I headed back empty in that I had no passenger but full in every way that matters.