BY GERI
In January 2013, I finally had the courage to walk away from an abusive, seven-year relationship. I lost my job as I had been working for him without health benefits for years. I was struggling with multiple health issues, including degeneration in my cervical spine after two fusions, and that caused chronic pain. I was going through menopause, and I was living alone for the first time in my entire life, and that scared me. Every night I asked God to hold me in His loving arms to comfort me. And that helped, because I always slept soundly. My only means to support myself was stock I had invested in for my future retirement. Despite my situation, I had hope. After months of empty employment prospects, I took a course at the Small Business Administration. I wanted to start a non-profit that would benefit lost, abandoned, and displaced animals. But it became too complicated and way too expensive for me to take on myself, so I eventually gave the dream up.
In November of 2013, my daughter-in-law suggested I watch a video called Earthlings. She knew how much I loved animals, but was a meat eater. When I got home from my visit, I looked up the video and proceeded to watch it. In the first minute or so, my heart dropped. I became the animals, as I watched in horror. I had to pause the video dozens of times to collect myself, and only got through half the video, but my life was forever changed. I know it was God who made that change in me, as it took no effort on my part. The mere thought of eating a corpse made me sick to my stomach from that day on. Love gives birth to compassion, mercy, and kindness. I, who openly proclaimed myself as an animal lover, and spoke harshly about people who caused any suffering to animals, supported an industry that inflicted immense cruelty, invoked fear, suffering, and ultimately the savage murder of innocent animals. I had been a hypocrite, and too blind to see it. A precious but horrifying revelation.
The next nine months or so, I tried to start another business with my truck, and failed miserably. I had dived in with both feet, planning every detail, but in the end, It became nothing but a $7,000.00 + lesson. I was angry at myself for wasting all that money for nothing. That was 6 months of rent payments! My depression and anxiety were swallowing me up, and I felt totally broken, without purpose. And that led to a very sedentary life-style. Except for caring for my dogs, I spent my days sitting on my couch researching many so called “conspiracy theories.” I went deep down “rabbit holes,” scrutinizing each of them from every angle. Although many were false and fear based, several were true. I realized the world in which I lived was very different from the safe place I believed it was from youth.
Having studied Revelation throughout my life, and noting world events throughout the years, I started connecting dots. That put an immense pressure of fear and urgency over me. I felt like a failure as a mother because although my four children were grown and accomplishing amazing things, I was worried that I had not prepared them for what I felt was coming. I felt paralyzed. Depression and fear make a debilitating cocktail. Sitting outside a local supermarket, I started praying my go to prayer, to ask God to please protect my children (and all others) so they would never be deceived. I prayed from my heart as if it was my last prayer. In the mist of the prayer, I suddenly felt I was to stop and examine what I was saying. Much to my horror, I was asking God to be as loving and merciful to my children as I was, and to protect them from Himself. I was immediately humbled, repented, and felt foolish. I realized I needed to learn to trust God, examine what I prayed for, and let go of fear. An epiphany that fear comes from the lack of trusting God came later.
On the evening of August 21, 2014 after contemplating my situation again, I decided to go online to buy a couple spiritual self-help books about how others overcame depression. I didn’t want to be homeless, lose my dogs, or stay in that state of mind any more. So, I pulled up Amazon on my laptop, and searched for those books. I leisurely started reading the blurbs. Right in the middle of reading one of them, I was suddenly interrupted by distinctly hearing a soundless voice as if someone was standing next to me saying “Why do you look for me there, read my Word.” This startled me! The voice was not audible but it was very clear and authoritative yet kind. There was no question whose ‘voice’ it was either. It took me a moment or two to digest what just happened. I knew with every fiber of my being that I was blessed with a super-natural encounter with God. My mind was racing with questions as I walked across the room to retrieve my dusty Bible. Tears were dropping on my shirt as I wondered if I should start reading from Genesis or the New Testament, and how could I know the true nature of God so I could understand Him, trust Him, and love Him? All my questions were answered instantly as if downloaded into me. My instructions were clear, and given all at once. I was to start reading in the New Testament, and was to embrace every word and action of Jesus. I was given the understanding that the three sources to use as a measuring stick of God’s nature are Genesis before the fall, every word and action of Jesus, and the descriptions of the Millennial Reign of Christ. And two of the three sources are needed to be agreement, to establish a matter if the full understanding wasn’t immediately understood. I was trembling as I humbly bowed my head and kneeled sideways on my couch to face the bolster on the end of the sofa. My mindset was that of an infant, totally void of the world, relying on Jesus, to teach me from scratch about our Father. I realized in that moment what being converted, and become as little children meant in Matthew 18. I opened my Bible to Matthew 1, and my journey began.
I started reading very slowly, embracing each word and detail as to live every moment with Jesus. I hung on every word. I smiled, and I cried. I felt his emotion through my heart. I read all day, every day. Slowly and deliberately, on a quest to know God. I knew to know Jesus is to know our Father. As Jesus only did that which the spirit of God instructed him to do. After several weeks of continuing to walk a minimum of twelve waking hours daily with Jesus, I felt as if I was being schooled over night while I slept. I can’t really explain it, but it was peaceful and exciting.
I was amazed to I learn that Mary’s cousin Elisabeth’s unborn child (John the Baptist) was the first person to recognize that Jesus, who had just been conceived was the Messiah. Mind blowing! I also noticed that many times Jesus said to the Apostles, “Oh yea of little faith.” That stood out because I remembered my mother teasing us as children in a light hearted way, as if saying “you’ll see when you grow up.” Then one morning as I walked towards my kitchen to make a cup of coffee and was recollecting those words of Jesus. I smiled and the thought crossed my mind that Jesus was light-heartedly teasing the apostles. That he was humorous. Instantly, my heart felt that familiar subtle warmth, and welling up feeling I’ve experienced many times before, upon looking at my children and grandchildren, and feeling amazingly blessed while my heart radiated unconditional love. But now, my heart continued to expand so strongly and so fast, that if it had continued growing any longer than the few seconds this experience lasted, it would have literally knocked me off my feet! And in that same moment, I heard (not audibly) “Everything I did was out of love!” The emphasis was put on the word Everything. Jesus rebuked my assumption, told me the truth, and gave me the most precious experience in my life! That unimaginable feeling of intense love radiating from my heart sealed my faith. He gave me all the love my heart could hold! I fell to my knees immediately afterward and began to cry tears of gratitude, completely overwhelmed by his precious gift that I’ll treasure forever!
On October 18, 2014, I was outside with my dogs shortly after sunrise. One of the trees in the back of my townhouse looked as if someone had dipped the top of it in iridescent gold paint. I was in absolute awe of it. I had never seen anything like the physical phenomenon I was witnessing! I ran inside to get my phone camera and took many photos of it. And as amazing as those photos are, they don’t compare to what I actually saw. Never before had I ever seen a tree change color because of the light of sunrise, but mine did, on four different days! I saw it on October 18th, October 30th, and then again on two days in November 2014. I like to think of it as a sign of encouragement so I would realize that I was finally on the right path by truly walking with God for the first time in my life.
I prayed with my whole heart before starting my reading every day.
Dear Father Thank you for all your blessings! I come to you humbly to ask that you increase my faith to be so strong, that no evil can ever penetrate it. Please increase my love, compassion, mercy, and kindness and fill me up so completely with the Holy Spirit so I can be comforted and blessed with wisdom, understanding, and the gift of discernment, so I can never be deceived nor accidently deceive anyone else. In Jesus name. Amen.
I ended up reading the New Testament several times before proceeding to the Old Testament. Each time I would read the books and verses that talked about killing animals, I cried my eyes out and repented to God for my lack of understanding. I felt like a tiny human that didn’t have the brain capacity to understand the bigger picture. Maybe because the animals all went back to Him? But would God command people to kill? So, I kept praying for God to reveal the truth every time those sacrifices came up. Around March of 2015, after being baptized, The Holy Spirit started schooling me a lot on this subject. And continues to this day. One of the most precious jewels I was given by the Holy Spirit was “In perfect love, sin cannot exist.” And that understanding tied everything together for me.
God never asked for animals to be killed as a sacrificial ritual. God doesn’t command rituals. God never created animals to be food and he never gave permission for humans to eat them. That is blood lust. God does not change. So, Genesis 1:29 stands. Animals have souls, the same breath/spirit we do. They praise God, and are in Covenant with Him. My dogs became vegan in the fall of 2014 due to Genesis 1:30, and are thriving! I since learned that some of the longest living dogs were vegan. And I read a true story of a lioness named Little Tyke, that even as an infant cub, refused to consume anything with even one drop of blood in it. She was a vegan her whole life.
I will end by sharing a very beautiful and thought-provoking experience I had with one of my dogs and notes from a couple of my Bible studies.
On the morning of July 15, 2017, I was sitting outside with one of my Labrador Retrievers named Sadie. I was pondering many animal related verses in the Bible, including Ecclesiastes 3:19 that shows us that we have the same breath/spirit as animals, Psalm 150:6 “Let everything that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.” And Job12:7 “But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air and they shall tell thee.” So, I looked down at Sadie , and asked her out loud how she praises God. Immediately, an overwhelming thought came over me that said “By loving others.” I couldn’t believe what I just heard, not in an audible way, but the precious soundless voice I heard when I was called out. I truly didn’t expect to get an answer, and was blown away and amazed by the simplicity and importance of the answer I received. I was taught about praising God through asking my dog a question!
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