This picture was posted in 2007 but the rest was done 2/11/11

"Father, the Sleeper has Awakened!"

Wow, I can't believe this blog spot still around...please pardon the dig on "Dune" for the title.

It is something else, to see your words from 2006-2007.

I have really felt like I finally have awakened or had the scales removed from my eye lids.  I attended a conference that my church had called "New Beginnings" and our pastor declared this a year to hear. I have had many things happen to me and I have gotten several people I don't know come up and tell me God had a word for me and they would state a verse in the bible or a few words for me. What I was told happen to be what I really needed to hear as to what was going on in my life or what I struggled with. During the conference we were all given an envelope that was our prophetic message. We were not to open the envelope until told to. We were told that each envelope had a different scripture in it for which they believed each scripture went to the person that needed it. We held our envelopes up and in prayer for God to invade our hearts and lives and then we were told to open them. Ironically, enough I checked and they were indeed all different and those that shared happened to fit them perfectly for what they needed.

Mine happen to speak of healing...even though I live with MS I felt deep down the healing had to do with matters of my heart and how guarded I had become during my life never really ever totally letting go of old wounds.

My bio-mom had recently moved down after the death of her mother and my grandmother. I was raised by my grandmother so she was my mother as far as I was concerned. I had always felt like I wasn't good enough to keep...and various things from a very early age just amplified the "not worth keeping" from my bio-parents and my dating life.

So, I prepared to make sure NO ONE ever had a reason to smile because of my physical pain(yes, I was in an abusive relationship...took me 5 years to wise up) or my tears. I didn't want anyone to touch me I avoided hugs like the plague. I did things to cause physical pain to myself to build up my pain tolerance...still have the scars to prove it.

After many years of keeping a distance I took a chance and let someone in and was married.
I was told by Nanny(my grand mother) that marriage was work. I just never knew just how challenging it could be. When things got tough my spouse would bail and leave ...it only happened twice by the time we hit year 5 of marriage. The last time was the kicker was the 2nd time when he told me he wanted to get a divorce.

       There has only been two events in my life  that cut me the deepest and that was an incident that my bio-mom caused me physical and mental pain and it made her smile and when my spouse left me for the 2nd time and asked for a divorce. Well, obviously I wasn't something worth keeping...I just could not understand when the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt someone and it seemed like some just could not help but to go out of their way to cause me pain.

Needless, to say for the ones that know me...I am still married now for almost 20 years to the same person and never ended up getting a divorce.

Before the conference anytime peeps would come up and hug me I would cringe inside and would repeat in my mind "they mean no harm, they mean no harm." I would try my best to act normal so that I would not hurt their feelings.

Anyhey, the second night of the conference I had a lady that was suppose to give a testimony but didn't because she had a urging from God told her to tell me a verse and she put her hand on me and prayed and during her prayer I heard this sound that almost sounded like mumbling. I later found out she was speaking in tongues...that was a first for me.  I always had heard of people that did that but never witnessed it . I was told it would be in a language you would not understand. I figured okay parley voe france (sp?) , ho la or something like that not the sounds I was hearing. The verse I was given was another one about healing.  By the next morning I awoke and my husband and I both had unusual dreams. His had to do with his foot and a problem he had and it needing to be taken care of and wrapped up. Mine had to do with someone going through our home and telling someone it was the strongest in the kitchen and my bedroom and was in the walls and wanted out.(then I had a picture of a pet shop mouse).

By that afternoon, I had gotten a call from my husband telling me he was having severe pain and had the chills and had a feeling it was cellulitis and would not let me take him to the doc because was afraid he would made to go to the hospital and that he wouldn't get to leave and he wanted to be there the last night of the conference.
While he was home resting up I was talking to my bio-mom and it hit me.
Ya know it really doesn't matter any more about how she didn't raise me...that time was being wasted. For the first time in many,many, many years I called her Mom when I said goodbye.

By the time the conference was over I was taking my husband to the ER to get his foot checked out and sure enough they kept him there.  While we waited to be seen I had come by a guy in a wheel chair and he looked pretty rough looking. I was walker bound and we said hello right at the time they called for my husband to get his vitals checked.

The guy started talking about things...like he needed someone to talk to and felt alone. He even mentioned here he was talking to me like he knew me. At that I held out my hand and introduced myself and told him know he knows me. He told me his name and we spoke just a few seconds more and then I needed to get back to my spouse. I felt torn for a short bit because I felt like I was suppose to talk to him more for some reason but, I also needed to know what was going on with my person.

When I got into the room w/my husband I told him what had happened and how I felt that I had more I was to say to the man. He told me if I had that urge that I should have stayed and talked a bit more. I told him if he was still out there when I left that I would speak to him again.

Well, they admitted my spouse and I had kids I needed to get home to and it was already pretty late and as I was leaving I saw the man I met earlier in the waiting area still. For a second I wondered do I go and speak with him or get home to a child that was staying up messing around on the computer. He saw me and waved and I waived back and at that moment my answer was "GO" but I was facing the man and not the door so I ended up talking to the guy about kids, and it lead to beliefs and the experiences I had in my life and what I believed. I told him about the conference and showed him the envelope I was still carrying around and all the things I had drawn on my sermon notes before the conference and everything that  I was told during by several different people.

In the end I guess I witnessed for my very first time and for some reason I was very articulate and didn't stumble over my words. He was very interested in checking the church out. Dunno, why but I felt this overwhelming need to give him Jeff's and my name again and our phone number. By the time I got to my car I was just soo energised and I wanted to call the woman that spoke in tongues to me soo much. I refused to call her at that time of night but I wanted to tell someone so badly. I decided to tell my oldest whom would not go to sleep what happened and he was unexpectedly rather excited too. I told Jeff the next morning what had happened and that I gave our phone number and that I didn't know how we would make the gas money work out but I wanted us to take him to church w/us if he ever called. He was all for it thankfully and was excited for me.

I called the woman whom has now become my mentor and let her know what happened and she told me that I had already started. I was kind of puzzled and it was evident in my tone and she said your teaching. The night before she had told me that I was going to be a teacher and that I would be good at it. I asked how was I teaching, all I did was talk about the experiences I had in life.  She informed me again that was me teaching.

Since, that time my husband is back home and my life hasn't been the same because I say a prayer that God reveal himself to me in a new way. I have moments that fragments of songs, movie fragments I recall and comparisons. I know now that I am like a hangnail. I did my prayer on day and I was messing w/this hang nail I had a few days. I could not focus on what I needed to because of messing with it. I thought to myself "when are you going to get over there and get the tools and fix it so I wont be distracted and can do what I need to do."  Then, it occurred to me how many times God had asked me the same question. "When are you going let your rough edges be smoothed down so that you can do what you need to be doing?"

The latest moment had to happen at Wally World when I passed this young man whom was mentally challenged and I said hello and just treated him like I would anyone else. He held out his hand and we spoke a bit. At the end of the same isle I had a little 2-3 year old little girl come up and wrap her arms around me and gave me the biggest hug like she had knew me all her life. After I hugged her back and got to the next isle I had the thought of how those two people though at the stage of life were not mental giants. However, they knew more of love and compassion than the majority of the world. I thought of how we should all come to Jesus as children.

Something unexpected while I was looking for a name for a character on a game I play online. I was looking at baby name site and I looked at Celtic, Gaelic and a few others when I decided to look at Hebrew names. Well it turns out my name of Samantha is on that list and it said listener. I had learned that years ago but, there was another part to it. The whole description was Listener:Knows Gods Voice....I thought it was kind of trippy.

Through the events that have happened my mother and I have a dialogue about religion and she has asked me to pray for her .(It was something I did anyway..though she didn't know it)

When I had my two kids I was not suppose to be able to have, nor carry to term for my 2nd child. I told my husband (whom was very anti religion) I wanted to start going to church and learn the basic rights and wrongs..the church we first started going to was called "New Beginnings" and the conference that I awoke at was called "New Beginnings". How cool is that?

Believe it or not I start teaching w/a curriculum 3-5 year olds one day a month...the last Sunday of this month in fact.

So, it is an exciting time for me for I have the eyes to see and the ears to hear.