AS NATURAL AS BREATHING

A writing by Mary Lou

This is a story about something my friend Les heard in the Spirit:

What you call supernatural is really meant to be natural for you. What you think of as natural is really sub-natural, below where you are meant to be in your thinking.

When I have time with my children, I squeeze every minute I can out of our visits and usually stay until the last moment I can; but, an urgency came in me to leave a day early to travel to Knoxville to be with our friends Chris & Martha before the others arrived for a weekend gathering. An unusual excitement had settled upon my Spirit, and I was looking forward to driving through Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge on the way. I was prompted to call Chris as we left Greenville, and found that if we came straight there, we could meet Gloria before she flew out to Chicago that afternoon. Of course, we were happy to change our plans, which put us in Gatlinburg a day later...at the appointed time for the rest of this story to unfold.

Chris, Floyd and I had a lovely time walking the flower lined streets of Gatlinburg, and were winding up our delightful day in this charming city when we noticed some commotion up ahead. Drawing closer, we could see a woman falling back onto a park bench as her daughter was frantically trying to revive her by  slapping her cheeks as she yelled, "Mom! Mom!"


As we approached, the mother exhaled and became still, eyes and mouth wide open. She was a woman in her 60s or 70s, and her daughter told us anxiously that her Mom had an enlarged heart. She told us she was trying to find pills to revive her somewhere in her purse, but couldn't locate them. She then looked up at us in a desperate plea for help and asked, "Does anyone know what to do?"


At the same time, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Floyd walking on by, and I thought, "Well, that's real sensitive! How could he just walk right by this poor woman?" I then turned to ask Chris, "Do we know what to do?"

At this point, you would think we might try CPR or perhaps begin commanding the life to come back into her, but instead, a cloud of peace began to envelope us. Chris placed his hand on the woman's forehead as I put my right hand on the side of her neck, looking for a pulse and holding her up as her daughter searched through her purse. Time seemed to stand still, and as we gently began to speak peace and life to her mother, the daughter quietly leaned back on the bench by her Mom and watched.

There were no signs of life, and I wondered what the outcome would be. Was it time for this precious soul to cross over? What I didn't know at the time was why Floyd had continued walking by when Chris and I stopped. You see, as we approached them, Floyd saw the daughter and the mother, and a third woman standing beside them watching what was going on. This third woman looked like the mother, but was about 30 years younger, and she spoke to Floyd as we walked up. She began by saying, "I've had a good life, and if this is my time to go, I am ready." She then began to walk with Floyd and tell him about her life. Floyd realized that he was interacting with the spirit of the mother, and he thought maybe he was there to reassure her, and to walk her into the next life.

She suddenly stopped and said to Floyd, "I've gotta go!" and, pouf! She disappeared. At that moment, as Chris and I looked intently on the face of the lifeless woman sitting on the bench, she began to blink her eyes and the color crept back into her face from the top of her head going downwards like it was being poured into her from above. She closed her mouth and looked around, somewhat bewildered at what had transpired. We told her that she was going to be all right, and that the paramedics would be there soon to make sure she was OK. She said, "Oh that's OK, I was just a little tired. I'm OK now." She didn't seem to have any idea what had just happened.

The daughter looked up and said, "Oh, thank you!" We smiled and said we'd be on our way as we saw the paramedics arriving.

As we walked on up the street, we all looked at each other and I asked,  "Exactly what just happened here?" Was this an answer to questions I had hidden in my heart for years: What will it be like in those last days? How will we raise the dead or heal the sick? Will it be like the "great healers" of the Pentecostal age, with their fanfare and loud commands?

We went back the next day to speak to the young man who had dialed "911" to see what had happened after we left. He told us that the paramedics had checked the lady out and that she had walked to her car and gone home. Here is a woman who had an enlarged heart, suffered what appeared to be heart attack and died, then got up and walked away from it. Is it possible that she might have received a new heart? For sure, she received an extended time with her loved ones, a chance to continue to participate in this exciting time of awakening here on planet Earth.

When think of how these things were done by our Savior, I remember how quietly and simply he spoke to those he raised. He spoke to them, Spirit to Spirit, in a manner as natural as breathing. And so it was with us as we spoke peace and life on both sides of the veil.