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.