My Salvation

It was when I was living in Colorado with my mom back in 1981 when I came to know the LORD. I was a lonely child. I was used to kids making fun of me. There was only one school I felt comfortable in, and loved, but I wasn't in Fort Worth, I was in Colorado Springs. I was lonely and lost in the public school, my mom put me in. I would wake up depressed, not wanting to go to school,, and I guess my mom gave up having me go to school. Actually, she looked for another school for me to go to, a private school and (I think it was for kids with learning disabilities) and I was lost there, too. The teachers left me to my own..they didn't give me any school work. I don't understand why. It was weird. I later came across a teacher's report on me, and they said that they thought I was slightly autistic. Weird. I wasn't in there for very long.

One winter snowy day, I got in the little car (I forgot what kind it is..I think it was a type of toyota) with my mom, and she took me to school as usual. It was usually a very stressful thing for my mom to do..driving in the Colorado snow, and the gear would make a weird 'bump' noise and I would laugh and my mom would say, "It's not funny, Lara!"

As we rounded the corner to the school, immediately there was a woman walking down the sidewalk in our direction. She flipped the bird at us!! Right at us!! We didnt' know that woman from Eve. It upsetted my mom. She believed it was directed at her...that 'they' were after her. She turned around and took me back home. That was the end of my schooling for the next year or two.

I spent two years out of school. I was depressed. All I did those two years was watch tv, listen to radio, and mess with the ouji board. My aunt, (dad's sister) had introduced me to the ouji board. My mom would let me visit my dad's side of the family, but she would not let me go back to Fort Worth, not even to visit Nana and Grandad(mom's folks). I wanted to go home really bad, adn go back to "Shady Oaks" (I'll tell about Shady Oaks another time!) school. I cried, thru fits, but to no prevail. I was stuck there in Colorado Springs with my 'crazy mom". I buried myself in the ouji board..then discovered automatic writing.

One day, as I was using the Ouji board, trying to communicate to the 'spirit', it then told me it couldn't talk to me anymore. I started arguing with it. It then said, it was ordered not to talk to me anymore and that they hated the order, but they had to obey and it also said that something wonderful was going to happen in my life...I would have both postive and negative things as a result of that wonderful thing coming in my life. I asked if it was fearful because of the order they had and they said yes..and the planchette went off the board...as end. I tried to communicate with it, and got mad, calling it names, etc. Frustrated, I went and did something else.
That same week, one night I was in bed. My mom was sound asleep. I was awake as usual, listening to the radio. All at once..the window started shaking. Someone was trying to break in. I cried out to momma. She didn't wake up! It was weird! The shaking stopped but I was so afraid!
The next day I told my mom what happened. A newspaper kid thought it was a redneck troublemaking kid that he knew who had tried to break in. I think it was something evil...a demon, now.

Then, a day later, I was with my mom in the car, she drove in hte driveway of our landlords..which was up a hill. My mom put the car in park, and got out, to put the rent check in the landlords' mailbox. Immediately, the car started rolling backwards! I started freaking out and opened my door, trying to stop the car with my foot. The car went in the wooden fence and stopped. I was soo freaked out when this happened. My mom knew I had been arguing with the spirit in the ouiji board and made the suggestion that maybe I brouight the trouble on me by arguing with the ouiji. I then decided to give up communicating with the spirits cold turkey!

One day, we went to the mall, as usual. I wanted to look for a book on the Cherokee. I wanted to know more about my tribe...I knew I had Native blood on my dad's side...and wanted to learn about my ancestors. I went in the bookstore and was looking at the Native am. books. There was no books on the Cherokee. It was mostly the Southwestern tribes. But there was one book that caught my eye. "Crying Wind" It had a Native girl in buckskin standing on a cliff with blue sky background. I also noticed her second book "My Searching Heart" beside it. She had drawings in the books. She was an artist as well as writer. It was something that would draw my attention...this 12 yr old girl. I wanted her books...but only had enough for one of the books. My mom came in, to get me, anxious to go home.
"I'll buy them both for you, Lara. Lets go home!"
My mom bought the books for me and we went home.
I started reading Crying Wind that night and was hooked. Then...it dawn on me..it wasn't by accident I was reading her book! It was about how she was rejected by her family, her mother abandoned her and left the reservation, and her father was a white man and wasn't there, either. She lived with her grandmother and her uncles. Her grandmother dies, and she's taken away to the city, by one of her brothers...where she eventually comes to know the LORD. For the first time, I was introduced to the gospel...and He did it by using my interest in my Native ancestry to bring me to Him. It was His Goodness!! Scripture says that it's His goodness that brings us to repentence! He was showing me His love for me! This little Indian girl who loved art, mountains, Native stuff. I didn't realize I could just simply invite the LORD into my life. i also heard Billy Graham on tv and then bought a book of his...which I prayed the prayer at the end of the book to give my life to Jesus, turning from my sin, and letting Him be LORD and Saviour of my life.

The first thing I did when I came to the LORD, I wrote a letter to Myrtle, to tell her I was saved! Myrtle, as I mentioned earlier, was a sweet, gentle black lady who cleaned my grandparents house and babysitted me. She had never shared the gospel with me...but I figured, she felt it wasn't her place to do so...but I remember she took me to church with her and...one time, when I was 10, I tape recorded her singing and playing the piano, with my great-grandmother, Gi-gi sitting there with us. Myrtle sang :

"You got to move!
You got to move!
You got to mooove child!
You got to move!
For when the LORD get's ready for you!
You got to move!!

Oooooh you may be rich!
You may be poor!
You may be hiiiiigh!
You may be low!

But when the Looord!
Get's ready, for you
You got to move!!

Myrtle sang this gospel song and I recorded her! I think in a way, that was her way of witnessing to me. Momma told me that Myrtle would 'testify' to her. Trying to turn momma from her wicked ways. I think Myrtle had prayed for me, and for momma. I think maybe I might be a result of her prayers.

At 10, not knowing Jesus, I was kind of embarrassed having Myrtle sing the song..I was pretending I was a dj on the radio, and at the end of the song, I then said
"KFJZ!!! That was Myrtle! And she was singing ...."YOu got to..."
"When the LORD gets ready, you got to MOVE!" Myrtle chimed in.
"When the LORD gets ready, you go to mo..move! And now here's Charlie Butz with the news!!" I replied, saying the name of an actual radio news guy on my favorite radio station. Myrtle cracked up laughing, along with Gigi. I laughed harder when Myrtle laughed!

But it wasn't Myrtle's song that brought me to Him...it was a seed...
I remember when I was a kid in the 70's, and happening to catch 'southern gospel groups on tv..and I didn't want a part of that 'culture'. I thought...if being a christian means I have to be that...wear a beehive hairdo, and wear a dress (Back in the 70's, christian churches, schools, etc, seemed to be real strick about women wearing dresses. No slacks rule! etc. I hated that!! I had also spent a brief time in a christian school, and hated wearing a dress!! I felt naked under dresses. That's why I hated dresses. I prefered jeans! I wanted to be myself, jeans, hippie like, art, Indian stuff, etc...and Crying Wind had that image that I liked. Abba showed me it was okay!! He showed me his goodness!! and I rejoiced!!

Immediately, however, satan started attacking me BIGTIME, especially when I read about the unpardable sin in the Gospels. I started freaking out for no reason at all, thinking I might have committed the unpardable sin. This is a method satan does to attack new Believers with...to steal our joy and our security in the LORD. I had gotten rid of my ouji board, and gave up sin, cussing, etc. I started driving my mom up the wall with my fears...
I then learned I needed to be baptised and I freaked out, thinking "I better get baptized now!!" I was freaking...and I told my mom I needed to be baptised. She suggested "Donny and Maries' church, the Mormon church. I didn't know anything about it and said no. (Thank GOD! LOL)..then she suggest the Episcopal church...it was a traditon on Gi-gi's side of her family, so I said "OK".

She took me to an episcopal church. (I couldn't identify Episcopal church from Baptist, Pentecostal, etc...There was a lot I needed to learn!) I had a problem with infant baptism. There were yuppy families with babies, that were going to be baptized. I went ahead and went thru baptism in the Episcopal church...you know...even though there were things not right (infant baptism, and social standing, etc)...yet the LORD used that to bring deliverence to me! One of the prayers we prayed, was "I renounce satan and his works!" I prayed that! Meaning it! When I went home that day, with my mom, I felt a difference! I was not hounded with the fears! I felt a heaviness off of me.
There was a christian school at a little baptist church next to our house, and I started going to school there. but it didn't last long...only a few weeks. When they found out I had skipped a grade...they wanted to put me back a grade...even though I was doing well in my school work. My mom thru one of her temper tantrums at the principle and pulled me out of school So once again, I was out of school!

The next thing I prayed..I prayed that could go back home to FOrt Worth, live with my grandparents and go back to "shady Oaks"

That prayer came true...but it was thru another attack of satan...he started on me again! With the fear of the unpardable sin! This time, my mom got mad and said "I"ve had enough of this!" She then called nana up and told her "This girl needs to be in school! I don't want ot have to deal with her and her fears any more. I want her to go back to Fort Worth!!"

So...I went back to Fort Worth!

Looking back at what I went thru...spiritual warfare, though I didn't know it at the time...satan was using that insecurity on me...I realize now it goes back to that time when I was a child, when satan lied to me, telling me God hated me and wanted me dead....with my mom chanting in satanic tongues and the pilgrm candle incident. I want to say more...but this will lead towards the spiritual abusive period in my life. I'll save that for another post.