CXIX

OUT OF THE MOUTH OF BABES AND NURSING INFANTS YOU HAVE PERFECTED PRAISE

MATTHEW 21:16

SEVENIA SALLIE (GIRL PROPHETESS)

Have you ever had special people come into your life, and the bond you feel is so strong that it seems like they’ve always been a part of your life? I’ve felt that with several people, but none so unique as with Oralee Knight-Storm. Our connection was so highly spiritual, yet she was so very young. I was in complete awe at times.

You may think I’m one to talk, being only eighteen and Pastor Samson’s assistant. Who knows, maybe Oralee will be an assistant pastor at ten. Anyhow, she and I had an experience that had to do with an angel Captain Kirk, aka Pastor Samson, claimed to have encountered.

The angel Melanchthon appeared to both of us in a dream. He assured us that everything would be fine with my stepmother, Zella LaStella-Sallie. She had been given a cryptic warning at the murder scene of Oscar Olney, my dad’s old friend. The fortunate thing was that this slaying took place a thousand miles away.

A great blessing was also that my dad’s cousin Brock Storm was guarding us. We therefore were staying as guests at the Knight-Storm residence, Oralee’s adoptive parents. This gave me a lot more time than usual to be with Oralee since we even shared a room. Maybe because of this temporary living arrangement and the surprisingly deep conversations I had been having with the precious nine year-old, we had the similar dream. I would say eerily similar, but it was actually awe inspiring, even as it sent chills up my spine.

“Sevenia, I had a really awesome dream!” Oralee had declared enthusiastically as she leapt off her bed and bounced onto mine. Her smile and twinkle in her big brown eyes caused me to grin. I had barely awakened from my own dream.

Recently, but before our exodus to the Knight-Storm home, I had been shopping with my stepmother. In one of the stores, a certain song caught my attention. It was actually about an adult beverage in a place called Margaritaville. And ironically, a line about a tattoo the person singing had received, apparently while inebriated, made me think of my cherubic young friend. My spiritual sister.

The lyric said, “But she’s a real beauty, a Mexican cutey, and how she got here I haven’t a clue.”

And in some ways I didn’t have a clue. God works in mysterious, wonderful ways. I didn’t fully understand how the beautiful young girl, along with the then sixteen year-old Marcella, seemed to just drop into our lives. When she was only four or five, Oralee’s immigrant parents had died. Oralee then passed through several relatives, and ultimately was sold to human traffickers.

Brave Marcella, who was trafficked from a different coast, under different circumstances, ended up crossing paths with Oralee at a den of iniquity. Unable to stand the thought of Oralee forced into pornography and prostitution, she fled with the little girl into the cold, midwestern winter. It was then that God, through his holy angels, gave me a night vision of the two girls seeking shelter under an abandoned railroad bridge.

Although the dream I shared with Oralee was awe inspiring, I don’t think any dream of mine will be as profound as being led to save the two runaway girls, and ultimately them finding an amazing home with their rescuers. Nonetheless, I get pleasant chills when I think about the parallel night vision I shared with Oralee.

The parts we both remembered weren’t very long, and they both had to do with the murder of Oscar, and the suspected murders of Stacey Porter and Felix Floyd. They also had to do with my family seeking shelter with Oralee’s family. It also had to do with my stepmother’s thumbs. This aspect wasn’t in my particular dream, yet as I watched my sweet little friend dialogue with Zella, I had the most profound DeJa’Vu of my life.

The thing that left me stunned, was that what Oralee said to Zella about her thumbs, she didn’t even know. There was a minor incident that left Zella with a couple of minor injuries. It happened a few days before Oscar’s murder. Zella was taking a batch of cookies out of the oven when she screamed and dropped the cookie pan, causing the oatmeal raisin delights to go scattering across the floor.

It turned out my dad had somehow burned holes in both of the thumbs of the potholder mittens and forgot to tell anybody. Instead of putting them back in the drawer where they were kept, he set them aside, thinking he would somehow mend them.

My stepmother accepted his heart felt apologies, but that didn’t stop the burns from forming blisters. She showed him several times throughout the healing process, causing sheepishness and renewed apologies from my father.

So Oralee and I shared our dreams with our housemates. When we finished, Oralee went to Zella and offered her hands. Zella placed her hands in the lovely little girl’s hands. Then Oralee gripped Zella’s thumbs in her fists, and declared, “By the healing of your thumbs, something righteous this way comes.”

Zella looked stunned, and then looked at me. “Did you tell Ora about my little baking boo boo?”

I shook my head, my face equally stunned. My dad too looked mildly shocked. Destiny, Brock, and Marcella just looked puzzled.

“Did you know I hurt my thumbs a few weeks ago, Princess?” Zella asked Oralee.

“Melanchthon told me to tell you,” Oralee said with a big grin. “He said you hurt your thumbs.”

Everyone looked dumbfounded. We may have even chocked it up to a strange coincidence. However, two days later FBI agent Nora Medora called Brock with some good news, and we knew Oralee’s comment was no coincidence.

“We arrested Carl Rutherford and his brother Chad,” the FBI agent explained. “Forensics found traces of blood in Chad’s car. After he was arrested, he confessed everything. It turns out he’s a major drug addict. His brother got him to help him with his dirty deeds through supplying him with heroin. Once he started geeking without fix, all we had to do was tantalize him with a little sample.”

“Was that ethical?” Brock asked lightheartedly.

“Was killing and threating people to get high ethical?”

And so, the Sallie’s and Knight-Storm’s lived happily ever after. For now, anyhow!

(DESTINY’S BIBLE STUDY NOTES AND QUOTES)

(The LIFE and MINISTRY of JESUS Part 12)

Nicodemus: Since hearing Jesus, Nicodemus had anxiously studied the prophecies relating to the Messiah, and the more he searched, the stronger was his conviction that this was the One who was to come.

In the presence of Christ, Nicodemus felt a strange timidity, which he endeavored  to conceal under an air of composure and dignity.

Nicodemus had come to the Lord thinking to enter into a discussion with Him, but Jesus laid bare the foundation principles of truth. He said to Nicodemus, It is not a theoretical knowledge you need so much as spiritual regeneration. You need not to have your curiosity satisfied, but to have a new heart. You must receive a new life from above before you can appreciate heavenly things.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)

Surprised out of his self-possession, he answered… “How can a man be born when he is old?” (John 3:4)

The pride of the Pharisee was struggling against the honest desire of the seeker after truth. He wondered that Christ should speak to him as He did, not respecting his position as a ruler in Israel.

The Christian’s life is not a modification of the old, but a transformation of nature. There is a death to self and sin, and a new life altogether. This change can be brought about only by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit.

“The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

The wind is heard among the branches of the trees, rustling the leaves and flowers; yet it is invisible. So with the work of the Holy Spirit upon the heart. It can no more be explained than can the movements of the wind.

By an agency as unseen as the wind, Christ is constantly working upon the heart. Little by little, perhaps unconsciously to the receiver, impressions are made that tend to draw the soul to Christ.

When the Spirit of God takes possession of the heart, it transforms the life. Sinful thoughts are put away, evil deeds are renounced. Love, humility, and peace take the place of anger, envy, and strife. Joy takes the place of sadness, and the countenance reflects the light of heaven.

It is impossible for finite minds to comprehend the work of redemption. Its mystery exceeds human knowledge; yet he who passes from death to life realizes that it is a divine reality. The beginning of redemption we may know here through personal experience. Its results reach through the eternal ages.

Jesus explained that His mission on earth was to establish a spiritual instead of a temporal kingdom.

How the are we to be saved? “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:14, 15)

So the Son of Man has been lifted up, and everyone who has been deceived and bitten by the serpent may look and live.

“Behold the lamb of God which takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29)

The light shining from the cross reveals the love of God. His love is drawing us to Himself. If we do not resist this drawing, we shall be led to the foot of the cross in repentance for the sins that have crucified the Savior. Then the Spirit of God through faith produces a new life in the soul. The thoughts and desires are brought into obedience to the will of Christ. The heart, the mind, are created anew in the image of Him who works in us to subdue all things to Himself. Then the law of God is written in the mind and heart.

“I delight to do they will, oh my God, and your law is within my heart.” (Psalm 40:8)