Chapter III

The Second Door Revealed. . .

"I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. . . "

Isaiah 48:10

One afternoon in November 1986 my life changed completely and forever. A short time before I left for work that afternoon a strange feeling came upon me. It wasn't anything I could identify, so I brushed it off as just a strange feeling and left for my job.

I drove along the country back road, my ordinary route, toward the hospital. Then when I was a few miles from the hospital, perhaps two to four miles, a huge brown dog appeared suddenly in the middle of the road. I hit my brakes and halted my pickup in order for the dog to make up his mind which way he intended to move. To my shock, he moved directly to my door, jumped up on his hind feet on the side of the pickup and pressed his big ugly face against my window. Then he looked at me. He didn't growl or bark, he just stared. I can't describe the feeling, the chill which swept my entire body. It was the most unnerving sensation I had ever experienced.

I pushed the accelerator and sped away from the horrible dog and the look on his face. But, by the time I had reached the hospital, everything inside me had gone haywire. Weak, dizzy, sweaty and ashen in color, I felt my insides had exploded and only my skin was holding me in one piece. I had only one thought: "Run. . . Get back home. . . Run home. . . You'll be safe there."

The panic in my soul, the thought "Run Home" totally overwhelmed me. I rushed from the E. R. out to the parking lot and got into my pickup. Co-workers and a doctor followed on my heels. The doctor wanted to check me but I brushed him off with: "I'll be Okay. . . I've just got to get home."

I was insistent, so they stood back as I drove away. I do not remember if I prayed as I drove home. I had no idea what was happening to me - or why. My single thought was , "Get home. . . There's safety there!" And that thought propelled me at high speed along the country road to my home.

Unbeknown to me at the time I had just suffered my first full-blown 'Panic attack'. In the past I had experienced anxiety, especially in early 1983 when I suffered an onset of tachycardia one evening. But even that paled in comparison with the fear and horror that overtook me that November afternoon in 1986.

To someone who's never suffered a panic attack, it's difficult to describe exactly what takes place. My first thought was "I'm dying!" Everything inside me felt out of kilter. The sudden fear reached such a level it transposed itself into horror - sheer horror.

That first attack crippled me. Mentally, emotionally and physically spent, by the time I reached home, I could barely stagger inside and shut the door. I collapsed onto my sofa. I remembered the Lord, and I cried out: "Oh God. . . If you don't give me a sure word right now, I'm going to die !" I couldn't wait; I had to have a word from him that very instant. I grabbed my Bible from the coffee table, placed it on the floor and flipped it open. My eyes fell to a last portion of a verse in Ezra. It read as follows:

". . . And the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay in wait by the way. " (Ezra 8:31) KJ

Reading those words calmed me somewhat. It was a sure word from the Lord on which to hang my hope. Still, the after effect of the panic episode lingered and I missed several days from work. . . The first since I had returned to nursing. I had worked extra days and double shifts prior to that episode in an attempt to get back on my financial feet.

Several weeks later I became physically ill with severe bronchitis and sore throat. I had to finally be hospitalized where I was diagnosed with mononucleosis, a virus I had surely contracted in the E. R.. I was further weakened. Then came the tormenting thought that I had contracted the HIV disease through a needle stick I received on duty in the E. R. as I struggled with a patient who suffered severe head injuries. Then I became convinced that one of the very first patients I had cared for during my orientation period had obviously been dying from AIDS, although his condition was undiagnosed. He had wasted away to mere skin and bones with large purplish lesions over his face, neck, arms. . . Those were the lesions I could see. He was an angry bitter young man who continually made messes by turning over his urinal, and the like.

I tried to share Christ Jesus with him; to speak to him of God's love. He told me to "Go to hell"; that he "Wanted no part of God." I don't think I ever saw him again following that exchange. While being transferred to a nursing home, he died enroute. The news of his death made me feel so badly, as if I had failed both the Lord, and the young man.

The panic attack, the physical illness, plus the tormenting thought of AIDS played heavily on my emotions. The spirit of fear of which gripped me during that November panic episode began to deepen and take root. Without knowing it, I was entering into the darkest period of my life.

By the time the surgery department opened in January of 1987, I became supervisor. Still very weak from my illness I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. I quickly realized that if I had not been given the job in surgery by the Lord, I could not have continued working. We only had the one operating room going at a time, only one surgeon on staff, so the job demanded little of me in the beginning physically.

The panic attacks continued, increasing in both frequency and intensity. It's hard to say which is worse, the actual attack or the fear of it. I had no idea what had caused the disorder and had limited ability to cope with the never ending sense of panic which gripped my soul. I read the Bible; I prayed; I cried. Nothing helped.

I didn't think it could get any worse, but I was wrong. I was only in the beginning stages. I vividly recall the most horrible experience associated with my job as supervisor. We had an extremely obese woman on the table undergoing gall bladder surgery. The operation lasted over seven hours. Either late spring or early summer, it was a hot day in Mississippi, and we lost our air conditioning in the room. One of the scrub nurses fainted and I had to scrub in and take her place. I literally believed I would drop dead as I stood holding a retractor. The panic attack which gripped me was the most severe to date. . . . And I could not run away. Usually when the attacks hit me at work I would rush into the bathroom, fall on my knees and pray, "Lord Jesus, help me!" It happened so often knee prints should be on that tile floor. Then, if the panic didn't subside, I would rush home.

On that particular day of the cholecystectomy, I had read the 25th Psalm. Standing beside the surgeon I prayed over and over:

"Oh my God, I trust in thee; let me not be ashamed, let not my enemies triumph over me."

I stood in sheer torment as I silently repeated the verse in my mind. I felt I would die standing there, but finally the operation ended and the patient went to ICU for recovery. I knew I had experienced something as close to hell as a child of God would experience. My knees buckled and my spirit sank into its deepest pit. I felt forsaken and alone. But still, by the grace of God, I clung to the Lord.

I was bewildered. Losing my writing career, losing material goods, facing bankruptcy - nothing, absolutely nothing could compare to the anguish brought on by the panic attacks. I fought the attacks from November 1986 until October of 1987, then defeated and dejected I left my job.

I left because I could not stay. My bosses were wonderful to me and tried to help in every way. I was sent to counseling which then referred me to a psychiatrist who prescribed medication for me to which I had an adverse reaction and nearly committed suicide. God's keeping power alone kept me from crashing headlong into a bridge abutment.

Due to severe allergy reactions, I had never been tolerant of medications. I could not take an aspirin or even a Tylenol. During my hospitalization my doctor had been unable to prescribe even an antibiotic I could tolerate.

I told the psychiatrist of my allergic reactions to all medications, but he told me not to fret; the medicine he prescribed was safe, there would be no reaction. I took him at his word and took the medications as prescribed. It did not take long for the reaction to begin and until the medicines were flushed from my system I was a real danger to myself. Rage wrapped in despair overcame me. But, most of all I wanted the anguish, the torment to end.

Once the side effects of the medications subsided and the medicines were out of my system, the panic attacks were more severe and almost continuous.

Then in the midst of this storm, the Lord spoke to me late one night and said:

"I will take you suddenly from your job. "

I didn't know how that could be. I had to work to live, to eat, to exist. But not long after his word came, I collapsed, unable to bear the strain. I resigned my job as supervisor of surgery at 4:00 a.m. on a Monday morning in October of 1987, and left nursing forever.

My first door had lasted only nineteen months. And I found myself to be in a wilderness beyond description. I tried to keep on attending church, but I could not.

The panic attacks struck me everywhere I went - in Church, in the grocery store, in the book store, driving down the street - everywhere. The last time I went to church was late in 1987. The pastor and the congregation prayed fervently for me.

After the prayer, as I was leaving, the pastor called out to me. "Jo," he said. "The Lord just told me to give you one word." He paused then said, "Emmanuel."

Through tears I looked back at the pastor and nodded to let him know I had heard. Then I left. Emmanuel. . . God with us. That was my last time in my church. Emmanuel - God with me. Emmanuel--Jesus, with me.

But was He? Was he really with me? I rarely sensed his presence any more. A slow anger begin to take seed in my heart toward him. He was God. He knew all things. He knew what was happening to me, and as best I could tell, he wasn't lifting a finger to help.

I had no idea of the long lonely wilderness that lay ahead for me. I was entering, or had entered, a furnace of fire that would test every part of my being - body, soul, spirit. It was the second door of the Four Doors - the one of fire - and it was awful. But, at that time I didn't realize what was happening. I did know that the second door was meant for me. Not for me.

Rather, I began to think "God is mad at me. " What other explanation could there be? What had I done to the Lord that he would be so angry with me? I began to think again on the vision of his return. Was I being disobedient to his instruction to me to 'Write the vision and make it plain.' I thought to myself that if I wrote it the days of torment would end.

At that time I still had my word processor, and around panic attacks, I typed out a ten page version of the vision. The Lord had once told me it would be 200 pages when completed, so I prayed, then selected twenty ministries to receive the vision. Ten times twenty was 200 pages. In early 1988 I took twenty envelopes, each containing a 10 page account of the Lord's return, and drove to the post office about seven miles from my home.

I had not left the driveway before a panic attack began making the drive horrible. When I finally reached the Post Office I got out, stamped and mailed each enveloped, amid trembling and sweating, the panic heightening.

I had signed each copy of the vision with the words "A servant of the Lord". I sure wasn't up to receiving angry, harsh replies from the brethren. If they had a gripe, they could take it up with the Lord and leave me out altogether. I committed each of the 20 envelopes to the Holy Spirit before mailing them, one by one. I was finished. I had done what I believed the Lord had commanded me to do. I had written and mailed the vision. The rest who was up to him. I frankly didn't worry about what would happen to them once they were out of my hands. All I cared about was the seven miles back to my home.

I had no idea at the time that what I had just mailed was my "Ishmael," a work of the flesh. My "Isaac" layed dormant and years ahead. But I didn't know. My great hope was that by my obedience in writing the vision, the Lord might deliver me from the panic attacks. Wrong. Dead wrong. If anything, the attacks grew worse. I was able to leave my home less and less, and only in matters of sheer necessity. Then in June 1988 I left for the final time. Against my will, I went to renew my driver's license.

I no longer owned a vehicle so I borrowed my mother's car to make the ten mile trip. I didn't want to go but something kept pushing me to renew the license. What a horrible trip it turned out to be for me. Panic gripped me as I left and did not release me until I was home again.

During the drive home on the return trip I yelled out, "Jesus, if you don't get me home, I won't get there!" Caught in heavy traffic, I was going berserk.

The Holy Spirit said calmly, "Turn here."

I whipped out of the traffic and onto a bypass. It was a longer route but had very little traffic.

When I handed my mother her car keys that afternoon, I knew I was done. It was all over for me. I knew I could not leave my home again until the Lord delivered me. I felt that the deliverance would occur before June of 1992 because that was when my driver's license would again expire. When 1992 came and went, and no deliverance, my drivers license expired. I wondered why I had been pushed in 1988 to renew them only to have them expire in 1992. It made no sense to me. But, little I faced in those days made sense to me.

I had already passed my breaking point. That occurred in May 1988, May 23, 1988 to be exact, a couple of weeks before I took the final trip to renew my driver's license. That day in May was most unique, one I shall never forget.

I had been out of work since October of 1987 and I was penniless. Most of my possessions had been sold or were being sold so that I could keep electricity and water in my mobile home. In February of 1988 a neighbor brought me six hundred dollars to help me keep my mobile home. I had fallen behind several payments. I was hesitant to take the money because I didn't know when or how I would ever repay him. Nevertheless he handed me the money and said, "Take it. . . If you can pay me back someday, okay, and if not, that's Okay too. . . Take it. "

God in heaven knows that this one neighbor is the only person since October of 1987 to this present day, who ever placed money in my hand in an attempt to help me keep my home or pay my bills. But that act of kindness only delayed the inevitable. I used the money to catch up on back trailer payments and to pay my utility bills. By May I was again selling my possessions in order to live. Also, I had again fallen behind on my mobile home payments, and the bank finally lost patience with me. I received a letter notifying me that my home was being repossessed. That letter was the straw that broke this camel's back.

That afternoon I went into my bedroom and closed the door. Once the door was shut all my emotions exploded in anger directed toward the Lord. I screamed, "I hate my life!" Then the words poured out. "I despise what's happened to me!. . . I've lost everything and I despise it!" I raved on nonstop. "Something is wrong here! Your word is not working for me!" I began crying and blubbering, "Look how every body looks at me - like I'm nuts! And now they're coming to get my home! I despise it! I despise it. . . I despise it!" No telling what I would have said next, but the Lord's present suddenly descended into the room. I stood trembling, but I grew silent, very silent. After a few moments passed, Jesus spoke slowly and deliberately these five words:

"And I despised the cross."

Those words cut deep in my heart a blow that no other words had ever done. Then, it was as if a hard knot in my heart began to melt. I began to weep with shame. "I'm sorry, Lord," I whispered. "I'm sorry." I made him a promise, "I'll try hard not to complain regardless of what happens from now on."

Something changed that day in my life that I cannot explain. I only know something changed. The panic attacks continued until I was completely homebound, my possessions all left, but something in my heart was different. Five words - "And I despised the cross" - had done something in me and I still cannot explain what.

It was after renewing my driver's license in June of 1988, I began to realize that the second door in the four-door vision was not just an abstract door the Lord was showing me. It was my door of fiery trials. It had taken two and one-half years for me to come to this understanding, and I found myself in the midst of the flames before the revelation that the door was for me came to light.

In the years since that day in 1984 when the Lord showed me His return, I've learned that a vision from him is much like a promise from him. It gets tested, along with the one who receives it. It goes through the floods and the fires. In undergoes crucifixion and burial; then is resurrected. It travels through horrible episodes of doubt and unbelief, and everywhere it goes it takes the one who received it with it. There comes times when you're quite sure you've lost your mind; gone stark raving mad. Satan gets permission to sift it and you as wheat.

The vision gets torn apart, dissected and destroyed by varying doctrines. It gets rationalized away. It becomes so jumbled up and mixed up until it's hardly recognizable any more. There are times when you wonder why God gave it to you in the first place. . . Or if indeed it was God who gave it at all.

And why me? Surely there were other believers who deserved it more and who would have done a better job with it.

And yet, nothing can completely destroy it. Nothing that comes against a God-given vision can destroy it. Nor can it be changed from its original form. It emerges from all the testing in the end exactly as it was in the beginning. It is the one who received it that changes.

I know this is so. I've lived it. The vision of the Lord's return is today exactly as it was when it was given that afternoon in 1984. Nothing about it has changed.

But I have changed. This dreamer that received the vision has at times believed that "to write" the vision should be easy enough. Not so. The assignment from the Lord was to "Write the vision and make it plain." True, the physical "writing" was easy; it was the "making it plain " that proved to be so difficult. It has taken the Lord well over eleven years to bring me to this point of actually doing what he commanded that first day.

I've had plenty of time to ponder my failures and errors. Concerning the vision my first and greatest error was pride. I thought I must have been someone very special to receive a personal visit from Jesus Christ when I wasn't even looking for him; then to receive a vision of his return a few years later when I knew nothing about such an event.

My second big error was accepting the position as Sunday School teacher so that others could marvel at how 'special' I was. Looking back on those days I know that the offer had been a test. . . A test I failed. If I hadn't been so full of puffed pride I would have refused the offer to teach with a reply such as: "No thanks, I'm the one in need of teaching. "

But not me. No indeed. I thought that the Lord was promoting me because I was such a jewel to him, because I was so special, so smart, so talented. I hadn't yet learned about Balaam's ass. Pride had dug a pit for me and I tumbled headlong into it.

When I went back to nursing in 1986, I arrived on the job full of the Holy Spirit, eager to work among the sick and injured. The first six months went fine for me and I sincerely felt I was doing "God's work." Then, I became convinced that my main task was to help poor sick sinners to the light. And it's not that the Lord did not use me during that time, because he surely did. I witnessed to co-workers and patients with success.

I worked for the 3 to 11 shift in the E. R. before the surgery department opened. I remember one afternoon as I drove the twelve miles to work I look out at the sky which was clearing from an earlier thunderstorm. Looking at the blue sky, I looked to heaven and asked, "Lord, why can't it always be like this. . . beautiful, blue skies?" I hated stormy, rainy day.

I wasn't really expecting an answer, but I received one any way. The Lord said to me:

"Without the rain nothing would ever grow. "

I nodded. Of course that was right, but I still hated the rain. I didn't grasp at the time that the Lord was speaking not only of the weather, but also of the heavy rain clouds forming on my own personal horizon.

That August of 1986 as I worked in the E. R., two things happened to me very much out of the ordinary.

First, a patient arrived in the E.R. with a head injury he sustained when his motorcycle hit a horse. He was combative, totally wild, due to the head injury. It took several men to restrain him on the stretcher. As I walked into the E. R. where he was placed, the Lord said to me:

"He will die. "

The E. R. doctor and the nurse supervisor did not realize the injured man's true condition and were about to admit him to a regular hospital room, when I said, "This man must be sent to the medical center. " (We referred many serious and critical patients to the large Medical Center which was about twenty miles away. )

Were they receptive to my words? Not at all. All the while I was attempting to start an IV on the patient, and it was here that I receive several sticks from the needle into my own hands and fingers. As soon as I would get the catheter in his vein, he would jerk violently and pull it out.

Our small hospital was not equipped to handle traumatic head injuries so I continued to argue for his transfer. I was met with stout opposition and the attending doctor said, "He'll be alright when he calms down. . . We'll keep him here. "

I looked at both the doctor and supervisor nurse then said, "No, he won't be alright. You'd better transfer him. "

Both looked at me strangely then the doctor said, " Okay ... we'll transfer him."

As the patient was being placed into the ambulance for the 20 mile trip, the supervisor who was to accompany him on the trip, standing outside the ambulance looked over to me and said, "He probably would've been all right staying here. "

I shook my head. "He's going to die. "

Her surprise was evident, "How do you know that?" I said. "The Lord told me."

Nothing more was said at that time. The injured man was a brother-in-law to one of the staff nurses and the next day the supervisor came to me with the report that the man had improved, and though still in a coma, was expected to survive. She gave me a kind of 'Knowing' look.

With the good report I readily accepted the possibility that I was wrong. However, in my heart, I still felt that I had heard the Lord, so I felt somewhat puzzled by the entire incident.

Several days later is I stood pressing my uniform, the Lord spoke to me, telling me to "Stop ironing and pray for _______ (and he named the injured man. )" I immediately obeyed; put down my iron, got on my knees before the Lord, and began to intercede before the throne of God on behalf of the injured man. I prayed until the burden lifted from my heart, then I got up, finished my ironing and went to work.

That evening news came that the man had taken a turn for the worse and could go either way. The sister-in-law came to the E. R. to relay the fact that he had momentarily roused from his coma and told his family 'Not to worry about him - that everything was alright with him and the Lord.' Those words were the only words he spoke from the time of the head injury until his death, as far as I know. But those few words were enough to let his family know he was heaven bound; enough to bring much comfort to their grieving hearts.

It wasn't long after that I went to work one afternoon and walked into the intensive care unit where a female patient was being prepared for transport to the medical center. Often I would ride in the ambulance to take care of nursing needs. That afternoon I looked over at the female patient being prepared and when I did, I saw a black shadow sitting on the foot of her bed. The hair on the back of my neck stood out as I realized I was seeing the Angel of death.

When the supervisor asked me if I wanted to ride in the ambulance I replied, "No - she's going to die enroute."

I don't know why I said that, but once said I couldn't get it back. All I knew was that I didn't want to be in the back of that ambulance when it happened. Neither did the supervisor, for she refused to go. Finally the Director of Nursing volunteered and enroute to the Medical Center the woman died.

If I sound as if I wasn't very brave; the truth is that I wasn't very brave. I had no desire to crawl in the back of an ambulance with the Angel of death. Looking back on those days, without realizing the panic disorder which would strike me in a few months, I suppose that my reluctance to ride in the back of the ambulance was the first clear signal that something was amiss in me. I began to feel 'Closed in, unable to get out.' Only weeks earlier I had accompanied an elderly man who had shot himself in the head. Although the wound would prove fatal, he was still alive when he reached the Medical Center. I worked continuously with him suctioning blood, trying to maintain an airway and praying under my breath, "Oh Jesus. . . Help him. . . Lord Jesus - help."

The man had been a regular in the E. R., coming in every few days for injections to calm his nerves and nausea. A veteran of World War II, he had never recovered from his war experiences. He had been in the E. R. the day he shot himself and I had given him his regularly prescribed injection. I didn't have much time or patience with him for something about him irritated me when I would see him come into the E. R.. As I sat beside him in the ambulance suctioning his blood, I felt guilty. Perhaps I could have said or done something which would have prevented the tragedy. I should have been more concerned, cared more about his struggle. Now, it was too late and all I could do for him was to cry out "Help him, Jesus." Why did I wait so late to cry out for him.

I was discovering a I wasn't nearly the Saint I believe myself to be at times. Why didn't I pray for the elderly veteran earlier. I had ample opportunity to do so over the months. I felt really bad, and very shaken. That trip seemed endless to me and the back of the ambulance seemed smaller than usual. The old veteran died shortly after arriving at the Medical Center.

However, the other event that occurred that year in August that I wanted to record is the following:

A friend of mine had a seventeen year-old daughter who was found brutally murdered. The beautiful young lady had been out jogging and had disappeared. After a search her mutilated body was discovered. She had been molested, then stabbed to death by her attacker (s). The murder took place not far from her home in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Grief and shock were widespread. Within a short time a suspect was taken into custody and the investigators were satisfied that they had the right man. I had no reason to doubt the situation until a short while later.

On Sunday afternoon, the weekend following the murder and the arrest of the suspect, I was on duty in the E. R.. I had only been at work a short while when a car drove up to the ambulance ramp, and two very drunk man staggered into the emergency room. The one most sober was holding the other man up and he said, "He fell out of the car and ran over himself."

It was learned that the two had been at a nearby lake and the injured man was the driver. As he went around a bend in the road when his car door swung open and he fell out and somehow was run over. One of his ears was barely hanging to the side of his head . When we got him to the stretcher he fell into a stupor. We began examination on him and it was then I noticed that he had recently died his hair jet black. I could tell it was recent because the stains from the dye were fresh on his skin around his hair line and on his forehead. Both he and his cohort were rough looking characters. His address was Tupelo, Clayton Street to be exact which was only a short distance from the murder site of my friend's daughter. However, I made no connection until the Lord spoke out of the blue and said to me:

"This is the man who killed the (and the Lord called her name) girl."

At hearing those words, I just stared at the drunken man on the stretcher. I did not know what I should do, so I did nothing. The E. R. Dr. wasted no time in referring the man to the Medical Center so our overall contact with him was brief.

After he was gone, I could not get those words out of my mind. I finished my shift and drove home, still wondering what it all meant. When I rose early the next morning I looked out and saw my mother hoeing in her garden. I went outside and walked to the garden. I said to my mother, "Mama, the strangest thing happened to me at work yesterday. A man fell out of his car and ran over himself. . . "

I would have continued with the story, but my mother stopped her work, looked at me very strangely, then said, "Why that's the man who killed the (and she called the name) girl. "

I exclaimed, "Mama! What made you say that!" We were both shocked. She shook her head, "I don't know what made me say it. . . Somehow I just knew it. "

I said, "Those were almost the exact words that the Lord used when he told me the same thing yesterday in the E. R."

She asked, "What are you going to do?"

"I don't know. What should I do?"

Neither of us had an answer. We did not know what to make of the experience or what to do about it. She was a second witness, and the word of God says "The witness of to is true." Yet, how could I go to the authorities and tell them that they had the wrong man. I was very troubled.

That afternoon my mother and I met outside where she told me that she had discussed the story with my brother who at that time worked with the slain girl's brother. He told her to tell me to "Stay out of it"; that they had arrested the right man; that all the evidence pointed to him. Besides, no one would believe me and would most likely think I was nuts. She advised me to leave it alone and to pray about it. After all, the Lord hadn't told me to do anything.

However, my mother and I were both very troubled when the young man arrested was tried, convicted and received the death penalty. Even though by that time the 'Panic disorder' had completely disabled and isolated me, I still was very troubled by the death penalty. Later, I told the entire story to the psychologist who was assigned my case. He could give me no advice as to what I should do.

I earnestly prayed, "Lord, don't let him die in the gas chamber if he didn't kill her." I knew he knew the truth. Within months the appeals court ordered a new trial and I thought I was off the hook. At the new trial the death penalty was set aside, but the man received life without parole. He is still in prison as I write this account.

I, too, am still in prison, though mine has invisible bars. I wait for the Lord to shut the second door of fire, and then open the third door of harvest. I pray at that time I will receive a clear understanding of what I should do in this matter.

And that's the point. I don't know that the man is innocent. If I really heard from the Lord, how could I leave an innocent man to "rot" in prison. The Lord has never told me that the convicted man had no part in the slaying; rather he told me who did the killing. The Lord gave no other details. I don't know who or how many were also involved in the crime, but if God allows, someday I will know. Then I will know what to do.

I have slowly learned that when the Lord tells me something, not to presume beyond what he says. It has been a most difficult lesson for me. Almost daily I still am guilty of making presumptions.

At first revelation, I rarely know or understand the meaning behind anything the Lord either tells or shows me. Most of the time the meaning actually becomes clear when I find myself in some horrible fix, or some deep pit. Then in wonderment I exclaim, "Oh Lord God. . . So this is what you meant. "

That second door of fire is a good example of my spiritual denseness. At the time of the vision and a longtime following, I believed the Lord was showing me the flames of hell. I had no idea that it was a door leading to fiery trials. My entire life lay in shambles before the revelation came that just as the first and third door revealed personal events to come in my life - the second door was also meant personally for me.

Perhaps if I had been more adaptable to adversity; if I had learned "To be content in whatever my state" I might have faired better and my fiery trial might have been shorter. However I'm much like the Israelites of old; stiffnecked, stubborn and at times outright stupid. I've tried to manipulate, bribe, beg the Lord of glory to get me out of the fires. I've vowed and promised, cried and screamed - nothing has helped. Perhaps when I learned to relax and rely solely on the Lord in the midst of my trials; perhaps then, he will bring me out.

I've gone through cycles of rich praying and Bible reading--up to a year at a time. I've dropped off to very little praying or reading. I've gone from a confident shining light to an uncertain darkened shadow of my former self. Once I lost the sense of the Lord's presence, I floundered in a sea of doubt and unbelief. There seemed to be nothing I could do, pray or not pray; read the word or not read the word, that made any difference to my situation.

His presence was lost to me, and I was lost in a door of flames. Christ Jesus had done so much for me and shared so much with me, losing the sense of his presence was the hardest part for me.

I didn't understand any of it.