A Visitation with Angels

We’ve come a long way!

Back in the 60’s, you had to go to the local drug store to have your pictures developed, and wait about a week or more before they were ready for pick up.  On the pictures they would stamp the date on the side.  This picture I have of myself is dated Jan. 1963, which means I was about 3 or 4 years old depending on when they got it developed.  In the picture we were visiting my grandmother on my dad’s side of the family.  She had a little white framed house with a stable, a chicken coup, a couple of horses, some cows and a lot of chickens.  Her house set back from the main road with a long dirt driveway with trees and shrubs all along the way.

Pictures were something we did not do very often.  For some reason, I knew I really wanted to remember my grandmother’s house with me there that day, and I had to really press my mother to take this one.  I’m glad I did.  I chose the swing at the side of the house, even though it was all grown over and difficult for a little girl like myself to walk through.  It’s funny how little girls are inspired with things they love like a swing.   As for the house itself, I don’t remember hardly anything about it, accept I thought it was kind of spooky.

Names are a big deal:

My dad’s mother’s name was Creda Loreen.  They Called her Jackie, to this day no one knows why not even my dad knew.  She had 2 sisters.  One was Connie Lee, her older sister, and one was Annie Mae, her middle sister, and Jackie was the youngest.

Annie Mae got the Polio virus when she was young.  Polio was a horrific disease at the time, because there was no cure or vaccine.  It mainly affected the nerves in the spinal cord or the brain stem, and it left Annie Mae without the ability to walk or take care of herself.  Annie Mae lived with my dad and grandmother until she passed.  I never met her.

My dad was named after his dad, so he was a Jr., and when he was growing up everyone called him Junior.  That is, everyone but Annie Mae.  She could not say Junior because of her disability, so she called him Judy.  Yes . . . that is where my name came from.  I’m named after my dad and Great Aunt Annie Mae.  My name is Judy Ann.

I am very thankful for my name.  I sometimes feel like I’m living my life for Annie Mae, the life she never had.  I look forward to meeting her someday in heaven.  I plan on giving her a big hug.

This is a picture of my Great Aunt Connie Lee in front and my grandmother Creda Loreen on the back of the horse.  I love the bows in their hair and the frilly dresses.  I’m guessing there must have been something enduring about the horse.  Considering my dad was born in 1929, and the girls look to be about 4 years old, I’m guessing this picture was taken around the turn of the century, that would be between 1895 and 1905!  Wow!

Family

My parents were both from Oklahoma.  Oklahoma was known for having little towns that were nothing more than a store in a crossroads.  Both of my parents were from this kind of place.  My dad’s town was called Messer.  It had a school house and a small building where men would play dominos out in front of the school house, and that’s it.  I wasn’t kidding.  Although my dad’s mother was the school teacher there in Messer, she only taught to 7th grade.  So my dad went to high school in Hugo.

My mother’s home town was a little bigger.  Her parents (Arlis and Willie May) had the store/diner, and her Aunt Jewel had the post office.  There was a school building and a church that my grandmother taught Bible lessons in.  My Great Grandfather, Joe Wall, built the church and was the original Pastor.  My grandmother said they were Independent Baptists.  She said they believed in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit which set them apart from the Southern Baptists.  The two sisters, my grandmother Willie May and her sister Jewel, had about a dozen or more rent houses between the two of them, and that was Spencerville.  My grandfather Arlis was a Deputy Sherrif in Hugo.  Here is a picture of them.

These little towns had some unusual names.  My mother went to school in Rattan.  Where did that name come from?  And please don’t tell me it was someone’s last name!  I remember one town we drove by on the way to Spencerville was called Apple.  They really put a lot of thought into that one!

When my parents finally met and married, they moved to California to be close to my dad’s little boy from his first marriage.  He had been stationed there in California while he was in the Army, and his ex-wife loved it there so much that she stayed.  My mother had been married before too, and had two little girls from her marriage.  An instant family of 6.  In the picture below are my dad, brother, 2 sisters and myself.  I’m guessing like most families my mother took the picture.  Funny how there never seem to be very many pictures of our mom’s.

While my dad was in the Army, he was a helicopter mechanic and professional boxer.  I always get this funny look on my face when I say that, because my dad was a quiet and sweet man.  He had the gift of helps and was always helping elderly people we knew with little things they could not do in their homes.  Like changing light bulbs, and fixing things they could not do or afford to get done.

Here’s something fun about my dad.  He drove a delivery truck for Fallstaff and Coors while we lived in California.  One time while he was delivering beer to the LA Rams Pro Football team, he just happened to be there when they were taking the team pictures.  So they had him get in the picture with the team!   Let’s get the beer guy in the picture with us!  Ha!  I think that’s hilarious!  It sounds like a Bubba thing to me.

(I hope to soon have the picture for you!)

. . .  and then I came along.  I was the little one that no one seemed to notice or take an interest in.   I felt left out of almost everything, but don’t feel sorry for me, God had a plan!

A Visitation from Angels!

At the age of about 5 or 6, we moved to Texas to be close to my dad’s mother who had taken ill.  She soon passed away and I was devastated.  I did not understand what had happened.  I cried after the funeral every time I thought about it.  On the third night when we had all gone to bed I was awakened by a presence in my room.   (I had my own room.)  I sat up in the bed and didn’t know what it was.  I just had a funny feeling like someone was there, but I was not scared.  Then two angels appeared.  Since I was so young, I don’t really remember what they looked like.  They told me that my grandmother didn’t want me to cry anymore.  She was with Jesus and she was happy and she wanted me to be happy too.  I just sat there and looked at them, and then they were gone just as quickly as they had appeared.

I sat there for a few minutes thinking about what had happened.  I wasn’t sure if I should tell my parents or not.  It took me a while to get the nerve up to go tell them, because I was supposed to be asleep.  My mother was shocked when I woke her up and told here.   Then she had my dad go put me to bed.  I remember after he had tucked me in I could hear him walking all around the house with his flashlight and checked all the doors and windows before he went back to bed.

Putting My Life in Jesus Hands!

The next day, I thought about what had happened all day.   Then that night, after I went to bed and felt like everyone was in bed asleep; I had a conversation with Jesus.  I told Him there were some things that I was wanting to do with my life, but I knew that He would know what was best for my life.  So, I asked Him to take over my life, and give me the life He thought would be best for me.  I put my life in the best hands I possibly could, the nail scared hands of Jesus.

From that time on I had little love times with Jesus at night before I went to sleep.  I would hang my head over the side of the bed with the hopes that no one could hear me, and I would sing little love songs to Jesus, just little songs from my heart to His.

Many times, I would feel His love and get wonderful happy feelings from it.  Sometimes goosebumps.  It was very special.  I am so thankful for such a wonderful Savior.  He truly loves us, and watches over us.

“I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. ”  Galatians 2:20

I love this scripture in the Passion Translation.

“My old identity has been co-crucified with Messiah and no longer lives; for the nails of His cross crucified me with Him.  And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives His life through me – we live in union as one!  My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God who loved me so much that He gave Himself for me, and dispenses His life into mine!  So that is why I don’t veiw God’s grace as something minor or peripheral.  For if keeping the law could release God’s righeousness to us, the Anointed One would have died for nothing.”  Galations 2:20-21  The Passion Translation

I have known the Lord almost my entire life.  It dosn’t mean that I have lived an almost perfect life.  No, it means His grace for me has been amazing!  It means that He lived a sinless life, and gave me many opportunites to follow Him.  I am like anyone else.  I had to find my way.  He watched over me to do good, but I had to make the discisions.  He will never push Himself on anyone, because He wants you to want Him.   He wants you to know Him, and His love for you.

It’s not something anyone has done.  It’s all Him!  Jesus gave His life in our place, accepted us just as we are, and extended His grace to us.  He knows we cannot do this on our own that is why He came and did what He did.  There is only one hope in this life, Jesus.  He is the only way to the Father, the only way to have our sins forgiven, and the only way to have a relationship with God the Father.

I am empowered by what He has done!  I want to serve Him!  Is there anything less I can give?  I give Him my heart, my life and all that I am.  Everything I have is a gift from Him.  I am simply stewarding it.  Pursue God!  Pursue Jesus!  And pursue the Holy Spirit!  They are all worth the effort!  Eternity is worth the effort.  Don’t settle for anything less than what He has for you.

You can know HIM too!  Simply ask Him to reveal Himself to you.  He’s waiting on you.  There is only one son of God, Jesus.  Only Jesus has lived a sinless life on the earth.  Only Jesus took your place for the punishment of your sins, and made available for you to be set free from them.  It had to be someone with Holy blood running through his veins.  It had to be someone who could live a life without sin to disannul the power of sin.  Jesus gave His life for everyone who would recieve His sacrifice.  You too can be set free from the bodages of sin and experience His love and presence.  It’s never too late.

Here is a helpful prayer, bow your head in reverence and say:

Jesus, I want to know You.  Forgive me of my sins.  Wash me and make me clean.  Baptise me in Your love.  Take over my life and lead me in Your ways.  Reveal who You and the Father God are to me.  Reveal Your words to me.  Help me live my life in You.  Jesus, You are my Lord!  By faith I am now grafted into the Kingdom of God through the forgivness of my sins in You, and I am now a child of God.  Thank you!  Amen!

“But what does it say?  ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in yur heart’ (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.  For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.  For the Scripture says, ‘Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.’ ” Romans 10:8-11

Here’s the Passion Translation!

“But the faith -righteousness we receive speaks to us in these words of Moses: ‘God’s living message is very close to you, as close as your own heart beating in your chest and as near as the tongue in your mouth.’  And what is God’s ‘living message’?  It is the revelation of faith for salvation, which is the message that we preach.   For if you publicly declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him (Jesus) from the dead, you will experience salvation.  The heart that believes in Him receives the gift of righteousness of God – and then the mouth gives thanks’ to salvation.  For the Scriptures encourage us with these words: ‘Everyone who believes in Him (Jesus) will never be disappointed.‘  ”  Romans 10:8-11 The Passion Translation

I am not disappointed that I know Him!  He makes this life worth living!  He gives purpose, guidance, friendship, peace of mind and even much much more, His presence!