Why I come across abrasive, hellfire and brimstone

Sometimes people find me a little bit abrasive. Or so I’ve been told. J So, if you stick with me for a few minutes, maybe you can understand why I sometimes present the truth the way I do.

When I was a little girl, my mother taught me to say my prayers by using a “God bless” for all those I loved. I suppose she thought I would shut up after “blessing” the five of us in our family at that time. But I did not. Both Mom and Dad had large families. So I “God blessed” every aunt, uncle, cousin, grandmothers, little friends in the neighbor hood, teachers, school friends–everyone I could think of. I felt that if I left just one person out, something bad would happen to them.

After becoming a Christian at the age of 19, I didn’t hear much about hell. “God was love and He loves everybody” was the full brunt of the Gospel back then. As a baby Christian I was trying hard to please God, to make Him love me more by trying my best to not continue in the bad things and trying to do all the “good” things. Nobody told me back then I was trying to “work my way into heaven.” Jesus had already paid the price yet I was trying to add to my salvation.

Finding it hard to fit in church with church people with my occult background, I stopped going to church. I got a job as a live-in house parent in a children’s home and threw myself into my job and “my kids.”

I backslid many times. Sometimes in ways worse than the former. But never went back to the occult during those times. It was drugs and alcohol I fell back into. I knew I was supposed to read the Bible. But no one explained to me about it bringing LIFE. I thought reading it was only about being a “good little Christian” and nothing more. So at that time I never read much of it.

It wasn’t until the mid 80s that I learned the Word WAS LIFE. It was in the 90s that I began to learn that it was truth that set free. Oh how, excited I got! Truth! Truth! Truth! Oh how many lies I had believed over the course of my lifetime. Truth began to set me free a little at a time and still continues to be the only thing to set me free.

It was at a wedding that I first heard the Lord speak to me these words, “Go and tell your Aunt about my Son Jesus. Go now.” I can remember seeing her walk out the reception hall door, smiling lovingly at me as I stood there in fear and timidity. I questioned God, “Surely that is not You telling me this, Lord, is it? I mean this is a wedding after all. How do I even go about doing it?” I didn’t go.

It was less than two weeks she was dead. I laid in bed many nights having horrible awful thoughts of hell. It was too late for my aunt. At least from my end. All I could do was cry out that God would have mercy on my soul and forgive me for not being obedient.

One would think I would have learned my lesson. But, it happened again. This time it was MY wedding I was preparing for. Going out getting my gown, making plans–all that stuff a new bride does. One day the Lord spoke to me and said, “Go to your Aunt and tell her about My Son.” Without missing a beat, I said, “But Lord this is my wedding I‘m planning for. Can‘t it wait?” I did not go. Within two weeks, she was gone. Once again, the horrible images of hell upon my soul.

I will tell you what I saw. Let me clarify; it was not visions, it was nothing like that. It was like a movie in my head that would not stop. I saw strong men in hell. I saw those who are something special on this earth in the world’s eyes. I saw the old and the young. I saw “good” people. All of them being tormented in ways I can’t imagine. It is like I heard their cries but did not know what was being done to them. Over active imagination? Maybe. Still, hell is an eternity greater than I could imagine.

Once again I asked God to forgive me and to take away the images at night. I knew perfect love casts out all fear. But the guilt, the shame of my silence and disobedience could not take away these thoughts. Finally I was able to release these things to God. He graciously restored my mind.

I told Him something along these lines, “Lord two times I denied You. Two times I was a coward. I never ever want to do that again. I am sorry, Lord. It is my fault if my aunts are in hell this very minute. Please forgive me. Please.”

Since then, I have had more times where He has called me to go. Usually it is when people are sick and/or on their death bed.

I had another aunt (I told you my family was large) who had a stroke. I went to the hospital to see her. The nurse said she was in a semi-conscious state and she was dying. The hearing is the last sense to go so I bent down, took my aunt’s hand and began to quietly sing Amazing Grace to her. I began to tell her about Jesus, telling her that in spite of what was going on in her body, He loved her. He was there for her. I told her we were sinners in need of a Savior. That we had to be born-again. I asked if she could understand me. A slight squeeze of her hand assured me. I told her she could know Jesus right then and there. So I prayed for her. I was not her mediator, just her friend. For I knew her Mediator was in heaven looking down upon us both hearing our petitions. One from the mouth and both from the heart. I began to see what looked like tears falling from the corners of her closed eyes. The nurse came in and I asked, “Are you able to tell me what that is?” She seemed a little baffled and said, “It looks like tears.” I knew God had heard and had had mercy. He was able to go where I could not! To her very soul! Glory to God in the Highest! My precious aunt died not too many days later.

My heavenly Father used me near the last few weeks of my earthly dad’s life. He and I had many conversations about eternity before he died. My dad knew Jesus and went to glory with his last breath. Dad died on the 19th of December in 1997. Eleven days before Christmas he told me, “Sis, I’m going to be going to my new home soon.” I had to turn away from him so he would not see me cry. “I know Dad. I know. But one day we will meet again.”

A few years ago I had a cousin on a respirator who lay dying with terminal cancer. She was only in her early 40’s. I loved this cousin so much. So many fond memories of playing together when we were young. I went to her as she lay with a ventilator down her throat.

She was a Morman. Years earlier, I had written her a long letter trying to explain to her what the real truth was. But I wasn’t even sure what the truth was at that time, let alone to be able to defend it. So on one of the nights I visited her I took her hand and began speaking what I was hoping were words of eternal life. She could not speak with that ventilator down her throat. But there were tears coming out of the corner of her eyes just like my aunt before her. I can only hope that she choose the truth.

Just a few years ago, another cousin was in the shape she was in. Terminal cancer, on a ventilator. My first visit with him, I told him how I appreciated him protecting me from bullies when we were younger. He always took up for me. He was just like that. Always caring for the weak and the underdog. Even though he was on a ventilator, he was able to communicate with a board. So he and I were able to say “we love you.” That means a lot during a time like that. I read to him from the Psalms and talked to him about Jesus. How religion did not get one to heaven. How being good did not get one to heaven. I explained how it was only what Jesus did on the cross for us. I asked if he understood and he shook his head yes.

His two brothers had to make the decision to take him off that ventilator. They called me the morning they were going to do it. Unlike the cousin before, he was fully conscious except for pain medication. His brothers told him they were going to have to take him off the breathing machine. He shook his head no.

The room had a number of people in it and I had the fear of man on me. But the fear of the Lord was greater. I said, “Let me talk to him, please?” His brothers moved and allowed me to come near. I bent down, rubbed his head with one hand and took his hand in the other. I can’t remember the exact words I used. I had prayed that God give me his words as time was short for my cousin. I told him something along these lines: “Jimmy, man can not help you anymore. You know that, don’t you?” He shook his head yes. I told him, “They are going to come in here in a little bit and turn that machine off. I want you to only look for Jesus when you close your eyes, ok? Look for Him. He said He would never leave you nor forsake you. You look for him, ok?” He shook his head yes.

The nurse came in right after that and turned that machine off. Jimmy was holding one of his brother’s hands and with the other holding mine. It did not take long. Just a very short while. Once he closed his eyes, he kept them closed. At least from my angle they looked closed. He made a slight gasp and then he was gone.

I had never held someone’s hand and then have them die like that.

It is not easy to be used this way. It is very hard. For there is much sorrow in knowing you are but a vessel to prepare someone to leave this earth, never to see them again in this lifetime.

It is not easy to tell people they are going to hell if they have not accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior. It is not something I relish or enjoy doing. But the simple truth is, hell is real. I will not presenting the Gospel the way it is being done today. You know, where we are taught Smile–God loves you, He has big plans for you, He wishes you health and wealth, everything good comes from God and everything bad comes from the devil, God does not want you to suffer, just name it and claim it, create your own reality with your thoughts, etc. No, I will not do it. If that gospel does not work in other countries where many are suffering this very minute for the real gospel, then it is not the truth by a long shot.

Am I abrasive? Maybe. The love of God compels me to speak what I know to be the truth. If I see one with a gospel that is sorely lacking in the full truth, I will defend the real truth. Not ignore or/and prop up lies. That may make me a little abrasive.

Teaching/preaching hell is something God puts in me. I suspect there will be those who will find it hard and not pleasant to the ears and they will move on at one time or another. And that is ok. Really it is. There are plenty of places out here in cyberspace where people can get their ears tickled. But if you happen to need or want someone on your death bed, or have a loved one that needs to hear the truth and you just can not do it for whatever reason (I do understand) rest assure some of us are being trained to tell the truth at a moment’s notice.