It was so loud. I believe it was audible. The words were clear and distinct. I had not known that the Lord could speak to me. In all my early years of Sunday school, I had never once been taught that God speaks. It was astonishing, frightening and inescapable. His words brought me face to face with the most monumental choice of my entire life to that point. I made my choice. I chose Him. In response, God saved my life and my marriage. It was a miracle.

In 1994, I was asked to give my testimony at a women’s retreat. I had never been to a women’s retreat, and I had never given a testimony. I had experienced God’s voice once and watched him do miracles in my family, but in my mind, I was a Baptist girl. I did not have a Pentecostal or Charismatic understanding of scripture, but I knew God and wanted to speak up about what he had done for me.

 At this retreat, I received prayer for baptism with the Spirit, as they called it. A young woman put her hands on me and said some words I can’t remember. I felt hot and faint, my knees began to buckle, and suddenly, I was sitting in a chair. I could not hear or concentrate on what was being said to me. Something had happened. I wasn’t sure what. The following day, I began to speak in tongues.

During the communion time that very next morning, quite unexpectedly, I heard the voice from years before. Jesus was calling me to a life of service in vocational ministry. Stunned and shocked and weeping, I said Yes. Suddenly, I began to hear the voice in torrents of instruction. For several hours, He spoke to me. I was told in detail what to do for the next five years and that I was entering a time of preparation. I had known nothing of the Holy Spirit. I had never read my Bible all the way through. Now, all has changed. I am changed. I am a different woman. I have never turned back. That was March 22, 1994.