He Flipped a Switch

written by Deborah Oakley

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June 2004.  I had just started a new job, heading up a Process Improvement Program for the Engineering Department of a small firm.  The first week I was at the job, everything was … different.  The job was just another job.  The difference was with me, internally.  I really have no idea how to describe what happened to me.  It’s like, all those years before, I’d just known ABOUT God, and suddenly I was starting to physically feel Him.  And hear Him.  Like He flipped a switch, and suddenly I was aware of a dimension I’d believed in all my life, but never actually experienced.  Today experiencing Him doesn’t seem at all odd or unusual to me, but back then …

Remember I told you I grew up in an ultra-conservative Christian environment?  Those churches didn’t deny the Holy Spirit existed.  They just didn’t know what to do with Him, so they largely avoided talking about Him, except to invoke His name in the Father/Son/Spirit thing at the ends of really important prayers.  When God stepped out of the abstract and began making Himself known to me right here in the physical world, it took me completely by surprise.  I’d never heard of such a thing.  I know I didn’t imagine it, because the thought of it would have never occurred to me.  I simply wasn’t capable of imagining it.  It was amazing.  And pretty darned exciting.

I also started feeling/sensing/discerning (not sure of the correct word) the impending arrival of … something.  I had no idea what that “something” was, but I knew it was imminent.  I’d never “heard a word from God” before.  At least, not that I’d recognized as coming from Him.  And there He was!  Talking! To ME!  Exhilarating!

I described what I was experiencing to other Christians, trying to figure out what was happening.  Was it the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?  Fundamentals said no, that isn’t a thing.  Charismatics said no, you’re not speaking in tongues.  None of them had an alternative explanation.  I finally said phooey on the definitions and stopped trying to label it.  Whatever it was, it happened.  It changed me forever.  God ceased to be a distant deity, hovering about somewhere in The Great Unknown.  I began to perceive Him as Here and Now.  Real.  That really does a number on your worldview.  Actually, it does a number on your everything.  Why you do what you do.  What’s important and what’s not.  How you make your decisions.  Everything.

(I was still married at the time, and my husband claimed to be a Christian.  I once told him about something God said to me.  His eyebrows hit the ceiling and he exclaimed, “God talks to you?!?  In English?”  The question stumped me.  “Of course, in English.  It’s the only language I speak.”  How do you respond to a question like that?)

The months passed and my honeymoon with my Real God kept me on a high, even as the pressure and stress of life once again crushed me.  Job pressures kept increasing, and my marriage kept deteriorating.  I kept trying, nothing seemed to work, and I had no idea why or what to do.  But this time I had God whispering in my ear, “I’m here.  I have a plan.  Something big is coming.”  So, a steadily-growing excitement and sense of anticipation undergirded the stress and difficulties I was experiencing.

Early 2005, I became interested in Israel and Hebrew.  Not a gradual interest, either.  I was reading my Bible one morning, and suddenly I wanted to go to Israel and I wanted to learn Hebrew.  Just like that.  It came out of nowhere.  I’d never even considered either of those things before.  I remember asking God, “Is that me, or is that You?  If it’s You, make it stick.  If it’s me, take away. “  Then I let go of it to see what He’d do.  It’s never gone away; instead, the longing and interest have steadily grown as the years progressed.

I now had three parts to the dream He was building in me:

1. My job and my efforts had to be directly involved in helping other people, making their lives better.
2. An inner connection to Israel was beginning to form in me. With it came the desire to better understand the Jewish roots of my Christian faith.
3. He was taking me into something new. I couldn’t map out the path to it because I didn’t know where we were going.  I just had to follow.

By the time February 2005 came around, I felt God asking me, “Where you are isn’t where I planned for you.  I have something I want you to do, but you have to go through fire first.  It’s gonna hurt.  Are you willing?”  Of course, I didn’t like the idea of more pain, but I figured He’s God so, if He says it was necessary, then it must be necessary.  I told Him, “Yes.”  I didn’t know what I was agreeing to.  All I knew was that He asked.  It was enough for me.  (It still is, although I do wish He’d be more forthcoming with details on occasion.  Just for a change of pace.)

6 March 2005 (it was a Sunday evening) I got rebaptized.  I’d been baptized years ago as a child, but never since I’d rededicated my life to Him.  This felt like more than just a baptism.  He’d asked me if I’d follow.  I’d said yes.  This baptism felt like I was … signing the contract.  The moment I came up out of the water, the anticipation that had been with me for months increased in intensity in a big way.  The next couple of days it continued to intensify.  9 March, a Wednesday morning, it was so strong I felt as if I was going to jump out of my skin.  Not long after I got to work that morning, my boss came to my office.  Out of the blue, he told me, “This just isn’t working out.  We’re going to have to let you go.”  If not for the warning God had given me, I’d have been totally blindsided by it.  I’d just gotten a performance review and a raise in December.  Nothing had happened since then.  But there it was.  He let me go.  I didn’t fight it because I was certain (still am) God had engineered it.

I went home and told my husband.  His reaction was … less than supportive.  Well, that’s whitewashing it.  He went mean on me.  He never physically touched me, but for the next 3 months he put me through hell verbally and emotionally.  (I later learned he’d decided he wanted a divorce and was trying to get me to leave so he wouldn’t have to be the one to do it.)  No point in going through the particulars about that situation.  I do want to say this:  God didn’t take my husband away from me.  God set a time of choosing in front of us, and my husband decided he wanted to go his own way.

So, the big thing I’d been anticipating had arrived.  In 3 short months, I lost my career (no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find another job), my husband, our mutual “friends,” my house … everything.  I even had to let my husband take my dog with him.  With no job and no prospects, I couldn’t take care of her.  God had said it would hurt.  He didn’t lie.

I tend (these days) to think in Bible stories.  I think of that time as my “getting out of Egypt” period.  I know God said it was necessary.  I believe Him.  I don’t regret signing the contract.  I’m also VERY glad I don’t have to relive 2005 ever again.

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