As I entered into the 7th grade I was eligible to
attend Church Camp the following summer and I wanted to go in the worst way.
When I went home and told my mother that all I needed was $35 (I think that was
the number) in order to register, I was met with a look of frustration and the
response of, “Young lady, I don’t have that kind of money so you can just
forget about going!”
Mom was single and raising three kids as best she could so
she wasn’t being selfish. There really was not extra money to be spent on
things like church camp. We had food to eat, a place to live and clothes for
school and that was about it.
“What if I work hard and earn the money, myself? Could I go
then?” I asked.
“Honey that is an awful lot of money for you to try to earn,
but I guess if you were to earn it I would let you go. Sweetheart, don’t get
your hopes built up too high because I don’t think you can make that kind of
money.”
I was determined to prove her wrong and make that money. So,
I got busy and made some flyers with my brother’s crayons and some extra paper
that I had in my room. I proceeded to go to every door in town explaining to
the people who answered the door that I was trying to earn the money to go to
Church camp and that I wondered if they had any odd jobs that I could do. If
they were not at home, I left my little flyer.
People can be pretty amazing. It wasn’t long
until a lot of people sort of rallied around me and found jobs for me to do. I
heard years later that people thought it was pretty cool that a kid my age
wanted something so bad and instead of asking for handouts was willing to work
hard to earn what she needed. I wish that you could have seen my mother’s face
the day I came to her with the registration and the money that I needed to go
to camp.
Finally, the time came for us to go and I was thrilled that
I got to go and spend a week on the lake and learn more about the Bible and God
and have some fun. It was at this time that I began to realize that I felt
closer to God when I was out in nature than at any other time. I loved the
hikes we took in the woods, loved making a campfire and sitting around and
hearing a lesson. The other kids thought I was strange because I wanted to
contribute to the lessons and talk about them later. Golly, they weren’t much
different than the kids in my home town; they thought I was weird, too. My
heart started to get a little heavy during the week because I started to notice
that many of the counselors spoke Godly words but their actions did not match
what they were saying. I was really troubled by it all.
The last night, we were to walk into the woods, make a
campfire, fix our dinner and then spend some time in a workshop. We busied
ourselves with the tasks that we were assigned, ate the food we fixed and then
had a rather unremarkable lesson from our counselor. At the point where he was
ready to close the session he asked us all to bow our heads to say a final
prayer.
As I bowed my head I didn’t listen to what he was praying
because I thought his prayers lacked any real meaning, instead I started my own
little prayer in my head. I began to tell God that I was really sorry because I
had let myself be judgmental this past week and I knew that was not my job but
His. Suddenly, I start hearing the most beautiful voices singing a song that I
had never heard in my life. At first, I thought it might be the high school
kids across the lake. I was just in awe of how almost angelic this song
sounded. I turned to the girl next to me and whispered, “Isn’t that the most
beautiful song you ever heard?” She shushed me and said that we were supposed
to be praying.
After our counselor ended his prayer and we were tending to
the campfire to put it out, I spoke to the girl who had been sitting next to me
about the song that I had heard. She looked at me like I was some sort of idiot
and said, “The kids are right! You are crazy, there was no song!” I proceeded
to ask others and no one had heard that song, not one person would admit to
have heard that beautiful song.
It was time for us to walk back to our cabins and get ready
to go home the next morning. As we were walking in the dark, I heard the song
again. After the cruel remarks from before, I did not
ask anyone if they heard it and somehow I knew that they didn’t anyway. I
turned my head towards the lake where it seemed that the singing was coming
from and there stood a lady with the sweetest smile on her face reaching her
hands out towards me. There was a sudden
strong smell of roses but I knew that I had not seen any in these woods so I
thought that was strange.
There was something about this lady in the woods. She didn’t
look like what I thought an angel would look like. There were no wings but I
knew that it there was something holy about this woman and I also knew that
there was a reason that the other kids and the adult counselors were not seeing
her or hearing the singing. I was receiving some kind of blessing but I just
did not know what it was or why. My young heart felt much lighter for the rest
of the walk back to the cabin.
Upon arriving back home, we were all asked to get up and
tell about our experience during church service. The minister’s wife took us
all aside while we were waiting to go up in front of the congregation and asked
what we planned to talk about. When I started to enthusiastically tell her
about the lady in the woods and the song that I heard, she shushed me right up
and told me that I was not to tell that story! She said that the adults were
all more than a little tired of my attention getting antics and it was going to
stop right now. My heart was broken but worse than that I decided right then at
the ripe age of 12 or 13 that I no longer had any desire to go to church
anymore.
Many years later, a neighbor asked me if I would go to her
son’s baptism the following Sunday. Because I thought so much of her and her
children, I said that I would be happy to. Besides she had talked so much about
the new Catholic Church that she had helped get built that I wanted to see it.
We arrived early and she took me around showing me different things and
introducing me to people. We walked into a lovely vestibule and there standing
in a corner was the lady in the woods! Well, it was a statue of her but it was
exactly like the vision that I had seen all those years ago with the same
expression and the same reaching out with her arms toward me. I must have
gasped out loud because my neighbor turned and asked me what was wrong.
Remembering the chastisement from so many years ago, I just told her that is
was nothing just that I was struck by the sweetness of her expression. My
neighbor proceeded to tell me that she particularly liked that statue of the
Holy Mother Mary, too. She would often stand before her and recite the Rosary.
Not having been brought up in the Catholic Church, I wasn’t completely sure
what she was talking about but I did know who Mary was and had to wonder why
she would have visited me in the woods that night.
We went into to the sanctuary just before the Mass began. As
the service continued, the congregation and choir began singing a song and I
almost fell to my knees. Tears fell down my cheeks as I recognized that it was
the song that I had heard two times that night in the woods. I was to come to
know that the song was “The Great Amen”.
I’m not sure why the Holy Mother would visit a young
protestant girl in a woods or why a choir of angels sang their song for me. I
received a blessing that lifted my heart as a child and once I understood as an
adult who my visitor was my life was changed in a very
significant way. I was no longer ashamed to tell people about blessings or
spiritual experiences and I began the journey to find out what my spiritual
purpose during this lifetime was supposed to be.
Guest post from Beverly Two Feathers
Please visit Bev and her blog about Native American Totems
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