In our women's meeting at church, the lesson was from our Relief Society president on listening to the Spirit and following through on promptings we receive. The moral I got, after listening to some amazing experiences that happened to people I knew, was that it doesn't matter if you think it's from God or just a random thought--if it's not hurting anybody and it feels right, you should follow through, and quickly!
The friend sitting next to me in the meeting is a newlywed. She and her husband moved to Ridgecrest in October. She shared about something that happened to her husband a few weeks ago. He was working out at the gym on base lifting weights, and he had the thought to go get on one of the bikes. He hates cardio, but he followed through. Just as he got to the bike, a janitor lady that he was friends with walked over to the water fountain near him and collapsed to the floor from a heart attack. An ambulance was called and she got to the hospital and stayed alive for 15 hours, enough time for her family to come say goodbye before she died. The crazy thing is that the bike and water fountain were in this out-of-the-way spot where no one goes. There's no telling how long the woman would have laid there before someone found her.
Then an older friend talked about driving on the highway and having the thought to get over in the other lane. She ignored it a couple times and finally moved over. Just as she did that, a deer ran onto the highway, jumped over her car, and kept on going. If she'd been in the other lane, there would have been a bad accident.
Then our teacher said she felt inspired to talk about this topic of listening and following through after an experience her family had gone through just this week. She and her husband own a trucking business, and one of their drivers called from a little town in Texas saying that he felt really sick and needed help getting the truck back. Our teacher was listening to this conversation and felt right away that she needed to call some members of the Church to check on him. She didn't know how to do that, but felt inspired to get on the Church website and quickly located Church members, strangers to her, and asked them to go check on this friend at his motel. She was worried they'd think she was crazy, but asked them anyway. A branch president and missionaries went to check on their truck driver, who was experiencing kidney and liver failure by then and was obviously suffering from something worse than a flu. He received a priesthood blessing and was life-flighted to a big hospital in Texas because he was having a heart attack and other complications. Their truck driver friend is not a member of the Church, but he is grateful for the blessings he received, calling them "when the men prayed over me," and he is making a remarkable recovery.
As you can imagine, we were all very touched by that lesson and the stories that were shared. I'm sure there were lots of other stories that could have been shared, too. I'm thankful that I was there to hear the lesson, especially since I was itching to get home at the time and watch the Super Bowl. :) I would have really missed out if I'd skipped. :)
