Pentecost--it really did happen!

When a person overnight goes from no interest in reading the Bible to a devouring, all-consuming, can't-get-enough greediness, there must be some explanation.  In my own case, I entered the hospital for a surgery the next morning in June of 1977.  My roommate was a 20-year-old former drug addict who had just had a baby and whose bleeding was uncontrolled.  Hooked up to a lot of machines, she sat with a bible on her lap telling me how good God was.  I compared my own worry and concern over much smaller issues to hers and thought, "There's something wrong with this picture." 

That night, she told me her story, ending with how she and her druggie husband had both been "baptized with the Holy Spirit," and how it had changed both of them almost overnight. Hmm.  The next morning, we both awoke early, and she offered to read some Psalms to me.  As she read, I heard myself saying, "Dinette, I want to be baptized with the Holy Spirit too."  I didn't know where that came from, because I had not thought about it before I heard myself saying it, but when I heard it, my heart jumped---I did want what she had, despite all my previous years of church-going. 

I got out of bed and knelt by her bed.  She put her hand on my head and began to pray---what, I don't know; it wasn't important.  What I experienced was something like liquid love pouring from the top of my head throughout my whole body, and a total peace "that passes all understanding," relaxing every cell of my mind and body. 

Shortly afterwards, the anesthesiologists arrived, announcing the first of many miracles---they would try an epidural for the first time with major surgery, since I historically had reacted to general anesthesia.  I was awake for the whole surgery, able to consult with my doctor about what he was finding, and gently praying the whole time --- for someone I had heard about but who I didn't know.  This was a new experience for me, who had lived in fear and worry up to this time. 

After surgery, I didn't need or want pain medication.  Since I had not had a general anesthesia, I was up and walking around within a day or so, and meeting other patients, telling them about the love of God, as my young roommate had done with me.  "Who is this person?" I wondered, not recognizing my intensely private and fearful self any more.  I reached over to the bedside stand and pulled out the Gideon bible.  Opening to the Acts of the Apostles for some unknown reason, I began reading about Pentecost.  "Eureka! This explains what happened!  I had asked for and received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit!"    Wow!   I could not stop reading the Book of Acts.  This was no longer "The Bible;"  Now it was my story--I wanted to find out what happened next.

Within the next few days in the hospital and then recovering at home, I finished the Acts of the Apostles, went on to read all the letters of Paul and of the Apostles, read Revelation, and than went back to Genesis, and continued reading the bible until I reached the Acts of the Apostles---some think it should have been called The Acts of the Holy Spirit.

I couldn't stop reading; the Book was coming to life for me for the first time in my life.  I was understanding what I read, and I wanted to know more.  "Send someone to teach me," I prayed.  I wanted to learn all I could.  I wanted to go to ministry school.  "I have you in the school of the Holy Spirit," God said to me. 

This, too, was a new thing---God talking to me.  At first, I thought it was my imagination, that I was making it all up.  But He spoke again:  "Did you used to imagine these things?"  I had to admit that my imagination was formerly occupied with fearful possibilities and dangers---things that might happen that weren't so good.  Now, the fear was gone and replaced by peace and joy. 

God did send someone to teach me and a community where I could test and try out all the things I was learning.  Before I knew it, I was involved in and even leading a Charismatic Prayer Group that was meeting weekly at church.  But that's another story.  There was only one explanation for the sudden and completely radical change in my life:  that the "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" was a real event and that it still happens today.