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| Louise Berggren |
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I’m just an ordinary person. No, I have no special talent or gift that God has not given to many others along life’s way. When I was growing up I wanted to be an artist. My mother said to me, “Louise, you will not be able to make a living being an artist.” So I became a school teacher.
About the only difference I see in myself and a lot of other ordinary people is I truly believe in someone I can’t see and never have seen. You see, I believe that there is a great and powerful being who hears when I call to Him. He has been near to me and to others I known along life’s way. He doesn’t talk to me like you do. No, He just seems to use my heart and mind to let me know what He is saying. And sometimes He speaks to my heart and mind in the Bible Scriptures.
One time a good friend (I thought!) told someone special to me an untrue story about me. It hurt my feelings terribly. Soon after, when I was by myself I heard my Lord say, “Louise, I know just how you feel.”
My mind went quickly back to my childhood to a picture on my Sunday school class wall. It pictured Jesus with a crown of thorns, a robe of purple and bound hands, being taken to see Pilate. He was looking down to the courtyard where Peter was warming his hands. Peter was one of Jesus’ best friends and Peter was saying, “Oh, no, that man Jesus is not a friend of mine.”
It is times like this I know my Lord loves me and talks to me. It is like walking with a powerful invisible secret partner at your side. It is because of knowing down deep inside He’s there to guide me, to listen to me and give me strength.
Five years ago my eye doctor told me I was legally blind! I had a disease called glaucoma in which my sight was leaving me so I could not see anything around the edges. My only sight is in the middle of my eye! They call it tunnel vision.
Quickly, I made the decision to move to an independent living home. I hadn’t been in my new home very long until I became aware that I didn’t have a job! I really didn’t have a family like such a once had. I couldn’t read! I couldn’t paint! I couldn’t sew! Whoa! “Help me, God!” I cried. “I can’t just sit and rock and sleep. Help me, O My Father, You know me better than I know myself. Please, O Mighty One, help me.” Then in silence I listened, and soon I knew within me what I was to do. Oh, yes, I forget to tell you that as soon as I talked to God I asked if there was anything I could do to help Him. He let me know that I was to search for the answer. “If you will guide me,” I answered.
Weeks and months went by. I tried the bell choir. Mercy! I couldn’t tell a bing from a bong or how what I was doing could ever be called music!! Next came ceramics. I wasn’t into that long until I got tired of cleaning up someone else’s vessel. Finally, I asked the other ladies to save me the clay that they sanded off. They did. Soon, I was back in my childhood or teacher’s classroom. I formed the three pigs, the three bears, and the three Billy Goats Gruff. Having fun, but not having satisfying accomplishment. Onward and onward a voice inside seemed to urge me. Till….. One day my older brother and I were coming home from Sunday school and church. We were discussing how so many folks in our class didn’t believe in anything they couldn’t see. Uh-O! They didn’t believe in the Holy Spirit! Hey, now I knew what God wanted me to do!!!
Are you about to see that it wasn’t me you thought you wanted to see? Can’t you see I’m just an ordinary 85 year old lady, listening to an invisible voice inside me?
Well, now I am making Holy Spirit doves just as fast as I can, and giving them away by the hundreds. Now I have a job. I work for the King.
Would you like to know more about that person living inside me? Maybe He has a job for you too. By the way, He can help you with big jobs and small. Best of all He just can hardly wait to hear you call. |
