Melissa Sees Her Healing
Melissa Sees Her Healing
As Melissa began to mature, she learned much about Jesus through dreams and visions. Her gift of the Holy Ghost 1 was functioning. We told her very little about religion because I wasn’t sure that she could understand enough of what I would tell her, and I wanted more than religion on her mind. I didn’t want it to be an escape from reality. In the deaf world they can think without any interruptions (if they are as deaf as she is), and too much thinking on one subject is not healthy. We live in a real, tangible world. I’ve lived long enough to see people have their heads so high in the clouds they can’t see the earth, while others plant their feet so deep in the earth they don’t know that beautiful clouds exist.
It seems to me that many have a hard time getting a proper perspective between the Creator and the Creation. We try to mold God to our way of thinking, and it just doesn’t work. We have to come to know Him through living as Jesus taught; then we will be balanced, and religion will become a way of living instead of an idolatrous ritual on Sunday. Jesus wants us seven days out of the week. That’s what he paid His life for, literally. We were purchased with blood. There is no time out for sin or apathy the other six days. He didn’t just buy us for Sundays.
I wasn’t sure if I was capable of communicating that balance to Melissa, so I avoided talking about religion and just let Jesus teach her what He wanted her to know. I taught her to believe in Him and that she can turn to Him for help any time. Many times she asked me,“Mother, does Jesus really love me? ” I always assure her that He does. This has built faith in her.
Melissa’s spiritual training has been handled differently than the other three because they can hear. With them, I have believed and practiced the scripture, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” 2 Although I believed this scripture, I wondered just how much influence a parent should have. I wondered if a parent taught them so rigidly what they believe to be true, if this might be an infringement on their child’s agency. I wondered if parents waited until the children were older, maybe they would make different choices. I took the matter before the Lord. His reply is paraphrased below.
The human mind is like a computer. It must be programmed. Whatever is put into it will come back out, for good or evil. When young people reach the rebellious stage, many times they will not listen to the wisdom of their parents. When this door is closed, if they have been taught (programmed) while they were receptive to My teachings, then My Spirit can punch “recall” buttons on their computer to help them through this time. If no programming is available for My Spirit to “recall,” then it takes a great deal more power to reach through to them. And if a man is in a rebellious stage, it is much more difficult to reclaim him because of the infringement on his agency.
I understood. It then was, and is, the responsibility of all parents to teach their children, or those parents who fail to do this must answer in part for the sins of their children. God is just. My three hearing children, then, had to be taught by me. With Melissa, I called on God for assistance. He helped. I have taught her that the day is coming when she will be healed. Jesus backed me up by showing it to her in a dream. About March of 1980, she came to me with the following and I told her to write it down:
"I was sitting in a chair in front of many people. I didn’t know who the people were. I didn’t see any faces. One man was standing on each side of me. I don’t know who the men were but they were praying for me to be healed. I saw Jesus standing in front of me. He had on a white robe. He was looking up and talking to the God in heaven. I couldn’t understand what He was saying. The dream stopped very quickly."
When Melissa told me the dream, I knew it was her evidence of her healing from deafness. Jesus said when He comes again, the blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk. Jesus showed Melissa that He is coming during her life-time on earth. I asked her where this place was, for we had never considered having her administered to for her healing in front of a congregation of people. We felt it would be a private one with only a few people present--those who have prayed for her these many years. She looked at me and said she didn’t know where it was, but (with a big smile on her face) she said, “Now I believe I will be healed.”
God will not work without faith among people.3 It will take great faith in people to witness this wonderful blessing. That faith to be healed is the “something” I had to give Melissa that no one else had, that caused me to want to live when I contemplated suicide when she was 2½ years old. I didn’t know what that something was until she was twenty years old. I am glad I lived.
That same week, more information was given in a continuation of the dream. She signed the following.
Jesus and I went into the church. The angels waited outside. Jesus talked to me in sign language that I didn’t understand. I saw Bill Hill with tears in his eyes. Jesus and I went outside and He wrote everything He said to me in the sky. Everyone could understand what He wrote but me. A young blonde girl about my age came over to me and said, 'I am so happy to meet you.' She then got back in line and they all went back up into heaven, and all I could see were stars again.” The dream ended.
I was crying when Melissa finished telling her dream because unknown to anyone, I had been praying in my heart, ever so cautiously that I might not offend God, that I might know something about Michael and Susan. And here was God's reply. Only a mother who has lost a little one can understand the pain of losing your baby, and then the joy of being reunited in eternity with that baby. The excitement of seeing that child, embracing them, getting to know them even though they are adults, is beyond words! God took two back, but gave me four to keep here. Judging from my track record, I'd probably have lost them all if God hadn't intervened.
Why God is so merciful to me I'll never know, but I praise Him for it! He answered my prayer through Melissa. There is no question in my mind that Melissa saw Susan. She had no way of knowing Susan was fair-haired. Melissa is black-haired, the Cherokee Indian in our line coming through. Susan was a strawberry blond with curls, just like English Grandmother Harrington.
Because the angels came with Jesus in the dream, I believe the interpretation is that when Christ comes to give Melissa her hearing, her sister, Susan, (Sparrow No. 3) and Michael, her brother, (Sparrow No. 4) will be there to witness this healing. The writing in the sky for all to see is very possibly the publication of the wonderful event through the air waves over the Internet. This is possible today. And it doesn’t matter; only what God wants is important.
The late Brother Oscar Case told this story. While he was in the missionary field, a poor widow gave him the gift of a plain white handkerchief. He looked at the gift and saw the price, “five cents,” marked on it. He knew that the poor lady could not afford to spare even one nickel. Turning to her he said, “You shouldn’t have bought that for me. You needed the money.” She began to weep. “I wanted to get you something, and that was all the money I had,” she said. She had sacrificed to buy the gift for God’s missionary. God did not require her to make that sacrifice. She did it willingly. Surely she received more than she gave. In giving she showed her love for God and for the gospel.
Some of us have more of this world’s goods than the widow; some of us do not. But if we have a knowledge of the divinity of the Restoration, not one of us can truthfully say, “I have nothing to give.” How gratifying to tell another the story of the Church and unfold the beauties of the gospel. How wonderful to see the joy as the Spirit of God bears witness to its divinity and truth. Even those who are without material possessions can say with Peter, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee.” (Acts 3:6) Restoration Voice May/June 1979)
Update 1995 - Judy Marries
The Harrington family children are all musical. They incorporated a company named EMFI, (Echo Music of Independence) A Christian Vocal and Instrumental Group shortly after Not One Sparrow was written. Into that group came David, a most precious priest in the Lord’s church. Everyone loves him, especially Judy, who married him shortly thereafter. David and Judy now have three wonderful children, Andrew 3, Erica Anne 4, and Michael Joseph 6. Michael and Erica have both seen and talked to Jesus in dreams.
How God brought their parents together is fascinating. He must have angels working with couples destined to be together because of either their prayers for a companion, or the prayers of their parents to guide them to godly partners. Such was the case with David being brought to our home—it was prayer alone.
David grew up in Marshall, Mo. and we had no possible way to meet him. However, Not One Sparrow (first published in 1980) was put in his mother’s hands and she tried her best to get him to read it. David was in college and not really interested in religion at the time, but when his fiancée heard about ECHO, (David having a beautiful tenor voice, majoring in music at CMSU--Central Missouri State University), she pushed him to audition. He did, became a member, and then read Not One Sparrow.
In 1981, three years before their marriage, Judy had an interesting dream about her future companion. The dream is in color and interpretation in brackets. She said:
The scene changed. I found myself in a room surrounded by young adults; it was my impression they were the young man’s peers. They had come to audition for ECHO [God was sending him to become a part of ECHO—he would be in the group.] I noticed that this young man, who appeared to be growing a beard, was a tenor and quite handsome. He was also engaged. [When David showed up, Judy was dating a boy who was two years younger than she. They planned to be married when he finished college. She tried to make him fit the description of the dream, but he didn’t. This dream indicated that her companion-to-be was already a man—the reason for seeing a beard. David sang tenor/baritone, and is quite handsome as the dream indicated. His wedding date was set for 4 months after graduation from college.]
In the last scene, I was in my wedding. The young man gave me a white handkerchief in place of a ring because that was all he could give. He had called off his engagement to marry me. The dream ended. [David didn’t have material wealth to give Judy when he came, but he gave her all he had, a gift of love. That was more than enough.]
Judy said, “The next morning I knew I’d just been shown my companion. Since I had been praying to meet him, I was very excited. And, even though I didn’t know how literal this dream would be, it gave me some hope and someone to look for.”
At the 1984 World Conference of our denomination, ECHO was scheduled to minister at Liberty Street Church. David had already become an ECHO member. During rehearsal, Judy was in tears over problems with her high school boyfriend, and I suggested she be administered to by her father. They went into the room off to the side of the pulpit, and God told her that her companion was right around the corner, and to be comforted by this. We thought it was only a symbolic term telling her that soon she would meet him, because to us mortals, God’s “soon” can sometimes seem like an eternity. However, in this case it was “soon,” for David was sitting on the pulpit steps waiting for the administration to finish. He was literally “right around the corner. ” That very day, David and Judy began associating. When God revealed his identity, we were overjoyed. He has been a blessing to the family ever since that day.
We must appreciate the humor of God. Things look so bleak to us, but God looks down and sees our tears, and our help standing right beside us, while we are blind to it. Then He reveals it. And what joy! It was there all the time! When David and Judy got their Patriarchal Blessings, they were told that God had brought them together. How could anyone doubt it?
Footnotes
1. Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Confirmation - confirmation is performed by elders laying on hands after water baptism. The person is prayed over asking God to accept them into His family. Water baptism buries the man of sin, cleansing him. confirmation by God’s elders brings down upon them the power of the Holy Ghost, to dwell in the new person and guide him into all through until he can some day stand perfect in Christ before the bar of God. The Apostles confirmed members to received this power of the Holy Ghost: (Acts 19:5-6, 8:14-17, also St. John 3:4-5, 1:33)2. Proverbs 22:6
3. Without Faith God Will Do Nothing - Jesus couldn’t work among His own kin because they didn’t believe Him. God will not cast pearls. (Mark 6:4-6) According to Men’s Faith - “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer in faith believing, ye shall receive.” (Matt. 21:22) “But without faith it is impossible to please Him; for He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (Heb.11:6)
