I know, some people are going to think, 'yep, we knew she was crazy all along!' Maybe they'd be right. Schizophrenia runs in my family you know. My daughter hears voices. I hear voices. Not all the time. Just a few times in my life, but enough to have a powerful impact.

The first time was as a teenager. I wasn't a particularly 'good' kid. Not horrible either. More of a 'bump on a log' kind of kid. About the time I turned 16, I decided to try a little harder to do a little better. I got a job. I enjoyed singing in school so I decided to take lessons on the side. I also joined the choir at church, and in general, tried to make an effort to apply myself.

One day, to practice singing, I opened the hymn book and began at the beginning, singing every song I knew. As a kid, I didn't like hymns at all. I thought they were too hard to sing, and the melodies were so different from the popular music of the day. This time, however, I enjoyed most of them.

I got to one song which I almost passed over because it wasn't one I particularly liked, then decided to sing it anyway. One of the lines in the song triggered a thought of 'I probably won't be there' in my head. No sooner had I thought it than a gentle voice, not my own, responded saying "yes you will".

The next voice I heard was a few years later when I was a young woman living on my own. Again, I wasn't living in a state of particular 'righteousness', so if 'worthiness' were a qualifying factor, well, it didn't apply to me. Anyway, I was living in a large city, with a fairly dense population. I missed the peace and beauty of nature terribly and decided to go to a large park that I'd heard about.

When I got there, I happened to pass a young man who appeared to be exiting the park just as I was entering. I didn't know what it was but I felt an immediate and overwhelming need to not look at him, to turn away. Then I felt to chasten myself, thinking that I was 'judging him', which I thought was unkind of me.

A short distance ahead I spotted a large rock on which to sit and take in the sight, sound, and aroma of being among trees and dirt and grass, at last. Almost as soon as I had positioned myself comfortably on the rock, I heard a very commanding voice (inside my head) say "GET UP AND WALK AWAY!" I was annoyed, because all I really wanted to do was just sit there, but I did as I was told. When I got up and turned to walk away, the same guy I didn't want to look at earlier was practically looming over me! I'm glad I'll never have to know how that would have turned out!

It would be years before I would hear anything again. Life went on. I got married, had kids. Then, shortly after my husband had started truck driving, I was home alone doing nothing special when a voice, again in a commanding tone said "you need to pray for your husband!" I didn't waste a minute! I dashed to my room, which felt like a better place to pray, and I prayed for my husband as directed, not having any idea why.

It was before cell phones were commonly used, and we only spoke to each other once a week from a truck stop pay phone. If I wanted to call him I needed to call his dispatcher, who would radio him and pass along the message. I did that, then waited on pins and needles till my husband called back. He seemed fine! I told him what had happened. He paused for a long time, then told me about the precarious situation he had been in. He said "The Lord answered your prayer".

Now, all of these voices were distinctly male voices. Whether it was the same voice every time, I can't say for sure. I never got the feeling that it was "God" speaking to me directly, but possibly someone from the other side looking out for me and my family. A guardian angel perhaps?

One thing that did puzzle me was why, on some occasions of discouragement, danger, or disaster, I've been comforted, warned or protected, but not on others. There have been many 'train wrecks' in my life in which I've seemingly been left to my own devices.

The last time a voice spoke to me it was different. To give you some back ground, there were a couple of occasions I'd been called upon to draw a manger scene, once for a church function, and once for work. The first time I did it, my youngest child was still a baby. I wanted the scene to be accurate, but as a mother, I had inclinations to draw Mary holding Jesus in her arms instead of laying him in the manger. After all, I loved holding my sweet little ones. To put a baby in a manger just seemed unnatural to me.

It's a weird thing to wrestle with, but that's what was going on in my head. I then re-read all the scriptural accounts which very clearly state that they "wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger". I decided to put my own inclinations aside and do it according to the scriptural accounts. Once I'd made up my mind to do it that way, I didn't have to question it again as I went about doing the second one for the cafeteria of the Christian hospital where I worked.

Many months later, after Christmas was long past, I sat in that cafeteria on my lunch break. There was no one else there, and I don't know why I was thinking about the manger scenes, but I was. I remembered the internal debate, and felt at peace about how it was resolved. The thought came to my head that if I do as the scriptures say, I'll probably be all right in most areas of my life.

Suddenly I began to feel very strange. It was a little scary at first, but then a little less so as I yielded to it. I don't think I could have avoided it even if I wanted to. It was like having a jacuzzi inside my entire body. It also kind of reminded me of Star Trek, when they would be transported somewhere, and there'd be this colorful effervescent circle surrounding them.

Anyway, I thought this experience was pretty cool all by itself, but then, in the midst of it, I heard another voice. Again, it was a distinctly male voice, but this time it was different. It was powerful sounding, yet there was a jovial, almost laughing quality to it, and not in an unkind way. It was as if he found me, and the way my mind works, amusing, and lovingly took pleasure in it. Like a father might be towards a daughter who is figuring out the obvious. Anyway, the voice said "... THEY WRAPPED HIM IN SWADDLING CLOTHES AND LAID HIM IN A MANGER". Then the jacuzzi feeling subsided.

I don't know who the voice was specifically. I wish I could say with certainty that it was God, or Jesus, or The Holy Ghost, or an angel, but he didn't identify himself. All I can say is that it wouldn't have mattered what this voice had told me, I'd believe anything it said it with my whole heart.

And I do.