By RoseMarie Gagnon

My First Encounter with God

Yesterday I attended an amazing webinar about Empowering Dreams, it was late at night, around 4:30 am, and looking out of my window I noticed the amazing crescent moon and the very bright morning star. It was so beautiful that I took a picture of it with my android.

Looking at the morning star almost took me 50 years back in time, I will tell you why…

I can still remember vividly one spring night in Spain, when I had just turned 13.  My dad told me: “Now that you are a 13 year old woman, let’s celebrate it!”

 He opened a bottle of champagne, took a couple crystal cups out of the cupboard and after some cheers we proceeded to drink.

My mother –who was more on the conservative side-, was horrified and got very upset at my dad, but I felt sooo grown up!

My dad was not a regular drinker, so after gulping 2 or 3 glasses each we went from giggling and being foolish to getting so drunk that we both had to run to the bathroom and throw up.  Next day we had a terrible headache. I thought that being an adult and drinking wasn’t so great after all, and I never drank alcohol again till I was way into my 20s.

I guess that must have been my dad’s original intention. He was a very nice man, very intelligent, liberal, and fun to be with and we had a great connection, we could talk about almost anything.

My parents were nominal Catholics. Catholicism was the main/only religion in the days of Franco in Spain, but in my family we didn’t go to church. My dad had fought in the Spanish Civil War on the “reds” side, and my mother’s family fought on the “whites” side. Dad was exiled in France for a year.  Shorter after he came back to Spain, he married my mother, who was his next door’s neighbor.

We lived in an apartment building in downtown Barcelona that had two flats side by side. In one lived my family, and in the other, my aunt Mary and her husband, who was a Freemason. They were both also part of the theosophical society and professed spiritual beliefs similar to New Age. They had a library full of ancient books that I was not allowed to touch. It was quite a scary library.

In those days we did not have TV, and families used to spend time together after dinner, playing games or telling stories. My dad, my aunt Mary and I, loved to talk about the supernatural, UFOs, and spiritual things. I remember it was right after I turned 13 and got drunk with my dad that I started developing a real hunger for the truth.

All my school friends went to mass on Sundays with their parents and believed in Jesus, God, mother Mary and the Saints.  My dad –having been a communist during the war- had nothing good to say about the church of his day, so he rarely spoke about it.  Most of my extended family –both in my mom’s and my dad’s side- were mediums, masons, or non-practicing Catholics, so I really was confused.

One night I asked my dad:  “Dad, what is the truth? Is it what I learned in the catechism class or what is it? I need to know…”

My dad and I sat at the table and he proceeded to tell me his personal beliefs. He said there was an afterlife, that when you die the spirit would leave the body and go to a spiritual place of learning and retraining, depending on the lessons learned on earth, and that it would come back and reincarnate a few years later, usually in the same family. He told me that the reason my mother and my aunt Mary were always at each other’s throats was because in another life my aunt was a very stern cavalry Colonel and my mom was a rebellious Indian chief and they didn’t get along well, so they had to come back and try again. (It didn’t seem to work, as they kept fighting, but at least I understood why)  Dad also said that sometimes people who were very advanced spiritually could come out of their bodies and go on trips and visit people. That fascinated me!  My aunt gave me a whole set of books by Lobsang Rampa to put me on my way to spirituality, and told me that when I would be ready, a Guide would appear in my life.

That summer night, I went to bed and prayed. I recited the Lord’s Prayer a few times, and a couple “Ave Marias” I had learned in Catechism. And I cried to God and said: “Show me the truth! If Jesus is the truth, show me. I need to know.”

The Light in my room

That night, I had my first out of body experience. Nowadays this is known as “sleep paralysis”, but I had learned from my aunt that it was the astral body coming out of the physical body.  I was very excited that this was happening to me, so I pushed myself out of my body and sat up on my bed. I had no weight and I started floating up to the ceiling like a balloon. I could see my body lying down in bed. The room was very quiet and peaceful, it seemed like all street noises had stopped and the silence was almost musical.

I noticed a bright light coming thru the window shutters. It was night time, so it could not be the sun. I was looking towards the window, and suddenly this light entered into the room; it was so bright, so white, and so warm! I could only compare it to the moonlight shining on a snowy meadow, but thousands of times brighter. I felt love coming out of that light and I wanted to embrace it, but when I went to touch it, it suddenly disappeared and I was jolted back into my body and woke up.  My heart was pounding and my body shaking and it took me a while to figure out what happened to me.

I looked at my window and I could still see some of those rays of light coming thru the cracks, so I got up and opened the window.

WOW!  The most beautiful, big and radiant star was in front of me! I sat in my balcony watching that start and reveling in its light and beauty and pondering in my heart if the light I had seen in my out of body experience was that star or something else.   I will never forget that day.

When I told my family about my out of body experience, Aunt Mary and dad told me that I must have seen “My guide”. My mom said “those are foolish things, you just had a dream”.  One thing I knew is that God answered my prayer and showed me the truth, and the truth was Light, and I was to pursue the light.

Sadly, my family environment lead me to pursue deeper into the occult for a time, which brought -among other things- a spirit of fear that tormented me for many years.

Later on I learned that the star I saw was Venus, and that it was the planet of “Love”. So I was to pursue light and love.

I joined the hippy crew for a while, and traveled to India and Nepal in search for the “truth”. IT was there were I got totally disillusioned with eastern religions.

Back in my country, I was about to abandon my pursuing of truth having not found the light and love I was looking for in the church or in eastern religions. I remember sitting on a bench crying, when a couple of young people came and talked to me about Jesus. The only thing I noticed in them is that their eyes were shinning full of light and love. It reminded me of my star experience and I was immediately interested. They lead me to a prayer to receive Jesus as my personal savior, and that was it. Holy Spirit fell on me and put a smile on my face and a light in my eyes just like theirs.

Is funny that Jesus, who said “I am the way, the truth and the life”, “I am the light of the world”, came Himself to me when I was about to quit looking for Him. We finally met, and it has been a life of a wonderful relationship and spiritual journey together.

Jesus is the Morning Star!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And when I started reading the Bible, I found out to my amazement that Jesus calls Himself the bright and morning star!

Rev 22:16:  “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.”

2 Peter 1:19:  “So we have the prophetic word made more sure, to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts.”

He also said He would give us the morning star!  Rev 2:26-29: “He who overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to pieces, as I also have received authority from My Father; and I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

Isn’t it awesome how God answered my 13 year old heart’s prayer to be shown the truth?

1. He took me out of my body to show that the spirit realm is true;
2. He showed His presence with Light, Love and Peace invading my room with that Glory light.
3. He showed Himself as the bright and Morning Star, Yeshua Hamashiach, Jesus the Mesiah, the Savior of the world!
4. And yes, aunt Mary, He is My guide, but also my Savior, my God, my Husband, my Friend, my Brother, my Provider, my Healer, my Comforter, my all in all.

And every day is getting better since I came to Jesus, my Morning Star!