Touched By the Divine - Althea Bailey, Part IV

On Tuesday morning, she called her pastor friend to tell him what she had been experiencing.

"There's this fire inside of me...", she explained.

"There's a calling on your life, and God wants to use you", he told her.

When she got to church on Tuesday night, she discovered that there was more than one track for Bible College.  One was a new members track.  But there was also a ministerial track.  And even though she was brand new, she was drawn to the ministerial track. 

She asked someone next to her what the ministerial class was all about.  He said, "I think it's the one you take if there's a calling on your life".

Althea joined the class for the ministerial track.

Everyone else in the class introduced themselves by sharing which ministry they were in, and how many years they had been serving.  Althea simply said, "My name is Althea Bailey.  I just joined the church, and I am not a part of any ministry". 

She was tempted to question whether or not she belonged in that class.  But she knew deep inside that these "coincidental" happenings were anything but coincidental.

They were divinely appointed.

On the way home, a childhood memory suddenly surfaced in her mind.

She had been sitting on the front porch of her house, when a woman that was passing her gate stopped and looked at her.  She pointed at Althea and said, " There is a key inside there".  Althea, being a little girl at the time, assumed that the woman was talking about a physical key, and went inside to tell her grandmother, who was just as confused as she was.

But now here, in her car, more than 20 years later, Althea began to wonder if the woman was really trying to tell her something else.  Perhaps, that there was a key inside of her.  A gift that couldn't manifest until now-- when she had surrendered Her life to Christ. 

The fire inside of her grew even greater.  She hadn't had anything to eat in about 2 days, and was barely getting any sleep.  

At church, earlier that evening, she had learned that there would be a prayer meeting on the following night.  But since she wouldn't be done at work until 7:30 pm, she was worried that she wouldn't be able to make it on time. 

At work the next day, she asked the charge nurse if she could leave early.  But the charge nurse told her that there were too many cases to cover that day, so there was no way that she could leave before her shift was over.  Althea decided that she wasn't going to worry about it.

Good thing she didn't, too.

Because at 3:30 pm, the charge nurse came into the room and said, "Bailey, I've come to relieve you so that you can go home".

Althea was confused.  She said, "But you said that I couldn't leave early.  If you take over for me in here, who is going to cover the desk?"

The charge nurse told her that another nurse, who wasn't supposed to be at work that day, just so happened to come in, so the desk was covered.

Althea praised God for intervening, once again!

She made it to the prayer meeting, and had her first Communion that night.

During this time, she had continued to read about the Holy Spirit.  She learned that when you are filled with the Spirit, your desires and your mindset change, and you become more like Christ  in your thoughts and actions.

She had already begun to see the changes in herself.

"I used to cuss like a sailor", she said. "But now, when I hear people curse , I say 'Wow!  Do you really have to say that?'  I used to love wearing clothes that showed off my legs.  But now, when I try on certain things, I find myself saying 'No... that's too short'.  I love music and I love to dance.  But now, when I turn the radio on, it's as though I'm hearing the lyrics for the very first time.  As I played songs that I used to love before, my spirit couldn't take it.  God said to me, 'Althea Bailey... If you can't even listen to these songs on your radio, what are you going to do in the club?'  So, I decided that I don't need to be in the club anymore".  Nobody could have told me, 'Don't go to the club, because it's not Christ-like'.  I needed to understand why it would be a problem, and God let me experience it so that it made sense to me".

When Althea began sharing her testimony, she said that she noticed a pattern.  

"The older people that responded would reply with 'Oh good for you.  Bless you child'", she said.   "But younger people would send long responses saying 'Oh, that is so beautiful!  I want to feel how you feel.  I want that relationship with God.  Can I come to your baptism?"

This has convinced Althea that her ministry will primarily be for young people.

"In my testimony, I'd written about all of the vices that I had battled that the Lord helped me with.  And because those things were the same things that they were battling, they could relate."

On February 12, 2012, Althea Bailey entered a covenant with Christ in a water baptism, in the presence of family and friends.

Since then, she has continued to share her testimony, having personally told over 500 people and counting. 

She continues to strengthen her understanding of the Word day-by-day, and hopes to one day share the fullness of this experience through a book about her spiritual conversion and encounters with the Divine.

To contact Althea, reach out to her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/1527974688

I so enjoyed speaking with Althea Bailey, and sharing her story here at Unstuck and Unstoppable.  Thank you, Althea, for being such an open and willing soul!

On this day last week, I didn't even know Althea Bailey.

But through working on this 4-part story together, we've become life long friends.

***  

If you have a story about God's supernatural intervention in your life, Unstuck and Unstoppable readers would love to hear about it.

Please send me a message through the Unstuck and Unstoppable Facebook page, with a short summary about your experience.  I'll contact you, and we can take it from there.

If you're not on Facebook, just comment below to let me know.  We'll figure it out.  :-) 

Hugz,

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