I didn't tell anyone about this for a long time
because I was so ashamed by how my "sins" were so thick they blackened the
sky. About ten years later I still wondered what it meant and decided to
submit it to a local paper, just because I wasn't sure what I was supposed
to do with it. The following is true, at first written in the third
person.
This silly woman
by Jen Shroder
Published in the Mammoth Times December 1996
Original newsprint in
pdf
format or thru
archive webalizer
Pictures of location can be found at "Return
to the water"
There was once a silly woman who had spent the better part of her
adult life looking for something or someone, never sure what. She had
done a lot of silly things by this time, silly and painful. In fact
her life became quite frantic.
One day she picked up a book about Christ and Christian living and
began to read by her condo complex pool. The pool was alive with
splashing children seeking relief from the sweltering sun. The silly
woman settled near the edge of the pool near her neighbor and began to
read.
It wasn’t long before she noticed a distinct thin, oblong[oval] halo of
light encircling the sun in the clear blue sky. How odd, she thought,
and mentioned it to her neighbor, who agreed she had never seen
anything like it before. They both stared at the halo, which stretched
out across most of the sky.
The silly woman went back to her reading, but felt continually
interrupted by the halo, almost as if it was calling to her. She
looked up at the sky, and, aware of the many people close by,
whispered an exasperated "What? What? What do you want?" The only
response was the dancing lights of the water beckoning her in. "Nope,
no way. I’ve got a hot date tonight, my hair is just the way I want
it. My makeup would run. There is no way I’m getting in that water.
Nope. No way. Not."
Silence. Dancing lights. Calling. An urgency that grew until
finally she shouted within: "OK, fine. One time. I’ll just jump in and
get out one time, just in case. But this is the stupidest thing I have
ever done."
Kids were still splashing; there was activity everywhere. Nobody
noticed the silly woman as she grudgingly jumped in the water just
deep enough to submerge completely. With her last glance at the pool
before she went under, she noticed nothing unusual, but within the few
seconds it took to jump in and pop her head back out, everything
changed. She emerged to find the sky thick and dark with thousands of
bees.
Everyone by the pool started diving for cover under towels, low to
the ground where it wasn’t so thick, or into the pool. The silly woman
stayed as low as she could in the water, as the bees were getting
thicker, blackening the sky. She had never seen anything like it. It
lasted about 10 minutes until the bees dispersed. Many bees had
gathered across the pool to a hanging branch. The silly woman and a
young child walked to the branch and peered at the bees as they
collectively hung from the branch. "It looks like a heart!" exclaimed
the child, and it did. No one, not a man, woman or child had been
stung.
The only conclusion the silly woman could come to was that the bees
must have been or symbolized her sins, and she had been forgiven. She
tried in vain to come up with a different conclusion, as her sins were
so very many that they blackened the sky. It was humbling to see the
vastness of them and she said nothing to anyone of it for years.
In the 10 years that passed, the silly woman committed many of the
same sins. Sadly, the silly woman misinterpreted the event as a simple
pat on the back from God. She felt she must be doing something right
if God was giving her so much attention. She had no idea that this was
a pursuit for her to come to a better life, to come to him.
It wasn’t until this silly woman came to a crisis 10 years later
that God exploded into her life and she realized how wrong she had
been. I have never been the same since. You see, I am this silly
woman, this story is true and exactly as it happened.
Have you ever heard Rev. Fred Weatherly speak? Rev. Fred’s soul is
like a shimmering butterfly that need only feel the shift of the
breeze to know the direction of God’s will. In contrast, I feel like a
cow that needs a good slap on the you-know-what to tell me which way
to go, and I still get it wrong.
The point is, if we take the smallest little steps, if we barely
peek through the door by doing something as small as reading a book
about Jesus, he will be there, waiting to be let in if invited. If you
don’t believe in God, pray, just pray and ask him. If you ask in
sincerity, you will feel his presence in whatever unique way he knows
you can sense him. Hopefully you’re not so far gone that he has to do
as much as he had to for "this silly woman." MT
_________________
*It was really an oval, I slept through geometry
The first person I ever told about this was my Aunt Joyce. She was
a farm wife for years and had worked with bees. She told me bees will
move their hive like that suddenly. That sounds like a good
explanation, except for the suddenness, I mean it took maybe one
second for me to go under and pop up again. I didn't see a single bee
before going in but they were EVERYWHERE when I came up. People
started diving for cover instantly because there was a visibly clear
layer of space of about three feet between the water/ground and the
air that was thick with them.
Secondly, it was really crowded at the pool that day. There were
kids and splashing and noise...odd place for bees to target for a
hive.
Third, the intense calling I felt. The timing. I'm embarrassed
about my attitude, angrily thinking this whole thing was stupid when I
jumped. If it is what I think it was, how lame is that to have those
thoughts when it happened?
Anyway, I'll never forget the light dancing on that water...I can't
describe it. It was intense. All the activity in the pool was causing
the reflecting sun to just...I can't describe it with words. I kept
trying to ignore it and read this pamphlet type book that I had gotten
from the Sacred Heart Parish. I really, really, really did NOT want to
jump in. But I couldn't deny it.
It was a mind boggling day that I still am not sure what it was
about.
Oh I also looked up halos in the sky. They do happen. There are
some amazing pictures, but nothing like what we saw. I remember saying
to the girl next to me, "Do you think scientists everywhere are
freaking out right now?" -it was that distinct. So are the ones in
pictures on the internet, except that there wasn't a cloud in the sky
the day I saw it. And these articles say there have to be clouds. And
it was a long, complete oval around the sun, not a circle, not an
arch, a perfect oval that stretched across the sky right over us.
On Sept. 8,
2012 I returned there. It was on Moorpark in San Jose, a few blocks off
Saratoga. (This water picture is from my return trip.)
One of the most amazing days of my life. Topped only by the time
God saved my sons and I from a head-on collision. It wasn't as
spectacular visually, but He saved my sons. How can anything top that?
~ Jen, 2010
See also
Revelation 12 Series
MEANING OF THE HEART: (clip from
King of my heart
) "...He was talking about the
"shin," holding up a picture of the human heart and comparing it to a
valentine "heart" shape. I never noticed before how a sectioned heart
had that shape. Stone had a whole thing about our hearts but what
caused me to "about fall over" was when he said that the Hebrew "Shin"
was the symbol for "Shaddai" one of my favorite names of God, "El
Shaddai"! It’s even the link title of my website: "Eloheim, El Shaddai,
Yeshua, Adonai" I checked a few websites and what Perry Stone said is
true."
NOTE: The heart of bees pictured here is a PHOTOSHOP that I did to try
to show how a bunch of bees swarming all over each other could gather
into a heart. They will gather and crawl all over each other when a
new queen bee begins a new hive or they move their hive. But with the
oval around the sun, a calling to the water as I was reading about
Jesus, jumping in without seeing a single bee and emerging a split
second later with thousands to millions of them darkening the sky,
finding them gathered to shape a heart, years later finding the
meaning of the heart, maybe you just have to be me to know that
something happened that day. All I know is God is truly amazing.
I also tried to photoshop the oval in the sky but I just couldn't
capture it. All of my attempts looked so lame.
***************
