Our Path to the Cross - 40 Days of Lenten Reflection | April 21
By Diane Hinrichs
Psalm: 66, 67, 19, 46
Old Testament: Jeremiah 14:1-9, 17-22
Epistle: Galatians 4:21-5:1
Gospel: Mark 8:11-21
This date was randomly assigned to me, it has no special meaning in my life that I’m aware of. I was anxious to read the scripture assignments to see what the Lord would reveal.
When I was fifteen years old, the evil one made an effort to enter my life in a profound way one night at a going away party for a high school friend. He used the occult, specifically the Ouiji Board which I had never heard of or seen prior to that night.
That was the first of many times I was tempted by that road to evil, thinking it was a game to share with friends, and I did. Indeed, I promoted the use of the “game” as I got older at college sorority events, with my boyfriend, and his friends, even with my relatives in the ministry, always under the guise of fun, mysterious fun, at that. Often it would begin its sessions by telling us, “I’m a tool of the devil,” and we would laugh!
From the very first encounter with this “game” strange and unaccountable events occurred, including predictions of an auto accident involving Jim and me at age twenty at the precise location and time involving numerous details we had no control over, (such as the precise arrival time of the highway patrol), the revelation of a book hidden deep inside a basement wall, a history about a character in the book, and our moral responsibilities regarding this character (we had never heard of him).
One year later, as sixteen year old juniors in high school, we would study about this man who had been revealed to us that night in the hidden book. His name was Dred Scott. Forty-four years later, when I was sixty years old, I was to learn that the house where these events took place when I was fifteen, was likely on the Underground Railroad route.
What does this all mean? Was there some sort of a message being sent by these Ouiji Board experiences throughout the years? Like the Pharisees who demanded a sign (Mark 8: 11-13) for many years I troubled myself and others around me with what these “signs” meant. I did not ask for the initial experience, but I did not discourage it, and I did continue to encourage the game.
I was like the lost soul of Jeremiah 14. Not until later in my faith life did I understand that God, who is so much greater than evil, who loved me from the beginning, who had His mark on me from the date of my baptism, had satan in His net. While the evil one had his way with me for awhile, and the Lord allowed me to mature in my years and in my faith and use my free will, He was always there beside me, ready to protect me, and He did, even through numerous frightening experiences.
This experience taught me that no amount of evil can supplant a sure foundation in the one and only God. No matter how I was tempted, I always turned to Him for protection. Not even a direct encounter with the evil one himself (“I am the tool of the devil”) could break the hold between the Trinity and me. God reigns. Satan is defeated. Diane survives. Hallelujah!
