SHEILA’S [J-A-T] TIDBITS   No.16      (June 13th. 2015)

It is interesting to me that even before I completed Tidbit No.14, I WAS REMINDED of another lesson we learnt at that time.  We had offered ourselves to the mission believing that this was our lifetime call!  How little we understood the ways of our Father in those days!  He had very different plans for us and now looking back we see this was the beginning of the “Get out of the Box lesson”.  We began to hear ‘return home to South Australia’ (we were in NSW).  We didn’t think we could be hearing aright.  Then ... we heard from our friends who were renting our home to say that they were planning to move out.  Now what?  The weekly mission prayer meeting was held in our apartment as we had three young children.  This particular evening, Ray and I were quietly waiting for everyone to join us.  My Bible was open on my lap - the verse popped out and I read it to Ray. “Stand fast therefore in the Liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. (Gal.5.1)  Then Ray spoke out a verse that came to him.  As a sheep before his shearers is dumb so he openeth not his mouth. (Isaiah 53.7).  How strange?  When the 6 others arrived, to our surprise, prayer was forgotten as the leader began to accuse Ray, unjustly, of things that he would never do and then began to accuse us both of speaking in tongues which they thought was demonic.  The strange thing was that we had never used this gift from our Father among them.  The two verses Father had given us  prior to the meeting were like recordings going round and round in our minds as we were being forbidden to speak of our experience of the Baptism in the Spirit (including tongues).  Now we understood why the Lord had been telling us to go home and we could say a belatedly “Yes LORD!”  We did not dilly-dally and began packing our belongings.  We could not stay where we were not free to speak freely of the truths that we were becoming more aware of at that time, so we left that box!