My mother said, "NO".

We recently had a day of prayer at the camp in Unicoi.  Tommy told us to draw an ear on our paper with a capital L in the middle...indicating not only talking to God but listening. This is what I felt like God was telling me.

Don't get discouraged if God doesn't seem to be answering your prayers. like you think He should.

My Mother said NO to slumber parties. (She let me have them at my house, but I couldn't go to someone else's house.)  She said NO to drive in movies.  She said NO to me going to the drug store after school when I was in High School.  Kids gathered at the drug store to hang out.  I wasn't allowed. For PETE'S sake!  I lusted to hang out at the drug store!  How unfair of my Mother!

I have a long list of NO's from my Mother, but I won't bore you with it.  You get the picture.

When I went to Milligan College, suddenly I was on my own.  My Mother wasn't there to say no.  I was tested my Freshman year...almost as soon as school started!  My roommate came in one day and told me we had been invited to eat supper with a married couple who went to school with us.  We had been there long enough to relish cooking other than cafeteria food. 

I borrowed my brother in law's car and off we went.  When we got there, there was no supper cooking and no wife present.  What we DID find were 3 guys sitting in the living room watching tv and smoking and drinking.  I immediately heard my Mother's voice saying NO.  I told Judy, my roommate, that we were leaving.  She tried to talk me out of it but I remained firm.  We left and went back to the dorm.  She didn't speak to me for a week.  

Audrey (the camp manager's daughter) was at our prayer day, so I addressed my thinking to her.  She is headed to Milligan College this fall.  I told her that for all my growing up years, I did or did not do certain things because of my Mother's voice in my ear.  After the incident I just described, I suddenly realized that it was another voice I was hearing and obeying.  The voice of the Holy Spirit.  If we listen, He is always speaking.  Sometimes He says NO.  Sometimes HE says YES. 

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