Ex. 17:3-7, Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9, Rom. 5:1-2, 5-8,
John 4:5-4

I remember walking down the bustling downtown sidewalk of our small town holding my grandmother’s hand. I was six years old and had just come to live with her and my grandfather. I had been told by my mother that I would be living with them from now on so she could return to live with her abusive second husband. He was not my father, as my father had left 6 weeks after marrying my mother and I had never met him. I sobbed and begged her not to leave me to no avail and something died inside of me. 

A lady was approaching us on the sidewalk and stopped to talk. What happened next was seared in my memory.  My grandmother introduced me to her, and she looked at me with pity and shook her head asking if I was B.’s daughter. I am sure now she was showing compassion but at the time a silent anger arose in me. I vowed that I never wanted to be looked at that way again. I would take control of my life and make my grandparents proud of me. I would be the best at everything and for sure NEVER be anything like my mother.  The walls went up.

My loving Cajun grandparents were academically uneducated, struggled to make ends meet, but gave me the greatest gift of all.  They modeled Jesus in sharing the little they had with others and raised me in their Catholic Faith. Notice I say “their” because somehow, I missed the truth that Jesus died for me because he loved me. I did not have to earn his love and that he laid down his life for me to unite me with the Father. I missed that I was God’s child.

I did well academically and had some athletic ability and that, paired with my competiveness, earned me a college scholarship. I was now the first in my extended family to graduate from college. After marrying and coaching for several years I felt a longing to have a child, but the horror of my mother’s actions and choices came flooding in. Once my beautiful baby boy was born, my heart was wanting to quit work and stay home and care for him but my fear of “being like my mother” prevailed. I continued trying to prove myself and “earning” respect and admiration from the world. 

After a failed marriage, some stupid choices and being away from the Church, I was emotionally and spiritually exhausted. A dear Baptist friend of mine, Paula, invited me to a “Walk to Emmaus” retreat. I was reluctant to go but desperate. When she told me it had its roots in the Catholic Church (the Cursillo, which I attended later) I went. 

It was during the closing ceremony and the love showed me from fellow Christians during that Emmaus Retreat that I had my first breakthrough. My healing tears flowed, and I experienced the love of the Father. More healing came in a scripture study class at Holy Family.  We were taking turns reading scripture and when I randomly read aloud from Isaiah 49:15-16, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you, See, upon the palms of my hands I have engraved you, your walls are ever before me.”  Healing tears flowed again.

A year later Sandy and Daniel Seidel came from the San Angelo Heart of Mercy Charismatic Prayer Group and put on a Life in the Spirit Seminar for us at Holy Family. This would be in 1999. When I was prayed with for the “Baptism in the Spirit” I received the Gift of Tongues, and the love of the Father was poured into my heart with a depth of love that I never thought possible this side of heaven. He became my forever Abba. 

During confession, when attending a Catholic Charismatic Renewal Retreat, the priest used the Unbound method of healing and deliverance and had me renounce the spirit of Rejection, Abandonment, Pride, Control, Unforgiveness, Anger, harmful Vows and others. The walls came down and I was set free. Joy and peace flooded my soul. The love of God, the Holy Spirit was once again poured into my heart. 

Thank you, Jesus for the gift of the Spirit. Thank you for showing us the love of the Father. Thank you for giving us your mother as our mother.

“…whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Jn. 4:14

“…true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth; and indeed, the Father seeks such people to worship him.” Jn. 4:23

Dee Halbert has been an active member of Holy Family for 31 years. She serves on our DOSA Service Committee for Catholic Charismatic Renewal and facilitates our Holy Light Charismatic Prayer Group. She is CEO of Clavél Corporation and married to her husband David 31 years. Her grandchildren Charlie and Poppy are the light of her life.