Proof The Bible Is True

A friend and I had just finished having dinner at our favorite spot in Reno, Nevada, where I’d lived for 23 years. We paid the bill, got up and hugged in a tearful goodbye. She was the last friend I’d see before I moved across the country.

 

“Are you sure about this, Joanie?” she asked. “What is there for you in West Virginia?”

 

It was a question I couldn’t answer. I’d simply woken up one morning in early February with an undeniable urge to return to Huntington, West Virginia. I asked God why. In Reno, I had friends, a business—a full life. The only person I knew in Huntington now was my mother, and she and I didn’t get along.

 

When I was growing up, I never felt close to my mom. She was guarded around me. She hardly ever hugged me or held my hand. She was distant and bitter, often keeping to herself and watching TV in her sewing room. At 15 years old, I learned that she’d been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. That may have explained her behavior, but for a daughter who wanted to know her mother’s love, the diagnosis didn’t erase the hurt her behavior had caused. My father loved us both and had always hoped that Mom and I would somehow develop a real relationship. Dad had died without seeing it come to pass. I couldn’t imagine it ever happening.

 

“I can’t explain it,” I told my friend. “I just know I have to go.”

 

Read More: A Divine Nudge Healed This Mother-Daughter Relationship | Guideposts