108: My Work is Finished, Kristen Hale, Part 2 (Mormon)

From collapse to calling. While Kristen Hale's body shut down, her soul woke up. Experience the voice of Jesus calling Kristen at a Mormon healing ceremony.

“My work is done here,” Jesus told Kristen Hale as she hobbled to the altar at the Mormon temple’s healing service. Jesus would gently lead her out of Mormonism and heal her–body, mind and Spirit.

In part 2, hear how Kristen became paralyzed on half of her body with a mysterious illness; she had a heart condition called POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. During her lowest moments, Kristen found spiritual awakening and was gently guided out of the Mormon church and to a loving Christian community in a new state. See her helpful links on Mormonism, as well as POTS.

Kristen’s Recommended Resources:

From Mormon to God: The Story of a Mormon Girl Turned to God's Grace

Kirsten’s website, FromMormontoGod

Helpful definitions of Mormon terms vs. Christian terms

Kristen’s book on POTS, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome

Kristen’s Children’s books on talking to friends who are different:

https://a.co/d/1gw1ND6

https://a.co/d/e1MnZG2

https://a.co/d/aJVjVJm

God Loves Mormons

How accurate is the Bible?

Standing Up to POTS.org

Ex-Mormon Christians Facebook group

Truth in Love, how to witness to Mormons

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Setup
• 1:15 Rock Bottom After Childbirth
• 3:40 Mysterious Paralysis And Misdiagnoses
• 7:40 Cry For Help And A Risky Nurse Intervention
• 10:05 Naming The Illness: POTS Explained
• 14:40 Learning To Live In “Manual” And Hearing God
• 18:20 Temple Visitation And A Shocking Revelation
• 23:10 Leaving Utah And Family To Obey
• 26:20 A New Church Next Door
• 29:30 Revival Night And Physical Healing
• 33:10 Balance Restored And A New Hunger For Scripture
• 35:50 Surrender, Salvation, And Lifelong Change
• 39:00 Resources, Books, And Final Encouragement

Transcript

Announcer: 0:02

Welcome to One80. Transforming testimonies from next door to across the globe. Be amazed at how God works to bring people to himself. Share today's One80 with a friend. It might be the best news they hear today.

Kristen Hale: 0:18

I was a mess, and that was my rock bottom where I cried out literally the words help with whatever whisper could come out of me. And I just said, God, if you hear me, please help me. Please get me out of this.

Margaret Ereneta: 0:44

Welcome back to My Work Is Done Here, The One80 of Kristen Hale, Part 2. A tragic illness leaves Kristen paralyzed and crying out to God for answers. You'll see how God uses her illness called Potts to bring her true healing and true freedom in Christ. This is Margaret Ereneta.

Kristen Hale: 1:06

So my rock bottom was when I had my third baby. Women are bred to breathe in the Mormon church. And my body just did not recover well. And my blood pressure spiked. I got preclampsia post-delivery. And my baby was about two days old when I just stopped being able to breathe while I was sleeping. And I'm thinking, oh, this is just sleep apnea or something. But I felt fluid in my lungs.

Kristen Hale: 1:38

So my husband took me to the hospital that morning and I got an echo and there was leaky heart valves. So my body was just retaining way too much fluid. And they just said, you know what? Just go home, take it easy. It should resolve in six months. So they just sent me home. Well, then the blood pressure got worse, but to avoid seizures, they did a magnesium sulfate drip and it really did my body under. I lost 25 pounds in one night. And the fluid was not able to balance itself out with my body.

Kristen Hale: 2:13

And it was two weeks later that I woke up in my bed and I was completely paralyzed. This wasn't like one of those, you know, four-second paralyzation when you wake up, you know, and and then you you gain control of your body. This was I could not move and I could not speak. So there was no speech coming out of my voice. And I'm my husband's next to me, but I can't even get his attention. And so I ended up rolling off the bed and I thumped on the ground and it woke my husband up.

Kristen Hale: 2:46

And I was trying to make it over to my recumbent bike because it was like my body knew I needed to circulate my blood. Like there was something off. And I was shivering cold. And he helped me onto my bike, but he couldn't understand me because the words weren't coming out that I needed a coat because I'm freezing. And what I didn't know was that my blood was not circulating to my brain. It was staying down at my legs, and gravity was pulling my blood downward.

Kristen Hale: 3:13

So the circulation of trying to move would bring that back up to my brain. Things got worse, and I was taken by ambulance to a hospital, which they didn't know what to do. And I regained my strength in one side of my body. And so they thought, oh, maybe she had a stroke. They just sent me from one place to another. So I'm getting all of this done to me. And I'm in all of these machines and I'm getting poked and I still can't speak. So my husband's speaking for me. I don't know who had the baby. The baby's two weeks old by this time, three weeks. And that's when things got real for me until I finally had a doctor that said, we need to just keep her here.

Kristen Hale: 3:55

Stop sending her home because I was fainting and I was passing out. I couldn't even make it to my appointments. And it was then that like my head, I couldn't keep my head up and I'm just weak. And I'm just like, in my mind, I'm dying. In my mind, my body is deteriorating. I can't speak. I can't move. And no doctor's helping me. So we go back into the doctor that delivered my baby. And he's thinking, oh, she has Guillaume Beret. And so they take me by ambulance to a different hospital that had more tests. I didn't have that. I didn't have MS. I didn't have heart attack. I didn't have a stroke.

Kristen Hale: 4:33

And so they're thinking the last line is maybe she's psychotic. So they bring in a psychiatrist, and sometimes my voice would come back and then it would leave again. It was just very, very strange. Well, the psychiatrist was like, she's fine. There's nothing wrong with her mentally. We had a nice talk, which was strange. My voice came back for that hour and then it left again. And I know that was the Lord because could you imagine if I couldn't speak and I wasn't able to defend myself in any in any way? So my heart's going rate 170 and then down to 80 and then down to 50 and then up to 120.

Kristen Hale: 5:14

And while I'm sleeping, my heart is running a marathon. So I've got 140 beats per minute while I'm asleep. So it's all over the place. They don't know what to do. And a nephrologist, a kidney doctor, I had a cardiologist, a neurologist. They're all on a team and they're just monitoring me, trying to figure it out. It was a scary experience. And finally, my husband said, you know what? I'm gonna take the baby home. I need to get her out of this kind of atmosphere, and I'm gonna go home.

Kristen Hale: 5:42

And so now I'm alone and I'm on my bed and it's dark and I'm in a lot of pain. Ton of pain. I mean, I've had three babies, I know what pain is, and I would say that this is a thousand times that. I didn't know how I was still alive. I didn't know what was holding on to me. Why am I still alive? This is too much pain for anybody to bear. And it's dark, and I'm paralyzed, so I can't. The nurse button's over here, and I can't move my arm to push the nurse button to ask the nurse to even turn the light on in the first place. I'm hungry, my digestive system is not working, but nobody's there to help me.

Kristen Hale: 6:19

I was a mess. And that was my rock bottom where I cried out literally the words help with whatever whisper could come out of me. And I just said, God, if you hear me, please help me. Please get me out of this. And I didn't at the time believe that he had heard me because that night got even worse. And my body was sweating so much that there's like a pool of sweat. And I'm in even more pain. So I still don't know how I'm alive. I can't call anybody to help me. And that is when a nurse comes in unannounced, pokes my arm, and I finally fall asleep. The next morning I woke up, my voice was back.

Kristen Hale: 7:11

I woke up to somebody taking my blood and I could move my right arm. And I said, Be careful, I'm a pianist. I said these words, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, my voice is back. So God heard me. I'm not perfect, but something's happening. This nurse comes in and she said, Hey, I went against protocol. I've never seen blood pressure that high in the 20 years that I've worked here. And I gave you a steroid against the doctor's wishes, basically asking me to not tell anybody. She said I felt it was what to do, and that's that. And I knew, I knew it was the Lord that heard me that night.

Kristen Hale: 7:47

And I somehow was able to speak to her. I knew her history, I knew her name. I knew that she had a son out of wedlock. Just the Holy Spirit was already working through me and giving me truth. I don't know. It was just the Holy Spirit was whispering these things to me and I was saying them out loud because now my voice is back. And so it was him. It wasn't me, it was him. And this woman starts crying. This nurse starts crying because I knew these things about her. And I said the words, you're forgiven, and your name is written in the Lamb's book of life. Now I didn't even know what that was.

Kristen Hale: 8:21

I didn't even know what the Lamb's book of life was, but these words were coming out of me. And she said, I was Mormon and I got pregnant, and my parents wanted me to get rid of the baby before it was born. And because I did not, my parents told me I was going to outer darkness and I was going to hell, and they kicked me out. And so I've been alone ever since as a single mother of this boy. And she's crying. And I'm like, Okay, Lord, what's next? You know, let's let's keep going. You know, but I'm still like, I can't move. But my voice is back. So from then on, I started getting the help that I needed.

Margaret Ereneta: 9:00

Okay, here's where Kristen starts to get answers about her illness. It's called POTS. Kristen has a helpful resource on POTS in our show notes. It used to be kind of rare, but many are getting it from COVID. It's actually the same illness I had while I had a lot of couch time with the Lord. And One80 came out of those prayers. Most of the time, like with mine, POTS is nowhere near as life-threatening as it was for Kristen. But God used her illness too, and you'll see that unfold. And if you think you have POTS, do go to a doctor.

Kristen Hale: 9:38

So there was a name that the Lord put on my heart, and I called her. And apparently this lady had POTS 12 years ago, still uncured. She I tell her my symptoms, and she said, write this down, P-O-T-S, research it. And the only pot specialist in Utah had a five-month waiting list. And I just told my husband, like, I can't wait five months. If I'm passing out, just laying down, and we got to go into this neuroscience lab. Dr. Nina Cortez is her name, the only pot specialist in Utah, Salt Lake City, where we were at.

Kristen Hale: 10:16

And that is when I got diagnosed with a tilt table test that I had postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or the dysautonomia, where your nervous system literally shuts down and now you are in manual transition, kind of like a car. So you're used to your body doing everything automatically, and now we're in manual. So we need to shift the gears, we need to breathe.

Kristen Hale: 10:39

Everything that is involved with the autonomic nervous system, things we don't think about, like the breathing, our blood pressure. We don't wake up and say, okay, make sure you're 120 over 70. Like our body is internally doing that. So a dysautonomia is when the autonomic nervous system shuts down. So now you have to figure out how to circulate your own blood. And what happens with pots is that the gravity pulls blood downward towards your legs, and your heart will overcompensate and go tachycardic to try to get that blood back up to your brain. And that is where your body resets and you faint.

Kristen Hale: 11:16

And that's why they call POTS the fainting disease. Now, with not enough blood in your brain, you also don't have enough oxygen in your brain. And your brain is supposed to send the signals to the rest of the organs in your body to tell your internal organs to work appropriately with the oxygen. Well, now your other organs don't have enough oxygen. So your digestive system is not receiving what it is needed. So POTS is like, you just feel like a vegetable, really. I mean, none of your body's working appropriately. So she told me there was no cure. She's the POTS specialist, but she did help me understand you need to drink a lot of salt water. Um, you need to get on a beta blocker for your heart.

Kristen Hale: 11:58

You need to get on a steroid to keep the fluid in your body. And then you need to go on a chop plan, which is a physical therapy plan for POTS patients because balance is part of the autonomic nervous system. You're retraining your brain to talk to your heart correctly. It was very difficult. But during that time, the Lord began showing me that no verse in the Book of Mormon was comforting. No verse in the words that I had was giving me any help or any truth. And I remember one morning my husband switched the Book of Mormon for a Bible, like kind of like, here, try this.

Kristen Hale: 12:38

And those words were speaking to me. Those words were like, okay, whatever. This is the voice I heard in the hospital bed. This is the voice that was that gave me my voice back. So, so I'm gonna stick with what what you gave me here. And the Lord would tell me things. He would say, Don't drink that much water today. And I'd be like, Yes, okay. Whatever voice this was, this voice was healing me more than any other doctor ever knew. I remember a phone call with my dad where he said, No, no, no, you do what the doctors tell you.

Kristen Hale: 13:12

And I said, There's a voice speaking to me. I believe it to be the Holy Spirit, and I need to follow it because he he's the one telling me what's working. And whenever I follow what he says, I feel better that day. Like I'm able to even walk to the bathroom. And my dad screamed at me so loud that it messed my nervous system, and I had to hang up the phone.

Margaret Ereneta: 13:33

So just to clarify here, POTS is a heart thing, but it does affect your nervous system greatly. And your rest and digest, the calming part of your body actually shuts down, and you just quickly go into fight or flight. So you have to mitigate things around you that cause stress. So that's what's happening with Kristen here.

Kristen Hale: 13:52

And it was like the first time that I was like, You're no longer my God. You know, you may have been my bishop, but but I can't, I can't listen to you. I've got I'm sorry, but I've got to listen to this other, something bigger than both of us is really helping me. And so that's when I had to shut off the voices around me. And slowly but surely I was able to learn how to walk again.

Kristen Hale: 14:17

And my voice came back, obviously, that morning of the hospital when I cried out to God. And I told my husband that the moment that I get a walk again, I want to worship the Lord in the temple. That was the only way I knew how to worship God. So I said, You need to take me to the temple so I can worship God there. And so here I'm at with my walker, and we're at the temple.

Margaret Ereneta: 14:39

People with POTS do often have walkers to help them with balance and certainly with passing out. That's why she has a walker at this really important part of the story in this endowment ceremony. It's very powerful.

Kristen Hale: 14:55

And, you know, there's grandpa's going faster than me, but I'm like, I'm just happy I am walking it all. And I'm going into the temple ceremony, and this is called the endowment ceremony. This isn't marriage or baptisms. This is called endowment, where you're supposed to get truth and knowledge. Now it's just the book of Genesis, and they mixed it up. That's the endowment ceremony. You go in for somebody's name who's dead, and you're supposed to go through a veil.

Kristen Hale: 15:21

There's this big white veil that you're supposed to go through at the end. Well, during the ceremony, they call it like the Melchizedek tokens and signs, and you're not supposed to ever reveal anything. It's very secretive. There's handshakes, very demonic. But during the Melchizedek, I had a visitation from the Lord. And I can't believe my eyes, right before I was about to faint, and I just said, Lord, please help me not faint in front of all these people.

Kristen Hale: 15:49

Women are on one side, men are on the other, they split you up, and then there's this row in the middle, and then there's an altar, and then there's the veil, and there's a couple people sitting and such. And you just listen to this audible like recording. It's ritualistic, and you're supposed to do all these things and hand signs, very demonic. But I said, Lord, I don't want to faint here.

Kristen Hale: 16:10

And the moment I was about to faint, I heard a snap, and I opened my eyes, like something else was allowing me to see. And I saw him, and he's far away, but he it's as if he's right up to my face. And he knew I didn't have good vision, and I was able to see him perfectly. And he was speaking to me, but not audibly. And everything, this he knew me better than I knew myself. The love, there was like this love that I had never felt in my life. And it was as if he had authority over like my stomach, my belly, the pain was lifted.

Kristen Hale: 16:53

Like he he just, it was like he was my creator and he knew me. And he said, My work is finished, it is done. My work is done. You are forgiven. And he said, You have authority from me, like you have my authority, and I'm a woman. You don't have authority from God as a woman in the Mormon church, only the men do on this side. So everything he's speaking to me is like, but it's but it's it's truth, and he knows me and and he loves me. And I'm crying. I mean, there's I've got snot flying everywhere.

Kristen Hale: 17:33

The woman next to me is like giving me a Kleenex, like, what is happening? And when I look over, everybody else is grayed out. Everybody's gray. And I'm like, you're not seeing what I'm seeing, and he's still there, not moving. And I realized that was that was a call out that was he was speaking to me. I'm a woman, first of all, and I'm broken. I'm not supposed to hear from God, let alone have this visitation. But he was he was perfect.

Kristen Hale: 17:59

That's that's the word. He was perfect, and he called me up. He knew the culture of Mormonism, he knew what was coming next, and he knew there's supposed to be rows at the end that they call, and it's always been the same. I've been in the temple thousands of times. They call the first row, then they call the second row, then they call the third row. Well, I'm towards the back because I'm sick and I've got my walker and such. And he pointed to me and called me first. And for some reason it was okay.

Kristen Hale: 18:29

I don't know why, but I came up and I went over and he did not leave. And he was beautiful and he was perfect and he was smiling. And I said, Oh my god. You're not allowed to say that in the Mormon church in succession. It is taking the Lord's name in vain. It was the first time I ever said it out loud, but obviously I was saying, Oh my, my God. Like that's how it was said to him. I said, Thank you for what you did for me. And I'm about to go through the veil because that's where you're supposed to go to get to the next level, which is the celestial kingdom. It's supposed to be called a celestial room.

Kristen Hale: 19:07

And it's a room of just white carpet, white couches, chandelier, million-dollar chandelier, beautiful. It's supposed to be a replica of what's to come. So he's here before the veil, and here's the veil, and he's here in my peripheral now. And I just love he just he wasn't leaving me. He wasn't, he was there. My savior, and he forgave me, and he told me all of his work was finished. And like there was no more work to be done. He had finished it, like he was self-sufficient. He didn't need man, he didn't need me.

Kristen Hale: 19:43

There was nothing I could do. It was what he did. And so I go through the veil to the other side to the celestial room, and he's not there. And I'm thinking I'm gonna go to heaven with him because I was in so much pain still, even though I could walk. I just thought, oh, that's that's the next level. I mean, if I'm seeing God, I'm gonna go with him now. And I was okay. He would take care of my kids who did care of my husband. I was okay going to heaven with him. And I'm thinking this is gonna be when I go beyond the veil because I've got Mormonism roots in me. But um, he didn't go there, he stayed on this other side. And when I came into the celestial room, he wasn't there.

Kristen Hale: 20:25

And instead, I saw a withered gray man laying between two throne chairs, and he had this scepter, this like golden scepter with red rubies on it, and he was so weak, it looked like he had no bones holding him together, and he couldn't lift himself up. And whoever that was hated me and hated what I knew. And what I did is I looked at my husband, because now my husband has now come through the veil, and I said, Do you see that man over there? And when we when he looked, now the man's gone.

Kristen Hale: 21:02

The gray withered man, which I believe now to be Satan, because there was so much hate with him and so much love with the former. And my husband's like, What man? And I looked over and I'm like, He's gone. So now the crazy comes out of Kristen. Now I'm just blabbering, like, what is going on? You didn't see that? Hold on, you didn't experience that because in my mind we're unified, and so my husband should have had the same experience as me, and I'm the woman, so I'm submitted, I'm under.

Kristen Hale: 21:31

So my husband doesn't know what's going on, and you're not supposed to say anything outside of the temple in Mormonism. You're not supposed to reveal anything, but I said, You didn't see what I saw? You're and I'm trying to get this out, and my husband's kind of hushing me, like, Kristen, we're in the temple, like you're not even supposed to talk above a whisper once you get to the celestial room, and I'm just like, but the love was over here, not in the celestial room. So the Lord knew my culture so well that he was showing me, hey, that's not your destination.

Kristen Hale: 22:04

I am. And when we left, when we left the the temple, I could not hold it in in our car ride home. I said, You didn't see what I saw. You didn't see him, you didn't see the Lord. Like I was just going off, and obviously I'm disobeying all the Mormon rules. You're not supposed to talk about what happens there outside. So I said, I need to take a walk. And my husband's like, By yourself? And I was like, Yeah.

Kristen Hale: 22:30

So I took my my little walker and I walked over to the Mormon church because it was right next to where we lived. We always lived next to a Mormon church because we thought it made us feel closer to God. But this God was different, it was not anybody I'd ever been taught. So I go on this walk by myself, and this is just life had changed. Like the leaves and the trees, and it was all part of this masterful God. And I'm trying to explain these things to my husband. He thinks I'm crazy.

Kristen Hale: 23:01

It feels like a Mary and Joseph situation where it's just like, you know, not like he wanted to divorce me, like, oh my gosh, but he was like, What is going on with my wife? What is happening to her? But later the Lord would actually reveal to him sometimes, it would take days. So like I would be downloaded a whole bunch of information, I would blabber, and then he'd be like, What? You're crazy. And then three days later, he'd be like, Oh my gosh. And we'd be like, What? No way. And so we would like stay up really late and just talk about what the Lord was saying.

Kristen Hale: 23:32

And he eventually told us, he said, leave this land because I'm still, I'm still not healed. And he said, Leave, leave your family, leave your land. And if you want my healing, basically you, you, you obey. We just listened to everything he said. And um, my husband quit his job, or not quit school, he changed it to online because he was about to be leaving Utah. We did this all without telling our family because it was just him. Before we left, though, I called each of my family members and I said, it's finished, it's done.

Kristen Hale: 24:07

I had a visitation, it's over. There's nothing left to do. He's done it for you. Instead of saying, sorry, sorry, Jesus, say thank you, Jesus. Like he did this, and I'm trying whatever I could. And I just remember after every phone call, I just fell on the ground to tears because I had to realize like I couldn't take him with me. And sorry, it makes me emotional because I loved my family. And I mean, I I cared for them growing up. Like I was like the mother of the four low younger ones. And um, I couldn't take them with me.

Kristen Hale: 24:42

So I I went through each sibling and each one told me I was crazy. It broke my heart, but the but the healer was larger than that. And so the last thing that my husband and I did is we went to Temple Square headquarters and we tried to go to the prophet to tell him that what he was telling everybody was wrong. And um, I'm still in my walker, can barely walk, and we're escorted out of like the business office building by security. And I was like, oh man, we're gonna be in the newspaper. Like, who are these people trying to tell the prophet?

Kristen Hale: 25:17

We were kicked out, we escorted back down, and um, I it was my belief that the the prophet knows what he's doing, the prophet knows what he's teaching is wrong, he knows that it's incorrect, but he's a false teacher, and I was about to tell him that because God told me that it's finished and he's trying to tell everybody it's not finished, and that you've got to do the work.

Kristen Hale: 25:38

And it was just the discernment was very real, very clear, and I'm gonna tell the prophet. So obviously we didn't get to see him and we were escorted, and that is when we left. It was crazy, but we had the Lord, so we weren't scared, we weren't in fear, even though there was still hiccups getting to California. And he told us where by Celia, California. I'm just waiting on the Lord, and he showed me on Zillow where we're gonna live.

Kristen Hale: 26:05

And my husband drives by it and he's like, We're not living here, there's no way I'm living here. And I said, The the Lord said, the Lord, I don't know, the Lord was doing it perfectly. But the cool part is that he would reveal to my husband later. So I wasn't just completely like doing everything on my own. You need to follow me.

Kristen Hale: 26:23

That wasn't how it was. It was there was just so much excitement and there was so much joy in what the Lord was revealing. And then later, my husband had that joy. So the Lord was bringing truth, he was bringing balance, and we got the rental home. We got it, we had 16 cents left in our bank account. But the lady said, you know, we've had a lot of applicants, but we really felt that this would be good for your family.

Kristen Hale: 26:50

We move in and had no furniture because all of our stuff is still in storage in Utah because we just had left. We moved. So my husband drives back to Utah to get all of our stuff. He was only gone a day and he came back, and his job fell through. So now he's without a job. And we did not know that the building next to our house was a non-denominational Christian church because it didn't look like a church.

Kristen Hale: 27:15

And in our Mormon minds, a church is supposed to look all the same. I mean, all the Mormon churches, very few are different, they're all the same. And the church was called Restoration Ministries. Well, we still went to our Mormon church farther away on Lover's Lane a couple times, and it was dead. So when I say dead, the words that they were speaking, nothing was truthful, nothing was joyous, nothing brought light. And I began raising my hand, which was not like me. You normally I would just stay to myself, but I was like, hold on. And they would get really flustered real quick, and they would like, you know, try to shut me up. And I was like, You can't shut me up.

Kristen Hale: 27:56

Like, what? This is true. I'm speaking truth. And it happened a couple of times in class where I was like, I don't think this is the place for me anymore because they're dead, they're walking dead. That's what it looked like. Everybody looked gray again. And I'm like, what is going on? So then the next Sunday comes, we get dressed for church because we don't know anything else. We're told we're Christian as a Mormon. We're told we're Christian. So where else are we gonna go? And I thought, man, we gotta start our own church.

Kristen Hale: 28:23

Like, I didn't know that Christianity was even separate from Mormonism. And our transmission goes out in our van as soon as we're about to go to church. We're all dressed and the car's not starting. And so my husband put the kids in a wagon. He said, We're walking, we're walking to church. Now it's hot, I have pots. I barely get to the end of the street. Well, he he keeps going. So, like we probably got half a mile out. And I told my husband, I said, I've got to turn around. I'm about to faint.

Kristen Hale: 28:55

Because by now I I know my POTS, I've accepted it. I've realized I know the cues of when I'm about to faint. You know, you feel the needles here, and you start to feel heavy, and I know it's coming. So he keeps walking, you know. In my mind, I was hoping, you know, he would come and take care of me. But no, he's he's Mormon mindset. You go this way. But then I remember when I looked back and he had already turned around and he started following me. It was like his decision was okay, my family's more important than this Mormon church.

Kristen Hale: 29:29

So we come into our subdivision, our neighborhood, and I was like, is this a church? Because people were dressed up and they were walking in and it was a Sunday. And I was like, let's just go in here, might as well. Like it's right here. Our house is three doors down, and we're almost home. So as I enter the parking lot, and my husband's scared out of his mind, like, you don't go to another church ever. And as I came up to the sidewalk, I felt this darkness, and it reminded me of that gray withered man in the temple in the celestial. Room.

Kristen Hale: 30:00

And I was like, okay, whatever this is does not want me healed and does not want me walking on this parking lot. So I turned to my husband and I said, We're walking. We're coming in. I'm gonna be healed here. So we walk onto that parking lot, and I never walked off. We we walk in, we trust these people with our kids. We walk into the sanctuary, and this man, this preacher, knows more about the God that had been speaking to me than I knew. So I knew I could grow here too, because he wasn't preaching Mormon doctrine. He was preaching this new voice, and that's the voice I needed.

Kristen Hale: 30:38

These people were alive, they're holding up their hands. I don't know what they're doing. I was a little nervous at first, but but I knew I would be healed now because the Lord told me I'm gonna be healed here. And I never left. It's been five and a half years. We took our names out of the Mormon church after going just a few times because we knew that there was truth, there was biblical truth. It was the voice, it was the same voice that was healing, was also in this place. And there were just the love of the people they were speaking from their hearts. So we started going to this church.

Kristen Hale: 31:09

If I missed even one Sunday, my body would feel it like it would heal me mentally. Like I'd literally feel wires rewiring in my brain when I would go to this Bible-based church. The word was bringing truth to my mind and fixing the lies that had been told. I would feel it in my body if I missed even one Sunday. So we went there a year and a half and there was a revival service. So I had been going and I would go to church for that time, and then I'd go in my bed the rest of the day because it would be a lot on my body, but that's as much as I could do was go to church. And there was a revival service, and the revival was over. So my bishop, they call him bishop, the pastor of the church. He went to the other building and I went to the altar. Like I felt called to the altar.

Kristen Hale: 32:00

And I went over to the altar, and I just was so grateful to the Lord for even healing anything mentally. Like I didn't even think about my physical, but I was tired. I was exhausted from having pots. It had been two and a half years, and my body started convulsing and shaking, which is also part of pots. I mean, you have like these types of mind and heart fights, they call them episodes. So I'm convulsing on the ground, and no doctor is able to help me for that. So I'm just thinking, I just gotta wait it out. Everybody's praying over me. They weren't afraid, and they call the bishop back in, and he just says to my body, be still.

Kristen Hale: 32:38

And my my body stops and it lays on the ground, and he lifts my body up, and he calls my husband over, and he prays for my legs. And it was then that I felt circulation in my calf muscles for the first time in two and a half years since I had been diagnosed, since I had those symptoms. So I'm feeling just from the bottom of my feet all the way up. My husband says he saw my feet bubble up and my skin bubble up, and he saw the veins get new veins and new revascularization. He has all these big words because he's a nurse practitioner, so he just explains it differently.

Kristen Hale: 33:17

But all I knew was that I had circulation and there was warmth in my body, and it went all the way up. Mind you, I didn't know I was healed that night because I was so weak I couldn't move, and they had to carry me to my house and like pull me to my bed. But my husband said he saw he's he's he's jumping up and down. She's healed, she's healed, because he saw. He says the Lord opened his eyes and allowed him to see my healing. And I'm like, I can't even lift my head up and I'm like, okay, thanks. Okay, you know, I'm healed.

Kristen Hale: 33:51

The next morning I wake up and I didn't have to do any of the normal things I had to do with pots at a 90-degree angle because it's postural orthostatic tachycardia, you're supposed to go to bed at a 90-degree angle so that your body's done half the work by the time you wake up in the morning of the circulation. And it would take me an hour in the morning to get up to go to my recumbent bike. But I literally that morning, I got out of bed, I stepped foot on the ground, and I had an arch in my foot. I had an arch so my toes hit the ground first, and then my lightning goes through my legs and it hurts every morning. But it was here, here. And I looked down and my I did not recognize my own feet. I did not recognize my own legs, and that's when I knew I was healed, and I was able to walk through the hallway balanced, and I rode a bike that same day because I was like, let's see how far this goes. Like, let's see how healed I am, not recumbent. I grabbed a real bike.

Margaret Ereneta: 34:53

Next, Kristen gets her balance back, and she explains why that is so significant. But balance is another thing controlled by your nervous system.

Kristen Hale: 35:02

So, with with pots, the blood being pulled to your legs, you don't have the balance or the equilibrium to be able to walk. And so the mornings would take me hours to even get up onto my feet. But this morning, the heeled morning, I had complete balance. I didn't even go to my bike. I would just went right out the door and I walked with balance and I wanted to see how far that balance was.

Kristen Hale: 35:30

So I went and I grabbed my real bike in the garage. And I got on my bike with perfect balance, perfect equilibrium, and I rode my bike through the neighborhoods. And I came back. My husband has a video of it actually, because he took a video and he was nervous because there was my face got red, which means there was blood up here. He got a little nervous, but he's like, No, like she's healed. There's blood up there because she's healed.

Kristen Hale: 35:57

And he's a miracle working God. I remember saying the words, he's the biggest of all the bigs, because I still didn't have like the word. I I didn't know the Bible so well. From then on, I mean, my turning point, I went straight into Bible college. I had to learn about this God. Who is he? Who and I craved him and I needed to learn more about him.

Margaret Ereneta: 36:19

So now we're coming to Christians coming to Jesus story. It's so cool how it's different for everybody. Just listen in.

Kristen Hale: 36:27

I would say at church, I remember the first time the word Jesus came out of my mouth, and I remember saying, Jesus, like Jesus is everything I need, Jesus is Lord. And no, no, I had many altar calls. I had many like altar calls where I was singing on the worship team and I fell to the ground. And yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, Lord, like anything.

Kristen Hale: 36:52

So I would say it was gradual in the Christian sense where my mind has to still even rewire because coming out of that cult, I have to rewire even like Amalekites, because I had been taught differently what Amalekites are. So now Amalekites are are this and they're not what the Mormons teach. So it I'm not perfect in like the Bible theology yet. But it was when it was the visitation. It was the visitation that was my yes. I'm leaving my land, I'm leaving my family, I don't care.

Kristen Hale: 37:25

I don't care what I have to do to be healed, to know you. So I would say it was the visitation that was my real turning point because I would never leave my family. So when I was pulled to the altar, that is when I said, everything I have is yours, like your will, like whatever you want from me. But I also had a grateful heart. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, thank you, Jesus. So it was all like from the visitation point, my life's never been the same. So with him, all things are possible, even miracles, even healings, even, you know, no eye has seen nor ear heard what he has in store for you, but he does reveal to those who are his children, to his servants.

Margaret Ereneta: 38:10

Thanks for listening today. You'll find Kristen's book From Mormon to God in our show notes, as well as a link to her website with the same name. She actually started writing that book in the hospital while she was still Mormon. So really cool story. It's really amazing that she's also working on another book that is information on Christianity versus Mormonism side by side. You'll also find resources for POTS on her website and in our show notes. And I hope this show is helpful to you and you'll share it with your people who might be interested in learning more about Mormonism.

Announcer: 39:00

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