Precisely the Prophetic, Part 8

Chapter Three – Banking with Jesus (cont)

My love for the word and studying the scripture showed up strongly in that season. My mom told me one morning, “it’s so sweet, I found you with your Bible laid open, on your belly, and you were sound asleep.” She continued, “So I just came in and turned out the light and closed up your Bible for you.” Not only did I love the scriptures, but the move of the Spirit of God was surfacing in my heart at the same time. Lying awake at night just talking to God all of a sudden, I was talking in the French language. I had never taken French, ever. However, this wasn’t a child’s rambling but an early experience of speaking in other tongues. Later on, I found that the Baptist church I was part of taught this was not of God but of the devil. I hadn’t even considered that. I just had an experience before I knew anything and had to make a decision whether to accept what my church taught against or to go on with God and see where that took me.

When I was 18, I was able to leave home and move to Ventura, CA, where I became a banker. I had other jobs before that, like working at the Foster Freeze (which is like a Sonic) that was located across from my high school. Even earlier than this, I gained my first business experience as a young girl in school. During that time, we had learned business skills from my dad’s convenience store. In later years I was grateful for this, but at the time, it seemed like slave labor. One day I had a brilliant idea, I thought, “you know, I could buy these little cinnamon suckers for a nickel apiece, and I could sell them for a dime, at school.” I didn’t ask anybody, I just went and spent the money that I had from babysitting and such, and I bought a sack of those lollipops. I mentioned it in my classes, and people bought them like crazy because they weren’t getting candy machines in schools back then. I was just thrilled about making money.

The day came that a teacher mentioned to the principal that I was selling candy at school. I had graduated from the little suckers and was selling licorice and other candies because it was profitable. The teacher said, “you have an appointment with the principal; he wants to talk to you.” I thought, “whatever for?” I didn’t do anything wrong, so I wasn’t afraid. I went to the principal’s office. He said, “You are selling candy at school?” I said, “yes, my dad has a store in Isla Vista, and we work for him, and I get to buy whatever I want, so I was selling candy for double the money, and it’s only a dime.” He said, “you just cannot do that, Kitty, you cannot sell any products in this school system.” I said, “well, ok,” and I stopped. I was completely flabbergasted because I didn’t know what could possibly be wrong. I sold to people all the time at the store. So that was my first entrepreneurial experience in early junior high.

When I was 17, I had graduated in early January from my senior class, rather than waiting until school ended in June. My dad had moved so much in his work, that my grades were such that I had many credits. The counselors said, “Kitty, you don’t even have to do the second half of your senior year, with all these points you have on our grading system. In fact, for this semester, (which was the first part of my senior year), I was allowed to have four home economic classes of my choosing because I enjoy those kinds of things, cooking, baby care, etc. I just needed one English class and could graduate.” That was fine with me. I was still 17, and I turned 18 in February. My dad had told all of us kids, if you want to leave home, you have to have a little money in your pocket, and you have to turn 18. That happened for me, and I moved to Ventura, CA.

As I turned 18, I became a banker because somebody in our little Baptist Church, (I was still Missionary Baptist), was the operations officer for Crocker Bank at that time. She said, “I would like to hire you because you are so outgoing, and I want to teach you to be a teller.” I said, “I would love to have a full-time job to support myself,” and so I took on banking as a career. About the second or third year in, and from the very beginning of my banking career, I would not withhold the truth about Jesus to anybody because His Spirit was like a water fountain down in my heart, always produces water. What was in me was a heart for evangelism; therefore, I was forever sharing Jesus because it brought me joy, and I knew it brought the Father joy.

Being in a banking environment, being the evangelist that I was, once in a while, I would get chewed out for having a little scripture calendar on my desk or something spiritual. I probably worked for three different banks in ten years, and the opposition was constant. I would get chewed out for having scripture references on little plaques, etc., on my desk. The supervisor would come up behind me and say, “You get that off your desk.” I would say, “it’s just about Jesus.” I didn’t take it off my desk, because she couldn’t make me take it off my desk. What I noticed was people being resentful about God being who He is, and Jesus as our Savior and I didn’t know about the Holy Spirit working with me much, but I knew who He was later

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