My name is Tracey Hinnant. I am 35 years old. I received the holy Ghost January of 2003. Wow! What a wonderful night that was! And it was only the beginning...
I had attended prayer meetings with my mother at Pastor John’s from about the time I was 10 years old up until I was old enough to decide I was not going to attend anymore, around 16 or so. But Jesus didn’t let me forget the wonderful feelings I felt in those meetings from those years past. I remember going up for prayer just because others would go up and get prayed for. My hands would shake and I would feel a sweet sensation through my body. However, I didn’t hold on to those feelings and desired other things in the world.
I got married in 1999, and had a little girl a year and a half later. My husband and I attended a baptist church. My husband worked in shifts, sometimes late and sometimes early shifts. So we would go to church when he was off and could attend. However, I was not interested in going when he didn’t go. I remember praying a lot of nights asking God what was wrong with me. Why didn’t I love Him. I would pray that my husband wouldn’t think I was a bad person, because he really wanted me to go and be involved. I just had no interest in the activities of the Baptist Church, but I also was not interested in attending anywhere.
In December 2002, I started developing some symptoms that I needed to see a doctor about. It was near the holidays and I remember getting the phone call from the doctor’s office that I could either have lupus, scleroderma, or any of those autoimmune diseases that cause you to live a short life. It was a horrible feeling. I was devastated when I thought about leaving my young daughter and not being able to get to really know her and see her grow up.
By this time, my husband and I had stopped going to church and were living a happy life. At least we thought we were happy. We both had been through a bad marriage before we met and knew we just wanted to love each other and not cause the other any hurt. We were just a “happy” worldly couple with no problems. So this phone call I received around the holidays really threw us for a loop.
I was not handling this situation well at all. My husband was calling me from work just to check on me because he knew my nerves were getting the best of me. I could not sleep or eat. I was shaking with fear when I would go to bed or just sit in a chair.
I scheduled an appointment with a rheumatologist as my doctor recommended, and the rheumatologist said that everything was checking out okay. I didn’t have the symptoms for those diseases at the time. So without the symptoms she could not diagnose anything. I could not take that in because my blood work was showing up differently and I knew something was not right.
I even called the doctor when I got home that day and asked her was she sure about what she said while I was there. She was at the point of wanting to call me something in for my nerves so I could rest. When I hung up from speaking with her something in me “clicked” and I remember lying across my bed and saying, “NO! This is between You and me! I don’t need any medicine. I need You to help me!” I was talking to God. I had never done anything like that before. I did not get any medicine.
So from that day, I knew I needed something from God. I would get up in the middle of the night, still shaking and get on my couch with my Bible and look up words in the concordance about healing, fear, and death. I never had any interest in reading the Bible before but it was the closest thing to Jesus that I had. I would fall asleep with it at night and that’s where my husband would find me a lot in the mornings on his way out to work.
I went for a while not telling anyone what was going on inside me. I felt this tug in my stomach so strong, like a gnawing that would not stop. I knew in my heart I had to go to a prayer meeting to be prayed for and get relief. I knew if I told my husband this, it would not go well because we were “baptist” and we were “saved”. However, I knew if I died, I was not going to make it because I was not saved! I could not hold it in any longer. I had to tell him. When I did tell him, he really tried to comfort me by reading Scriptures about being saved and how I had told him before we married that I was saved. I was crying and just blurted out, hoping not to hurt him, “I lied! I am not saved!” It was not easy telling him that but I knew I had to get it out and get in touch with God. I knew I may lose my husband by telling him this, because he was "saved" and did not believe in speaking in tongues and the holiness background that my mom had, but I had to choose going by my feelings over that worry and get to a prayer meeting. I knew I was not going to get any relief otherwise. I needed relief!
After that night, I kept reading and praying to Jesus for relief. I still had the gnawing in my stomach. I remember reading one night about the woman with the issue of blood and how she touched Jesus’ garment and she was healed, and when I went to bed that night I clutched my pillow beside me and said something like, “if I could only touch your garment.” I fell asleep sometime after that and awoke around 3:30 a.m., with a voice saying, “You’re going to have a sweet, sweet life.” Wow!! I heard an audible voice that night speaking directly to me. I felt immediate relief when I heard his voice. As you can imagine, I could not have been happier!
The next day, when I got into my car to take my daughter to the doctor for her 2 year check-up, I picked up a CD that I know was on the bottom of my console but somehow made it to the top. It was a CD my mother had given me a year or so before of Darren Prater singing at the prayer meetings at Pastor John’s. I knew when I saw it that Jesus wanted me to hear this CD. So, I put it in and one of the songs that played was, “To Whom It May Concern”. In the song, it said “It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be ok. It’s going to be a sweet, sweet life. I’ll take you all the way because I love you. Yes, I love you.” Those words went straight to my heart! That was confirmation that I heard Jesus speak to me in the night! He was still speaking to me through that song. Oh, it was so sweet. I held on to that relief for about two days.
The gnawing came back into my stomach and the fear was starting to return. I knew I had heard from Jesus and that I had to seek him more for what to do. I was really trying to avoid going to a prayer meeting because, if God touched me, I knew it would bring a division between me and my husband.
I have an uncle who attends a Pentecostal church. My husband agreed to go there with me. We met my uncle there one Sunday morning. He had told his friends about my situation. I remember sitting there shaking and when they called people up for prayer I went up. They laid hands on me and put the oil on me and started praying. I remember feeling a little lady behind me praying for me. I could feel something from her, that I later learned was the holy Ghost. I was feeling the power of God in that area of my body where she had her little hands. I could not find her though, after prayer. I wished I could. It was a very sweet and special feeling. I received very little relief that day, and knew I needed more of what little I felt. I really did know then that my relief was going to come from going to Pastor John’s. Oh, how I did not want to do that.
After nights of praying and reading my Bible, I finally broke down and told my mother how I was feeling and she came to my house and helped me talk to my husband about going to a prayer meeting. After a long discussion, he said he didn’t mind if I went.
The next night was the night of the prayer meeting at Pastor John’s house. I remember riding quietly with my mother, asking Jesus to please not let me feel anything that night if this was not the right thing for me to do. I told him I would be a good baptist and do just like I’m supposed to do if he would just help me. I asked him to please show me what was right. I wanted to do the right thing. I told him, but if this was the right thing, to please let me feel my hands shake as I did when I was a child. I just needed relief.
I got to Pastor John’s that night and when I walked in his front door he was standing in his office doorway and we hugged. I cried and he hugged. I’ll never forget it. I remember getting to the meeting room where everyone was coming in and people I had not seen in a long time came up to me and hugged me just like I had always been there and been a part of their lives. It was the sweetest feeling.
Pastor John was preaching on communion that night, and different ones had wonderful testimonies that were pricking my heart. I was literally on the edge of my seat when Pastor John looked at me with a smile and said, “Oh, come on Tracey.” I went straight up for prayer and when he and Uncle Earl laid hands on me, it was just like I felt before as a child, except this time it happened so fast that my whole body and hands shook and I was jumping up and down and my tongue started speaking a beautiful language! I received the holy Ghost! I not only felt something, he confirmed that this is where I belonged and that this is what was right. BUT wait a minute……….
The question should not have been “what” is right. It’s “who” is right. It’s a who, not a what. It’s Jesus.
Later that night, when I returned home to my husband, he heard me come in the door and asked if I was coming to bed. When I walked in, he asked me to turn the light on. He said he could tell that I got some relief and that I looked different. I said to him, "Can you believe it?" And then, he hugged me and was happy for me.
So that was only the beginning of my real happy life. My husband Keith received the holy Ghost in May of 2003. Since then, we have had a little boy, Caleb. That’s another wonderful testimony.
We are very thankful that we get to raise our children around God’s people and that they feel the same love that I did the night I walked into Pastor John’s house. It only gets better... And I thank Jesus and God for it everyday!