THE WOMAN OF ENDOR - IN HER OWN WORDS

Hello, I cannot speak my name due to the profession I am in because you see God has forbidden us from practicing what is called the black arts or the occult. If people knew my name then it would become known to the King who by law must have me killed.

I was born in Tamra forty years ago; my father was killed three years after I was born in one of the continual wars that are constantly being fought over the land. My mother moved to the small village of Endor shortly afterward where her brother had a farm. We found a small piece of land with several caves on it and that became our home. We raised a few cattle and sheep while my mother told fortunes. She is the one who taught me all the tricks of a medium. Although it was against God's law there are always those willing to pay to have their fortunes told and one has to make a living somehow.

Life in Endor could be harsh for the poor and those women who didn't have a man to protect them. I soon found out that if people thought I could call on a familiar spirit for help then they would be afraid of me. They left me alone except to come and ask me to call on my familiar to tell them about their loved ones who had died. It was a living and mostly people left me alone.

My mother died of the plague when I was twenty, that's when I started telling people about my familiar spirit. Things were going pretty well and as my herds grew and I acquired more land; things became easier for me but I always lived in fear that I would be found out by the King. The prophet Samuel was always telling the King he must rid the land of mediums so I tried to do as little fortune telling as possible, it's just that the people would always come and offer me money. It was really hard to refuse the fools who would come wanting to talk to their dead family and were willing to pay whatever I asked.

Then I started having the dreams and started believing that I must have some kind of special powers. Some nights I couldn't sleep at all because of the dreams. I had dreams of angels, dreams of demons and dreams of armies covering the land and killing everything alive they could find. Some of the dreams got really scary and I started sleeping less and less. I went and talked to the local Rabbi and gave him a bull for a sacrifice to cleanse my sins and the dreams stopped for a little while but I couldn't stop telling fortunes. I just couldn't do the things the Rabbi told me to do.

Then late one night a stranger came who must have been someone of wealth because he had two servants. He asked me to bring up from the dead someone he would name. I tried to tell him I couldn't do that that I wasn't a medium but he swore by the name of God that no harm would come to me and he would compensate me well. He convinced me to try and I figured what did I have to lose? I might be able to fool him or convince him that person would not come. You can imagine my surprise when suddenly this old man in a robe and mantle of a prophet came out of the ground. Well right away I knew it was Samuel (I had seen him once passing through town) and then I realized that the stranger must be Saul the King. I have never been so scared in my life! I thought for sure I had been tricked and was going to be killed. I crouched in the shadows and watched what was happening.

King Saul talked to Samuel for a while but I don't think he liked what Samuel was telling him; he fell to the ground like he was dead. Samuel disappeared and I felt compassion for the King, after all he had just heard that he and his sons were to die the next day in battle. I helped King Saul up and took him to my bed to lie down; it took some doing but with the help of his two servants we convinced him to eat something. I got a fatted calf and killed it then made some bread and prepared a meal fit for a King. If it were to be his last meal it should be one worthy of him.

After King Saul and his servants left I really got to thinking about what had happened and I knew that it was God who had brought Samuel back from the dead. I decided right then and there I was not going to ever tell another fortune or act like a medium and take money from people. I would learn the law of Moses and trust in God to watch over me.

Bob Goulding © October 2006

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