The Spirit of Medjugorje

"Dear children! In this time of grace, pray with me for the good to win in you and around you. In a special way, little children, pray united with Jesus on His Way of the Cross. Into your prayers put this humanity which wanders without God and without His love. Be prayer, be light, and be witnesses to all those whom you meet, little children, so that the merciful God may have mercy toward you. Thank you for having responded to my call."

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The Testimony of Linda Leasure

By June Klins

      "I am with you and I am rejoicing because of your conversion." (Our Lady, 4/25/88)
     Linda Leasure, a tour guide with Totally Yours pilgrimages, gave her conversion testimony last year while in Medjugorje, and it was aired on Mary TV's "Fruit of Medjugorje". Her heartfelt testimony is very powerful. To get the full effect, I recommend viewing program #387 at https://marytv.tv/fruit-of-medjugorje/.
     Linda began her story by saying as a child in Catholic school she wanted to become a nun. But when she switched to a public school after 8th grade, she made new friends that were not interested in God. Around that time, her parents got divorced, and then she was sexually abused by her oldest brother. All of these things pulled her away from the Church.
     Linda said the "god" in her life at that time became swimming. She was very good at it and spent six hours a day swimming, training to make the Olympic team. She thought, "If I can make the Olympic team, everything will be all right."
     Linda did make the team as an alternate for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, but that year the United States boycotted the Olympics, so Linda's dream went unfulfilled.
     After that, Linda said, "I had to find another 'god'," so she turned to drugs. She became a "Deadhead" as she followed the Grateful Dead. During this time, she was also confused about her sexual orientation and was very promiscuous with both genders. "I thought that I could somehow heal this wound." When she got pregnant, she thought this would be her answer. She quit the drugs, married the baby's father, and had a beautiful baby girl. She thought, "Everything's going to be all right." But when her marriage did not work out, she needed another escape, and this time it became standardbred harness racing. Her new "god" became her goal to be the top woman driver and trainer in the country. She admitted that the horse racing industry is rough and that through it, she was introduced to cocaine. Addiction took over her life. She said this drug, nicknamed "the devil's dandruff," gave her a false high. She could not sleep at night, so she had to take downers to sleep.
     During this time, Linda lived with her father. She felt that she was gay and stopped going to Mass. She began searching and exploring other religions, including Buddhism. In the meantime, the drug addiction became so bad, that's all she would live for. The cocaine eventually burned the inside of her nose, so she learned to freebase. At one point, she weighed less than 90 pounds. Throughout all of this, her mother never stopped praying for her.
     When Linda got pregnant again, she said, "I can't have this baby," so "I killed my baby through an abortion, and I broke what I considered the gravest Commandment." After this, Linda did not want to live anymore, and started doing drugs even heavier. One day when she thought she was alone, she loaded a revolver with one bullet and took the gun to her head, spun it and clicked on the trigger two different times, but nothing happened. On the third try, her friend, who was not supposed to be there, rushed in and grabbed the gun from her. "What are you doing?" Linda replied, "I don't want to live."
     Not long after that, Linda's mother invited her to go on a trip to Yugoslavia with her. Sensing there was a catch to this, Linda asked her mother if it was a religious trip. Her mother said, "Yes, it's to a place called Medjugorje." Linda responded, "Medjawhat?" Linda told her mother she was not going to go, since she was not Catholic anymore. Her mother replied, "You don't have to go to church." Linda decided to go, since she had never been out of the country, and she thought, as a photographer, it would also be a good chance to use her VHS camera.

Linda with her mother and sister in Medjugorje in 1988

      So Linda traveled to Medjugorje with her mother and sister in 1988. They stayed in a house about a mile from St. James. The first thing they did, after checking in, was to go to St. James. Linda stood outside the church wondering if she should go in. It was very crowded, but she decided to go in with her camera. Within seconds, the inside of the church began to shake to the point that the statue of St. James almost fell over. The people inside the church panicked, including Linda and her mother and sister. They came running out of the church. Outside the church, however, everything was calm. Linda remarked, "I always say, to this day, it's because I went into the church...I don't understand how an earthquake can happen inside the church and not outside." That was her first experience in Medjugorje.
     Back in those days, there was no TSA, so Linda was able to bring her cocaine to Medjugorje. "I couldn't come without it." But there was something telling her not to use it. That night, in the middle of the night, Linda woke up and she saw her life flash before her. "I saw my life going to hell. There were demons...grabbing me, clawing at me." Her screaming woke up her mother and her sister. They wanted to know what was wrong. Linda snapped, "Just let me be," and grabbed the stash of drugs from her suitcase, ran to the bathroom and threw all of it in the toilet.
     The next morning, although she hadn't slept the rest of the night, Linda planned to climb Apparition Hill with the group. She lagged behind the group at the base of the hill, and as she turned around, she saw a hooded demon. At this, she darted into the nearest store and purchased a rosary. (She grasped this rosary during her entire testimony and held it up at this point.) She caught up with the group and tried to stay in the middle to hide as they prayed the Mysteries going up the hill. When they got to the place of the first apparition, where there was a cross at the time (now there is a statue of Our Lady), Linda broke down. "I cried. I prayed. I begged the Blessed Mother to take this addiction away from me." Linda stayed there after the group went down. She stated, "If you have any knowledge of someone being on cocaine to this point of such an addiction, there is just no way you can recover and not have withdrawal, but that day and from then on, I never touched a drug, nor did I have any withdrawals. Praise God!"
     Linda said her next step was to go to Confession. She did not know when her last Confession was and was reluctant. "I'd broken just about every Commandment." She did not think she could do it, but she did! She went to an Irish priest who was very kind and nice to her. "I felt wonderful!... When I received the Eucharist that day, it was the best day of my life!" The last day of the pilgrimage, she was graced to see the Miracle of the Sun.
     Linda went back home and tried to live Our Lady's messages. Her dad was watching her daughter and although she was still working with the horses, she did not have any temptation to do drugs. But slowly she began to backslide. She would skip a day praying the Rosary, and skip Mass. "Like climbing Cross Mountain, ... I hit that slippery slope and I started to go back into neutral and down the hill."
     At this time, Linda had the opportunity to be on a television show called "Roller Jam". She made the skating team and became a celebrity. She got busy with skating, filming and autographs, and had no time for church at all. So by the year 2000, although she had no desire for drugs anymore, she was into athletics again and this became her "god". Then during one of the tapings, she got injured and was not able to skate anymore.
     Linda's mother continued to pray for her as she watched her slip away from the Church. One day her mother gave her a copy of Medjugorje Magazine, and in it was an ad for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with Totally Yours pilgrimages.
     Linda still believed and still loved to travel, so she signed up with a person with whom she was in an inappropriate relationship. "I was still confused sexually." Linda said, "We have a saying that a tourist goes to see a place and new things, but a pilgrim goes to experience a place, become someone new." She continued, "and in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, when I took this rosary (holding it up) and I touched the spot where Jesus was crucified, He bopped me in the head again with a beam of light. I came back home from the pilgrimage to the Holy Land strong in my faith."
     There was one last thing, though, that Linda said she could not do, and that was to forgive her brother for sexually abusing her as a child. "I just couldn't forgive him. And you know, God takes care of everything for us, if we just let Him."
     Linda's brother, who lived in Arizona, was hit by a drunk driver and was left for dead. Although Linda had not spoken to her brother in years, she was the first family member to go there to be with him. "When I walked into the ICU and I saw him laying there, tubes in his head, God gave me the grace that day, in tears, to forgive him!"
     The doctors said Linda's brother was medically braindead and would be a vegetable the rest of his life. When Linda's younger brother went to visit, he brought a bottle of Lourdes water given to him by a fellow parishioner. He found a priest to bless his older brother with the Lourdes water, and 10 minutes later, he opened his eyes! He began the slow journey to recovery as he learned to walk and talk again. Linda helped him with his recovery.
     Linda gathered all the documentation from her brother's healing to present it at Lourdes. She saw that in Medjugorje Magazine, Totally Yours had a pilgrimage there and she wanted to go in thanksgiving. So Linda and her mother and her aunt traveled to Lourdes to thank the Blessed Mother for the healing of her brother and the grace to forgive him. On this pilgrimage, she met the owner of Totally Yours, Guy Murphy. She told Guy her story and that she wanted to give her life to God. "My entire life was spent on me and false 'gods'. Now I wanted to give it to the Lord totally." She shared with Guy that she had sold her business and worked briefly in a Guatemala orphanage with abused girls, but still had the "travel bug". Guy told Linda to pray about it, and at the end of the pilgrimage, he offered Linda a chance to help out with their next pilgrimage to Rome and Medjugorje. Since then, she has been working with Totally Yours, leading pilgrimages.

Linda at the tomb of Lazarus in the Holy Land

      "And when I see what God did in my life, I feel so close with Mary Magdalene. You know, God can take the worst sinners, murderer that I thought that I was, and through prayers, my family never, never stopped praying. Never stop praying for your children! He can turn your life around. I've been blessed to be able to see the Blessed Mother work through a company and through Mr. Murphy's example – the Blessed Mother's little simple school of faith. And I see someone as an example, and I think, 'I can do it, too.' I can learn to fast. It's not easy."
     "We are here in Medjugorje today and we're staying at Mirjana's, and one of the pilgrims asked her a question. She said, 'Does the Blessed Mother ever cry?' She said, 'If you could see the tears that our Blessed Mother has, you would fast. You would live the five messages. You would go to Confession. You would pray. You would go to Holy Mass. You would read the Bible. Fasting was hard for me, but I see the Blessed Mother. I see Her tears.'"
     "You know, I went from drug addict, suicidal person to... really my life is leading pilgrimages now. I'm working with Totally Yours. And Totus Tuus – to Jesus through Mary! Thank you. Praise Jesus!"
     "I want to add that this book (holding it up), Preparation for Total Consecration, by St. Louis de Monfort, changed my life. It's a total consecration to our Blessed Mother ...I encourage everybody to consecrate yourself to the Blessed Mother. Consecrate your children. Consecrate your life. Join Our Lady's simple school of faith by living Her five stones of spirituality. She really helps you get to Jesus. Thank you.
     Editor's note: As I began transcribing Linda's testimony, I noticed that the bells in Medjugorje were ringing to alert the villagers that someone had died there. I found it interesting that they continued to ring until the part when Linda talked about her confession experience! [Information for Totally Yours pilgrimages is at https://totallyyourspilgrimages.com.]