Let me tell you something. Before I was saved, I couldn't sin without God telling my mamma about it. Mamma had made Jesus her future so much that God would tell her when I was sinning. That aggravated the socks off me. I could be 700 miles away from Mamma, and she would know when I was sinning.

I'll give you an example. I was down in Reynosa, Mexico, one time, and Mamma was in New Orleans, Louisiana. I was in my 20s, and I was living like a devil from hell. My drummer and I were in a nightclub where women were dancing nude on the tables, and everyone was drinking and smoking dope. I was sinning, and I liked it. I was having a good time down there in Mexico.

In the middle of all this sinning, the phone rang at the bar. Someone answered the phone and called out, "Is there a Jesse Duplantis here?" I was getting a phone call at a junky old bar in Reynosa, Mexico! Can you believe it? And do you know who it was? It was Mamma. My mamma found me in a bar in Reynosa, Mexico. Now, how would she even know where I was?

I picked up the phone and said, "Hello?" I didn't know who could possibly be calling me.

I heard a familiar voice say, "I see you over there with those women! I see you!"

I said, "What? What?" I couldn't believe it was Mamma.

She said, "The Lord showed me where you were, you heathen from hell! God told me to tell you, 'Get out of there!'"

"Okay, Mamma!" I said "See you later! Bye!" I hung the phone up, bless God. I told Jimmy, my drummer, "Get out! Get out! Mamma's going to call fire down! Mamma is going to burn us all!"

He went, "Whoa!" And we took off, man! We left the country and came back across the border into Texas! We got back over to a hotel in McAllen, Texas, and I called Mamma. The first thing I said was, "How did you know?"

"You can't do anything without my knowing about it!" she said. "I told God to tell me every dirty thing you do! I'm praying for you, boy!"

"Mamma," I said, "I never asked you to pray for me."

"It doesn't make any difference," she said. "You're too stupid to ask me to pray for you!"

"Now, Mamma, I don't want to start an argument with you."

"Don't start arguing with me, son!" she said. "I'll put my hand through this phone and slap your face!"

Boy, I took the phone away from my face when she said that. Knowing how God told Mamma everything I did, I figured He could go, whap! whap! right through that phone!

My friend, Jimmy, asked me how Mamma could do that. I told him that God talks to her.

He said, "Whoa, you mean God?"

"Yeah, God," I said.

"You mean, God is telling her what we're doing right now?" Jimmy asked.

"Probably."

"Well, let's quit," he told me. He figured it would be easier to just quit sinning than to keep on getting caught by Mamma all the time.

I am not exaggerating. I couldn't do anything bad without Mamma knowing about it. How could she do that? How did Mamma know every time I sinned?

Because Mamma made Jesus her Lord. And He told her everything I was doing. You can't lie to her when God is telling her everything. And I mean everything!

For example, I'd call her and say, "Hey, Mamma. How are you doing?"

She'd say, "I saw you last night."

"Yeah? What was I doing?"

"You were wearing a red-and-white striped shirt," she told me.

"I was?" I asked. "What color pants was I wearing?" In those days you wore colored pants and everything.

"You had those white jeans on," she said.

It was true! I'd had on a red-and-white striped shirt and white jeans just like Mamma described.

"And you were lying to that girl while you were drinking with her," she went on.

"What was her name?" I asked.

"Linda."

"You know her, don't you, Mamma? How do you know her?"

"The Lord told me her name was Linda, and He told me you lied to her," Mamma said. "I asked the Lord to let me see what you were up to, and when I saw that, it hurt my feelings."

"Well," I said, "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"You didn't hurt my feelings because of the girl," she said. "You hurt my feelings because you won't accept Jesus."

"Mamma, I'm just not into this God stuff. You don't understand."

"Jesse," she said, "if He wasn't real, then how would I know all these things?"

"I don't know," I said. "I think you belong to the FBI. You might be a CIA agent. I don't know. You are a covert woman. I don't know how you know these things, but you do."

"Well, I don't want you to go to hell," she told me. "So get saved. Bye."

You see, Mamma was trying to look out for me. She wanted me to stop sinning and running around with the wrong people.

I took a girl over to my mother's house one time, and Mamma took one look at her and said she looked like Jezebel. I didn't take girls home very often, but I thought this one looked pretty good. She was greasy looking, but otherwise she looked all right. But Mamma said to her face, "She looks like a Jezebel!"

Thank God this girl didn't know who Jezebel was.

"Who's Jezebel?" she asked.

"Oh, that's a very nice person we know who lives down the street," I said. "A very pretty lady."

"What's the matter with you, Mamma?" I asked.

"I'll not have those kinds of women in my house!" she told me right in front of this girl. Mamma didn't like that girl, so I stopped taking her over to the house. But the next girl I brought home, Mamma did like.

The first time I took Cathy over to Mamma's house, Mamma looked at Cathy and said, "That's her." Mamma had never seen Cathy before in her life. I'd actually only taken Cathy by the house because I had to stop in and get something. We were just dropping by when Mamma met Cathy for the first time.

Mamma said, "This is the woman you're going to marry."

"Mamma," I said, "come here. I don't want to marry this girl. I just want to date her."

"The Lord has already told me, Jesse. She's the girl. That's her. It's over with. I know who your wife is going to be."

After that, Mamma started to go to work on Cathy to get her saved. She started working on Cathy, and Cathy did get saved. Cathy called Mamma up one day and told her so. Mamma said, "Well, put that heathen on the phone."

I got on the phone and said, "Yeah, Mom, what do you want?"

"We're going to get you next," she said. "Yeah, we're going to get you."

"I understand that, Mamma," I said.

What made Mamma do that? She made Jesus a real part of her life. I'm telling you, Mamma made Jesus so much a part of her life that she was always saying something about God. Jesus was her future, and Jesus was going to be the future of her children and grandchildren, the future of her family. Through her prayers she brought all of us to the knowledge of God - every one of us. We were a bunch of heathens before we got saved. We were some devils.

But, because Mamma kept on praying for her family like that, we all got saved. One person who persevered in prayer over her loved ones made that much of a difference.

Do you have people you love who are not saved? This story can help you, because it shows you the power of one person's prayers. Don't ever give up on praying and witnessing to lost loved ones in your family. God will honor your prayers.

Source: Jambalaya for the Soul by Jesse Duplantis
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers