A Life Changed

…………I have thought about this post for a while and now I think it is time that I share with you a new friend that I have been talking to for a while……… But before I do that I would like to share a bit of my life with you and it will help you understand why this new friendship is so meaningful to me………… I will keep this as short as possible and I will post this in two parts…………..

Let me begin on September 10, 1977…. That is the day that I was born again and my life changed so drastically. I was in the middle of my third marriage. He was sent by God, everyone said. He was loved by all my family and my sweet Grandmother thought that God had finally answered her prayer to send me a Godly man ……… Well, much to our disappointment he was not an answer from God and he was not a godly man. A short time into the marriage I learned that he was a convicted felon in Texas and still on probation and he was wanted in one county in Oklahoma by an ex-wife for past alimony.

………..Now those are not the sort of things that enhance a new marriage. It was not long before I discovered that he was also physically abusive. Now, if you have never known a woman that has been abused or continues to be abused then you cannot understand what it does to the spirit. It is a devastating situation, but in most cases the woman has such low self-esteem that she stays…….. I was one of those women. Now we do not know what keeps us there but looking back on my life I was on a collision course of self destruction that only a Savior like Jesus could stop… and stop it He did.

………..The years before Jesus saved me was very tumultuous to say the least. I had been beaten and thrown out of the car in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere and all this was done by a husband. He would come back a bit latter and beat me a bit more and then drive off and so it would go for hours……. I share just that bit of information with you so that if any out there would question my authority to speak of the effects on a woman that has been abused would be put to rest. However, you will not hear me speak of any further experiences, as I have no desire to glorify the evil that tried to take my life; my purpose is to speak of the Love that saved it.

........My husband then, lets call him Mr. B. decided to move us to Anadarko, a small town in Oklahoma about 6-8 months into the marriage. I guess I was hoping that to move and start a life somewhere else would help…….. That is a lesson in futility! When you physically move to start anew, the evil travels with you. It is a lesson that I would learn the hard way.

....…In the late 70’s there was a movement going across the country know as Women’s Aglow…… It was during the Charismatic movement in which many many people were born again. It was at one of these meeting on a Saturday morning in a small upper room over a restaurant in Anadarko Oklahoma that Jesus would walk into my life and tell me everything that I had ever done……….

John 4:28 The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, 29: Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?

……….The woman ministering that day was Marcia Kendall. I do not remember much else from that day only that she stood there and she spoke what the Holy Spirit spoke to her, and in her obedience, I was born into the kingdom of God. She spoke things to me that day that only God knew. She spoke to me as she approached me and as she drew closer I felt something. When she reached me and was “face to face” the room seemed to disappear and it only contained her voice and none other…….. I knew nothing else other than I was being changed in a twinkling of an eye… Her words to me were soft and gentle and after introducing me to the Christ that she served she invited me to accept Him into my life…… Her eyes never left my eyes and after she offered Jesus she stood quiet, it seems as though time stood still and somewhere from within me I spoke the words “Yes I will”… It was then that from the top of my head to the tip of my toes the feeling of oil washing over my body…… I was born into the kingdom of God…. It is her words following that are the words that I want to share with you today… It is the words that have kept me searching and maybe searching is not a good word, but waiting for that time and waiting for that place that God would fulfill those words… For you see, I believe her to be true prophet of God and the things that she spoke to me that day did and will come forth. She took a few steps back from me after my accepting Jesus as my savour and she spoke these words………..

………. “You will teach and preach to the broken hearted women and you will share with them out of your brokenness about the Grace that has saved you………….. You will tell them that the Jesus that you serve is a Savior that forgives and He will restore them back to the Father and welcome them in as He has welcomed you this day… You will tell them that He is a God that loves them and a God of new beginnings and when He forgives and He forgets”

Do you accept this from the Lord this day she asked? And my response was yes……. Now there were other things said that day that I vaguely remember but those were the words that buried deep into my heart and remain to this day…..

…….. Now I share that today with you for only one purpose……to let you know that the past 30 years walking with the Lord has been a journey. For many years after that day in 1977 was a time of healing……. You see, I was broken and undone and full of the wisdom of the world and the hatred of the world and the ways of the world… I was 30 and had been around the world twice.. I had experienced more than my share of good times and more than my share of heartache… I had issues from childhood that needed to be addressed and then the years of physical abuse and mental abuse and divorce from the men in my life…..… Mercy….. I have no idea how the Holy Spirit worked through all of that for me, but worked through it He did…….. but…….. you have to understand that God lives in a place where there is no time….and the ways of the world would say hurry but God just takes His time………And time was all I had……… and so began the healing and the teaching and the instruction and the ups and the downs and the mistakes on a daily basis……. But through it all the words of Marsha Kendall sounded in my heart……. That out of the brokenness of my heart that day I would learn to offer that same Christ to others that have walked where I once walked.

……. I have watched for that day, I have prayed for that day, I have tried to force that day, I have given up on that day, I have lately grieved about the loss of that dream…and said in my heart that day would not come………. I was wrong, that day has come and it is not something that I would have not guessed in a thousand years… It is far more than I could have realized…… Tomorrow I will share with you what the Lord has done in my life and I will introduce you to Chris……..