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Dear Friends, It in October 1994, that God through the leading of the Holy Spirit led my husband and I to an old fashion altar where we repented of our sins and received Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Two months later at Christmas, wanting to do something for God we wrote the following testimony together and sent it out to over 100 family and friends in Christmas cards. A few months later God blessed us by leading a Religion newspaper journalist to our testimony that he published in a free newspaper, which has a circulation of 33,000 papers in the Florida Keys. Praise the Lord! We hope our story will bless you and encourage you to witness to a lost world too.
December
1994
Over the last year my
bouts of depression had increased. I
was miserable not knowing where I was headed.
Even though I had a good husband, friends, and family I felt totally
alone and lost. I hated everything
about myself. I was living in the
past feeling guilt and shame. At
the same time hating the present and dreading the future. I was having a lot of angry outbursts, morbid thoughts of
death, anxiety attacks, lying,
cursing, using the Lord's name in
vain like it was nothing and having a lot of feelings of self pity,
and resentment. I desperately
wanted and needed to change. I
would try to, but would always end up failing and feeling helpless. I was going to church from time to time.
Perry even went with me, but only because I nagged him into going.
I always believed in God, but he wasn't on the top of my list of favorite
things in life. Well nothing else
was working so I turned to the Lord and began praying for His help.
About 2 weeks later, God started moving in our lives. He introduced two
new people into our lives at about
the same time. Both of these men are Christians and both are named David. In
Hebrew the name David means "beloved" and in the Bible, God gave the
people David to be a great witness to them. Both of these David's were just that
- witnesses for God and they helped put us on the right path.
Perry was placed in a new
job position with one of the Davids; a new co-worker who is a born again
Christian. At the same time that
this happened I started going to a new hair stylist who is also a Christian.
He began witnessing to me about the signs of the coming tribulation and
Jesus' return.
He talked of current world events and compared them to what God tells us
in The Book of Revelation. It was
eye opening news to me. With
everything David said, the Hal Lindsey books he suggested ( books dealing with
where the world is headed, how it
all ties into
One night while reading Hal Lindsey's Planet Earth - 2000 A.D. the
chapter entitled "The Really Good News." I realized Jesus had been waiting for me to come back to Him all these
years. When I was a little girl, I went to
Sunday school, Bible school, and my great grandmother taught me of Jesus' love,
but along with all my childhood beliefs in fairy tales I stopped fully trusting
and believing in Jesus. Even though
I had lost my way, God still loved me. God
had given me (along with every other person in the world) the most beautiful
gift of all gifts-His only Son! I
was finally ready to accept His precious gift.
At that moment I realized I had been drowning in darkness.
I felt that darkness begin to lift away as
I let all the hurt pour out on Him.
I confessed to all my sins and asked for
my Lord's forgiveness. I
accepted Jesus Christ as my personal saviour.
I knew Jesus had died on the cross for me and had washed my sins away.
I'd never have to feel guilt or
shame for those sins again. I
had been drowning and Jesus was my life saver!
I felt His love come over me like a wave.
I cried from the joy I felt down deep inside where there had only been
sadness before.
Over the next couple of days I shared with my mother and Perry how I
found salvation through Jesus. My mother was happy for me and probably a little
surprised. Perry listened at first,
but then told me to keep it to myself. I
was crushed! I had just experienced
the most overwhelming joy I had ever felt and now I had to keep it to myself?!
I did back off on the subject some what,
probably because I was so upset that I still hadn't changed myself
mentally. I couldn't understand how
I could feel so good about being saved and still feel like the same old
miserable person. I couldn't change myself so I prayed and asked God to help me
change and
to please touch Perry's hardened heart.
Again God answered my prayers and in a BIG way!
More and more Perry seemed to listen to my witnessing and talked with me
about things David (his co-worker) had also witnessed to Perry at work.
David is a member of The Church of God and had invited us to attend
church service. David's pastor had traveled all over teaching on The Book of
Revelation. I wanted to go, but
Perry still felt uneasy about church. Then
in October David told Perry his church was going to have a two week revival on
Revelation. I knew I was going with or without Perry.
I wanted to buy a new Bible before the revival began so Perry took me to The
Tree of Life which is the bookstore at The Church of God.
While we were there Pastor Shockley spoke with us for nearly an hour.
After that Perry purchased a Bible for each of us and told me he wanted
to go to the revival with me. I
didn't even nag him once, honestly I didn't.
I knew God was at work! Praise
the Lord!
The first few nights of the revival Perry and I felt like we were from
the planet Mars. The people in this
church were so warm and friendly. You
could feel God's love everywhere and see it with the way they greeted each
other. I thought isn't it sad that
because of the church we had previously attended that we would feel strange
around people who praised God openly and out loud, with so much enthusiasm and
love you couldn't help but be moved by it.
We both said, "Wow, this is what church should be like! Are these people what born again Christians are?
Where do we sign up?!" The
congregation and their pastor were so wonderful to us we couldn't wait to see
them and worship with them each night. Every
night Pastor Shockley's sermon touched our hearts and taught us like we've never
experienced before in church.
On October 26th in church (only three days into the revival) I learned
why I hadn't changed my ways after accepting Jesus as my saviour.
Like a lot of Christians I had accepted the gift of salvation, but not the
ways of our Lord. I hadn't surrendered my life to God or made a commitment to
live the way He wanted me to live. I
prayed then and put my life with all my worries and troubles into God's hands.
I told God I wanted to live by His commandments and follow His will for
my life.
I asked for the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit to show me how to
live in order to give God the glory He so rightly deserves.
I asked Him to use me to go and share His words with others. I accepted Jesus as my saviour once again and thanked the
Lord for all His love and mercy.
The Lord had brought Perry and I to The Church of God so that we could
hear God's truths and wonderful promises. In
this church we found salvation and a new life, just 4 months after I first
prayed to God for help.
Isn't God wonderful!
He truly does answer prayers. He
may not answer them on the spot like we want Him to, but that's because He sees
the whole picture and knows what is best for us.
He also gave us a new church family. They made us feel so welcomed that
we stayed and became members. We
are truly blessed, thank you, Jesus.
I thank the Lord for all the changes in Perry and myself. And He's still working on us 'cause we're not perfect...yet.
Ha, ha. Anyway, my
depression has lifted. The morbid
thoughts of death are gone. I now
see how ignorant and vulgar I must of sounded to everyone around me, so I no
longer use lying, curse words, and the only time I use the Lord's name is to
give Him thanks, praise Him, or when spreading the good news of the gospel. I no
longer have fits of anger or anxiety attacks.
Now just because I'm saved doesn't mean I don't make mistakes or never
sin. The only sinless perfect human
who ever lived was Jesus. However, it does mean that when I start to feel myself
sinking I can call out for help and
Jesus is there to see me through. He
took all of that ugliness out of my life and replaced it with a bright light
that is full of hope, faith, joy, fellowship, prayer, and most of all peace of
mind. Talk about a great trade!
This is one trade I never ever want to go back on, Amen!
Without God I couldn't change any of the things I wanted to ,but with Him
it all happened! And it continues
to happen everyday when I pray and read His words.
When I look at how God has worked with
Perry and myself, I know anything
is possible when you walk with Jesus Christ as Lord of your life.
WHEW!! I didn't think she would ever finish did you?!
I hope your still reading this now that it's my turn. I won't need to
right a book because Michelle already
explained to you how we got started on the right path.
Coming from a background with no religion and not even sure that I
believed in God or anything else for that matter, I started attending church
with my wife in an attempt to appease her persuasion. I would go through some of
the motions but never felt like being there. This went on for a few
months until one day I sat there listening to the Priest and I could not believe
the total lack of respect for what I always thought was supposed to be the word
of God. I knew that deep down inside I felt like something was missing in my
life. That is really why I was in church to begin with, but what I was listening
to did not sound like the word of God coming from the Priest's mouth.
Then the most amazing thing happened to me the hand of God pushed me in the right direction. I received word that a revival was going on at a church that a friend of mine belongs to. He invited me to join him at the revival. I thought about going and I knew my wife was going. After meeting the Pastor, I decided I was going too. I thought that I didn’t have anything to lose, but I was wrong !{I'll explain later}. I arrived at the church and I walked inside and my life changed from that point on. I spoke to several people there that first night. They were so kind and open to a total stranger. I left there feeling I was pure evil and that I had no right to invade their church with my wickedness. But I also left there that night with a fire burning in me and I couldn’t stay away. I went the next night and I felt better and the feeling and the fire grew inside me. By the end of the week I was down at the altar asking Jesus to forgive me of all my sins, but I didn’t feel forgiven. I started feeling unworthy of the Lord's love. Doubt welled up inside of me and I began to weep. The pastor approached me and we had a brief discussion. He told me of God's promise and removed my doubt. From that point on I was saved and became born again, AMEN ! Changes started coming over me like a title wave. I could feel the light of the Jesus coming out of me. Then I started to understand exactly what I had to lose. First I lost my fear of death, then I lost my fear of life, And I lost a lot of harsh viewpoints that I had about the things that go on in this world. I also gained a few new strong view points that I never really gave much thought to before. I now have pleasant thoughts and peaceful feelings toward my fellow man whatever evil he commits. Because now I know that the most wicked person in the world can be saved through Jesus. Therefore, I know that I wouldn't want to held accountable for taking any chance away from any human being to find salvation ,Would you? I don't want to try to convince you that I have changed over night. I'm not perfect, I have allot of changes to go through yet. No matter how hard I work at it I will never reach perfection, none of us can. Still I am going to try my best to live for God. I want to give God the glory He deserves. I have to tell everyone that receives this letter that if you feel the same way I felt, let those feelings go and find Jesus. He will help you through all of your hard times and when you can’t go on, he will carry you.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. John 3:3
Do you find yourself
these days feeling depressed, frustrated, and angry more than any other
feelings? Is there an emptiness
that you just can't seem to fill? Do
you feel like your life is missing something?
Does it seem to you that it gets harder and harder to find friends you
can trust and rely on? Are you
disgusted with the way the world is ? Are
you worried about the future? These
are the same feelings and issues we were troubled over, only we didn't call a psychic
hotline or a fortune teller on Duval Street.
Instead we found a new friend and He would love you to call on Him.
Jesus is a friend you can count on who will never turn his back on you
when things get tough. He'll fill you with so much love you won't know what to do
with it except spread it around. He'll
answer all your questions about the
future. Read Revelations!
It's not a weird book. It's
full of God's promises for the future. When you accept Jesus as your saviour and
see what horrors you'll miss out on that will take place during the great
tribulation you will feel so relieved. I
was scared to death of dying or the end of the world because I had heard the
stories of Satan coming back in the end and making everyone who wanted to live
take his mark. That's scary! The good news is if you find salvation you will be raptured
before the horror begins. Do you
see how great our Lord is?! First,
He gives His only Son, then He dies
for your sins, because of this you can now receive salvation and eternal life in
heaven, and then God even tells us that because we accepted all this that we
won't have to be here to witness
the destruction and devastation brought on the world by Satan himself.
Instead those who accept Jesus as their personal saviour will be called
up to meet Him , in the clouds, face to face to live with Him in the kingdom of
heaven. Now
I don't know about any of you, but we find that it gives us great peace
and joy to know that we will be surrounded by the beauty of heaven instead of
being here on earth to be a witness to the brutality and torture that the world
will experience in the end. Is that
what you want to go through? If not
ask Jesus into your heart today! Don't
keep putting it off until tomorrow. There
may not be a tomorrow. No one
knows when there life will end and know one knows when the end of the world will
come. More importantly no one knows
when the rapture will take place. God
only tells us it will take place before the great tribulation begins.
So who knows, maybe he'll call us the day before it starts or maybe, just
maybe Jesus will call for us tomorrow! Please,
this Christmas accept the gift of salvation before it's too late.
For
the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God: and
the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet our Lord in the air: and so
shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore
comfort one another with these words.
We can't explain how
comforting those words truly are. We
can only say we don't worry about the future for ourselves anymore because we
put that in God's hands. We do
worry about our family and friends and continually pray that you will find the
same peace we have in God's care. We'd
like to invite anyone who would like join us in fellowship at The Church of God
to come to a service, but be careful Christians can be contagious.
Especially if there name starts with the letter "M" as in Mary
or "B" as in Billy. Just
a little private joke, we love you Brother and Sister Spencer!
These two wonderful people had a lot to do with making us feel so welcomed
at the church, as did our Sister Dorothy who we were blessed to know and love
for a little while before she went to be with our Lord. We love you Dorothy and
look forward to hearing you play on your golden harp.
I want to end this letter in loving memory of Dorothy Ford who praised
and worshipped our Lord with all her heart and we feel so blessed that she was a
part of our lives even if it was for just a short time.
In
His Service,
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