TestImonies

The spring of 2023 was a true spiritual low point for me. I became acutely aware of this while on vacation in Utah, which is generally a recharging time for me (as vacations should be). With distractions out of the way for a week or so, the only thing that this vacation accomplished was to show me how spiritually depleted I was. My spiritual “gas tank” was nearly empty, and my vacation wasn’t refilling it.

As I poured out my heart to God in desperation, He prompted me to humble myself and ask for some serious prayer. Clearly, I wasn’t going to dig myself out of this pit on my own. On my way back from vacation I reached out to one of the other elders at Grace Fellowship, Andy Dozier, and he coordinated putting together a team from church to pray for me.

June 26, 2023 stands in my memory as a day nearly as significant to me as the day that I trusted in Jesus as my Savior and Lord, over 50 years ago. A group of a half-dozen brothers and sisters in Christ gathered around me as we worked through several hours of healing and freedom prayers. I felt so loved as God stripped away lies and fears that I had been believing and replaced them with His love through my friends. The time was joyous and passed by very quickly! One sister gave me a prophetic word based on 2 Timothy 1:7 that continues to encourage me today. God truly worked through His word and His people. My spiritual gas tank has been refilled and I am so thankful!

A bonus testimony from that prayer session was my physical healing from a low blood sugar condition (hypoglycemia). Prior to that prayer session, for years I had had to eat something every few hours, or my body would rebel (think “hangry” spells!). You could have set a clock by when my body told me that I had to eat. Since June 26, those hypoglycemic incidents have completely disappeared! I praise Jesus for His healing of my body, soul, and spirit, and I am grateful for friends who were willing to step into my mess when I needed them! 

A good friend of mine in Grace Fellowship was caring and attentive enough to suggest to me I needed inner healing prayer. I didn’t realize it, and I was a little apprehensive about the process. In the prayer session, my Lake City friends focused mostly on some specific things that were traumatic to me as a teenager. The process was amazing. I have had stomach and digestive issues for about 50 years, and I’ve felt so much better since the healing prayer. Also, I haven’t slept well consistently in many years, and now am sleeping better and more peacefully than I can remember. My husband and I are now taking the Orbis inner healing classes online to learn and understand more. I thank God for His healing work! 

On March 28, 1998, I made a vow and 20 years later I began to question, regret, resent, and  to look for a way out of this vow. For six years I battled against the tension of the ways of the world and the Spirit in me; doubts and questions swirled in my head. Some days it was all I could think about, and I was starting to feel like I was going crazy. God gave me little glimpses of hope and words of encouragement, but I could not manufacture feelings of a wife toward my husband. I felt stuck. My vow was made before God and could not see a way out. Divorce had never been an option; that would have been a win for the enemy, and I am stubborn and loyal. Only death would part us, but this marriage we were portraying in the meantime was not fair to either of us.
I’d been watching God transform my husband into the man I thought I’d married, but I still did not like him; I couldn’t make myself like him. Divorce became the last and only option. But before I could even begin to construct such a conversation, God did a mighty work in my heart. He reminded me of His never-ending forgiveness He extended to me. He reminded me of the deep love He has for me. He showed me that perfection in myself or my spouse would never be enough. Only He would be enough…to fill every void, to right every wrong, to heal every wound, to change and transform a heart of stone into a vessel that could receive and extend love and grace.
In a weekend, God showed me the unforgiveness I was still holding onto. He walked me through forgiving myself so that I could forgive my husband. He transformed our marriage and in a moment, six years became a bur as the weight was lifted off of me and I was able to enter back into an intimate relationship with my husband.

Abby is a beautiful 18 year old miracle. In the summer of 2023, before her senior year she was traveling to Florida to visit family with her mother and brothers and as she approached the baggage area in the Florida airport experienced a devastating aneurism and she found herself fighting for her life in a Florida hospital. So many God provisions in this moment with available help and hospital and doctors. I know Abby through my grandchildren and her mother but was so touched and crushed knowing the critical battle that was happening for her. We were in Lake City for the summer and meeting with Grace Fellowship so I asked this church to pray. Pray for Abby to wake up. All summer we prayed weekly together for this beautiful girl. In his graciousness God answered with “Yes!”. The journey is not over, her story is still being written but we give God praise for his mercy. She will attend AbIlene Christian University in the fall. Her mother wrote the following:

“Senior Sunday April 28. Abby sang Wednesday night and had an amazing time of blessings over the seniors. We were asked by the elders what to pray over us. Our response was healing and restoration. God has been working on my heart and I realized that we need peace in the waiting and contentment if that healing does not come in the way we want it to. In the meantime we are going to continue celebrating Abby and all her accomplishments!! One more week of school for her and two more weeks till graduation!! It’s a busy season but loving all of it! 

Abby wears the tshirt in the picture to big events. It’s her warrior shirt. This shirt breaks my heart but also reminds me of the miracle she is and of God’s blessings. She wore that tshirt on our flight to Florida and it had to be cut off before they placed the external drain in her head. It reads On Earth as it is in Heaven.”

TBD

TBD