This is a testimony of how God miraculously used some very dark events to bring one lost soul closer to Him and outright Save another. The events are true, I have omitted only the names of those involved out of respect for privacy.
---
Until this past October, we had custody of my husband's oldest daughter. That custody has never been easy. She has a mental illness that makes her quite difficult to manage. Her mother has always offered her money and a refuge where she could live any old way she wished. The only things that kept her from ending up living with her mother earlier were constant battles of the personal and legal variety.
But Texas has a law: At 17 a child may go wherever he or she wishes uncontested by the authorities. So almost the day she reached that age she flew out the door, and turned our lives into a shambles in the process.
Her behavior up to that point had been steadily worstening. My husband missed a good bit of work to deal with her when I could no longer do so. So four days after losing her to her decision to move in with her mother, he was informed that he would lose his job for being absent so much.
As the sole wage earner in the family, this was a rather tragic thing to hear.
I won't pretend -- it shook my faith. I *wanted* to just relax and be sure it was all going to be OK. But the child I'd come to consider my own daughter had up and left as if the years she'd lived here previously had been some kind of imprisonment. She cut ties to us with no regard for how it would affect us and she also dropped out of school. My husband was mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with her. And we were broke.
All in all, I wasn't finding it in myself to be thankful or hopeful. I was bordering on bitter.
And then I got a note on my facebook account from a friend.
This isn't a girl who normally has anything "positive" to say about religion. But for some reason, out of the blue and for the first time ever, she sent me this little "chain-mail" prayer. It had this little poem about how someone was thinking about me and praying for me and that by 11:11 tonight I would have something good happen to me.
I "humbugged" out loud.
And then I glanced at my computer clock.
And I also burst into tears of humility and took a screenshot.
It was 11:11pm as I read the note.
It was such a little thing, easily chocked up to coincidence, but at that moment to receive a message about the Love of God from a girl who isn't even sure He exists...it put me back into the frame of mind I should have been in all along.
----
But of course with the morning light came the worries of the day. I tried to put a brave face on it, and I had a sense that things would work out...somehow...but I felt restless...agitated. I was still up and worried at 2am, so I did something I'd never done before:
I logged into a Yahoo chatroom for Christianity.
I rapidly discovered Yahoo chatrooms weren't so great. In that room of 137 "Christians" I filled up my ignore list fast while fielding messages that had nothing to do with Christ at all. This was definitely not what I wanted or needed when I logged in. I sat there thinking:
Why am I here?
And then she came into the chat room. She typed in bad English with caps and italics and frownie faces. She sounded like a high school kid. She said she really had a problem and asked for help.
Once.
Twice.
Three times with a "PLZ!"
And I got this sense of ... something ... and I *had* to respond.
And that is how I came to learn that this young girl was going bonkers trying to balance a personal awareness of Jesus with a lapsed Catholic religion/family that just wasn't working for her. She was also agonizing over a situation her sin had gotten her into and trying to figure out how to fix the problem.
We must have talked for two hours. I found out she was literally on the other side of the world and in high school and so on and so forth. We didn't talk as much about God as you'd think at first. But then she asked me what I thought she should do and the conversation turned to seeking forgiveness and what it means to repent --- peppered with advice about how best to repair the damage her sin had done.
I came to realize that this poor young thing was living in *terror* of a giant and unapproachable "God" of wrath and judgement.
I was very surprised to learn that no one had ever told this girl that Jesus loved her. The *personal* love of Christ was alien to her. She clearly felt so alone, so lost. She believed in Him, she loved Him (as best as her mind could understand) but she was distanced from Him by church doctrines of gloom and doom that had failed to teach of the Love of God. She just couldn't believe that God loved her or could ever forgive her.
And so I explained how much He did.
I don't even remember what I typed. I just poured out all of the ways God loved her.
She replied "You're making me cry...I'm in an Internet Cafe...it's embarrassing. I know it's all true...but it's so...what do I do?"
And then I found myself typing:
"Child, do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?"
It took her over seven minutes to answer. I was praying very hard. I was afraid she'd log off or that her connection had gone dead or something. I could almost *feel* her doubts and her fears as she thought of what to type. There was a sense of urgency and a heaviness to the waiting and I suddenly realized I was engaged in a very real battle. I knew *I* couldn't fight the battle, so I appealed to the only One who could:
And I found myself saying (out loud) "Lord Jesus please Rebuke whatever influence Satan has in this girl's life. Let her be free to answer as her heart would say without his interference."
And at that moment she replied: "YES!"
Which is probably the point where *I* started crying too.
And while she and I are rarely online at the same time, I still recieve messages now and then from her. They are hopeful and praising of the God she is finally coming to know. Last I heard from her she was seeking a Bible believing church to join.
And that night (morning hehe), I went to sleep with something like music in my heart. There was a joy and a peace that language cannot articulate. My problems were not solved, but they did not matter. I had been allowed to take part (however tiny) in the Salvation of a soul that night. I had *seen* someone brought to Jesus. The Lord God honored *me* with that opportunity.
I don't feel any sense of accomplishment - I did nothing - just a sense of immense gratitude that I was allowed to be a part of something so wonderous.
That sense of peace lasted. It renewed and strengthened my faith. It gave me the strength I needed to *believe* for our own situation. I sat listening to my three favorite TV preachers, and two of the three spoke the same verse:
He calls those things which be not as though they were....
And I thought "Ok I get it." And I said "Before this week ends, my husband will have an opening for a job that will be as good or better than any so far."
That thursday, he got a call for an interview. Then his old boss called and said that they had had a change of heart about letting him go and he could come back if he wished.
My husband now had the "pick of the litter" - in the end, he prayed to God to help him make the choice between job options, and he is now back in the job he loved, with the team he prefers to work with, with his office and his "key" and all of the perks that made him love the job in the first place.
Four years ago when his daughter was diagnosed with her illness, it challenged my faith greatly because I could understand no purpose for such a thing to happen to a child. Getting fired rarely seems like a good thing either.
But God does not work to man's understanding.
*He* knew that in the long run, this illness would in a round about way inspire a friend to send out godly encouragement - coming closer to God herself in the process. And *He* knew it would lead me into a chat room at 2am to witness the Salvation of a little lost sheep when no one else would listen or be with her. *He* knew that He could use what seems like tragic things as ways to manifest His glory.
So I believe that if you are being inspired to read this post, out of the thousands on this forum, then you were led here. Maybe this testimony is your "chain-mail" prayer to strengthen *your* faith. Maybe you needed to be reminded that when your life is going strangely or "badly," you need only to Trust our God and remember:
"We know all things work together for good..."
God bless you,
Janette
---
Until this past October, we had custody of my husband's oldest daughter. That custody has never been easy. She has a mental illness that makes her quite difficult to manage. Her mother has always offered her money and a refuge where she could live any old way she wished. The only things that kept her from ending up living with her mother earlier were constant battles of the personal and legal variety.
But Texas has a law: At 17 a child may go wherever he or she wishes uncontested by the authorities. So almost the day she reached that age she flew out the door, and turned our lives into a shambles in the process.
Her behavior up to that point had been steadily worstening. My husband missed a good bit of work to deal with her when I could no longer do so. So four days after losing her to her decision to move in with her mother, he was informed that he would lose his job for being absent so much.
As the sole wage earner in the family, this was a rather tragic thing to hear.
I won't pretend -- it shook my faith. I *wanted* to just relax and be sure it was all going to be OK. But the child I'd come to consider my own daughter had up and left as if the years she'd lived here previously had been some kind of imprisonment. She cut ties to us with no regard for how it would affect us and she also dropped out of school. My husband was mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with her. And we were broke.
All in all, I wasn't finding it in myself to be thankful or hopeful. I was bordering on bitter.
And then I got a note on my facebook account from a friend.
This isn't a girl who normally has anything "positive" to say about religion. But for some reason, out of the blue and for the first time ever, she sent me this little "chain-mail" prayer. It had this little poem about how someone was thinking about me and praying for me and that by 11:11 tonight I would have something good happen to me.
I "humbugged" out loud.
And then I glanced at my computer clock.
And I also burst into tears of humility and took a screenshot.
It was 11:11pm as I read the note.
It was such a little thing, easily chocked up to coincidence, but at that moment to receive a message about the Love of God from a girl who isn't even sure He exists...it put me back into the frame of mind I should have been in all along.
----
But of course with the morning light came the worries of the day. I tried to put a brave face on it, and I had a sense that things would work out...somehow...but I felt restless...agitated. I was still up and worried at 2am, so I did something I'd never done before:
I logged into a Yahoo chatroom for Christianity.
I rapidly discovered Yahoo chatrooms weren't so great. In that room of 137 "Christians" I filled up my ignore list fast while fielding messages that had nothing to do with Christ at all. This was definitely not what I wanted or needed when I logged in. I sat there thinking:
Why am I here?
And then she came into the chat room. She typed in bad English with caps and italics and frownie faces. She sounded like a high school kid. She said she really had a problem and asked for help.
Once.
Twice.
Three times with a "PLZ!"
And I got this sense of ... something ... and I *had* to respond.
And that is how I came to learn that this young girl was going bonkers trying to balance a personal awareness of Jesus with a lapsed Catholic religion/family that just wasn't working for her. She was also agonizing over a situation her sin had gotten her into and trying to figure out how to fix the problem.
We must have talked for two hours. I found out she was literally on the other side of the world and in high school and so on and so forth. We didn't talk as much about God as you'd think at first. But then she asked me what I thought she should do and the conversation turned to seeking forgiveness and what it means to repent --- peppered with advice about how best to repair the damage her sin had done.
I came to realize that this poor young thing was living in *terror* of a giant and unapproachable "God" of wrath and judgement.
I was very surprised to learn that no one had ever told this girl that Jesus loved her. The *personal* love of Christ was alien to her. She clearly felt so alone, so lost. She believed in Him, she loved Him (as best as her mind could understand) but she was distanced from Him by church doctrines of gloom and doom that had failed to teach of the Love of God. She just couldn't believe that God loved her or could ever forgive her.
And so I explained how much He did.
I don't even remember what I typed. I just poured out all of the ways God loved her.
She replied "You're making me cry...I'm in an Internet Cafe...it's embarrassing. I know it's all true...but it's so...what do I do?"
And then I found myself typing:
"Child, do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?"
It took her over seven minutes to answer. I was praying very hard. I was afraid she'd log off or that her connection had gone dead or something. I could almost *feel* her doubts and her fears as she thought of what to type. There was a sense of urgency and a heaviness to the waiting and I suddenly realized I was engaged in a very real battle. I knew *I* couldn't fight the battle, so I appealed to the only One who could:
And I found myself saying (out loud) "Lord Jesus please Rebuke whatever influence Satan has in this girl's life. Let her be free to answer as her heart would say without his interference."
And at that moment she replied: "YES!"
Which is probably the point where *I* started crying too.
And while she and I are rarely online at the same time, I still recieve messages now and then from her. They are hopeful and praising of the God she is finally coming to know. Last I heard from her she was seeking a Bible believing church to join.
And that night (morning hehe), I went to sleep with something like music in my heart. There was a joy and a peace that language cannot articulate. My problems were not solved, but they did not matter. I had been allowed to take part (however tiny) in the Salvation of a soul that night. I had *seen* someone brought to Jesus. The Lord God honored *me* with that opportunity.
I don't feel any sense of accomplishment - I did nothing - just a sense of immense gratitude that I was allowed to be a part of something so wonderous.
That sense of peace lasted. It renewed and strengthened my faith. It gave me the strength I needed to *believe* for our own situation. I sat listening to my three favorite TV preachers, and two of the three spoke the same verse:
He calls those things which be not as though they were....
And I thought "Ok I get it." And I said "Before this week ends, my husband will have an opening for a job that will be as good or better than any so far."
That thursday, he got a call for an interview. Then his old boss called and said that they had had a change of heart about letting him go and he could come back if he wished.
My husband now had the "pick of the litter" - in the end, he prayed to God to help him make the choice between job options, and he is now back in the job he loved, with the team he prefers to work with, with his office and his "key" and all of the perks that made him love the job in the first place.
Four years ago when his daughter was diagnosed with her illness, it challenged my faith greatly because I could understand no purpose for such a thing to happen to a child. Getting fired rarely seems like a good thing either.
But God does not work to man's understanding.
*He* knew that in the long run, this illness would in a round about way inspire a friend to send out godly encouragement - coming closer to God herself in the process. And *He* knew it would lead me into a chat room at 2am to witness the Salvation of a little lost sheep when no one else would listen or be with her. *He* knew that He could use what seems like tragic things as ways to manifest His glory.
So I believe that if you are being inspired to read this post, out of the thousands on this forum, then you were led here. Maybe this testimony is your "chain-mail" prayer to strengthen *your* faith. Maybe you needed to be reminded that when your life is going strangely or "badly," you need only to Trust our God and remember:
"We know all things work together for good..."
God bless you,
Janette
