SAVED FROM FIRE

During the Korean War in 1954, my brother, Lloyd, was serving with the Alaska Communications Service, a branch of the Army, and was in the same barracks as his highschool buddy, Ken. During that time, our father became critically ill with cancer and Lloyd was given Compassionate Leave to come home. While he was home, the barracks caught fire one night and every one sleeping there was killed.

While we grieved for Ken and the other boys who died, we were thankful to God for sparing Lloyd's life --- if was as if the illness and death of our father a few weeks later saved his life. And so when Billy Graham came to Seattle during this time, Lloyd rededicated his life to Jesus.

In 1998 my brother went Home with Jesus, but I'll never forget that wonderful day when he went forward at the old football stadium, on the grounds of what is now the Seattle Center, to do Eternal Business with his Lord God!

EMOTIONALLY HEALED BY GOD'S GRACE

For many years, I struggled with a painful inferiority complex. I know that my mother did not intentionally hurt me by unfavorably comparng me to my older sister and younger brother. She probably did the same thing that was done to her in her huge family of nine children.

She would say, "Oh, why can't you be more like Norma or Lloyd!" My dad's mom always acted like she liked them more than me too, and this brought on shyness that has lingered to a degree for the rest of my life.

I graduated from Bible College in 1951 and two years later attended Biola's School of Missionary Medicine with the intention of serving the Lord on the mission field with The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM). However, just before graduation, I was called home to nurse my father who had cancer and died a few months later.

During my sophomore year at MSB, I met and fell in love with Jack who was one class before me, and we planned to spend our lives together, but he passed away from bulbar polio the summer after he graduated in 1950. He was 21 and I was 20. Click here to read my story of losing this wonderful man I'd hoped to marry, and what happened in my life.

One night after a church service, my son and his wife and I went up to the Upper Room to pray, and a young man came over and asked if he could pray for me. I didn't know him, but when he started to pray he said things that only God or my son could have told him. Paul said later that he'd never talked with him at all about me. He laid his hand on my head and said, "God wants you to know that He has always been right there beside you, tenderly loving you, and knows the heartache and pain in your heart because of your husband, and He wants to heal that hurt and heartache tonight." And that very night the Lord answered his prayer and the hurt and heartache disappeared. He put a new love in my heart for Lee which helped me to see his heart in a new way.

I'll always thank God for that night of prayer in the Upper Room when Jesus came up close and personal to me! That's why I'm always singing praises to Jesus, and why I encourage others that He will do the same wonders for them too. We can say, "I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20

With B. J. Hoff, I say, "Lord, You have given me the music, a song of life that's new and unrehearsed. You have given me the joy that makes my heart sing, even though at times the tears come first. You have given me the theme of my existence, and I will sing Your Glory all my days; for now and forever be my music and make my life a symphony of praise."

Thank God that He loves us and can be real and upclose and personal to all of us through whatever life throws at us. Trials and sorrows come to everyone while we live on this planet. He is no respector of persons, and He didn't promise us a rose garden. But He did promise that He will be with us and help us through thick and thin if we are His child and trust and rely on Him. He promises that it will be worth it all when we see Him and join Him in Heaven.

SAVED BY AN ANGEL

During the gas and oil crunch in 1974, I had to drive my mother home one Sunday from Seattle to Salem, Oregon. Since all service stations were closed on Sundays then, the day before we had filled up my old car with gas and oil, air in the tires, etc.. But as we neared Chehalis, the car let out a horrible noise, like it was ready to fall apart. We pulled off I-5 into town to see if, by some miracle, we might find a station open, but of course none were. We sat in the car and prayed for help.

We then started driving slowly down the street until almost the end of it, still praying, when by a miracle we saw an old ramshackle station with one gas pump, with a man standing beside it watching us as we drove in. He could hear the racket the car was making, and I told him that I had no idea what was wrong. He said "maybe it just needs a little more oil," and proceeded to pour in a little although it was practically full. He closed the hood and came over saying "I think it will be okay now." I started the car and it hummed like a Mercedes. He smiled and said "there's no charge, it's on the House." He waved as we drove away. My mother and I looked at each other still in shock, and said simultaneously, "I think he's an Angel!"

Two or three months later, while again driving mom home, we decided to stop off in Chehalis and see our friend at the ramshackle service station, driving down the same street to where we'd gone that day. But there was only a field. We weren't surprised. We just thanked the Lord again for His miracle-working Power to help two of His Kids when they needed Him. We believed the oil that was poured into my car was the oil of the Holy Spirit, and the "House" was God's House where that Angel was from! My old car had no more problems from that time on until I sold it for $200 two years later.

SEEING GOD'S CARE

On a bleak and wintry morning only one day before my house buyer was to close the sale on January 10, 2004, he backed out because of unforseen problems in financing the loan, and leaving me desperate because I'd counted on the sale going through to pay my bills. It was an old house and needed a lot of work, although I had been renting the house to my oldest son for the last 4 years.

All morning and afternoon I felt so low while talking to God all about it, sometimes complaining but clinging like a drowning person to His Promises that He knows our needs and won't leave us stranded and alone.

About 4 o'clock that afternoon, I got a call from my son who was moving out the next two days. He said, "Guess what! Just as I was leaving a few minutes ago, someone knocked at the door, and I was tempted to just leave and not answer the door but then "something" stopped me to go see who it was.

"A man was standing there who said that he'd driven by the house all month and noticed the "For Sale" sign, and that he now noticed the "Sold" addition to the sign was gone. He said that he was a contractor and would like to buy the house to fix up and sell.

"I took him through the house and answered his questions, then he gave me his card saying that he would contact his realtor and ours in the morning and sign the papers."

And that is exactly what he did the next morning. A few hours later the realtor brought the papers for me to sign.

What a miracle, and what manuvering God had to do to arrange all this on the very day that the sale was to have closed!

Two hours before the realtor came by for me to sign the papers, I had gone to the office of the senior low-income apartment complex where I live to ask if there was a small studio apartment available because with the sale of my house and loss of rent income I couldn't afford to keep my larger apartment any longer. I had been stressing about what furniture and things I could keep in a studio apartment and what I couldn't keep, and it had taken me at least three years to adjust to living in the small apartment with two rooms after moving there from my large home, but I knew God would help me adjust again to one room if that was His will.

Then I heard some overwhelming and awesome news: I could stay where I was,and the monthly rent would now go from $825 to $230, and told I could get funding from HUD to help me stay where I am and with other low income help as well.

I am in total awe of the goodness of God, and it took me a while to stop feeling numb. It felt like I was standing on holy ground!

With joy, I fell on my knees with thanksgiving and praises to God for coming to my aid once again, and with such exact timing so that there could be no doubt that He was in control!

God wants people who don't know Him to see how He loves us when they hear true stories of His help like this, and that He gives answers to our prayers and sends miracles to graphically show that we can trust Him through thick and thin and whatever comes into our lives!