Is God Real In Your Life?
Carol and I have joined to write this to show how real God can be in your life. Both of us have been active Christians for decades serving God in whatever ministries He called us.
Most of you know my faith in God and a little about how He has worked in my life. He is constantly with me when I do good and when I sin. I shared before and told you some of what God did in my life.
Never before has God answered my prayers so quickly and so thoroughly. You may know that I started a website called IAmCalls.com. Jesus began to lead me to commit more and more of my time in service to Him and less to building a money-making business.
At first, my idea was to devote half my time to Him and half to business. But, the more I prayed, the more He showed me He wanted a total commitment.
I was overwhelmed.
I began to see all I needed to build an effective site, realizing I could not do it alone. To keep focused and motivated each day, I need someone to help me.
I prayed a very specific prayer on the night of April 24th. First, I asked my Father in Heaven for a wife and helpmate. Then I went to sleep, not thinking that God would answer right away but knowing He would because He always does. Sometimes He answers months or years later.
He answered the next day.
I received a note from Carol the following day, commenting on one of my articles. The Lord clarified that she was His answer. I knew that the Spirit was telling me that she would be my wife and helpmate. From that moment on, I never had a doubt.
But how could it be? She was 1600 miles away, and we did not even know each other. She just said she liked my writing, but I did not need to answer her message. But, of course, I did because I knew something she did not know. She was going to marry me.
Hi! It’s Carol here for a bit now:
I prayed the night of April 24th, thanking God for being my Husband, as Isaiah 54:5 describes God for the widow. Next, I thanked Him that in the 25 years since Bob left my six children and myself, and in the additional six years since Bob’s death, God had never failed us.
I told Him that I was not going to anticipate anyone else. Of course, I could not have remarried while Bob lived, but now in widowhood, I knew I could marry again. Still, I thought I would be alone with God for the remainder of my life,
I was content in my life. I had six grown children, 16 grandchildren, and my ministry.
Nearly 32 years is a long time to be without a husband.
The following day, I read a passage on a Christian site that I commented upon. I wrote that I loved reading the beautiful piece the man had written. and that, as a writer, I appreciated his heartfelt style and his evident faith. I asked him NOT to write back.
An hour later, I received a message from this author who said that he had his work on a website. He also said that he would be glad to read and possibly publish some of my things if I submitted them to him.
I did send him a couple of my pieces that he published… and he wrote again…and so it went.
Over time, he called me, and the subject began to leave the pieces I wrote to our personal lives.
God was at work.
Little did I dream that within 3 months and countless texts and video chats, Bruce would also travel 1600 miles to meet me and the children and their families.
Though Bruce repeatedly told me that he would not say anything until we met, we prayed together on the phone each evening. One evening, before he came to Virginia, I got to listen to his prayer to God, in which he told God that God already knew that he was going to ask me to marry him.
So, I had a bit of a clue there ..lol.
He came to our rural community, found an empty field, sat me down on a log, knelt before me, and asked me to be his wife. I can’t type this without tears.
I said yes. We set a date for November 30, 2021.
More was to change.
Sadly, and very unbelievably to me, we had a resurgence of Covid that swept through my church and community. I would eventually lose a son-in-law and two dear friends to it.
Yet, we would again see how God brings good from the worst in our lives.
Bruce suggested that we move up the marriage and travel to Texas to meet his family instead of waiting in Virginia in isolation for several more months. He thought that it would be a good idea. It was.
Amazingly, our marriage came less than four months from the time of those prayers on April 24th.
Our wedding started the next chapter of our miracle.
Since our marriage on August 23rd, we both felt that God was calling Bruce back into the ministry.
We are both excited to see how God combines our ministries. We hope that our website, online work, prayer lines, and one-on-one ministry will share Jesus with others.
God is full of joyful surprises and new hope when you follow Him and love Him. I am now 74, and Bruce is 80.
The best is yet ahead.
Bruce Continues:
God’s miracles never stop.
Carol has always maintained a debt-free life following the Scripture. Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. Romans 13:8 I had not!
In July 2021, I was in debt and could see no way I could pay it off before spring. However, God is real in my life, and I knew that He would provide if He wanted me to marry, move to Virginia, and start a new ministry.
I believed that I needed to go to Virginia and propose to her in person. To go was an added expense, but God provided. God had already shown me I would marry her, so I knew the answer, but proposing should be in person.
We set a date of November 30, 2021, to get married. But, unfortunately, I was sure it would take until January 2022 or later to pay off my debt.
As I laid it before God, He assured me that He would provide everything I needed. Yet, I had some doubts and kept trying to figure out how He would do it. At other times, I plotted how I could do it myself, but I knew that it was impossible.
Carol had dedicated her life to homeschooling her 6 children and then many hours to various ministries after they were grown. Her work provided minimal income as did her retirement years later. So her resources, as mine, were limited.
Besides that, I needed a car to do ministry in Virginia. Homes are far apart, too far to walk.
When I got back, I started getting serious, asking God to help so I could move without debt. God has always provided, and I knew that He would do so now, but I was the one who made the debt. So I was not without fear.
Bruce Continues: Things Changed in Virginia
Covid started to climb in Carol’s local area of Virginia at that point, making her less safe from infection. I convinced her that she needed to move up the wedding date and travel to Texas with me in August for an extended honeymoon.
In August, I rented a car and came out to be married on August 23, 2021. Again, God provided the additional income to cover the cost.
I thought that the additional cost would prolong paying off my debt, but it did not. Therefore, even though I saw the debt as an impossible mountain to overcome, God did not.
God provided a significant increase in sales from my old customers. Fortunately, the considerable increase almost completely wiped out my debt. God has worked many miracles in my life, but never like this.
He also showed us that by the end of November, He would provide enough to pay for our travel back to Virginia and our housing costs when there.
A Real Miracle
This miracle does not stop with the above. We needed transportation to Virginia and a reliable car to get us around in a rural area. God provided additional money to purchase a car for cash. He then led us to a Toyota Echo for precisely what He had provided. It even had very low mileage and was in good shape for an older car. We got 33 miles to a gallon on our trip home to Virginia.
Why do we share this story of how God has provided for us?
There are two reasons to share this story with you.
The first is to help you understand that God is real and His word never fails.
Paul says in Philippians 4:19, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
We want you to know that God is real and that He cares for you!
There is nothing special about Carol and me. We are not super saints. The simple truth is that God showed us what we were to do, but our doubt was genuine.
The second is that if you believe God and do what He shows you, He will even clean up some of your mistakes.
We trusted God, but by human standards, it was impossible. My mind filled me with doubt. God had never done so much in such a short time for me. I trusted God, but I doubted myself. Was I hearing what God was saying to me correctly?
Would He clean up a debt that I had made? I certainly knew that His word said to owe no man anything.
There has never been a time in Carol’s life or my life when God did not provide everything we needed.
I have believed and lived by this Scripture most of my life. It has always proved true. God had rescued me before, many times, but never like this and never so quickly!
We are both still amazed at this whirlwind event, and the great love He has given us!
Our God is SO GOOD!!
PS As we reread this, (before we begin to put all of our stories in audio form) we must add that our honeymoon continues.
Carol is now 75 and I turn 82 later this month, and never have we been happier.
Our 12th great-grandchild has joined our combined family of 25 grandchildren, and 10 children. Recently, we learned that our church was active with a Christian school in Tanzania. Among their 230 students, there were 47 full orphans, and we have been able to “adopt” 4 of them. We pray for all of our family including foster children who still keep in touch.
God has blessed us indeed!