… When we need answers to prayer.
A post from an online christian forum for a woman who needs a believing, loving husband. I was inspired to try and tell the story about my father’s prayers and answers to prayer for the very same thing, and much of my earlier personal story came out in the writing. It’s geared towards people in great need for answers to prayer and for love and fellowship. Encouragement, always… ~<3
Dear Brokenhearted,
Let me share with you my dad’s story, which I think will be a bit of comfort for you. <:3
My dad grew up in a classically blue-collar family where his parents went to chrch regularly, but didn’t have a born-again faith – so he grew up pretty much as any kid would, probably all teenagerish and redheaded. (As a picture in my grandparent’s basement shows, a carrot-top even though I’ve always known him to have black hair). He’s always talked to me about how pushy and controlling his mother was – love around a core of self-centeredness. He was one of the college kids that ended up loving the fellowship of YoungLife meetings at VirginiaTech, and that’s how he got started with this whole bible-lover thing. (Â 
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He married my mom just after getting out of college, because he was very impressed by my grandmother – a woman who was the ideal mother, loving, kind, and godly, as he puts it. My mom was the middle kid in a family of six, and her mother from a south dakota farm family – I adore my grandmother on that side of the family – like gold. <3
The problem really was my mother’s father, who got into the Swedenborgian literature after he came back from service in WW2 in europe. He found out in some screwy way that he had family connections to a guy who wrote theories and theologies about everything in the bible being skewed, because he matched up all the events and figures in revelations and Daniel as historical figures and events in the past (from the middle ages, rennaisance, and the wars in europe in the 1800s. Events like the plague, etc.). Anyway, this screwy theology has the end-reults that there is no sin any more, because Jesus supposedly already came back to the earth spiritually, and everyone is supposedly living in the thousand-year-kingdom of his reign now.
… My grandfather never did have spiritual peace with that theology, and he’s hard-rutted into it like a nail in hardwood now. Among the things he did to my mom was throw a plate of hot food on her at the dinnertable when he got mad at her, and pushed her one time into the front door where the glass shattered and she got torn up by it. My mom had several really tragic memories bottled up, and no real christian background or reason for faith, and my dad thought she did.
So they got married and had me the year after, and my mom had trouble figuring out how to keep a good household budget. She overspent and they had arguments on a regular/escalating basis the first few years. After my sister was born three years into the marriage, she had a mental breakdown and was in the mental ward for the first time.
It continued as the years went on. She developed bi-polar disorder, schitzophrenia, not to mention whatever else they throw of words on a battered woman with mental anguish who needed spiritual healing. My dad rutted into the word because he didn’t know why my mom was reacting so strongly, screaming at night, becoming so depressed and downhearted. He got so angry sometimes that he actually came to shove or hit her, because the arguments were so bad. I remember waking up in the night when the voices were too loud, and I would cry in the hallway to beg them to stop. Kids always do feel like it might somehow be their fault at that age!
In the church my dad visited they got counseling because someone finally suggested that demons might be involved. I remember my dad leading us around the house to pray in each room to cast out demons, and my dad throwing the TV out on the sidewalk outside the house to get rid of it because he thought demonic influences might be coming from it. The big collection of ‘My little ponies’ his mother had bought for me and my sister went out too! Of course this talk of demons just scared them both. There WERE demons at work, of course, of the sort that influence a person with thoughts of guilt, sorrow, pain and confusion! My mother had not experienced what Jesus-like love, forgiveness, patience, counseling and healing can do. She was stuck on the outside, especially with how her ‘christian’ father treated her.
They at last separated when I was 10 or 11 years old, when my mom went manic and said to my dad in her desparation that she kill herself and take me and my sister with her. I remember her being giddy and playful in a creepy way around the house one evening, and I think she was relieved and creepy-bubbly because she had finally figured/decided to take the easy way out.
So it was the early 1990′s, her medications were the wrong ones, and she went back to live with her parents after a trip through the mental hospital while me and my sister lived with our grandparents. There was double parental custody from the courts, and me and my sister had to visit my mother every weekend and in the summers. Her yelling at me and mood swings over her blaming and anguish at my dad haunted me all through my teenagerhood, until I ended mandantory visitation at 15. She showed up at my dad’s house with police since she was convinced that it was his doing.
Sorry, I know, all this stuff isn’t directly related to your experience and history! I get so.. caught up in wanting to tell the story thoroughly. Here’s where it gets more relevant, and where I want to encourage you!
My dad had about six or seven years before he finally found a godly woman he fell in love with. He went to Parents Without Partners a lot, and dated several women who he met there – he even invited one to go with him on a business trip with him to california on a weekend, and she ended up trying to pick up a date when they were out dancing!
He was very frustrated by it, of course, and lonely. He continued his fight to lessen the mandantory visitation and get full custody, and the divorce negotiations took 2-3 years. He had several relationships with women who were looking for money/financial stability and didn’t really connect with him, and there were women who siply didn’t have the same faith, and women who just weren’t in the ball park.. All sorts! I remember some of them quite well, and even still have some hand-me-down clothes from one of them twelve years later. Eventually god provided a buyer for the old townhouse and he was about to find a new one just over the state border, much closer to his workplace – and you bet hed been praying for /years/ for a woman who would be a good wife, Jesuslover and mother, and we were living with him then, of course. It was a change of schools, and everything. The new town was wonderful, and I finally had at least one freind.
Of course dad went to dance lessons, events, and searched wide for a church he liked. One that taught right out of th scripture. God started answering his prayers at some squaredance lessons at the community center – one of his dancepartners was really nice, and she spoke about her little church that met in a school auditorium. Dad found a good congregation out of it, and started being freinds with and dating her.
Cheryl was her name – she was a recent divorcee who’s husband had left her for another. She had a son a year younger than my little sister, and he was shy and a bit bratty! ADD and that stuff. They took a whole half-year to see if we kids would get along, and they grew to love eachother even around the constant phone calls from my stressing mother, and the weedlingly-controlling personality of my father’s mother. They got married at the half-year mark in march in 1995, and slowly we all started adapting to eachother with the newness of living in the same household.
It wasn’t easy, because we all had to learn to open up to eachother and trust. Me and my sister were incredibly closed in because of the earlier traumaus, and I certainly didn’t believe! I blamed God nightly for my lonliness, frustrations, people who didn’t accept me, the way I felt like I was f’ed up and worthless (as at the time my mother was continually mentally abusive. I’m still slightly deaf in one ear!).
In 1996 I had a short relationship with a boy from up north from over the internet, and it ended badly when he faced the phone bill and was scolded by his father and made to pay the costs. He came to my house with a girl in tow without telling me beforehand, and it devastated me. When I didn’t realize that I should call it off straight and not even say hi to him any more on the chat channel, he started being abusive with logging on to a different name and trying to run a smear campaign on his usual username, and it creeped me out terribly. Two months later he decided to turn around, and started to talk to me regularly again, and we visited once. A month later he went on a trip with his father out of the country, and Cheryl began to be a blessing – she spoke to me about the relationship being bad, and convincing me – and I decided to call it off. It was awful when he came back and I told him. I called Cheryl up, and she defended me on the keyboard while I sat on my bed and cried hard.
I started getting diabetes type 1 from all the stress. My body shrunk and lost it’s fat rapidly, I slowly slept less and less at night, I drank water and ate huge amounts of food more and more, and had to pee all the time. The stresses from my mother and bad relationship had taken it’s toll, and I suffered for 6 month while Cheryl (a registered nurse) watched and prayed with my dad that it wasn’t what she thought it might be.
When I went into ketoacidosis (acid shock from the breakdown of muscles when the body has no insulin and thinks it’s starving because it can’t use insulin), she took me to the hospital, and I had a sleepless first night there. I was crying, angry, and talking with God. I said to him, ‘I can’t take this any more! I could have died if my dad hadn’t married Cheryl! If it were with my mother or if my dad was single, it could have been hours or days before being found if I had gone into a diabetic coma. God, I can’t handle this /too/! It’s your responcibility now. I accept Jesus, and I’ll give up all my sins on the internet and try to follow you, if you’ll just help me through this.’
Cheryl was.. like a breakwater against my mother. She gave me the courage to break off first a poor dating relationship while I was weak and not self-defending to begin with, and that gave me the courage four months later to break off visitation entirely with my mother. She began to respect me. She was learning from what I said about faith, and god loving her too.
My mother is a believer now, and my sister. My stepbrother turned into an amazing, responcible, believing and confidant fellow, who is in the air force now and we are all very proud of.
—
Because of a man’s clinging to the word, faith, and prayer, my life is here – I live and breathe, because he never gave up, and God never, never gave up on him. I ended up marrying a guy from the very same chat channel I met my first boyfreind on, who admitted a crush on me years after we spent time talking. I live in Denmark now, and we have survived many more trials, and I have more stories of how God has intervened, answered prayer, and helped me heal through both gentle miracles (little things!) from both when I prayed, bothered to go to church or to meetings when invited by my church freinds, and heard about other reasons for people’s faith.
God will always answer – he will always open the door, and always surprise you. From my short 27 years of experience, he never does it the way you expect, from who you expect, or where or how. He acts when you be brave and take some initiative – even the smallest bit, to step out of your normal tracks and try something new.
Proverbs 3 [show] [3:1]My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments, for length of days and years of life and peace they will add to you. Let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck; write them on the tablet of your heart. So you will find favor and good success in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine. My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed. The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew. My son, do not lose sight of these-- keep sound wisdom and discretion, and they will be life for your soul and adornment for your neck. Then you will walk on your way securely, and your foot will not stumble. If you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet. Do not be afraid of sudden terror or of the ruin of the wicked, when it comes, for the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, "Go, and come again, tomorrow I will give it"--when you have it with you. Do not plan evil against your neighbor, who dwells trustingly beside you. Do not contend with a man for no reason, when he has done you no harm. Do not envy a man of violence and do not choose any of his ways, for the devious person is an abomination to the LORD, but the upright are in his confidence. The LORD's curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous. Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor. The wise will inherit honor, but fools get disgrace.
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;6 in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.
When it says to ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart’, it’s encouraging you to put all your hope in that he will bring you love, relief and hope. He will, I know he will. I prayed for you when I first read your request! He answers our most desparate pleas and sends his messangers the moment you cry out to him. He runs to your aid the moment you say his name a cry for help!
When it says ‘and he will make your paths straight’, it’s not just saying that he will straighten you out so you’re an obedient christan – it’s saying he will make your path easy and provide you everything along the way! It’s a stone-clad promise that he will. <3
I want to encourge you to speak openly with your church members openly about your heartaches. Talk openly about how you’re hurting, who you’re praying for, and for encouragement. Don’t worry about folk who will try and judge you, look at what you might have done wrong in your past, or shake their heads. If they do, then let them know you just need love and fellowship. Turn to someone else who is showing openess and a willing ear, seek invitations to coffee or walking together or suggestions about nice places to meet people or good fellowship groups. I’ll continue to pray for you, for all of this. <3
I’m trying to find the exact passages that are haunting my mind, but these two I saw in a list of verses on supplication:
Psalms 28:7 [show] The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.
The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.
Psalms 28:6 [show] Blessed be the LORD! For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.
God WILL give you whatever you ask him for. When you read David’s Psalms, you’re reading about someone who went though much the same pain and level of suffering as you are. God /feels/ exactly what you want and need, and just /waits/ at the door for you to ask. He always provides, just when the time is right, just when the moment is perfect. He’ll turn your head to someone at a bus stop, he’ll give you a spontaneous desire to say hi to someone in the supermarket.. He might even inspire you to try something as silly as a beginner’s class in square dancing,
Anything you read in the psalms you can use right when you are praying to God with your heart’s desire. You can recite just one little verse, and cling to it for a light of hope – an absolute[/i] promise. I suggest Psalms 28:6 [show] Blessed be the LORD!
For he has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy. – write it down several times by hand until you can do it without looking, carry it in your pocket on a tiny piece of paper. ‘Blessed be the LORD, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications. ‘
You can know with certainty that God has heard your cry, and many more of us will pray for you, sweet sister. <3