Brad’s celebrity status is that he was the first golfer to lose a national title to Tiger Woods.
The year was 1991 and Brad Zwetschke was ranked number two behind Tiger in the U.S. Junior Amateur golf. In the championship match Brad was three up after five holes, and two up at the turn at Bay Hill in Orlando. It would be the first of many well publicized comebacks for Tiger who tied the match and defeated Brad on the first playoff hole.
Brad says,“Coming out of school all I wanted to do was play golf and party. I lived the wild life.” Along the way he met Christina Mauldin, a preacher’s daughter from the South side of Chicago. Brad is also from Chicago. Within a year and a half they were married. “She thought she was marrying a golf professional and I thought I was marrying an entertainer from Black Television.” (Christina had done a stint on the program “Heart & Soul.)
“My wife is a strong Christian and my loyal supporter. She accompanied me on tour, which was arduous, lots of travel and expensive. Sometimes we slept in our van because we couldn’t afford the hotel prices.
"In November 2001 we were touring in Australia and we went into a little church in Brisbane. The preacher’s message was based on John 21. The message spoke to me especially when Jesus asks Peter, ‘Do you love me as much as these’ (referring to the fish Peter and he friends had just caught). I identified with Peter who was being asked to give up fishing. I felt I was being asked to put down my clubs.”
"Three months later I was driving to the Canadian Tour Qualifying Tournament when I heard a message on the radio quoting John 21. Again I felt the message speaking to me. I played in the tournament but I did not qualify. My heart wasn’t in the game anymore. I quit golf.
“With the encouragement of my father-in law I enrolled in New Orleans Theological Seminary. He too had been called to the ministry by John 21.”
In August 2005, four months before Brad was to graduate, Katrina devastated New Orleans. With two children and Christina eight months pregnant, Brad borrowed a neighbor’s van and fled to Beatrice Alabama where they knew a pastor.He took them in.
“We lost everything as our apartment was completely flooded. But God had spared our family.” Then another kind of flood hit. “I could not stop the flow of gifts of clothing, food and furniture that poured in on us. It still hasn’t stopped.
“When it was time for Christina to have our fourth child we moved to Bradenton , Florida to be close to the doctor who had delivered are other children. I took a job as student intern in evangelism and finished my final semester at the seminary on line. In December 2006 my classmates and I received our degrees. Later I became the voluntary chaplain to the Cincinnati Reds farm team then in Sarasota.
“God has used everything in my life for His purposes. Golf had been my idol…now I’m pictured in golf magazines holding a Bible. It took a while for me to accept God’s forgiveness and to accept his grace. That has been huge for me.
"Tiger has become the king of golf. My notoriety as being the first to lose a national title to Tiger still brings invitations to speak at golf dinners and men’s retreats where I get to tell people about the King of Kings.”
Brad Zwetschke
Chaplain
Ft.Jackson, South Carolina
“Simon do you love Me more the these?”
“Yes Lord, You know that I love You.”
“Then feed My lambs.” John21:l5
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Mr. Clarke
Mr. Clarke
There are some things that just defy logical explanations. This is one of those things for me. I was a mother with a small boy at home. About once a month a Mr. Clarke would stop by, usually late morning, with a suitcase full of small household items for sale. Mr. Clarke, I never knew his first name, always addressed me as Mrs.Marr. He was an older gentleman, retired, who was trying to augment his income by going door-to-door selling whatever he could. I felt sorry for him and would always buy something, even if only a pair of shoe strings, so he wouldn’t leave without having sold something.
Mainly we would just chat about the weather or something in the news that week while my little boy played with blocks or some other toy on the living room floor. After several minutes of friendly conversation he would open his suitcase and point out some new item. I would listen to whatever he was promoting and politely say I didn’t think I needed that right now but what we really needed was a box of bandages. I would purchase the item and he was always most gracious as he packed his wares and left.
This went on for about a year and then one month passed and he hadn’t stopped by. Several months passed and no Mr. Clarke. There was a knock at the door one morning and I opened it to find a thin pleasant looking woman.
“Are you Mrs. Marr,” she asked? I nodded.
“I’m Mrs. Clarke, You were a customer of my husband. He passed on you know.”
“I’m sorry, I wondered what happened to him.”
“I’ve been talking with him and last night he gave me a message for you,” she said.
She must have read the expression of bewilderment and shock on my face for she continued talking.
“Oh yes. I talk with him frequently and last night he was very clear that I bring a message to you. He said, ‘tell Mrs. Marr there is going to be an explosion.’ That’s it, that’s all he said. I can’t tell you what it means, just what he said.”
She wouldn’t come in, apologized for upsetting me in any way and thanked me for being kind to her husband and she walked away. I was dumbfounded.
I thought of a hundred questions I wanted to ask her but she had gone. I didn’t know how to get in touch with her, or where she lived and I still didn’t know Mr. Clarke’s first name.
An explosion! What to do? My husband worked at an oil refinery and I impulsively called his office. As the call was going through I thought what on earth will I say to him. Hi dear, a woman I’ve never met before told me her dead husband gave her a message last night to warn me that there was going to be an explosion…
“Hello.”
“Hi Dear, how are you?”
“I’m fine, what’s up?”
I couldn’t tell him at least not now over the phone while he was at work. I would tell him when he got home tonight, besides he would be asking me a ton of questions to which I had no answers. The rest of our conversation was strained and awkward especially on my end. I tried to determine what the rest of his day was like without tipping my hand. I was trying to ascertain that he was going to be right at his desk and not out by the fuel storage tanks or down on the docks where the tankers unloaded. I sensed he was getting curious about my new-found interest in his day. Then he asked the question I was dreading.
“ Tell me is there something on your mind that prompted this call?”
“Oh,” I laughed nervously, “ Could you pick up a dozen eggs on your way home?”
When he came home with the eggs I came clean. I was relieved that he was home and we both had a laugh over our cat and mouse phone conversation. He didn’t know what to make of Mrs. Clarke’s message anymore than I did. So we returned to our routine and switched on the evening news.
The lead story was “A Northwest Airliner Exploded Over Lake Michigan Today Killing All On Board.”
I nearlt fainted. Our daughter was a flight attendant for Northwest. Bob, after assisting me, called the airline. They wouldn’t give out any information at this time. His next call was to the Providence Journal. After talking to a few people an editor said he would make inquiries. He did and called us back with the information that our daughter was not on that flight.
We found out later that she was scheduled for that flight but took sick and her roommate had taken her place. It was a sad day for our family and many others.
What about Mrs. Clarke’s message and its source? Was it just coincidence? I wonder? As I said, I have no logical explanation for this.
Caroline Marr
East Providence, Rhode Island
There are some things that just defy logical explanations. This is one of those things for me. I was a mother with a small boy at home. About once a month a Mr. Clarke would stop by, usually late morning, with a suitcase full of small household items for sale. Mr. Clarke, I never knew his first name, always addressed me as Mrs.Marr. He was an older gentleman, retired, who was trying to augment his income by going door-to-door selling whatever he could. I felt sorry for him and would always buy something, even if only a pair of shoe strings, so he wouldn’t leave without having sold something.
Mainly we would just chat about the weather or something in the news that week while my little boy played with blocks or some other toy on the living room floor. After several minutes of friendly conversation he would open his suitcase and point out some new item. I would listen to whatever he was promoting and politely say I didn’t think I needed that right now but what we really needed was a box of bandages. I would purchase the item and he was always most gracious as he packed his wares and left.
This went on for about a year and then one month passed and he hadn’t stopped by. Several months passed and no Mr. Clarke. There was a knock at the door one morning and I opened it to find a thin pleasant looking woman.
“Are you Mrs. Marr,” she asked? I nodded.
“I’m Mrs. Clarke, You were a customer of my husband. He passed on you know.”
“I’m sorry, I wondered what happened to him.”
“I’ve been talking with him and last night he gave me a message for you,” she said.
She must have read the expression of bewilderment and shock on my face for she continued talking.
“Oh yes. I talk with him frequently and last night he was very clear that I bring a message to you. He said, ‘tell Mrs. Marr there is going to be an explosion.’ That’s it, that’s all he said. I can’t tell you what it means, just what he said.”
She wouldn’t come in, apologized for upsetting me in any way and thanked me for being kind to her husband and she walked away. I was dumbfounded.
I thought of a hundred questions I wanted to ask her but she had gone. I didn’t know how to get in touch with her, or where she lived and I still didn’t know Mr. Clarke’s first name.
An explosion! What to do? My husband worked at an oil refinery and I impulsively called his office. As the call was going through I thought what on earth will I say to him. Hi dear, a woman I’ve never met before told me her dead husband gave her a message last night to warn me that there was going to be an explosion…
“Hello.”
“Hi Dear, how are you?”
“I’m fine, what’s up?”
I couldn’t tell him at least not now over the phone while he was at work. I would tell him when he got home tonight, besides he would be asking me a ton of questions to which I had no answers. The rest of our conversation was strained and awkward especially on my end. I tried to determine what the rest of his day was like without tipping my hand. I was trying to ascertain that he was going to be right at his desk and not out by the fuel storage tanks or down on the docks where the tankers unloaded. I sensed he was getting curious about my new-found interest in his day. Then he asked the question I was dreading.
“ Tell me is there something on your mind that prompted this call?”
“Oh,” I laughed nervously, “ Could you pick up a dozen eggs on your way home?”
When he came home with the eggs I came clean. I was relieved that he was home and we both had a laugh over our cat and mouse phone conversation. He didn’t know what to make of Mrs. Clarke’s message anymore than I did. So we returned to our routine and switched on the evening news.
The lead story was “A Northwest Airliner Exploded Over Lake Michigan Today Killing All On Board.”
I nearlt fainted. Our daughter was a flight attendant for Northwest. Bob, after assisting me, called the airline. They wouldn’t give out any information at this time. His next call was to the Providence Journal. After talking to a few people an editor said he would make inquiries. He did and called us back with the information that our daughter was not on that flight.
We found out later that she was scheduled for that flight but took sick and her roommate had taken her place. It was a sad day for our family and many others.
What about Mrs. Clarke’s message and its source? Was it just coincidence? I wonder? As I said, I have no logical explanation for this.
Caroline Marr
East Providence, Rhode Island
Friday, July 11, 2008
Reflections of Grace
One Woman’s Journey From Complacency to Conviction
“Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.” Proverbs 22:2
I have been a believer in Jesus since I was a little child. Now, as a maturing Christian, I have chosen to be in living relationship with Him. I have found there is a big difference between the two.
I would like to testify to a short but very intense awakening. These events and the reactions they aroused in me are real. They brought me to my knees in tears of repentance. My soul fought battles between submission to the Light and my own dark desire to be the director of my life. Through it all I have learned a little more about God’s love for His wayward children.
Let me begin...
In late April, 1999, I took a one-week business trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was attending a company-sponsored technical fair in which I would demonstrate our team’s newest Internet initiative. The fair was a huge success. We generated a lot of interest and our product was favorably received. After the fair, the vice president on our team offered to take us all out for a dinner.
The weather that evening was perfect. The sun had set about an hour earlier, This is the picture I would like you to see through my words. Envision a group of white, upper-middle-class men and women standing on a Minneapolis sidewalk laughing and talking. Suddenly a stranger walks into their midst. He is a poor, disabled black man—and he is drunk. Not mean or sloppily drunk, but happily so.
Immediately the mood of our group changes, but the man does not seem to notice. He comments on the beauty of the night and begins a plea for money
to take his children to a movie. Someone in the group rejected his request while the rest of us shifted uneasily. Throughout this I was feeling very uncomfortable because I knew I should have been standing separate from my peers by respecting this person’s humanity. I knew what I should be doing, but I didn’t do it because I was afraid that my “friends” would reject me, too—that they would think me odd.
The man accepted the rebuff with good grace, and then he did something extraordinary. He asked if he could pray for us. Someone in the group said
they did not want a prayer, but he stood in our circle, bowed his head and prayed anyway. He asked God to watch over us and our families. He called us beautiful, although I felt anything but beautiful by then. He closed his prayer with a joyful amen, which I echoed quietly and then our eyes caught and held for just a moment before he turned and made his way up the hill along the well-lit path. As for me and my group, we turned off the path onto a darkened side street, making our way to the restaurant for a well-earned dinner.
The next morning I woke up feeling ill physically, emotionally and spiritually. Sometime during the night, I had been convicted of my own careless disregard for one of God’s beloved children. I spent that morning alone in my room, on my knees before God in tears of repentance. I remember feeling completely alone, so far away from the people who knew me and loved me.
As I sobbed in my misery, I “heard” the gentle voice of the Shepherd. “I am here.” Peace flooded through me, and the sobs became gentle, cleansing tears as I knelt by the bed and allowed myself to finally understand God’s grace.
I had sinned. I am the person who meets God unable to say that I had fed Him when He was hungry and clothed Him when He was naked. Despite this I am loved, forgiven and still oh-so-valuable to the Creator. This is grace.
Two weeks later my husband and I traveled to London for our delayed (by 16 years) honeymoon. Sometime toward the middle of the week, I had an incredible urge for spaghetti and sauce. Finding southern Italian cooking in London is a bit of a challenge, but I had my mind set, so my husband and I began searching for my definition of an Italian restaurant.
We had been searching for over an hour, and it was after eight in the evening as we entered the Underground to catch a train. I was tired, hungry, frustrated and feeling very sorry for myself when I turned a corner and stopped in my tracks. Directly across from me a homeless young man was settling in for the night. He was dirty, skinny and sick. He slid his back down against the wall of the station and pulled a filthy, tattered blanket up to his chin. He had a dog, as dirty and underfed as he was, that gently climbed into his lap for the night.
I stood there in silence with the people of London rushing all around me. It seemed I could see Jesus with His arms outstretched in the shadows behind the pair. The story of The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) came to my mind. I am the rich man. I have never known a moment of real need or total abandonment in my life, I have always been loved, yet I was upset because I couldn’t find a restaurant that served red tomato sauce. Tears came into my eyes and my heart was humbled once again. Grace.
Back in Connecticut three weeks later, I decided to incorporate a walk to the train station into my lunch hour. It was my habit to pray daily at the Church of St. Patrick/ St. Anthony, so I decided to do that at noon, also. As I stepped out of the train station, I could see that there was a poor woman begging on the corner and that I would have to walk past her. I was immediately enveloped in a terrible and stubborn frame of mind and I decided before I even stepped off the train station steps that I was not going to help her. I put my head down and watched my own feet, determined not to see her. She saw me, though, and I heard her call after me, “Please, Miss.” Five times she called and with each cry for help I became more determined not to hear her.
Halfway up the street I stopped. There was a war between good and evil going on inside me. “Go back,” whispered Love. “No!” shouted fear. I started walking again.
Three quarters of the way and I stopped again. “You know you need to go back and help her.” Love’s voice was soft but impossible to ignore.
I turned and started back toward the woman. “Stop!” shouted fear stridently, “You don’t need to do this. She’ll want something from you. Who knows where it will lead!” Fear gripped me and I turned away once more.
I made my way to the corner and stopped to hear Love’s last plea. “Melina, you know you need to go back. You cannot ignore this. You chose to listen to
fear in Minnesota and it made you sick. Will you choose fear over Love again?”
I knew what I had to do—I had known it all along. My fear was really my ego, which never wants to submit to God and His will for me. I turned and walked back down the street. She was still on the corner, but her back was to me and I could have left
unnoticed. Instead I asked, “What is it?”
She turned with a questioning look on her face, “What?” she asked.
“What is it?” I repeated. “You called me and I ignored you, but I came back.
“I’m hungry,” she answered, “and I have no money. Could you give me some money for lunch?” I looked at her closely. She was young, maybe 21 or 22 and her face was scarred by what looked like a knife wound.
I handed her a five-dollar bill as I said, “God bless you.” At those words she looked up at me for the first time. “Will you pray for me?” she asked.
“Yes, I am going to the church to pray now. What’s your name?”
“Denise. My name is Denise. Thank you,” she replied, and we parted ways.
I walked to the church with a million questions running through my head and tears running down my face. I walked into the hushed body of the church and knelt in a pew. I prayed for Denise and then I directed my questions to God, “What is it? What do you want of me?” No answer, just the muted sounds of the street. I knelt in silence for some time and left with no answers, but my heart was quiet.
I did go and get lunch and as I was returning to the Gold Building I was holding a conversation with God in my head.
“Lord, I need a mentor, someone who can tell me what I should do.”
The quiet voice of the Shepherd answered me: “I’ll be your Teacher.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I want someone I can look at and touch.”
“Your heart knows Me and I touch you there,” came the gentle response.
“Yes, I know, thank You.” I smiled as I walked, knowing that I had heard the Truth.
Suddenly a young woman holding a child by the hand approached me. She stopped right in front of me, said “God bless you and your family,” handed me a slip of paper and walked away. I looked down at the paper—it was a religious tract. At the top in large bold letters it read, “Jesus loves you!” Grace.
Melina Rudman
Rocky Hill, Connecticut
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Ct.
“Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.” Proverbs 22:2
I have been a believer in Jesus since I was a little child. Now, as a maturing Christian, I have chosen to be in living relationship with Him. I have found there is a big difference between the two.
I would like to testify to a short but very intense awakening. These events and the reactions they aroused in me are real. They brought me to my knees in tears of repentance. My soul fought battles between submission to the Light and my own dark desire to be the director of my life. Through it all I have learned a little more about God’s love for His wayward children.
Let me begin...
In late April, 1999, I took a one-week business trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was attending a company-sponsored technical fair in which I would demonstrate our team’s newest Internet initiative. The fair was a huge success. We generated a lot of interest and our product was favorably received. After the fair, the vice president on our team offered to take us all out for a dinner.
The weather that evening was perfect. The sun had set about an hour earlier, This is the picture I would like you to see through my words. Envision a group of white, upper-middle-class men and women standing on a Minneapolis sidewalk laughing and talking. Suddenly a stranger walks into their midst. He is a poor, disabled black man—and he is drunk. Not mean or sloppily drunk, but happily so.
Immediately the mood of our group changes, but the man does not seem to notice. He comments on the beauty of the night and begins a plea for money
to take his children to a movie. Someone in the group rejected his request while the rest of us shifted uneasily. Throughout this I was feeling very uncomfortable because I knew I should have been standing separate from my peers by respecting this person’s humanity. I knew what I should be doing, but I didn’t do it because I was afraid that my “friends” would reject me, too—that they would think me odd.
The man accepted the rebuff with good grace, and then he did something extraordinary. He asked if he could pray for us. Someone in the group said
they did not want a prayer, but he stood in our circle, bowed his head and prayed anyway. He asked God to watch over us and our families. He called us beautiful, although I felt anything but beautiful by then. He closed his prayer with a joyful amen, which I echoed quietly and then our eyes caught and held for just a moment before he turned and made his way up the hill along the well-lit path. As for me and my group, we turned off the path onto a darkened side street, making our way to the restaurant for a well-earned dinner.
The next morning I woke up feeling ill physically, emotionally and spiritually. Sometime during the night, I had been convicted of my own careless disregard for one of God’s beloved children. I spent that morning alone in my room, on my knees before God in tears of repentance. I remember feeling completely alone, so far away from the people who knew me and loved me.
As I sobbed in my misery, I “heard” the gentle voice of the Shepherd. “I am here.” Peace flooded through me, and the sobs became gentle, cleansing tears as I knelt by the bed and allowed myself to finally understand God’s grace.
I had sinned. I am the person who meets God unable to say that I had fed Him when He was hungry and clothed Him when He was naked. Despite this I am loved, forgiven and still oh-so-valuable to the Creator. This is grace.
Two weeks later my husband and I traveled to London for our delayed (by 16 years) honeymoon. Sometime toward the middle of the week, I had an incredible urge for spaghetti and sauce. Finding southern Italian cooking in London is a bit of a challenge, but I had my mind set, so my husband and I began searching for my definition of an Italian restaurant.
We had been searching for over an hour, and it was after eight in the evening as we entered the Underground to catch a train. I was tired, hungry, frustrated and feeling very sorry for myself when I turned a corner and stopped in my tracks. Directly across from me a homeless young man was settling in for the night. He was dirty, skinny and sick. He slid his back down against the wall of the station and pulled a filthy, tattered blanket up to his chin. He had a dog, as dirty and underfed as he was, that gently climbed into his lap for the night.
I stood there in silence with the people of London rushing all around me. It seemed I could see Jesus with His arms outstretched in the shadows behind the pair. The story of The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) came to my mind. I am the rich man. I have never known a moment of real need or total abandonment in my life, I have always been loved, yet I was upset because I couldn’t find a restaurant that served red tomato sauce. Tears came into my eyes and my heart was humbled once again. Grace.
Back in Connecticut three weeks later, I decided to incorporate a walk to the train station into my lunch hour. It was my habit to pray daily at the Church of St. Patrick/ St. Anthony, so I decided to do that at noon, also. As I stepped out of the train station, I could see that there was a poor woman begging on the corner and that I would have to walk past her. I was immediately enveloped in a terrible and stubborn frame of mind and I decided before I even stepped off the train station steps that I was not going to help her. I put my head down and watched my own feet, determined not to see her. She saw me, though, and I heard her call after me, “Please, Miss.” Five times she called and with each cry for help I became more determined not to hear her.
Halfway up the street I stopped. There was a war between good and evil going on inside me. “Go back,” whispered Love. “No!” shouted fear. I started walking again.
Three quarters of the way and I stopped again. “You know you need to go back and help her.” Love’s voice was soft but impossible to ignore.
I turned and started back toward the woman. “Stop!” shouted fear stridently, “You don’t need to do this. She’ll want something from you. Who knows where it will lead!” Fear gripped me and I turned away once more.
I made my way to the corner and stopped to hear Love’s last plea. “Melina, you know you need to go back. You cannot ignore this. You chose to listen to
fear in Minnesota and it made you sick. Will you choose fear over Love again?”
I knew what I had to do—I had known it all along. My fear was really my ego, which never wants to submit to God and His will for me. I turned and walked back down the street. She was still on the corner, but her back was to me and I could have left
unnoticed. Instead I asked, “What is it?”
She turned with a questioning look on her face, “What?” she asked.
“What is it?” I repeated. “You called me and I ignored you, but I came back.
“I’m hungry,” she answered, “and I have no money. Could you give me some money for lunch?” I looked at her closely. She was young, maybe 21 or 22 and her face was scarred by what looked like a knife wound.
I handed her a five-dollar bill as I said, “God bless you.” At those words she looked up at me for the first time. “Will you pray for me?” she asked.
“Yes, I am going to the church to pray now. What’s your name?”
“Denise. My name is Denise. Thank you,” she replied, and we parted ways.
I walked to the church with a million questions running through my head and tears running down my face. I walked into the hushed body of the church and knelt in a pew. I prayed for Denise and then I directed my questions to God, “What is it? What do you want of me?” No answer, just the muted sounds of the street. I knelt in silence for some time and left with no answers, but my heart was quiet.
I did go and get lunch and as I was returning to the Gold Building I was holding a conversation with God in my head.
“Lord, I need a mentor, someone who can tell me what I should do.”
The quiet voice of the Shepherd answered me: “I’ll be your Teacher.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I want someone I can look at and touch.”
“Your heart knows Me and I touch you there,” came the gentle response.
“Yes, I know, thank You.” I smiled as I walked, knowing that I had heard the Truth.
Suddenly a young woman holding a child by the hand approached me. She stopped right in front of me, said “God bless you and your family,” handed me a slip of paper and walked away. I looked down at the paper—it was a religious tract. At the top in large bold letters it read, “Jesus loves you!” Grace.
Melina Rudman
Rocky Hill, Connecticut
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Ct.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Wherever You Are, God is!
“Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, and serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.” Romans 12:11-12
Often I felt troubled by what was going on with my life, my husband’s situation, our daughter’s uncertainty and our parents’ care needs. I wondered what it was all about and whether I would ever have any calm or control in my life. It seemed that as soon as one situation got better another obligation became more onerous.
Four years ago, I began to pray that God would show us what to do and make our way clear. Often, late at night, I affirmed: God is my help in every need.God does my every hunger feed.
I reminded myself what the Prophet wrote.
“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11).
Then suddenly, in one day, the way became crystal clear in a matter of hours. At 11:00 a.m., Gary called with the wonderful news that he had been offered a job he had applied for many months before in Florida!
As I was wondering how and when to tell my employer and friends the news, I was called to an unscheduled meeting and was promptly laid off, but with severance pay. My head still spinning, I called my daughter, in her senior year in college, to tell her the news. She had informed us several months earlier that she would not be looking for a job near us after graduation. When I told her the news she said, “I am coming with you!”
Within the next few weeks the following occurred:
•I was able to rent an apartment that allowed dogs, was convenient, and had major appliances—from the first phone number picked from the newspaper.
•Our house sold in a matter of weeks.
•We found a new house in Florida in the first week.
While there are still more changes to come, we don’t doubt that all things work together for good,in God’s time,and often situations that to normal human understanding are negative clear the way for good. Because of how these events unfolded, we feel confident that we are where we are supposed to be, and that none of these things came about, “by coincidence.” The presence of God watches over us wherever we are, and His timing is awesome.
Janet Clinton Miami, Florida
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Connecticut.
Often I felt troubled by what was going on with my life, my husband’s situation, our daughter’s uncertainty and our parents’ care needs. I wondered what it was all about and whether I would ever have any calm or control in my life. It seemed that as soon as one situation got better another obligation became more onerous.
Four years ago, I began to pray that God would show us what to do and make our way clear. Often, late at night, I affirmed: God is my help in every need.God does my every hunger feed.
I reminded myself what the Prophet wrote.
“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11).
Then suddenly, in one day, the way became crystal clear in a matter of hours. At 11:00 a.m., Gary called with the wonderful news that he had been offered a job he had applied for many months before in Florida!
As I was wondering how and when to tell my employer and friends the news, I was called to an unscheduled meeting and was promptly laid off, but with severance pay. My head still spinning, I called my daughter, in her senior year in college, to tell her the news. She had informed us several months earlier that she would not be looking for a job near us after graduation. When I told her the news she said, “I am coming with you!”
Within the next few weeks the following occurred:
•I was able to rent an apartment that allowed dogs, was convenient, and had major appliances—from the first phone number picked from the newspaper.
•Our house sold in a matter of weeks.
•We found a new house in Florida in the first week.
While there are still more changes to come, we don’t doubt that all things work together for good,in God’s time,and often situations that to normal human understanding are negative clear the way for good. Because of how these events unfolded, we feel confident that we are where we are supposed to be, and that none of these things came about, “by coincidence.” The presence of God watches over us wherever we are, and His timing is awesome.
Janet Clinton Miami, Florida
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Connecticut.
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