Pieces of Wisdom

I met Evelyn* at her home one morning when my kids were at school. She has a charming home and I found it a perfect place to meet, as she was so comfortable. And it was also so cool that she was able to show me photos of her whole family and tell me all about them. I loved it! Evelyn is 87 years old, and let me tell you- she definitely had some pieces of wisdom to share with me, and I'm so thankful.

In the following paragraphs you'll read a part of her story and then some other wisdom she shared through just talking while we were there. I'm so thankful Evelyn decided to share a piece of her story, and I know you'll enjoy it too!

We started talking about all of the things, and we'll start here- she started with "Something always seems to stop us when we're going in the wrong direction. God will put barriers there for us- we don't always see that, but He does. He is the one that directs our steps. And I want my steps to be ordered by the Lord. I don't want to be stubborn. I don't want to not hear the voice of the Lord when He speaks to me. It isn't always easy."

She then proceeded to tell me about how she was called into ministry. "A missionary from India came to my church. As i went to the altar, I felt the Lord tug on my heart for that. I served the Lord until I was about probably 17- and then I started to slip away from the Lord. And then at 18 I met my husband- and he wasn't a christian. We were married by my pastor- and he asked me if I was following the Lord, but he knew better, he knew I wasn't. I married my husband at 19 and I backslid, and when my husband was overseas, I committed adultery- which, not even my own family knows that. I got pregnant from that one time and I lost that baby. I told my husband all about it, my husband knew all about me. I didn't pull any punches with anybody.

So about a year and a half later, I told my hubsand- I cannot live like this. I've been a christian all my life and I said, I cannot live like this, this is not for me. So I started back to church and I raised all my children in church. Then after that, I was involved with many things in church. I taught Sunday school, I worked with the women's ministry, I worked with Teen Challenge, and I did various other things.

And I can tell you truthfully, there is only one life, 'twil soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last. I gave my heart back to Jesus and I haven't turned back since. And I know what I had done was wrong- you sin one time and you see you make a mess of your life. And I did. But I told my husband, I confessed to him everthing and I told him- now, we were very young, this was in the first part of our marriage- and I said, Sweetheart, if you don't want to stay with me, I will understand. And he said No, I love you very much and I forgive you. And we were together for 67 years.

Sondra: Did you feel God's forgiveness? Were you able to shake off the shame and guilt you had felt?

Evelyn: Absolutely. The biggest thing is that I felt in my heart that everything was to get out in the open- we cannot hide our sins, especially when it's to somebody we love.

(I then asked her how she came to peace with not going to the mission field after knowing she was called to it, but she got married instead)

Evelyn: I'll tell you what, after I started having children, my grandmother- who was a saintly person, I have a lineage of christians in my family. All of grandmas children, and even their spouses, have gone to be with Jesus. Grandma had 10 children and every single one of them have gone to be with the Lord, none of them were left out and I knew that background, and that's what I waned to carry on. And when I was called into missions, I went to grandma and she knew I had the call on my life. But since I had kids, grandma said "now honey, you have a mission field in your own family. You have to be a missionary to your own children."

{This concludes the part of her story that she wanted to share. Below are some other snippets of wisdom that I took from our talk}

(S) One thing that I loved that she said about her grandma was that the circle was unbroken- that her grandmas family circle was unbroken and all her kids went to heaven- because of her grandma's PRAYERS. Prayer is so powerful, and oftentimes, it's the only thing we can do in a situation, or it's the best thing to do for someone in a difficult situation. Never underestimate the power of prayer.

One other tidbit of wisdom she shared that I wanted to share with you is this- this stuck out to me so much, and it was so encouraging:

(E) Just because you tithe, some pastors have said you get one hundred fold back, but that one hundred fold doesn't necessarily mean money. Lots of times it means health, lots of times it means one of your children is gonna come to know the Lord. He gives in so many different ways to us, and we have to learn that. It's a wonderful thing when we learn to depend on the Lord, rather than ourselves.

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So, my dear readers, I hope that you have found a piece of wisdom, or even solidarity after reading this part of Evelyn's story. I hope that you have felt a spark of hope if you needed it. God is good. He was pursuing Evelyn all the time, even when she wasn't pursuing Him. That is one of my favorite things about most of the stories I hear. God is ALWAYS with us, it's just us needing to call out or reach out and just say "Lord, I am here, I need you".

I look forward to sharing the next story with you soon!

Until next time,

Sondra

[Here is the youtube link to the video I posted to go along with this story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYFyJR2YODs ]

*name was changed as she wanted to be kept anonymous