How has the Lord blessed you?

When we were in hard times after a few of those occurances we would look at each other when some unexpected money came in and ask what was going to happen, and it always did

We have always aimed at a tenth as a goal and normally do a little over that with special offerings etc, yet in lean lean times God supplied most of my tuition for too many years of school, not to mention the other provisions over the years.

We at one time were selling all we had to make a move for the Lord and the fridge wouldn't sell. Everything else was gone and we had money to move with but could have really used the money from the fridge, but it just wouldn't sell. The day before we were to load up someone bought it - it dawned on me, you need the fidge till you leave stupid, God knows that!

 

Wonderful Testimonies.
Wonderful Thread.

Got a year or two for me to list the way He blessed me? *g*

I had been married 6 months, when a routine "dental" visit turned into "you have a cancerous tumor in your face that appears to be malignant, but we won't be positive about the malignancy until we do surgery. It appears to have been there for years. We are going to try to do surgery to remove it, but you need to understand - if it is benign, you will lose your lower jaw, all of your teeth on one side of your mouth, part of your cheek bone, and your nose. The reconstruction will require approximately 5 years of your life. If it is malignant, we'll have to take the eye-socket and possibly part of your forehead's frontal plate because we'll have to make sure we got any trailers that may be moving into the brain." I asked about "when could I start reconstruction," and he hesitated. Got choked up. I said, "What's up." HE said, "I have to be honest with you. Odds of you surviving past 5 years, assuming that you respond to surgery, chemo and radiation, are very slim and we couldn't start reconstruction for at least 2 years."

I'd lost my mother to cancer just a few years before. In that day and age, Chemo was worse than Cancer.

I literally begged my husband to file for divorce or get an annulment or something. I didn't think it was fair of him to bear the financial burden, or the emotional and physical burden of caring for a cancer patient who had only been a relative for 6 months.

I was already a Christian, but I did have moments when I considered suicide. Somehow 2 years of living hell for 5 years more on this earth seems like a bad bargain. It was God's voice saying, "Don't! This is my call. Just trust me," and my husband going, "I love you, and through thick or thin - I'm with you," that kept me from ending my own life.

The medical history was like this. A dentist found it on an xray by accident. He sent it to an oral surgeon for consultation before he "alarmed me." At that time, I worked for a Medical School and the affiliated Health Science Center, so "random dentists diagnosising cancer" didn't sit well with me. I saw my GP. He confirmed. I saw a cancer specialist. He confirmed.

Insurance was an issue. Since we were talking cancer, getting it out was covered, radition and chemo was covered (up to 80%) - but reconstruction would not be covered. Apparently having an eye, jaw, and nose are "elective" elements in life. It didn't matter anyway. I was a college student and a newly wed. I didn't have the $8,000 that the insurance would pay, and probably didn't make that much in a year back then. I certainly didn't have the $2,000 cash up front the hospitals wanted.

I refused to do anything.
I told everyone that I loved, and who loved me, that I was not going to run up 40,000 in medical bills just to buy another 5 years on earth.

Then one day my new mother-in-law came to me and said, "There is a Christian Doctor in town who specializes in your surgery. Would you please talk to him? For the sake of my son."

I did not know it at the time, but - in my ex-husband's family on his adopted-father's-side are some very wealthy men who are also very amazing Christians. When these people got the call from the family, asking for prayer, they quietly made arrangements to pay any of the medical bills my insurance didn't, on the grounds I went to a Christian doctor.

I didn't know that, but it struck me that someone had said, "Christian Physician," so I agreed to go see the man.

I went in the door and said, "Understand, this is really just to appease my husband's family. I've been told that there is no hope beyond 5 years, I won't go through that kind of pain just to buy 5 years." HE said, "Whoever told you that, doesn't know God." Oddly enough, I had not discussed God with him, and didn't at that time either. I just made a note of it. Though I'd been told he was a Christian, I'd never met a physician who was outspoken about Christ so the comment touched my heart.

Well, how do you argue with what the man said?

So, we mapped out 2 plans. One for benign, one for terminal. We scheduled the surgery. We did preliminary tests that looked bad, very bad.

But somehow, knowing my doctor was praying - I felt like I was in the hands of God. When I got to the hospital to check in, the anestheiologist came in and I recognized him instantly. He was my Sunday School Teacher and a deacon at my church. So we had a long prayer.

The morning of the surgery a nurse came into my room to prep me and said, "Now, just to confirm, we're doing this...." and I went, "No, I don't think that is right." She went to check, came back in, and said, "Just to be sure that the chart is right, we want to run some new xrays and tests now." It was just 2 hours before surgery. I agreed. The tests confirmed a mass, it confirmed "roots," it did not come back "liquid," it had "moved" since they first found it a few weeks ago. In other words, everything two hours before surgery indicated that I had an aggressive malignant cancerous tumor in my face that was working up towards my brain.

So, I went under with that looming out there, and holding onto nothing but faith in God to somehow make this better.

When I woke up, my surgeon was at the foot of my bed. Now, good or bad results, I should not have been able to speak, but I was drugged and not aware enough to realize that my ability to speak meant good news. I looked at him and said, "Which was it."

He said, "Do you believe in God?"
I said, "Definately."
He said, "That's good, because He certainly believes in you. Its gone."
I said, "Gone? You got it all?"
He said, "No, hon. When we got in there, it was gone. There was nothing for us to remove. Someone else removed it. There are trails in the bones of your face where it was, but hon, your face looks like it SHOULD look, after I do my job, not before. It is clear that there was something in there, our tests this morning confirmed something was in there, but between 6 this morning and 9 this morning, it was removed by someone other than this surgical team."

He said, "There is more, hon. I thought I had done you wrong. I thought, "Dear God, I put this girl through this for nothing." I thought we'd missed some medical record talking about someone else doing surgery. So I got your records from your other doctors, I got your old dental records. It didn't make sense, so I called a meeting of the hospital board of surgeons and I passed around your historical medical records, and the tests we ran and asked for opinions. Seven of the finest doctors in the country said, "What a shame," "she's so young to die," "Have you told her yet," And then I passed around this morning's results. They were silent for a few minutes. Then someone asked if I was sure I had the right records, same patient? Finally, the Chief of Surgery said, "Sometimes we have to admit that there is a greater physician."

I said, "So that's it? Its over?"

He said, "Its over. We did go into your face surgically and cut some nerves in your mouth before we discovered it was gone, so you'll stay here a few days to make sure you recover from that, and heal up. You'll have to watch your teeth now, because with those nerves gone you won't feel toothaches on that region."

When it came time to leave the hospital, I asked him if he'd billed me yet, and if so, what I owed him. HE said, "God did the surgery hon. You don't owe me anything."

My eldest child was conceived a few years later, and is 18 now. I've had one breast-mammogram that came back with bad news. God took that away. I had a pap-smear come back as a 3 on a 1 to 4 scale where 4 = cancer. God took that away.

 

Very personal issue but He saved my brother's life.

And my parents in a recent motorcycle accident.

Also, He told me in His Word that He loves me.

 

Another "miracle" in my life.

On Halloween at our house, the kids and adults would all dress up and go to the church festivals at our church and at my sister's church. In 1998, I had strep throat, so my husband took the kids himself.

He was at the corner of our block, where a 4-way stop is located, and was in the midst of making a left turn onto our block when a drunk driver ran a stop sign. My family was in a small Ford Contour. The drunk was in an F150 pickup. The drunk was going 55 mph when he hit them head on. Because of the speed involved, and the size of vehciles and a lot of other things. The car started spinning, and in its spinning, it hit the truck another four times, at various locations, bouncing all over the place.

I heard the crash, but I was four houses away and it didn't register what I heard. We have a lot of dumpsters in the alley and sometimes people slamming them have that same "sound."

I learned about the accident when one of my neighbors, a nurse, came into the house with my children in her arms going, "I've looked them over, and I think they're okay, but you need to let the paramedics check them over."

My brain is just doing flip flops. Why were my kids with this neighbor, why was she looking my kids over, where was their Dad? It just wasn't "clicking."

When I asked what she was talking about, she told me, "There was an accident up at the corner. I think your husband is okay."

Both of the kids are screaming, the nurse is very calm, and I hear accident, and I'm thinking "Oh, fender bender." So I ask my neighbor to stay with the kids and I step outside.

There are 2 firetrucks, 3 ambulances, and I have NO idea how many police cars with lights flashing, and my heart just stops.

I went back into the house, and called my in-laws and said, "I think you need to come over here. There has been some kind of an accident, and I don't know where (my husband) is, but its bad."

I step back outside, trying to figure out where my husband is, and look up the street to see what is left of our car sitting in a neighbor's yard. From where I am standing it looks like it has crashed into the house.

I don't remember anything from that moment, until I was aware of a man holding me, rocking me, saying, "Its okay. They walked away. Its okay, they walked away. Its okay." It was a paramedic from the fire department, and I was standing at the car.

The paramedic told me that even though there was "no way anyone should have survived that crash," it appeared that everyone was okay. I still hadn't found my husband. When I did, he was limping and bleeding from a cut on his head, but he insisted he was fine, kept screaming that people needed to check on the kids and catch the (curse word describing the drunk.)

One of my neighbors came up to me, and said, "Hon, Craig asked me to find you." Craig was a neighbor, and at that time, a member of the local District Attorney's office. His son was my son's best friend. Craig lives on that corner. When the accident happened, he was the first on the scene, and the drunk, who had been knocked out, was just waking up. He hoped out of the truck, ran into Craig, screamed, "Are they dead? Are they dead? Did I kill them?" With whiskey all over him and on his breath. By then, I've learned since, Craig's son was hysterical because he recognized our car, and my son was his son's best friend. So Craig let the drunk go to try to help his own son. The police searched the truck and found empty whiskey bottles, and a revoked driver's license.

The car was so totalled that when my husband's parents arrived and saw the car, and his father started sobbing, "God has taken my son."

Our pediatrician insisted on a LOT of tests. Full body scans, CAT scans, MRI's, the works.

My husband refused medical treatment, insisting he was fine. I noticed, over a few days, his speech was slurred and he was uncharacteristically rude and snappy. Some of the church heard about the accident and came to see us. I will NEVER forget, sitting in the living room with my Sunday School teacher, my Associate Pastor, and some friend's from the Children's Choir when my husband started shouting how he wanted that &*()#@ found and hung, and that the &**^%&* didn't deserve God's grace, and a lot of other things that were just .. so NOT him.

I tried to get him to a doctor then. He refused.

Later, we learned he suffered a subdural hematoma that night, and a frontal lobe injury. His brain was not producing serotonin anymore. They put him on drugs to artificially produce it, and he had a recation to them. He went insane. Literally. Seeing things that weren't there, talking about "a man who wore black that his friends refused to talk to who told him God was waiting for him to come to heaven, but he had to prove he really loved God by killing himself and me."

We ended up divorced.

HOWEVER - I still count that night as a miracle.

When we all calmed down after the wreck that night, and started talking to police and fireman, I kept hearing over and over and over the word "miracle" from officials.

So, I started looking around.

1) My son begged to ride in the front seat with his Dad that night. He usually gets his wish on such times, but had dual air-bags, and had just heard a documentary on their dangers. So his Dad had refused him. He put both kids in the back seat.

Now, not ONLY did the airbag in that seat deply, but - a part of the engine shot back into the car, slicking through the airbag and imbedding in what would have been the heart of anyone who would have been sitting in that seat.

2) In Texas, in the back seat, you do not HAVE to wear a seat belt. In our family you do. My husband heard the kids bickering, and heard my daughter say, "If you don't re-buckle, I'm telling Daddy!" My husband said, "Do not make me stop this car!" He heard a "click," and then saw the truck on him.

The car had "safety" class, so it did not fall out, it just shattered. The doors were closed when I got to it, but the next day I found, all up and down the street, things that had been in the car. Things like bible-tracts from the carnivals, smashed pumpkins, candy, cd's. I kept asking my sister, who was with me, "Why are these in people's yard?" Finally she said, "Hon, don't you understand? When the car spun out of control the doors opened. That's why (my son) has that huge bruise from the seat belt. The seat belt is what kept him from falling out and being run over by the car as it spun.


3) My husband says that after he told my son to click, he started to make his turn, and was about to hit the accelerator, and heard his mother's voice screaming in his ear. "SON! STOP!" He hesitated "just enough" to see the truck coming down on him. Had he accelerated, the truck would have hit the rear passengar seat where my son was sitting, and where there is no real steel, instead of hitting the engine block as it did.

4) My daughter came to first, saw smoke, and though the car doors would later require "jaws of life" to reopen them, somehow got herself out, got her brother out, and got her father out. It did not burst into flames, despite the fact that it was smoking and sparking. I was told this was because the car's today are built so that gas tanks "break away" during impact.

5) I called Ford after the accident to say, "Thank you for building a safe car, if you ever want someone to endorse your safety record, I'll do it for free." When I told the Manager about the accident he said, "Ma'am, I couldn't use you because what you just told me is a miracle. That car, in a 40 mph crash, should have been destroyed, and there would probably be no survivors. Are you sure the truck was doing 55?" The truck's speedometer froze at 55.

6) The divorce is the only total tragedy of the accident. My ex is now almost the man I had married years ago. He lives near us, and they've found medications that he can take, and when he does take them, he's a good father, and a man I can turn to in the way many women can't turn to the men living in their own homes.

7) My daughter was lividly furious with her father over events that happened between the car accident and the divorce. Things that tore all our lives apart, and things that no one can understand. I did not think she would ever make peace with her father. She did. She also says in the end, it drew her closer to God.

 

Wow.

 

1) Gift Of Jesus Christ -Eternal Love and Salvation A home in heaven-Personal Friendship-Annointing of the Holy Spirt
-Forgiving my Sins
2)Giving me a Loving mother and father and brother
3)Healing me From a car accident
4)Saving me from stay an marijuana addict
5)Saving me from Deamon worship aka the enemy the devil
6)Saving me from smoking cigarettes
7)Living BREATHING EVERYDAY
8)Food Shealter Clothes and Water and the Sunshine outside
9)Always helping me overcome poverty
10)For helping me when Im weaking Giving me strenght out of the heavens....Giving me power to resist the devil...
11)Power to Forgive others and Love others FRUITS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

LOVING ME DESPITE OF MY FLAWS AND BETRayal...
For being a father when my earthly one wasnt around...

 

Praise the Lord for the powerfull testimonies in here!

I think sometimes that I am blessed by God, because I am able to know Him, When I try and comprehend what that means I cannot, yet I understand that it is the greatest blessing I could imagine!