"He Lives"

                                                               A living Testimony

                                                                       By Mrs. P

My Dad lay sick for some time now. They brought him back to the local hospital to die. I visited him on several occasions but this time I knew he was dying. He lay with a gray film over his face. He did not know me anymore. A few days later I was sitting at my desk in school watching a movie. A sound went off in my head, a sound I never heard again. I knew it was time. I gathered my books and left the classroom. As I walked home I looked up and saw the clouds in the sky rolling in quickly. I cried as I walked home knowing that my earthly dad was leaving me. When I arrived home I went to a corner of our house and sat still until the phone rang. I was right; my earthly dad had gone home. I was about 16 years old. I had an older brother to die but that pain meant nothing to me compared to my dad dying. I was in a state of shock. A nephew that lived with us came to me and placed his hand on my shoulder and said “everything will be alright”. With that word I felt a weight lift off of me. It was as though Father God was holding me and stopping me from going crazy. When I attended my daddy's wake and touch his hand I knew he was gone. The sprit was gone from his body. While visiting my dad in the hospital and watching him dying he said to me, "He lives".

As time went on I began to heal. While lying on his death bed my dad also said to me, “If you don’t do anything else, finish College”. I really hadn’t even thought about College until he said this, but I knew now I had to go. One day while talking to a close friend I mentioned going to College. She said she had no plans of going to College. I told her that I was, so let’s get the information from the guidance counselor’s office. We proceeded to get the information from the counselor but the counselor didn’t let us have the information. She said that we were not College material and to go and get a job at the local furniture factory. I knew she was crazy so I obtained the information from her office without her knowledge. I filled out the papers and sent them in. Not knowing how I was going to pay for my education I filled out all the papers and to know avail God allow me to obtain a free education. I obtained an A.S. in Science and a B.A. in Sociology and Education. I owed nothing when I graduated from college. He Lives...

Having a Business had been a desire of mine for a long time. After graduating from College and working for others I knew I would someday own my own business. I guess I got this from helping my dad at a Gulf Service Station owned by my brother. My dad would wake me up lots of mornings and take me with him to open up the gas station and then he would send me back home to play and then I would return in the afternoon to help him cleanup and close. I had no idea that I was helping him run a business. He never said that this was a business. I would wait on people, collect money and cleanup. Because my dad took me with him I gained enough experience to know that I could do this myself. I opened my first business in 1997 and continue to work it until I came upon my dream location. Owning a Retail business with my business name on the outside was my dream. One day while riding around with my husband Sam we came upon a shopping center in our neighborhood. I looked over and saw my business, up stairs in the building in front of me. This was only in my mind, but I knew that Jehovah God had answered another prayer. I knew it was mine. Later that week my husband came home and told me how nice the store was. He drove back and looked through the window and saw the space. I told him that I knew it was all good because when Father Jehovah begins something it is already finished. I called the Landlord and informed him of my wishes to rent the space. He told me that the space rented for 750.00 a month, the figure I had in mind. The lease was completed and I move in. The space needed no painting on fixing. It was as though I had come in previously and set it up myself. This was not my first business location in fact it was my third, but my hearts desire, a retail front store with my business name out front. I stayed in this location for six years Again, He lives... 

Our Home I label this event my most challenging blessing. My husband had brought a house prior to our getting married and I of course moved in with him after we were married. I didn’t much like this house because it was a one level ranch old style home for my taste. I tried to live there. We remodeled this house but it still didn’t clam my spirit. I had a dream house pictured in my mind for some time. I told my husband that I was unhappy living there and wanted to start looking for an “Our house”. The neighborhood where we lived was going down so it didn’t take much to convince him. He did not have the relationship I felt I had with our Father, Jehovah God so he didn’t or couldn’t believe that we could move just like that. Well, I went to the Father with my desires and hoping that his will for me to have a new house was a desire that he would complete in my life. So I proceeded on. First the Realtor showed us houses that she wanted. I knew I would have to find our house. But wait a minute; God had one condition. I had to allow my husband Sam to see him give us this house or it would not be done. This was an overwhelming task I thought I had to under take. But know that if God gives you an assignment he has already finished it. This is where your ability to trust and walk his way comes in. I had no idea how I could get Sam to see the Father work. I went like a child to him. I simply told him what God had told me. Being a humble man, he came back saying, “Well, what am I to do”. I told him I would let him know when the Father was moving and for him to just watch. And that is how I got through it. Let me give you an example of one thing he saw as we went through. First we had to pre-quality for the house. We went to the table with a lending company. They gathered up all of our information’s and told us what we would quality for. We thought it was done and that we just needed to pick out a lot. Well, the realtor came back for some reason and said that we could not put down our earnest money until we had a buyer on our first house. I didn’t know where he was coming from so I went to the Father. The Father told me to be still. I did. I informed Sam of what I had done and told him to watch Jehovah God move. It was in November of 94. It was the time of year that you most likely would not put your house up for Sale. Not knowing how or when our house would be sold proceeded. Well our prayers were answered. A buyer for the house came on a Sunday afternoon. She looked over the house in what I thought, in discuss. She left with no indication of how she felt. I remember saying, “Well, she’s not the one”. Well I was wrong. We went back to the table with a contract in hand and put down our earnest money and guess what? We had picked out the floor plan of the house and the Lot but we had never seen inside of our house. When the realtor asked what lot, we looked at each other and realized that we had not even seen the inside of the house. In all of our excitement we forgot to look at our actual lot. I told Sam that I would ask to see the house again after we had finish putting down the money for the house. We got the keys and walk in, again seeing Jehovah at work. We were approved in one day. Our financial situation was not the best. The carpet, floors, kitchen, bedrooms and other living areas had been designed just for us. It was as though I had laid the house out myself. About 2 years later I was sitting at the kitchen table and looked at the cabinets and realized that my Father had even granted my desire not to have knobs on any of the cabinet doors. He lives...

Our Children were gifts from Jehovah God. Before I married I knew that I was going to have three children. I didn’t know I would have problems conceiving a child. I informed Sam of my condition. I had fibroids in my uterus and they had to be removed. I remember them telling me that I may loose a tube. Well I did. But I had another tube that was good and ready. I remembered trying it out for the first time. It worked. His name is Troy. My first child was very small but healthily. This small child turned out to be a gifted one. The next pregnancy was easy. A worldly “doctor” told me that it would be a girl, but the Holy Sprit told me that it was a boy. When the doctor came back nine months later, a few day before delivery he informed me that it was a boy. I named him Ashton not Ashley. Ian, my baby was meant to come into this world through me if not through someone else. I offered my sister a chance to raise a baby via me and she told me to tend to my business. That same summer or should I say Fall I was pregnant with Ian. He is here for a reason. He came out looking around at this world. The doctor said he had never seen a new born hold up his head at birth. All are a gift and I look forward to seeing them grow up. He Lives... 

Traveling Mercies abound us all of the time. I can remember a lot of times when the Father was with us but this one time I would like to share with you. We were on our way to NC to my family reunion. We stopped at a rest area about three hours from my mother’s house. I remember as I got out of the van saying Thank you Jesus. I then thought to myself. Why did I say that? When we got back in the van and started back down the highway I heard a awful noise. It was the van. We backed up and my husband said that something was wrong with the steering. We were in a little town where nothing was open and no help we thought was around. We explained our situation to the people at the gas stop and a man there offered to carry us and our van to NC. This was nothing but God. This man took us on to NC with our van hitched to the back; God is good all the time. He lives...

Cleansing the Temple is a under statement when I think of how Jehovah works. I went in for a yearly check up only to change my life forever. I always prayed that God would take out of me anything that was not of him. I had smoked for I know 20 years and was not looking forward to quitting. I did say one time that I would only smoke for 10 years and then quit. The next thing I know it was 20 years later. I did stop smoking for 9 months at a time when I was pregnant, but would continue as soon as I had the child. While sitting in the doctors’ office she asked me did I smoke. I said yes. She then asks me if I wanted to stop. I said not really. I ask her about a pill I saw advertised on the TV. She said that she wasn’t sure of what I was talking about but she did know of a pill that may help me stop. I remember her saying “well you take it if I prescribe it”. I said sure. So she prescribes this pill and I went on my merry way. I started this drug on a Wednesday. First it took the taste of cigarettes out of my mouth. I was smoking but I could not taste it. So then it became useless to smoke something that I could not taste. I took the pill again the next day and the next day we were going out of town to NC. That morning I took the pill. As we started to leave Georgia I began to hallucinate. The sun was coming up. When I looked at the sun I could see the actual rays of the sun. I mean the points that you drawn when showing a brilliant sun. It scared me. I could not look at the earth. Everything was magnified 10 times. Not people just the earth. I remember working on my computer to keep be in my right mind. When we got to the hotel I went out on the deck to smoke a cigarette and this is where the beginning to the end of smoking began. I got very nervous looking over the banister of the hotel. I felt like something was on me. I quickly through down the cigarette and went back inside. I knew that I was through with smoking. Later on that night while lying in my bed, I heard a voice say,” turn over I am going to heal you. I turned over on my back and placed my arms down by my side. It felt like someone placed their hand on my forehead. It felt warm. I then felt something move out of my body, from the top of my head out the bottom of my feet. I felt healed. I began to cry. I got up and went to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and something was different. I remember thinking, “where have you been”. It seemed like I had been gone somewhere and now I was back. I was glad to see me. I remember crying and crying. The next morning I told my family that I was through smoking and God had cleansed me. 11 years later and I never smoked again. He lives...

During my career I had the Opportunity to create a Personnel Database for the Department of Public Work for the City. I completed the task and now it was time to present the Database to the Project Managers and their boss. I knew that their boss was not a practicing Christian and she would only make my day uncomfortable. I began to pray that God would blind any demon that would try to enter my place of business. I prayed this prayer all that Sunday and also the morning of the class. Well, God my prayer. She did not show up. But the story does not end there. The Co-workers that schedules the Staff meeting informed me that this person would like to reschedule there training. At that time I knew Jehovah God wanted me to face my fears. Knowing that God was in control the fear of meeting with this person somehow subsided and I was all right with it. She came through the door with all demons on her side. I stood my ground as she spoke and went on with the matter at hand. As time went on the demons around her went away and we ended up having a good conversation about God and his temple. If you face your fears with God at your back or in front of you the demons can not do you any harm. He lives...

2008. The number 8 means New Beginning not good beginnings Numbers have Spiritual meanings. The number 8 means new beginnings. Every since I learned this I always loved to see the number eight because to me it meant events would be new and good. Oh, but wait a minute, new does not mean good. I clarify this because this whole year was filled with new beginnings that were not necessary good. To start the year off my niece whom I dearly care about did not return to College because she was pregnant with a baby boy. This was a new beginning for the child but not necessary good. She became a young adult without an education and forced to live in a world that is unforgiving to unwed mothers. By this I mean she has now chosen a path where in this society depending on your educations or lack of it will determine your livelihood on a daily basics. We live in a world where what we do or not do can and most times will be used against us. She will now have to re-evaluate her plans and move forward. The next event happened to me. My son, Troy was in his senior year at Wake Forest University. He went the distance but did not finish the race at the appointed time. I say this smiling but then crying because he in the last hour after I sent out the invitations did not graduate on time. This was to be a new beginning but it turned out to be not so good. He did graduate two months later but the sting of him not graduating on time was painful. Other events such as my Aunt passing, me turning another year older, and some friendships ending taught me that new does not always mean good. He lives…

2009 Trust no man.  This is found in the bible, “Trust no man”. Another saying, we walk along, and the relationship we have with God is vertical, very vertical. One other verse that I came across but I did not take heed to was, “Let your conversation be in heaven, as Jesus Christ is in heaven. I really do not know where to start. I’ve been married for 24 years and not to a bad man but one that keeps me at odds with how he respone or cannot respond to my questions or answers.  He did things that did not have my best interest at heart.  I started to notice that he would yell at me more in his conversation.  Our sex life was neel to none.  I asked him what he thought sex was; a question that I should have asked him while we were dating.  Anyway, his response is he thinks love was sex, good sex. This bothered me to know this was all he thought love consist of. Now getting back to my topic, trust no man. I continued to live with him but feeling very frustrated.  He would be considerate to keep the peace or maybe I was right about a subject. What I  realized later sex was his reason for being considerate or even getting along.  Remember sex was love. No more sex no more love. My husband had another son before we were married.  He would always pretend that the child did not exit and when I asked him why he would state “my family is right here”; speaking of his other three sons we had together.  I knew he had detached feelings for his first son and he would someday become detached from me.   I can remember when we were dating he never introduce his people to me when they came to visit.  I did not think much about it at the time but I do remember feeling sad when the weekend was over and he would call and tell me they had been in town. He would say things to his family that led them to believe that I did not want his son in our lives but it was him not me. I knew this because of how they would speak and treat me. I gave them know reason to treat me the way they did but I knew he said things to them that would leave a bad taste in there mouths.  I can remember when my mom died how none of them call to offer condolences. At his nieces wedding all of the aunts was to receive a flower to pin on them as they came in the door of the church.  When we came in and the lady started to pin a flower on me he stated,”she not one of the aunts”.  I looked at him and said what in the hell are you talking about.  He said he forgot. I can remember another time when we met one of his relative at a baseball game.  The lady said, “why don’t you keep in touch” and he stated,”oh she don’t want me to keep in touch with you all.”  This was nothing but a lie.  I said to him, these are the things you say to your family when I am not around.  He was good at playing the victim and me the villain.

Well, as time went on his resentment towards me grew. The last straw that broke the camels back was when we were suppose to be going to visit our son attending graduate school. Two weeks before going I asked my husband if he was off for the Monday holiday coming up, Labor Day.  He stated yes, but what he fell to tell me was that he would be off the entire weekend.  He is a retail manager and worked most Saturdays.  When that weekend came and we were lying in bed and I notice that he wasn’t getting up to go to work. I ask him if he was going to work today, this is when he informed me that he was off the entire weekend.  The reason for my anger towards him was because I told him two weeks earlier I would have to take a sick day in order for us to come back on the next Monday of that week.  We could have gone the weekend before and I would not have to take a sick day.  Instead of him giving me all of the information two weeks earlier and saying that he did not want to go that weekend he just led me to believe he had to work.  As you can image I was highly pissed. During my aggravation I went to the Lord with all willingness to leave it at the alter and asked if I could receive some answers to what was going on in my married.  Be careful what you ask for.  I had been talking with my sister for sometime and she would talk about this girl that was passive aggressive.  The way she described her I mention and remarked this sound like my husband.  Well in praying I said to God, “God kill the feelings of expectations that I continue to have in my husband.  I knew God sent Jesus, his only begotten son to save this world because man could not meet expectations put before them, so why would I put this pressure on my husband.  Well Gods answer to me was to go and read about the passive aggressive person. I did and my husband’s picture could have been in the first paragraph.  The blamelessness, being late all of the time, the, I forgot, the covert abuse, lack of anger, fear of intimacy, victimization and procrastination. What I sufferer was all discussed in the articles I read. God has always answered my prayers and this time was no different.  Everything I read on this disorder was the symptoms that I saw in my husband.  I was thrilled and sad at the same time.  I was married to a passive aggressive person for 24 years. Being an aggressive person I fed his passive aggressions.  This disorder needs someone to oppose them so that they can stay at arm length all the time.  He will not open up or share any real feelings.  I appeared to be the villain because of our boomerang relationship. Being hurt and not knowing how to express it, except through covert behavior and other symptoms that come with this disorder kept me at odds.  Now I have no expectation of my husband.  Hopefully peace will come to my marriage.  I have made him aware but of course he remains blameless.  I feel that he does care me and I he. Life goes on. He lives…

2009 Finality of Judgment.  The number nine in spiritual numbers means Finality of Judgment. I reference this because this is the year of judgment. Ok, let me make myself clear.  This was the year my best friends and I parted ways.  She said I only saw her through my eyes not who she really was.  I know she was right after our last long texting conversation I now see her for who she really is. I am speaking of my sister.  She is the 10^th child and I the 11^th.  As a child I thought she was strange because she did not choose to play with the last younger of us children.  She rather we leave her alone to read her books. I think my need to get her attention drove me to see what I wanted to see and she played alone until this year. I saw with my eyes a beautiful, smart woman going somewhere.  I forgot this was the same sister that threw my coloring book in the fireplace, along with me leaving a scar on my left arm to remind me of the event.  She was also the sister who cut me with a knife to let me know that I did not need to bother her.  After she cut me I told her that I was going to tell our dad what she had done. She cried so hard and I knew our dad would beat her so I didn’t tell. This is where I think I started to see her with the eyes that I wanted to see her through.  When I graduated from high school and decided where to go to college she came to mind.  I applied to the same college and got in.  I really looked up to her. I thought she was a good example.  As time went on she got married, I got married.  She had children, so did I.  We shared many of our problems with each other.  When her daughter got pregnant in college and had to drop out I was a friend to her.  I listen and believed what she said concerning her situation without judgment or condemnation.  When it came my time to share one problem concerning my husband she turned on me and this was the beginning to our end. She could be mean to me at times and anyone that crossed her.  I can remember on my wedding day she cussed me out because my mom asked her for some money to get some flowers that she (my mom) had promised to get for my wedding but didn’t.  I remember her saying that I and my husband desired each other.  What that meant I did not know because she did not even know my husband. There is so much I could say. I moved to live with her and we had been so much apart of each other lives.  I should have gotten that I was not seeing her for who she was when she asked one of her co-workers to be her daughters’ god parent and someone else for her son.  I remember this hurting me but what I wanted to see was stronger than what was really going on.  In my quest to know Jehovah God I shared many article with her and we discussed and agreed on much that I had found.  I thought we were fine but I did not know our time together was coming to an end. I knew she was a prideful person and a lot of the worldly things that she cared about I did not but this did not keep me from caring about her.  To make a long story short due to previous circumstances of her lying to me and showing no loyalty or trust of my judgment, led to our demise. She let me know she had put up with me long enough. I did not know that she was putting up with me for so long. I am now nothing to her but a self-righteous, controlling fool.  I called her prideful and a bound idiot. If she could go off on her phony friends like she did me she may feel better.  This really caught me off guard but what the hell. What I came away with is that Jehovah God will not allow you to care for someone the way I did for it may cause you to take your eyes off him. He lives…

Not the End of the story….stay tuned…