Hi, Jos!

Goodness, precious Dove, I think all of us who TRULY love the Lord and are trying to live for Him are going through, or have gone through, Black Hole experiences. I had MANY years of it, in fact.  Before Richard & I were together, I was married twice before, the first time when I was 18 until I was 24, I was married to an atheist, a very cold man.  I had Shelly (now 35) and Michael (now 32) with him.  Then he asked me for a divorce, so I gave him one.

Then a year later, I met and married Kirby, my second husband, who was a terrible mental abuser, and somewhat a physical abuser to my children.  Unfortunately I couldn’t stay home with Shelly & Michael, because Kirby refused to work.  So he stayed home an “raised” the kids.  He was a horrible excuse for a husband, and an even worse excuse for a Dad.  I had Christopher (now 27) with him.  So since I had 3 kids to raise and “made too much” to get help from the State, I was stuck with him for 18 LONG years!

In 1993, my daughter married her first husband, who was an abuser.  She had a baby girl, Nicole, with him in 1993.  Nicole only lived for a week, because the Critical Care Nursery put a breathing tube in her throat and punctured her throat. That was agony for us, especially me and Shelly.  She became pregnant the next year, and miscarried.  She’s been unable to get pregnant again, and my 2 sons are still unmarried, and will probably remain that way.
 
Then I met my Richard, my husband of 11 years (almost), my soul mate, my only lover, and my best friend.  He and I rededicated our lives to the Lord (him in 2001 and me in 2002).  In the 12 years that we’ve been a couple, he has had 13 heart attacks/stents, 3 open-heart surgeries, fell and literally broke his neck on a cattle guard while surveying, was two days short of bleeding to death from heart medications, and when he went in one time with heart pains and they x-rayed him, they found a stationary mass the size of a golf ball behind his breastplate… all miraculously healed!  The State, the US Government, and SS… none will give us financial help!  I am sole supporter (but halleluYAH, not for much longer!!!), and until this past January 2007, I didn’t drive (post-trauma from an accident that SHOULD have killed me, my daughter, and my infant son in 1980).  And I was SO scared every time something happened to him.  I love that man more than I love the air that I breathe, and the very thought of losing him in death absolutely petrifies me. I had to will myself to lean only on the Lord for support, because He is the only one with power over life and death.  He is the only one I can ALWAYS depend on for comfort.

Then 2.5 years ago, an elderly woman whom I met via the internet, Carol, lied and told me that her grown children had beat her so severely that she had to be hospitalized.  Since she was a widow, I felt led to invite her to Texas (from where she’d lived in California) to live in a mobile home on our property.  She got to know my parents (Mama’s 83 and Daddy’s 87), my aunts (Mama’s elderly sisters who live down the street from her), and my cousin (who is 65 and is like a wonderful big sister to me), and began to weave her spell of lies with them, making it appear that Richard & I mentally abused her, etc., which couldn’t have been further from the truth.  Her lies nearly permanently ruined my relationship with these people who were so precious to me (those I listed above).  The Lord finally removed her from our property, and sent her back to California.  Then in December, she moved BACK and moved in with my Aunts!  The lies began again immediately!  I was devastated, because I thought the Lord had had mercy on us and gotten her out of our lives for good, taking her demons (and I mean this literally… Pastor Riley can testify from what I’d told him) with her, and here she was back again!  Well, the Lord truly DID remove her from our lives last week. Carol passed away in a hospital near my Mom, Dad and aunts.  But some vestiges of her “work” still remain… my Mom believes every lie that Carol ever told her, which hurt me unbelievably.  I’ve always been VERY close to my family.  I’m praying that my Mom and Aunts eventually realize with the passing of time what the truth really is.

But throughout this all, He was my rock, our protector, and is always there to hear our prayers, and answers them extremely FAST!  As far as Richard & I are concerned, we feel He has given us the absolutely best of everything… more than we could ever have imagined… for this world anyway.  And soon we know we will be with Him throughout eternity, and know nothing but the best forevermore!  Hang in there, brother, our time of testing on this earth is almost up!

Richard always says that if we didn’t walk with the Lord, we would already belong to Satan and he wouldn’t mess with us.  And if we were fence riders, we would be mostly his, so our road would be much smoother. But since we choose to follow Him, lock, stock and barrel, Satan wants to make our lives miserable.  Therefore, the more Satan attacks us, the more please the Lord must be with us!  So be it!
 

Love from your sister in Yahshua!

Peggy

www.his-forever.com