Read heart warming, true testimonies of God's love, intervention,
and involvement in the lives of ordinary people.
Short Encouraging Writings
And Uplifting True Testimonies
Page 2
True Stories
True Stories - #1
THE POWER OF A LITTLE PRAYER
by Tony Kessen
It was the end of a great day! My wife and I were on our way home. It was about midnight. We were both relaxed and enjoying the ride on a clear autumn night. I was driving our 1999 Mazda 626 down the highway and was preparing to exit onto a major 4 lane road.
Sarah and I frequently pray as we travel, especially at night. We were both in a reflective mood and decided to pray about half way home. I had already finished praying to God. Sarah was still talking to Him as we started up the long exit ramp. She was asking Him for His protection on all her family who were also traveling home that evening. Little did she know we were about to become the recipients of that very protection.
We both were watching the traffic light as we got about half way up the ramp. It was solid green. There were no vehicles in front of us so we simply rolled into the intersection at about 30 MPH, to make the sweeping left turn onto the other road.
As we entered the intersection we saw a flash of light to our left and instantly heard a loud crash and felt a jarring impact. Our bodies were thrown to the right, then whipped back immediately to an upright position. I felt a sharp blow to my lower side and back as our car stopped dead in the intersection. It felt like somebody had hit me full force with a baseball bat. I just sat there, dazed and moaning. I could not believe what had just happened.
I heard my wife asking me if I was OK. I told her my back hurt but otherwise I seemed to be alright. I asked if she was injured, expecting an answer involving neck pain. Praise God she was completely unhurt! I then realized that I did not have any neck trauma either. In spite of being violently slammed sideways we had no obvious injuries to our necks.
The paramedics checked me over in the car then helped me out the passenger side because the drivers side was crushed shut. They checked me out in the ambulance and said I was OK except for some possible bruised ribs where the side impact door beam hit me in the back. I didn't even have to go to the hospital.
Our car had to be towed away, (it had almost $10,000 damage), but we walked away! Amazingly, the 3 teenagers in the Blazer that hit us were also completely unharmed. The speed limit was 45 MPH on that road and the driver said she had a green light, so she would not have been slowing down before she hit us broadside in the intersection. There is no reasonable explanation for the lack of serious injuries for all of us, unless we believe in miracles! We do!
There are a lot of things that don't make any sense about this whole thing. Looking back on the accident, and observing the damage to the vehicles, there are many things that I simply don't understand. This all should have been much worse!
What I do know is this. Jesus saves.....in more ways than one! Jesus heard my wife's prayer for protection. He put an angel between the two vehicles to absorb the majority of the energy that would have sent some of us to the hospital with major injuries. His intervention saved lives that night. I walked away from an accident that other people, at other times, never did. Why? I can't answer that question.
I don't know the mind of God and why He chooses to save one and not another at any given time. What I do know is that God is good all the time....and all the time God is good! His goodness and love never changes. He allows nothing bad to happen that is not ultimately for some good. He has a purpose for each and every one of us, and maybe we don't always understand it, but there is a reason for all things, good and bad, in our lives.
I don't know why He chose to spare me and my wife this time, but we are very thankful that He did. He also extended His mercy to the 3 teens that we didn't even know and spared them too. I don't claim to know all the answers. All I can testify to is the fact that at the time of impact my wife was talking to God and asking for His protection, and we all walked away from this wreck with no serious injuries. The facts speak for themselves! What more can I say?
True Stories - #2
GOD WAS THERE!
Name withheld by request
Last December 20th I had a experience that changed my life and nearly ended it. I had personal questions that were answered also that I had in my mind for a while. I had been feeling a little under the weather on the 16th of December and decided not to work that following Monday or Tuesday. I thought since I had a lot of sick days built up I may as well take advantage of them since I didnt really feel well. I had very little appetite and was just not energetic at all. That Tuesday night at 11:30 I decided to go to bed and get some sleep. I stood up and with the remote in my hand I turned the television off and at that point the world stopped and life ended. The next thing I knew I was in Barnes hospital in an ICU unit. I thought I was in a dream because everything looked wrong to me. I could not see very well or very clearly. I could see maybe ten feet and it was very very murky and cloudy looking. Giving it a dreamlike appearance. I saw people that I worked with and thought "hmmm I Ive never dreamed of them before! After about a few times of going in and out of consciousness, I came to my senses and realized that I was not dreaming! I really was here in the hospital! "How did I get here?" I thought. I wondered did I have wreck or what. I noticed that the television had the date as the 23rd of December on it. I was completely baffled about the whole thing. I noticed I was hooked to all kinds of electronic things. There was a red light on my finger and a wire that went into my chest to my heart. My legs were attached to a massage machine and my arm to a blood pressure machine that took readings every 15 minutes it seemed. "What happened to me?" My legs hurt really bad and I was weak.
When I realized that I was REALLY in a hospital I thought "How did I get here? Did I have a wreck? I was lost. About 15 minutes after I had regained consciousness, a doctor came in and explained to me how I had been in a coma and how a lucky young man I was to be here. His words were very serious words, but the only thing I thought was what I was going to do when I get out. Later on during my hospital stay I learned from friends what had happened the four days that I was missing in my mind. I thought about God. God, in my view, did not let me die. He did an amazing thing in my book by saving my life. Here is what I am thnkful for. Life? Of course! But I am glad that God saw me when I was dying in my bed and before anyone had prayed a prayer about me, He acted! God, I now know, really loves me a lot! I didnt know that I was about to die that Tuesday night, but He did! He did NOT allow it. For whatever reason. Maybe He was just being Himself...nice! I loved Him and admired Him long before any of this thing happended to me. What a Great Person He is! He defies logic to me. A Person Who can not only be smart and ever in control of things but He can be, and is, NICE!! He has been my Friend Who I have talked to for years and this is not the only time He has saved my life but that is for another time. I may not know who the beast is or false prophet or whatever. But I will go to my grave knowing that the God that I know really is a friend and that I am crazy about Him. By the way...He does love you deeply too. He will do for you what He has done for anyone. He really is No respecter of persons or any of the stuff we hold is high esteem. Thank Him that He is not. God...You are amazing!
True Stories - #2
THE HAND
Author Unknown
My daughter, Kathleen, was 15... too young to seriously date but she had a boyfriend. One evening, when I was leaving to pick up my son, Paul, from baseball practice, she asked if she could just go with her boyfriend to pick up his little brother at a friend's house. She said they would come right back. I said, "All right, just make sure you wear your seat belt, and come right home."
It was my father's birthday and my 3 yr. old daughter, Therese, was already at my father's house waiting for us to come over with the cake I had yet to pick up at the store. I left to pick Paul up at school, but decided to take the highway, rather than the shortcut along the back roads.
After leaving the school, Paul and I ran in the store for the cake and some last minute goodies. As we were getting into the car, we heard and saw paramedics, fire trucks, three ambulances and of course a multitude of police cars. I got a sick feeling in my stomach and said to Paul, "Somebody needs our prayers, quick." I wondered if there was a fire or a bad car accident.
At one of the intersections I had to stop to let more emergency vehicles through, and prayed, "Lord, those people need you right now, go to them and place your protective hand over them."
We stopped at my parents to drop off the food, before going home to pick up Kathleen, but my father met me at the car and told us to not to rush, the party could wait a bit, because Therese had fallen asleep. "Which way did you go to the school?" he asked, "Because there was a bad accident on the
back road, I heard someone was killed. It happened just about the time you had to pick up Paul at the school and I know you always go that way. I was so happy to see you pull in, where's Kathleen?" I explained I was going back home to get her.
As I drove the short distance home, I couldn't help but worry what if she was involved in the accident? I ran in the house and called out her name, dead silence. Then, the phone rang. It was her friend's mother, who worked in the emergency room of our local hospital. She only told me that the three of
them were in an accident and were being transported to the hospital. I didn't call my husband at work, nor my parents, I just ran out the door fast.
At the hospital emergency room, I could hear one of the paramedics softly talking to another parent there, saying "I'm so sorry, so very sorry". I rushed by him and found the doctor in the hallway. He looked at me and asked if I believed in God, and with that my knees gave way.
I wasn't ready to accept the fact that Kathleen might be..."Oh please, not my girl". "No," he said, "you don't understand, do you believe in divine intervention?" I sammered, a weak, "Yes." Not having a clue what he was talking about. He smiled at me and asked, "Do you know what shirt your daughter is wearing tonight?" Nodding no, he told me to go down the hall and look. "Your daughter is blessed with angels and so are you.
From what the emergency personnel told me, there is no way that your daughter should be alive, let alone only have a few scratches." Kathleen was laying on a cart, waiting for more x-rays. When I got to her, we both sobbed. As I was hugging her I had the urge to check her shirt, unzipping her jacket. I read the words, "Jesus Saves."
I knew then, what the doctor had meant. All three were treated and released. On the way home that night, Kathleen told this story: "It was really weird, about a quarter of a mile before the accident, I said, 'Wait, we forgot to put our seat belts on, my Mother will kill me.' Then a car was coming towards
us in our lane, he swerved, and I knew we got hit in the passenger side of the car, where I was sitting. We got hit a total of three times because the car kept spinning in a circle. I felt his little brother's hand on my shoulder, holding me tightly in place. "But Mom, after it was all over, I could still feel the hand on my shoulder. I looked and his little brother had flown out the back window of the car, as we later found out, on the first spin. "It was an angel, Mom, I know it!"
I knew it too, especially when we went the next day to look at the car, it had been split in half, right underneath my daughter's seat. The driver of the other car, witnesses said, must have been traveling between 90-95 miles per hour and the point of impact was directly at Kathleen's door. The police report stated that the car door was found fifty feet away from the accident scene,with the seat belt attached. So when the door broke loose, "the hand" was the only thing that saved my daughter's life.
God knew, long before I did that my child was in trouble, and I will always thank Him for saving her life and restoring mine.
I have been meaning to write this story for the past couple of years. Kathleen just turned 21. While I was writing this I smiled and cried, but it's all true.
(More Encouraging Stories follow these reflective questions.)
Do I believe there is a real heaven and hell?
When I die where will I go?
What do I need to do to live forever?
Why do I believe what I do?
If what I believe isn't true, would I want to know it?
Who has the answers?
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True Stories - #2
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD
by Susan Rule
My name is Susan Rule. I am thirty-two years old and from New Jersey. I would just like to start out by giving God all the glory and praise for letting me be here to share this with you.
I grew up in a Christian home with loving parents and two wonderful sisters. I was very involved in church up till about the age of seventeen, then my friends came first. My addiction started out by smoking and drinking alcohol. By the age of twenty-one I lived in the bars day and night. I started lying and stealing from my own family. I met my boyfriend who I loved very much and we moved in together. My boyfriend was involved in drugs and we started selling them out of our apartment.
At first I was able to just sell the drugs and not use them. After a while of watching people come into my home and get high I started getting very courious, and I started using. Heroin became my best friend I always had to have it to get through my day. Heroin is a drug that if you don't have it, you will do anything for it.
I remember the last time my boyfriend and I went to pick up our package, we saw someone on the side of the road being searched. I remember us looking at each other and saying that will never happen to us, we have been doing this to for to long. Well, on the way home it did happen to us, I remember being on the side of the road and just being so humiliated and embarrassed. By that evening I was being booked and entered the county jail, they had taken my boyfriend to an another jail because of outstanding warrants. I remember just feeling so alone at that point. For the first week I just basically stayed to myself, I was very sick and weak, from coming off the heroin.
I decided to call my parents after I started feeling better. My father came immediately to see me, my mother just couldn't bare to see me. I could just see the hurt in my fathers eyes as he asked me what my plans were if I got out of jail. I didn't know at that point in my life, I was tired and ready to just die.
A few weeks later I finally called my mother and told her I was ready to get some help, she told me of the Walter Hoving Home which is a sixteen month Christian residential program for women. My parents bailed me out and took me to New York to the program.
Since then I have dedicated my life to the Lord. God has helped me reconcile with my family, God has help me build up and my self-esteem, and God has even given me a hope and a future. I complete the program on July 31st, and I am already working as a staff member here. I thank god for forgiving my sins and making me his child.
If anyone knows any women with a drug or alcohol problem, please tell them to call the Walter Hoving Home at (845) 424-3674.
For Nothing is Impossible with God. Luke 1:37
True Stories - #2
OUR FESTIVAL MIRACLE
Name withheld by request
We were at Lake Ozark, Missouri, for our churches annual 8 day celebration. My husband Leo and I sang in the Choir. On Tuesday morning we sang backup music to open the worship service. We had just finished practicing for choir and I came down from the stage to my seat for church services. It wasn't long before Mrs. Petcu (my daughter's mother-in-law) was at the end of our isle motioning for me to come to her. She said, "I noticed you smiling and waving and thought maybe you haven't heard." I said, "Heard what?" She said, "Ronda (my daughter) and Matt (my grandson) were in a camper that blew-up and have been taken to the hospital." My heart just almost stopped! She continued saying that they were in an explosion/implosion and they were burned. I started looking around for Stacy (my daughter) and she was looking for me. We found each other just about the same time the announcement for prayers for my daughter, her son and the Mitchell's, some good friends of ours, came over the speaker. My heart fell to the floor and my knees went weak.
I asked my husband and my brother to watch Stacy's son. Stacy and I went to the hospital. They weren't there. They transferred them to another hospital up in Columbia. They were immediately placed in the Burn Unit. Now I was frantic and the only thing I could think was , "Oh God, please let them be OK!
I came out of that driveway and went the wrong way to Columbia, which turned out to be good because Stacy saw our friend, Donny, who pulled over, so did we, and we found out what happened.
Ronda and Matt were having breakfast with Donny and Donny's parents and Grandma. As they were eating their eggs, Mrs. Jean Mitchell (Donny's mom), smelled gas, and Mr. Don Mitchell (Donny's dad), said he would check it out. He lit a match and the gas exploded. Donny was telling me that Ronda was O.K., but Matt was burned a couple of places on his face and that he was coming from the hospital and Ronda needed clothes for her and Matt, and Donny needed to go see how Mom and Grandma were. I said, "O.K., you go see about them. We'll get clothes and go to Columbia.
I still didn't know what to expect on how bad Matt had been burned, so I was in a hurry. I'm glad Stacy was driving.
We got to the hotel and got a little resistance until I told them the circumstances, and the lady at the desk said oh she hoped everything would be all right. She heard about the explosion/implosion over the CB radio.
It took forever to get to Columbia! We went into the ER and they said they weren't there yet. The ambulance they would have traveled in was outside, so after waiting way too long in the ER I was going to find admitting or someone else who could tell me something when the ER person said, "Oh, they took them straight up to the burn unit." It scared me some more! I think I held my breath going up the elevator!
The doors opened and with instant relief but still much concerned, I saw Matt standing down the hall with this way too big blue hospital shirt on. He was burned on the left side of his face, his hair was matted where it was burned, his eyelids were red and puffy, and he was just standing there drinking some water. Then I turned and saw Ronda sitting on a chair with hardly anything wrong, just some minor cuts and matted hair. Then she told me they still had Don, Sr. in the room. I got permission to see him. His hands were bandaged and IV's were going. He had some second degree burns but that didn't stop him from giving me a big smile! Then the nurse came in and said after he got a shot he could leave too.
I thanked God and I thanked God and I thanked God!
Later my husband and I went over to the trailer camper and when we saw it we couldn't believe it! It was TOTALED! The camper had glass blown everywhere, the walls were bowed out. Cabinets were off the wall. It was a mess!
Mrs. Mitchell told us that she smelled gas, she was standing at the sink and her husband was below the sink looking at the tank. Matt was sitting behind them and to one side. When Don Sr. went to check the pilot...BOOM.... Matt said he saw a blue ball come right at him as cabinets blew off the wall and fell into the chair where he was sitting. (He ducked his head which kept a cabinet from hitting him.) The fire wrapped around Jeans ankles as Ronda grabbed Matt and raced out the door. Donny pulled grandma out while he was trying put out the fire in her hair at the same time. Don, Sr. took the full blast on his face and hands, and then had to get into his pocket for keys to get to the big tanks to shut them off, breaking blisters that had already formed. I didn't know until later that Donny's ear was burned in the fire also.
People who were camping to one side of them emptied 4 fire extinguishers and put out the fire, keeping it from the big tanks. People on the other side were catching victims as they jumped out of the demolished camper. The fire department said they expected to find everyone dead, that with an explosion/implosion like that usually no one survived. The EMT's said that they must have been protected by angels.
God had His angels there protecting them!
An angel stood between Don,Sr. and the blast!
An angel held the cabinet just long enough to protect Matt as Ronda pulled him from that chair!
An angel directed the blast towards the back window, blowing it out of the camper, and keeping everyone from being severely burned!
An angel kept the fire away from the big tanks until Don could turn them off!
Yes, the angels were very busy that day, and so were the thousands of members who were praying for all the injured people heading to the hospital.Before they were transported from the accident scene they were all anointed by our minister. Mr. Petcu had anointed Don, Sr. and Matt and Ronda at Lake Ozark Hospital and on the ride to Columbia, Mo. Don, Sr. said he couldn't feel the pain. God was already intervening and healing!
For the remaining 6 days of that Festival I thanked God every day! When we sang praises to Him I sang with all my heart! There were six people in that camper trailer, and I don't know how many angels, but to this very day I thank God, and I thank God, and I thank God.
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