His Wonderful Works- Part 4-



  I ended part three of His Wonderful Works giving my personal testimony of how the Lord taught me about being separated from the world unto Him in the issue of my clothing.
  This took place during my early years of marriage and when we had our first daughter Niki. 
  Well, after about a year of being a mother of a beautiful baby girl I began to long for more children.  I knew that our Niki was a miracle and my doctor had told me as much when he said that I needed to be thankful for the one child that we had.  But yet in my heart was such a longing for more children.
    I would hear women talk when they found out they were pregnant as if they had just been given a death sentence.  They talked of how much harder it was going to make life, how could it happen "now", and other terrible things about what God said was a blessing--something to be desired, something that should make a man with a "quiver full" happy. (Ps. 127:5)
   This troubled me, and I would ask the Lord why He couldn't give us children when we wanted them and we would dedicate our lives to raising them for Him.  I didn't question His wisdom, but I did question why He didn't allow us to have children to raise for Him.
  This became such a spiritual burden for me that it consumed much of my prayer life.  I thought of it constantly and prayed often about it.  I went to the doctor and the matter of medication to cause ovulation was brought up again.  This time if I remember correctly we bought the medicine but I didn't take it.
  Once again I was brought back to prayer and fasting.  Over the years when I have a serious spiritual problem my mind goes to Revelation 4's description of the throne in heaven when John has it shown to him. 
  There is the throne set in heaven and the One sitting on it is like to a jasper and a sardine stone.  There is a rainbow round about the throne that is in sight like unto an emerald.  Out of the throne proceeds lightnings and thunderings and voices.  Before the throne is like unto a sea of glass out of crystal.  What a picture! 
  In chapter 5 the four and twenty elders fall down before the lamb having vials full of, which are the prayers of saints.
  The throne of mercy in Hebrews is a place we are allowed to come boldly to because of our high priest being there for us, and obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-17)  The place where our prayers are put in vials as a beautiful perfume.  I often wonder if each person's prayers have a distinctive aroma.
  And that's where I go--to this wonderful place to cling to the mercy seat for help.  My prayers have often been answered very quickly--that is in my early Christian days.  In my later years He has had to teach me to "wait on Him", but that's another part to these "wonderful works" chapters.
   One day my pastor's wife and I was out visiting a lady in our church who was very ill.  At some point and time in her illness she felt prompted to have the elders come and anoint her with oil, and she got well.  I don't remember if our visit was before or after her getting well, but I assume it was before because she was homebound and we were visiting her.
  We were pulling out of her driveway to go home when I knew.  That's the only way I can describe it.  I knew that the Lord had answered my prayer and we were going to have more children!  It wasn't a great feeling of joy or relief.  It wasn't the "I believe, help mine unbelief" that I experienced with Niki.  It was just that I knew.
  I don't even remember if I told Gary or not.  In July I was reasonably certain I was pregnant.  I went to the doctor.  He told me I wasn't pregnant.  I told him I would be back in September and I would be pregnant.  The doctor's nurse gave a nervous little giggle as if she didn't know if I was being funny or if I was a crazy person.  My doctor said, "Don't laugh."
  I went home and made it a matter of serious prayer.  I went back in September and the rest of the story is history.  We have our precious Alicia Rue--my second miraculous answer to prayer for children.
  When I was pregnant for our children Gary and I would pray together (at his suggestion and desire) that if our children weren't going to be saved that we would ask the Lord to take them back before they reached the age of accountability.  That's a scary prayer, but I always believed I could deal with going to the casket of an innocent child and know it was safe in the arms of Jesus with much more grace than looking down at a teen or young adult knowing that it was eternally in hell, and so I prayed that prayer.
  Alicia gave me several scares in the womb.  She was a very quiet baby and many times would go right up to the hour when I was supposed to call the doctor's office and report the absence of movement before she'd move.  I would be in tears, emotionally a mess and then she'd stir.
  I finally learned two ways to get her to move.  Knitting would always irritate her with the clattering needles and she'd stir as if irritated.  The other way was to sit a cup of hot coffee on my tummy!
  When she was born she was just as quiet a baby out of the womb as in the womb.  We actually wondered if she'd ever talk or socialize. (Can you believe that if you know our Alicia?)
  One hot summer night I heard her gurgling in her crib and when I grabbed her from the crib she was choking on liquid from her stomach.  When I'd hold her straight up she'd breathe and when I'd lay her back in my arms she would begin to turn purple again.
  We rushed her to the hospital but they found nothing and by morning she was fine.  She had a large circle of clear stomach acid (?) on the crib sheet when we left for the hospital.  When we came home the sheet was dry, there was no odor on the sheet.  If I hadn't heard her gurgling we would have found our quiet little daughter dead in her crib that morning.
  At that point I didn't give my children to the Lord but I did realize that if He didn't enable us to raise them and He didn't wake us up when they needed us, we didn't have any hope as parents.  I realized that His works not only involved giving us children to raise for Him, but giving us grace, wisdom, mother's intuition, etc. to raise them for Him. (I had felt we needed to keep her in a cradle in our room instead of moving her to Niki's bedroom...mother's intuition?)
  I couldn't do it--it required an involved and gracious heavenly Father to raise children.
  So my wonderful works in this chapter of His wonderful works  in my life?
1.)   I learned that just because He carries out His works one way the first time doesn't mean He will do it the same way the next time. (As you'll see in my stories of Nathan's birth, Nevin's birth, Asher's birth, Cierra and John's birth)
  Each on of their stories are completely different!  Nate was a surprise, Nevin came when I was fasting and praying for a friend to conceive, Asher was our first adopted baby, and Cierra and John came via a radio program! :)
   My second lesson on His wonderful works in my life was that not only did I have to let the Lord do all the work in giving us children, but I had to let Him do the work in giving me the strength, ability, and wisdom to be a good mother in every area. 
  Did I learn these lessons like a huge light bulb came on and I never forgot it?  No, that's not how it worked at all.  Even in writing this, I see where I must be reminded time after time after time that these things are true--and even though I fail and deny Him so many times--He always abideth faithful to me.
  So, after writing this I say to my Beloved once again,  "Remind me again and again, dearest Lord, of those things that I so easily forget.  I look to you to be faithful to guide me into all truth and to carry out the wonderful works in me for my children and grandchildren to see that You might get all the glory and praise.  In Jesus name, Amen."
 
 
  
 
  
  

His Wonderful Work of Separation...part 3



 Here goes "His Wonderful Works in My Life"--part 3.   In part 2 I told how God miraculously gave us our first child, Nicole Anthea. 
  While I was carrying Niki,  Gary and I both were growing spiritually.  We had decided together that we were going to be active Christians and that we weren't going to do it halfheartedly, but instead we going to be "all the way" Christians.  No fence riding for us.
  We talked about the Lord, prayed, and we attended our church faithfully.  As a result, the Lord began to work in our hearts in a way we had neither one experienced before.
  Now at this point I need to digress a little into my earlier life to explain some of the things the Lord needed to work in my heart over.
  My dad got saved when I was an infant.  It took him until I was five or so to get into a good church and start really growing himself.  He told how when reading his Bible he knew something was wrong in the churches he was choosing, so He asked the Lord to show him the truth.  Shortly after praying that prayer two men knocked on my parents door from an independent Baptist church.  Dad said the first Sunday there he knew they'd found a church that was preaching and teaching what he had been learning from reading his Bible.  The rest is history--my dad became an independent, Bible believing Baptist and he began to grow rapidly.
  We moved back to Indiana when I was in fourth grade.  The Lord led my dad to start a church in Parker City, IN a short time after we moved back there.  My dad had gone to one year of Bible college when we lived in Kansas, but it was rather liberal.  He didn't get under sound Bible teaching until he got under the Pastor Byers Storey of Muncie, Indiana.  (Temple Baptist Church)
  When dad started the church in Parker he was still learning some of the basics in doctrine.  He said it concerned Brother Storey rather he was ready for pastoring.  But dad stuck by the stuff and grew.
  We lived in the country north of Parker when he started the church and dad still hadn't developed many personal standards for us as a family.  When I was right at the beginning of my teenage years dad realized there should be dress standards and told us girls that we weren't to wear pants any more.
  Now, I was in the time of my life where I was questioning everything and I wasn't doing it from a spiritual mindset!  So, I decided dad had developed this new conviction as a result of our becoming teens and because we were moving to town where we would be more visible.
  I did what my dad said, but I didn't make a heart's decision for myself concerning what I wore.  I had outward obedience, but I never got before the Lord on my own and with a sincere heart asked Him to show me what He said about my clothing.  To be honest, I didn't want to know because I wanted to make that decision for myself!
  At school it was noticed.  No one really made fun of me, but comments would be made.   I would be asked why we never wore pants.  This was the late 60's and early 70's and pants and miniskirts were the rage, so when you wore a dress every day it was noticed!
  When I went to work out of high school as a pharmacy tech I also noticed that the men were always the ones to comment, and the comments were always about my looking like a lady.  They were never belittling, more astonishment or gratefulness for a "lady who looked like a lady".  I did notice this and it went into my mental library of facts.
  However, this was during the time I was completely backslidden as a teen and I had made up my mind that when I got out of the home I did not share my dad's conviction and I would wear pants.
  When I married that's exactly what I did.  Not all the time, but much of the time.  I cannot bear to think of how this must have hurt my precious parents.  I've asked them to forgive me for the pain my backslidden years brought to them, and I asked them for forgiveness for how I hurt them with my foolish choices.  Something I'm very grateful for is that I got right with the Lord and had an opportunity to ask their forgiveness while they were still alive.   I'm also grateful for their patience and forgiveness.
  I got right with the Lord at about the age of 18, but some of the wrong decisions were still in my life--what I wore was one of those things.  When I was pregnant for Niki the Holy Spirit began to deal with my heart about being a testimony no matter where I was.
  I would sit in the waiting room at the doctor's office and want to look like a Christian.  I wanted people to know I was a Christian just by looking at my countenance, (Acts 4:13-"they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.")  I knew that would only come by spending time with Him, but I also knew there should be outward evidence of being "separated unto Him from the world".
  So, where at the beginning I would pick up the Gideon Bible and read it while in the waiting room at the middle and end of my pregnancy I would wear a dress or skirt, because that made me the only one in the waiting room dressed in a way that made people take note that I was a Christian.
*I knew this was true because of how many times my dress under my dad's leadership caused people to ask where I went to church!
  I cannot speak for anyone else, but I can say without any question that my choice of clothing had a direct parallel to my spiritual closeness to the Lord.  When I was in rebellion I chose clothing that made me be identified with the world and its latest fad.  When I grew close to the Lord all I wanted was to be sure that what I wore brought Him honor and glory and set me apart from the world and identified me with Him.
  I still wore pants at home, wore them on vacation or on other occasions that I felt warranted wearing them, but as I became more and more sensitive to what pleased the Lord I became more and more uncomfortable with clothing that was immodest or "pertained to a man".
  We had had a part in some young Christians' salvation and I also became concerned that we were good role models in their lives.  All of this, along with a sincere desire to do nothing that would put a wall between the Lord and I's fellowship caused me to get into my Bible truly seeking what the Lord's heart was in this area.
  I still held on to some of my excuses--the major excuse was that my husband liked them on me.
I had a fear that if I only wore dresses he might lose his interest in me, or think I was "dowdy" in my clothing choices.
  Gary and I began to have more and more preachers over to the house during revivals, we were both spending more and more time in our Bibles and prayer, and I was getting more and more concerned with being right with the Lord and doing nothing that would cause someone to stumble.
  God knows just what work to carry out in our lives to get us to make that final step that He wants when we are sincerely seeking to please and obey Him.
  We had gone to town to see Gary's mother.  We were taking Niki  and were very proud to show her off to Gary's mom and aunt and uncle.  I had on a pair of jeans and a pretty new top Gary had bought me.
  An opportunity came up for me to witness to Gary's mother.  She was lost and we were both very burdened for her salvation.  When I began to witness she stopped me.  She told me that I didn't have anything to say to her as long as I wore those pants.  She saw the way *____________ (Gary's uncle) looked at me.  I was crushed and speechless.
  When we got home I told Gary that his mother might go to hell, but it would be her own choice, and it most certainly wouldn't be over stumbling over my clothing!  That was the "work of the Lord" that took dressing immodestly or dressing in what pertained to a man from my heart.
  I have never questioned what God meant by any portion of scripture on my clothing--it's not a matter up for debate to me.  I KNOW what He believes about it--He revealed it to my heart by His wonderful works. He did it in a way that I will never question what He means by the various verses I hear debated on a regular basis.
  I know that no matter what the Lord is wanting to teach us He has to make it personal, and He has to do the speaking and the working.   My obedience to my dad was outward--but dead.  I should have accepted the truth simply because I'm told to obey my parents, but I didn't.  However, when the time came that I sincerely was seeking and wanting to obey God and His Word--He made it real and He made it personal.
  That was the first real time I can remember that the Lord did a work in my heart that was precious--and very painful.  However, I am so glad He did. 
  Gary's mother did get saved some years later.  His dad and his mother both gave testimony at their salvation that watching us for years live out a Christianity consistently and with all our hearts is part of what brought them to Christ.
  What a small price separation from this world and its mindset is in the Christian life, and yet it is one of the devil's most effective tools. 
  This was just the first spiritual work in my life that I remember being painful and shameful.  There have been many since then, but I embrace them now as an act of love on the Lord's part and I'm thankful that they are proof that I am His.  (Hebrews 12:6-"For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.")
  I am writing all this down for "the generation to come".  I have felt prompted to do this, so that my children and grandchildren will know what the Lord's works in my life have been.  I don't want them to wait and find them in my journals after I am gone, but know them now!
"We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done."-Psalm 78:4
  This won't be all of them, they are too many to tell, but the highlights.  However, I get excited just looking back at how good He has been to me.  A true loving Heavenly Father who has done what was best for me, not what I wanted. 
  Until the next chapter!...
 
 
 



  
  
 
  
 

His Wonderful Works in My Life--Part 2

 

 My last post was about how the Lord made me aware of His presence and my need of salvation.  That's the most wonderful thing He will ever do, but it's just the beginning!
  My childhood years were sweet.  Because of the healthy home life I had I pretty much just believed what was preached and taught to us.  When I was around 14 I began wondering how much I truly believed because it was true and how much I believed because I had been told it was true.  I've heard many, many others say they went through this.  I think it is a necessary part of growing up to adulthood if you're going to stand alone with the Lord.  We tend to depend on others, but the Lord wants that dependence to be replaced by our trusting Him and His word alone--no one else holding us up.
  A bunch of teen boys started coming to our church when I was 16 and among them was the one who was going to be the "love of my life".  He was saved shortly after beginning to attend our church.   He was my best friend first, then he became my sweetheart.  I highly recommend that--that you like each other before you love each other! 
   We were married at a young age.  The Lord was very real to me, but I was a shallow Christian, still riding on my parents coat tails.  I knew the Lord was my Saviour, knew He would provide your needs, but I had never made a full surrender to His authority in my life.  I had actually prayed a prayer at one point asking the Lord to give me a husband that was a strong authority that could handle me, because I knew I had a strong will.  God heard and answered that prayer!
  Even as a young girl I had some very strong convictions.  My dad didn't know it but when he would counsel so many of the young Christians he had an extra listener in the other room. After listening to him counsel,  I watched what happened to those people and their lives.  My dad would take the word of God and give them the truth.  When they walked out and obeyed it, things went the right direction with their life.  When they ignored the truth, their lives continued to spiral downward and fall apart.
 My dad had given me correspondence that had gone back and forth between one of the preachers on "Back to the Bible Broadcast" and a young woman who was dating a lost boy.  Oh, the sorrow she brought into her own life with the philosophy that she could change this young man.  She told how he loved her and was going to go to church with her after they married.  Instead of her willful ways bringing joy, she lived a life with a drunken , lazy brute.  After reading those letters I knew I would never date or marry a man who wasn't saved.  I also determined he couldn't just say he was saved, he had to behave as if he were saved!  Thank you, dear dad for giving me those letters!
  I had read my Bible and come to the conclusion that dancing was not for saved people, that I needed to stand with the Lord when the Bible was being attacked, and that I couldn't/wouldn't listen to the world's music or read their books that mocked the Lord.
  I attended a public school and I  took a firm stand in some situations where it took God's grace to do it, yet, there were many, many unsurrendered areas.  Some because of ignorance and some because of willfulness.
   Shortly after our marriage God began dealing with me.  I remember very clearly in our small apartment when He dealt with me about being all the way in or out with my Christian life.  I knelt by my bed and told the Lord I was going to be all the way in--not a fence straddler.
  He also began dealing with me about how much time I was spending with Him and how much time I spent reading books or other entertainment.  That took a while, in the end I promised Him I wouldn't read books for entertainment before I had read my Bible.
   When the Lord dealt with me it would be through my Bible reading,  through preaching or through someone else's testimony.  When I would surrender my will to His there would be such joy and peace within. I began to notice the pattern of how He worked with me to repent and what joy I had when I repented.   I  realize God in His goodness was preparing me for the life that was ahead of me.  He is always so good.
  I married with a heart's desire for a large family.  I had read several books by a preacher that had really impressed upon me that children were a blessing and we should let God give us blessings-not try to prevent Him from blessing us.  (today's mindset)
   After marriage I went back to my gynecologist for problems I had had before marriage.  He told me that I was young, but the problem I had made it to where there wasn't much chance for pregnancy.  He told me the odds and I don't remember them, but it wasn't good.
  This literally broke my heart.  For the first time since salvation I had a problem that was really big.  I did what I watched my parents do--go to  the word of God.  I studied the women who had lived with barrenness and Hannah especially gripped my heart. 
  In the end, I wrote a letter to the Lord.  It's buried somewhere in the many, many boxes we have in storage and if I find it I'm going to take it out and put it in a special notebook.  I told the Lord I believed and was asking him for a baby April of 1975.
  Back to the doctor in September because I thought I was pregnant.  My health problem was amenorrhea, or absence of menses.  I would go up to 8 months, so the only way to know I was pregnant was see the doctor and have a pregnancy test. 
  He examined me and told me that by examination he could tell me that I wasn't pregnant.  I told him that I knew I was--I had fasted and prayed over it!  He said, "Well, we'll run a pregnancy test just to prove it to you, but you're not pregnant."
  I remember going in a little bathroom next to the examination room, getting down by the toilet and saying, "I believe, help Thou mine unbelief!" over and over.  I got dressed and got ready to go to his office and talk to him.
  Before I got out the door, the doctor came walking back in with his wife right behind him.  They were Christians who attended a church in a town near to us.  He said, "You're not going to believe this!"  (His wife's standing behind him smiling from ear to ear.)  "It's positive, you're pregnant!"
  I had prayed so many times about this, I had asked the Lord to take a baby from the womb of a woman who was going to abort it and give it to us to raise--but the news was almost overwhelming--with joy!!  That baby is our Nicole Anthea.  She was born April 30th, 1975!   I've told her she might actually be someone else's and taken from another woman and given to us. 
  Now I had a truly mighty visible work in my life that only He could get the glory for.  As young as we were the doctor had even suggested I take a medication that would help me ovulate, but we had decided to wait till we were in our mid-twenties to try that.  I knew that God Himself had intervened and given us a baby.
  I felt so responsible to bring this life up for him, and it motivated me to get even more serious about
my spiritual life.  God's goodness truly leads us to repentance. 
  This was just the beginning of many might works in my life.  And so, there will have to be more parts to this!  Stay tuned for part 3....

  

  



Wow, I haven't written since August!  Part of that is because of trying to keep priorities in line and the other part is poor health.  I have been fighting a losing battle with some health issues for five years and they've had the upper hand for several months now. 
   There've been a whole lot of reshuffling of our lifestyle here at the Neal household since I've been ill.  The kids now have to fix their own breakfast--something that has never taken place in this home.  The children are doing almost all of the laundry, and they've taken over any task that requires bending or twisting.  They've done fine with it, their mother has had a harder time letting go.  But when I think on "these things"-"whatsoever things  are true , whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue , and  if there be any  praise , think on these things." then I see to every dark side of this there is a silver lining in the clouds.
   Tonight is a sleepless night and I've been thinking on the many wonderful works the Lord has carried out in my life.  I decided to declare these works publicly to bring him all the honor and praise He so rightly deserves! "We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done." (Ps. 78:4)
  The first work the Lord did in my life was making me aware of His presence.  When I was a very small girl I began to be aware of my sin, of heaven and hell and of my need for a Saviour.  We lived in a house next to the Christian school we attended.  In that house I have such sweet memories. 
  I remember my mother sitting on a little footstool in front of the radio listening to Back to the Bible, Chapel of the Air.  Oliver B. Greene, and Lester Roloff. 
   I remember my dad telling us we needed to pray for milk and having us kneel by the couch and pray.  We each prayed and then my dad prayed, and prayed and prayed....and then there was a knock on the door!  There stood our school principal with a gallon of milk under each arm.  He told us his parents' cows had given too much milk that day--could we use a couple of gallons?  I stood there thinking, "God is real!  He heard my dad pray and He is real!"
  I remember my dad resting in the window seat reading a newspaper.  I asked him if he would pray with me that I wouldn't go to hell.  He laid the paper down and prayed with me.  I didn't get saved that day, but I was waking up to my need for salvation.  How thankful I am for parents who not only professed to know the Lord, but lived a life that made a little girl have childlike faith in the truths of the word of God.
  The second work was the most miraculous work--my salvation!  My dad was pastoring a small church in Kansas City, KS.  The morning I got saved he had a guest speaker, who preached on Calvary.  I could draw a picture of the Christ he portrayed that day in his message, hanging on the cross and dying for me.
  When the invitation was given I wanted to go forward, but I was afraid.  So I reached up and took my dad's hand and asked the Lord to save me and come into my heart.  Oh, what joy!  I remember telling my little Catholic friend Mark about what happened to me.  We were kneeling by his couch as I explained salvation to him and told him Jesus was knocking on his heart's door but he had to let Him come in.  His mother was standing at the kitchen sink doing dishes and listening to what I was telling Mark.  I've often wondered if that testimony bore fruit in their lives later.
  I wrote my parents a letter filled with the joy of my salvation...

From Tammy to daddy and Mommy
Jesus Jesus how I Love him!  isn't he wonderful to us.   I can't wate till he comes.  I just can not wate!  Amen! 
I thank the Lord tonight that We do not have to go and make a bomme house and be afrade and die.
Jesus is good to us.  I am glad I got saved!  I whoud be died because sinners die each day.  I was a sinner wonts.  but now I am god's child and saved with him.
Some day I will die and go to heaven to be with my heavenly father. and I will be glad.
isn't he wonderful wonderful wonderful isn't Jesus my lord wonderful sents that day on the cross that he died to save the lost isn't Jesus my Lord wonderful!  priase God.
for God so loved the world!  that he gave his only begoten son!
that houe so ever believeth in him
shoud not perish! but have ever lasting life!
I am so glad that Jesus died for me!  Because we do note have to die on the cross!  he is so good too us.  that we could stay alive.

  Some of my doctrine needed a little work, but I knew I was a sinner who had a Saviour! 
  Once again, how thankful I am that I had parents that valued my salvation above any possession the world offered.  They had us faithfully in the house of God hearing the word of God and my eternal destination became safe forever as a result of their faithfulness to the Lord and His word.
  That's chapter 1 of His faithfulness in my life...there's a whole lot more coming!

Love,

Mom