Precious Memories - Page 3
He had been smoking, but he began to make promises to God. He gave up smoking, but God wanted more than that. Days passed, and he went through an ordeal that only God knows all the details about. Something had happened to him! He could no longer work on a job. He couldn’t walk fifty feet without passing completely out. Many times we would rush him to the doctor; but, one night, I remember the doctor looked at him and said, “I’m sorry, there is nothing we can do. You must get a hold of yourself, or you will end up in a mental institution.” When George realized it was beyond medical help, he began to seek God’s help. It only takes a few minutes to brief this on paper, but it lasted month after month. He fought a battle, until one night, he was invited to the little Midway Church of God and was miraculously healed by the power of God. I made the statement lots of times, that I was living with a different man from the one I married. He was as different as day is from night.
We began our training from that night on, but we didn’t realize what lay ahead. George was working on a job driving a laundry truck, and we would attend the services at night. The Spirit of God was so wonderful! As he began to grow in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord, he was given a job teaching Sunday School and leading singing.
One Sunday, we had a jail service and visited several men that were in jail for beating up an old man and robbing him. While there, Dale, our little five year old girl, sang to the prisoners. You could see tears falling down the cheeks of the men behind the bars, because they had children of their own. That night at church, our pastor asked everyone to pray and fast the next day for the service the next night. We were having a revival, and the Lord was really moving.
The next morning, we got up to go on the laundry route, because me and the three small children went with him every day, and we wanted to turn our job into a ministry for the Lord, witnessing and talking about Jesus. I fixed breakfast for the three children, because I knew that George and I weren’t going to eat because our pastor had asked us to fast. When I called Dale, Ricky and Cindy to the table to eat, Dale, who was five years old at the time, said, “Mama, I’m not eating. Didn’t you hear what Brother Ralph said last night?” I looked at George to see his reaction, and he nodded an okay, but secretly told me to pack her a lunch in case she decided to eat later; but, as the day went by, she wouldn’t touch a drop of water or a bite of food. On the way home that evening, she looked up and said, “Daddy, you know what I’m fasting for?” Her daddy answered and said, “Yes, I guess it’s for the revival, like me and mama are.” She said, “Yes, but daddy, I am fasting so Jesus will let those men out from behind those bars!”
We realized then that she was carrying the burden of seeing those men in jail the day before. She refused to eat until after the church service that night, and by some miracle of God, those men were released from jail and they took their families to church. They may never know, until they get to heaven, the power of simple childlike faith in a five year old, but God heard and answered.