Advent Day 2 – Monday, November 27
Five years after getting married, my husband died, leaving me with a special child who, the doctor said, would probably never walk, talk, or feed himself. During those years I did pray, just in case God was for real.
The next 20 years I dealt with addiction, cancer, loss of my eyesight, and my second marriage on the verge of crashing. The marriage problems drove us to a 12-step program. The third step stopped me: “We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.” My mind darted back to the confirmation ceremony I didn’t go to.
I decided I would check out this God of the Bible. Even though I did not completely believe in this God, with all the challenges I’d had, I did pray to him. However, even with friends, if you do all the talking you don’t get to know the other person! So, obviously I didn’t know this God because I’d been doing all the talking. So, I needed to “check God out” to see if I could first, really believe he was God, and second, to trust him enough to turn my life and will over to him.
Two days later, my sister-in-law called saying she couldn’t stop thinking about me when she was studying the Bible. She wondered if God wanted her to invite me to her Bible study. What a coincidence! Just when I decide to “check God out” to see if he is real, I get invited to a Bible study!
After only one month in the Minor Prophets with the Women’s Bible Study Fellowship, I was convinced. God reeled me in! No one but God could have written a book like this, prophesying events that came to pass 1,000 to 2,000 years later! Mere man could not have done this! Finally, God opened my mind to his truths. Now, I could say I believed in this great God of the Old and New Testament. Now, I was ready to turn my life and will over to him.
Jeanette Stadtfeld