When does a testimony get too old to be of value? Hopefully, never. In the early 80's I was a young wife and mother with two children and a life in shambles. I had been born and raised in and Adventist home. When I was 3 years old, living on the west coast, my father went to work one day and never came home again. From that time on he was never a part of my life except on the extreme edges. That wasn't my decision, but his. I think, that in the years since then, he has had time to regret that decision. His actions forced my mother to relocate back east to her parents in order to raise my sister and myself. She did her best, but being a single mom in the 50's and 60's was very difficult, especially if you were uneducated as many women were. There was no system in place to force deadbeat fathers to pay up, and mine certainly didn't. Still, mom was able to realize her dream to be a nurse when she became an LPN while I was in my teens. She retired from the field several years ago.

I finished high school, took the same LPN course my mother had taken, and went to work. I worked for about a year then got fired from that job. Looking back 30 years, I know that it was providential. I had done nothing to deserve losing my job for, though I was told it was for insubordination. The same nursing director who fired me then gave me a good recommendation that gave me a job at Madison Hospital. Poor mom. In a two week period that summer she watched her oldest daughter pack and move to Tennessee and her other daughter head for Vienna, Austria to study music. I guess it is little wonder that she applied for and took a job at Madison a few months later. But I wasn't very happy at the time when she moved in with me. I was just learning to be on my own.

The next summer, I left for Wildwood where I spent two years. When I left there it was with both good and bad memories. Needless to say, no institution is without problems. At my young age, I guess I was looking for perfection and was greatly disappointed when I didn't find it. However my time there would have a major impact on the rest of my life. That is where I met Ed. No such thing as dating was allowed there which wouldn't have done me much good anyway. Ed never had the foggiest notion that I was interested in him until someone put a bug in his ear a few months after we had left and gone in separate directions. Ed still likes to tell people how he told people that he would NEVER
1) marry a redhead
2) live in Tennessee
3) live in Alabama.

He never says never anymore, since he did all three. I had returned to Tennessee when I left Wildwood and that is where Ed came calling some months later. This past July we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary.

---------------Part one---------------

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Even so come, Lord Jesus
Linda

I should had done mine in parts and made it a whole lot longer.

I still didn't tell you how I became a Christian which I could do in parts also.

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In His Love, Mercy & Grace

Daryl Fawcett :)

Anticipatory writing is highly overrated.
Although it may instill patience in the reader, it does tend to agrivate those of us that are impatient to the max

So, let the agravation begin.

There have been a lot of ups and downs in the past quarter century. We became the parents of a son, then a daughter. (Our daughter's name is Suzanne, so it threw me a little when I first saw Suzanne Sutton on this forum.) We moved numerous times, finally settling in Alabama for several years. Both of us went to college, though at different times. As anyone who has ever done it can testify, raising a family and going to college is demanding on marriage, finances, and family. It was while Ed was in college that our lives nosedived. The problems mounted and I sank into a depression. I began to view God as someone way up there and I was way down here and if He cared so much why was my life such a mess?! My solution was to walk away from what the church. I wanted to be free of restrictions that seemed to hang over me like a boulder just waiting to drop on my head. There didn't seem to be one person, at least in the church who cared what was happening to me or my family, or who offered viable solutions to our problems.

We had started our son in the local church school, but he was not doing well. I can still remember the day he came home from school, pounding his fist on his head, saying, "I'm stupid, I'm stupid. I'm going to kill myself." He was only 8 and in the second grade. Two terrified parents headed for the local mental health clinic to find a counselor. It turned out that he was being made fun of at school by his classmates (many the children of the church board members that I would soon face) because he was having trouble learning. I went to the principal begging him to get my son tested (it could have been done through the public school system), but, I realize now that he was as burned out on teaching as I was on nursing, and he wouldn't do anything. My son was enrolled in the local public school the next year who promptly tested him, found him dyslexic, and put him in the appropriate classes. He made excellent progress, but the damage was done. He never again liked school, and quit at 16. He did find out quickly that he couldn't get anywhere without a HS diploma and got his GED, then went on to diesel mechanics schooling.

My husband had gone to our church and asked for some financial help because we were in such a tight bind. In order to receive any help we were required to submit to questioning by the church board, a board made up of the proverbial doctors, lawyers, merchants, and chiefs, most of whom I was at least familiar with, having worked with some of them. I have never completely forgotten that ordeal. I felt that I was raked over the coals by that board. They wanted to know why I didn't go back to school and become an RN. By then I was burned out and sick of nursing and wanted to do something else, yet they seemed to infer that something was wrong with me for not wanting to become an RN. That appearance before that church board was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I went to church one more time, then I quit. I hold no grudges against those men (it was mostly men). I think they were so far removed from our particular plight they couldn't understand that discussing whether or not I became an RN was the farthest thing from my mind and worries. I had far more pressing concerns.

There were a few small efforts to draw us back by a couple of families, but I guess it was too little too late. They soon gave up. There is a lesson to be drawn from this. We don't always know just what someone else is going through, especially mentally and emotionally. We give up too easily if we don't see progress quickly to our efforts. We assume that they just don't want our help and we leave them alone. When someone is way down, and they feel like everything and everyone is against them, it takes more than an invitation for dinner and a coupon for a free portrait to show them the love of Jesus. No one ever came and asked me about my spiritual condition. Now one ever tried to point us to the One who can heal all our diseases, sooth all our sorrows, cleanse all our wounds, and forgive all our sins. I needed to know that God was still hearing and answering, because I felt that He was so far away from me. I would have probably repulsed initial overtures of spiritual help at that point, but would have responded eventually. However those overtures never came. Brothers and sisters, that is why we cannot give up when we see people who are slipping away from the church. That is why we must have patience. Most of those who leave the Adventist church do not leave for theological reasons, but because they are hurting from one or more of a multitude of causes. We must show them God's love and point them to the only solution to their problems.

-----------------part two-----------------

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Even so come, Lord Jesus
Linda

Too sad, too true.
It's difficult in this society today, we are afraid that the overture might be misconstrued, so, we don't take the chance.

So, many slip through the cracks and disappear.

There are many that sit in the pews every sabbath with a smile pasted on their faces, and inside, they are weeping with anguish.

We need to pray for discernment, ask God to open our eyes and hearts to the hurting ones in our midst.

I await, with bated breath, your next installment.
Remember, patience is NOT one of my virtues.

Come to think of it, I don't think I have any virtues. I'll have to check and get back to you.

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What is popular is not always right.
What is right is not always popular.
Gerry B.

"To me belongeth vengeance, and recompence; their foot shall slide in due time: for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things that shall come upon them make haste" Deuteronomy 32:35. God says that vengeance belongs to Him. He will take care of the wrongs that are done to us.

A few decades ago when I was in junior high school, I had a classmate whose mother happened to be my algebra teacher. Math was never my best subject, and I struggled with algebra. It didn't help that illness and surgery had forced me to miss several weeks right at the beginning of school.

Apparently the teacher went home and talked about me in front of her daughter because she would come to school and torment me, saying things about me that she couldn't have known unless she heard them at home. Those things hurt, but I didn't do anything. I was of the nature that I could easily be cowed. I thought of all the things I'd like to say, but I never said them. It can be very difficult for a young person to be teased and made fun of, but I learned early that it wasn't up to me to seek revenge. Yet I got my revenge, and I never lifted a finger, never said a word. In fact, you might say that my former tormentor brought it on herself.

A couple of years passed by and it was awards day at high school. Student after student was being called to the stage to received recognition for their achievements. One of those called was my classmate. This was the late sixties, and the baby boomers will remember that we had some pretty strange fashions then. That year saw a fad come and go quickly, but not before it came to my high school. It consisted of a mini dress, which was what almost everyone wore. But this cute little dress was made even cuter by the matching ruffled bloomers that peeked out beneath the hem of the dress. High school girls came to school looking like overgrown toddlers. You have probably guessed by now that my classmate was wearing just such an outfit on that day. As she made her way onto the stage, I could hear the laughter begin down front, then rapidly move to the back of the auditorium. As she walked across the stage, her face became redder and redder and the laughter got louder and louder. I sat there laughing with them, and yet I felt sorry for her. At last she knew what it was like to be laughed at, to be the object of someone's cruel joke, to be made fun of. My revenge was sweet, because I didn't have to do a thing. And it was tempered with pity that she should have to go through such an embarrassing moment. I doubt she ever wore that outfit again.

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Even so come, Lord Jesus
Linda

[This message has been edited by Linda Sutton (edited September 21, 2000).]

I was a young wife and in a few months I would become a first time mother. I had driven to the academy where campmeeting was in progress to attend the evening meeting. Ed was working. At the close of the meeting, I left and began the hour long drive back to my home. The two-lane road wound up and down and around the hills of central Tennessee. Traveling alone, I came up behind a vehicle moving slowly down the hill, and decided to pass. I tried to be a careful driver, but I don't necessarily like passing on a two lane road. Since it was night, I could see oncoming lights, so I looked well to see if there were any oncoming headlights and if the road ahead was clear. I had a broken line on my side, the road was clear as far as I could see, so I pulled out to go around the slower vehicle. Just as I came alongside the other driver, I saw, to my horror, that another car was coming, and there was no way I would have time to pull back in. A head-on collision seemed inevitiable. I have never been sure if I ask for help out loud, or just cried out silently, but I did most certainly ask for help. One moment I was facing a head on collision, the next instant, I found herself back in my own lane. I checked my mirrors, but there were no headlights in my mirror nor any back lights. I seemed to be alone on the road. With a thankful heart I drove the rest of the way home without incident. God had worked a miracle that saved not one, but two lives that night, myself and my unborn son. He'll be 24 next Monday. I believe that God saved his life for a purpose. I just keep praying that he will totally surrender to Jesus.
________________________
Even so come, Lord Jesus
Linda

[This message has been edited by Linda Sutton (edited September 21, 2000).]

God saves us at every turn.
Sometimes we recognize it, due to miraculous events as you have just described, but at other times we may not see it.

How many times have we been stayed against our will, only to find that if we had left when we planned, we would have been involved in somethiung less than convenient.

How many times has He stopped the drunk or recless driver before we got there?

These episodes as you have described help to see His love and protection to us.
Thank you.

Linda, that is a very powerful testimony. I am crying for the pain you and your family have gone through, and yet praising God that He has brought you through and holds you close. Thank you for sharing.

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Sarah Moss
*Prayer Changes Things!*

For the next six years we were out of the church. We were gone, we didn't darken the doors. We moved twice, living in two different states, yet we were not contacted even once, nor were our names removed from the church books. Religious things were not part of our everyday conversation, but the strange thing was, we kept to the law of clean and unclean foods, we rejected alcohol, but breaking the Sabbath was no problem. We did it every week. If people asked me about a religious affiliation, I would say I had none. I would get upset with Ed if he told people we were Adventist, and assure those asking that we no longer practiced it. I couldn't claim to be something that I was not doing. God didn't forget about us, though we forgot about Him. I had taken our SOP library and our Bibles and packed them in boxes. My reasoning: if I ever came back to the church, I knew that we couldn't afford to replace all those books. So for six years we carted then around and stored them wherever we moved.

Things reached a climax between Ed and myself and we separated. I went to live with my mother and took the kids. But I made sure that he talked to them frequently and saw them every other weekend. Even if my marriage was not working, I didn't want my kids to be cut off from their father as I was. We stayed separated for six months, then decided that we would rather try to work things out. We got back together which made the kids glad. We went back to marriage counseling (for the umpteenth time) which helped some. I had also seen doctors for problems I was having and was given prescriptions for antidepressants.

I had a terrible experience with one of them. It was about the time that I was finishing the prescription for Prozac that something frightening began to happen to me. I started having terrible thoughts of doing away with my family. It was like there were two voices in my head, one telling me to do the terrible deed, and another voice telling me that was not what I wanted to do, that it was irrational. It was so bad, that my son picked up an ax one day to defend himself because he thought I was coming after him. He was just 12 at the time. That scared me. Those episodes finally faded away. I did not know at the time what had brought them on. It was nearly two years later while watching an episode of Nightline about Prozac that I found out what had caused those terrifying weeks for my family and me. Today I warn people about Prozac, telling them not to take it. It is a dangerous drug. It may not affect everyone the way it affected me, but why take such a chance? Later I would come to realize that it must have opened a door into my mind that allowed Satan a wider entrance than he normally has, and he was putting those horrifying thoughts into my mind. But even then, God did not forget me, and He sent an angel to counteract the work of the devil. Today I am grateful that while I forgot God, He never forgot me and even cared for me when I didn't ask Him to. Surely, there is no one who understands like Jesus. He has indeed been touched with the feeling of our infirmities.

We had hoped to move to Florida and had been job hunting there, but nothing came of the interviews that Ed went on. The only thing that opened up was a job in Mobile, AL so that is where we moved to. We moved into a house about 6 miles from the ocean in a suburb of Mobile. It was there that my children, the oldest a teen, began asking questions. Questions that required Bible answers. I went to those boxes that we had been moving with us for six years and dug out my Bible. The covers were green with mold. After cleaning the Bible, I opened it for the first time in all those years and answered their questions. But I still had no desire to return to church. Other things would soon be working our hearts and minds, though.

It was 1990 and there were rumblings in the Middle East. Kuwait had been invaded by Iraq and President Bush was talking about a "new world order." My ears perked up and my mind began to go back to the prophecies that I had learned all those years that I was growing up. Things were clicking and there must have been a lot of angels whispering in my ear as well as the Holy Spirit. The more I read, the more disturbed I became. One afternoon, while Ed and I were eating in a local fast food restaurant, we discussed what was happening. I was choking back tears as I told him that I believed that I was the beginning of the final events for this world. I still believe that. Nothing like this drawing together of the nations had ever happened before in history, not even in the world wars. More than that, I knew that I was not ready for Jesus to come, and I realized that I didn't really want to burn in the lake of fire. I didn't really know what Ed felt, but I knew what was going on in my mind. God was about to speak to me in a way that I would not be able to mistake.

------------------Part Three-----------------

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Even so come, Lord Jesus
Linda

[This message has been edited by Linda Sutton (edited November 25, 2000).]