PRAYER IS POWERFUL AND EFFECTIVE.

PRAYER IS POWERFUL AND EFFECTIVE (Shared to encourage to rely on prayer in everything that troubles us and for thankfulness too.)

(Pictures are in 1941) Before the leaves fell this year (1941) these 3 little ones were left without a mother. My mother died in October of 1941. She left my Dad and us 3

little children… ages 8, 5 and 3. I have no memory of her at all. Our daddy raised us up himself. It wasn’t easy for him and his mother helped during some of those years, but mostly it was just us four.

Fast forward to 1955. I was the baby of the family and the first to marry, in November of 1955 at age 17. (We have been married 60 years.) My dad married 2 months later in January. My other 2 siblings married sometime later.

When our first born was 2 months old, we were taught the gospel of Christ and became Christians. My brother was my first convert. He was the easiest to teach I have ever seen. He argued a little with me about the ‘one church’…but I showed him Co

Colossians 1:18 and Ephesians 1:23 and Ephesians 4: 4-5…and he said, “Well, Edna, I believe you’re right!” And he was willing to study with our preacher and was soon obedient to the faith.

It took us 21 years to convert my dad. During this time we trained our two children up to be Christians. On our son’s 21st birthday, my dad became a Christian. We learned sometime during those years also, that my mother’s mother, her sister and one of the brothers had been taught the gospel and became Christians in the late 50’s about the time we did.

Sometime in the mid 70's a childhood friend told me that his mother said that she and my mother were baptized at the same time back in 1940-41 at a brush arbor meeting which was common in those days. Our dad had never told us that, but I could see at that point in time that it wouldn’t have meant much to him. He was a good and wonderful man, but he was like so many others and thought that you just had to be good. I have seen him read the Bible during our childhood lives but evidently he didn’t really absorb the story-line of it.

But I believed the class-mate because at the time that would have happened, we lived close to the Hall’s who were members of the church, although I have no memory of that 3rd year of my life. I was amazed and happy! And I believed it because when we had moved back to our home town in 1960, that classmate’s parents were very elderly, but still living and were members of the church of Christ here also.

It’s awesome to think of my mother praying after she became a Christian, that Daddy, me and my brother and later his wife, and our sister and her children would someday learn the truth and be converted to Christ. (23 in all after Bobby and me, including Bobby's mother) A few of the others have fallen away but my immediate family and including my dad and step-mother were faithful and mine has grown to include our two children, our 3 grandchildren and two of them are married and married Christians and are raising up their 6 (going on 7) little ones up for Christ.

I can imagine my mother praying for all of us to learn the truth, as she lay dying…but am wondering if she ever visualized in her mind just how wide spread it would become. It’s amazing to me and I’ll always be so thankful for the power of prayer and that God allows us to communicate our greatest fears, hopes and dreams to Him. My prayer today is the nieces and nephews that fell away will come back and that the rest of us will stay faithful and we will not lose even one as we wait for time to end.

Make this commitment daily
To keep God within your heart;
Because commitments made only once...
Sometimes have a faulty start!
©Edna L. Ingram.

WHAT WERE WE THNKING!!!

WHAT WERE WE THINKING!!!!

When Wendell was 5 1/2 and Cara Lynn 3 1/2, Bobby and I decided that I needed to go to college and get a degree. So I decided my major (English and Literature, my loves since high school) and went and enrolled for the summer term.

We didn’t have to have a baby sitter that summer because Bobby kept them all summer himself. The sitter situation was going to have to be for Cara Lynn…when the fall semester started. He took them to the barber shop every morning and it worked out fine. That summer was good for them. They have memories that are very special to them, that they would not have had if I had not started back to school.

Bobby took them to the store next to the shop and had the butcher (his uncle owned the store) cut them each a piece of bacon and he put strings on it for them, and they went out behind the store and barber shop and ‘crawdad fished’. Bobby said they had crawdads running all over that barber shop! :) They still talked about that summer after they were grown.

But that is as far as God let it go. That fall after Wendell started to school, and before I enrolled for the fall semester… he woke up one morning and his stomach was very swollen. We took him to the doctor and they ran tests on him and a couple of days later we heard the bad news. He had nephritis. We were devastated! This is a disease of the kidneys and the body loses its protein into the urine as waste. So there was a period of time that Wendell didn’t grow. (He made up for it later. LOL )

The doctor told us that it was in the acute stage and if it went into the chronic stage that he would not live but about 6 more years. He had to stay in bed for 3 months…and that was the end of my college career, which was a bad idea to begin with.

Wendell took a ton of penicillin (for about a year and a half) and recovered completely. During the three months of being bed-fast, Cara Lynn would stand his toy soldiers up on the end of his bed and he would shoot them off with his little gun. She would go stack them back up for him to shoot down again.

When a family really wants to put God first and take the best care of their family…and are ignorant in how to go about it….God knows how to step in and take charge of the situation….and I am so glad He does. Wendell’s illness turned out to be a great blessing over time, like so many other unpleasant things that have happened!

We knew that a mother needs to be home with her children, and that children definitely need a full time mother, but after seeing results of some families, we know it even better now.

Bobby told me that some mothers would not have let that illness of their child stop them from pursuing what they wanted to do. How can that be?

What they don’t realize and what I didn’t realize is, that in doing such, we are trading pure gold for flimsy tinsel. That is not a good trade off. That is why I feel so strongly about writing about the home and family. I’d rather our children grow up to be faithful to God and putting Him first in their lives, with fond memories of their mother being about them…than to have all the degrees and money this world can offer. I don’t know what we were thinking at that time. I am glad they had that summer with their dad though.

LATE NOTE: When I told Bobby that I was writing about this and we were discussing it, he said we were not going to have a baby-sitter for our little girl. He was going to keep her with him instead of doing that. Well…I love and appreciate him for that but even that wasn’t what God wanted for our family, evidently. I am thankful!

WHAT ARE WE DOING WITH OUR TREASURES?

WHAT ARE WE DOING WITH OUR TREASURES? By Wendell Ingram

When I was living in West Texas, I worked for a construction company that employed a number of migrant workers from Old Mexico. Most of these Mexican workers were men who left their families in Mexico, and came up for the summer to work on the road crews. These men would get together and rent a small house, where sometimes as many as twenty men would live together, sharing their expenses.

Many times they would pool their money and buy an old car or pickup to have transportation while they were here working. These migrant workers didn’t make a lot of money, but because of their frugal lifestyle, they were able to save most of the money they made. Every payday, the post office would be full of migrant workers buying money orders to send the bulk of their earnings to their families in Mexico for safekeeping.

I was told that though their wages were low, the cost of living was so much lower in Mexico that the money they could make here in just one summer would support their family there for years. Those migrant workers were sending home every dollar they could for safekeeping, because they knew it was of greater value there than it was here.

What an object lesson. We as Christians, are living as "Migrant Workers" here on earth. We are told in 1 Peter 1:17, "…Pass the time of your sojourning in fear." We sing the words of the song:

"This world is not my home,
I’m just a passing through;
My treasures are laid up,
Somewhere beyond the blue…

One of the characteristics of God’s people has always been their knowledge that this life on earth is temporary. In Hebrews 11, speaking of previously mentioned heroes of faith, verses 13-16 states: "…These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly."

Understanding that this life is temporary and the material things that we acquire will perish, should help us to make better use of our money. It should help us to better understand the exhortation of Jesus in Matthew 6: 19-21:

"…Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal, for where your treasure is , there will your heart be also."

The apostle Paul tells us in I Timothy 6:18-19, how we go about laying up for ourselves treasures in heaven: "That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life."

The disciples of the first century understood this concept and put it into practice. We are told in Acts 2:44-45 and in Acts 4:32-35 that they sold their possessions and gave to anyone in need.

What was it that made those migrant workers live such frugal lives and send the bulk of their earnings back to Mexico? Because that was their home….where their heart was…and they lived in hopes of going back to be with their families and enjoying the treasures they had sent there for safekeeping.

When we come to fully understand that this world is not our home and that all the things this world has to offer are temporary and will perish with the using, then we will understand the importance of laying up our treasures in heaven.
We will then understand the folly of an extravagant and wasteful lifestyle, and we will see the value in using our material possessions to serve God by doing good and being generous and helping those around us who are in need. In this way we will be laying up for ourselves treasures in our heavenly home, where they will be safely stored and kept, awaiting our arrival. What are you doing with your treasures?
– Wendell Ingram, Via House to House Publication

HOW I MET BOBBY.



The year was 1955, the middle of May…the morning of our high school class trip. My best friend, Melba Ingram had her brother bring her to my grandma’s house. He had just come home from serving our country in the US army. My grandmother lived across the street from the school building and we were supposed to be on the school bus by 7:30 a.m.

 

That was the first time I had met Bobby, and it was only for a few seconds…long enough for Melba to introduce us and get her stuff out of the car. Melba’s birthday was later that week and Bobby told her that he would take her and a girlfriend to the movies for her birthday…if he could choose the girl friend. She said ok…and that was the beginning of our ‘friendship.’ That ‘movie night’ Bobby asked me for a ” real” date.

We were engaged three months later, on Bobby's birthday August 20, 1955... and in another three months we were married. This next November we will have been married 58 years! It seems like such a short time. I’d opt for 58 more if it were possible.

Another part of this saga.  Exactly one year earlier, on the last day of school, one of Bobby’s friends that wrote to him while he was in the army had just gotten married and she brought his picture and gave it to back to his sister, Melba. Melba asked me if I wanted it.  I thought that was kind of strange…since I didn’t know him… but he was just sooooo handsome, so I told her yes.  The picture above is the one she gave me.  I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would get to date him…much less marry him!  This was about a year before I met him. I took it home and put it on a table in our living room.

When Bobby came and picked me up for our first date… he was very surprised that I had a picture of him on my little table!  It had been right there for a year.  I hadn’t even thought of it that night. So I explained to him why I had it. Happy and funny memories! We laughed about this last night…again! I kept this picture until we married and then his mother wanted to trade me an 8 X 10 for the 5X7…because she didn’t have a frame to fit the larger one.
 
"Now…many happy years and two children, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren later …life is still wonderful!  By God's wondrous grace and His guidance and providence, we are where we are today!

TO MY GROWN-UP SELF...FROM MY LITTLE GIRL SELF:

Dear Self, I don't know how long it has been since you thought of me, your little girl self.

 

To my little girl self: Oh my! I think of you all the time...remembering the happy times and a few sad times. I wonder how different I would have been if our mother had not died so young. I know you don't remember her at all being only 3. I doubt life would have been a lot different with such a wonderful dad and a grandmother who helped him out a lot...but it would have been easier on them. And everyone talked about what a wonderful person she was.   But I'm looking at that, not used to having a mother and that isn't fair to her. In fact just calling someone "Mother", "Mom" or "Mommy" isn't in my vocabulary and I can't remember when it was. When I speak of her now, I nearly always say "Our Mother".  Her mother and younger sister (who was only 12 years older than I) came to see us pretty often during those days after we lost her and probably before but I don't remember those days.

 

To my grown-up self: Well, in growing up, I remember only one or two times envying my friends who had a mother...but I think there were more times when they envied me. LOL They seemed to want to spend the night with me and my sister a lot. They thought we had more fun at our house.

 

To my little girl self: Our mother was an artist and had a scholarship to go to art school and she married my dad instead. But she drew a lot on the backs of calendars etc,. and Daddy let us play with them...I know his thinking and I respect him for it. I know he was thinking that our mother was taken from us and he wasn't going to take her stuff away from us too....But oh! How I'd love to have her art work now! I don't remember our brother playing with her stuff because he was always making airplanes and doing boy stuff. But we would play school with them and use those for our papers. It wasn't long until we were a little older and we remembered them and realized they were gone. Our brother can draw really well but my sister and I can't at all. We reap what we sow...or destroy. LOL

 

To my grown up self: Now that you are grown up, what single thing did you learn that helped you in your adult life?

 

To my little girl self: Well, I remember being left with a neighbor woman only once because a guy who used dirty language was going to be cutting wood with my dad that day...but all the other times, he took me with him. He always made sure we were at home when my brother and sister came in from school. 

 My dad, being a great mother/father figure made me realize that our children can and may have to...do with out one parent or the other...and if I were going to be one, I need to try to be the best one I could be for them. He had the tough part of being dad but also had the sweet tender part, needed of being a mother. I know you loved him very dearly, growing up...but I know that I love him even more than you did...after learning what life is all about. :)   His influence went a long way into how I view a mother should be. He has been gone now for a little over 40 years (He died on his birthday on August 15, 1978) but I still feel like I have a perpetual hug from him.
 

WHAT MADE THE WOMAN WHO MADE ME.

By Wendell Ingram

 

She was the youngest of three children, born to the family during the depression years in the small Red River farming community of Sugden, Oklahoma.  Her dad was a poor farm worker struggling to feed his family in a time when money and jobs were scarce. 

 

She has few memories of her mother because her mother died when she was only three years old, leaving her dad emotionally devastated with the responsibility of raising his three children alone.  Family members offered to take the children but her dad refused, determined to keep his family together and fill the role of both father and mother.

 

She has fond memories of playing on a quilt in the woods as her dad cut wood nearby.  With an ax and a crosscut saw he cut wood to heat their home and to sell to put food on the table.  She loves days when it snows because it reminds her of snowy days as a child when her dad would make donuts and snow ice cream. 

 

Her dad didn't remarry until all his children were grown and he devoted himself to filling the roles of both father and mother.  As a junior in high school she met the love of her life.  A soldier boy fresh out of the army and more than five years her senior.  Her dad was not pleased with her dating the young man but as he got to know him, he found him to be very respectful and of the highest integrity.

 

In November of her senior year she dropped out of high school and her dad signed the papers for them to get married...….she was 17 years old.  A few weeks later they moved to the Panhandle of Teas and ten months later, at the age of 18, she gave birth to her first child...me.  20 months later she gave birth to my sister, my only sibling.

 

Sometime before my first birthday, she and dad learned and obeyed the gospel.  They were baptized into Christ and worshiped and worked with the Mary Ellen and Harvester congregation in Pampa, Texas.  They had both been raised to have a deep belief in and respect for God and the moral principles of the Bible.  After learning and obeying the truth they quickly grew to understand the total commitment that was expected of true disciples of Christ.  I do not remember a time when God and His church were not the center of their lives.  I do not remember our family ever intentionally being absent from a Bible class or an assembly of the church.  It was in this atmosphere of true devotion to Christ that I was raised...I wish that every child could experience this blessing.

 

When I was 6 years old I contracted a serious and life threatening kidney disease which confined me to bed for about six weeks and under a doctor's care for more than two years.  My mom had gotten her GED and begun college that summer and was intending to enroll in college for the fall semester to pursue a teaching career but had to drop out due to my illness.   She will tell you that my illness was a great blessing to our family because it re-focused her attention on her duties at home and resulted in her continuing her career as a stay-at-home mom.  Having a stay-at-home mother was a great blessing to me nd my sister and again it is a blessing that I wish every child could experience.

 

Mom has been a great influence and encouragement to my wife who stayed at home with our chidren until they were all in school and to my daughter and daughter in law who are both stay at home moms raising our seven grandchildren.  Mom worked diligently to bring her family to Christ.  She first taught her brother the gospel but he was only faithful for a short time before leaving the church.  For years she prayed for him and talked with him at every opportunity trying to encourage him to return to Christ and His church.  It was almost twenty years later that her prayers were answered.  Her brother was driving around one Sunday evening and drove past the church building in Hinton, OK (his home town).  He thought, "I'm going to start back to church one of these days.  "  Then he thought, "Why not today?"  He went into the assembly, responded to the invitation, re-committed his life to Christ and for thirty plus years he served the Lord faithfully  until his death.

 

My mom's dad (my granddad) was a believer in God but not a church goer...he didn't believe that going to church was important.  I can remember him coming to visit us on the weekends and mom inviting him to go with us to church.  He refused to go with us and wanted us to stay home from church to visit him.  He was hurt when mom refused to miss church to stay home and visit and I can remember many times, her crying on the way to church because she loved her daddy and didn't want to hurt him, but she wanted him to know that she loved the Lord even more.  After years of observing my mom's uncompromising faith, my granddad finally grew to understand the importance of spiritual things.  He was baptized into Christ on my 21st birthday and remained faithful to the Lord until his death.

 

I suppose the greatest test of my mother's faith came with the passing of my sister in 1990.  At the age of 32 my sister looked like the picture of health but she was diagnosed with a lung disorder in February of that year  and given only eight months to live.  The disease progressed exactly as the doctors predicted and my sister pass away at her home on October 2nd, with he head laying on my mother's lap and her feet laying on dad's.  While the loss of my sister was devastating to our family, mom was able to look beyond the pain and loss and see the blessings connected with her passing and it served to strengthen her resolve to prepare her family  to be together with the Lord in eternity.

 

My mom served as a children's Bible class teacher for more than forty-nine years and has been a powerful influence in the lives of many children including my own (her grandchildren).  Not only did she influence them in church and Bible class but she and my dad were supportive of all their school activities and sporting events.  My children so respected my mom and day that they sought their approval of their prospective mates before getting married. 

 

Mom and dad are now continuing their positive spiritual influence on their seven great-grandchildren (my grandchildren).  While mom has great respect for the role of women in the church, she IS a preacher.  She has written for the Christian Bible Teacher publication as well as a number of other articles and poems.  She has quite a following on Facebook and other websites and uses these opportunities to share God's Word in other states and in other countries.

 

She is a great encouragement to me as a preacher and to my son who is also a full-time preacher.  My son once told me that when he has a problem, he calls and discusses it with me or his mother, but when he's in need of encouragement he calls his Me-Ma (my mom).  I have had many positive influences in my life but none have been greater than the first influence in my life...my mother. 

 

Thanks Mom, Happy Mother's Day!  -Wendell Ingram

 

  And thank you Wendell, for those sweet words.  Wendell and Cara Lynn were not much of a challenge growing up.  They were very, very easy to raise.  Bobby and I are so thankful for them.

MY EXAMPLE OF FATHERHOOD

 

 

MY EXAMPLE OF FATHERHOOD

(Written by the little boy in picture when he grew up.)

One of the greatest blessings a young man can have while growing up is a father who is living out the biblical principles of Christianity and fatherhood in his daily life. I had just such a blessing growing up and I would like to share a small part of that blessing with you. My dad obeyed the gospel when I was less than a year old and from my earliest memories I have watched him putting God first in his life. In all my years growing up I never saw my dad intentionally miss an assembly of the church. Dad had a number of jobs through the years and he always informed his employers that he was a Christian and attended church on Sundays and Wednesday evenings and would not be working at those times. I’ve seen him turn down a number of good paying jobs because they would interfere with his commitment to Christ. He takes Christ’s promise in Matt. 6:33 at face value and I’ve never seen him compromise.

Dad learned the concept of responsibility early. He entered the workforce full time at age 14 when his dad was disabled by a stroke. Dad (one of eleven siblings—seven still at home at the time) quit school in the eighth grade and went to work full time to help support his family. My dad had a phenomenal work ethic (Col. 3:23). All the time I was growing up my dad had from three to five jobs. Dad was a barber, drove a school bus and sold insurance. But he also served for years as city clerk, worked for the water department, worked as a relief mail carrier as well as various temporary jobs. With so many jobs one might think he had no time for his family, but the truth is, Dad’s schedule brought him home several times throughout the day. Dad’s schedule was flexible enough that he rarely missed my ballgames and other school activities. He had time to take me hunting and fishing and even coach my little league baseball team.

My dad is a wonderful example as a husband. He is a shameless romantic and has written my mom a number of love songs. He loves to whittle and is always making her little trinkets to wear to show his affection. Dad spoils my mom and she will be the first to admit it, but I have never seen a more content and happily married couple (Eph. 5:25-28).

All my life I watched my dad make sacrifices to help others (Gal. 6:2). I saw him stay up all night (during the work week) with a brother in Christ who was an alcoholic trying to help him through withdrawals. I’ve seen him on numerous occasions close his barber shop to go and help someone in need. He and mom have opened their home on numerous occasions to friends and family members who were having problems, giving them a place to live. For years Dad and Mom made several trips a year to Bole’s Children’s Home south of Greenville, TX, to bring children from the home to stay with our family on holidays and summer vacations (James 1:27). Some of those children (now grown with children and grandchildren of their own) still consider us their family.

I grew up in a small church that had no youth minister, but this was not a problem because my parents made the youth of the congregation their ministry. They hosted youth gatherings in our home and took the young people to youth rallies and gospel meetings. They took our youth bowling, skating and for pizza outings and much of the time Dad furnished the money for those who could not afford it .Through the years Dad and Mom were instrumental in bringing many young people in our community to Bible classes and the assemblies. A number of those young people obeyed the gospel and are still faithfully serving the Lord as adults. My dad has served as one of the song leaders for our home congregation for more than sixty years. For several years he has suffered with COPD and the last three years he has suffered the chronic pain resulting from shingles, yet he continues to lead singing and has not allowed these challenges to interfere with his attendance to the assemblies or his service to the Lord (I Cor. 15:58).

I watched my dad take off work for several weeks to care for my sister during her illness that ultimately led to her death. I watched as he and mom suffered the grief of the loss of their daughter and they endured the pain with the grace and peace that can only come from a secure and enduring faith in God (Php. 4:4-7).

I watched my dad for years as he cheerfully and respectfully cared for his aging mother and father (I Tim. 5:4) and never heard him complain or imply that it was a burden. My grandma lived almost thirty years after my grandpa passed away and dad made sure she was cared for properly, even going to her house every morning for years and cooking her breakfast to make sure she was eating properly. He and mom (along with other family members) stayed with my grandma and arranged for someone to be with her at all times when she could no longer live alone so she would not have to go to a nursing home.

My dad continues to be a powerful and positive influence, not only to me, but to my children and to my grandchildren as well. He has demonstrated for my son and my grandsons the kind of man they should aspire to be. He has demonstrated for my daughters and granddaughters the kind of man they should look for as they seek a husband. The principles of godly fatherhood are clearly set forth in Scripture for every man to read and follow. But it is a double blessing to be able to study these principles in Scripture while observing them being lived out in the life of one’s own father. My prayer is that all Christian fathers would be diligent in living these biblical principles out before their children and grandchildren. It is the greatest gift a man can give to his posterity.    -Wendell Ingram

CONVERTING MY DAD TO CHRIST

CONVERTING MY DAD TO CHRIST

If you want something so badly and you pray for it diligently, but don’t believe it will ever happen….do you think you will ever get it? James 1: 6-7 “…But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.”

In the context, we know it is talking about asking for wisdom in this Scripture, but it can include anything that we might need. 

We had worked for 21 years to convert my dad, after we learned the truth about the gospel of Christ…but we were so anxious that we really made him bitter against it. My dad was a good man and he believed like so many others today…that you just be ‘good’ and you would go to heaven. My Dad had heard the word “God” used so much in vain and bad language, which he detested hearing… that he wouldn’t bring himself to call God, God. He always referred to Him as “The Good Lord.” Now even that is being used in a vain manner. We obeyed the gospel of Christ when our son was about 2 months old. On his 21st birthday my daddy obeyed the gospel.

One of Bobby’s old family friends came by one day selling Bibles and a program on converting others. It was a real eye opener for us. It taught, among other things, the concept of believing you get what you are praying for…and it starts with imagining that you have it. That is a very Biblical concept that we have over-looked in the past in teaching someone the gospel. We may have kept praying but would lose heart of them ever obeying the gospel.
 

THE PROGRAM: SUCCESSFUL SOUL SAVING

The part that got my attention was the instructor saying to concentrate on the one person you are most concerned about teaching the gospel. Of course mine was my dad. The instruction was to imagine the person obeying the gospel several times a day as you pray for them to understand the truth. Imagine it so vividly that you ‘see’ the clothes they are wearing. Imagine them walking down the aisle or whatever scene you think will be involved in it.

Pray several times a day and imagine them making the confession of Christ and submitting to baptism. Imagine it so strongly, that you even “see” the clothes they are wearing. Well I did this…and it wasn’t but a few months after that and it happened! The strange fact about this….After I had followed these instructions for just a little while…I couldn’t even imagine my dad NOT obeying the gospel.

ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF THIS WORKING:

I had a dear friend who had cancer and a few weeks earlier, I had told her about this system and in about a month her dad obeyed the gospel. I didn’t know for sure if she had used this system . He had been very bitter against the church. Just a while later, she was in the hospital for the last time and some of us were taking turns sitting with her. One night when I was with her, I wanted so badly to know if she had used what I’d told her about, because her dad had obeyed the gospel so soon…but I hated to ask her when she was so sick…but I did. She looked up and smiled and said, “Yes, especially the prayers and imagining the clothes he was wearing.”

That’s the two that this was used on that I am aware of…and that makes 100 %…but it is hard now to concentrate on one person. I need to try to do that again though. I just imagine it would work even if you were concentrating on several. Just wanted to share this and I hope it helps many who are trying so desperately to teach their loved ones. As you can see, it is a Biblical concept. We also know though that there are few who are going to be obedient because Jesus tells us that. But I am thankful that I learned this concept better...of  ‘faith in what you pray’. 

Note: Another speedy answer to prayer. Our son came by my dad’s on his way home one weekend and invited my dad to come to our house with him and he would come in the next week and take him back home. While my dad was there I wanted to start up a conversation with him about obeying the gospel because we had studied with him every chance we got for 21 years. We were the first ones up and drank coffee together just us every morning.

Every night when we went to bed, I was really motivated and planned to speak to him about it the next morning…but every morning, it was strange that I just wasn’t motivated or even knew how...to bring up the subject.

The last night he was there, I was again motivated and lying in bed, I prayed that I would still feel that way in the morning too…my last time alone with him and my last chance that visit, to bring it up. Well! Not only was I motivated to bring it up, that visit…but my dad brought it up himself! God meets us more than half-way in any effort we attempt for His cause!  I am amazed at how He answered that prayer and many others since!