Don't Sell God Short

Totally Terrific Testimonial Tell All Tuesday: My tell all, even when the outlook is bad and you think it may be the end, often, if it not your scheduled moment of departure, Our God has one more move:

"Look!" Nebuchadnezzar shouted. "I see four men, unbound, walking around in the fire unharmed! And the fourth looks like a god!"

Then Nebuchadnezzar came as close as he could to the door of the flaming furnace and shouted: "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!" So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stepped out of the fire. Then the high officers, officials, governors, and advisers crowded around them and saw that the fire had not touched them. Not a hair on their heads was singed, and their clothing was not scorched. They didn't even smell of smoke!

Then Nebuchadnezzar said, "Praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! He sent his angel to rescue his servants who trusted in him. They defied the king's command and were willing to die rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. Therefore, I make this decree: If any people, whatever their race or nation or language, speak a word against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they will be torn limb from limb, and their houses will be turned into heaps of rubble. There is no other god who can rescue like this!"

Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to even higher positions in the province of Babylon. (Daniel 3:25-30)

This is our God! Don't undersell Him to yourself.  When is the last time you opened yourself up to an honest conversation with  Him? When is the last time you read His word for yourself?

Over the centuries, the evil one has come along and whispered to many that the bible is full of 'fairy tales' for things talked within its pages simply could not have taken place.

Why are we open to vampires and zombies but un-open to the miracles of God?

I assure you, we are surrounded by the living dead, they may even desire to hurt you. They need the light, yet run from it. Eyes and ears both closed off from the truth.

We must be shining examples so alive, they come to us seeking what we have.

Be blessed and Be a blessing <3

Wendy, Walks with God, Mom of Many

Awoken by an Answer to a Prayer!

This is the last title I was given to write on. Again it is way out of order but I find it interesting that this is what God wants me to share. This by far is one of the strangest things I have ever witnessed. Allow me to paint the scene.

Jeffrey Thomas was born. He came to work with me every day like many of my babies have. I breast feed the majority of my children and having your baby with you is much more pleasant than having to pump! Anyway, at this time my mother was my assistant at work. She always came by the house to allow me to get to work on time and she would stay with the other children to get them on the school bus.

One morning when she showed up I immediately realized something was wrong with her face. In a panic I called my father and told him what was going on. My brother was sent to my house and he rushed my mom to the emergency room. I thought she was having a stroke.

Up until that point I had never heard of an illness titled "Bells Palsy". If you have yourself never heard of it, the symptoms are a lot like a stroke. My mom had lost use of one side of her face. The hospital informed her there is no cure. They prescribed blood pressure medicine and antibiotics. The most awful thing about this disease is it leaves you with no control over one side of your face.

My mom has always been one of those people that pays attention to looks. How pretty, how thin . . . they matter to her. I know looking in the mirror was too much for her. I cannot fathom what it would be like to not be able to close your eye or to smile on both sides of your face. My heart broke for her.

After a few days of antibiotics and no change I was on my knees praying for God to heal her. I told him this, "I need my mom. If this paralysis of her face doesn't improve I think she will go insane. Please God, you have to heal her. You have to. Thank you in advance." and I went to bed.

That morning I awoke to this, "Put your breast milk in your mother's ear."

I sat straight up in bed. I was taken aback. Shocked. Perplexed. Confused. Worried on how to even approach the matter. I was in such a state of fear that I didn't even say anything at first. I spent the first 4 hours of my day searching the Internet for Bells Palsy information. Somehow I stumbled upon an article regarding the 7th cranial nerve as this is the one responsible for the face having no movement response. I then spent another hour researching the 7th cranial nerve and that is when I found the picture of a baby's ear. Ironically, it showed the 7th cranial nerve and how it travels through the ear. Now I was stunned. I knew in my heart I had to approach the subject.

With a moment of courage, I spun my chair around and said, "Mom, this is going to sound so crazy but I went to bed praying for you to be healed by God and this morning I was awoken by a message. I was told to put some of my breast milk in your ear." Then I showed her the diagram I had found of the 7th cranial nerve and asked her how she felt about us trying that. She looked at me and said, "Wendy, I'm willing to try anything at this point. I just want to be able to shut my eye."

I went into the bathroom and pumped out some milk. Luckily, since I have raised children here in the office, I even had a medicine dropper handy. I soaked up some of my milk into the dropper and dripped it into her ear. I sat down and within a minute she kind of jumped in her chair and said, "I felt something pop." and then she blinked her eye. Next she moved her cheek slightly. My eyes teared and I said, "I'm pumping some for you to take home and just do this every three hours over the weekend." I ran into the bathroom more to give thanks and to weep than to pump. I was overwhelmed with gratitude.

We couldn't get any doctors to take notice of what had transpired. After more research, I discovered there are laws against even sharing bodily fluids (such as breast milk). I am thankful that God heard my plea and gave me a solution. The joke in our family for a while was that I should bottle my breast milk and call it "miracle milk".

Now I realize what happened is even bigger than my milk curing my mom. I would have never thought of that on my own. Obviously so by my simple minded need to research endlessly regarding what I had heard. Indeed Jeffrey has been a blessing in many many many ways. Had I not given birth to him I would not have been lactating and there would not have been breast milk on hand to use in my mother's ear. While all prayers aren't answered immediately and all of our loved ones are not miraculously healed please do not allow yourself to believe that for one minute God doesn't feel for you or your loved ones. He sent his only begotten son to save us. This life span of ours is nothing more than a vapor . . . we are nothing more than a blimp when it comes to time. We all in the end face the same fate: bodily death. The bigger picture is this: eternal life.

My prayer for you if you are currently a non believer or one who has doubts when it comes to God is that you do your due diligence in educating yourself on your beliefs and how you came to form them. I am currently reading a book titled 'How Now Shall we Live' written by Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey. It covers evolution, naturalism along with many other kinds of science. The most fascinating thing to me is how many times science actually has proven there is a single designer behind the curtain. Even the big bang theory leads the biggest atheist to the truth. God exists.

Just like in the days of Jesus, many of our religious leaders have done a complete injustice to God. In a world of children killing children, perhaps it's something we, as parents, should at least be curious enough about to do some serious soul searching ourselves. I challenge all non believers to read this book. It's not the bible . . . it is however an amazing intellectual read.

My prayer for everyone today is that you take a moment of silence at the end of each day to question. Where did I come from? What is my purpose? What am I to teach my children about life?

Blessings to all who take me up on this Challenge. The journey itself is worthwhile!

Wendy, Mom of Many

Saved By an Army of Angels

My son Michael is the child I wrote about in my blog titled "Who do You Curse . . . Why Do You Curse Them?" He was born on November 21st so this event took place right after his fourth birthday. It was the weekend after Thanksgiving. I was approximately 20 weeks pregnant at the time with my last child Jeffrey. Mike was helping a friend with some yard work and I was home with the fantastic four. We had been having a great day. We were watching movies and doing laundry when literally all hell broke lose.

Michael was my little strong man at the time so he had a lot of trust built up with me. It's so funny to think how much of a man this child has been all along. Little boys do love their mommys. Anyway, in the midst of him helping me he was sidetracked by my lighter. I was still smoking cigarettes at this time and over the summer his father had taught him how to set camp fires and his older brother had taught him how to actually light a lighter. He was fascinated by the flame and had set a couple of little fires outside already. He had been warned that making fires without an adult was not wise. Never in a million years did I see what was about to happen.

Back to the story. He had grabbed my lighter in the midst of doing our chores. He was supposed to be grabbing a laundry basket out of my closet. Lighter in hand, he climbed up on his sister's loft bed above the twins bed and proceeded to set a piece of Tia's school papers on fire. Marie and Marissa had gone to look for Michael and it was Marissa that came running to tell me that the bed was on fire. I rushed into the hall and saw the flames. At first I ran to the room and that is when I knew this fire was already too big to deal with without the help of water. I ran to the kitchen and for the life of me couldn't find anything bigger than a punch bowl for water. My heart was racing. I frantically scanned the kitchen and saw the trash can. I grabbed the trash liner out of it and ran down the hall into the bathroom and began filling it with water. We are on a well and I am here to tell you that day our pressure seemed to be nothing more than a trickle. I looked out into the hall and the fire seemed to have tripled in a matter of seconds. I glanced back toward the kitchen and all the kids were standing there with terror in their eyes. I rushed them all out the back door and closed it telling them to stay outside. I ran back to the bathroom grabbed what water was in the can and ran to the room. The fire was already on the bottom bunk bed and I couldn't stand on it to get the water onto the loft bed. I threw all the water on the bottom bed and and was shown my only shot at putting out this fire was the garden hose.

I ran outside to grab it. My current hose was a junk one that kinked with ease. I had spent money on a really nice one at the beginning of the summer for my kid toys but Mike had "accidentally" burnt it in half over our burn pit approximately two months prior to this event. He had no remorse and refused to help purchase a new one so in my spite I had replaced it with the cheapest one I could buy. Anyway, when I went to grab it, it was not convenient. Mike had used it last and it was stretched out over the yard and wrapped around toys. My heart lurched. Michael helped me unwind it like a pro. I never saw a kid move so fast. I had him turn the water on full blast as I ran into the house with it. Much to my disbelief the hose was 3 feet short of being able to get any spray to the biggest part of the fire. I heard bring it in through your window and I knew that was my only hope. I tore through the plastic I had just put up the weekend before and with the strength of God got my storm window up. My home was filling with smoke. I leaned out and caught a good breath of air. As I ran past my door I hit the light switch turning off my ceiling fan as I was instructed to do. I ran back out of the house with the hose. I ran to my window and shoved the hose through it. I yelled at the kids to go to the van and I ran back into the house. I no sooner hit the hall way when I was in a total cloud of black smoke.

The next thing I remember is being lifted up off the ground. It was as if I'd been given a breath of fresh air and I heard. "Wendy stay low. People die in fires." I sped crawled to the hose and yanked it into the girls room and began fighting that fire on my knees. This may sound crazy to you but I was not in that room alone. God sent an army of angels to help me. The things I did next were nothing less than miraculous. I am sure my training fighting fires when I was a child helped me but many of the things I did I was TOLD to do.

I watched in horror as the fire lept across the ceiling to the other side of the room. I heard it try to get around me before I even saw it. No sooner had I gotten the room under control when I heard "Go soak the roof." I ran outside pulled the hose through my window and began doing just that. Within a couple of minutes I was told to go back inside. I ran by my window threw the hose in it again and this time when I went back in you couldn't see a thing due to all the black smoke in the house. I think it was the first time in my life I was grateful for being legally blind. I ran in holding my breath and when I hit the hallway, I slid on my knees as far as I could go. I found the hose again and finished putting the fire out. It was so hot in the house I feared the fire might be burning behind the walls. I was on my way out to the van to drive to the fire station when I heard "Turn off the power" I ran into the garage and flipped the main breaker off.

I drove to the fire station because I had no phone to call for help. Their door was locked. I couldn't see anyone in through the window so I began banging on the door and screaming for help. I hit the garage doors . . . I banged on the people door. Finally a couple of fire fighters came to the door. I stammered, "My house was on fire I'm not sure I got it out. I need help."

The look on their faces is something I'll never forget. They were dumbstruck is the best way to explain it. One of them said, "Mam are you okay? You have soot all over your face."

I screamed, "I WAS IN THE FIRE!" they looked over my shoulder at the van and said, "You have children?" I said, "Yes, they are okay they weren't in the fire. Please, I need you to go to my home and see if it's still burning." I quickly told them where I lived and off they went. One of the firefighters came to the van to look at the children and she grabbed some blankets for me since we'd all run out without coats or even shoes and she asked if I had anyone I'd like to call. I told her my dad. I don't even remember what I told him but he was there in mere moments. He had me follow him down to the road West of my driveway and from there we watched the firemen walking up and down my driveway. I asked my dad to sit with the kids so that I could find out what was going on. As I was walking up the driveway an older firefighter was walking back towards the road. I asked him, "Was it still burning?" He stopped, looked at me and said, "No. You got it all out." I said, "I wasn't sure . . . it was so hot. . . there was so much steam . . . it looked like smoke was coming out of the walls." He stared at me for a second. Shook his head and said, "Do me a favor. Next time run. I don't know how you fought this fire, but don't ever do something like that again." I continued on down the drive to my home knowing I fought this fire with an Army of Angels. God had saved me, my family and my home. As I approached my stepping stones, I was stopped by another man who turned out to be the "Assistant Fire Marshall". He informed me that what he had found indicated that my son was abused and obviously hated his older sister. I was not only shocked, I was insulted.

The police showed up and questioned me and the Assistant Fire Marshall informed me that the department of children services would be in touch. He also told me that since it was of his opinion that my son who set the fire was an abused child, I was being ordered to have to take him in for an evaluation at a mental facility. My whole world was spinning. Abused child? None of my children were abused I told him. Even my father was stunned by this man's approach. He stuck to his opinion. He informed me that children didn't set fires unless they were angry and abused. Again I told him he was misinformed. Regardless it did not matter. They are the law and you must abide by their rules. He made an appointment for me with a place that deals with adolescents. I was terrified. Michael was only four and he was going to have to be interviewed and from this they would decide whether or not I got to keep him and the rest of my children.

I am happy to say that the doctor that interviewed him found him to be a normal child. She was a little upset when I explained that I did not believe he had any anger issues. She looked at me and said, "The only reason you are here is because the fire department insisted on you bringing him?" I explained everything. She abruptly stood up and said, "I'll be right back." She left Michael and I in the room. She came back in about 10 minutes and informed me that we were done and sent us on our way. The Department of Children Services never contacted me over this incident.

All of my children will tell you that an Army of Angels saved me. I did not know until a year later that those kids had watched outside of the window and cried thinking I was going to die. The good news is not one of them thinks that fire is something to play with. The most amazing thing Michael said in the interview with that lady was that fires can get big! He was harder to understand back then so she had asked him to explain again. He told her he tried to punch the fire out but it just got bigger and bigger.

If you had seen the hose I fought the fire with you would have to admit that me putting out a 3 alarm fire with that thing was nothing short of a miracle. As long as I live I'll never forget being lifted off the floor and filled with breath. I coughed up black tar from my lungs for over a week. Everything smelled like a musty camp fire for days.

Mike blamed me for the fire. It broke my heart that he had no compassion at all for what I'd been through. He didn't even hug or kiss me. He was upset that he had to be the one to tear out all the burnt walls and do the clean up and repair of our home. I was punished for this event taking place. He informed me that I was not a good enough parent. It was not a good time in our relationship. Things just went downhill from there.

I don't know why God felt the need to save me that day. I am just grateful He did. What I do know is this. Angels are real.

I hope this blog gives you cause to be amazed. It is my prayer that reading my story will encourage you to get into God's Word. He is using me . . . a murderer of unborn children to show you that anyone that leans on Him and believes in Him can make it into the Kingdom of Heaven. All you have to do is find your Faith. I have been a BIG sinner over the course of my life and yet God still loves me. I committed the ultimate sin of killing unborn babies. Not just one baby but two. ANYONE can be saved. You are required only one thing. Belief that Jesus bore the cross for ALL. I pray that my story helps you with this.

Blessings to All who read this and believe,

Wendy, Mom of Many