Hi all,

Well, have you ever had to ask the Lord, "Where did this all start?"  I know 
I have and thought, as my close brothers and sisters in the Lord, I'd share 
with you something of the past three or four years.  . . ..  May God be 
glorified in what I say!

Some will know that we came to live in Reading four years ago last Summer. 
I had lived here before Mike and I were married and Mike knew many of my 
friends.  After he had been made redundant three times in London during our 
married life and just wasn't finding another job, despite many interviews at 
which he was so often told "You were the 'nearly man'", I had a real desire 
to return to Reading for Mike to grow spiritually alongside some lovely 
brothers I knew and for other reasons also.

(Here's where the story could get really so long and involved, so I'll skip 
a big section.)

Here we were, back in Reading, living in a rented bungalow.  The owner was 
someone I'd known in church, though soon after we returned he moved on to 
pastures new, and I wasn't sorry!  (I will just refer here to the fact that, 
in our agreeing the rental, we had had very many hassles with this man over 
his very harsh terms;  he insisted "he was doing it for us" but that's not 
as it appeared.)

About a year in and things between us and our then landlord were getting 
difficult.  His demands for more money and reluctance to do any jobs were 
just two things.  We then ran into a real problem with our dog relief area. 
The drainage required regular attention to prevent blocks and nobody 
appeared willing to address the problem on a longer term basis.  Eventually 
things got bad and our landlord told me that he had put in the facility and 
it was now over to us to sort the problem.  He refused to let us use the 
garden area for the dogs in the emergency situation of the relief area 
becoming unuseable and basically told me that we'd have to take dogs out of 
the premises for relief (not very advisable or possible here) and, if we 
didn't like it, we could just get out!

That was the day I was afraid of homelessness, which seemed so very close 
(though it never happened) and I was unable to reach out and trust God in it 
all.  Very soon afterwards I stopped sleeping, except when I was forced by 
medication.  The lack of sleep brought about real depression and it was 
downhill at that point!  He made it oh so very stressful when we finally 
bought him out of the property and charged us well over and above the 
recommended price.

Praise God:  There came a point of real crying out to Him for revelation as 
to what had gone wrong and how to get back on track again!  Once I'd 
confessed my lack of trust, the rest was just grace upon grace upon grace!

I am still taking meds at present and have some way to go to get back to 
real full health, but I'm generally sleeping much better, am beginning to be 
able to concentrate once more and have begun to really "live again"!

I have recently been able to take some Government funded financial help and 
employ two ladies to work as my personal assistants for a total of twelve 
hours each week and we're beginning to work together.  There are heaps of 
things I need to catch up but I need also to get out more and take any 
opportunities God gives perhaps for speaking at meetings etc.  The girls are 
not Christians (though I'd have loved it that way) but this gives me an 
opportunity to treat them as I believe they should be treated and to share 
the Gospel more fully with them in due course.

I have two other brief testimonies that I'll share here, to keep postings 
down.

This week I had to have two teeth extracted.  I hadn't gone through the 
experience before but had always dreaded it, much more than any other type 
of operation.  Mike was full of faith that I wouldn't choke as I do so very 
easily and God enabled me to keep the appointment.  I'm still recovering 
from some pretty drastic surgery (where teeth were very difficult to get 
out) but am feeling fine now and can eat again!  (That's got to be worth 
lots of praise!)

Mike and I finally took a week's holiday away (the first together for three 
and a half years) and during that time God was so wonderful to us.  I lost 
my mobile (cell) phone as we arrived at the hotel.  Nobody could find it 
outside or in, or even at our own home where I just might have left it. 
Later on the Saturday it began to rain hard and rained solidly until the 
Monday morning.  We asked the Lord that my phone would be returned to me in 
one piece.  I really couldn't face having it returned in bits after being 
run over by a car or whatever and didn't want it taken by anyone either.  I 
didn't think for one minute though that it could be returned, in full 
working order, with a full battery after two days in the pouring rain, when 
found at the entrance to the hotel where many cars had driven in and out - 
but that is exactly what happened!  Praise God!  The cost of replacement 
would have been quite a lot of money, since it has speech software in the 
phone and isn't just a phone, so we were both really grateful for its safe 
return.

Please continue to pray for me, that God will lead me back into useful and 
fruitful service for Him and show me just what He wants me to be doing in 
the future.  (I used to work on a Christian helpline and speak at various 
churches and want to be sure if I'm to take up these things again, or 
perhaps do something quite different.  I feel as though I don't want to 
waste another second and want each one to count for Him!

--
Carol - Reading, UK

To you, o Lord, I lift up my soul;
In You I trust, o my God.  . . .."  PS25:1-2 NIV.