Hello Carol,
I just read your testimony and I thank the Lord that you have been blessed 
and nurtured through your trials.  I pray for your continued recovery and 
for continued guidance from our Lord Jesus. It is hard for us to remember 
that all we have to do is to trust Him and He will make a way for us.  Hang 
in there and thank you for sharing your testimony with us.
Huggs and blessings,
Virgie and Hoshi
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carol Pearson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 11:43 AM
Subject: WHERE THINGS WENT WRONG - (long testimony)!


> 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.