Good to have you back on board and hear how God has been working in 
your life. May he continue to draw you ever closer to him and bless 
you and yours richly.

In Christ,

Doris
At 03:43 PM 3/14/2007 +0000, you wrote:

>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.
>
>
>
>--
>No virus found in this incoming message.
>Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.11/721 - Release Date: 
>3/13/2007 4:51 PM


-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.11/721 - Release Date: 3/13/2007 4:51 PM