Years ago, a carpet cleaner came to clean carpets, and I was always ready to witness, and always prayed for all who ever came by so that God would give me a mouth to speak and they would hear....all conversation naturally flows to Jesus; when he asked if I minded if he smoked [on a break -43 years ago, this was, so it was not politically incorrect to smoke, if one asked permission, in a house], I said," not at all, let me get you a lid for an ashtray, cause I don't have any since Jesus delivered me from smoking 18 months before he saved my soul three years ago".....[a few years after that time, I developed reactions to breathing smoke, but at that time, so near to my deliverance, it did not bother me when others smoked around me]; the carpet cleaner then confessed that he sure would like to quit, and he had tried, but could not -Bingo! I had his ear!
I told my testimony of how I had tried to quit a second time [after having done so once and later starting back] and could not. I got all the way up to four packs a day trying to quit! -I wasted a lot of them by leaving them burning in ashtrays on all three levels of our house [bedrooms and bath up stairs, living quarters downstairs, and utility in basement] cause I was a busy mom of three sons age 4, and twins age 1. Because I never used disposable diapers and changed diapers and washed diapers all day long -and other laundry- running down to the laundry and up to the bath and bedrooms, flying to the kitchen to cook and etc...I would light a cig, puff at it, then lay it in the ash tray, and forget it on that level, and begin all over again in another level of the house. My hubby found the long ashes of non smoked cigs and told me; "If you're going to smoke these things, at least smoke them" -he was against waste
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Anyway, I was trying to quit, and at that time I went to the Seattle Goodwill Store and bought 20 books for a dollar, just by the titles -I was a compulsive reader and we had no TV, so that was my way of relaxing, to read: but God had laid a trap for me in one of the books I picked by title; "Lady on a Donkey" [I was too busy to scan the books before I bought, and a nickel was disposable, if the book was not interesting].
That book was the story of Lillian Thrasher, who became a missionary to Egypt, and a mother died shortly after she arrived in Egypt, leaving a baby and no one to care for it.
Lillian cared for the baby, but the missionaries she was under told her she had to get rid of the baby, as they were not set up for that.
Lillian left the mission compound and rented a house with her few pennies US, and before long, Egyptians began bringing her other babies, and more and more children. There was no place for them to go- and she was really called by God to establish an orphanage there, but she did not know that was God's plan when she worked at an orphanage to pay her way through Bible school, so as to go as a missionary with an organization she applied to -her real school was learning how an orphanage is run
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Lillian wrote her US sister and asked her to come help -she did, and one night, God gave Lillian a vision of children streaming into her gate and the line of children streaming in stretched out over the desert: thousands and thousands of them were in the vision, with no end in sight....
By the time the biography was written in 1955, which I had picked up to read that day, over 8,000 children had passed through that orphanage!
When I finished the book, I thought of the plight of those children and the cost of my cigs -which I did not want to smoke anymore, and I asked God -from whom I was a running rebel, but who I always believed in- to deliver me from the cig habit and I would give "all that money to something like that".
Immediately, I felt the presence of God [not the first time in my life, either] and I tore up those last cigs and threw them in the trash and have never, ever, smoked or wanted to smoke a cig in my life since -but I was not saved for another 18 months!
Not long after that, my husband brought a TV home and God used that for a mighty miracle in my life, for I was saved by a Pentecostal miracle when a woman in a choir on a TV program on a Sunday morning burst out in prophecy just as my hand reached out to turn the dial, cause when I had turned on the station and saw it was a "religious program", I thought "I do not want that", and reached out to turn the dial, and she let forth in a mighty anointed prophetic utterance and the pastor just turned around and put the mike to her mouth and announced "this is prophecy, ladies and gentlemen"...I never was home after that on a Sunday [til I had the next baby which was my fifth] to see who was the preacher, and never wrote anyone to tell them, but their reward is in heaven, anyway!
When she burst out in prophecy, God was present in my room and
I could not turn that dial. Every word she said spoke directly to my heart and cut like a knife through my whole being -and was truth about my life.
God said: "Time after time you have called unto Me, and I have answered you; yet, you have cut me off, but I say unto you this day that unless you yield yourself unto me from this day forward
I Will Cut You Off!"
Those words cut me like a knife and I was so convinced that God meant it and that if I did not repent -like "5 minutes ago" that I was going to hell -and I had the fear of God come upon me so strong that I fell to my knees, raised my hands, and cried loudly;
"Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me, a sinner".
He did.
I got up feeling a "spiritual" ton of weight was gone -we literally carry the burden of our sins, and they weigh us down and drag us/our soul to Sheol on death, if we do not repent!
See, I had a Fundamental Baptist background and I knew I was a sinner, and had been "saved" every Sunday when the anointed tongues speaking [yes he did] Baptist preacher preached Jesus....I was 10 years old, but I grew into my teen years and departed from the LORD -and I knew I had departed....
But I did call on Him "time after time", and He did answer me, cause I knew who He was. Once, He gave my twin son back to me who had strangled himself on a lamp cord. I shouted all the way to the hosp to God to please not let him die...over and over, while I held my baby's nose and breathed into his mouth... looked up to God... shouted my prayer... breathed into his mouth...repeat...
So I shared my story with the carpet cleaner, and I asked him if he would like me to pray that he would be free.
He said; "yes"....
At that moment, I sent a quick SOS up to God..."I need a prayer partner", and there was an instant knock on the door.
I opened it to see a Christian sister standing there and I grabbed her hand, pulled her in and said -come in, we are going to pray for "____" to be delivered from smoking".
She began to pull herself up and said to him; "are you saved", I silenced her and said, no, not now, but the LORD is going to deliver him from smoking -pray!"
She did, I did, he did. He was.
He came back a few weeks later when I was not at home and told my husband not only was he delivered, but his wife was too!
I encouraged him to find a good living Church and get into Jesus [he did not live close by, he was from Renton, and we were at that time in Rural Kent.
NOTE: my sister was praying for me with a burden she thought she would die under, if God did not lift it. She was a Southern Baptist preacher's wife -but he was still in Seminary, 2500 miles from me, and we had no conversation about the LORD at all. I did not tell her I was saved until my Christmas letter, but I was saved Oct 12, and her burden lifted Labor Day, that year, but she did not know what was going on -we did not talk on the phones back then, long distance.
