When Tim and I met and received the holy Ghost in 1985 and got married in 1986, we had many dreams of what our life would be like as we would grow together through the years. We were young, immature, and had no real role models of holiness in our lives. But, we did have one thing that kept us together through the good times and the hard times: the desire to be close to God. There were times of happiness, but there were also times of hurt because we had not been taught how to really take care of each other's hearts. We learned to hide our real feelings and shut down our hearts because of hurt from each other and from incidents that happened within Christianity.
I asked God aloud in front of Tim, “Are we ever going to find someone who’s living right? ”The Spirit spoke back through Tim to me saying, “They’re out there; we just haven’t found them yet.” At this time, we had left the church we were attending and were studying and reading the Bible at home. God was using our desire to know Him to prepare us to learn to really live. Jesus was teaching us to hear his Spirit and to desire to live above the standard we had been shown in Christianity.
In 1997, we met some people from Pastor John's and we started going to home prayer meetings at his home, where we began to feel the love from God as we never had since receiving the holy Ghost. As we began to hear and take in truth, the truth began to reveal where we were spiritually. We felt ashamed that we had not learned how to take care of our finances and other aspects of our life along the way, and because of that, many things in our family were out of order.
As we learned of the goodness of God and put it into action, wonderful things happened - debt fell away. In February 2001, we owed $38,000, but by July 2002, because of the things we learned from some of God's people and the counsel we received on how to manage our finances, God had already wiped away $23,000 of that debt! Feelings of fellowship began to flow from our hearts to our brothers' and sisters' hearts. We began to trust that the brothers and sisters in our lives really loved us and wanted fellowship, unlike what we had felt before; and old fears of being hurt began to fall away. God created relationships that were based on honesty and openness between us.
We have been married for almost twenty-two years now, and God has restored our marriage and the joy in our hearts. Over the past eight years, our little household has grown in faith and we have learned the value of being trustworthy. We have learned to be good stewards of the blessings that have been given to us. And both of our young boys have also received the baptism of the holy Ghost. Jesus has created a love and willingness in our hearts that can only come through being humbled down by Jesus and being built back up in holiness and truth. We are grateful God loved us enough to show us His truth and way of holiness, and to let us have peace in our hearts with Him.
Tim and Bess