My sister-in-law Valerie told me this miraculous story of God’s faithfulness that I know will bless anyone who hears it.
I love this story!
When she and my brother were first married, both young in the Lord, God was already calling her to a deeper level of faith and trust in Him. And when He told her to do something incredibly difficult and she obeyed in faith, God showed up in the most miraculous way!
Chapter 1
As told by Valerie.
First of all, I am a minister of the word of God and have worked in youth ministry for about twenty years. I’ve been saved since I was fifteen years old, backslid for a few years, but rededicated my life back to Christ when I was twenty-one. My husband and I have been married 31 years, we have 30 grandchildren, and 4 great grandchildren.
I have a testimony of how faithful God is to His word when you just trust Him. Years ago, when my husband and I lived in the projects, at one point he had lost his job, and I had a part time job. We had just come home from being out with the kids when we found out from the landlord that we had to leave unexpectedly.
Someone had put graffiti on the building and the landlord claimed that our son Willie was responsible. I remember us questioning Willie and asking him if he did it. With all of our children, we knew when they were being truthful or when they were fibbing. We then questioned Willie, knowing his little nose would twitch if he was being dishonest. When his nose was not twitching, we knew he was telling us the truth.
At that point, we were like, well Lord what are we gonna do?
Little did we know that God was setting us up for a blessing.
Chapter 2
We knew we needed to move out of the projects because we had seen so much violence there. People were getting stabbed, we were hearing gunshots and there were people stealing everywhere. There was even a man stabbed right in front of our front door! We were like, Lord we have to get out of the projects. But my husband had recently lost his job, and I only had a part time job.
So when they gave us the eviction notice, because they didn’t tolerate vandalism, we pleaded with them that our son was innocent. I knew they wouldn’t believe us, and they told us we had to move anyway.
One Saturday morning around that time, my mom had come to our apartment. She was on her way to prayer breakfast and wanted me to come with her.
I said, “No I really don’t feel like going mom because we’re getting evicted, we don’t know where we’re gonna move, I just don’t know what’s gonna happen…”
But she said, “Just come to prayer breakfast.”
So I went to prayer breakfast with her that day. At the end, we stood in a circle and a lady asked for us all to share our prayer requests.
When it was my turn, the Holy Spirit said, “Do not tell them what you have need of. “
My response was, “Well Lord, we have not because we ask not!”
And the Lord said again, “No, don’t tell them what you have need of. Just say pray for my family and keep my family in prayer.”
So when they came to me they said, “Valerie do you have a prayer request?”
I said, “Well… (I started to be disobedient and cry out “We don’t know where were going, and I don’t know what to do!”) But I was obedient and said, “Just pray for my family.”
They then said, “We want you to be more specific so that we can be in agreement with you.”
And again I said, “No just pray for my family.”
So we prayed, dismissed and went home. My mom said,
Come to church with me on Sunday.
I said, “Mom I really don’t feel like going to church.”
She kept pressing and said, “Just come to church with me this Sunday.”
Chapter 3
At this point, all I had left was the money for our rent, 300 dollars.
That Sunday morning I got up, got dressed and went to church with my mom. The message was really awesome, the pastor didn’t preach on money or anything, but when it came to the offering, the Holy Spirit prompted me to take out that 300 dollars and put it in the offering plate.
And right then and there I was like, “I rebuke you Satan, that cannot be God telling me to give this 300 dollars. So Satan I rebuke you right now in the name of Jesus!”
The Holy Spirit said, “No this is not Satan, this is God telling you to put it in the offering.”
So I’m just sitting there, squirming, watching the offering plate come down, holding on to my purse, and very uncomfortable.
My mom goes, “What is wrong with you?”
I said, “The Holy Spirit just told me to take that 300 dollars, my last 300 dollars and put it in the offering plate.”
Well are you gonna do it? she asked.
I said, “Well mom, I don’t think that was God telling me to do it. I really think the enemy is trying to set me up so that my family will be homeless!”
My mom just said, “Valerie, be obedient.”
So I stuck my hand down in my purse and pulled out the money. But I was holding on to it so tightly! Then all of a sudden my hand felt like it was on fire! And next, my butt felt like it was on fire! I was like oh my Lord! And when the offering plate got to me, I just threw the money in and watched it go down the aisle.
My next thought was, oh Lord what am I gonna do? My husband is not gonna understand this!
The Holy Spirit quietly said, “I’ve already prepared his heart.”
And my mom kept reassuring me,
“Valerie, everything’s going to be OK.”
I just said, “yes ma’am, ye- yes ma’am…”
Chapter 4
So when I got home, I went into the bedroom and my husband Kenneth asked, “How was service?
I told him it was awesome. He immediately said, “Whats the matter, something’s wrong.”
I paused, then blurted out, “OK, while I was in church, the Holy Spirit told me to take that 300 dollars and put it in the offering plate!”
He just looked at me and asked, “Are you sure it was the Holy Spirit?”
I said, “Yeah, because I was trying to rebuke it, and I said it was Satan and I didn’t really want to do it. But the Holy Spirit told me it was God, and I put it in collection plate!”
My husband said,
Well, baby who am I to argue with God?
So that night, as I was preparing dinner, I heard a knock at the front door.
When I went to answer the door, there was this really heavy set black lady wearing big bifocals, standing in our doorway.
She looked at me and asked, “Is your husband here?”
I thought to myself, that’s odd you don’t even know me. Why are you asking is my husband here?
I said, “Yes…”
“Can you go get him?” she asked.
So I go to the back room to get him, and he says, “Who is that?”
“I have no clue,” I said. “But this big heavyset black lady with bifocals is standing in our living room.”
He said, “What does she want?”
I said, “I don’t know, she just told me to come and get you.”
“Who is she?”
“I don’t know!!”
He goes into the living room, and she’s just standing there.
“I need you to open your hands,” she says.
I’m thinking, OMG this lady is gonna kill us! But the Holy Spirit said “Open your hands.”
So we closed our eyes and did what she asked of us and put our hands out. All of a sudden, we both found our hands closed up, and when we opened our eyes, that woman was not there.
Chapter 5
I mean there was no way this big heavyset woman could have ran to her car that quickly, without us knowing. We both ran outside and saw no vehicle driving away or anything!
We were like, OK what’s going on??
So we went back to the house, Kenneth opens up his hands, in his hands are nine 100 dollar bills!
We stood there amazed. God didn’t just return what we gave, he tripled what we placed in the offering.
We now had the money to move out of the projects.
But still, we wondered, what was the next step? We still needed a place to stay.
Little did we know, God wasn’t finished!
When we got ready to go house hunting, the Holy Spirit had us stop by this gas station. We stopped, got ready to get gas, and the next thing we knew, this white man stuck his head in our window and said, “Y’all are looking for a house to rent aren’t you?”
We said, “Uh, yeah.” And Kenneth was like, OK this is getting really scary.
He said, “When you’re done getting gas, follow me!”
So we followed the man to this lovely little house.
We asked, “Well how much is the rent? What kind of deposit do we need to make now?”
And he told us the amount, then said, “I’m giving you three months free rent, and no deposit.”
My husband was like,” OK now, whats going on? We’ve never had anything like that happen to us!”
Later on, when we were comfortably in our new home, out of the projects, God spoke to my heart:
All I wanted to do was to see if you were going to be obedient. I was already working it out behind the scenes.
God had allowed our son to be blamed for the vandalism because he had already heard my prayer.
Valerie’s Message to You
When we are in need, we should never question how God is going to work things out. All we need to do is be obedient and let Him do it. For me, God used that lie that someone told on my son to change our lives. Truly, God will work things out for the good of those that love the Lord.
Sometimes, we are so focused on our problems that we forget how God is wanting to use us and bless us. If we’ll only stay focused on God and don’t look at the situation around us.
Just like the children of Israel when they came to the Red Sea. All they knew was that Pharaoh and his army were right behind them. And now God had brought them to the Red Sea with no visible way to get to the other side. They were just looking at all this mass body of water, thinking, we have no way to cross this! We’re going to die.
But all they had to do was stand, be still and see the salvation of God.
And God instructed Moses to put the staff in the water, the waters parted, and the Israelites walked on dry land!
So God showed me and my husband that no matter what the situation may look like, no matter what’s behind you or even in front of you, that He will part your sea and let you walk through to your promised land!
Final Thoughts
I just want people to realize that, its so easy for us to to trust man. When we go to the doctor, they say, I want you to take these pills. We don’t question what the pills are going to do to us, half the time we can’t even pronounce the name of the pills! But we take the pills anyway because we trust that the doctor knows what he’s talking about.
But when it comes to God, why can’t we trust Him at his word like that?
God says I am a God that is way beyond the natural. He said I am a God that will not fail you.
Look at man’s past record, man will fail us, but if you look at God’s track record, it’s spotless! He’s never failed us. It may not be in the timing that we think it ought to be, but He always comes through.
So that’s my testimony. Just trust God. Know that no situation is bigger than the God that can take you through it.
1 Comment
Beautiful testimony there.