my testimony part 12

 

 On February 10, 2015, Buddy, my second husband, passed away from pancreatic cancer. He was holding my hand. Watching him die slowly from cancer and dealing with the aftermath of his death was the most difficult thing I’ve ever been through. And I’ve been through a lot. Divorce. A child born with a major disability. And many other things. 

      But the Lord got me through that dark time. I can't tell you how much closer I grew to the Lord during that time. It was then when I had nothing that to learned to fully trust the Lord and lean on Him. It was then I learned about His compassion and love. 

I had been a Christian before but this was when I learned to fully rely on God. I had no choice. I had to. 

 At that time The Lord worked out an ugly situation with unbelieving in-laws who were literally trying to destroy me and had threatened to have me and my young kids out on the street. 

God arranged everything so that I was taken care of financially and could pay all expenses. I was sent an unexpected long overdue check from social security for $5000 which paid all the living and funeral expenses until I could straighten out the business buddy left me. And I had two lawyers offer to work for me for no retainer. One never accepted payment. How often does that happen in the natural? Never. It never happens. That was a miracle. 

All glory to God. 

      I prayed intensely and daily. I developed the habit of prayer and reading my bible. I got rid of my tv and spent my time with God instead. 

      I've never felt the need to get tv back. It's a distraction and an idol and I hate it. 

    Praying one day, I asked if I'd ever marry again. 

     The Lord told me He had a "companion" for me. That was the word He used. I looked it up and it turns out that’s the same word in Genesis that describes Adam and several: Helpmeet. 

 Another time during prayer God told me I had already met this companion. 

     I grew stronger and began attending my churches women's bible study for the first time in my life. I made some dear friends, I'm still in contact with some of them. 

     Then, in March of 2016, Mike Buskett talked to my dad on Facebook. 

Mike was a trucker so my dad asked him to look in on me. My dad lived in Alabama and I was in Vegas where buddy and I had lived and dad was worried about me. 

My dad had been friends with mike when I was a kid back at the Pentecostal  Church I grew up in. 

Mike was a family friend and had eaten out many meals with us and come to our house to study music for the choir, which my mom directed. 

     Mike asked me to lunch and we reconnected at a KFC in Vegas. I didn’t really remember who he was but I’m always game to meet new people. And I never turn down an adventure if I can help it. 

Lunch went well enough, but afterwards, mike started texting me and calling me "sunshine". 

     Uh-oh. I wrote him a polite but firm email telling him I wasn’t interested. 

He replied saying “I guess I heard wrong.”  What did that mean? I had no clue. 

That very night I prayed that God would take Mike out if my life if he wasn't the one He'd planned on. 

I was serious about not dating or marrying anyone who wasn’t what God wanted. I’d already made enough mistakes. And God had already taken away two people so i was thinking that’s what would happen here. 

Nope. 

That same night that I prayed, I had a dream. It was a memory. The Lord reminded me that when I was about 12 or 13, He'd told me "I'm going to show you the man I've chosen for you." I remembered exactly where I was standing in the old church when I heard him say it. It was like I was reliving it. 

 And immediately I began looking around at boys my own age. 

     Then Mike Buskett walked by. And The Lord said "there he is."

And then I woke up, gasping. 

I had completely forgotten all about all of this. But after that dream, I remembered. This has all really happened! 

I asked he Lord - is there more I need to remember?

And then I remembered an incident where I was walking in a specific place in the church that was an unfinished area. 

Mike walked by and I asked him “how OLD are you?” In a snotty teenaged voice. 

 He said “twenty eight. Why?”

Never mind, I said and that’s all I remembered. 

At the time, I discounted as ridiculous. He was way too old! I thought I’d made all this up myself. 

So I forgot all about it. Shortly after that Mike left the church. 

There were some nasty rumors about him - which should never have happened if the believers were true believers, even if the accusations were true - but those rumors were enough to convince me I’d been wrong, I hadn’t heard God, and I forgot all about it. And him. 

Flash forward back to me having the dream in Las Vegas. 

I realized I needed to apologize to mike so I wrote him an email. And then he called me. I hadn’t meant to tell Mike any of this but it all came out. 

And then! 

Mike told me that the Lord spoke to him as I was getting out of the car at kfc.

God had told him; “that's your wife!"

That’s why he had said “I guess I heard wrong.”  It had really happened! 

That was enough confirmation for me!

    Six weeks later we were married. 

     We married April 15 and began working on gelling as a family. 

I lost the person who I had considered to be my best friend over doing Gods will in this matter. 

Erin had been one of the girls in my group home and had attached herself to me after we left. It wasn’t until I rededicated my life to Christ that the ugly started coming out in her, and I understand now that darkness has nothing yo do with light. 

She finagled her way into babysitting my kids, a situation which I didn’t like because she never listened to my rules about limiting their game time, and because she constantly criticized my kids while never taking ownership for her own kids. 

I began praying about how to get out of her being my babysitter some time before Mike and I got  together. 

When I told her I was dating someone new, immediately Satan spoke through her and said “What about Buddy?” This was meant to cut me to the core but instead it began to show me my false friends’ true heart. 

I began seeing all of the double-edged insults she tossed my way. I even heard her say that she KNEW she could pull me away from God. I was aghast. All those years ago when the Holy Spirit had tried to warn me, and I hadn’t listened, it was because she had always been sent by Satan to infiltrate my life, pull me away from God and try to destroy me. 

I told her the story about how God brought me and Mike together, and she called it nonsense. I have since learned that whatever anyone’s reaction to this one story is, it tells me whether they have true faith or not. 

I asked her if she believed the Bible and she told me basically, no. I had always thought she was a Christian even though she was Catholic but this told me she absolutely was not. 

I told Erin I was going deeper with God and I asked her point blank to come with me. 

She said, and I quote: “If i go with you I will lose my husband.” 

She made her choice. Whoever loves husband or wife or mother or father or som or daughter more than they love Jesus is not worthy of Him. 

Ironically just a couple of years before this she and her husband were at the end of their rope and without me and buddy’s intervention and without the Lords’ advice to stay married, she would have lost her husband anyway. This by the way was how her family wound up in vegas. they followed us there and wound up working out their marriage. 

Regardless, she refused to meet Mike. She refused to come talk to me to my face. She threatened me that “we live in a small town and I’ll run into you sooner or later.” which was true, Henderson is a pretty small town, but we did not meet by the Grace of God. 

Erin removed herself from my life. I didn’t have to do it. This wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but God knew then what I know now. Erin  wasn’t the good person she pretended to be. She was a user and manipulator and sent by satan to pull me away from God. and for a long time, it worked. 

We can’t always see the repercussions of disobedience until later. God won’t force us. We’ll just suffer. Maybe our kids will turn from the faith. Maybe we’ll turn from the faith. You don’t know. But you can bet whatever He tells you to do, even if you think it’s too hard, he has a very good reason for telling you to do it, and you need to have faith that He will help you do it, whatever it is.  

I’ve had several instances of this in my life. I’ve learned to LISTEN. OBEY. AND SUBMIT. 

Right away. 

All the way. 

Without complaint. 

That was a little over five years ago. 

That summer i began reading about how many of the christian kids are turning from the faith, and God started putting it on my heart to homeschool. 

I was terrified because my daughter has down’s syndrome and I didn’t think I could do it, and I was right! with out Jesus I can’t! 

But Graces’ teacher miss sandy was so wonderful she gave me all of her work, explained how to do it, and told me “it’s always the good ones who leave to homeschool.” which was so, so nice of her. She was so encouraging. what a lovely lady. 

T his was miss sandy and some of graces old friends when we went back to visit vegas five years after leaving. 

When I pulled the kids from public school, it was at the same time that the Lord was calling us to move to Alabama. 

The Lord even gave me a christian buyer for my business and he’s been paying us 

off little by little ever since. 

We now run a very small house church together in rural Alabama. We work on music together and sing and play as a couple. God told me to start playing piano and Now I’m good enough to play in church. 

At first we lived in an RV for 2.5 years. then a small cottage in Pennsylvania. now a mobile home. The Lord has called us to a simple life on purpose. 

We homeschool my three kids and live off the sale of my late husbands business. And we trust God. My life has completely changed. 

A couple of things have happened in the last few years.  I sought God about my calling and He finally showed/told me that I am a watchman. (ezekiel 3 and 33). Which explains why I have the gift of discernment. It isn’t the same as regular discernment. I can literally feel the demonic presences in my body, in my forehead if you want to know the truth. I can see demons inside people and they sometimes react to me. The Holy Spirit also often tells me what spirits they are

and how they got there. 

Fake Christians laugh at me and persecute me for it. pastors  don’t want to be told they have demons on the worship team or in the building or worse yet in leadership. people are afraid of it. But it’s such a needed ministry especially today. I pray God finds a place to put us where we can be more useful. 

My husband also has this same gift. He literally gets sick when there’s demonic presences around. He is also a watchman. 

Another important thing that’s happened since I’ve been in Alabama in training is that I asked the Lord to take away anything man has taught me that was wrong. I highly recommend anyone reading this take just a moment right now to ask the Lord to do that. It will blow your theological mind. Five years later and He's still showing me things. 

Like the time we went up north to Pennsylvania to visit a campground we used to love back in the days when we were in the youth group, and we saw how much satan had infiltrated it. 

There was literally a preacher named jacob (deciever) preaching there who was preaching outright heresy -  that hell isn’t necessary and jesus repented for us - and no one seemed to notice. This was in a gathering of supposed sincere christians. 

Talking to the director of the camp, it was clear he didn’t truly believe nor did he know the Holy Spirit. In our travels we have seen this again and again and again. Flesh in the pulpit, unbelief, not knowing the Word of God, and fake christianity. It’s everywhere snd it’s honestly shocking. And it’s why America is the state she’s in. Judgment begins in the house of the Lord, and if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged. someone needs to come clean out the church and I believe it may be so far gone that that someone might need to be Jesus Christ himself. 

If you’ve ever been burned in church it’s likely due to this. But these things must happen, because the great apostasy that paul spoke of in 2 thes. 2 accompanies the end times, and we. are. here. 

I’m grateful for everything. One thing I’ve learned is how sovereign God really is. He is completely in control. He works around all our sin and failure. He really does work all things together for our good. And our illusion of control is just that. Illusion.  His will will be done though in his kindness he allows us free will - and works around it. I have no idea how. 

It took thirty years for what He promised me to come to pass. But it came to pass. God knew I had to get rid of all my self will (which was very strong) so that he could use me to do what He planned. I still don’t fully know what that is and I won’t til I see him face to face. 

But that’s faith. Walking by trusting Him and not by what we see. 

I don’t always do it as well as I should. But I’m a lot better at it than I used to be. And the lord used this and many other things in my life to teach me. 

All glory to God!

Oh and one more thing. That second incident where I asked mike “how old are you?” 

Recently mike told me he remembered it. He said “yea mark —- was with me.” And I gasped because suddenly I remembered. Yes mark had been walking with him! I’d forgotten. 

If I’d doubted before I didn’t now. All of that had really happened thirty years ago. 

We serve an amazing God.