Salvation is Sweet

Our God is Amazing.

I stand more in awe and in love with Him every minute.

This is an incredible story that Will has given me permission to share.

I will give you a brief background. Will and I met in 1994 and were married in 1996. We were very happy but very lost. Michael was born in 1999 and Alex in 2002. By this point things had really gone down hill.

Shortly after Alex was born we split up for many reasons, mostly because we did not have the God glue to hold us together.

We were living in Nashville Tennessee at the time. I moved back home to College Station and Will moved to Pennsylvania.

I had been back in College Station about six months when God brought me to my wonderful church Living Hope. It was here that I came to know the Lord and grew in my relationship with Jesus.

Five years past...I get a phone call out of the blue from Will saying that he is moving back to Texas to be close to the boys. He knew he was missing everything and the way he was living he would be dead before he was forty.

My first thoughts were fear. Fear that he would come down and undo everything God had done in the past five years...Oh me of little faith.

What I failed to realize is that God was already working. Our God is so big and He begins to orchestrate a plan long before our little minds even know about it.

When Will got here, he came to church with us. He began to see what God can do, but there was still a part of him that wouldn't surrender. I say that word surrender because that is the word God gave me for him from the very beginning.

In order to surrender you have to have nothing left...no way out. This past Saturday was that day for Will.

The truck that he drove down here in was not in his name and by God's will not his to keep. Saturday morning Will gets stopped and they take the truck away...but that is all. The report said "seize the truck, but do not press charges" The police had never seen anything like that. They were dealing with God here.

So Will is on foot. I give him a ride home and tell him that God is God in the good times and the bad and that if he wanted help he was going to have to get real with himself and others.

Saturday night Will did not know where to turn, so he turned to the only thing he knew...alcohol. He was at rock bottom...even so far as to make sure his life insurance was paid.

God was still working...He had to get Will exactly where He needed to be able to hear Him.

I picked Will up for church on Sunday morning. He didn't want to come, but he did. I had to be at church early for a class and I told Will to hang around until the prayer fellowship. He said he was going to get breakfast. He walked all the way to Albertsons...that is a long stinkin way!!

On the way back to church, he still did not want to go and he started to think he would be late. Not coincidently, he is wearing the VBS shirt and a couple passing by him recognize it and stop to ask if he wants a ride.

He makes it back to church four minutes early.

We sit down in service and it could not have been more perfect. The message was all about God's love and it doesn't matter what is going on in life and where you are at, you can receive that love. All through the service I know I was shaking and feeling pretty sick to my stomach, so I can only imagine what he was feeling (actually I can...been there done that!!)

The invitation began, I had been praying for the song "I need you Jesus" and that was the first song. But it wasn't until they played "I SURRENDER ALL" that Will left my side and went to Butch. I hit the ground and several of us started praying hard for him.

At this point Will is sobbing and telling Pastor Butch that he can't do it anymore and that he wanted to get saved. Pastor Butch asked him if he believed that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and was raised on the third day. Will said "with all of my heart". He turned and knelt at the altar, he said it was also because he could not walk. He told God "It is not me anymore, it is all You".

God is so sweet.

When he came back and sat down he told me what happened. I just hugged his neck and said "Thank You Jesus" and we cried.

Will said from that very moment everything looked different and felt different. He knows he has a rough road ahead but he also knows that he is ok because he has Jesus.

He shared a story with us last night. He was reading in Mark 4:1-9, the parable of the sower. He said that his whole life his seeds have been scattered on hard ground, not able to take root or grow. When he first got here, his seeds were scattered on rocky ground, they sprouted up but did not last long. As of June 10, 2007, Will's seeds are planted on good soil.

Praise God for good soil.