(Comments by Joan Boney)
God has set everything before us. All we have to do is enter in.
God even choses the times we live on this earth and the exact places we live here.
Acts 17:26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
So if we happen to think that we fit better in another century, we are wrong and need to reconstruct our thinking, for God set us in the exact years that we live on this earth and "the bounds of our habitations", where we live.
Even though I hate this present decade and much prefer the 1940's because of the morality of the world, I know this is exactly where I need to be to deliver the warnings of God concerning the coming great tribulation and the return of Jesus and the taking of the church into the new heaven and the new earth.
And consider the fact that we have Internet now where I have use of blog and podcasts for the purpose of delivering messages all over this world to the church instantly!
Hebrews 3:13-14 But exhort one another daily, while it "is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;
By use of Internet, I am able to do this scripture ... "daily" ... on both blog and podcast!
Also I am able to do Hebrews 10:25 but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
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Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
Even when something might at first seem bad to us, we can often look back and see how that very thing accomplished God's purpose for our provision in this present life.
Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery. He was only 17 at the time he was taken into bondage and delivered into Egypt and sold to Potiphar.
God gave Joseph the exact gifts (talents) needed to promote Joseph as he lived in Egypt.
And by the time Joseph was 30 years old, he was appointed to be second only to Pharaoh in Egypt and was the means whereby God would save Jacob and Joseph's brothers from famine. (Gen. 39)
Joseph said: Genesis 50:20 But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.
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God provides for each of us as long as God leaves us on this present earth.
For approximately 18 years, I lived alone in a house in Lubbock, Texas. Our church group was scattered all over the United States because this group came from my previous radio audience which was in cities from the east coast to the west coast.
One woman in our church group had lived in Houston, Texas, and when she retired she moved to Lubbock where I lived, but this turned out to be a problem, for apparently her faith was in me rather than being in God, and I was greatly troubled by her during the 39 years she was with us. Often I prayed during those years that if I needed assisted living and couldn't care for myself that I would not be left in this woman's care.
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I believe God puts HIS desires into our hearts so at some point in time we will realize we have "that" desire but it was really put in our heart by God for it is HIS will for us and HE is going to move us that direction.
The following desires came into my heart sometime during the early months of 2018.
* I no longer wanted to live alone.
* I wanted to live in a smaller space, one bedroom instead of a whole house, and to have all my "stuff" around me.
Unknown to me at that time, this was exactly what was going to happen in a very short time.
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On December 6, 2018, I fell in the hallway of my house in Texas. I broke hip and badly broke my left wrist.
My phone was approximately 6 feet away from where I was lying on the floor.
I started trying to crawl on my good side but it was so painful I stopped. If I didn't reach a phone, I would probably die on that floor since it would be days before a person was due to come to my house.
As I was lying there, God gave me a word by the Holy Spirit. HE brought this to my mind. "You can do this."
So I began to inch my way toward the room where the phone was located.
It took 4 1/2 hours to get to that area, but because of that word I kept working to get there.
When I did reach the area, I pulled on the phone cord to cause the phone to fall off the table but the handset squirted out in another direction and I never saw it again.
A Kindle tablet was under the table, charging. If I could reach the Kindle I could perhaps send email asking for help.
It was about 3 feet away and I did reach the table. It was difficult to send the email but I finally managed to send it to our church group saying, "Help, fallen, send ambulance."
Pam Padgett, in Colorado, did get the email and figured out what had happened and she called the Lubbock Texas police and asked them to send ambulance.
As they began taking me to ambulance and we passed the front door of my house, I heard this from God: "You'll never see this house again."
A new way of life was about to begin for me.
When we know God is in charge of our lives, we can rest in HIM, knowing that HE will work it out for us for good.
From the hospital I managed to put the Texas house up for sale.
I was in hospitals for the next 2 1/2 months.
Before surgery, a nurse came to get me to sign papers naming someone to be in charge of making decisions for me if I was unable to do such. Without any hesitation I said, "Pam Padgett is in charge of me."
Standing there at the time I said this was the woman from our church group who lived in Lubbock. She was shocked and said, "How can Pam be in charge. She doesn't even live here."
I replied, "I don't know how she can be but she is."
(We were in Texas. Pam lived 450-miles away in Colorado.)
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After surgery, I awoke to see that church woman who lived in Lubbock standing at the foot of my hospital bed. She was dressed in a bright red shirt blouse with blue jeans. She just stared at me and then without saying a word, she turned and walked through the wall, disappearing from my room.
I thought I was having an hallucination from the pain medicines.
Approximately two weeks later while I was still in a hospital, this church woman came to my room and sat down and said, "I no longer care about anyone or anything. I don't read Bible or blog."
I replied, "But if you go that way, what is to become of you?"
She said, "I don't want to talk to YOU about this."
At that time, a nurse came into my room. I called to Sandra and asked her not to leave until the nurse finished. She had gone into the bath area in my room.
I saw her sneak out of bath and leave my room. I never saw her again.
She disappeared just like in that vision.
Then I knew that vision was from God showing me what she was going to do.
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I was alone in hospital in Texas. But I knew God would work it out. I didn't know if I would live or die but I was not afraid.
There were times it didn't seem possible for me to be unable to walk and to be alone, but when I felt it was a problem, I just prayed, asking God to help me to get through "that" day, and before I knew it that day had ended and the time had flown by!
Pam Padgett began communicating with the nurses at hospital. Pam sent me a cell phone. She called to tell me she would come on "Tuesday", which was Christmas Day, and drove from Colorado Springs to Lubbock to check on me. She helped me get what I needed at my room in rehabilitation hospital. It was late December.
There was a problem in the first hospital and I needed to find another rehabilitation hospital to which I could be moved. (I couldn't even walk and was taking strong pain medications.) Pam located another hospital (even during these holidays) where I could be moved and she supervised the transfer. I was unable to do anything.
During this time, it was decided I would move to Colorado when I was released from the hospital at the end of February 2019.
I was unable to remember how we decided on this since I was taking so much pain medication at that time, so I asked Pam to tell what she could remember about this decision for me to move from Texas to Colorado.
Here is Pam's report:
When Joan was in the first rehab center, we were talking on the telephone one day. Joan asked if I had ever thought of her moving to Colorado. I told her I had thought briefly a time or two about this, but I didn't think she would ever want to leave Texas.
Joan said she had been thinking of moving to Colorado and thought we should pray about this.
Joan mentioned possibly going to an assisted living center near where I live in Colorado Springs, and we also talked about her moving to the downstairs bedroom that had just been finished at my house.
Although I don't remember us again discussing whether Joan should move here, it became more and more solid in us that she would move here to my house.
(Sometimes God just puts in our minds what we are to do: Hebrews 8:10)
A week or so after we first talked about Joan moving here and that we should pray about this, I went to Lubbock to visit with Joan at the rehab center. One of the women who worked at the rehab center said that Joan had told them that she was moving to Colorado. This woman asked me if that is correct. I told her it was correct, that Joan was moving here.
About 6 months before this happened, I wanted to have a bedroom and bathroom with shower added to the downstairs level of my house. Joan had been given a word from God for me to expand the half-bath to include a shower. This is what I did and I often referred to that bathroom as "Joan's bathroom".
At the time Joan and I talked about her moving here the bedroom was finished downstairs, and bathroom remodel was nearing completion (just needed some finish work and final inspections).
About 6 months before this happened, I wanted to have a bedroom and bathroom with shower added to the downstairs level of my house. Joan had been given a word from God for me to expand the half-bath to include a shower. This is what I did and I often referred to that bathroom as "Joan's bathroom".
At the time Joan and I talked about her moving here the bedroom was finished downstairs, and bathroom remodel was nearing completion (just needed some finish work and final inspections).
It was completely finished by the time Joan was released from the rehab center on February 24, 2019.
I had some fears and concerns before Joan moved here: I had lived by myself for most of my adult life. Would there be a problem having someone else in the house? Would I do things that troubled Joan? Also, I have 2 dogs and 2 cats. Would the dogs' barking annoy Joan?
I turned to God with these concerns and was given and calmed by the following:
Hebrews 13:5 .... for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.
Isaiah 41:10 Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
(It turned out that none of those fears that came to me happened. Joan liked the dogs. Even when they bark they do not trouble her. She finds the dogs to be funny.)
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(Comments by Joan Boney)
Pam flew from Denver to Lubbock, Texas, on February 23, 2019, to help me to fly to Colorado on the following day, the 24.
I still amazes me how well this worked out, apparently for both of us.
Pam does all the technical work for the books on Amazon and for the blog, Jesus Ministries Exhortations.
I had witnessed Pam since 2012 when we began the blog. I saw her turn to God when there was a problem and settle the problem by that which God had shown her to do. She did not depend on me but on God. This was exactly the type of person I knew I could be around.
The church woman in Lubbock was exactly opposite. For example: She called me one day and asked me if I would help her pick out a light fixture for ceiling above her dining room table. I told her I would meet her at the electrical shop.
As I drove to the store, I prayed, "God ... please help us find that light fixture without our having to go all over town to hunt it."
As we opened the door to the store, I saw a light fixture that would work but I didn't want to tell Sandra because I wanted her to find her own fixture for her house.
I sat down at the desk in the store as I waited for her to look at the lighting fixtures.
After about 20 minutes, she came to the desk area and I said, "Did you find a fixture that you like?"
She replied, "No, I didn't."
I then pointed to the fixture I had seen when we came in the front door of the shop, and I said, "That would work."
She looked and then said, "Yes, it would work."
She then looked at it closely and bought it.
After we left the store, I said, "Did you pray before we came to this store?"
In a rather coy way, she replied, "No ... because I knew YOU would."
I think this was her problem and the reason I couldn't work with her. She was depending on me rather than depending on God. Her faith and trust was in me. I hated that pressure.
She is no longer with us, although I did communicate once with her by email after I moved to Colorado.
She apologized for leaving me alone in the hospital in Texas. She said she had no "charity" toward me and she was sorry.
I told her not to worry about it at all. I told her I was glad she left for she had been a burden to me for the past 39 years and I was glad to be free from her.
We cannot follow God as the church, unless each of us are following God and trusting in God.
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When Coronavirus arrived in USA in March, 2020, Pam and I were in excellent financial position for we had consolidated houses and had one house and far less expenses, even in insurance.
In October, 2020, I heard someone on TV asking this question: "Are you better off now than you were before the Coronavirus struck?"
We were both much better off financially. I thought of how God knew what was coming and how HE sat things up for us.
(Several years ago, I felt God was showing me the time would come when people would need to move into houses together rather than keeping separate houses. I thought this would have to do with the economy.)
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Also in January 2020, Pam awoke one morning with the word, "Podcast", strongly in her mind. She reached for her tablet to look this up even before she got out of bed.
I had been praying about going back on radio.
But when Pam told me about Podcasts, I was very interested. This sounded much better to me than radio.
* You were able to develop a Podcast library of teachings which you could not do on radio.
* It was very inexpensive, $100 per year for podcast host.
* The listener could hear the broadcasts any time rather than being restricted to one station and one day and one specific time of day as is radio.
* Each Podcast went over the entire world instantly that day of publication.
Also after Pam had that word, "Podcasts", I had a dream which I believe confirmed our doing Podcasts.
In this dream, there were starving kittens outside my front door. There must have been 30 or so, some at point of death. Also kittens were in my garage.
I asked God what this dream meant and I was reminded of Christians who were starving for Bible truths.
We bought recording equipment and began Podcasts in early February 2020.
Pam handles all the technical work needed to produce the broadcasts.
Living in the same house also makes it much easier to do the work we do on blog and Podcasts.
I can barely operate a computer, while Pam is a retired computer programmer from Fed Ex. She is able to talk with technical people and sort out problems which I would not be able to do. Also when we have to replace our laptops, Pam can read the specifications and help greatly with selections.
Pam has a spiritual gift of helps.
I Corinthians 12:28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
Technically God has assigned both of us to work "in the church".
So it works perfectly!
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I can't walk except with a walker. I'm almost 83 now. Pam brings me biscuit or cereal for breakfast and noon. We usually buy take out food in late afternoon. I'm able to shower without assistance. My clothing is meager, usually housecoats, which Pam has to wash in machine. I rarely leave the house although I'm able now to do so by walker or wheelchair. Pam never bothers me when I am working. We have Walmart delivery service to make things easier.
I'm some extra work for Pam but so far it doesn't seem like it is too much for her.
If I ever decide it to be too much, I can move to assisted living. I have plenty of money to pay for assisted living since house in Texas sold.
I hope this story encourages you concerning trusting in God.
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