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This is my story of how God provided a computer for me so I could write on the web.  Who ever heard of a computer in 1940?  How God had it planned for me and prepared me to do it in His timing.
 
When you are sure God has given you a task to do, no matter how unrealistic it may seem to you, hang on to that dream.  It can not fail if God is in it no matter how long it may take.  His timing is perfect.  He has the details all worked out before He gives them to you.

   Since I was about ten years old I have wanted to be a writer.  I had nothing particular in mind except I wanted to be rich and famous.  This is only because I was always ignored and I just wanted to show “them” I could be someone.  I know now I wouldn’t like that life at all.  I like my time, space and privacy. 

   I started to write little mystery stories with “It was a dark and stormy night.  The dogs were barking at midnight at some unseen enemy.”  That’s all the further I got. 

   I was an unhappy child and my parents never wanted to hear what I had to say so I wrote all my frustrations out on paper.  Later I would read them again and realize how silly they were and they ended up in the waste basket.

   From there, I went to writing letters to the boys in the service during World War II.  I was eleven when that broke out for the United States. My brother passed them around to his buddies who never got any mail.  They enjoyed the newsy down home musings of a young girl much like the sister they might have left behind.   I had other pen pals later, even in England.  I think I was born with a pen in my hand.

   In School I loved to write essays for English class.  I even wrote them for my brother when I was in eighth grade and he was a Senior.  He couldn’t be bothered.  He would rather go out with the girls.  His teacher knew I wrote them.  How, I don’t know.  She made him write on the blackboard a hundred times: “I will not let my sister do my homework for me.”

   After I got married, we moved to a dairy farm.  I was bored.  I had the nerve to write to the closest city’s newspaper to ask if I could write some kind of a column for them.  The editor made an appointment with me.  He was kind but said he had all the writers he needed now.  He liked my writing sample and suggested I go to a newspaper office in a smaller country town.  They could use a reporter for the one little farm area where I lived.

   I got the job at five cents a word.    The paper was put out only twice a week.  That wasn’t enough so I asked if I could also cover the little area on the other side of me.  In that place I picked up all the local news at the sheriff’s office.  My two big stories were a mysterious plane crash and a fire.  The editor wanted to handle the fire himself but the firemen wouldn’t give it to him.  They told him he had a good reporter and I should do the story! 

   I’m only saying all this to let you know that a dream that suddenly came true was planned by God early in my life.  Each little thing I did along those lines was training I got for the big event.

   Life began---babies, full time job besides big problems.  My dream was forgotten.  After seventeen hard long years, my husband divorced me and I was thrown out into the hard cruel world.  I was like a babe in the woods.  I can look back and see now that this was also training for what I do today.  God knew all about the hard times I would have to endure. I survived and now I can encourage others never to give up hope no matter how tough it is. 
   
   In 1987 and 1988 I wrote Mini-Sermons, one a week for two years.  I passed out about 100 each week to my customers in a large department store where I was a waitress.  No one tried to stop me so I knew I was in God’s perfect will.  I also wrote poetry and songs.  This was the happiest time in my life until the last few years.

   Sad to say, I back slid for a few years until I retired in 1994.  I moved to a high rise and for five years I did nothing but watch television (actually I had it on just for the noise) and make plastic canvas items. I did not speak or socialize with anyone.   During these long years God walked with me through my life and chastised me for all the wrong paths I had followed especially getting in and out of cults and false teachings.  Proverbs 3:11-12 “My son (daughter, too) despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction; for whom the Lord loves he corrects; even as a father the son in whom he delights.”

   When God was through, He showed me how much He loved me.  I then ventured out into the front rooms ready to mingle with the other tenants who gathered there.  One day I was talking with one woman and told her about the Mini-Sermons and gave her some to read. 

   She was soon moving to Colorado.  I was surprised when she said she was going to get her daughter to put them on the web.  That was a strange concept for me.  I knew nothing about computers and the internet.  She went away and in a few weeks she died.

The idea was planted into my head that I would be writing on the web.  How, when or why I had no inkling but do it I knew without a doubt that I would.

   I had no money for a computer or a web site to begin with.  Technology was way over my head.  I was first tempted with a free state of the art computer.  God said “NO”.  It was offered by a woman who was in a cult.  I passed the test for I refused it.

   I waited for six years, never giving up my faith that it would happen.  I got a letter from my life insurance company.  They were letting others besides the policy owners to buy stock in their company.  They would send me the amount of stock I had accumulated over the years.  I was not even aware that I had any stock.  The check was exactly what I needed to buy a Gateway and a printer!  Can’t outdo God.

   I was excited about being on the internet.  A whole new world was opened up to me.  I looked up different Christian sites.  I discovered they were asking for testimonies.  I sent them to different places.  In a short time, I became the featured author on Club Praise.  They published so many articles and no more.  It is still on the web.   From there I was given the title of leader/director on another site.  It was closed for health reasons.

These first two were amazing to me.  I was like a mouse in a corner so to be given the title of “featured author” was like God calling Gideon “Mighty Warrior”!  As to the second place, I never led or directed anything in my life.  I forget half of the sites I have at least one item on.  More places were opened; God closed some.  I got on Onlinearchive.org.  I was their top writer.  It was closed for awhile.  It is open again!

   A woman suggested I go on www.faithwriters.com .  From their private messenger I am getting offers to write for different online magazines and newspapers and also actual paper ones; this one included!  I had to turn some down.  I can’t handle them all.

   I have no idea where God plans to take me from here but by faith I am ready to go along for the ride.  It is the most exciting thing in the world when you live in the perfect will of God.  “Delight thyself also in the Lord; and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”  These desires are not our selfish desires but the desires He will use to further His Kingdom.

   If you get an idea and think it might be crazy and it won’t go away, stick to it.  God will unfold it to you in His timing and your readiness for it. 

    May God show you the special plans He made just for you.  Never get discouraged no matter what the odds may be.  IT WILL GET DONE.  God bless you in your endeavors.

   UPDATE.  I am now writing for a small Christian newspaper “My Walk With Jesus”.  Next year one of my testimony articles was accepted to be in a woman’s book.  I won’t say anymore until I get and sign the contract in a couple months.  At least these are a start.  Only God knows what He will do next.  It is all so exciting and I am meeting wonderful Christians all over the world in the different forums and all from the comfort of home.  Keep on believing.  God loves you and wants the best for you.


   

Amen sister, God does indeed provide. A beautiful testimony.

Amen LivingByFaith!!

Sister, I love to hear about how God works in our lives. Some people on the forum might not know that you are 75 years YOUNG. We do need to listen and watch for the calling of God. If HE sends us, HE will equip us regardless of how young or old we are. Please, I'm not trying to say that you are old, but I do think that you should slow down just a little bit in 30 or 40 years.  :D  I mainly wanted the younger people to think about the challenge you took by faith in answering the calling of God.

I've enjoyed all of your posts, and I will pray for your writing ministry. From reading your posts, I know that you will bring Glory to God, and I hope it will bring you joy for many years to come.

Love In Christ,
Tom

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 NASB  Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.

>:(  Hey blackeyedpeas, you'll get a black eye telling me to slow down in 30 or 40 years.  I'm just getting started---in high gear.  Moses was 70 when he was called. 
I expect to live to 100 at least if God doesn't take us all home sooner.  So I got lots to do before that happens.

Did you read "Your Old Men shall dreams dreams?  God promised me healing in all areas---physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. I'm in pretty good shape now (for the shape I'm in) in the physical and emotional.  I have testimonies about that too how God continues in my healing.  No more medicine, lost 25 pounds in a year.  An email friend helped me to get turned completely around from negative to positive in just 2 years. 

Now God is working on turning my mind inside out to dump out my old way of thinking.  That's a toughie. For an example.  I always tell people I was backward most of my life.  Lately God has me running into people I knew way back when before television.

In our reminiscences I remind them how back ward I was. They laugh heartily---"You?  Backward?"  All these years I believed it.  Even my kids don't think I was backward from some things I wrote as memoirs for them. 

Is it backward to be secretary of a magazine campaign and march into the principals office and sell him 2 subscriptions?  How about going to another town and trying out for a play?  I didn't get a part but I tried. You get the picture.

My Dad told me I was stupid and crazy and couldn't do anything right.  I believed him.  Any how they are all included in other testimonies about how God changed me into the new person He promised me to become.

I think it is time to put the follow ups on this forum.  The promise wasn't just for me but for all God's children---even you! ::)  I didn't have a sense of humor before either.  I was a sad sack.  I laugh and smile a LOT NOW.   ;D :)

I'm on a roll so I'll add this.  I went to my daughter's church today to hear a special southern gospel group.  After the service my grand daughter and her boyfriend went to a beginner's class to see if they wanted to join the church.

They had donuts and coffee for us before that started.  I sat beside a woman.  I asked where I should wait while they were in the meeting.  My daughter and her husband went to the meeting too.  The woman is a 5th grade Sunday School teacher and invited me to sit in.  Sure, why not.  I even learned something from a different perspective. 

Those kids were so well behaved and eager to learn from the Bible.  She gave them cards with the salvation message on them.  On the back they were to sign if they accepted Jesus as their Lord.  They all signed and then had the teacher to witness it.  It was beautiful to see.  Only God knows who was really sincere.  I like to believe they all were.

Oh, boy!  I get wound up and don't know when to stop.  God bless you.  I pray I can help people who have gone through some things I have.  I need your prayers and anyone else who will pray for me.  Jesus is the only way.

Hello LivingByFaith,

 :D  I stand corrected. What I should have said is consider that you are middle-aged in 30 or 40 years.

You are a very gifted writer, and there is no doubt in my mind at all that God gives us many talents to use for His Glory. I give thanks that Christians still have many sources for good and clean literature that honors God. I also give thanks that we live in a part of the world where people can possess and use Christian literature without fear of being beat up, tortured, imprisoned, or killed. I think that many of us take our freedoms for granted and don't appreciate them until we read something like Voice of the Martyrs.

Sister, I'll simply say that I pray that God richly blesses you in your ministry.

Love In Christ,
Tom

Colossians 2:2 NASB  that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself,