Stories Of Goodness And Providence

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Ryan&Amber2013

Puritan Board Senior
So, I thought it would be really neat if we shared some stories of God's goodness and providence in our lives. Hearing them always encourages me.

As for me, I would say hands down that my conversion was incredible. I went from growing up in a godless home, being broken, sinful, and in complete despair in my late teens, to what seemed to be overnight, a complete change towards God and all things good. No one even shared the gospel with me at that point, I was just changed and led to Him.

Another time, I was done with college and had no career yet because no one would hire me because a lack of experience. At the current job I had, I wasn't making much and the people I worked with made work terrible. I remember seeking God on my knees for hours a day, and within a few weeks I had a job in a new career that I now love.

Thanks be to God's care and goodness! What are some of your stories? I'm sure you have some good ones.
 
During over 35 years of marriage there have been not a few times I or my wife considered something a hindrance, only to be shown much later what a blessing things turned out to be.

For example, when I was laid off from work in 2004, I decided I would start my own consultancy and work from home. It was (and is) painful for the both of us, especially when work was scarce and money even scarcer (as it is today). My wife was overcome with illnesses leaving her bedridden less than a year (2005) into this endeavor. This has required me to be near her 24/7 as her primary care-giver.

But as providence would have it, I was working from home, no longer traveling the world 4-6 months of every year while working at Intel Corp. What was viewed as a hard providence of God actually became a blessing for me and my wife over the past thirteen years.
 
During over 35 years of marriage there have been not a few times I or my wife considered something a hindrance, only to be shown much later what a blessing things turned out to be.
Patrick, as I read your post I could not help but remember the words of old Jacob in Genesis 42:36: "You have bereaved me: Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you want to take Benjamin. All these things are against me!"

We are often so much like ole Jacob! The very things he declared to be against him were all working gloriously in the providence of God FOR him! God was in the details and he didn't even know it! May God be pleased to deliver us all from such a short-sighted view of life! How often have we looked back and declared with the same patriarch, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it!" (Genesis 28:16).
 
Having been married as a man to a girl named Tina for the past 36 I see how Our Lord has used her to make me a better man being conformed in to the likeness of Jesus. Number one being how she introduced me into true protestant thinking. Now make no mistake I was a Christian way before I went to a baptist church (I was a former RC), and understood more fully how faith alone is the key to Christian life and living. What is interesting is that I am way more protestant than my dear wife Tina, and being such I have to remember that Out Lord works in mysterious ways even when a person is in a church that they ought not to be in.
 
Where do I start...more to the point...where do I stop? :) The Lord has spared me from well deserved consequences in this world as he has saved me from Hell in the next. Despite my efforts he's provided for and blessed my family. We are well loved by our church family. Many of our biological family members are not believers and I work where very few people share my beliefs but I realize that is where God wants us to be.
 
Two of the things I greatly struggled with as a young believer was assurance of faith and the lack of a reference for a good father figure to relate to a God the father. So, with a mixed bag of a religious heritage growing up, I genuinely wanted to believe in Christ, but I felt just like Nicodemus, "But how can I be saved?" and did not find very sufficient answers and felt very anxious as a young girl through my teenage years. It really is by the grace of God, through the providence of him bringing me into healthy relationships and communities even despite making unhealthy choices, and bringing me to greater understanding of his love and grace. I would be remiss to not to mention that being married to a caring, loving, Godly man has been one of the single best decisions I have ever made in my life, that I know was God ordained. For a young woman who struggled with identity both in Christ's family and that of my earthly lineage, it astounds me that God brought me into a union that is so unlike anything I have ever known. Our Savior meets the needs of the body and soul as he brought me into an assurance of myself in relation to another, and myself in relation to Him. I know not everyone can say this about their relationship, because I know there are difficulties, but by the grace of God, despite growing up in an atmosphere with one of the most difficult marriages as example, it's incredible that I feel I have been blessed with what may be the easiest marriage ever! It's astounding, and I know none of it is by my own hand, because I certainly had no place to start. Makes me cry just thinking about it. God really is so good.
 
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