In these days we were attending Faith Community Church in Rockford where my dad was a pastor. During this time I continued writing the book, Amazing Evidence. Late one Saturday I was reading Hand Me Another Brick, by Chuck Swindoll. At one point he said it was important to have a good attitude doing menial jobs. When I read the words, I suddenly felt certain God was speaking to me directly. More specifically, I felt certain that God that had a janitorial type job for me to do at church. It did not sound great to me, but I began to pray earnestly to pray and read my Bible. In doing so it seemed there were confirmations this was true. Though I wasn't excited about it, I surrendered my will and told God I was willing to do whatever he would send my way. The next morning, a co-pastor named Dan Koehler approached me and asked if I would be willing to take on a task that needed to be done at the church.
I immediately said, “Yes! But then I thought, “Oh no, here it is!” I hadn’t even asked what it might be. The task he was referring to was that of putting together and printing the church bulletin each week. Relieved, I told him that I was all prayed up to clean toilets, so I was actually glad that what he had in mind was more appealing. Then, for the next couple of years I found colorful public domain pictures to put on the front, and took pride in printing attractive weekly bulletins. I still have copies of all those bulletins in a couple of notebooks, and enjoy browsing them from time to time, remembering the hard work. It is easy to see that the earliest bulletins were a little rough around the edges, and I suspect God's purpose in this was simply to improve my desktop publishing skills, which have been useful when self-publishing books like this one.
In the same church, there was a husband and wife team named Toby and Sandy who were the youth leaders.
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This became especially significant for our family, because they poured into the lives of two of our sons, Justin and Daniel, even after we moved away. And Justin ended up marrying their daughter Paige, so now we are family!
A broken speedometer
Occasionally my younger brother Keith has asked me to help with various handyman projects. One such task involved cutting and removing a client's large tree stump.
When our chain saws failed to reach the middle, I attempted to pull the stump over with our minivan and a chain. It didn't work, and the jolt at the end of the chain somehow damaged the van's speedometer.
In the end we succeeded in removing the stump, but the speedometer was still dead. Money was tight, and I worried that the lack of a speedometer might lead to a speeding ticket. A few days later, I was reading a shopping flier, and noticed a Garmin GPS with a speed display. I wasn't prepared to buy one, so I began to pray for a Garmin.
Meanwhile, the lack of a working speedometer caused us to drive extra slow. But not to worry, a solution was in the works. Not long after, my brother-in-law called and offered us his old Garmin, as he had just received a new one as a gift. I told him it would be an answer to prayer and explained our need. He dropped it in the mail and in a few more days our problem was solved. Now, I don't know why God didn't just fix the van's speedometer in the first place, but I was grateful for the Garmin, and since then I have never been without a Garmin. .
Guardian angels
Brenda works the night shift, and commutes about thirty miles each way. This has led to three deer encounters in the past twenty years. I credit her guardian angels with keeping her from injury.
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The dash cam image moments before impact.
Her latest encounter provided the most direct evidence yet that God wanted us to know that he sent angels to protect her. It happened late one night. Brenda was driving the Prius to work when a deer crossed in front of the car. Brenda braked hard but still struck it lightly. She promptly called my phone and told me about it. Her voice was shaky and emotional, and I thanked God that she had not been hurt. But there is more to the story.
Brenda did not think she hit the deer, but video from the dash cam suggests otherwise. In the video, Brenda is heard singing along with the radio, a fact she is not proud of.
The song ends, and out of nowhere a deer runs across. As it passes the left front corner of the car you hear a loud
“thump.”
So what does that have to do with an angel you ask?
The very next thing in the video is a female voice that says,
“I love living independently at home, but sometimes I need a little help. That's when it's nice to know I have an angel by my side.” It was a commercial for “Visiting Angels”
caregivers, and it is as though God wanted to let us know that Brenda had an angel by her side!
Before this encounter Brenda also had a couple other deer encounters when she was driving our van. In her first one, she didn't hit the deer – rather it hit her.
It was a big one that first struck the left front fender, 117
then incredibly bounced past the driver's door and struck the van's sliding door. Both the fender and door were seriously damaged, while the driver's door was as good as new! Not so with the deer. It died. But we were thankful Brenda was not hurt.
Afterward, the van was ugly. We drove it for a long time without fixing it. Then one day, apparently God thought it was time to stop procrastinating. As I was driving to work a car went through a stop sign and smashed the driver's door, damaging only that door! I was shaken, but not injured, but now the fender and both doors on that side were trashed.
Thankfully, there was no frame damage. It is as though God has a sense of humor – or that he wanted us to upgrade our image!
The teen girl who hit the van had no insurance, and we didn't make her pay. Who would have believed that the one door she hit had been in perfect condition, while the fender and other door were trashed. But now, we finally got the repairs done. •
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