My Testimony

I met my husband in 1963, when he was stationed at Quantico, Virginia. We got married the following year. Two years later, my husband received an unaccompanied overseas tour to Okinawa for eleven months. During this time, I worked for several insurance companies. Upon his return, we moved to Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina. I started working in the Federal government in September 1968, as a GS-2, Clerk Typist for the U. S. Department of Navy. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to work my way up a career ladder in Human Resources in spite of his career duty station changing approximately every eighteen months. Most of my experience was as an Equal Employment Opportunity Specialist; however, I did hold several Personnel Staffing/Management positions before retiring in April 1995.

For the first eighteen years of my marriage, I was not attending church. I was busy being a military wife with all the social benefits. My husband and I spent a lot of time entertaining and partying. I began feeling guilty on Sunday morning watching my little girl sitting in front of the TV looking at cartoons, waiting for mommy or daddy to get up and give her some breakfast. I said to my husband, “Neither you nor I was sitting at home watching TV on Sunday morning. We were in Sunday School.” I asked him how could she ever make a right choice (between good and evil) if she’s never exposed to the right way? As a result of that conversation, I started getting her up on Sunday morning and taking her to Sunday school. I would drop her off, go back home, and her daddy would pick her up. This went on for several months.

Then my husband had to go away to school for three months. I became very depressed and went to talk to a chaplain on base. My life was so routine. Day in and day out, I knew what I was going to do from the time I got up in the morning to the time I went to bed. The chaplain told me that the Sunday school secretary was leaving and asked me if I would take over her responsibilities. Well, God has a way of drawing us back into the fold. I became active in the Sunday school, and one of my duties was to change the Sunday school enrollment information in the main sanctuary every week. I could never go put the information up and leave; I found myself, week after week, wanting to stay for service. This went on until we received orders in 1969, to the Marine Corps Finance Center, Kansas City, Missouri.

My son was born there in August 1970. We stayed in Kansas City until my husband received another unaccompanied tour to Okinawa in 1973. The kids and I returned to the east coast (Washington, DC). When my husband returned from overseas this time, we moved back to Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point, North Carolina, and remained there until 1976, when we moved back to Washington, DC. My husband was stationed at Headquarters Marine Corps in Arlington, Virginia where he retired with thirty years of service in 1985.

When I returned home in 1976, I started attending the church were I was born and raised. I experienced my new birth in 1982. I will never forget that Sunday morning. I went to the altar that day broken after hearing a message on how sin was like quicksand. When you dabble in sin, it’s like putting your toe in quicksand and before you know it, you’re consumed in it. That message pricked my heart and I found myself at the altar weeping. At that time, I didn’t know that what I was doing was in line with the Word of God. My heart was sorry for what I had done, and I cried out to the Lord asking Him to forgive me and to be Lord of my life. I wanted Him to take control of my life and make me the person He wanted me to be. He did just that. Instantly, everything around me was beautiful. Trees I watched all my life were suddenly so beautiful. The birds were singing so beautifully. It was like I was seeing the beauty of God’s creation for the first time in my life.

My husband and I soon started to grow apart. His drinking increased day by day. In the Fall of 1982, God opened my eyes to a biblical principle that immediately changed my view concerning my marriage and, ultimately, changed my life. Things were not going well and I wanted the marriage to end. I felt it was not God’s best for me and He loved me too much to let me suffer.

One night, I was led by the Spirit of God to attend a Bible study at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC. The discussion that night was on marriage and divorce. I went there with a big attitude and I was negative about everything. The one question that plagued my heart was, “Why would God require two people to stay together when they are not getting along?” I asked the question over and over again, but I wasn’t getting an answer – at least one I wanted to hear. A young lady slipped me a note which read, “Husband will be won by your submission. Learning to walk in God’s love brings you into submission. Claim the promise of 1 Peter 3:1.” I went home that night, looked up and read that Scripture and it hit my spirit like a ton of bricks. I knew the Spirit of the Lord was speaking to me. Even though the Scripture read, “…may without the word be won,” I knew the lady’s note to me which read, “will be won,” was a direct word for me from the Lord, and I chose to believe God that my husband would be won by my submission. I did not know the lady who wrote the note. That was my first time seeing her and I never saw her again. I believe she was an angel sent by God with a message specifically for me.

Many times through the years when I felt defeated and wanted to give up, I would read that note which I still have in my Bible today. That note gave me hope when I became weary in well doing, and God’s grace enabled me to endure the difficult times patiently, one day at a time.

In 1985, I became sick and was hospitalized for nearly a month. The doctors ran test after test on me but couldn’t determine what was causing the pain in my right arm. I was finally diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. A friend of mine visited me in the hospital and told me she wanted me to go someplace with her on a Friday night, whenever I got out of the hospital. That place turned out to be the Jesus Bible Ministry (JBM). JBM was founded by Sister Gail Addison. The group met every Friday night for praise and worship and Bible Study. This is where I first received the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. This was the first ministry I had ever been involved in where all of the gifts were in operation.

I was really going through a difficult period of my life during this time. My husband and I were rapidly growing apart. The closer I got to God, the more the enemy would rise up in him. I soon realized I was in spiritual warfare. Sister Gail was the one who helped me through that period. Sitting under her teaching week after week caused me to grow mightily. The Godly counseling she provided is what sustained me during the rough times. The thing I remember most about Sister Gail is that she would never let me talk about my husband or the problem. Whenever I was upset and wanted to focus on the problem and all of the wrong things my husband was doing, Sister Gail would not allow it and would calmly ask, “Well, Veronica, what is God saying to you?” It wasn’t long before I realized I never gave it a thought. That simple question would always get my focus back on God.

I was called in the ministry and went forth in 1986. During this time I was serving on the Missionary Board in my home church. I was also teaching the adult Sunday school class, and I sang in the church choir. My pastor spoke to me and another minister about going to Bible school. I had been going to the Sunday evening evangelistic service at the National Church of God, and I picked up some literature about the Ministerial Internship Program (MIP). We both decided to register in the 1988, Fall semester. MIP was a two year program, and I did not know when I started that I would be a member of the National Church of God when I graduated. I completed Advanced MIP and enrolled in the National Bible College where I received my Associates Degree in Biblical Studies in May 1996. In September 1996, I was led by the Spirit of the Lord to attend Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I finished their two-year program in May 1998.

Presently, I am a member of National Church of God in Fort Washington, Maryland. I was unchurched for approximately eight months prior to becoming a member. During this time, I visited several churches in the neighborhood, but I found my self at National more than anyplace else I’d visited. On Mother’s Day in 1990, sitting on the parking lot at National, I asked the Lord if this was the church I was to join. If so, I needed to know beyond a shadow of doubt. National was so much larger than my home church, and I didn’t know a soul there. That morning, after Bishop T. L. Lowery finished preaching, he said, “…somebody has been coming here and you’re trying to decide whether or not you should join this church. Well, the Lord is telling me, today is the day you need to join up here with us.” When I heard that I starting weeping and walking. Before I knew it I was down the aisle and standing up front in that big church. I knew it was God. I joined on Sunday and on Tuesday night I was at the Spirit Choir’s rehearsal, ready to join. My church has been a real blessing to me. The love that was extended to me was beyond measure.

In September 1992, my husband went home to be with the Lord. His death was sudden, and it seemed that everything I had hoped for was gone. I held onto a dream I once had of seeing my husband standing at the front of a little church giving his life to Christ. That had not happened, but many events had taken place that let me know God was speaking to his heart. One of the pastors at National told me to sit down after the funeral and think of all the things my husband said and did the last few months of his life, and God was going to show me how He prepared my husband for his separation. I did just that, and the following is what the Lord brought to my remembrance:

• My husband had several dreams when he would wake up in tears. Once he told me he dreamt he was being judged, and he wanted to correct things but couldn’t. He asked what it meant. I told him how I thought it would be on Judgment Day when we stand before God. He awoke crying another time. He said he dreamt he was in a hospital, and they were taking him to the morgue, but he couldn’t tell them he wasn’t dead.

• One Sunday morning as I was preparing to go to church, my husband came in from the store crying and shaking all over. As I began to reach out to calm him, the Holy Spirit quickened my spirit letting me know He was working. When he calmed down, I asked him what happened. He said he was in the store and the cashier said “Good morning.” He said his response was, “What’s so good about it?” Then the cashier started preaching. He left and as he was driving up the hill home, he broke down and started crying uncontrollably. I told him that God was knocking at the door of his heart, and that he wanted to come into his heart and be Lord of his life. He would not force His way in, but he would have to invite Him in by praying the sinner’s prayer. He wouldn’t let me lead him in the sinner’s prayer, but I made sure he knew what to say and told him he could talk to God the same way he talked to me or anyone else.

• He attended the church's 10th Anniversary Celebration and a friend of mine sat behind him in service. I was in the choir and she said he cried the whole service. He went home and told all our neighbors about the service. He talked about how we hold our hands up a lot and sing the same chorus over and over again. He also talked about a young couple who went about praying for others after Pastor Lowery told all of the holy ghost filled saints to pray for those who raised their hands for prayer.

• Six months prior to his death he lost a close friend of his. He took it very hard and wanted me to go to the funeral with him.

• Three months prior to his death, I lost my father. My cousin and I were rehearsing a song “Nearer My God To Thee” to sing at my father’s funeral. My husband came to the room crying, and told us he had never heard that song sung that way before.

• As my husband was folding the programs for my father’s funeral, he kept admiring the layout and content. He stated how swell it was and that he was going out in style.

• There was such an urgency to complete projects around the house. He was building a shed out back, and he had all of the windows and doors of our home replaced. He had a beautiful garden that year, and canned more vegetables than the two of us needed. He was also planning to convert our heating system from oil to gas.

• A few weeks before his passing, he picked me up from work and was sharing with me a study he had read in the paper. It said that men usually die within a week of their birthday, and men cannot survive the death of their spouse like women, unless they remarry. Jokingly, he said to me, “So when you die, I’m, going to get married right away.” I told him, when he dies, I’ll survive. His birthday was September 23rd and he died on September 29th.

• He talked my son into getting out of the Army. He came home two weeks prior to his father’s death.

• The weekend before his passing, we went to Cherry Point, North Carolina to attend a friend’s retirement ceremony. My son was supposed to go, but changed his mind at the last minute. I know now, that time was for my husband and I. Driving down, he asked me if I wanted to listen to my tapes (Christian preaching and singing). This shocked me because usually, I’d have to wait until he went to sleep. We listened to gospel tapes all the way to North Carolina and back. We rode all over the base reminiscing, and visited a couple of friends who still lived in the area. It was a memorable weekend. When we returned on Monday, he called a meeting with my son and I. He told my son he was going to help him prepare a resume, and wanted him to actively seek employment and let me help him get out of debt. He passed early Tuesday morning, peacefully, in his sleep.

Out of my experience of being unequally yoked, God birthed in me a ministry, Sara’s Daughters. It is my hope and purpose to be an asset to the local church in ministering to those living with unsaved loved ones. God has given me a unique gift to minister to the unequally yoked. Why? Because I am an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity; and I have given myself wholly to this gift.

WIVES, TAKE YOUR RIGHTFUL POSITION

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