A personal testimony

Mishpocah, I must share a personal testimony with you that directly concerns one of the passages in this week’s Torah portion – something ADONAI did in my life back in the Fall of 1996, approximately a year and a half after I “got saved” in a little Baptist church in Missouri. The passage was this:

Deuteronomy 1:5 There, beyond the Yarden, in the land of Mo'av, Moshe took it upon himself to expound this Torah and said: 6 "ADONAI spoke to us in Horev. He said, 'You have lived long enough by this mountain”…. (CJB)

The reason I mention this passage is because this is the same passage He used to get me to move to Colorado Springs from Seymour, Missouri way back in 1996! You see, approximately a year after the Ruach got a hold of me at the ripe ol’ age of 44, I started “hearing” God’s voice telling me to “move to Colorado Springs!” For at least six months, that phrase was the first thought in my head every morning and my last thought before falling asleep every night.

While I was sure it was the Ruach’s prompting, I couldn’t believe that God would tell me to move to Colorado Springs, because that was the place where my adoptive father (my mother’s new husband who brought us to the US from Germany) started seriously sexually abusing me when I was only 10 years old … and I do mean SERIOUSLY … whenever he got the chance - since my mother worked as a waitress during the evening hours.

Regardless, I kept feeling the Ruach nudging me (very insistently) to move to Colorado Springs. Oh my gosh, it was NERVE WRACKING and I honestly thought I might be cracking up, because I could NOT get it out of my head! Of course, I did my level best to ignore that “voice”; however, one day, while doing my daily Bible studies (reading my way though the Bible for the first time in my life), I “happened upon” a passage that “jumped out at me” as if it had been written just for me!

That passage was the one I mentioned above. 'You have lived long enough by this mountain…MOVE to Colorado Springs!”

I was stunned and frankly, quite angry, because I knew He KNEW what had happened to me in Colorado Springs. I remember myself at 10 years old BEGGING Him to stop my father, but He never did. How dare He do this to me, now? WHY would He want to?

HOW COULD HE DO THIS TO ME?

Well, okay, by that time I had learned enough about God and the Bible to understand that when God speaks, you DO – whether you like it, or not. There were plenty of examples in Scripture.

Still, I was truly upset and so, gripped by anger, I raised my eyes upward and yelled out loud: “Okay, FINE! I’ll move to Colorado Springs! I’ll stay for a year, but if I don’t like there, I’m moving back HERE because that’s where all my friends are!”

And so I did. I sold all my possessions, put my house up for sale, and moved to Colorado Springs, not knowing what lay ahead.

Well, all that seemed to lay ahead was a year of total disappointment, loneliness, Bible studies, trying to find a “good Baptist church” like my pastor demanded, cleaning houses to make ends meet, and working as a part-time receptionist until I could land a job in my career field of journalism. The cost of living in Colorado is much higher than in Missouri, and I could not long survive solely on my military retirement.

Time went on, people weren’t all that friendly here, and I couldn’t seem to make any new friends, and so, by the end of that first year , I was still cleaning houses and working as a receptionist. I had found a “good Baptist church,” but kept feeling “something very important was missing in the church” – but in those days, I had no clue what it might be. (YHWH didn’t reveal Torah to me until approximately six months later.) I wasn’t happy with ANYTHING.

And so, one Sunday, while crying in my car after church, I again became angry and yelled at God to let Him know I was DONE with this and going back home to Missouri. “I’ve done as you asked, and NOTHING has happened here after a whole, entire YEAR, so I obviously didn’t hear You correctly!” I yelled. “So, tomorrow morning, I plan on packing and moving back to Missouri, because I can’t do this anymore!”

Well, amazingly, on Monday morning, I got a call from the owner of the Colorado Springs Business Journal, informing me I had been selected to become their Associate Editor, effective immediately….

Hmmm. Okay. So, I stayed.

While I was still a new believer (a total of two and a half years at the time), I was smart enough to realize that YHWH had a sense of humor and He had taught me a great lesson: TRUST HIM and don’t ever test or try to make deals with Him when He is clearly trying to DO something in your life! (Remember, I had told Him I would move to Colorado Springs “for a year” and if I didn’t like it, I was going to return to Missouri….

Well, He had let me make my “deal” and allowed me to wait exactly a year before FINALLY revealing His grand plan for me! All my whining and fretting and sweating and getting nothing much accomplished (except to finish the year-long Bible study that my pastor had given me before I left Missouri) had been for naught. I could have saved myself a whole lot of trouble by simply TRUSTING Him to do what needed to be done for HIS Glory.

Believe me, that is exactly what I’ve done, ever since – and my life has been full of blessings, ever since!