Excerpt
I met Barbara when we moved to Shingles Springs, California in 1967. She and her husband were separated and she was raising her son, Steven, on her own while also working at The Red Lion Inn as one of Jim’s waitresses.
One day in February 1967, she invited me out to dinner. While we were enjoying dinner, I mentioned to her how I had never trusted my husband; however, now I had learned to trust him. I guess the reason I had not trusted him was because my first lover lied to me and then jilted me. I became a single parent and was very insecure.
My husband especially admired my hair and how I styled it. I guess he fell in love with my hair. He was proud of my hair because God gave me thick, long and healthy hair. First Corinthians 11:15 says “If a woman has long hair it is a glory to her because her hair is given her instead of a headdress.”
I read the Bible and I started to pray. Later that night I got a strange impression to go to the inn to see my husband. It was around two thirty in the morning and I found him drinking and cuddling with Dean, one of his cocktail waitresses. I was stunned and felt rejected. I immediately turned around and left the restaurant. Jim didn’t come home that night and by the next day I felt very alone so I called upon God.
At that time I had a King James Bible but never read it. When I used to try I could not understand it, therefore, the Word of God was not familiar to me. Being a prodigal daughter I was not interested in spiritual things. I never prayed or went to church so I did not know there were new translations. Not knowing the Bible, I did not know what to read so opened at random.
The first time my Bible opened to the Ten Commandments. I read: “Thou shalt have no gods before me”, so I prayed and meditated and realized I worshipped Jim. Being Greek, he had become a Greek god to me and I was very possessive of him. I asked God to forgive me, but I still worshipped my husband. Jim liked the change in me as I spent much time in the Word. He eventually broke away from Dean and dismissed her from the inn.
Another one of our gods was our car and we purchased a new one every year. That year we decided to buy an MG convertible and it happened to be red. As we were about to close the deal, Jim asked me if he should buy a wooden steering wheel so we bought a wooden steering wheel. As we were driving out of the car lot, my husband turned on the radio and the song was “It is No Secret What God Can Do”. I started to cry and said that this song was composed for me.
Buying new cars every year and the best in clothing and material things kept us broke. I never shopped in thrift stores and never gave to God. Since I repented, that has all changed. Because of my conversion my ears are open to the cry of the poor and hungry.
One day we were out for a drive in Smith Flats. Just as Jim said, “Let’s find a church to go to”, immediately we saw a church on our left side called Calvary Bible Church. It was a surprise to us as in Palm Springs, where we worked in winter, we occasionally attended a church called Calvary Bible Church and the pastor’s name was Jim Smith.
A year earlier, my husband had accepted Christ and prayed the sinner’s prayer at Ollie and Jim Smith’s home in Palm Springs. He never grew spiritually because he looked to me as an example. I was a poor spiritual leader as I’d never read the Bible or prayed. Both my husband and son thought I was a good Christian because I had no bad habits, lived a good life and talked about Jesus.
I loved Jesus and believed what I had heard about Him, but I never knew Him personally. Only God knew my secret sins and they were many and heavy. That is why I love Jesus so much today. Many tears have been shed. The Bible says to clean the inside of the cup as well as the outside. It brings to my mind the story in Luke 7:47 where the woman washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.
The next day I had a desire to go to the church we saw in Smith Flats. I did not know where it was but I trusted Jehovah to get me there. As I was driving, I turned left off the highway and up a hill. I prayed, “But why are you taking me here?” At the top of the hill was a huge ruins and it seemed to me I had seen it before.
I got out of the car and walked through the debris to a flight of stairs overlooking the valley. I prayed, “Lord, I will not turn back and become a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife.” Because I kept returning to my husband, I became as a block of salt to my loved ones, good only for cows to lick.
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