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Satan thought he'd won....

Genesis 50:20    
But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.

But GOD had other plans!

Our daughter-in-law, Jenny loves to write and is very gifted at doing so, so I asked her to write a testimony of what the Lord has done in her and Jacob's lives.

  • The Testimony
  •  written by Jenny Evans 
  •  2008-10-01

 

“Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; make known among the nations what He has done.

“Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all His wonderful acts.

“Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.

“Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always.”

Psalms 105:1-4

When I was first asked to write this testimony, I was quick to jump on board and readily committed myself to it. However, as I began to think about what I would say and how I should word everything, I found myself putting this project on the back burner as I am prone to do. It wasn’t until this morning (nearly a week after the initial attempt) that I decided to simply share with those of you who read this what God has done for me in my life in His words rather than my own. I’m finding this much easier as I continue to speak.

You see, to fully understand the magnitude of everything that He has done, I will have to tell you the depths of the pit from which I was rescued. I’m not altogether sure how comfortable I am with this, but even as I sit here Words of encouragement fill me and I am made comfortable and unashamed. Isn’t God wonderful???

Jacob and I hadn’t been married very long when we began participating in the recreational use of prescription pain-killers. At first, it started out as an ‘every-so-often’ thing and we didn’t think that it was any big deal as long as we kept our usage under control. Under control? The very idea makes me laugh now. Pretty soon, our habit developed into every weekend, then during the week, and eventually it graduated into full-fledged, every-day addiction. Our method of intake gradually degenerated from just eating a few mild pain-killers to snorting stronger prescriptions to injecting whatever we could find that we could put into a needle, as long as it made us feel good. Everyday. Every single day we would spend all of our free time either looking for drugs or doing them. The only reason we went to work at all was so that we could have money to pay for the drugs.

Our relationship with each other suffered terribly. We would fight all the time over the money and the drugs and even at times when we just weren’t running fast enough from the guilt of it all, we would fight over how badly we wanted to quit. There were times when the fights got physical on both of our parts and when there were things said that make my ears burn and my heart hurt.

Our relationship with our families suffered terribly. We would make and break plans all the time with his family. Mine was so far away at the time, that they were just left completely out of the loop. Anytime we would talk to any of our loved ones, we would assure them that everything was fine. Lies.

Our relationship with God suffered terribly. I would even go so far as to say that our Christian lives were pretty much non-existent at this point.

It got to a point where we were getting evicted from our apartment and all our utilities were being shut off because we had spent all of our money on this new crutch in our lives. I wasn’t even going to work anymore; Jacob only went to keep ourselves from being sick. Oh yes, it had escalated so that Jacob and I were now completely hooked on something that our bodies had stopped producing naturally. Whenever we weren’t high, we were sick. Cold-sweating, body-aching, stomach-heaving sick. We were convinced that we HAD to have our drugs. We had hit the bottom and the devil thought he had us beat. I think that the worst part about all of this was that neither of us is stupid, and we both KNEW that what we were doing was wrong. Satan had us from the very beginning of this mess in believing that we were ever in control. Things had obviously gotten out of control, fast.

It never ceases to amaze me how truly faithful and gracious God is to His people. Jacob and I had both been saved; we knew the logistics of being a born-again Christian. We just hadn’t done a very good job of applying what we believe to how we were living. There was a rock- bottom point where we both knew that we were going to have to give up the illusion that we could do anything about where we were on our own. I love how the Bible gives multiple references of people calling on God in their darkest hours and His movement in their lives. In fact, it makes me rather emotional even now to think about how patiently He was waiting for Jacob and I to throw all of that junk away and just pursue Him in the fashion that He designed us to do. Jacob and I have recommitted our lives to Christ. We have confessed our sins to Him and we stand strong in the knowledge that He has made us clean. We acknowledge that Satan has absolutely no power over us and that he’s a feisty little bugger.

Jacob and I have a wonderful relationship now. We are very loving with and supportive of each other. He is the cat’s meow in my book. Don’t let him see that because we all know how he feels about cats.

Our relationship with our families is improving. It feels wonderful to be able to talk to Mother E or Mom S without hearing the strain of worry and stress in their voice. I would much rather hear the smiles they carry with them now when they hear from either of us.

All of this has been made possible because God stepped in our situation and finally said “Enough is enough”. He took us back and He’s showing us how to walk in His will. We’ve been attending a church that I grew up in, we have daily devotions with each other, and we’ve even witnessed to another young married couple that was going through the same thing.

Praise God for all the wonderful things He has done!!!