This letter from Laine stood out to me in reading over her writings since finding out she is in hospice. It’s about her childhood and is a beautiful picture of a wife winning her husband back after being transformed by Jesus Christ. Read it and be blessed!

Dear Sisters,

“Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.'” Hebrews 13:5

There was a time in my life when I was homeless. My parents had been in the middle of a bitter divorce when the LORD miraculously healed their marriage. However, the ravages of the divorce proceedings took much of what we had in N.H. What we had was a lot in the world’s eyes. My parents had a beautiful  two story home with a built in bar and rotisserie along with a built in aquarium and fountain between two spacious living rooms. They had a big, black Cadillac. They had a beautiful cabin cruiser boat with a driving deck on top. My younger brother and I attended a private school. My father had two high paying jobs. By the world’s standards, we had it all.

Then my parents started to have trouble in their marriage. The trouble lasted for three years with my father leaving and coming back and leaving again. Finally, he left for good. I remember my mother breaking every one of our dishes in the corner cabinet out of sheer frustration. I remember my father begging her to open the door very early one morning with my brother and I crying beside her. She resolutely kept the curtain shut and the door firmly locked. I remember my mother stealing the Cadillac from my father’s work late one night (my father had disabled it) and having it impounded for it was registered in her name. I remember my dad getting the worse divorce lawyer in town who was known for his cruelty. The man lived up to his name in my parent’s divorce proceedings.

I remember my mother tearing up her wedding picture and packing my father’s belongings while leaving them on my grandmother’s front lawn with the destroyed picture on top. I remember my mother throwing her wedding rings in the kitchen trash and me digging for them at my father’s insistence after she left the room. I remember the lights being turned off when my father didn’t pay the electrical bill, and my grandmother bringing us a casserole and candles for dinner. I remember my mother going to work as an Avon lady after being a homemaker all my life. I remember the Cadillac being replaced with a yellow Volkswagen bug that didn’t start very well and had no heat in freezing temperatures.

I remember my mother giving me homemade doll clothes one Christmas while my father brought in box after box of beautifully wrapped large gifts for us kids. I remember all our belongings being sold from room to room. The vacuum went for one dollar. I remember my brother suffering silently but revealing it through constant physical problems. I remember being given one box to put my things from my room and crying that I might be given a bigger box. I put the handmade doll clothes in the box and still have them to this day. I was eleven years old, and the world was a painful place.

How did it all change? My mother gave her heart fully to Christ. She started crying less and singing more. Every chance we got we were in church. She was always reading her Bible and praying. My mother took people in to help bring in an income. We had a lovely Christian teacher stay with us one semester. We  bicycled and walked through the cemetery reading head stones with my mother for something inexpensive to do. We picked blueberries for days on end during the blueberry season to use in the winter. We prayed every night that my dad might repent, give his life to Christ, and come home. In the mean time, my mother played gospel music very, very loud while singing from the kitchen.

She had a regular Bible study with a missionary woman from church who helped her to speak kindly to my dad. My brother started to get help from a Christian counselor which helped stop some of his physical problems. Where my mom had taken from my dad before, now she gave to him. She gave my dad the boat. She gave my dad the house. She stopped talking to my dad and started writing letters to him. It was easier to express herself in a letter and not get angry. My dad started writing back. The pastor visited my dad  at his work. My dad knew many people were praying for him. One day my dad packed it all up and left the state in his new blue convertible car. He left his two jobs. He left his family. He went as far away from us all as he could. He went from N.H. to California.

My mother trusted God. She was excited to see what God would do. The house was up for sale. “Our future was in His Hands,” she would say, as “The King Is Coming” would sound forth loudly from the stereo. She sent me to a Christian camp for two weeks (paid for by our little church). It was at this camp that I  broke down the last night. My counselor came outside where I had fled and asked me if I would like to give my life to Christ. I nodded “yes” and had a hard time praying with her. God was using the divorce like gold in His Hand.

My father, on the other side of the country, was now selling Kirby vacuums. The vacuum store was across the street from a Gospel preaching church. My father
decided to visit the church because the people coming out of it looked so happy. It wasn’t long before he gave his life to Christ. But he didn’t want to go back  home. He was content right where he was. He was content receiving my mother’s letters and attending his new church. The LORD moved him back when his father was diagnosed with lung cancer. My father led my grandfather to the LORD on his deathbed. He then packed up our family and moved us all to California. All across America he kept telling us about this great church that we were going to attend.

We lived in a Volkswagen van for months and months parked at night at a rest stop just out of town. Then we started sleeping on the floor of the vacuum store once everyone had left after 10:00 p.m. I heard my mother complain only once when she longed for a shower. The next place we lived was with a Christian family that my mother had met at the laundromat next to the vacuum store. They had a daughter that was not nice to me. I remember needing to borrow a dress from her for school. I needed it for pictures. She came and got me out of class that day and told me that she had decided she wanted to wear the dress I had on. I had to go to the restroom with her and switch dresses. It was a very humbling experience to walk back into class with a different dress on.

Again, the LORD was teaching me to be content in the circumstances that He put me in. I learned a lot by watching my mother change from being contentious to being content. Her new attitude affected a big change in my father and a big change in me. My father who had previously held two prestigious jobs was now selling vacuums with Godly conviction while taking the best care of us that he could in a Volkswagen van. He built a little cooler in the van for us so that we  might have cold milk. He made two beds in there for my brother and I and for my mother and himself. He made wonderful meals for us in a pressure cooker on top of a little Coleman burner. He made two cat beds for my mom’s much loved cats. He played Christian music for us from a stereo he rigged up between the two front seats. “The King Is Coming” still sounded forth loudly from the stereo. He waited patiently while my mother went to the rest stop bathrooms to wash and curl her hair or to walk her cats on the grass. He tried to find the safest place for us to spend the night. He pulled a tiny trailer behind us which housed my beloved box from my room. And he took us faithfully to his much loved Gospel preaching church.

We had a lot of laughs and fun in our van. Things were pleasantly different between my mom and dad and getting better all the time. I remember my mom and I laughing when a boy invited me to the seventh grade dance. We laughed because we wondered where he would find our van parked to pick me up. I  remember my brother asking my father over and over if he was going to leave again and my father gently assuring him that he wasn’t. My brother soon returned to his jovial boyhood self. The LORD is awesome. The LORD is awesome. Not one thing in my life has He wasted. It is all used for His Perfect Will and His Glory. The pain. The joys. He is our awesome, awesome God.

Now my parents live next door to me. I am very close to both of them. They are very close to my husband, my children, and my in-laws. We call them “Missionaries on Wheels” for they spend six months out of the year in their motor home traveling around America and Mexico. Whoever they touch, His Presence has been known and shown. My mother is a prayer warrior with much faith. My father has the gift of helps and has given so much to many people. This year they helped build two churches in Mexico sometimes using only a tuna can to dig through the rubble. They are an incredible team. We still attend my dad’s Gospel preaching church. Truly my parents are God’s gift to me. Am I crying? You bet.

Love,
Laine

Oh, and the ripped wedding picture is now taped together and pasted back in my parent’s wedding album. The Father used His Insoluble Glue: Jesus Christ Our LORD. When I look at the mended picture, I see the power of the Living God. Strength perfected in weakness.

“I love you, LORD, my strength.”
Psalms 18:1

***I just realized that I know the Gospel preaching church they attend! My husband’s brother has attended the same church for many years. Laine and her family live only about an hour south of us. I would have loved meeting her but it just wasn’t supposed to be. I will have eternity to spend time with her. We have such great hope!

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