Category: Love

Because of God and His Word, I am able to love big. I have been able to help my family members in times of discouragement. Many times have I brightened my mother’s day on the phone when she was in a down­hearted state of mind. It thrills me to leave others better than I find them. I was the first one to tell my family members, “I love you.” Now, they are comfortable saying, “I love you,” out loud too.

One time, my brother and sister-in-law from Ohio came to visit my husband and me in Florida, and we were going to go together on a cruise for the first time out of Miami (a three-hour trip from our home). Everyone had their ID with them. Three of us had our passports, and my sister-in-law had an alternate form of acceptable ID.

At the port, my sister-in-law was the final one of us to check in. She did not know that the law had just changed a month before, and her form of ID was no longer acceptable. Need I say any more? We were not going on that cruise. She felt so low, thinking that she had been the cause of the cancellation. She began to cry right there in the terminal. I just knew where my brother’s mind was tempted to go at this point—anger at his wife.

I immediately wrapped her in my arms and told her it was alright. We would just alter our vacation plans and go on the cruise again in a year or two. It took a little while for her to calm down, but I just kept comforting her, and my husband reinforced the effort. My brother, who could have really come down on her, saw that heart of love we showed her and was not inflamed towards her. Actually, he stayed pretty quiet for awhile and encouraged her later as well.

Had I not had the knowledge and wisdom of God’s Word, I am sure I would have responded according to the world’s way. But growing in God’s Word for many years has enabled me to love big and help others.

My involvement in The Way Ministry was not only life changing but life saving! Because of the Word I learned in this ministry, I had a purpose for living again. I was looking for love but was afraid I would be hurt. I John 4:18 arrested my attention, and I wanted God’s love in my life and to get rid of the fear. I was looking to give, but I had nothing to give. I wanted to be sure of what I believed, but I had nothing solid I could say was true—only other people’s different opinions.

It wasn’t until I went on our ministry’s outreach program that I consistently applied the principles I was learning, and I saw these changes come to pass in my life. The outreach program was for one year. I moved to a place I did not know with others I did not know. I remember talking to God and saying something like, “God, I’ll go anywhere but no little Podunk town. I need a city with some big stores to shop in.” (I was from New York.) Ha! We were sent to a country town, population 1,243! That would teach me. All we had was a hardware store. But God had bigger ideas than shopping.

Well, in a big city you can get lost pretty easily, but in a little town you live in a fishbowl. In other words, everyone sees your life and gets to know you pretty quickly. Well, we held forth the Word to everyone in that little town—three times over. And after the initial shock of these “outsiders” invading their town, people began to take notice of the way we lived. We made friends with folks and eventually ran a Foundational Class in our home. We saw that these people who were pretty set in their ways were changing! But our time there was not without great challenges.

One day we were visiting the home of Tim, one of the students. We were talking out by the barn. A car drove into the driveway to where we were talking, and a man came out, very red faced and upset. He walked right up to me and asked what we were doing there. I was stunned at first but remained calm. He said he was the minister at the church in town. Then he pointed his index finger right under my chin and said, “You wouldn’t like it if I went into your garden and picked your fruit, would you?”

Now maybe a year ago I may have been afraid of this man. But on this day, I was different. I was acting in love, and there was no fear in my life. I was bold. I was convinced of what I had and what we had given Tim and of the great changes that were taking place in his life. I don’t know where the words came from, but I know it was God working in me to stand up to that man and lovingly and boldly tell him that we were teaching Tim the Word of God, and his life was changing. God gave me sure ground to stand on. And by the way, before the end of the year, a friend came to town and took me on a shopping spree in an upscale department store in a big city!

I love that I know what to think. I think the Word. It keeps life simple. And if I hadn’t learned the accuracy of the Word from this ministry, I wouldn’t have this to give to others. One of the greatest joys of my life is to have this Word and His love to give and help others the way I’ve been helped. I have purpose in life beyond what I ever imagined. Thank you, God, and thank you to The Way International, which has taught me and so many others the Word of God for over seventy-five years!

I’m deeply thankful for what God has done for me as I’ve applied the Word I’ve learned in The Way Ministry! God has given me my heart’s desires, and I’m particularly thankful for how He supplied me with a like-minded Christian wife. When I reflect on how our relationship came about, I see that it was a direct result of the love I learned how to live through this ministry.

When I was seventeen, I went to my first Advanced Class excited to learn deeper truths about God’s Word and to spend time with like-minded believers. During that time, I gained a confidence in God’s ability to take care of my every need. I went from being a worrywart to a calm and easygoing individual. Also, I gained a richer knowledge of God’s great love for me through teachings from the Scriptures and from seeing it living in the people in that class. What I learned and saw greatly motivated me to reach out to people in my hometown and to manifest God’s love to them. Before the Advanced Class, I didn’t particularly realize how important it is to actively love those around me. I quickly found that what I had learned would be life changing!

A few months later, I made a new friend in one of my classes in high school. My old self wouldn’t have looked for opportunities to be loving and kind toward my classmates, but I had changed! She later told me that she had wanted to become friends with me because of how I went out of my way to be kind to her and others. We began talking about God and soon had many heart-to-heart conversations about life and God’s Word. She didn’t know or believe very much of the Bible, but she was interested in learning more! She signed up for our ministry’s Foundational Class and took it that spring! It was basically my first time speaking God’s Word to someone, and the first time I needed to help undershepherd. Because of what I had learned and observed in The Way Ministry, I was able to lovingly help her understand the integrity of God’s Word, God’s goodness and love for her, and to support her manifesting power from on high for the first time! She was very excited about what she had learned: the Bible makes sense!

She received great things because of the accurate teachings of God’s Word and the love I and others serving in that Foundational Class showed her. With a like-minded love for God, our friendship became a relationship. A few years later, she too completed the advanced class on The Way of Abundance and Power! How awesome it was to see someone else learn the great things I had learned. We continued to serve together, and she assisted me in leading a fellowship at our university campus. After graduating from college, we got married! God certainly gave me a wonderful partner to help me be my best for Him. A few years later, we went Way Disciple as a married couple.

It still amazes me how God provided me with a wife who would love Him like I do and who would want to live a life of service for Him too. Our Father is too good! God surely blessed me with an amazing partner in life, and we are so thankful for the love we know how to live, which brings others into His loving family.

My life was forever changed for the better when two Way believers stopped me and my friends on the streets of a city in Kansas and spoke God’s Word of deliverance to us when I was only sixteen years old. My friends didn’t care too much about what was said, but I did, and I listened with a hungry heart. And as God promises, all those that hunger and thirst for righteousness shall be filled. I was filled!

At sixteen years old, I lived in a group home, with no means of making money or getting around. I was totally dependent on the household of believers in that city. The circumstances were bleak. But that did not deter the believers in the fellowship and Branch!

I took the Foundational Class about six months later after faithfully attending one of the home fellowships in town. The believers were so wonderful in how they supported me and helped me get back and forth to fellowship and to other events. They also helped me to earn the money I needed to register for the class, and they got me to every session on time! I learned many significant lessons on how to pray and believe God for deliverance, no matter the circumstances. The disciples taught me to expect great things in my life and that there was nothing that I couldn’t do with God and with His power that I had within me. I remember those lessons and the great success I had, even to this day. To all of them, I will be forever grateful.

Before The Way Ministry I was alone—a forgotten castoff of the world. My life was nothing. I didn’t know what it was to be loved or how to love. I didn’t think there was anything about me to love. In my heart I had given up on ever being happy. God brought me up and out of that darkness and despair. He brought me to an amazing family, His family, when I had no family and no one who cared for me. He took my hand and brought me into the light and deliverance of His glorious Word by what I learned and by the love of the believers of The Way Ministry.

God healed my heart. He showed me how much He loves me and that He chose me to be His child, loved and cared for by Him, for always! He helped me to make my life into something that I could be proud of. I have been surrounded by love every day of my life since that significant day years ago when someone spoke God’s Word to me. Because of God’s Word, His love, and that same love manifested by the believers of The Way Ministry, I have and continue to live the greatest life I could ever have imagined.

Today I continue to do all that I can, as much as I can, for God and His people, the same way it was done for me so many years ago. One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 11:25:

The liberal soul shall be made fat: and he that watereth shall be watered also himself.