I don’t know who I would be today had it not been for the “God Wink” moment that I am about to tell you about.
We had moved from Vivian, Louisiana to Mountain Home, Arkansas, in 1981. I suffered a nervous breakdown after one too many moves as a minister’s wife.
Even though I made a few friends in Mountain Home, it wasn’t Louisiana.
In 1982 we moved to Ganado, Texas. I was still crying everyday even though I sucked in my tears and continued to write and do volunteer work at the hospital.
While in Ganado, I often heard our daughter, Robin, praying at night “if only Plain Dealing, Louisiana needed a minister” because she knew we almost moved there in 1974. She also wanted to be near grandparents at Falcon, Arkansas.
In August of 1983 we took a vacation to Arkansas. On the trip I kept silently praying “if only Plain Dealing needed a minister” because I knew that would put me close to my friends in Vivian, Louisiana as well as my husband’s family.
Would you believe that no sooner than we arrived in the grandparents’s house than my husband’s mother asked “Did you know that Plain Dealing is needing a minister and Brother Hartsell called to ask where you were living?”
Then God stepped in and my husband was asked to speak to the church that Sunday. During our vacation we were hired! We made a quick trip back to Texas to prepare to move because school was about to start.
Another “God wink” happened in a previous move to Vivian Louisiana, in 1978, while we were visiting the same grandmother in Arkansas, who asked the same question: “Did you know Brother Hartsell just called and asked to know where you all were because Vivian was needing a minister?”
We were also hired very quickly that time. I could hardly believe how friendly the people were! For the first time, in my adult life, I felt like I belonged. People were “touchy” when they talked to each other.
I had never experienced that.
Now I am a “toucher” and a hugger.
There were so many people who became life-long friends, Including Dale and Tanya Alexander. They treated us like real people and we visited often with their family. There’s another “God winks” here. Their oldest child is Robin, a daughter with the same name as our daughter, Robin, and their youngest son is Jeremy, with the same name as our youngest son, Jeremy. Tanya is a poet, the same myself, even though I seldom write poetry today.
Having made seventeen moves in my adult life, I’ve yet to meet friendlier people than in Louisiana where I’ve lived for the past thirty-three years, almost half my life.
They will have to take me kicking and screaming out of Louisiana.
God has taken care of me all of my life, causing things to happen, getting me to the right place at the right time. Even though some of those experiences have been painful, it has worked to my advantage. He knows what we need most.
Without God I can do nothing.
Contact Sarah at [email protected]