My own story about the reality of God in my life

Linda Currin

My parents always took me to church, and so from birth, I grew up listening to all the stories and words from the Bible. My upbringing was ingrained in every way with the morals and principles and very deeply entrenched principles of Church life, and the interpretations and confines the Word of God in that life. In our family of six we were born not too many years after the War, and so had little spare money but very hard working and disciplined parents who could make the very best of very little. Home grown and homemade were economical and healthy. So, although I was not aware of it, the principles of God’s Word were working all the time in my family, i.e. discipline, and ethical moral standards and a great respect for God and others produced a stability that is never really analysed, but none the less, does something in your own deeply ingrained ideas and lifestyle. So, I was ten years old when I really knew God nudging me one evening as I sat with the Girls Brigadiers at an evangelistic meeting in the Town Hall in my city of Hamilton, New Zealand. The only clear thought to me that night was, this is for the rest of your life!’
When God starts a work in an open heart, often we are unaware of how to hear Him, how He is leading and protecting and just exactly what He is doing, but many decisions I have made have come from a very strong in built ‘knowing’ that one way seemed more right than another. Nursing was one,wanting to be involved with missions of some sort or another, of wanting to work with people and make a difference in their lives, of having a great love and respect for the Word of God. As I dutifully read His Word and went to church and had a heart desire to be right with God, even when my rebelliousness was evident to many! Somehow in it all, I look back in hindsight, there was always this Knowing in my Knower, this way or that. Many times I did specially pray, and also many times I believe it was just as Paul says, ‘In HIM I live, and move and have my being ’wonderful! It’s like being in His love, coming from NZ to England with 3 children aged 4, 6 and 8, was not such a difficult step because the certainty of the move, the amazing Word that started the journey to England, a word from Ezekiel that our neighbour came over with one day – ‘Prepare your stuff for removal…’ that Garry had just read the week before. The selling of our house without even a ‘For Sale’ board up, the provision of many things including a house offered to us in Birmingham before we had even left the country etc. All this was just part of that ‘being in the Way the Lord led us.’ It opened up to us and as we took another step, another door opened, and we took another step. In fact, it would have been almost difficult to stay, although I have to say that if I had known we would still be living here 25 years later I may not have been so willing! We have had some hard times, but we have seen some quite miraculous provisions.
Our first house in this country we bought 10 months after arriving, had no credit rating, no furniture, nothing apart from a couple of towels and a sheet and were looking to purchase a detached, 3 bed roomed, un-modernised house in Coventry that nobody could value since it was a deceased estate with a boarded up corner shop attached. I had forgotten at that stage I had dreamt many months earlier that we were living in a house linked to a shop.needed 100% mortgage, which the estate agent told us we would never get and as we prayed outside the Halifax office, we went in believing for a miracle. And that is what happened – this very patriotic Englishman chatted about his country and we enthused greatly since we loved living in the UK and he offered us the whole amount! We accepted. That is just one of our stories, and we felt our cup was running over.
So, in a nutshell, I am telling you what Jesus has done for ME. He has never failed His Word; never once gone back on any of His promises to me, and to my family. We have been tested, stretched and gone through uncomfortable, distressing and very painful times and have hung on by our fingernails to promises we could not see, but I can honestly say, He is Faithful who has called us, and we walk on…Glory!