Chapter 3

The Call Begins

2018 - 2019

Drawing Closer to God

During this season, I had a growing desire to draw closer to God. I wanted more of Him, and I especially wanted to learn how to hear His voice more clearly.

I began fasting—not because I was asking God for something, but simply because I wanted to know Him more.

During one of those fasts, something happened that I have never forgotten.

I was alone at work when suddenly the most beautiful, sweet fragrance filled the air. There was no natural source for it, and no one else was around.

But this fragrance was familiar to me.

I had smelled that same unmistakable fragrance once before during a revival service where the presence of God was very strong. I had never forgotten it.

So when that same fragrance suddenly appeared while I was alone at work—during a time when I was fasting and earnestly seeking to draw closer to God—I recognized it.

Then it happened a second time while I was alone at work.

I knew what I was experiencing. It was the same fragrance I had experienced in the presence of God at that revival.

But there was something even more personal about those moments. In my spirit, I felt the Lord reminding me, “I am here with you.”

Immediately, my mind went back to that night years earlier when I was driving home during my divorce and heard Him speak to my spirit, telling me that He would never leave me.

This time, He didn't need to say those same words again. I felt as though He was gently reminding me of what He had already told me:

He was still there. He had never left.

I had been fasting and seeking Him simply because I wanted to draw closer to Him. And in those moments, His presence became deeply personal to me once again.

Something in my relationship with God was changing.

Looking Back Ten Years

As I began to understand my calling, something that had happened ten years earlier took on an entirely new meaning.

In 2008, I attended the same revival where I first experienced that beautiful fragrance I recognized years later while fasting.

During the revival, the evangelist asked anyone who wanted to be used by God to come forward for prayer.

I went.

As he prayed for me, I noticed that my hands began getting hot. Then I noticed that my feet were getting hot.

He told me that the heat in my hands usually represented a gift of healing, while the heat in my feet represented traveling.

At the time, I didn't think much about it. I certainly didn't know that ten years later I would receive a vision of traveling to churches, followed by another vision of praying for people and seeing God perform miracles.

But now I could look back and see something I couldn't see in 2008.

God had been orchestrating my life all along.

Looking back on these years, I can see God’s hand in so many details that I couldn’t fully understand while I was living through them.

Some doors opened almost immediately. Others closed when I thought I knew exactly where I was headed. There were times when His direction looked nothing like what I expected, but through every change, He was teaching me to follow Him rather than become comfortable with my own plans.

Most importantly, this was the season when God began revealing the calling He had placed on my life. What happened in 2008 suddenly had new meaning. The visions, the camper, the truck, the churches, and praying for people began fitting together in a way I could not have understood years earlier.

I was beginning to see that God had been preparing my steps long before I knew where they were leading.

When I couldn’t see the whole path, God could.
When my plans changed, His purpose remained.
And through it all, He was still leading me.

“A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.”
— Proverbs 16:9 (KJV)

One Door After Another

A couple of weeks before the new year, I began feeling that I should move closer to where my sister lived, near Cisco and Eastland, about an hour east of where I was living. I strongly felt this was the move I was supposed to make, so I began praying and asking God to open the doors.

And He did.

I didn't have a job waiting for me, I needed somewhere to live, and I still had a house that needed to sell. I had no idea how everything was going to come together, but I stepped forward believing God would make a way.

That Friday, I interviewed for a job and was hired. That evening, I gave my realtor the information needed to put my house on the market.

On Monday, I started my new job.

On Tuesday, my niece learned that I was moving to the area. Her husband was leaving for boot camp, and she had already been wanting to move into town, so she asked if we could become roommates.

On Wednesday, after I got out of church, my niece contacted me. She had come across a Facebook post that was three years old containing the contact information for a prominent landlord in the area. We contacted her and discovered that she had two rental houses available.

On Thursday, we looked at the two properties and chose one.

On Friday, we were given the green light to begin moving in. The landlord even allowed us to pay prorated rent, which was another financial blessing as we were trying to get everything moved and established.

And then, on Saturday morning, I had a buyer for my house.

In just over a week, I had watched one door after another open—the job, a roommate, a rental home, and then a buyer for my house.

When the house closed, I was also able to repay the family member who had loaned me nearly $2,000 for the deposits and expenses I needed to make the move.

I had prayed for God to open the doors if this move was His will—and one by one, He did.

Reflection

The Vision & Calling

One day while I was praying, I began telling the Lord how much I wanted Him to use me.

I remember saying, “Lord, I know I'm older, but You can still use me. I want to do what You want me to do, say what You want me to say, and go where You want me to go.”

I wasn't asking God for a particular ministry. I simply wanted my life to be available to Him.

Then something happened that I had never experienced before.

I had a vision.

I saw a black truck. Then I saw a camper trailer. And then I saw a church.

This was the first vision I had ever experienced, yet somehow I knew what was happening. As I saw those images, I felt in my spirit that I would be traveling to different churches.

And then I began watching pieces of that vision become reality.

Within a few months, I had a small 24-foot camper trailer. About a year and a half later, I had a black truck.

But that wasn't the end of it.

A day or two after the first vision, I received another one.

This time, I saw myself praying for people—and I saw God doing miracles.

Soon afterward, I began praying for people and witnessing instantaneous miracles. I also began studying the Word of God more deeply, wanting to understand what Scripture said and to be prepared for whatever God was calling me to do.

CHAPTER

When My Plans Changed Again

By this time, my niece’s husband had finished boot camp and was being stationed in Kentucky. She was preparing to move there to be with him, which meant I would no longer have a roommate. On my small salary, I couldn't afford the rent by myself.

Before I had gotten the camper trailer, I found two acres of land in Cisco and purchased the property in June. It was just a stone's throw from the city limit sign—but unfortunately, it was still inside the city limits.

I began cleaning up the property and preparing it for the camper. I had a new electric meter and breaker box installed, along with an RV outlet. Everything seemed to be coming together.

Then I went to have the electricity turned on.

That was when I discovered that the property had been rezoned.

The paperwork I was shown was dated that very June. The front portion of my property had been rezoned for business use, while the back portion was designated for multifamily use.

Because of city ordinances, I could store a camper on the property, but I couldn't live in one. With the new zoning, I couldn't even build the home I might have wanted there someday.

The property I had just purchased and prepared was no longer usable for what I needed.

I was deeply disappointed.

My camper was now parked in an RV lot, and one day while spending time with the Lord inside it, I found myself wondering why everything with the property had happened the way it did.

In my spirit, I felt the Lord show me that I would have become too comfortable there.

I was supposed to travel—not settle down.

As I reflected on that, I understood. If I had been able to live on those two paid-for acres, I knew myself well enough to realize that I could have easily settled there and become comfortable.

God had called me to go.

Losing the use of the property also created another financial challenge. Had I been able to live there, having the land paid for would have eliminated much of my housing expense.

Instead, I now had the additional expense of staying elsewhere with my camper, and my income wasn't enough to comfortably cover everything.

I had to take a second job.

When Everything Changed

Because of the additional expenses, I had to take a second job. The manager was willing to work around the schedule of my full-time job, which allowed me to earn the additional income I needed.

Before taking the second job, my full-time work schedule allowed me to attend church on Sundays, Tuesday nights, and Wednesday nights. Once I began working the second job, however, it became harder for me to attend the Tuesday and Wednesday services.

Then I injured my foot.

An Unexpected Turn

While working in the hospital kitchen, I suddenly heard a loud pop in my foot and felt immediate pain.

I went to a podiatrist and learned that I had a large bone spur that had broken. Thankfully, the injury wasn't serious, but the doctor didn't want me putting weight on my heel or wearing tight shoes for a couple of weeks. I was given crutches and allowed to wear loose slip-on sandals with socks.

I didn't want to miss work, so I went to my supervisor and offered to work in another department—anywhere I could continue working while following the doctor's restrictions.

Instead, she discovered that I qualified for two weeks of medical leave and placed me on it because I couldn't wear the required shoes in the hospital kitchen.

My part-time manager handled things differently. She allowed me to sit while I worked and only stand when necessary, such as when a customer needed to be checked out at the register.

For about six months before this happened, I had already been having difficulties with my supervisor at the hospital. There were many times I wanted to quit, but each time I felt that the Lord wanted me to stay.

So I stayed.

While I was on medical leave, my supervisor called me into her office and attempted to write me up for something I knew wasn't true. I refused to sign it.

It was also during this time that I learned my work schedule was being changed to a later shift.

That change would affect something incredibly important to me: church.

The new schedule would have me arriving at work before Sunday morning service and not leaving until the Sunday evening service was nearly over. It would also prevent me from attending my Tuesday and Wednesday night services.

I wouldn't simply miss an occasional service.

With that schedule, I wouldn't be able to attend church at all.

Lord, If You Want Me to Go

I began praying.

I poured out my frustrations to the Lord and asked Him that if He would allow me to move back west, to please open the doors. More than anything, I wanted to do what He wanted me to do.

And the doors began to open.

My mother spoke with her landlady about whether I could move my camper onto the property where she lived. Not only did the landlady agree, but there was already an RV electrical outlet available.

Suddenly, there was somewhere for me and my camper to go.

But before I could make the move, something else happened.

Another Fall

There was a small walkway leading to my camper. After a freeze, the ground had become icy.

I slipped.

When I fell, I landed on my left side—the same way I had fallen several years earlier.

Back in 2014, I had been working out at a gym. Afterward, I took a shower, and when I stepped out, I slipped and fell hard on my left side. After that fall, I began noticing trembling in my legs and difficulty standing at times because my legs felt weak.

Now, after this second fall on the ice, the weakness in my legs became considerably worse.

Even with another physical setback, the door to move west was still open.

I knew it was time for me to leave my jobs and make the move.

Then we can go directly into “Looking Back at the Timing,” where you explain what you learned months later about both workplaces.

Looking Back at the Timing

About eight months later, I learned something that made me look back at the timing of my move very differently.

Approximately six months after I moved west, the store where I had worked my part-time job closed.

Around that same time, the hospital cafeteria was taken over by another company, and my former supervisor lost her position.

Had I remained there, the circumstances surrounding both of my jobs would have changed within months.

Looking back, I believe the foot injury became part of a chain of events God used to move me at exactly the right time. I don't necessarily connect the fall on the ice to the foot injury, but I do believe God used what was happening with my work situation to open the door for me to leave when I needed to.

God Opened Another Door

In January 2019, the doors were open for me to move back west.

My mother's landlady had already given permission for me to place my camper behind my mother's home, and there was an RV electrical outlet available for me to use. I had somewhere to go, and once again, God had provided what I needed.

Even getting the camper there came with another small blessing.

I found someone who could transport my camper for me. He normally charged twice as much for a move like mine, but he transported it for only $100.

After everything that had happened—the property that didn't work out, the additional financial burden, the difficulties at work, the foot injury, the schedule change, and then the fall—I was finally able to make the move.

It hadn't happened the way I would have planned it.

But I was learning that God's direction didn't always look the way I expected it to look.

Sometimes a door opened quickly. Sometimes one closed unexpectedly. And sometimes what initially looked like a setback became part of what moved me in another direction.

Through it all, God continued to remind me of something He had already been teaching me:

He was with me, He was directing my steps, and He had not forgotten the calling He placed on my life.