My Testimony - Nancy Holman

My testimony is centered on a penny.
A penny is a special symbol of God's great love and provision for me throughout all the years of my life.

I was born an only child in a small rural community in Iowa. I was raised in a Christian family and church was an important part of my life. After high school I attended the University of Iowa for a year. Away from home and security, I questioned everything in my life. I transferred to Immanuel Hospital School of Nursing in Omaha, Nebraska. There I became involved in Campus Crusade and one thought kept bothering me. I could not name a specific date when I had accepted Christ as my Savior. Jesus had always been a part of my life. I had been baptized as an infant but at that time I felt the need to be baptized as an adult as a public commitment that Christ was indeed my personal Savior.

I graduated from nurses training as an R.N. and married a young man who was attending Bible College. I watched as God changed him from one who stuttered and flunked out of the University of Nebraska into a gifted Bible scholar and a great preacher with the gift of administration. We had three beautiful daughters together.

Then fourteen years into my marriage, my world shattered! My husband began having an affair and two difficult years later, I found myself divorced with three little girls. I felt like a pair of old shoes worn, used, and then discarded for a different pair.

Due to nursing layoffs in Omaha at the time, I could not get a nursing job and I worked for minimum wage in a daycare. I got food stamps to feed my daughters but I was getting notices that my electricity was about to be shut off because I could not pay the bill which would mean no heat during a cold Nebraska winter.

I went for a walk late one night and I cried out to God telling Him that I just could not go on. I had made such a mess of my life and I needed Him to take control of my life. My Heavenly Father is so good! There on the sidewalk in front of me was a penny. God assured me that I did not need to worry because He loved me so much and He would take care of me and provide for my family. He was just waiting for me to ask and so I sat back and watched as God provided. During the next several weeks I received $20, $50, $100 – over $2000 in all – in the mail from Christian people who responded to the Lord’s leading when He put it on their hearts to send me money. I didn’t need to ask for even a penny! God also provided me a good paying nursing job, a house to live in, and a wonderful church family to support me as He healed my brokenness.

My first husband died within a year of the divorce from a brain abscess. As I stood by his hospital bed and watched the color fade from his face after the ventilator was turned off, tears fell down my face. I was freed from all my hurt, anger, and fears. I knew then my husband was not coming back and God had other plans for my life.

As I look back on that period in my life, I am reminded of the “Footprints” poem. When the days of my life were the darkest, there was only one set of footprints in the sand. God had picked me up and carried me through.

For almost two years I prayed that God would bring a special man into my life to be my husband and a father for my daughters. I asked Him to do this before I turned forty and in God’s perfect time, just weeks before I turned forty, He send Bob. That was in 1988.

God has been so good to me and so faithful in providing all my needs. My life verse is
Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.”
My hope for all eternity is in my Heavenly Father who sent me a penny from Heaven when my world was shattered and my life was broken!

Poem of Caring

When a feller hasn’t got a cent
And is feelin’ kind of blue,
And the clouds hang thick and dark
And won’t let the sunshine thro’,
It’s a great thing, oh my brethren,
For a feller just to lay
His hand upon your shoulder
In a friendly sort o’ way.

It makes a man feel queerish,
It makes the teardrops start,
And you kind ‘o feel a flutter,
In the region of your heart.
You can’t look up and meet his eye,
You don’t know what to say,
When a hand is on your shoulder
In a friendly sort o’ way.

Oh this world’s a curious compound
With its honey and its gall;
Its cares and bitter crosses,
But a good world after all.
And a good God must have made it,
Least wise that is what I say,
When a hand is on your shoulder
In a friendly sort o’ way.

Author Unknown

“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30)

Just a thought

What constitutes a wasted life?

A  life without God.

He is waiting for your call.

Your Faith has Healed You

Matthew 9:21

She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”

     “Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.”  (Matthew 9:22)

We are told that Jesus heals all the time and I think we all know it, but do we believe it?

It was the other week when I began to have a horrible pain in my hip. It would wake me up throughout the night and made it so it was extremely difficult to walk because the pain went from my hip to the large tendon or muscle in the groan area. I tried to find the name of it and it might be the “Pectineus” .

So the pain went from hip to what might be the Pectineus and then down my thigh to my knee. (sciatic nerve)

This pain went for a couple of days before I began to consider going to the doctor. However, because of how I was walking, I mentioned it to a friend of mine at work. She said we should pray. That afternoon, the pain was all but gone. The next day it was gone, however, I could still feel it. Then when a couple of days went by I noticed the pain getting worse again and I asked God why it was hurting again.

“Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. ³⁰ But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”

 ³¹ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”      (Matthew 14:29b-31)

I felt Jesus tell me to have faith.

To just have faith. I believed Him and the pain left...completely.

      “Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.”     (Matthew 9:22)

Matthew 15:28

      Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.   

Mark 5:34

      He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

Mark 10:52

      “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.     

Luke 8:48

      Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”

     

Luke 18:42

      Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.”    

Acts 3:16

      By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see.

     

Matthew 8:13

      Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Luke 8:50

      Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”

Matthew 8:8

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.

Praise God-

On being salty

“In many cultures, it is considered unlucky to spill salt, due to very old superstitions. Fortunately, many cultures also have a solution to the problem, which usually involves throwing a pinch of salt over your shoulder or making a similar offering of salt. The superstitions surrounding salt may seem confusing to modern humans because salt seems so ubiquitous, but knowing that it was once incredibly valuable can change this perspective.

The most basic reason for considering it unlucky to spill salt has to do with its cost. For thousands of years, salt was an extremely rare commodity. It was difficult to extract, and as a result salt was very expensive. Many major trading routes were set up to carry salt, people were paid in salt, and salt was sometimes worth more than its weight in gold. Therefore, spilling salt was considered wasteful, since salt was a precious resource.”

http://www.wisegeek.com/why-is-it-bad-luck-to-spill-salt.htm

The other day in church I was listening to a sermon on being the salt of the earth. He talked about how we Christians bring flavor to the world and while I listened the Lord added to this meaningful message.

Salt:

There are a variety of different types of salt, table salt, iodized salt, kosher, sea, and rock. Each of these has many uses in our lives. It has reportedly more than 14,000 uses with cooking only making up about 4 percent of all salt manufactured each year! According to www.asianonlinerecipes,com we can trace salt back to BC when in was mined in Salzburg, Austria. At one time salt was believed to be a deterrent for Satan which was why people would sprinkle salt along the thresholds and in the corners of new homes. Salt can be used to soften water, mixed with vinegar to a thick paste it can clean your silver, mixed with hot water, salt can rid you drains of bad odors. You can clean up spills such as oil and egg by covering the spill with salt. It removes tea and coffee stains, sterilizes sponges, kills weeds, and deters ants, as well as my mother would tell me to use it, as a gargle for sore throats. But when we think of salt we think of taste first, and then maybe as a preservative for meats among other foods.

Salt has long been a valuable resource in our lives, in fact according to http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-03/985293756.Me.r.html the human body “contains approximately 0.15 percent by weight chlorine and 0.15 percent by weight sodium.” which is the makeup of table salt.

Salt is mentioned numerous times in the bible. In Genesis 19:25-27 Lot’s wife looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. To this day, stand a pillar of salt that resembles a woman in the area believed to be where she turned to look back on her life in that city. As offerings in Leviticus 2:13, Ezekiel 43:24, and Mark 9:49. In 2 Kings 2:21 God ‘healed’ the water. “Then he went out to the spring and threw the salt into it, saying, “This is what the Lord says: ‘I have healed this water. Never again will it cause death or make the land unproductive.’”

Matthew 5:13 says: “you are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

(When salt lost its saltiness, it was thrown into the streets to help create a more solid ground to walk on.)

We are the salt of the earth, we bring flavor to the world. Not in taste necessarily, but in character and essence. We give the world personality. But we also do something else,

 “³⁴ Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Matthew 24:34.

We preserve the earth.

Have you ever noticed that a town without people – goes to dust? A house which has been abandoned becomes dangerous to enter, while that same house lived in will last more than 100 years!

A garden dies, grass goes to weeds, cities die, and people who feel absolutely no love die a painful degenerating death.

 Adam and Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden to care for it. When they were banished because of the sin they committed, the garden died.

We give flavor to the earth and we must never lose that essence, we must not lose that flavor by rejecting God or we will die.

We preserve the earth by caring for our surroundings, keeping it clean, beautifying our neighborhoods, caring for what needs to be cared for. When we stop preserving our land, it will die a painful deteriorating death. And that is exactly what we are doing. We are killing our world by thinking “someone else will pick up the trash.” “Someone else will care for the animals.” “I didn’t vandalize that park, why should I have to fix it back up.” “Someone else…someone else…”

We ARE the salt of the earth, and we need to never lose its value.

We must celebrate the love of God with all, those we love and those we don’t like. We must care for our earth by being willing to bend down and pick up a pop can that someone else didn’t care about.

We must never lose, because it is then when this generation will pass away.