This testimony is for your bleeding heart. This is a true story. You see, I too was angry with God because I couldn’t seem to find God when I needed him. I studied the word and prayed as well but I always had such a hard time getting the things that the average person could get with no problems. I felt like my prayers were not alleviating anything at all.
I knew there was a God. In the same sense, I knew there was a devil. What I couldn’t understand was how Satan took care of his people, but God did not. Or maybe he had his favorites. I was taught that God loves all of us unconditionally. I didn’t see or feel that. I saw Satan’s people getting richer and not wanting for anything. Yet I couldn’t afford to give my child $20 towards her physical for a working permit, although I worked like a dog. I became enraged because I thought I had been lied to about who and what God is. I wondered what kind of a God would ignore a person in need. Especially when that person has chosen and sought him for so long. I stopped praying because I didn’t see the point, but I never stopped wondering where God was and why he did not love me.
During one of my depressed episodes, I decided to give prayer another try. I asked God to show me he’s real, in a way that I could understand and KNOW it’s him. I wanted to know why people say God is good because I just couldn’t see that.
One morning while on my way to work, a car ran the stop sign and we collided. I didn’t get hurt but my car was totaled. I could only afford liability insurance and the person who hit me had ‘dollar a day’ insurance. As a result, I only got $1200 from their insurance company, which wasn’t nearly enough to buy another car. My credit was ruined due to a divorce, so putting the money towards leasing or financing another car wasn’t an option. Aside of that, I couldn’t afford the payments along with full coverage insurance. This brought more bitterness towards God. God had to have known that there were no buses, train routes nor anyone to carpool with so I could get back and forth to work. I needed my job, so I used the $1200 to get a rental car. Not a good idea but I had no choice. I knew they would let me keep it if they could keep deducting money from my checking account.
About a month later, I let my daughter use the rental car to go to the store. I was presented with my worst nightmare. She called me crying because she had run a stop sign that led to a collision, one block away from where my accident occurred. The rental car was totaled and was about to be towed. I nearly fainted when I saw it. It looked like a crushed soda can. It’s a miracle she didn’t get hurt. The driver side was completely smashed in.
The police allowed me to take the car home if I could drive it. I don’t know how I did it but somehow, I got it home. Not knowing what to do, I cried my eyes out but refused to pray. Every time I asked for help from God, it appears things got worse. I borrowed $1000 from my brother in law and paid half of it to a backdoor mechanic, who ripped me off… I was devasted. Oddly enough, I found a mechanic who was able to straighten out the frame of the car enough for me to drive it. He only charged me $400. The steering wheel was crooked, and the car looked horrible, but it ran perfectly. I drove that car to and from work in that condition for 9 months, dipping and dodging the police. I had to stay even with cars along side of me or stay in the lane closest to the divider to hide the extensive damage.
Meanwhile the rental insurance and inspection sticker had expired, because I couldn’t return the car in that condition. The rental company did not bother me, if I had money in my account for them to take, which had begun to drain me financially. There I was, driving a badly damaged car, with no insurance, a bad sticker and the front license plate missing. My back was to the wall.
One night I got a random inbox message on face book from an old classmate who was now a pastor. I wondered why he was inboxing me. We never talked during our school days. His message read “God’s got a gift for you.”
By then, I had completely written God off as a cruel and arrogant entity. My response to the pastor reflected that. After a few exchanged messages, he asked if he could call me. We talked for a long time. He told me that sometimes God will put us in certain situations to keep us close or bring us back to him. Either that or God will do things to get our attention and when he calls, we had better answer. He also told me to consider praying again from the heart, without the anger. I was advised to ask for forgiveness because I had so much hostility towards God for so long, before asking for mercy. I took his advice because there was nothing left for me to do. I HAD to go to God and hope like hell God was real and merciful.
About a week later, my daughter came home with news about my great uncle being hospitalized and was not doing well. She worked as a dietary aide and had gone into his room to serve him a meal. He recognized the last name on her name tag and asked if she was related to me. He told her he needed to speak with me. I was reluctant to visit him because he was not very nice to me and hated my dad for some reason. Even so, I visited him and what he had to say—I never would’ve imagined.
He informed me of a life insurance policy my grandmother had, naming my father the beneficiary. They both died years ago, therefore the money was mine. He said he never told me because he tried to get it but couldn’t. He apologized for his greed and gave me some information to claim it. I thanked God and I got on it immediately, but had some trouble accessing the policy. There was a passcode that neither my uncle nor myself knew of. I tried for so long that I became unenthused. I told myself that a few thousand dollars wasn’t worth the aggravation and of course my faith had begun to fade away again.
My great uncle passed away and I still had not gained access to the life insurance policy. Just when I was about completely give up, I got a random thought while sitting at my desk at work, telling me to try using my grandmother’s social security number as the passcode. I rushed home and called the insurance company. When the automated system asked for the passcode, I gave it the social security number. Lo and behold, that was it! I got full access. I learned that it wasn’t a life insurance policy, but a 401k plan that had accumulated over $60,000. I jumped for joy because I knew it was God. Never in a million years would I have guessed to use her social security number. Not only that, when the answer came to me, my mind was furthest away from the insurance policy. I was into whatever it was I had to get done at work. I dropped to my knees and begged for forgiveness once again.
Because there was no living will, I had to go through the surrogate process. It was a lot of work, but it paid off. But this is how I know God was working on me. About a week before I got the check, I was finally caught by police, driving that crushed car with no insurance, no front license plate and a bad sticker. Terrified, I told the policeman that I wouldn’t drive like that if I didn’t have to and that it was absolutely necessary. He took my license back to his cruiser. I didn’t know exactly what to expect. By then I was sure the rental place had reported the car as stolen. I told myself over and over to trust God. He’s not going to let anything happen to me because this is his doing.
For the first time in my life, I put all my heart and soul into trusting God. The policeman returned with my license and what he did brought me to tears. He handed me back my license and told me to go on to work. He said everything’s going to be ok. He didn’t write one ticket nor citation. Instead he escorted me to work. The car should’ve been impounded, I should’ve been hit with several fines and arrested for car theft. To this day, I’m convinced that was an angel.
When I got the money, I bought a new SUV and put the rental car in the shop for body repairs. It was gone for a week but when I saw it again I couldn’t believe my eyes. It looked as if nothing happened to it. Everything was restored, except for the crooked steering wheel. I had the car towed back to the rental office and closed the bank account they were getting the money from. I never heard anything else from them about the car.
But here’s one more reminder that this was God. About 4 years later, I had to have the battery replaced for my SUV. A car that looked just like the rental car was parked outside the garage. I told myself that it can’t be the same car. While I was at the desk paying to have my SUV serviced, I heard the mechanics talking about how difficult it was to do a wheel alignment on the car. They were dumbfounded. I went outside and looked inside the car. There was the crooked steering wheel. Without a doubt, that was my rental car. What are the chances of that happening? Someone bought the car. I went back to the service desk with a smile. I knew why they couldn’t do an alignment. The frame of the car was still slightly bent, compliments of my daughter.
The moral of this testimony is, God is not a joke or myth. He’s real and if you really want to find that out, call on him. His lessons are tough but take delight in his discipline. It’s an honor. I asked to be shown and he did that by backing me into a corner, with no solutions and no other choice but to come to him. I came out with something better than what I had and peace of mind knowing that God is real! I hope this encourages you not to give up. There’s a reason for every struggle. Ask him, but whatever you do, do not go to him with anger. Praise him and let him know you really need him.
