Shirley Powell, who first came to Christ’s Church in 2008, was baptized here in June of 2009 and was a faithful member until she moved to Clarksville, Tennessee in December, 2017. Her transition from here to there was accompanied by blessing upon blessing, and she’s giving God the glory.
Looking back, you can see more than a year of God’s work in your life, can’t you?
I lost my job in December, 2016, and received unemployment for more than seven months. In all that time I always had money for bills, for gas, and for food. I remember a particular time when I was short on food, and I received a check from Duke Energy in the mail. It was payment for a class action settlement I had completely forgotten. I had returned that post card months earlier. The check paid for what I needed. I got a part-time job in August, just a couple weeks after my unemployment ran out, and it got me through till the end of the year. And the good friends in my Sunday school class (Women Encouraging Women, led by Valerie Reed) more than once took up a collection for me.
Were you seeking God’s blessing during this time?
Trevor’s Chase the Lion sermon series began in November. After reading the first three chapters of the book, I decided my future should be in Tennessee near my daughter and her husband and my grandchildren. I didn’t tell my daughter, but I did name my goal to a women’s group led by Lisa Dolezal, my Sunday school class, and other friends.
What was so remarkable about this?
I didn’t have the money to make the move. It wouldn’t happen unless God supplied the funds, and he did! I applied for Social Security in mid-November and received my first check just two weeks later, and everyone told me that’s very unusual. I applied for and received an advance on my income tax refund. I found an apartment in Tennessee, but they wouldn’t accept me unless I had three times the monthly rent in my bank account. At the end of November Rick Dolezal showed up at our women’s group with a check for $5,000. A couple in our church had heard about my situation, and they gave me the money!
But money wasn’t the whole story, was it?
Oh no. Women from church helped me do my packing. Rick got men together to load the moving van. A couple in the church were planning to drive to Florida for vacation, and one of them drove the moving van to Tennessee while the other followed in the car. This friend, her husband, and her parents unloaded the truck and even helped to unpack a little. They left the truck with one of my daughter’s friends and then they continued south for their destination.
Are you glad you made the move?
Oh, yes! At the end of January, one of my daughter’s friends recommended me for a job that I’ve been doing since then. It’s customer service work I can do from home (a good thing, especially when Tennessee was hit with an ice storm and my apartment parking lot was frozen for two days!). I’ve found a new church that’s just a smaller version of Christ’s Church, and the people there have been wonderful to me. When I had emergency surgery, they visited me in the hospital and prayed for me, came to my house and brought meals, took a collection to pay my hospital bill of $1,200, and paid three other bills that came due while I was off work.
The peace I’ve had over the last month has been amazing. I just see God working through the whole thing.