Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] I just want to just pray first, heavenly Father, I just pray now in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that your holy spirit will just fall upon me in your anointing. Lord, in every word that comes out of my mouth you will touch it and you will envelope it with your grace and your mercy, your love, your favour, your peace, Lord, and your word will go out and this testimony will go out and first and foremost will bring all the glory on honor and praise to you, Lord. But I pray that it will change minds and perspectives in this place today. In Jesus name.
[00:00:33] Yeah. Lord, I genuinely need you. So there's a testimony here to be shared. But in one way the battle for me is I'm very aware of time so I'm just going to allow the Lord to direct me in what I have to say. I'm trusting that every single one of you that are here today are here because we've been praying that whoever needs to hear this, they will be here. So today I want to remind you of the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. And today I want to testify about his goodness and that he is faithful and he is true. And I trust it will change your perspective and that you will be able to leave this place hungry to experience the living God in your daily life. Not just here, not just a once off every now and again, a daily experience with the living God.
[00:01:23] First of all, I want to start off by saying common sense and faith are at war with each other on this journey.
[00:01:30] Yes, God has given us common sense. He gives us common sense how to cross a road. And he suggests that maybe saving your ice cream in a fridge is not the best appropriate place. It should be in the deep freeze. That's common sense. But I can absolutely tell you that if I used common sense at any aspect of my journey, I would not be here to tell you a testimony.
[00:01:52] I'm here because of faith and faith goes with this. You cannot separate faith without the word of God. The two go hand in hand because faith is believing in something that you hope for but not yet seen. And this is the truth and this is what you're faithful. Faith is rooted on despite anything that you're going through and what the noise is around you.
[00:02:18] So I want to say that faith is living again for the things hoped for but not yet seen. And often it will require you to step out of something, not knowing where your foot is going to land. And that's the exciting thing. And sometimes we can be scared when we start to face these journeys and you don't know how to move forward. But I tell you, it is exhilarating and it's exciting and it's freeing.
[00:02:40] So my story is my salvation. Story started 25 years ago. I was a young mother, a young wife, a young mum of two little boys, and I used to work for the South African Police Service in a department where I actually had a born again christian manager. And she started telling me about her amazing stories and testimonies about how the Lord was working in her life. And I was genuinely intrigued. I loved her stories. However, every single day I get to work and on my desk was a devotional card that she would place. And it annoyed me. It absolutely frustrated me. I get to work and there's this card I put in the bottom drawer, and the next day there's another devotional card and I put it in the bottom drawer. I didn't even read it. This went on day by day, month by month. And it was a long journey until one day I got to work and I actually picked up this devotional card and I read it. And I really, really wish that I could tell you today what that card said, but I don't remember. However, I do know that it started a tsunami of events. From that moment onwards, my heart had softened, my ears were open, and all of a sudden I was hungry for something. And I started this search and I didn't know what I was searching for. The one day I heard about an Alpha introduction evening, and I said to my manager, I said, would you mind coming to an Alpha introduction evening with me? And I'm going to search for something. I'm looking for something and I better find it when I get to this introduction evening. So we land up there, we sit down, we listen to the protocol, what the alpha's about and why you're going and what you're going to learn about. And before it even started, was over. And I sat and I turned to her, I said, for goodness sake, I came here for something. Where is it? I said, no. And I felt bitterly disappointed. So I said, let's go. As we left, it was a huge auditorium. I got to the back of the hall and as I wanted to open up the back door, I heard someone shouting from the front, you at the back door, don't go, wait. So I thought, is this guy talking to me? Is there another door? And I turned around, I made eye contact with someone in the front. He says, please wait, I've got something to tell you. So he came up to the front and he just looked at me and said, you came here for something today, and I'm here to tell you what it is.
[00:04:47] And just because he said that, the very words that I had asked, I knew I had to give him the opportunity to share what was on his heart. I didn't understand what I was going into, but, yeah. So I went aside and in a tiny nutshell, in the simplest way, he just said to me, he says, do you know Jesus Christ who died on the cross? I said, yes. He says, well, he died for you. And whosoever shall believe in him shall have, will not perish, but will have eternal life. He died for you. He has taken away your sins. He has washed you as clean and as white as snow. He has set you firm upon his rock.
[00:05:25] He has given you a new life, and you are a new creation.
[00:05:29] And you will live for eternity in heaven with him. And that I didn't understand at all.
[00:05:35] I didn't even know what I was doing there. I just was searching. But because of that truth, it penetrated something and it affirmed something in me that I believed it. That's the first time I exercised faith. I had a measure of it that the Lord had given me. And I stepped out of faith to believe the truth that was told to me that day. So I surrendered my life to the Lord and accepted him as my lord and saviour.
[00:05:58] From there, there was no bells and whistles. The next morning I woke up and I had a new song in my heart. It just started rising. If the sun sets you free, you are free indeed if the sun sets you free, you are free when I walk and I shout is the joy coming out? I am free, I am free, I am free. That's what I felt. And when people said to you, how did you physically feel? The only word that came to mind is, I felt complete. There was a completeness. And then I realized that I never knew I was missing something until I found what I wasn't looking for. And that was Jesus.
[00:06:30] Suddenly I had a new prayer on my heart. The prayer was, make me, break me, fashion and shape me. Make me the woman that you have called me to be.
[00:06:38] And that prayer doesn't come easy because the journey starts. But I'll stand here today because I allowed the Lord to do just that.
[00:06:48] So the Lord started this incredible supernatural work. All I did was say, yes, Lord. And then he started to do the supernatural work within me and started to work outwardly, inwardly. And I'm going to call it circumstantially in my daily circumstances, outwardly, the Lord immediately it was like a switch on, off. He dealt with my unsavory language.
[00:07:14] It was colourful and expressive and I think I just lost the ability to use adjectives. So I just used to throw that in. So that was instant. Yes, no, gone. Was disappeared. How can you praise the Lord and curse from the same mouth?
[00:07:29] Then he started to deal with my unhealthy attitude and my use of alcohol.
[00:07:37] Now, weekend parties and binge drinking was the entertainment of the day. Unfortunately, we'd go to parties, we'd drink, and it just was not right, not the right environment. And from that can lead so many other rubbish things. But the Lord steps in. And within two sessions of trying to persevere with the skill I had of drinking, that came to an end. It again was like a. That had been switched off. And now I stand 25 years later and I can say teetotal coffee total, absolutely no desire to even look at the stuff, drink it, it's no interest whatsoever. But, yeah, I do like coffee.
[00:08:11] So two huge outward things the Lord started to deal with in my life.
[00:08:16] But as he was dealing with that, conflict started to rise up in my marriage. And I didn't quite understand what it was, but it was light and dark at war between me and my husband. I was saved. I was following the Lord. The Lord was doing radical things in my life. But my husband was stuck in that place still as who he was.
[00:08:37] Friends would mock, we'd go to parties and friends would go, I bet. So his name is Basil Baz, husband. I'll come across however it comes out, but they say, when are you going to church with Cindy? And it was like, never. I never go to church. But thankfully, with my manager and persistent prayer, we would be praying for him. And it wasn't long. It was about three months later. He decided to go to the Alpha course, where he surrendered his life and accepted Jesus Christ and was saved. And the Lord changed him. Man inside out, back to front and upside down. And he soon became known as the pastor with a six pack of water. Here comes pasta baths and his six pack of water. Let the party begin.
[00:09:18] Yeah, we were a damper, but, yeah. So that was outwardly, inwardly, over a period of time. Some things don't happen quickly. Some things are a journey. The Lord told her to take me on a journey with my identity. I had a seriously unhealthy perspective and understanding of what it meant to be a woman. I was molded and shaped by society and the world and its attitudes. I never understood how I was supposed to feel, how to act and how to behave. And, yeah, it was just. It was just awful. But it was a long journey through spending time in the word, spending time in truth. The Lord started to take away all the lies and replace it with truth. And it renewed my mind to the place where I came to an absolute point where I knew, because I knew my identity is not rooted in society, in the what they say we're supposed to and not supposed to be what our friends thought or even what I thought for myself. It was rooted in the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. And my life moved and changed radically from there onwards.
[00:10:23] Now many christians will start their journey at salvation, and they don't go further, they just stop there. I'm saved, and that's life. Some people will allow the Lord to start working on the outward things. Some people will allow the Lord to start turning those things on the inside and take you from glory to glory and to be holy as he is holy. It's a long journey, and others will be too scared to move forward with the Lord directing in your circumstantial lifestyle because of common sense. Common sense comes in and goes, woo. I can't do that, Lord. But the Lord is calling you to live your circumstantial life by faith.
[00:10:59] So I started my journey 25 years ago knowing of the Lord. I knew of him. But today I can absolutely say to you, I know the Lord and have experienced the living God in my daily life.
[00:11:13] The first time I started to know that the Lord is doing circumstantial things was when I was called out to leave work. So again, South African Police Service. I was now in a different department. And the Lord started impressing on me I needed to leave my job. And this carried on and this grew and grew, and it consumed my thinking to the point where I had to act on it or it was going to drive me mad. So I said to my husband, I said, I really feel that God is calling me out of my work. And he says, if God's calling you, you leave. And so I was like, I don't know how to do this. I went to church on a Sunday and my pastor said, oh, I've got something to share with you. I had a vision. I had a vision of a ship and off. It was a gangplank. And I saw you standing on the gangplank, and I really sensed that the Lord is calling you out of your job. I was like, I hadn't told anyone. It's just between me and my husband. So I thought, okay, there's a confirmation. He's teaching me something here. He's calling me, but he's confirming. Then all of a sudden, I go to work on Monday, I open up the door at reception. We've got a poster of a ship with a gangplank and the motto says, shape up a ship out. I'll stare at that ship and I'm thinking, oh, my goodness. This is a second confirmation from the Lord. Common sense would say, you can't leave because you're not stepping into it anything. You got no job to go to. You're earning no finances. But the Lord says, I need to live on faith.
[00:12:30] So I walked straight to my manager and I handed my resignation. 24 hours in the south african police force. You can buy your discharge and you leave. That was it. I was out. I didn't step into another job. I stepped in to work side by side with my husband in his little business. We had our own personal business. There wasn't a guarantee of extra salary, any benefits. I just. We just had to trust him on that journey. But I'll tell you what, it was more than a financial benefit. Our marriage just grew because now we were both on the same page. Now we were striving for the same goal. Jesus was the center and we had so much blessing and so much fruits from this incredible journey that we were on together.
[00:13:09] However, you don't always stand on the mountaintops. You got to come back down to the valley. And soon the economic system changed in South Africa and things became seriously hard. And we ended up in a financial desert. It was so tough that we had to balance between buying food, paying electric, paying school fees.
[00:13:29] That's how tough it was. And it wasn't just one week, two weeks. It went on year after year, dry, dry and barren land. But we trusted in the Lord and we saw his goodness and faithfulness. And there's lots of testimony in these things as well. However, the Lord gave me a vision one evening, and I was standing at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro and I started to look to the left and looked at the one and said, how on earth am I going to get around this mountain, lord? And he said, you're not going to go around it. Face it and go over it. He says, if you're going to go around the mountain, you're going to be doing circles. And how many of us go around and around and around? We land up at the same place again, looking at the same thing again. So the Lord said to me, I'm your porter, hand over your things. And I will show you the way. So I symbolically took off my backpack, which is everything I own and everything I am, your food, your clothing, your housing, your water, your shell, everything. And I symbolically handed in to him. He turned around, he started walking up the mountain. I started following his footsteps. Halfway up, I was like, lord, this is exhausting. Doesn't mean because he's carrying us and walking us and directing us doesn't get tiring. There's emotion involved. It was tiring. And he just turned to me and he smiled and said, there still Mount Everest.
[00:14:40] I want to ask you to put an asterisk there and keep that for later.
[00:14:46] So in this desert, the Lord eventually started. Oh, sorry. I woke up one evening.
[00:14:53] No, no, I apologize. My husband. We woke up one morning. My husband turned to me out of the blue, and he just said to me, cindy, our passports are hovering. Now, that's his tongue in cheek banter. And I knew exactly what it meant. He wanted to apply to come, to move to the UK. And I turned to him, I said, no ways. We are not moving to the UK. Yes, times are hard, but God's got us. He wants us here. We're going to persevere. And I walked out the room. The second morning, he woke up again and says, cindy, our passports are hovering. I said, don't say that. We're not moving to the UK. And I walked out the room. The third day, I had a rear Canterbury walking out and he says, those passports are hovering. And before I could say no, I felt the Lord convict me and say, why don't you trust your husband?
[00:15:37] And I was like, because I'm the one that hears you, Lord.
[00:15:43] And then I thought, okay, hang on, be careful. I said, okay, if you want me to trust my husband, you need to change my heart.
[00:15:51] The next morning, day four, I woke up at this time to a text message. And the text message was from an elderly lady from my church that we were at. And she said, cindy, the Lord woke me up in the middle of the night and said, pray for Cindy. And I've been praying since. And this is what I believe he's telling you. I determine the exact time and place where you shall live, declares the Lord. In me, you will live, move and have your being. I turned to my husband, I said, we are going to the UK.
[00:16:19] Now we're in the financial desert. I've been called to go to the UK. We haven't got a penny to our names. How on earth do you start this process? It's a very, very expensive process. But out of obedience, I had to trust the Lord. I downloaded four applications. We filled it in when I got to the pot. When I needed money to get some documents to add onto that all our unabridged birth certificates and things. We had no finances. So I was like, lord, you've brought us here in obedience. We said, we're doing this. I'm trusting you. We need finances. I can't move forward until you move us forward. My husband gets a phone call from his aunt and she says, oh, I wonder if you can give me your bank account, please. I've just had a policy payout and I'd love to bless you with a little bit of finances. And we're like, oh, my goodness. You got no idea on the timing of this. But then we were able to share with family and friends what we believed the Lord was taking us on. And we start to take everyone on a journey with us that is so important when you're going through a journey, whether it's highs and lows, difficulties or what, you take people on that journey with you and you show them what God is going to do, because that's how they learn. So my family started this amazing journey. They thought we were bonkers. Absolutely nuts. We're going to the UK, we don't have a penny. This is what's happening and just falling. Yeah, crazy. So we sent in for our applications and we're told that it can take six months to a year. So I thought, brilliant. We've got a bit of time to spare. While ours came back in six weeks, totally unheard of in South Africa at the time with home affairs. Impossible. So we got our documents together, then we had to prove that we had finances to come live here. And because we were in this financial desert, we had statement upon statement of negative overdraft. How are we going to prove that we can support ourselves when we live here? So I thought, well, do we borrow a little sum, pop it in the account, and then it just boosts it up and it looks like we've got finances. And my husband was, absolutely no way. If God is calling us and this is his plan, he will make a way. We downloaded six months of bank statement attached, all over draft, attached, everything together, and went to the border agency, I think it is. And they said, no problem, 15 days, 15 working days, you will get a yes or a no. Well, mine came back in three days. All a yes. You're going to the UK on an overdraft. And that just shows you when there's no way God comes and makes a way. Can I use common sense? No.
[00:18:50] If I had used common sense in any of that journey, I wouldn't be here today.
[00:18:55] I had to trust in faith and on this word.
[00:19:01] So we left. Did we leave? Yes, we left the UK. We left South Africa and arrived in the UK. And let me just say that coming from South Africa, landing over here was the most overwhelming over sensory overload I can ever experience in my entire life. I don't know how to explain it to you, but, I mean, this was in 2008 when we got here, we were climbing and lift, and the lift was speaking to us. Lift doors closing, the escalators start pushing the trolley. I was like, don't anyone think here for themselves? Do we need to know that the door's closing?
[00:19:34] I know I'm going to push my trolley. And this just. It was mind blowing. Absolutely mind blowing. I have gathered that you do think for yourselves.
[00:19:43] But nevertheless, we were blessed to stay with a friend, a friend and her son, our family with them. And I didn't want to overstay my welcome. And I was like, lord, right, you brought us here, now what? What's your plan? What are you, what are we doing? And he clearly said to me, where your husband works, you will live. Where your child, your kids, school, you will, you will work. So I wrote those things down and I said to my husband, I said, right, you need to start looking for work. Where you work. We're going to live, you know, somewhere, area. I don't know what this looks like. Just start. So he started putting applications.
[00:20:16] Eventually, the person that we're staying with came home one day and she said her company is advertising for a, get this, a trainee chicken farmer.
[00:20:26] We were in electronics and cctv and access control, and now we're going to be a chicken farmer.
[00:20:34] And, yeah, we were like, okay, lord.
[00:20:38] She says, let's just go for the interview. You don't know. Went for the interview. He passed with flying colors. And that weekend we were given the keys to the whole. That was attached to the job on the farm.
[00:20:49] So where my husband works, we will live.
[00:20:53] I eventually allowed me opportunity to start scouting and looking for the kids schools. I found them in a local town and September started. They were put into school. I was right. I can, lord, start looking for work? Where am I going? Booked a meeting with a recruitment agency. And she was like, it was lovely to see you. I could see by your cv you can talk on a phone. That's great. I'm like, yeah, I spent 15 years in the police force, but I can speak on the phone. And she says, I've got a job, if you would like. It's a receptionist. You can start tomorrow. And it's in one of our local schools. Lo and behold, it was my eldest son's school, so we're my children's school. I will work. That is the Lord. That is how he works. You just have to take the time to see, seek him and ask him and to show him, and he will direct our steps. He is faithful and he is true.
[00:21:46] So our adventure down here was absolutely mind blowing. As I said, however, we were going on a journey and all of a sudden it was like a freight train that came out of nowhere and hit us from the side. And we were absolutely bewildered. So we had arrived in May 2008. By December, in December 2008, my husband was diagnosed with cancer.
[00:22:10] So that journey began. I remember one day we were sitting on the farm. It was snowing and I was claustrophobic. I got outside and I started to run across all the farmlands in the snow. And I got to a very secluded area, and the stillness and the quietness and the atmosphere just enveloped me. And I just looked at the snow and thought, I wonder if one can die? And snow, that's how I felt, absolutely. Like there was no more wind in my cell. Caught us from off guard. And that's when I screamed out, why? Why, God, did you take us away from South Africa? From familiarity, from friends, from family, from loved ones, from everything that we had. Why did you move us across to the UK? We got nobody. It was a family of four sitting on a farm in the middle of nowhere. We got no support, no help, no nothing. Why?
[00:23:01] And I just remember falling down and there was a silence and the Lord said, so you will know that I am all you will ever need.
[00:23:11] I broke the positive, the courageous, the bold, the strong. Cindy broke in that moment, but I rose up in the strength of Jesus Christ and I walked away from that place with a new hope. And the new hope came from having a revelation that God knew this was going to happen. And this did not catch him by surprise. And because it didn't catch him by surprise, I needed to trust him, that I was in the right place at the right time and that he had a plan and I needed to hold onto that. And again, it comes to this.
[00:23:45] If my solid foundation wasn't rooted in the truth of this, it will be flapping about on lies. And it wouldn't keep me solid. It was because of this.
[00:23:55] So that particular day, I got up from that place. And I went home. Now, I couldn't pick up the word and read it. It was too bulky, too chunky, too much. I wanted something very simple to pick up and read. So I applied for the daily devotions through daily bread. And my parcel arrived. I got home, sorry, to my bed. I opened it up and I lay down and I threw it up in the air like this to study the front cover. And on the front cover it said, there I look to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the lord, my maker, the creator of heaven and earth. And on the front cover was a picture of a massive mountain. And then I remembered the lord said to me, Mount Everest. There is still Mount Everest. And I knew I was now at the foot of Mount Everest. But that's okay, because he knew, and he was going to get us through.
[00:24:47] Just needed to trust him.
[00:24:50] A few months later, down the line, my mother in South Africa, diagnosed with cancer. I get a phone call, and I'm torn between the two. How do I need to go to South Africa to support? But I can't because my boys need me, my family need me here. Absolutely torn between the two. So I went into an overdrive of prayer and crying out and praying to the Lord to the point of pure exhaustion. And I remember lying in the bath one day, and I was praying, praying and praying. And the Lord just said, stop.
[00:25:18] I have prepared a special place for her.
[00:25:21] And I knew then what he was saying.
[00:25:24] And I knew that he released me from that enormous burden that I was carrying to try and pray for her and her healing and trusting in that. I said, okay, God, thank you for what you're saying. I understand what you're saying, but please, I pray that you will give my mother in South Africa a God moment. She will tangibly experience you.
[00:25:48] And so much so that the next time she speaks to me on the phone, she will say, cindy, you'll never, ever guess what just happened.
[00:25:55] And truth, nuts, it was so my mother was in hospital. She couldn't go home. She was desperate to go home. And my father kept on saying to her, Heather, you can't go. You can't move your legs. You've got to stay here. I can't help you at home.
[00:26:10] When I got the phone call from my mother, she said, cindy, you'll never guess what happened. I said, try me. She said, everything was quiet in the hospital. And all of a sudden, in my room, this bright light entered her room. She says, then I felt electricity going down my legs. And I sensed the presence of Jesus and his peace. And I was just like, thank you, Jesus. Thank you. I needed that. I needed that.
[00:26:39] And the next morning, she woke up and my father was there and she was like, look, Gavin, I can move my legs. And she's kicking on the bars. And just in this, my father's like, what on earth has happened here? So he honoured his word and took her home. And in June 2010, she passed away. So when I got a phone call that she passed away, we're like, okay, please, please just hold the funeral, because in August, the boys are finished school, we can come together. And my husband would be in a break with treatment, and then we can come for the funeral and for a bit of respite. And it took a miracle for us to get on that plane, let me just tell you that. But we landed up in South Africa in August. On the Thursday, the Friday, the next day was my mother's funeral, which was amazing to go through, but it just opened up a whole can of worms because I'd been here. So I had to go through that really in the live reality world.
[00:27:33] So that was the Friday. And then we started to journey. And during the week, and by mid week, my husband's health got progressively worse and he landed up in hospital. But so was my faith and so was my hope that I think I must have looked like the bonkers one, standing in the hospital bed. And the doctors were going, she's learning. She's lost it. Because I was like, don't you dare speak negativity near me or my husband.
[00:27:58] But bless him, he was really poorly. I carried his bag for three days. And every time he was unwell or showing signs of stress or whatever it was, I just used to sing. And I'm not going to sing, but I'm going to say, who is this king of glory this precious prince of peace his spirits ever longing the creator of all things he is the king of glory who is this princess peace? Jesus. Jesus. And I would just sing that over him. Sing that over him, sing it over him like a Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, carrying his bag. You're coming home.
[00:28:31] And then on the Friday night, he passed away.
[00:28:34] But if I can use the word perfect tragedy in one sentence, that was a perfect tragedy.
[00:28:44] Tragedy because we were robbed. Absolutely we were robbed. The scripture is very clear to say, the enemy comes to steal, rob and destroy. But Jesus comes to bring us life and life in abundance.
[00:28:58] And so we were robbed by the enemy. But it was at that point where I had to choose to believe the truth. And I nearly gave rude fingers to the enemy. I did. I said, you think you can rob, but I'm not going there. I'm standing on the truth that Jesus Christ is our healer. And I had to look towards him as a healer, not as the enemy. And I had to trust as I looked at him as a healer in this situation. He'll take me and my children and bring us through the grief into full place of healing and restoring.
[00:29:34] I had to make a choice.
[00:29:42] The hardest part for me out of all of that was so he passed away that Friday. Oh, within three days, we had the funeral in South Africa. I woke up on the funeral morning and the Lord said to me, get a pen and paper. I was like, oh, boy. He says, you're taking the service.
[00:30:01] I had to write down what the service was. Got to the funeral. There were so many people there, it was amazing. And I just said to, I stood up and I said to the pastor, I said, the Lord has said I need to share. And I stood up and shared. And then to which he stood up at the end and went, I can't add anything, it's done. There was nothing more to say. But then again, God just spoke incredible things to everybody that needed to hear what they needed to hear.
[00:30:28] So there were no whys this time. My why was back in the UK. Why, Lord? Why, Lord? There was no more whys. I just knew that he was going to get us through this. The hardest part was coming back as a family of three on a plane. That gripped me. We went as a four, we came back as a three. And I thought, wow, this is going to be a journey. But I had to come back because the Lord called this year. I couldnt deny what he did in the past. He brought us here. When we arrived here, I knew it was going to be a challenging time because we were still in the house that was associated to the job. But we're given three months to find our feet and start moving forward at the end of this. And I was like, lord, you know, I earn, I take home 850 pounds in my bank, 850. I got not a penny to my name. I don't have any savings. That is it. You know, you have to provide, you got to make a way. Your word says that you will meet me where I am. You are now the husband to the widow and the father to the fatherless. That was my new prayer and I stood in that day and night.
[00:31:29] So a colleague at work actually said, oh, her ex had a house that was on for sale, and that sale has fallen through. But I know that you need a place to stay. I said, I do. Where is it? So she told me, I just stood by the doors because before I left, I started to pray really specific prayers. I said, lord, please, when you do provide us a house, can I please have a great location so my kids can get around easily? Can I have three double bedrooms? I would love a garage just in case. I've got things to put in it. A small garden would be great. Cream carpet. Oh, ensuite. I've never owned an ensuite. I love an en suite and I would love to have beige neutral carpets through the house. Please, Lord, please don't get me royal blue carpet. I cannot handle royal blue carpet. And I'm sorry if anyone has got royal blue carpet, but it doesn't go with my furniture. And so this place, I stood out, this house that I was potentially given the heads up about, I looked at a door and two windows and I was like, this is our home. This is our home. There was an instant conviction. I knew it was a home. Got on the phone and said, I want this place, but please tell him I've got no deposit to give you. And I only take home 850 pounds. So she came back within ten minutes and says, the house is yours, you don't need to put a deposit down. And he's asking for $7.50. I said, brilliant. And by the way, you can have the keys. I'll bring it to work tomorrow and you can move in on the weekend. So we moved in on the weekend as it was. Garage. I knew the location was amazing. I opened the door, I could see a back garden. Cream carpets all the way up. Spacious lounge, three double bedrooms. I'm like, this is amazing. In the main room, I see a closed door. I'm thinking, an ensuite for me. This is so wonderful. I fling open the ensuite door and there on the floor, wall to wall, royal blue carpet.
[00:33:24] And I just stood there and the tears just started to roll because God is a God of detail. And he was just like, just throwing this in here. It was me.
[00:33:36] Don't ever think this was you. It was me.
[00:33:41] That carpet became my prayer and petition mat, because if you do the maths, I had 100 pounds left every month. How on earth do you pay council tax, water, lights, etcetera? You know what? I was beyond that stage of worrying because I just knew, because I knew, because I knew that my husband would provide everything I needed. I prayed and prayed, Lord, you've got us here. You will provide. Friends would say, how are you going to pray for this month? What are you going to do? I said, don't worry. I don't know. What can I do? You can do nothing. Just shrug. I don't know what I'm going to do. But God, particularly on this day, I had a friend come through and she was like, cindy, today's the last day of the month. What are you going to do? I said, I seriously cannot tell you what I'm going to do, but I need to trust. We went out shopping. As she got out the car, she started walking away. I got a phone call like that.
[00:34:39] It was like that.
[00:34:50] What does it say?
[00:34:54] This could have been our message.
[00:34:59] So, yeah, so I got this phone call from my son.
[00:35:06] Oh, my goodness. There we go. Well, please tell him we said, I love.
[00:35:12] So I get this. I answer the phone call, and it was actually the pastor that we started to join a church there and get fellowship. But he phoned me and said, listen, sorry to bug you. He's just had a phone call from somebody and they feel led to bless you with some finances. Would you mind if I took your account and gave it over to them? And they would like to give you a thousand pounds? I was like, wow. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. Here's my account. Please take it. But my face must have said a story because my friend came straight back to the. Are you okay? I said, yes. I said, my expenses for the month have just been paid. And for the rest of the journey, we just sobbed. We absolutely cried with overflowing joy again, in recognition and in awe of how God works.
[00:35:59] Six months I stood on that carpet and I prayed the same prayer. I didn't know if I was gonna be blessed again. No one told me, it's anonymous. I don't know where the money's coming from. But I stood on that carpet every single month for six months. And every month, that thousand pounds came through, and I'm going to come to land now, just in case you were wondering when I am.
[00:36:20] So there was a. On the 7th month, I did have a house in South Africa that my father managed to sell. And once I paid the mortgage off there and all of our debt that we had consolidated because we left in a huge financial debt crisis, once we settled all of that, I was able to bring some finances across. So there was something that I could split up and it could sustain us for a few months. But my prayer changed. Father, please do not let that person pay that money into my account. I can't sit with knowing that they thinking I'm needing but yet I now have. And on the 7th month just that prayer between me, no one else knowing that payment stopped not a penny came in.
[00:37:04] So on that note with a testimony I'm coming to an end. I'm going to end it just there. But know that it didn't end there. It's continued. I've had three job moves, three house moves, been on a missionary trip to Macedonia and I'm sitting here in Devon. I started up there somewhere in the middle in somewhere. So this testament just continues. And it didn't continue because I decided I wanted to do XYZ. It's because God prompted led me and I had to step in to get to where I am today. So in a nutshell with all of this that I'm saying it starts off with surrender. My first surrender was I don't understand you, I don't know what it is, but something tells me the truth. I need to accept you as my lord and savior that first time I surrender to the next surrender. I don't know what you're calling me to. I need to step out of work into nothing that surrender. And so it carries on. I needed to be obedient in that place. I needed to trust in that place. And that started to develop and grow my faith. I call faith. Like a muscle it grows and grows. The more you step out into this incredible life that he gives you, that faith grows and grows also in that journey I had to persevere. He started to work on my character, my attitude, my perspectives, my understanding, my thinking, all of that. And that develops a hope. And in the beginning, right at the beginning where I surrendered my hope was something very small and I didn't make understand oh I hope tomorrow's going to be a nice day. Oh I hope that I might get another job.
[00:38:36] From that hope to after the journey that I've walked. It's a hope that is no longer fickle. It does not rely on an outcome, a desired outcome. It's a hope that is rooted in the seat of the throne, in heaven, in him, Jesus in throne room of heaven. That's where that hope is despite the outcomes, because God is still God.
[00:39:01] And it's that hope that never ever disappoints.
