# Praying for Strength



## TimeHeals (Sep 26, 2011)

"*Praying for Strength*",_ by TimeHeels_

There was once a man who worked very hard to provide for his family--a wife, and infant son, and a teenage daughter--but it was a struggle just making ends meet. His oldest daughter was also having a lot of emotional problems and was running with the wrong crowd, and his wife was never happy and never stopped nagging. 

This man wondered where he had gone wrong and even thought of abandoning his family. He began praying for God to give him strength.

Shortly after he began praying for strength, his house was flooded and became uninhabitable, and he had no flood insurance, so he and the family had to move to a modest apartment. He began praying even more often for God to give him strength.

The company he worked for suddenly went out of business, and he was forced to go on unemployment, and he had to move his family again, and this time into a tiny apartment, so he redoubled his prayers for strength.

His wife began an emotional affair with an old boyfriend she met on Facebook and began treating him even more poorly despite the fact that he began going out of his way to please her. Just before he discovered the affair, his wife filed for divorce. Then one day she told him she was in love with her old boyfriend she discovered on Facebook and she was moving out into another apartment and taking the kids.

This man was broken and wanted to die, but God did not grant him death, and he couldn't bring himself to take his own life, so he just kept praying for strength.

After the divorce, his wife violated the custody agreement and moved her and the kids to another state to be with her old boyfriend.

The man kept praying, but he wondered when God was going to deliver. He had prayed and prayed for strength, and instead one horrible thing after another kept happening to him, and he was so paralyzed by grief, it was all he could do to even go cash his unemployment check, pay the bills (late), and buy groceries (when there were none left in his apartment).

After many months, the man was behind in all of his bills and in danger of becoming homeless, so he began looking for ANY kind of job at all. At first he got a retail job (not any of the jobs he was hoping to get), but he kept applying when he had days off, and he even applied for jobs where he didn't meet the qualifications out of sheer desperation.

After many more months he was offered a spectacular job with all kinds of benefits, but he was afraid to take it because he was pretty sure he wasn't qualified for the job and would wind up losing it. He took it anyway. To his surprise, not only did he turn out to be very good at the job after he got the hang of it, he was also highly respected by his coworkers, and he really liked the job!

He decided to get his kids back next. He hired the best attorney he could find, and after six months, he was awarded full custody of his kids who were ordered returned to him.

He and his children moved into a nice house with a lease option to buy.

His ex-wife began calling often to speak with the kids. She sometimes tried to keep him on the phone with chit-chat, but he was busy raising his family, with his career, and he had even been on a few dates with some very nice women who were very nice to him.

One day his ex-wife called, and she was crying. She said the other man had left her, she was miserable not being with her children, and she begged the man to take her back. She told him she didn't know if she could go on living like this much longer.

The man told his ex-wife, "Pray for strength".


----------



## Geoffrey Marsh (Aug 11, 2011)

What a awesome post!

Seek and you shall find...knock and the door will be opened!


----------



## TimeHeals (Sep 26, 2011)

Geoffrey Marsh said:


> What a awesome post!
> 
> Seek and you shall find...knock and the door will be opened!


Thanks, it was a composite of different folks' stories, and I *hope* drives home the point that it is the things that test us most that can make us stronger


----------

