I Divorced My Husband, But God Rebuilt Our Marriage - Charlette Lewis

We're still learning a lot of things. But as the Lord leads us and we're learning, if we stick with His word, we're going to get there eventually. And I mean, we're never going to totally arrive until we get to heaven. But, you know, the Lord is good and brings us, starts with where we are and just takes us along.

Charlotte, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for being willing to come on and share your story today. Thank you. So let's start at the beginning. And I know there's a lot of different angles and pieces to your story and layers and all kinds of stuff we're going to get into. But let's rewind and start with where were you born and were you raised in a religious family? Tell me a little bit about your, you know, upbringing years.

I was born in Oklahoma. My parents had been married several years before they had me, and they were kind of a jack of all trades. So they left me with my grandmother while they figured out what they wanted to do in life until I was about four. And she was a very, very godly lady. She took me to church every Sunday, and all of the relatives were nearby. And so we had Sunday dinners with everybody. And she gave me a lot of good Bible teaching, and I heard a lot. And but then when my parents had decided what they were going to do, we moved to Texas. And I never got to church again until, I guess, when we would visit my grandmother or until probably we moved to Arkansas.

And I would ask somebody would invite me to their church. And I was in junior high and high school, and I would go with them. And my mother was good about taking me and dropping me off. And Mother's Day and Easter, she would go to church with me. But other than that, it wasn't really much.

And so I was always seeking how to come closer to the Lord because I'd heard about Him, but it was more head knowledge than heart knowledge. Just wanted to know this Jesus. And so I was always kind of listening to what everybody. I mean, at one time, I even had a Jewish friend. She took me to the synagogue. I said, you know, if Jesus was a Jew, then I should become a Jew. But when the rabbi asked me questions and I said that Jesus was the Savior, I got kind of he said, that's not going to work.

Oh, that's interesting. That's interesting. What kind of church is it that your mother was taking you to? You said on Mother's Day and Easter. What was there a certain denomination? Mainly Baptist because we were in the South. Oh, sure. And her mother was an independent conservative Baptist.

So that was mainly where she would go. But I tried Methodist and Episcopalian and Presbyterian and Baptist, different kinds of Baptists and everything. So at some point in this story, though, you end up, if I'm getting this right, you end up in California and you meet your future husband. Like, how did you end up in California then? Because you were in Texas. And then was it school or something? Or, yeah, Arkansas. I mean, my father worked in the Titan missile silos.

Really? Yeah. Wait. So just explain a bit of what that is, just for reference. It was some kind of a missile that would shoot up and go over, I guess, and bomb overseas or something. But they were very, very deep in the ground, had these really over 100 foot, maybe 200 foot, I'm not sure, elevators. And my father was an engineer, aeronautical space engineer. And so he was working on this Titan missile in Arkansas for Jacksonville Air Force Base. And he was a civilian doing it, though, contractor.

And he was in an elevator accident. And the elevator dropped several hundred feet with him in it. And he injured his back and was laid up for a while. And so he decided he had to find another place to work. And so he heard, you know, California, everybody goes to California to make a lot of money. And so we moved to California. And I was in my second year in high school. So he started working for different aircraft companies out there and ended up working for Hughes Aircraft, which now is Raytheon.

Oh, okay. So this is which part of California? Where are you living at? Southern California, Los Angeles area. Oh, okay. Westchester is where I went to school and where we lived, the suburb of Los Angeles, near the beach.

Would have you said this was a pretty patriotic family that you were a part of, you know, God and country kind of kind of situation? I mean, your father's working on Titan missile systems, or was it just, this is just kind of a job and this is just life? Well, he had even worked on one of the space shuttles, the Gemini space shuttle.

So, yeah, I would say he was somewhat patriotic. We said the Pledge of Allegiance stood up when the flag went by and all of that. But that's fascinating. It's actually really fascinating. Yeah, space travel is something that intrigues me and airplanes, things like that, which segues nicely into this next part of your life where you meet your future husband. And, well, yeah, just start talking us through that because that part of the story continues here.

Well, I liked school. And so I had signed up for a summer school class in my high school. And this was a literature class. And that's where I met Vince. And it was not I was actually had another boyfriend at the time.

And Vince had said something to me as I was walking out a door, which I felt was inappropriate. So I didn't like him at all. And so that was the last time I saw him after that class was over until the next year when a friend of mine was visiting and her mother had said she could go out with her boyfriend that was from the area, but that I needed to go with them. And I had just broken up with somebody. And so I had no date. So it would have been a threesome. And I think her boyfriend was like, he wasn't comfortable with that. So he brought along a blind date. And it turned out to be Vince.

And when he walked in the door, I said to my mother, I'm not going. And my mother said, yeah, you are. You gave your word. And so I thought, okay, I'll make it really rough on him. You know? And so I didn't talk much. And I tried to order the most expensive thing on the menu.

And he came back the next day and still was talking to me. So, wow. And then a couple of days later, he asked me to go steady. And I was just like, I don't know. I wasn't really interested in having just one boyfriend at that time. But I thought, okay, you know, we can do that. I was kind of dating other boyfriends because I didn't want to be in a relationship and get hurt.

So, but he seemed like a nice guy. So I thought, okay. So that continues for a little while. Vince, your husband, then had interest in the Air Force. And so that kind of brings us back around to the aeronautics and aviation side of things that we were just talking about.

So when did you all get married then in this process? Was this before he joined the Air Force? Yes. Well, it was I was still in high school. And he came to my senior prom and everything. And he was already in college. And we got married in 1968. And just in between his junior and senior year. And he had just come out of boot camp for the Air Force, junior boot camp or something. It wasn't full-fledged boot camp. I think it was ROTC boot camp. And so they had shaved his head just before our wedding.

And so in the pictures, see this guy with almost bald. So, but yeah. So then we got married. And I worked full-time and went to school part-time. And he went to school full-time and worked part-time. So we had a very busy life. And then we found out we were going to have our first child right away, which was a surprise. And he got out of the Air Force. And we went to Phoenix, Arizona for pilot training, which was and we only had one car. And so I got left home a lot.

And but it was a nice place to live. And he worked very hard, learning a lot. But those must have been, you know, difficult times in a way. I mean, you know, if he's going through flight training, that's pretty rigorous, you know, in the Air Force. And you're newly married. You've moved. Yeah, they just paint a bit of a picture. Like, what was life like as a military wife? And yeah, what was life like for you? Well, the first year was very lonely because he was gone sometimes 12 hours. He would be, you know, grueling. And I knew it was hard on him. But I was also alone. I had no friends. My family wasn't there.

And I had a new baby. And since I was an only child, I didn't know how to take care of a baby very well. And so that was interesting. But in only having one car, so I could only go shopping, you know, every week or two because the base was about a half an hour away. And so he needed the car to go to work every day. And so it was very, very lonely and very kind of sad from time to time, you know, that I didn't really have any.

Probably about six months in, we made some friends from some of the neighbors that were also in pilot training. So I knew their wives. But still, you know, some of the other wives didn't have babies yet or they had more than one baby or, you know, they were more experienced. And so we just kind of went day to day.

Yeah. So this is probably one of those things where, like, marriage is difficult at this point, right? I mean, like, because, again, like flight school, the Air Force, like these are big career things for your husband that I'm sure take so much time. And then at some point in here, he's deployed as well. After he finished flight school, then he went overseas. And I moved back to California to be near my parents so that I could get help with my daughter. And I thought I'd go back to school. So his mother had a daycare in her home. And so she watched our daughter during the day while I went back to school. And after a while, I decided we had some bills.

And so I would go ahead and get a job. And then so I was working and trying to take care of her. And then in that time, she started having seizures. So that took a lot of my time and energy and trying to take care of why she was having seizures and making changes in our lifestyle and diet and everything to try and figure out what was going on. And this is all while Vince is out of the country at war, essentially. And so all of my attention then was on, you know, just basically trying to take care of our daughter and see what was best for her and also try to pay off our bills.

We had a car payment. And then because of because my father was not as kind to me or to my daughter, I couldn't live at home with them. So I then had a rent payment to an apartment. And, you know, then you have bills, electric bill, phone bill, all of that. So it was kind of a very busy time then for me too.

So somewhere in this process, you're not quite sure about this marriage thing. Do you want to talk about that? Yeah. Before he went overseas, because I'd felt so invisible when he was in pilot training, I just told him, I'm not sure about this, you know? So let's kind of take a break.

And so when he left, and then I got busy with our daughter and all, I just kind of focused on that. And but then probably a little more than halfway through that overseas tour that he had, they had something called R&R, rest and relaxation, rest and refreshment.

They sent us to Hawaii, which is where we had had our honeymoon. And so I said, yeah, I'll go and meet you there in Hawaii. And so we kind of rekindled because both of us were away from everything. And it was relaxing. And so I thought, oh, okay, maybe we can make this work. So he came straight there from deployment. Right. So which that's a separate interview we did with your husband then, how he was flying missions, surveillance missions based out of Thailand during the Vietnam War. So flying into Vietnam and things. Okay. So he comes straight from there. Y'all are in Hawaii now. Okay. So you got that part of life. And then I'm guessing at some point, military's like, okay, R&R is over.

You're reassigned to somewhere else. No, he went back. He went back then overseas. And I went back to California. And then at the end of that tour, then he was assigned to B-52s. And so he was we went to Merced, California for his training there. And so I went with him to that. And then from there, he was assigned to Upstate New York.

And so I went with him to Upstate New York. That's the whole way across the country. Yeah. That's a big move. Yeah. Yeah. And so we got up to New York and got settled in. And then he got busy again being an Air Force officer and a pilot and learning a new plane and concentrating on being the best he could in his career.

Very goal-oriented and very career-minded. And so in time, again, I felt like he'd forgotten us. And then he started having assignments to Guam. And then we I became with child with our second child. And he was in Guam about the time that I was going to deliver. So I had flown back to California to be with my parents when I had the baby so that his mom could help out with our daughter and then I could have our baby.

And I remember having our second child and looking at the clock and realizing that my husband was in Cambodia, flying over Cambodia, dropping bombs. And I'm in this nice, clean hospital giving birth to a baby.

And somebody else could be their babies could be dying. You thought that. Yeah.

And I think that's one of the pieces that it's pretty easy for us to not really have our heads around is all the separation and just the all the moving around too that's happening. I mean, this must have been disorienting, perhaps, or I don't even know the right word because I haven't experienced something like this, you know? Since my parents moved around so much, to me, it was just normal life moving from place to place. I know a lot of people ask me, you know, how do you handle that? But it was like that was the life I had already experienced growing up with my parents moving around so much.

My dad was one time at Vandenberg Air Force Base. And by the time my mother and I got there, and they had just had a new house they moved into, brand new builds, we were there two months and he got transferred somewhere else.

And so it was kind of, you know, disorienting going back to another place. The sense of like you can't really settle necessarily. Right. Right. Yeah. So I just I never lived anywhere until we moved back to Ohio. Well, when we moved to Ohio the first time was the first time I had ever lived anywhere within a couple of years.

So you're in California for a time with your second child. Again, your husband is flying combat missions in the Vietnam War again. So multiple it sounds like he was over there multiple times. Yeah, for a couple months at a time or three months at a time. And so then I, after having that baby, I went back to New York, went back to the military lifestyle of just raising my children and paying attention to them because he was working so hard on his job. And this is so he gets back and he'd be back at the same base there in New York. Right. Right. So. Yeah, in New York. How long did that last before it was you started being like, I'm not sure this is working?

Probably about another year. And then I started thinking something's got to change here. And so I started searching and talking to different people and asking questions and everything. And after about seven years of marriage, I went in, decided I just my my dad was not an easy person to live with. And I always, growing up, always thought, why does my mother stay with him? Why? He's abusive. And why are we staying here? And I thought, if I ever get married, I'm never going to let this happen to my children.

And so I was just in the back of my mind, I was afraid that I would have a marriage similar to that someday. And so even though he was more ignoring us, not intentionally, it just came out that way.

I just thought, I don't want to live like this. I want somebody that, you know, I picked him because I thought he would be a good father and a good provider, which he was an excellent provider, but he wasn't there as a husband or a father most of the time.

And so I thought, okay, I think we need another separation. So I was going to a lawyer to get a legal separation. And the lawyer explained it's cheaper to get a divorce. And I didn't want to cost too much money. And I didn't want to create a problem. So I said, okay, we'll just go for the divorce then.

And so I did. I filed for divorce. And I had to come up with 10 reasons at that time in New York. The lawyer said, these are pretty flimsy reasons. And I said, well, I don't want to hurt his reputation or I don't want to make people think bad about him. And so he said, okay, we'll go with this. And so when we filed for divorce, and then he I had him served with papers while he was on alert because I didn't know his reaction because my father was an angry person, but Vince wasn't. But I didn't know how he would react. When you say he was on alert, what does that mean exactly? That means that he was away from he was in this facility underground there on the base.

He could not go away from that facility except to the grocery store on base or to the store on base. But he couldn't come home for a week at a time. He had to stay there ready to in case we had to go to nuclear war, he could jump in his plane and take off. Oh, wow. Okay. So he's a lot, I mean, I guess the word, like kind of locked in on base, like, okay, I'm on for seven full days. So wow. So he's getting the papers for divorce there, like on base like that. Right. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And so he got the papers and he called me and he said, I didn't know we had any problems.

I'm just like, really?

So. But then the court case came and I just it was as though something was pushing me. Once I made that decision to file for papers, it was like something just pushing me towards that. And we even talked about it. And he said, you know, do you really have to do that? I'm, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he didn't even show up at the court.

And the judge even looked at me and said, well, these are pretty soft reasons. And my lawyer said, well, yeah. And the judge just said, is she wants to take her children to go back to California? And my lawyer said, well, that's where her parents are. That's where she can have she has no friends or, you know, family here.

And the judge said, is that okay with her husband? And the lawyer said, yeah, he isn't, you know, contesting it. And so the judge said, okay. And he slams the gravel down. And it was like kind of like an explosion in my ears. I thought, that's it. He said, granted. And all of a sudden, this pressure that was on me to get this done and you have to do this, it was like it was gone. And I was just confused then. What have I done?

And then as we were walking out, I said to my lawyer, what do I have to do now? What is there a waiting period or something? He said, nope, nope, it's all over. You can go down the hall and marry somebody else now. I thought, how cold and how heartless. And it just seemed strange. You know, I was just like so vulnerable at that time that had Vince been there, I probably would have said, oh, let's call this whole thing off. This is silly. But he wasn't. He didn't know. And so then I went home and, you know, I was already in a separate bedroom and everything and just started getting ready to pack for movers to come to move me to California, which my father was going to pay for.

And Vince even appealed when the movers got there to me to stay. But once I had made this called the movers and set everything up, there came that pressure again. You have to do this. You said you're going to do this. You got to go through with this. And it was as though, you know, almost as though the enemy was just pushing me, you know, like a demonic force on me to get this done.

You need this. And so I don't think if somebody had offered me $100,000 even at that moment, there was this pressure. I had to do this. And so then driving in a little Mustang with two children in a car by myself to California.

From New York. Yeah. So that's like over what, 2,000 miles or something. Yeah. It took me several days. Plus I had car trouble along the way and everything. And on the way, I'm just like, what have I done? You know. Well, yeah, that's kind of what I'm wanting to dig into that a little, actually. So you left your husband. You're moving like all the way across the country from New York all the way to back to LA, I guess, Los Angeles, right? Right. That's where my parents were at the time. And you're, you know, you're essentially starting a new life. Right.

And that must have been really difficult. Like. It was scary. Tell me. Yeah. Like talk to me about that new chapter, I guess, a new phase of your life going through that. My parents had a vacant house that they owned next door to them that hadn't been rented in years. And so my father said, I'll give you a reduced rent if you will clean it up, clean up the yard and everything. And so we moved in there.

And then I decided I'll try and go back to school. But with that didn't last very long because I couldn't really afford food for the children or all of the utilities it took and pay him rent. And he was very firm on it. He says, I'm giving you reduced rent. You know what I'm thinking? So after a while, I just was on my way home from school one day, I thought, what am I going to do? And I saw this bookstore and I went in and I had never heard of a Christian bookstore in my life. And evidently, it was a Christian bookstore, but I didn't know that. I just saw books.

And so I was looking on books about divorce and, you know, what do I do now and all that. And this young girl came up to me and she, you know, asked to help me. And I said, no. And I put down, tried to put down the book behind me so she couldn't see what I was looking at because I was embarrassed. And she said, well, you knew in town? And I said, no, I, you know, went to high school here and, but kind of knew back in town. And so she said, well, do you have a church? And I thought, well, I had converted to Catholic to marry Vince.

And so as a divorced, I could no longer take the sacraments. So I needed a new church. Okay. So that's okay. So you would have been converted to Catholic. Yeah. And then since the divorce, that's like this would have been. No, I converted to Catholic to marry him. To marry him. And then because of the divorce, though, now you can't take the sacraments to church. Take the sacraments to church because. I didn't think of that. And so I thought, well, I need a new church, you know? And so she says, well, why don't you come to our church? She jotted it down and gave me the card. And so I stuck it in my pocket and I said, well, I'll see.

I'll think about it. And it took me a couple of weeks to get up enough nerve to go to visit their church by myself. And everybody was so nice and just kind of accepted me in and everything. And I thought, this is interesting. And so I went for a couple of weeks. And then I took my children, which they thought were my little brother and sister.

And I said, no, these are my children. And they put me in the youth group because I was still going to school. That was where I really needed to be because young people are honest. They don't pull punches with God or with others.

If they see a problem, they tell you. If they believe something, they believe it or they question it. And so I'm hearing all these people talking about they prayed about a test or they prayed about their relationship with their parents. And then they come back the next week to youth group. They say all these answers they got. I'm thinking, God doesn't care about these little things. What do you, you know, grow up and just deal with it. But they, after a while, I thought, you know, I had a test in school too, you know? So I thought, okay, I'll pray. And I did better on the test. I, you know, relaxed and everything. And then I thought, they have something I don't have though, you know, just because God answered one prayer, I still didn't know him.

And they had asked me, you know, are you a Christian? And I said, well, I'm an American. Of course, I'm a Christian. Oh, what an interesting response. You know, I live in America. Yeah. Because it's just like, yeah, you were raised with this and you kind of went to church sometimes. I just assumed I was a Christian because I knew who Jesus was. Yeah, yeah. And but I didn't really know him like they did. And that became evident after a while. Like when you responded that way, I mean, yeah, like I'm an American. I just heard something. Okay. You know, they were nice about it. And yeah, they were probably being like, uh, you know, we might need to talk about this again, right?

So they just kind of let me go and they figured, you know, she'll figure it out, which I did as I saw the other young people were saying different things that the Lord had done for them. And I thought, you know, I could really use some help because I was starting to the rheumatoid arthritis that I'd gotten at 14 that had become dormant was starting to get bad again. And I couldn't pay my bills. And I thought, you know, if there's some way that I can get some help somewhere. And I wasn't going to tell anybody. It was too prideful to tell anybody about all the problems I was having.

So I thought, well, you know, if God can help, I'll just ask. And so I heard them praying in ways that I hadn't thought of before. I mean, I talked to God all the time, I thought, but I didn't really expect an answer.

Oh, interesting. And so I went to the youth pastor and said, I think they have something I don't have. And he said, well, tell me about it. You know? And so I told him, I said, they pray with meaning and they, you know, they expect answers.

And he said, don't you? And I'm like, well, yeah, sorta, but you know. And so he said, well, let's take care of this right now. And he says, do you have Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior? I just kind of looked at him and I said, I don't know. And he said, then you may not.

So anyway, he led me through the sinner's prayer and said, you know, now pray and see. And so it was different. I went home and I opened up the Bible and it was like a whole different book. It was as though the Lord gave me this extra feeling that I needed. And a few days later, they asked me if I wanted to be baptized. And so I said, if I've been baptized as a Catholic. And they said, well, you weren't really a Christian though.

Okay. So then I agreed to be baptized the next Sunday. And so I did. You know, that's quite the story of those people. I mean, I'm trying to think of the right words here, but it's like they gave you a chance in a way or like welcomed you in without. It doesn't sound like there's just all this pressure of like you need to get saved, but yet they lived out something that you could see like, wait a minute, something's not lining up with what I thought I had. You know, what I thought I had actually isn't real. And like I'm seeing something here. Right. Am I getting that?

Yeah. Yeah. They weren't trying to witness to me and knock me over with scripture. They just lived it out in front of me. And when I, the other thing was when I came to them, I was wearing short dresses, tight dresses. And I noticed everybody around me, they weren't dressed that way. And so very quickly, I started sewing up different dresses, longer dresses, you know, looser dresses and everything so that I would fit in. I wanted to be part of this group. And but they, one thing was they had told me, well, they had, they took me to a seminar for young people. And every one of those seminars, they say the exact same thing.

You have the same notebook, they say the same thing. But the Lord uses different things as just as though you read a scripture and one day you read it and the Lord can speak to you this way and another day you read it and the Lord shows you something different from that same scripture. Well, that's what happened with this seminar. The first one I went to, they, all I got from it was forgiveness and honoring your parents.

And I was like, Lord, you have no idea what my dad was like. Now, remember, I'm a new Christian and I'm telling God, you don't know what my dad was like. You don't know what happened growing up. You have no idea what I went through.

And but I kept going, as I looked at the scriptures, I kept coming to forgiveness. And so I thought, okay, he had been abusive towards both me and my children. We're living next door to him. And he had already been abusive since we'd been back. He had hurt my daughter and had belted her with belts, left stripes on her legs and everything. And so I mustered up enough strength to go next door and ask him for forgiveness for what I had been like growing up. I said, I don't think my attitude was always right. And I probably displayed rebellion.

And I want to ask your forgiveness. And my dad just looked at me and I kind of stood between, there was a kind of opening between the kitchen and the living room. And I stood on the other side of the wall because I didn't know if he was going to punch me or get mad or slap me or throw his hot coffee at me or what. But he just looked at me and I waited. And finally he said, well, yeah, you were a little difficult raising.

And I waited. And then he says, yeah, okay. And turned around and went on about his business. And I thought, well, I'm going to leave before he gets mad or thinks of some reason that I've done something. But from that day on, he never bothered me or my children again.

So I know that the Lord had something to do with that. Wow. I mean, that must have been incredibly difficult to ask forgiveness in a situation like that. More scary than anything because I didn't know how he was going to react if he was going to, my dad's lips when he would get mad would get real flat and quiver. And I just watched to see, you know, is he going to get upset with me?

And so I, I, you know, asked for forgiveness and then waited and then I left as quickly as I could because I just didn't know what he was going to do. Wow. Like this is showing though, when you would have say first moved back, like from when you leave Vince, you know, your ex-husband and you moved back to California before you become a Christian, I'm guessing you would have never done something like that, you know? No, because I was very bitter against him for the things that he had done to me and to my children. And there was, he was continuing already to bother me and hurt my children. And so I was very afraid of him.

He was a very big man. So I just didn't know how he would handle it. That's incredible. That took a lot of courage. Yeah, I think. I think it was just the Lord was behind me. Is there more on this about restoring relationships, you know, after you come to Christ and learning some of these things about forgiveness and restoration? Yeah. Is there more pieces to that that you'd like to add into this? We went to seminar then about six months later and three months later, the same seminar. All I heard during that was about Christian marriages. And I thought, wow, that's really nice if people have a marriage like that, but mine wasn't like that.

Can't be. I'm not married. Well, maybe, maybe if I got married to, you know, a Christian guy, it would be like that. So I had talked to these guys. They said, oh yeah, you can get married. You came to a single. So, you know, in Corinthians, it talks about as you come in, that's how you are. I think it's First Corinthians 7:19 or something like that. And I believe that. And I thought, well, that would, that would be good. So I went home to look in my Bible, but everything I opened up to, it said, if you have been divorced, you either stay single or you get remarried. I'm like, I don't like that scripture, you know, and I kept going back and forth, back and forth.

And so that went on for several months. Oh wow. Okay. So you really, you wrestled with this one. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I just, I wanted my children to have a good life. I just wanted, I thought the Christian marriage would be really nice, but you know, how am I going to do that?

And so I finally got enough nerve to pray and ask God, you know, if you want me to get remarried, then Vince needs to call me and ask me to remarry him. And the next night, the phone rings.

I'm just like, no, no, no. We can't do this, you know. And I answered the phone and it's Vince. And he says, no way. What do you think about getting remarried or something like that? I forget his exact words, but it was just factual, just there.

It's like, this is the same person. I said, well, call me back tomorrow night because I just heard at youth group that Satan can appear as an angel of light. And I thought, this is a deception. He heard my prayer because I had prayed out loud.

And so then I sat down by the side of the bed and prayed. This time I was quiet about my prayers. And I said, make sure it doesn't get hijacked. Exactly. And so I said, okay, God, if this is really you this time, you have him call me back with soft words, emotion, something talking in words that he normally doesn't say, you know, and kind of woo me. Like I want to feel like I'm really wanted for me, not just because he needs his next promotion or whatever.

And so I thought, okay, because he's never going to talk to me that way over the phone. Just won't happen. Next night, the phone rings and I thought, uh huh, sure. And I answered the phone and I'm just like, who is this guy on the other end? You know, it didn't sound like him. His voice was soft and it was soothing. And he said, you know, I love you. And he was giving me all the good words.

And I thought, wait a minute, Satan probably somehow knew that I was going to do this. So I said, okay, I still need to think this over. So I'll call you back. So for five days, I fasted. Oh wow. Totally fast. Water only.

Because I just was sure that God, and I told God, I said, you don't know what I went through. I don't want a marriage like my parents, you know. I want a good marriage. I want a Christian marriage like I heard about. I want this and I want that. And he smokes and he drinks and, you know, and there's all these other things. And I kept telling, you know, as though God didn't know all this already, but I'm a new Christian and I thought, God ought to hear all this stuff that's bothering me. So was Vince a Christian at this point then?

I'm sorry. Yes. Actually, he had come to visit us. I'm sorry. He had come to visit us and had attended church with us because our oldest daughter had asked that she wanted to show him to her Sunday schools.

And he had actually prayed a sinner's prayer with a deacon. And when he told me, I'm just like, uh huh, sure. You're telling me a Catholic became a Christian because he was a dyed-in-the-wool Catholic type. But it really sunk. And I gave him a Bible and he had been reading his Bible and I'd been telling him about all of the miracles that God had been doing in our lives throughout the year. Somebody coming in and paying for the gas to be turned on in our house because I didn't have the money. Nobody owned up to it. We were out of food. And so I prayed with the children. And the next morning, I opened the door to take them to school and take my daughter to school and my son to the sitter in major school.

And there's four bags of groceries sitting on our front porch. Do you know where all this, how that happened? No. Oh, that's incredible. Nobody owned up to it. Wow. Like, you know, what was this, you know, 40 years ago or something, you know, someone, somebody did that. And they probably have no idea. I mean, they probably never found out like how big of an impact things like that have. Oh, that's incredible. But even, yeah, and I told Vince about it and he said, well, you probably told somebody that you were out of food. I said, I don't think so.

I may have said something, but I didn't detail what I needed. And Angela had said, you know, I want some chips. I want to make some cookies, mom. And I said, oh, we don't have any flour. We don't have any sugar right now. You know, we just have the basics. And in the bag was flour, sugar, chocolate chips, potato chips, you know, some cereal, all the things. So this is happening. Oh, man. Oh, there's a lot of things coming together here where, you know, so much of your life has, you're like starting a new life, you know, in Los Angeles and divorced and all these things and then finding Christianity and then those moments where God answers prayer like that, that must have been, I don't know, earth shattering is the word that comes to mind, but just like overwhelming of like, whoa, what this is a new life or like this is a different life than what you expected.

It showed me, you know, for a new Christian, it showed me that prayer really works and that God really cares about our everyday things. So it was even more than the little tests that people were praying about. These were, to me, it meant, you know, food for my children and for me and warmth over the winter. And I had started Bible school there at the church. They had several of the youth were going to Bible school at night. And so I thought, I'll go too because I need to learn more about the Bible. And we were studying the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. And I saw in there about their eating habits.

And I was very, very sore with rheumatoid arthritis and was told that I would be in a wheelchair by Thanksgiving and probably in the hospital by Christmas. And this was the end of September. And this would have been like in the mid-1970s or something. 1975. Well, I saw you walking earlier today, so I'm assuming that didn't happen. Right. So you want to tell me about that? So I decided I would try as close as I could doing a diet more similar to what God had told the Israelites.

And so my favorite foods since I was a Southerner were cornbread and beans and you put ham in them and shrimp, you know, crawfish, shrimp, catfish. And I had cut all those out. I mean, I didn't have to, but I chose to do that to see if it would work. And so the next time I went to the doctor, towards the end of October, beginning of November, I had been on this for over three weeks. And the doctor said, you should have been hurting more by now. I said, no, actually I'm really starting to feel better, you know, less pain. He says, well, it's getting colder, so you're going to get worse. And but I didn't.

I kept getting better and better and better. And Christmas time, I was down on the floor and up again with the children. And to this day, I do not eat any catfish, shrimp, any shellfish, any pork products. And when I have accidentally gotten some pork, I do have some stiffness and pain in joints. That's wild. So that is so wild. Like I'm guessing that the doctor was really confused. Yeah.

Yeah. Years later, my mother got arthritis and I told her, I said, go off of ham. And she's like, I can't do that. And I said, yeah, you can. And so we went to the doctor and the doctor said, okay, no more white flour, no white sugar, no pork, and reduce your red meat. And I think that was, there was something else. And my mother just looked at her and said, what am I supposed to eat?

You know, but when she would stay off of pork herself, she started feeling better too. You know, it's different for different people, but it definitely worked for us. But what's getting me here is like you're just reading, you know, you're doing some Bible studies on the first five books of the Bible, you know, like the, it's like the law, the Pentateuch, whatever, Torah, whatever you want to call it. And you're just picking that up as a new Christian and saying, oh, well, hey, I mean, let me try it. That simple faith or that just pretty straightforward of, I see this in scripture, like maybe this would help. Yeah. That's kind of, that's, there's something pretty neat about that.