"God Is a Wonderful Father" by Rhoda Wenger

Our prayer is that you will be filled with the knowledge of His will, strengthened with all might according to His glorious power.

Welcome, ladies, to Strength to Strength Sisters. We are so grateful to have each of you here with us today, joining us for this testimony that Rhoda Wanger will be sharing with us today. I am Doreen Kurtz, and I'm joining you from Western Massachusetts.

And my husband and I, we have 9 children and have a very, very busy life right now. I'm excited to hear what Rhoda has to share about her life. I see that you also have 9 children, Rhoda, and this is just going to be really lovely to hear your testimony. I'm going to read your bio just to give the ladies a little introduction to you.

Traveling through life with my sweetheart of 53 and a half years has been an adventure I would not trade. God blessed us with 9 precious children, 5 additional precious children through marriage, and 14 treasured grandchildren. While our children were still at home, we had the privilege of all traveling together in an itinerant ministry. As our children reached adulthood, they pursued the ministries God called them to. Eventually, Rae and I traveled alone. After 33 years of traveling, COVID restrictions in 2020, and now our health issues have ended our travels.

Most importantly, traveling the journey of life with the Good Shepherd as my guide has made this path a joy-filled one despite the humps and bumps on the path. Living life with God is a marvelous privilege because He is always beside me, guiding, giving wisdom, grace for each situation, and patiently teaching me important life lessons. I look forward to kneeling before Him in person someday to thank Him for pursuing me with goodness and mercy, and that was written by Rhoda.

So it's very nice to meet you here on Zoom, Rhoda, and God bless you as you share today. Testimonies are powerful things as they are real-life experiences, and these are so encouraging to us as we travel through life and face the things that we face.

And we are in a warfare, and life is very real, and so it's such a blessing to hear from fellow believers the things they've experienced in the faithfulness of God. And He truly does do all things for our good because that's who He is, and that's the kind of God that we serve.

I want to let you all know that there will be a question-and-answer session after Rhoda is finished with her talk, so you can be thinking about things you would like to ask her or comment on. So I would like to pray for you again, Rhoda, and then after I have prayed, you can just feel free to launch right into your talk.

So let's pray.

Father, thank you that You are so good. Thank you for the work that You have done in Rhoda's life. Father, I pray that we would be ever seeking You and ever humble and ever hungry to learn about You.

Thank you for this time that we can be here with these sisters and just set aside this hour and rejoice with Rhoda in Your faithfulness, what You've done for her, Lord, and what You want to say through her today.

Father, I pray that Your Holy Spirit would be with her and that You would just give her clarity of mind and that You would give her just the right words, Father, for the listeners today. May You receive glory from this time, Father, and we rejoice in You and praise You.

And we ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Doreen. It's always a privilege to speak with others about the goodness of God, so I thank You for inviting me to give my testimony today. I've titled my testimony, "God is a Wonderful Father." He is wonderful not because I am a perfect daughter, but because He is a perfect Father.

I invite you to join me on a brief journey through my life as I share with you some of the ways our wonderful Father has pursued me with goodness and mercy. I grew up in a Christian family with four sisters and two brothers. My parents loved the Lord and were godly examples and models to us. I never heard them speak one unkind word to each other or yell at each other or get angry with each other.

Despite the fact that they were the busy parents of seven active children, they never spoke unkindly to us. They never yelled at us. They never spoke to us in anger. I grew up thinking this was a normal home life. I was truly blessed, but these blessings did not save me. I needed Jesus just as desperately as everyone else, just as desperately as the drug addict.

When I was 12 years old, I realized that I was a sinner and that I needed Jesus. I decided to give my life to Jesus. What I didn't realize at the time was that I was still living life on my own terms.

Our wonderful Father is a loving Father. He pursued me. He knew I wasn't ready to meet Him. Sometime later, I had a vivid dream. I dreamed that Jesus returned, but that I was left behind. That dream frightened me, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. The reality of that awful dream stayed with me for three whole days.

Finally, I went upstairs to my bedroom, got down on my knees, and cried out to God. I surrendered my life completely to Him. And now, more than anything else, I wanted to live my life according to God's terms.

But I had a question that really bothered me. Jesus says in Luke 7:47, "He who is forgiven little loves little." I wondered, does this verse mean I can never love Jesus as much as someone who has a dramatic testimony?

God hadn't saved me from a life of debauchery and alcoholism or drugs or sexual sin. Our wonderful Father is a faithful Father. He reminded me that my sins were as sinful in His sight as the sins of people with a dramatic testimony.

The fact was not that people with a dramatic testimony needed salvation more than I did because they were more sinful than I was. The fact was that I needed salvation just as much as they did because my sins were as sinful as theirs.

They were born with a sin nature, and I was too. My sin nature was no different from anyone else's. My particular sins looked different from theirs, but I still needed Jesus' forgiveness and cleansing every bit as much. I realized that if I thought there wasn't much sin in my life for God to forgive, I would love little.

But if I understood the magnitude of my sin and how terrible it was, then I would be able to love God much. A hymn that is an old Puritan prayer expresses my feelings well: "Mighty yet merciful, how could it be the high King of Heaven extends grace to me? My sins were many, my merits were none. But You are the mighty yet merciful one."

I have a dear friend who had a rough upbringing and difficult home life. She knows how different her home life was from mine. She said to me one time, "I'm from the wrong side of the tracks." I told her, "But I am too. We all are from the wrong side of the tracks, but thank God that when we surrender our lives to Him, He places us on the right side of the tracks."

Our wonderful Father is a patient Father. I am grateful that God has been with me in my struggles. The biggest struggle I remember as a teenager was the thought of having to submit to a husband if I got married.

Some of the questions I was grappling with were, "What if we disagreed on an issue? What if my idea was truly superior to His? Would His inferior notion decide our course of action? Would His conclusions always take precedence over mine?" I chafed at the thought of such an arrangement. I concluded it would be better to stay single. I was happy being single.

But there was one problem. I dearly loved children. I decided the solution was to be the loving single aunt for my nieces and nephews.

Eventually, though, I realized the foundational issue I was grappling with. The question was not, "Am I willing to submit to my husband?" The question really was, "Am I willing to submit to God and His plan for the family?"

I knew that only by submitting to God's directions could I experience His blessing on my future home. I also realized that just because God gave the leadership role to the husband didn't mean I would have no voice in our home.

A loving, godly husband would want my input on decisions. He would carefully consider my ideas. He would gladly jettison his own in favor of mine if he knew my suggestion was truly better. At last, I surrendered my will to God. If I ever married, I would submit to my husband.

With that surrender came this comforting thought: "I have the privilege of choosing the man I will submit to." Consequently, I was extremely careful regarding whom to consider as a possible husband. I wanted that man to be one I could look up to spiritually and intellectually, a man I could trust to lead our family with divine wisdom and common sense.

God has blessed that surrender by giving me a loving husband who seeks my advice, values my counsel, readily chooses my idea if it is truly better, and is full of godly insight and good judgment. I thank God that He has been very patient with me as I learned to trust Him more deeply. Learning to trust Him has been a lifelong process and a spiritually stretching adventure.

Choosing to believe what God says and then trusting Him to do what He says is a choice we each make. Each season of my life has given me opportunities to trust God in new ways. I love the verse in Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Marriage provided new opportunities for me to trust our wonderful Father.

I've already mentioned that God led me to a precious, godly husband, but God had an important lesson to teach me. After several months of being happily married, I started living in fear, fear of losing Ray. "What if Ray died? I could never find another man like him."

After several months of struggling with this paralyzing fear, God showed me I was allowing the fear of, "What if Ray dies?" to keep me from fully enjoying the husband He had given me. When I gave that fear to God, I felt freedom to enjoy the sweet marriage God had given us, and I was assured that God would supply the grace I needed if He took Ray to heaven before He took me.

Our wonderful Father used difficult church experiences to strengthen my trust in Him. Because of those difficult experiences, I actually came to a point in my life where I didn't know how to apply the Bible personally to myself. I didn't doubt God's goodness or that He'd saved me. But when I read the Bible, I felt like what I was reading was true for others, but it was not true in my experience.

I curtailed my prayer life because I wasn't sure how to pray anymore or that my prayers would be answered. I read a statement one time, "When you cannot see God's hand, trust His heart." I couldn't see God's hand in what we were experiencing, but I didn't choose to trust His heart.

After several months of wandering in this spiritual fog, I noticed that the closeness I had felt to my heavenly Father was gone. God felt distant, and I longed for the closeness to be restored. I knew it was my fault. God hadn't moved. He promises in James 4:8, "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you."

I had stopped drawing near to God because I couldn't understand why He was allowing such hurtful things in our church experience. James 4:8 doesn't stop with the command to draw near to God. I love how God doesn't just give a command. He tells us how to obey that command. The verse continues by telling us how to draw near to God, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."

God used that difficult experience to show me areas in my own life where I needed to have my hands cleansed and my heart purified so I could be conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. I repented and asked God to help me trust Him, even though what He was allowing in our lives didn't make a bit of sense to me.

Our wonderful Father is a merciful Father. When I repented, He mercifully restored the sweet fellowship I had previously enjoyed with Him.

Our wonderful Father also loves to give us wisdom when we ask Him. Remember His promise in James 1:5. He tells us, "If we lack wisdom, just ask me." God says, "I give to everyone generously, and I don't scold you for coming. I'll give you the wisdom you ask for."

Having children was a new area where God taught me how much I desperately needed His wisdom. God blessed Ray and me with nine precious children, six daughters and three sons. And now He has given us five additional precious children through marriage and 14 treasured grandchildren. I remember holding our first baby, and as I looked down into the sweet face of my baby girl, I was overwhelmed with the thought, "This baby my husband and I brought into the world has an eternal soul.

She will spend eternity either in heaven or in hell." I knew I could not take one earthly possession with me to heaven. Only the children God gave us could be in heaven with us someday. These thoughts were sobering to me. I realized how I mothered my children would make it easier or harder for them to choose to follow Jesus.

I knew I needed His wisdom to raise our children to love and serve Him. An important part of that training was teaching them to obey me promptly, without talking back, and with a good attitude, because how I taught my children to obey me was the training ground to prepare them for how they should obey God.

Homeschooling our children also gave me myriads of opportunities to trust God for wisdom. Our wonderful Father is creative. He is the creator. What better source to go to for ideas? How can I motivate this child? How can I help my dyslexic child? What's a creative composition idea for this week?

How can I help my toddler use his time wisely?

Our wonderful Father is a diligent Father. God helped me gain spiritual wisdom in lessons He taught me through our children, lessons He knew were important for me to learn. He revealed areas in my life that needed cleansing. One was that God helped me realize the importance of being honest with my children when I was struggling. I remember a time when we were facing some new and difficult challenges.

Our older children realized that it was especially difficult for me. One morning, my teenage son asked me, "Mother, how did you sleep last night?" I actually hadn't slept much, but I was afraid that if I admitted that to him, I would start crying. So I just shrugged and said, "Okay."

Immediately, the Holy Spirit convicted me, "Your son cares about you. You weren't really honest with him." So I went to my son. I told him, "I'm sorry. I wasn't really honest with you. I didn't sleep much last night." And sure enough, I started crying.

But do you know what my teenage son did? He put his arm around me and cried with me. Then he prayed for me. His love and prayer comforted me greatly. To this day, the difficulty is only a dim memory. What has stayed with me is the vivid memory of my son's loving concern for me and that he prayed for me.

I remember another lesson God taught me. As you well know, with 11 people in one household, there's plenty of work to do. The lesson I learned was that getting work done was not my most important concern. Taking care of our children's hearts was much more important.

There are 20 years between our oldest child and our youngest. With nine children, I couldn't be everywhere at once. So I asked my older children for help. "If you see things I should be aware of, please let me know," I told them.

One morning, an older daughter told me that her younger sister had trouble falling asleep the previous night. I knew I needed to find out what was troubling that child. That afternoon, while she was lying in bed to take her afternoon nap, I sat down beside her on the bed and asked, "Did you have trouble falling asleep last night?" "Yes," she admitted she did. "Would you like to tell me about it?" I questioned.

She didn't want to talk about it. I told her, "But I think we need to talk about it." She didn't say anything. I kept sitting there and prayed quietly in my heart, asking God for wisdom. The minutes ticked by.

If God gave me something to say, I would say it. Otherwise, I just sat and waited and prayed. As the waiting time grew longer, I remember thinking, "I have lots to get done yet today. How long will I be sitting here?" But I knew that sitting there and waiting was where God wanted me to be.

Finally, after 45 minutes, my little girl was ready to talk. She told me what was bothering her. We talked through it. When we finished, she heaved a huge sigh of relief, and I knew that her world was right again.

Another important spiritual lesson God taught me was that He cares about our emotions. Our wonderful Father is a compassionate Father. Remember Psalm 103:13 and 14, "As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him, for He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust."

God taught me how to deal with fear when He calls our children to serve in dangerous places. Our son was in Afghanistan helping in reconstruction after the war. There was the danger of stepping on a hidden mine and being blown to pieces.

He could hear bombs exploding close by.

Two of our daughters were serving in Africa. They were in an armed robbery. One of those daughters was in a second armed robbery and narrowly escaped other ones. Those kinds of issues can bring fear to a mother's heart. But our wonderful Father understands. He helps us know how to deal with the fear.

One day in my devotions, I was reading Psalm 68:20, comforted me, "God is to us a God of deliverances, and to God the Lord belong escapes from death." I knew this didn't mean God would never allow our children to be killed in a dangerous situation, but that every incident they faced would first be sifted through His loving hands so I could trust our children to our wonderful Father.

God used this verse to prepare us for another level of danger. Another daughter, who is a midwife, was serving at a mission hospital in West Africa during an Ebola outbreak. Ebola is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus.

What kills the victims is that they begin to bleed out of every opening in their body. If you get the disease, you have only a 10 to 20 percent chance of surviving. Our daughter called us. She told us the mission had given the missionaries freedom to leave till the outbreak was over. But she didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay. She told us, "The people I'm trying to win to Jesus can't run away from the danger. They have to stay here and face the danger. How can I leave? And then, when the danger is over, come back and say, 'Wouldn't you like to follow my Jesus?'" By God's grace, we were able to say, "Yes, you have our blessing to stay."

Do I ever feel fear creeping in when our children are in these dangerous situations? Absolutely. Let me share with you some of the more recent scenarios our children faced. Last year, one of our daughters went with a medical team to serve in Sudan, where the nationals were suffering greatly because of the fierce civil war raging in their country.

Then next, she went with a medical team to a country in the Middle East where Christians are not welcomed. Another daughter with her husband and family were serving in Africa in a country that was becoming increasingly hostile to missionaries.

Just recently, a daughter in Africa found out about a plot to kidnap her and her co-missionary. Fear clutched my heart when she texted us so that we could pray. But our wonderful Father reminded me of the lesson He taught me from Psalm 68, "To God the Lord belong escapes from death."

God also used an email to encourage me. This email is from this daughter in Africa who lives with constant danger. And I am reading this quote from her email with her permission. "God allows real choice, and real choice entails the possibility of great evil. However, God is a master at commandeering humanity's worst for accomplishing His good purposes," the crucifixion being a case in point. "I am safe because I have never-ending fellowship with God that cannot be disrupted by anything in the blip on the screen that is my stint on earth.

I am safe because He has promised that I will not be tested above what I can bear and that His grace will be enough for anything I encounter. I am safe because I've had a sneak peek at the end of the story, and it's a happy ending."

In the truest sense of the word, I am invincible. My peace of mind is not in thinking that being robbed or mutilated or murdered is somehow best if God has allowed it, but in knowing myself so safe in His care that nothing in the universe can do me any real damage, getting robbed or mutilated or murdered is no more disastrous than stubbing my toe.

The resurrection not only vindicates Jesus' claims, it decisively lays fear and sadness to rest. If the worst thing that ever happened in the universe was used by God to bring about the most wonderful thing ever, and if Jesus offers us the incredible honor of sharing in His cross and His victory, then this universe is a perfectly safe place to live out His love to God and to my neighbor, reckless of consequences.

And that's the end of the quote. God's word and the truths expressed in this email remind me, "I must hold the treasures God entrusted to us with open hands, not hands that are grasping tightly. Our children belong to God, and He can take perfect care of them. I cannot.

When I feel fear beginning to clutch my heart, I take it as a reminder that my hands are starting to close. I need to open my hands again. And how do I open my hands again? I need to surrender them once more to my wonderful Father. But I can hug them to my heart in prayer, and that reality comforts me greatly."

Our compassionate Father taught me how to deal with the emotion of sadness. Having our children come home on furlough is always a delightful time. But that means parting when they return to their mission. And that means dealing with the sadness of parting.

I remember one time when my husband and I took one of our daughters to the airport at the end of her furlough. After returning back home, I went into her bedroom to shut the windows. As I entered her empty room, a wave of intense longing for our daughter swept over me. I knew it would be several years before I saw her again.

My heart felt heavy. I wondered, "How can I possibly get through the next several days?" But our wonderful Father understands the yearnings of our mothers' hearts. He knows how to help us deal with our emotions. The thought came to me so forcefully, I knew it was from my understanding Father. "Start praising me." Do you think I felt like singing?

I did not. But sometimes we bring the sacrifice of praise in obedience to our Father, and such was my case. I started singing. Instantly, the heaviness lifted, and the intense sadness was replaced with joy in my spirit.

Several years later, our daughter was home on furlough again. As the time approached for her to return to Africa, I felt sadness begin creeping into me. But then I remembered God already taught me how to deal with this emotion. I began praising Him. I still felt some sadness at the thought of parting, but choosing to praise the Lord kept the sadness from becoming heavy and overwhelming me.

God used this lesson to show me how deeply He cares for His daughters. He understands us completely. After all, He created our emotions. I love that He not only shows us how to deal with our emotions, but He walks with us through the experience.

Our wonderful Father is a caring Father. I love how He prepares us for what's ahead. I can't see what's ahead on my horizon, but God can. The hymn writer expressed it well, "So when my way seems dark as night, I know that God can see, and He is leading me aright who plans my life for me."

I mentioned earlier that I love children. I love being a mother. I was grateful for each child God gave us. After our fourth child was born, I started worrying about a far-off day, the day we would no longer have a little one in our house.

Thinking about that sad day became a niggling worry in the back of my mind. I was not looking forward to that day and wondered, "How would I cope?" After our eighth child was born, we waited almost four long years before God gave us our ninth precious gift.

By that time, I was 45 years old, and I realized this would be our last child. The season of my life I had dreaded for many years had arrived. But our caring Father had a big surprise for me. I felt absolutely no wistfulness, no sadness, no disappointment. I was totally at peace. That sad day I had been shrinking from never materialized. I had dreaded this day for no reason.

This experience taught me an important lesson. I never need to dread the next season of my life. I can trust my caring Heavenly Father to prepare me for what is next, just like He did this time.

When our homeschooling years were coming to an end, people would ask me, "Whatever are you going to do when you don't have to homeschool anymore?" It had been a big part of my life for the previous 35 years. But I remembered the lesson God had taught me.

I would reply, "I don't know, but I'm not worried. God will show me." And He did.

Another way our caring Father prepared me for my future was that He taught me the importance of gratitude so the joy of the Lord could be my strength. God used the autobiography of Mary Teegarden to teach me the importance of praise.

Mary was a single missionary to China. In the midst of difficult language learning ordeals and harrowing experiences when the communists took over, she learned the importance of using what she called her Thanksgiving Key. By that, she meant learning to see God's goodness in the midst of difficulties.

Mary got the idea for her Thanksgiving Key from Philippians 4:6 and 7, where God instructs us, "Don't worry about anything." And again, I love how He doesn't just say, "Now, don't worry," but He tells us what to do so that we don't need to worry. So He says, "Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray and give thanks as we make our request to God." And then He promises that His peace will guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. It's usually not hard for us to remember to pray when we are in troubling situations. What we often forget is to be thankful in the midst of that trial.

In her autobiography, Mary honestly recounts her failures as she learned to use her Thanksgiving Key. She also relates the difference in her life and outlook when she used her Thanksgiving Key.

God also used Anne Boscamp's book, 1,000 Gifts, to teach me the importance of chronicling daily God's blessings. Anne was in a deep depression. She began writing down five blessings God gave her each day. Keeping record of God's daily blessings to her helped her realize God's loving care to her personally and that she was precious to Him. She gradually came out of her depression.

Anne made this statement, and I'm quoting, "Give thanks is an action, and rejoice is a verb. And these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things because He knows the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving."

After reading this book, I began chronicling each day five blessings God gave me that day. I did that for several years until seeing God's blessings each day felt normal to me. This heightened my awareness of ever smaller gifts from Him. I realized I had taken many of these small gifts for granted.

God knew I would need this lesson to help me cope with future experiences He saw on our horizon. One of our daughters had to return from Africa for medical help. She had a lump on her thyroid that was growing.

We happened to be on a ministry trip at the time, but God miraculously arranged a free flight for me so I could be with our daughter during her surgery and possible cancer diagnosis. Each day at the hospital, I recorded the marvelous ways God was intervening for us.

Chronicling God's tender care during that difficult time helped me cope. It opened my eyes to see His daily goodness in the midst of the trial. Experiencing our Father's diligent attentiveness kept fear and anxiety and despair from settling into my heart when we got the grim diagnosis, thyroid cancer.

Another way God taught me to have a grateful heart was to memorize praise songs. Psalm 28:7 expresses why I love singing praise songs. "The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped.

Therefore my heart exalts, and with my song I shall thank Him." Songs like "Be Thou Exalted" forever and ever and "Blessed Savior, we adore Thee. We Thy love and grace proclaim" and "Hallelujah, praise Jehovah from the heavens, praise His name" and "Redeemed." How I love to proclaim it, "Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb."

I also began memorizing prayer songs that expressed the cry of my heart. Prayer songs like, "Fill Thou my life, O Lord my God, in every part with praise. That my whole being may proclaim Thy being and Thy ways."

And "May the mind of Christ my Savior live in me from day to day. By His power and love controlling all I do and say." And another one, "Spirit of God, descend upon my heart. Wean it from earth through all its pulses move.

Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art, and make me love Thee as I ought to love."

Several years ago, another daughter asked if I would be interested in daily sharing blessings together. Ever since, she emails five blessings of her day to me, and I email five blessings from my day to her. I love how this focuses my attention each day on God's loving care to me that day.

Learning to be aware each day of how our wonderful Father is blessing me and caring for me was important preparation for my own cancer diagnosis. In February of 2025, last year, I had my annual physical and blood work done.

At 7 o'clock early one Saturday morning, my doctor called. "I don't want to scare you," she said, "but you need to get to the emergency room immediately." My platelet count was so low, she thought I might be bleeding internally. That was a shock. I thought I was a healthy 74-year-old woman, and now she was saying something was seriously wrong with me.

We called one of our daughters to tell her we would shortly be heading to the hospital. We asked her to post it on our children's chat so they could be praying. Our wonderful Father immediately began surrounding us with His loving care through our family and friends.

En route to the hospital, our youngest daughter texted me. "I'll meet you at the hospital," she texted. That was a tremendous comfort. And then my husband's cell phone rang. It was a friend from northern British Columbia. He told Rayy, "You and Rhoda have been on my mind. I just thought I'd call to see how you're doing."

He was as shocked as we had been to hear that we were on our way to the hospital. He prayed for us. He assured us that their entire family would be praying. They all were going to be together for breakfast that very morning.

I felt so loved by our Heavenly Father as He reminded us in these tangible ways that even though it felt like we were walking into the valley of the shadow of death, we didn't need to fear one thing because He was with us.

I am grateful to God that He had prepared me for this experience. I did what He taught me previously. I wrote down all the blessings He was pouring out on me and on our family every day. God was sending the blessings so thick and fast I could barely keep up with chronicling them all.

And God did a marvelous work in my heart. When we got the cancer diagnosis, lymphoma, I felt no depression, no despondency, no despair, no doom and gloom. Instead, God, our wonderful Father, filled my heart with joy and gratitude to Him, to my family, to our friends, and to the medical personnel caring for me.

And that is definitely not because of me. That is only because of my wonderful Father preparing me and doing a marvelous work in my heart. He had given me a purpose for being in the hospital. Some months before, I felt convicted for not being bolder in sharing my faith with unbelievers.

God had given me many opportunities through the years to speak into the lives of Christian women. And in our travels, we had opportunities to speak God's truth to some unbelievers. But for myself personally, one-on-one, I knew I had missed opportunities to speak for Jesus. I am not a quick thinker on my feet. I feared I would mess up and say something that would be worse than saying nothing.

It is never good to make decisions based on fear, though. I repented and asked God to forgive me. I told the Lord, "Do whatever it takes to give me courage and boldness to speak for You." I thought about that prayer when I got to the hospital. I knew God, in His faithfulness, was answering my prayer.

I asked Him to give me courage, boldness, and wisdom to speak of Him to everyone who came into my room—every doctor, every nurse, every person administering a test, every person doing a procedure, every transport person who took me for tests or brought me back to my room.

Our gracious Father answered my prayer. He also showed me how unfounded my fear was of speaking to unbelievers. Thinking back after a lengthy conversation with the nurse anesthetist who was talking with me before my surgery, I realized that God had given me the exact right words to speak to her. I wasn't stymied with how to reply to what she said, and I wasn't fumbling for the right words.

God had given me insight and wisdom to speak the words He wanted me to speak. My heart overflowed with thanksgiving. God had done for me what the Psalmist said in Psalm 138:3, "On the day I called, You answered me. You made me bold with strength in my soul."

I am 75 years old now. Aging is another area where God is giving me new opportunities to experience what a wonderful Father He is. As we age, we experience limitations. Maybe it's straining to see tiny print, or we can't hear as well, or we can't work as hard or as long as we used to, or it takes longer to complete a task. My husband calls these vapor indicators.

James 4:14 tells us that our life is a vapor. So God sends us vapor indicators—reminders that life is coming to an end and eternity is ahead. God is a loving and wise Father. He knows how easy it is for us to become focused on what is passing away. In His love, He gives us reminders of what is most important in life and that our life here is temporary.

I can choose to be frustrated by the limitations aging brings, or I can choose to see the increasing limitations as new opportunities to trust God and depend on Him. If we understand God's plan for aging, we can embrace this season of life.

Several years ago, I read the book "Aging with Grace" by Sharon Betters and Susan Hunt. This book actually filled me with joy about the reality of aging. How is that possible? Because aging provides an ever-expanding platform to display God's glory, and that is exciting.

As I age, I have to lean harder and harder on my wonderful Father. For example, I don't sleep as well as I used to. That used to frustrate and worry me because it's harder to remember things the next day, and I don't get as much done.

But then God helped me see that He would make sleepless nights become treasured times if I chose to use that time to worship Him. Our loving Father transformed those sleepless nights from frustration to fruitfulness, from despair to delight, and from gloom to glory. I can pray. I can meditate on scriptures I've memorized. I can sing hymns I've memorized—in my mind, of course, so as not to disturb my husband.

Then on days after I haven't slept well, I need to lean extra hard on God for strength to accomplish what He wants me to that day or to remember the things I need to remember. But that's a privilege.

I can choose to praise Him when I see life as it used to be slipping away from me because it's an opportunity to depend on my wonderful Father more and more. I had a dear friend, Eileen, who went to heaven at age 96. She had been a missionary in China. She was a lovely example to me of growing old gracefully to the glory of God. As her macular degeneration advanced, her vision dimmed, and she had to depend on others more and more.

She called her increasing physical limitations TTEs—Tugs Toward Eternity. I learned valuable lessons from this godly woman. One was she never complained. Instead, she described her increasing limitations as, "A review lesson from my Savior as to my happy submission."

She welcomed increasing limitations as opportunities to trust God in new ways. Another lesson I learned from her was that she didn't talk about her physical limitations unless I asked her specifically. If I said, "Eileen, how are you feeling today?" she would tell me. Otherwise, she wouldn't talk about it. She told me one time, "I don't like giving organ recitals."

You can see she hadn't lost her sense of humor. Another lesson I learned from her was that we never get too old to be useful in God's kingdom. As her eyesight diminished, Eileen made the statement, "While some doors softly close, others open." She stayed busy doing what she could for the Lord. If we wanted to visit her at the retirement center where she lived, we had to call ahead to make sure she would be in her room.

She called herself an Omega Midwife. Omega is the final letter of the Greek alphabet. She would sit with dying residents so they would have the comfort of her presence when they were birthed into heaven.

My life prayer is found in Psalm 86:11-13. I like to pray this prayer when I wake up in the morning before I get out of bed. "Teach me Your way, O Lord. I will walk in Your truth. Unite my heart to fear Your name. I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and I will glorify Your name forevermore. For great is Your mercy toward me, and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol."

To belong to our wonderful Father who continues to pursue me with goodness and mercy is truly a blessing, a comfort, a joy, and an absolute delight. May God bless you.

Well, thank you, and God bless you, Rhoda, for sharing with us.

That was very encouraging to hear that.

I really appreciated how you mentioned and talked about the importance of gratitude in your testimony

and being willing to take that step of obedience and start thanking Him and how that brought joy. It's such a blessing.

Maybe some of you ladies have something you want to share or ask Rhoda now. We'll begin our question-and-answer session. And if you'd rather not speak here and turn on your camera, you may submit your questions in the chat box as well.

But feel free. We would love to hear your voice and see your face if there's something that you would like to share. Thank you so much, Rhoda, for sharing your story. It was very impressive to me how you react, how you're trusting God, and how you let your heart respond to all those things you experience in life.

And especially, it makes me feel more it reminds me of how much God cares for us and how He is, yeah, caring for all circumstances as our daughters. Yes, I'm very blessed with it. Thank you so much. And I have so much to learn.

And don't we all? We never get too old to keep learning. I'm still learning at 75, but we have almost. Yes, and that is what you're yes, that's what you're taught. And that's so absolutely encouraging and so, yeah, beautiful. It's a beautiful story. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it.

God be the good one. Yes. And I was wondering, that gratitude book of Mary—what's her second name? Tegarden. T-E-G-A-R-D-I-N. Of course, my chance. E-Garden. Yes. And the book is entitled "A Promise Is To Keep." Promise Is To. Is To Keep. Yes. To Keep. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Rhoda, thank you so much for your talk. It was very encouraging. I can see that you've lived a life full of surrender to God, and that's such a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing to listen to a mature Christian talk as well.

That's something that I lack in my life. So it's wonderful to sit here and listen to you, and I felt encouragement. I feel like the next time I'm going through a little bit of a difficult time, I need to listen to this because I feel like you could speak into my life. And I love how God is so faithful, and He's teaching you the same things or has taught you the same things that He's teaching me. And it's such a beautiful thing.

I love how He told you to just start, "Praise Me," and how true that is. And it can be so difficult in hard times.

But when you can surrender your fears or anxieties or whatever to His glory and just—yeah, it's so beautiful. I thank you very much for this. I love that you said our children are God's, and He can take perfect care of them, and we cannot, but He can. And that's such a good reminder.

Yeah, thank you so much. I love how your husband says they're vapor indicators. I think I need to tell my husband that. He's going to like that.

It's a good way to look at it. It is. Yes, it is. It makes total. Yeah. I'm wondering, what kind of ministry did you do with your family when you were traveling? What kind of things did you do?

Okay. We traveled together as a family. My husband didn't want to be traveling and leave me at home with the children to raise them. He wanted to take us all together, so we did. And he would speak. Before he spoke, we usually would sing together as a family, and the children would recite a passage of scripture, and then he would speak.