If you have read my first book, "What Happens When We Only Believe?" you will have noticed that I only wrote a fragment of my personal testimony. While preparing for my second book, the Lord impressed upon me to discuss my life from the very beginning. Even though it may seem unusual, I have found that the Lord has a plan for everything in our lives, if we but follow Him. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Matthew 7:7-8. Today our nation is once more facing a very real recession. It is like no other since the Great Depression of the 1930's. I was born in 1931 in Springfield, Ohio. The nation was in the midst of the Great Depression. People everywhere were looking for work. There was no social security in those days. President Theodore Roosevelt conceived a program that put men to work, in what he called the W.P.A. or Works Progress Administration. Men cleaned streets, repaired buildings, or whatever work the government offered them. The men did anything in order to feed their families. Bread lines were long in those days, and folks had to get there early and stand in long lines to receive their portion of bread. Sometimes the bread supply was exhausted before everyone received their bread. It was a hard time for many families. Wealthy citizens suddenly lost all their money. Some jumped off of tall buildings and died. They had lost everything, and they felt all hope was gone. My father told us a story of his experiences during that period. I was their firstborn child. Dad worked in a large factory at this time, and mother stayed at home to care for me. My father's job wasn't what he liked to do. He was a mechanic and a carpenter at heart. I called him a "jack of all trades." Dad had a coworker in the factory that was not as versatile as he was. Dad knew that if he left the factory, this man would still have a job. He also had a family and was about ready to be bumped. It was then that dad decided to start his own repair shop in his garage. He loved cars and motorcycles, and he was good at whatever he did. His statement to me was that he had to earn money "for his baby's milk." Dad was also a salesman. He was a tall charismatic, good-looking man. People were naturally drawn to my father. At the same time that dad quit his factory job; he began soliciting for a major life insurance company. He said that no one could afford to buy life insurance at that time, but dad's theology was to "make friends now, the rest will come later." The Bible calls it "planting seeds." Sometimes we have to wait for the harvest, Amen! Well, dad's harvest did come. After things in the nation got better, dad's friends bought insurance from him. He did so well that he eventually became a district sales manager for the company. He retired from the insurance business well into his late 60s or early 70s. The Bible tells us that fortunes made in a hurry usually don't last. The Bible also states that fortunes made at someone else's expense usually call for a payback sometime later in life. From time to time, we hear of many people who have won a lot of money all at once, and eventually end up broke. You may say that they didn't have enough wisdom as to how to manage it. That is probably true, but the Word of God tells us this will probably happen. The Bible tells us we are to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. Jesus was a good example of this; he was a carpenter. He could have called down gold from heaven if He so desired, but He chose to give us an example of hard work. We Americans think that life isn't fair or easy. The poorest person on the street has it tough, but sometime in their life they might have had it better. When we compare life in America to third world countries, we have a lot. We need to be more grateful.
About the Author: Joy Renee' Blackburn, Minister and founder of GOD'S HOUSE INTERNATIONAL, Lakeview, Ohio 43331 USA, says: I was born during the Depression in Springfield, Ohio, to wonderful parents who had a Christian background. I had two sisters; we were born two years apart. As we grew older, dad and mom quit going to church but they would insist that we go. They didn't quit all at once they would attend during the holidays or if we had a part in the Christmas plays. That was expected of any "good parent." Yet, at the age of 11, my mother and father divorced. We girls were never around to hear them argue, so the divorce was quite a jolt. Dad kept my middle sister and myself, and the youngest sister went to Texas with mother and grandmother for a short time. Dad took us to St. Mary's of the Springs School for Girls for six months. At the age of 14, I could decide whether I wanted to stay with my father or go with my mother. My father decided with our urging that sister Nora and I would go with mother. We missed her so much. Because Dad was an insurance salesman, he was home very little before our bedtime, and it was hard on us to be "on our own" as teenagers. Dad was very hurt concerning our decision, but he let us go with mother and grandmother. We traveled that first year quite a bit, then moved to Dayton, Ohio, and then on to Indian Lake where we all three attended school and graduated. It was at Indian Lake that I met my true love, Howard Carroll Blackburn. THE VILLAGE CARPENTER WORLD WIDE MINISTRIES, PUBLISHING HOUSE, BIBLE SCHOOL, OS PUBLISHING, ME SHED CHURCH and GALACTIC ORDAINED MINISTRIES at GOD'S HOUSE INTERNATIONAL, PO Box 133, Lakeview, Ohio 43331 USA or see TheVillageCarpenter.info OR see GalacticOrdainedMinistries.Space