Barry Meguiar 00:03
I’m here with Jenny and Darlene and these gals. I just want to stay off camera. I just want to get to know you better. You have so many stories. So you have this wonderful lady right beside you here that this is, this is a, this is a incredible story. So sorry. You want to start and then got to come together, Darlene, I mean, you, you have this, you were praying before you’re a Christian. You’re being asked by people for you to pray for them, and you weren’t even a Christian. Is that right?
Speaker 1 00:29
Yes, I was delivering food to the needy in a apartment complex for disabled people, and a woman asked me to pray for her. And I said, Of course, I’ll pray for you. And I’m like, I ran out to my car and I called Jenny, and I said, Jenny, how do you pray for someone? I got a crash course really quick. I went in, and before I knew it, other people were asking me, Can you pray for me? And you’re not saved. I’m not saved. And so, you know, it just it slowly. Our relationship just kind of worked…
Barry Meguiar 01:01
God works with each of us sovereignly
01:04
in different ways. It was very tender and very slow
Barry Meguiar 01:07
That drove you to Jenny because you had, you knew where to go for prayer, right?
Speaker 1 01:12
Because we played Santa Claus and Miss Claus, and so I had been asked to go to the church. So we went and did Santa Claus, and we I got to know her, and she had invited me to church and but she was never pushy, and it took me three years of our relationship.
Speaker 2 01:30
So I’d go help her, and then I’d be going and taking furniture to people’s houses and trying to help people, you know, that are, that are poor and needy or whatever. And I’d go, Darlene. Well, Darlene, she’s my muscle. She truly is my muscle. I call her up. I’m hauling some furniture, and I need help lifting this couch. I can’t do it myself, so she’d come out. She’d help me. We’d lift out. She literally, she was watching the whole time. She’s watching as she’s watching your love, she’s watching me, and then she’s watching, Okay, we’ll stop and we’ll pray for somebody, and she’s watching, oh, yeah, and I’m still not safe yet, yeah? And I didn’t, I literally, I think maybe, maybe in the three years, maybe twice, I might have invited her to church. It was all about the friendship,
Barry Meguiar 02:13
yeah, but yes, she she saw your love in action,
Speaker 2 02:16
yes. And I told her one day we were driving together for toys, for Tots thing. And I told her, I said, you know, God is hard after you. He wants you. He sees your heart to serve, but you’re not there yet. And
Speaker 1 02:30
I said, Why? Why does he want me? Yeah, so we would just go and kind of go to different places. She would invite me, and I’d stand and watch her pray for people. And of course, I close my eyes and bow my head, but at the time, you know, I still wasn’t a Christian, but I go through the act of it, you know, I believe Jesus, but I wasn’t as she would say. There was no change of heart. Yeah, there. I wasn’t there yet, yeah. And so this went on for like, three years, and we’d go to outreaches and stuff with her and bless people. And I’m like, why are you doing all this? And it’s to bring people closer to God and bottom line? And I’m like, Well, I don’t want to go to hell, you know? I want to be saved. But what do I do? I mean, is this like a class I need to go through or what you know? And she’s like, No, you just need to say the prayer and ask for forgiveness. And I’m like, okay, and I called her one time and I says, I don’t know what to do. I said, you know. And she said, you’ll know when you’re ready. So I went to church. And I had gone off and on and off and on at the church, and never really committed myself. And so I told her, I says, I’m going to go to church. I went and got safe that day the pastor, he said, I had no idea that you were ready. And I said, neither did I. I said, but I could not wait for you to have that sermon over. Wow. I said, because I want it to go and be saved. And amazing how God works. And I’m sitting there, right there in the front row. I’m like, get this over with. I want to be saved. Jenny was over at the children’s church, and she said that she handed the mic to the other woman, and she came into the church, and she says she just had this feeling in her heart that I was going to go up there and be saved today. Well, I’m standing there, I can’t I’m shaking, and my legs are wobbling and stuff, and I thought I was going to fall to the ground, people holding me. And she comes up and puts her hand on my shoulder and starts praying in my ear. I had no clue. It was her, no clue, and I could not I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t hear her voice. All I heard was God’s voice in my ears. When it was over, I turned around and I’m like, oh. Oh, my God. Because without her, without her, it took three years, like I said, Yeah, but I was blessed to have her be a part of that, at that moment, wow, because it’s a once in a lifetime,
Barry Meguiar 05:18
moment. Made it all perfect His timing.
Speaker 1 05:21
It was perfect. I couldn’t ask you know, folks, Jesus to help me anymore.
Barry Meguiar 05:26
Let me just say this to you, and I’ve done it a million times. You pray for somebody, you invite them to church. They say they’re going to come. Service starts. You got the seat for them. It’s the one they’re all saying. You’re looking back trying to figure when they don’t come. Oh, they’re going to come the next time when they don’t come, or you share with them, and they’re so close, but then they, you know, it can get so frustrating, and you can just give up on them, and you get mad at God. It’s God’s timing. Yes, it’s God’s timing. It’s you can’t do anything about that. Don’t feel like you got to get her saved today. God’s working, but it’s a circuitous route they go, you know? And they may go way over here sometime, yeah, and God just, he just keeps loving us. We have to do the same thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1 06:15
there was, there was many times that she would call me and say, Are you coming to church tonight? maybe I’ll give it a try. Oh, and so she’s like, Okay, well, that’s great. And she never pushed and
Barry Meguiar 06:29
see you’re the model. You’re really a model talking about. So to me,
Speaker 1 06:32
I wouldn’t be where I’m at today, because I would still be the non-believer. Oh, yeah. And at the end of the day, you know what? I want to go to heaven. I want that paradise and believing in God and, and helping other people and bringing them in, like you said, planting the seed and letting you know, water it a little bit. Don’t let it go dry. It’s an experience that you really need to have. Everyone should have that experience of being saved
Barry Meguiar 07:08
absolutely, absolutely folks, you got to get in on it. You got to get in on this.
07:15
If I can do it anybody can do it.
Barry Meguiar 07:19
You guys are special. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, very precious. Thank you. God. Bless you both. You too.
