LIFE STORIES
JO'S STORY
DISCOVERING REALITY IN A CHANGING WORLD
by Jo KnipeHave you ever thought you had life all figured out—only to discover that life was not at all what you had thought it would be? That has been true for me many times. I've always been one who likes to plan everything. Keep things organized. Know what to expect—be in control.
Maybe it's because I grew up in a very secure family, a family who taught me about security, about love, and about God.
Life was good. I was in control. I grew up, finished my education and began to work at my first job. I loved that job. I still went to church every Sunday. I wouldn't dream of going to sleep at night without first saying a prayer. I read my Bible but I really didn't think much about God from Monday until the next Sunday. I thought about my job, my friends, my social life. I fell in love.
SEARCHING FOR HAPPINESS
I was married and I became the happiest woman in the whole wide world—almost. I had a darling husband, but he didn't know it was his job to make me totally happy. This was my new reality. He needed to learn that. He didn't—he thought it was my job to make him totally happy. So I decided I must need a baby. That would do it. And it did—almost. I guessed the happiest woman in the world needed to have another baby. And do you know what happens when you have two of them? You've got to get out of the house!
So I tried that. I began to join things and take self improvement courses. I learned to sew and paint—I became the unofficial neighborhood interior decorator. I joined everything. If there were two women standing on the corner, I'd go join them. And then I was too tired to be the happiest woman in the world, so I decided I'd need to stay in the house. And then I looked at the house. The happiest woman in the world would need to redecorate this place. Or maybe have a bigger house. Or a new hobby. Or maybe another baby. My husband had no idea what to expect when he came home at the end of the day. Some days I would be on top of the world and some days he would find me in tears, and I couldn't even explain to him what made me cry. Some days there would be this terrible emptiness in me—from way down inside—an emptiness I couldn't understand. Those were the days I would throw myself on the bed, have a good cry, and then get up and go join something.
AN EXTRAORDINARY LUNCHEON
Then one day, I was invited to a luncheon. I really didn't want to go at first. I had my own church and I certainly didn't need another group to join, but my friend had attended and she just loved it. So, she invited me again and again, and finally I agreed to go with her. I thought I was doing her a favor, but it turned out that I was the one receiving the benefit. I have never been the same. It was an ordinary day and those women were so beautiful to me. There was laughter, fun, music, even a fashion show—I really liked that. I finished my lunch and began to gather my things to go home, but another woman came up to the podium. She was the speaker that day, and I had never heard anyone talk about God like she did. She talked about God as if she really knew Him.
And then she said that I was so precious in God's sight—that He loved me. She said He loved me so much that He gave His only Son, Jesus and if only I would believe in Him, I could have everlasting life. Of course, since I went to church, I'd heard that before. But then she began to explain some of the things the Bible has to say which I hadn't heard. Every one of us has fallen so far short of what God had planned for us. The Bible says that every one of us has blown it! When we dishonor God, don’t follow His plan for us, or simply live without Him the Bible calls that sin. Sin separates us from God. She said there is a price to be paid for the things we do that are wrong. The price that must be paid is death.
God is so holy and we go through our lives making our own choices apart from Him—which causes an enormous separation between us and a holy God. But He loves us. That's why He sent His Son—the Lord Jesus Christ. (That is why we have Christmas! He was born that first Christmas in that lowly stable for us!) Jesus came to this earth from heaven. He walked among men, He taught them, fed them, healed them and then one day, He died for them. When they put Him on that cross, He died for you and for me. When they took him off the cross and put Him in a borrowed tomb, they thought they were rid of Him. But they weren't, because three days later He walked out of that tomb, proving He was God in the flesh.
But there is something more. He said He came that we might have life abundantly. Joy! In all of its fullness! I sat there that day and remembered the time when I had put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as a child, and yet I knew I didn't have that kind of joy she spoke of. I was living my life with my trust in myself! I tried to look out of the corner of my eyes and check out all those other women in the room that day. I thought they probably had it all together. I thought I was the only one there that day who would sometimes feel a lonely emptiness in my life.
THE STRUGGLE WITH PRIDE
I didn't know what to do. I also had a problem of pride. Not only was I a Sunday school teacher, but I had been teaching other women in my city how to be Sunday school teachers, how to relate to little kids—and yet I knew I didn't know God the way that the speaker knew Him. I didn't say anything. I just left—and cried on the way home. I knew I had been confronted with the most important information I had ever heard and I didn't know how to deal with it. I didn't say anything to my friend or my husband. I didn't sleep much that night.
When I awoke the next morning, I felt this turmoil in my heart and I thought This is crazy! I am in a room with people who know God in a way that I don't know Him. I want what they have and I'm going to get it! I looked in my purse and found the invitation for the next month's meeting. There was a phone number so I called it, but when the person answered I didn't know what to say. I made a reservation and then hung up. She knew something was happening in my life—for someone to make a reservation a whole month ahead wasn't the norm—so she told someone. I don't even know who called me. I only know that a voice on my phone said, "Hey, Jo. We have a Friendship Bible Coffee. Would you like to come?" I had no idea what that was, but if those women were involved, I wanted to go.
My husband didn't want me to go. He thought only fanatics went to Bible study in the middle of the week—and he didn't want to be married to one of those! I promised I could go and not change. I went—I changed—and he was so glad.
GOD'S PLAN FOR ME
One day he asked me, "Why are you so different? What do you know that I don't know? It was a scary thing for me to try to tell him why I was so different. It meant so much to me and I was afraid he would laugh. So, very nervously, I opened my study book and my Bible and began to show him what I was learning. And he didn't laugh! He read it with me, answered the questions with me, and he too discovered a vital relationship with the mighty God of the universe. And we discovered that God had a plan for our lives. I didn't have to plan my own life—I didn't have to be in control.
God had a plan for me, but it was not at all what I had expected it to be. We soon discovered that my strong, healthy husband was not at all strong or healthy. There was something terribly wrong. He entered the hospital for emergency surgery and everything that could go wrong with a human body seemed to go wrong. After 31 days in intensive care, he went to heaven. I knew he was in heaven because of the commitment to Jesus Christ that he had made in that Friendship Bible Coffee.
Just because I knew he was in heaven doesn't mean that I was strong or brave—I wasn't. I was still a baby Christian and I was scared to death. I was very weak, but God was so strong. It was like He was holding me in His hand. God had already made provision for me before I had even had a need. That is the way He loves us. That is reality.
GOD IS IN CONTROL
I didn't sleep much in those days. At night, I would sit on my patio and just look at the stars. The sky was so clear—and the stars so bright. One night I was looking at the stars and for the first time in my life it was so real to me that the mighty God had simply spoken—and those stars were there. He simply spoke and the world was created! And that mighty God of the universe knew my name! He knew I was on that patio, He knew how afraid I was—but it was okay. He was in control—and He was everything I would ever need. There is a verse in the Bible that says, "He heals the broken hearted. He binds up their wounds. He counts the number of the stars. He even has names for them! Great is our God. His understanding is infinite" (Psalm 147:3-5). I began to pray. I had no wonderful words or phrases. I just said, "Oh, God. Here I am. Will You help me know what to do today?" I knew He listened. I knew He would do it.
I went into the house, woke the kids up, and said, "We are ok." My kids could look into my eyes and they knew I believed what I was saying to them. We began to celebrate life! We celebrated everything!
In the years since then, God has continued to show me that He knows my future and He is in control. He brought a wonderful husband, Frank, and his four kids into my life, and today Frank and I have the joy of telling others how they can experience a personal relationship with the God who loves them. That is the unchanging reality in our lives every day.
