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Joshua 1:5: I will never leave you nor forsake you!
JoAnn Gomes
It all began shortly after a wonderful Christmas holiday visiting with mom in 2001. It was a particularly enjoyable season that year and that was very good, because mom was born on Christmas Day. On the night of Jan 2, I was back home in RI at the gym. A staff member came over to me on the treadmill and said a police officer was there to see me. I went into the office where he was waiting for me and he told me the news mom had a brain aneurism and died suddenly!
Over the next 6-8 months or so, everything was a blur. I felt like I was walking in the valley of the shadow of death. Although I grew up Catholic and believed in God, I surely was not a follower of the Lord at that point in my life. I was a 39 year old single woman never married, no children and not one immediate family member left alive on this earth! I felt completely abandoned and alone - that is, until God rescued me!
One beautiful Sunday in August of that year, I accepted a co-workers invitation to her church. They were having a gathering on the beach in N. Kingston, RI. There I was at a church service, that began with this incredible praise and worship music that just spoke to my soul! And this energetic Pastor was preaching an incredible sermon that seemed so alive! He was also inviting different individuals to go up and share with us what GOD had done in their lives?! I was completely in awe over the entire experience, because I never experienced church like this before?!
The music, stories and the message shared that day opened up my very, heavy and hardened heart! Tears were flowing down my face as I listened to these strangers share the most powerful stories about GOD. I noticed one common threadGod came into their lives just when they needed him the most. and that was exactly where I was at in my life! I watched those beautiful strangers go down to the ocean that day with the Pastor and get baptized as a public display of Jesus as their Savior!
There is no doubt in my mind that the Holy Spirit touched me that day! From that point on I began to attend church regularly and the Lord began a great works in me. He continually helps me to grow more and more deeply in him today. Two years later, I publicly gave my testimony at a baptismal service and I pray GOD used me to touch someone else that day, too! Not long after, while attending the Passion of the Christ movie, I set eyes on the man who would soon become my future husband! A year later, Neil and I were engaged and married in April 2007!