- Part 1 -
God has graciously and mercifully answered a lot of prayers that went up for the Taylor Family. All of this happened within 1 year, 4 months, and 3 days. All glory be to God for the blessing of seeing God’s hand at work with us and our children. Our children are growing up with the knowledge that the God we serve is doing marvelous things in our home and our lives. We would like to share the things that God has bestowed upon us.
On March 25th, 1999, my husband and I found deliverance from a crack cocaine addiction that had haunted our lives for over 16 years. The captive was finally set free. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). We knew we could not fight this battle alone so we went to Remnant Ministries and became followers of Jesus Christ. We realized that the only way to have complete victory in this battle was to strive to walk holy before Christ. God had provided a job for me which involved working for the Commonwealth of Virginia. We were set free from the bondage of living on Welfare and Food Stamps that bound us for 18 years. We continued to live in a drug-infested neighborhood and a roach-infested apartment. But God kept us clean from the drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. He didn’t stop there. He continued to help us clean up our lives. After a struggle, we overcame the addiction of television as well as worldly music. This was a big change for us as well as our children. But we knew that in order to live a Christian lifestyle, we had to be cut off from the world. We became a peculiar people, especially on 14 Galveston Place. We continue to have some hard times. But we found that when we lived on God’s promises, He saw us through. We started praying for deliverance while living on Galveston. The abusive language that was used outside our apartment, the selling of drugs on our street, and the continual seeing of people that we had bought drugs from and smoked drugs with were things that we had to endure from day to day. WE WERE SET FREE only to realize God was shaping us for something greater. He was calling us to a lifestyle of holiness. We proceeded screaming and hollering all along the way. God has not only delivered us from the world of drinking and drugging but He also delivered our daughter Charlene from the drugs and alcohol.
As a family we started praying for a second vehicle. Within a couple of months God saw fit to bless us with one. It didn’t cost us a dime. The praises continued to go up, so God’s blessing continued to come down. We prayed on a daily basis for a computer. God heard and blessed us with not only one but two computers. ONLY GOD! We continued to pray that God would move us from Galveston Place. We looked at several ads in “The Washington Post” and “Home Guide Magazines.” We realized that we didn’t qualify for anything so we made a choice to wait on the guidance and the provision of God to move us (and He did). We started packing. He used the body of believers to help provide a home that was beyond our wildest dreams. Whoever would have thought that the Taylors would become suburbanites? AGAIN, ONLY GOD. For the first time in our lives we are LEGAL in everything. Living here has brought on so many other blessings. Charles can come home for lunch since he works closer to home. We have been in prayer for me to be able to work closer to home. Not only has God answered that prayer but he also saw fit to bless me with the hours at work to be able to be at home with the children when they come home from school. God isn’t finished yet. We are now in prayer that I will be able to stay home and homeschool the children. God has opened the door so CeeCee (our son) could be granted a $10,000 fund scholarship at a Christian Academy. Having come from a South East, DC, public school system, it is truly a blessing to him to be in North Carolina in a Christian School. He’s no longer thinking about running away from home, but instead he wants to come home because he’s homesick. We owe God all the honor and praise. We are continuing to pray that our children would become Disciples of Christ and that we would continue to grow closer to Christ.
Part 2
In part 1 of our testimony, we had mentioned God wasn’t finished yet. Since then we prayed that I could become a stay-at-home mom and homeschool our children. I had gotten a job closer to home at the local Target. I thought that the hours I had from 10:00 P.M. to 6:00 A.M. would somehow make things better in our home. (It wasn’t God’s plan). After lifting, sweating, hauling, bending, pushing and compromising with the worldly music they played over the loudspeaker, I knew this job was not from God. During the eight hours that I was there I asked God to lead me and guide me in the direction He wanted me to go, because I knew this was not His will. The music that was played over the loudspeaker started to bring back memories of the past. So I asked God to block out anything and everything that did not glorify Him.
As I was leaving work that day, people asked me if I was coming back. My only thoughts were that I was praying that I would not have too. Every part of my body was hurting. All I could think about was going home to my nice, cozy bed. But it did not work out that way. The children were up by the time I got home. I had to spend time with them. The phone constantly rang and I was very irritable and could not get any sleep. The TV baby-sat my children for 6 hours while I tried to get some sleep. I knew there had to be a better way. My husband called and said I did not have to go back. We were going to trust God. But at 9:30 P.M. I started to get dressed for work. I was murmuring the whole time I was ironing my uniform. I did not believe that my husband was sincere about me quitting. At this point I wasn’t trusting God to provide. As I was getting dressed I looked at my husband and said, “I don’t want to go back.” His reply was, “Well then, don’t. God will provide.” We prayed that God would provide our every need and we placed our trust completely in Him. Immediately I called the place where I had worked for only one day and told them that I was not coming back. We also realized that if I am not working, there’s no need for us to send the children to the neighborhood school. So now we were not only living in the suburbs and trusting God with one income, but we were also planning to homeschool the children. Now the question was, “How do we afford the books?” Before we had time to worry about this God blessed us through a friend that gave us the money for the whole year’s curriculum. ONLY GOD!
We prayed that God’s will would be done in our son’s (CeeCee) life and that he would want to come home. Well, it didn’t take long for that prayer to be answered. When we came home from Bible study on a Wednesday evening, there were several messages on the answering machine from him, stating that he wanted to come home. When I called him back that night he said, “Mom, I want to come home and you can even homeschool me.” At first the only thing I could think of was, “How are we going to go get him and when, for he is five hours away.” We shared this at church. On Saturday our Pastor decided to pack up and take the 15-passenger van and go get him. So Monday morning at 5:00 A.M. we were on the road headed toward North Carolina to pick up our son. When we arrived at, he was standing outside and his bags were all packed and ready to go. He threw the stuff in the back of the van and we headed back to Maryland rejoicing all the way. Once again we sent up prayers for homeschool materials for our high school son.
God has answered, and through blessing of family and friends we have what is needed to get him started. We are continuing to pray for God’s guidance, grace, and mercy as we enter this next phase of walking, trusting and being guided by Him. ONLY GOD.
Charles & Crystal Taylor
