"Encourage one another daily" (Hebrews 3:13).
A daily, Bible-based perspective of hope, encouragement and exhortation.

"But with You there is forgiveness" (Psalm 130:4). “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

These brief testimonies. Any personal, identifying details were removed, unless I received permission to use the name.
 
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Our adopted son, Elliot, is certainly a miracle boy.  My wife Ann stayed in touch with our adopted son Aaron's birth mother after he became a cherished part of our family.  We had fostered Aaron for close to a year from the time he was three months old.  We adopted him just after he was a year old.

Ann heard that Aaron's birth mother was pregnant again and was considering an abortion.  Ann warned her of the dangers of taking an innocent, unborn life and encouraged her to choose adoption instead.  The mother didn't heed Ann's advice and headed to an abortion clinic in a nearby metropolitan city.  While she was on the table in the abortionist's office, waiting for the procedure, she couldn't get Ann's words of warning out of her mind.  She sat up and announced that she could not go through with the abortion because of the counsel she had received!

We had been trying to contact her that day and feared that she had gone ahead with her plan.  When she arrived back in our city, she called to tell us what had happened and that she was going to continue with her pregnancy.  A beautiful young boy was born and was placed in another foster home.  Several months later he came up for adoption and we applied.

The local children's aid society felt that Elliot should be raised with his brother, Aaron, and he came home to live with us.  We are grateful to God for two young boys who bring us much joy.  Elliot almost didn't see the "light of day" but thanks to Ann's counsel and the work of God's Holy Spirit he is a fine, healthy 7-year-old boy who has already invited Jesus into his life.  He truly is our miracle boy!

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In 1979 a beautiful young 16 year old girl became pregnant through a teenage relationship.  Unfortunately for the boyfriend, he removed himself from the relationship and forfeited any rights he could have had to the baby.  As a matter of fact he even requested for her to have an abortion of which she refused, thanks be to the Lord!  After her parents got through the initial shock, they loved, guided, and supported her throughout the pregnancy and they never considered abortion or even giving the baby up for adoption (although I think that is a great option for some).  This young lady gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl.

A few years later the young lady met a young man to which she became married to and that young man is yours truly.  At the time of our marriage I was not a Christian but the Lord knew exactly what I needed.  I adopted the little girl soon after we married and I knew that I was ultimately responsible for her nurturing, which included her spiritual upbringing.  The Holy Spirit used this responsibility to prompt me about my own spiritual condition.  I was under conviction at the time and didn’t even realize it!  Through this event God used this precious little girl, my new daughter, to reach down in my heart and help me to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.

My daughter is now 23 years old.  She is a devoted Christian who loves the Lord with all her heart and is a beautiful, talented, young lady with a full life ahead of her.  What a tragedy it would have been if her life would have been ended while in the womb!  I challenge anyone, man or woman, to consider this story if they are trying to decided between life or death.

This is just one example of how the Lord can take a situation that the general public would call bad and turn it into good just as he did with Joseph, (see Gen. 50:20).

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Once again the Daily Encouragement touched me deeply/personally.  I am absolutely amazed at how many different subjects are presented and I have had an experience in my own life that parallels.  I'll try to make this as short as I can.

I too found myself in the same situation as Matt's mother in the late 1960s. We lived in a small town and the doctor's advice to my family was that we should move.  That was not practical or possible, so I went to a home for unwed mothers.  I had my first pain at 12:00 a.m. on Easter morning, 1967, and even though I was not a Christian, I had always been drawn to the Lord and had grown up attending Sunday School and prayed in the only way I knew how.  Somehow I believed that by God letting me have my daughter on Easter, He forgave me.  I named her Hope, although she wasn't to know that until many years later.  I gave her up for adoption and was told the records were sealed.  I went back to finish my senior year in high school and went on to college.  The only day I would allow myself to cry for her was annually on her birthday and what broke my heart the most was thinking that she would never know how much I loved her.

When I was 23 we had a Lay Witness Mission at our church and I heard about having a relationship with Jesus like I'd never heard it before and I went forward and accepted Him as my personal Savior.  In the fall of 1987, when I was working at a Rescue Mission, I received a phone call from a woman saying she knew me through a friend from my past and could she come and talk to me.  I said, "Yes" and she came at noon and we sat in the little Chapel at the Mission and she told me she had adopted a little girl 20 years earlier and had every reason to believe it was my daughter.  We both cried and hugged and she'd been thoughtful enough to bring along pictures of **** (her adoptive parent given name) growing up so I could see what I'd missed.  We decided we indeed a shared daughter...I had her for 9 months, she and her husband had her after that.

To make a long story a little shorter, **** was afraid to come meet me and didn't decide to until the following February when I was in the hospital for surgery on my shoulder.  No pretense then, I didn't even have to decide what to wear........hospital gown and no make-up!  We had an immediate bond.  We too developed a lovely relationship and I never tried to push my way into her life, but let her make the call on when we would spend time together.  She has since married and has 4 children. I too was able to sit in the front row with her mother and father at her wedding and was included in some of the family pictures.  Since that time her husband has asked that she not have a relationship with me because somehow he sees that as her not being loyal to her adoptive mother and I respect his wishes.  However her mother and I continues to keep in touch by letters which let me know how **** is and will tell me about how her children are growing and about each of their personality traits. I always asked God that if I couldn't meet **** on Earth that she would become a Christian so I could meet her in heaven.  I have to say, I don't know, or think, that she is a born-again Christian, but I still pray for her and her family.

Another side-note to this already long story is that when I worked for a time at a University, I took a speech class (the oldest woman in there, I might add).  The last speech was to be persuasive.  I decided to do mine on anti-abortion/pro-adoption.  I told of three girls who became pregnant out-of-wedlock.  The first became pregnant while she was engaged, but the father was not her fiancé.  The second was impregnated by her sexually abusive father.  The third was made pregnant by a young man who got two other girls pregnant the same summer and married one of them.  Then, I put pictures upon the screen.  The first was of Jesus and I told how the first young woman was Mary.  I said that I could not reveal the identity of the second young woman, but I knew her personally and her father had forced her to get an abortion, while he watched.  I showed a blank screen and said we would never know who that child might have become. The third picture I showed was of me and my grown daughter.  I told them that they might not agree with my religious beliefs, but they could not tell me that I should not have had my child.  Who knows who she or her children might become and what they might do for our world?

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Matt's story and testimony touched me deeply. What a wonderful testimony to God's plan for each of us. I, too, was adopted at 3 days of age by wonderful, Christian parents (I've written about them to you before, Pastor Weber). Interestingly, I never wondered about my birth mother, until I had my own son at age 32. I didn't make any attempts to locate her, because, as wonderful as my parents were, my mom, especially, would have felt that she had somehow failed me as a parent. So, my daddy went to be with Jesus in 1998 and my mom in 2002, and after that I began searching for my birth mother. I did learn that she is deceased and that I have either a half-sister or sister (I have no information about my birth father) that lives within 15 miles of me. I spoke with my birth mother's sister, who was shocked and horrified that I had located her and knew who my birth mother was. She would not give me any additional information and pleaded with me not to contact my mother's other daughter. I promised her that I wouldn't - although I know from my search, her name and address. I wrote to my birth mother's sister, respectfully requesting another conversation or even a picture, but have heard nothing from her. When I wrote, I enclosed the following poem, which mirrors my feelings:

Legacy of an Adopted Child

Once there were two women
Who didn't know each other.
One you don't remember,
The other you call mother.

Two different lives
Shaped to make yours one.
One became your guiding star,
The other was your sun.

The first gave you life,
The second taught you to live it.
The first gave you a need for love
And the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality,
The other gave you a name.
One gave you the seed of talent,
The other gave you aim.

One gave you emotions,
The other calmed your fears.
One saw your first, sweet smile,
The other dried your tears.

One gave you up,
It was all that she could do.
The other prayed for a child
And God led her straight to you.

And now you ask me, through the tears
The age-old question through the years:
Heredity or environment - which are you a product of?
Neither, my darling, neither
Just two different kinds of love.

I was raised in a loving Christian environment and am a committed follower of Jesus Christ. I feel, if God wants me to know more about my birth parents, etc., He'll take care of the way.


The message was very heartening. Just last week a couple from our church shared there testimony about their journey to becoming parents and how they both had medical problems that would not allow them to have biological children but how God had guided them to adoption. At this time they have gone through the procedures to adopt an unborn child from an unwed mother in Guatemala. Then they found out the girl was pregnant with TWINS !!!! So now they are doubly blessed.


I am the oldest son born into a poor family of sharecroppers.  By all accounts my father had been a strong Christian before he entered the military.  When he came back from Korea he was a violent alcoholic.  My mother was warned by everyone, including his own brothers, not to marry him.

Nine months after they were married, I was born.  Just six weeks later I went to the hospital due to the results of a beating.  By the Grace of God I am still here.

The beatings and abuse continued throughout my childhood.  My father’s favorite name for me was ferret face.

When I was 5 years old, we lived in a small one room house.  My brother and I slept in bunk beds not 10 feet from my parents.  One night I remember vividly listening to my father sexually abuse my mother with a baseball bat.  I lay in my bed and plotted how I would kill him.  My plans were very detailed and precise and I remember them to this day.  Suddenly I remember seeing the face of the Devil floating in front of my own.  It was hideous and scared me terribly.  I cried out for Jesus and the face left.  By the Grace of God I am still here.

The very next day the little old lady who lived next door asked me to walk her to church on Sunday.  Since she was blind she said she needed help.  I accompanied her to church many Sunday’s until we moved.  She did not really need my help; she had walked that route many times before.  God sent an angel to get my attention but I did not listen.

As I grew, my father turned his attention toward me totally.  He would beat me just about every day.  At night I was afraid to go to sleep.  I woke up many times with him hovering over me with a knife.  Sometimes he would even have it at my throat.  By the Grace of God I am still here.

In my teens, I would fight back.  If he hit me I hit him.  When I was 13 my little sister was born and I was extremely happy.  I remember telling him the next morning when he sobered up that if he ever touched her I would kill him.  God was calling but I did not answer.

I was an athlete and always made the teams only to have my father show up drunk and embarrass me or make me quit.  We moved a lot.  I went to 16 different schools between 1st and 12th.  Friends were not something I made.

Six months before graduation I quit high school and joined the Army.  I had to get out of there before I really did kill him.  No one understood. I was labeled a quitter.

While serving, I received a frantic call from my mom.  My father was dying and asking for me.  I went home on emergency leave.  He needed a heart operation and was not expected to live.  My mother asked me not to go back to the Army.  I requested reassignment and it was denied.

I became so depressed that I tried to commit suicide.  I took a lethal does of his heart pills.  I remember laying on the table in the operating room.  I heard God’s voice.  He told me He was not done with me yet, He had work for me to do.

I came out of the hospital elated because God had called me.  Several days went by and He did not call again and I became depressed again.  I tried suicide again.  This time I remember lying on the table and God spoke to me again.  This time He said I told you I had something for you to do and you did not listen.  This time I am going to let it hurt a little.  The pain was worse than anything I have ever felt.  He was trying to get my attention but I did not listen.

When I returned from the Army I found out my father had beat my sister.  The next morning when he sobered up, I beat him so bad he went to the hospital.  He’s the only person that can make me mad.

After the Army I took over the farm.  One day I was putting hay in the barn and my father walked in with a shotgun.  He told me to get off the farm even though I lived there and he did not.  When I refused, he pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger.  At the last possible second, my mom hit the barrel just enough to make him miss by 3 inches.  He blew a hole in the barn by my left ear.  By the Grace of God I am still here.

The episode in the barn was the last time my father drank.  God was working on both of us and neither of us listened.  He got my father’s attention that day but not mine.

About a year later God brought a wife to me.  She was custom-built by God just for me.  He still did not get my attention.  Two years later, he laid my first son in my arms and got my attention.

All my life He had been preparing me for something.  I thank God for my life.  Every day my kids go to bed knowing how much I love them.  Every night my wife goes to bed knowing how much I love her.

I am thankful that God cared enough about me to custom-built a wife just for me.  I am thankful that God loved me enough to come when I called.  I am thankful that God loved me enough to nudge the shotgun enough to make my father miss.  I am thankful that God cared enough about my father to get his attention and restore him to his pre-Korean self. I am thankful that God has blessed me with 3 wonderful Christian children who attend the best private Christian school and are blessed enough to go on mission trips. I am also thankful that God allowed me to start a business and gave me the strength to make our slogan on all our material and web site “determined to do business as Jesus would.” I am thankful that God believes in this 45 year old man enough to send me on mission trips around the world to reach others.

It is amazing where you will go when you let Him drive!


I was raised in a nominally churched home although I never experienced anything that resembled a relationship with the Lord.  Faith was never discussed in my household.  High school years were tumultuous having moved to Wellesley and entering mid year as a sophomore.  If only I confided in the Lord as weeks passed and I sat alone amidst a cafeteria full of an energetic and clicky student body.  Subsequent to high school, I spent five years at Regis College which was interrupted junior year by a car accident that nearly took my life.  All those dark, painful hours of moving in and out of consciousness, disoriented and traumatized without knowing the Lord.  Emptiness amongst so much pain.

After some time, I healed from my injuries and returned to graduate from Regis.  I was married a couple years later although a longing and restlessness surged within me.  I quickly became unsatisfied in my marriage and spent time away from home – I worked full time, commenced an evening graduate program and engaged in an affair with a mentor, a man twenty years my elder.

My husband and I consented to a mutual separation and sold our home. I changed jobs, moved into an apartment and continued to work full time and pursue school.  Now that I was free from living with my husband, I engaged further in acting as a temptress and adulteress.  However my depression and feeling of loneliness only intensified.

One year after separating from my husband, I quit my job, packed the trunk of my car and left on a whim to Southern California.  I had no job lined up, no place to live, and certainly not many contacts.  I drove cross-country, believing that I was so courageous and so free.  I couldn’t have been further from the Truth.

Along my travels, I stopped in Wyoming and decided to spend the summer working on a guest ranch.  To my surprise, real cowboys still exist in the West complete with traditional values and roles.  I was hired as a housekeeper although I challenged the boys – fighting them all the way to let me partake in caring for the animals, driving tractors, mending fences, even digging ditches.  Despite my energy and interest to learn the way of ranch life, I was constantly mocked, humiliated, and in some cases set up to fail and withstand physical harm.

I so much enjoyed waking at dawn.  As I fed the cows in the morning, I’d listen to the river and admire the kelly green fields of alfalfa - how many times did I run through the fields and not feel the Lord’s presence?  How many times had I carefully leaned over on the bank of the river to touch the cool sparkling water without knowing the Lord had created it?

One evening, I was driving into town to meet a man.  I had mixed feelings about it because I had placed myself in another compromising situation.  As I drove I thought of my emptiness, the longing to satisfy my restlessness. My driving grew reckless as angst stirred within me.  I was tailgating a car in front of me and swerved to the other lane to pass.  As I reached 70mph in a 15mph hairpin turn, I lost control.  The car rocked and pivoted.  I rested my hands on the wheel gently and sat back.  Time slowed until the car abruptly stopped, collapsed and rolled.

When I was upside right again, I found the car had plunged tires first into a raging canal.

Water began to seep in quickly through the floor boards.  The windows were closed as was the sunroof.  I tried calmly to open the driver side door – it wouldn’t budge due to the weight of the water.  The car began to sink.  I thought to myself:  “It’s okay.  It will only take a couple of minutes – it will be painful to swallow the water but then it will all be over.  I won’t feel this depression and emptiness anymore.”

As the car continued to fill with water, the will to live overcame me.  I moved to the passenger side and positioned myself in the seat.  I placed my right leg against the door and pushed hard.  Because the car was tilting to the left side, I was able to wedge the door open and slide into the icy water.  As I moved away from the car into the current of the river, the car capsized and disappeared.  Breathless and adrenaline surging, I swam to the bank and lifted myself out.

Later that night, I returned to the ranch – no one spoke to me.   I continued working there for another couple of weeks until one evening as a friend and I were crossing the street in town; I was struck by a car.  I suffered some significant physical damage and could no longer work on the ranch.

So I packed my bags without any tearful goodbyes and headed further West without a destination.  Equipped with a full split on my left leg, I continued on place to place searching for some belonging.

I never made it to Southern California.  From Seattle I headed to Houston on a phantom job offer and ended up calling it quits in Tucson where a friend welcomed me into her home.  A few weeks later, I found my own studio apartment and commenced temping.  I continued with the pattern of flirting with men, squandering my savings, and resorting to drinking myself to sleep in my new dark and dingy apartment. 

One evening during my nightly ritual, I was soaking in the tub with a bottle of wine at my side when it occurred to me to shout to the Lord for help.  Desperate help.  As I began to call out, I suddenly became very frightened and exclaimed:  “Never mind!”

The next evening before I started drinking, I lay on my bed and looked up at the beamed ceiling.  The sun had set and shadows grew large and ominous about the room.  I closed my eyes tight.  I said:  “God if you’re there, I need to know now because I just can’t go on like this – I can’t bear it.”

Suddenly, I was overcome with an immense feeling of warmth.  And my whole body tingled.  Before me stood Jesus with his hands cupped and raised before Him. In his hands was my heart – as it is physically – flesh, blood and muscle.  And I said to Him:  “isn’t this a beautiful heart?”  And Jesus acquiesced silently.  

I had no way of knowing how much time had passed.  As I opened my eyes, the Holy Spirit departed and there on my ceiling were the beams shown to me in the sign of a cross.

And so I had been saved.  He revived me in the car crash when I was nineteen – maybe it was both He and my mother commanding to my to “breathe” as I lay hemorrhaging to death on an ER gurney; and perhaps it was He who gave me the will to move to the other side of the car and kick open the door so I wouldn’t drown; and maybe it was He who persuaded me to move along far enough so when I was hit in the street that only my knee was injured and not my entire body -- all for the opportunity to accept Him.

I was saved Easter weekend of 1996.  I recall 1995 and up to that special Easter weekend being the most desperate and unfulfilled period of time of my life.

Today I continue to grow in the Lord and face daily challenges with Him by my side.  And I haven’t had any life threatening accidents for years!


I would be especially pleased to hear of similar testimonies of God’s deliverance in the midst of seemingly hopeless situations. I will choose select ones, remove any identifying characteristics and place them on this site. Although some of the above are longer I suggest about 500 words with a clear testimony of faith in Christ. Merely send to this address