Part 2 - Version 2 - Much longer and detailed!

It’s a very long but amazing story, and here it is! We met 3 years ago at a dumpster in a storage facility nearby, and I invited him to church as he had just gotten out of the hospital with covid and was so bad he was in 3 hospitals for 7 months and was almost totally blind from the covid. This was in 2020 and 21. He was put in a coma for 6 weeks and was on a ventilator for 2 months. Even had a trach that you can see the scar on his neck from and needed a feeding tube for months. I picked him up and took him to church and then another brother from church who lived nearby, Jim Nesbit, started picking him up and taking him to church and also helped him get to doctor appointments and even helped him get his drivers license back as his eyesight came back.

I would see Rick regularly on Sundays, and he told me every time I asked that he hadn't accepted Jesus in his heart yet and wasn't ready. Every week, I asked him if he finally accepted Jesus after the pastor gave an alter call. Every week, his answer was not yet. Around this time, he was living with a friend renting a room, and things were not going well, and he needed to move. I offered to rent my RV sitting on my property temporarily. "Until the snow flies." We agreed. He moved in. I also rent to others through Bookings and Airbnb. That was the end of 2022. When the snow started to fly, Rick didn’t find a place, and I was reminding him about our plan. He said he needed to come inside the house and so he bought a cot and slept in the office.

Rick was open about wanting to find a wife with me and others at church and his friends. He had been single for over 12 years. He was even mad at God for not answering his prayers. He wanted a woman who wasn’t a drinker, or a smoker, or on drugs, or crazy, and a woman who was a Christian. I prayed for Rick to find a wife. I wondered if I could help him find one. Ha!

One day after church, I again asked if he had accepted the call to accept Jesus and Jim, who had become his best friend by now, patted Rick on the back, and said, "Rick knows Jesus!" I thought maybe Rick didn't want to tell me he had accepted the Lord Jesus! So, I stopped asking him if he had made the decision yet. A short while later, Rick attended membership classes at Stone and became a member, and then he told me he was getting baptized! Well, I figured he was saved and just didn't want to tell me about it. Before he was baptized, they wanted a video of him like they do now, so he went to the church, and they interviewed him. When he came back, I asked how it went, and he said he didn't know if he told them what they wanted to hear and was a bit confused. A couple of days later, there was a conference that I go to every year, and I asked Rick if he wanted to go with me and a couple of other girlfriends since we had room in the car. It was an Andrew Womack conference, and I went to his Bible College, Charis Bible College in Schererville, Indiana, in 2016. He was happy to go. We had a full car, and he was the only guy with us. Andrew spoke and then asked everyone to stand, and we all stood and said the sinner's prayer out loud with him as happens many times in services. After we all said the prayer, Rick turned his head, looked at me and said, "I just did it." I said "What??" You just got saved??" We were all high fiving him, and he went forward and into the back room to get the book and speak to a counselor who also prayed with Rick to receive the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. That was Thursday and he was scheduled to be baptized, three days later! In the car ride back to the house, I told him he needed to text the pastor and tell him what had just happened and that he never was saved and he just got saved at an Andrew Wommack conference! He did that and they had him speak before he was baptized explaining what had happened!!

In early 2023, a few months later, my husband Don was diagnosed with brain cancer. Glioblastoma. He was only expected to live till October when we went to the oncology appointment in August of 2023 but instead the Word of the Lord came through 2 believers that he would not die but instead would start to get better and he did! In December 2023, he got so much better that the Lord told me to take him to Florida in February. I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing but started to inform my Florida friends and family that we were coming in February 2024. My friend Denita, when I told her how Donny was getting better, asked where we were going and what we were doing, and I told her I didn't know! She said, "I know! You're coming to the River Church in Tampa, Florida, and Donny is going to get the next level of his healing!" I said. “Yes! That's it!" So, I drove Donny down to Florida in February. Rick was still staying in the office and, in fact, was helpful with Donny from time to time as I cared for Donny at home. I was still encouraging Rick to find another place, but at this point, since we were going to Florida, I asked if he would hold down the fort and be there as the property manager while we were gone. I assumed we'd be gone a month or two. He wanted me to sign a paper saying I gave him permission to be in charge of the property. I did.

We ended up being gone 4 1/2 months. Donny didn't get better physically, but he did go through spiritual and emotional healing, forgiving many he was angry at and changing and softening. He died May 25th and I knew almost immediately that we were there so that he could be ushered into eternity. The day after Donny died was a Sunday. I was in church when the Lord told me I would be getting married right away! I was shocked and wondered who this man was! In fact, I went to my mentor, Jan, there at River Church in Tampa and told her the Lord told me I was getting married right away, and she said, "Praise the Lord!" I thought it sounded great except that I needed to lose weight and get into shape for this new husband so it couldn't be too, too quick! Hehe!

That next week after Donny died, I needed to go to the funeral home every day to deal with the plans. My friend Nancy came to stay with me and even slept with me and helped me so so much. Each day, we left the funeral home and turned right and then right again on to the busy street, Rt. 60. Friday was the last day of the month. We again were leaving the funeral home parking lot but rather than turn right, the Holy Spirit told me to turn left, and Nancy said, "You're going the wrong way!" I said, "The Holy Spirit is telling me to go this way!" And she said, oh okay! Right there was an over 55 senior mobile home park that was just beautiful, and so I parked the car and went inside the office building for the community. When I went in and asked about if they had places to rent, they said that only the owners did that, but a girl from another office said, "Hey, Frank just said he wants to sell his place!" So, I took the sticky note and got in the car and drove to where the address was, and the address was 2128 Ricky Circle. I laughed and took a picture of the sign and texted it to Rick because that's his legal name! Ricky! Didn't think about it after that but he had never seen a street named after him exactly his legal name!! I ended up renting that 3-bedroom 2 bath place that I still have and rent it to people who come for healing school and conferences at The River Church in Tampa, Florida. It's a real blessing.

I had a memorial in Florida for our friends there at the Community Clubhouse and then drove Donny's ashes home in the suburbs of Chicago. My plan was to become a snowbird and needed to get my house to rent it out to more people and get more rooms ready to do that. I knew Rick would help me with the house. He was always helpful. A couple weeks after getting home a single mom was living in a hotel from my church so I took her in for free. Rick and I were working on things and things were coming along. One day the single mom Kim said, "Are you guys’ best friends?" We looked at each other and said "Yeah, I guess we are!"

My mentor Jan called me around this time, and she had gone from Florida to New York on a missions trip. She called to tell me she thought she had found my husband! He was a multimillionaire writer of many books, a Bishop and in full time ministry. She said he was looking for a wife, and she wanted me to pray if I should become his wife. I told her I would pray for sure. Over the next couple weeks, I started to fall in love with Rick and it scared me half to death! In the next talk with my mentor, she told me the man she thought would be my husband was a black man from Africa. I didn't have a problem if God wanted me to marry a black man but told her I was falling in love with Rick! I told her he was a new Christian though and she said if it's God it's God and she's seen strong Christian women marry baby Christians and the man takes off! So, I told Rick I had to pray and ask God if this was His will. Rick said he already knew it was. When I went to prayer and asked God for confirmation. He told me immediately that He already gave me confirmation and reminded me of the street name Ricky Circle!

Over the next few weeks God showed us clearly that we needed to wait 6 months to tell family and were surprised when on November 25th, exactly 6 months from the day Donny died, we told the first family member, my dear little brother Timmy when we were in Florida where Timmy is a sketch artist at Disney World.

All my children and siblings and close friends are elated and excited beyond what can be explained. Rick proposed on December 2nd in front of the castle with fireworks at Disney World and we married on January 18th, 2025. My little brother Timmy gave me away and we had an amazing wedding with 2 receptions! We are planning for 2 more receptions in Florida in May, 2025.

Our pastor, Pastor Adrien Thorne, was choked up at the wedding saying this was a picture of God's restoration and we need to guard this marriage and not allow anything to come against it and to tell the story of how God worked in our lives and brought us together. It has been the best gift from God I have ever been given. My first two husbands were not kind to me, and Rick loves and respects me like I have never experienced. My dear friend Marilyn says it's like a fairy tale! And she is right.

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