Behind Closed Doors — Week 3
By Mable Manning, Prison Chaplain and Pastor of the Cross Roads Church of God,
Gastonia, North Carolina

As a very young Christian, married to an alcoholic, I had to have a very close relationship with the Lord in order to exist. It took praying and fasting a lot just to be able to stand. But God was faithful.

I remember a night I was riding around with him in his pickup, and I felt a very urgent need to go home and pray. God was working because he took me home without me asking. When we got home, he went on to the bar where he hung out. I went straight upstairs and shut the door. Immediately, I fell on my face before God, crying and praying and almost screaming for God to have mercy. I was pleading for the blood of Jesus to be applied to the situation I was interceding for. I did not know for whom or what I was praying about, but I knew something was very wrong. During my prayer time, it was as though I saw an explosion and a great fire.

After a long time of intercession and a release, I went to the phone and called the bar to see if my husband was okay. He was. The next morning on our 10:30 break at work, the other ladies I worked with asked if I knew of the fire and explosion in Texas that had happened the night before. A furnace had exploded in a church and a truck had run into another place and exploded. The news forecaster said it was a miracle that no one was killed. God is so good to use us to help others.

At another time in my life, we had moved to Gastonia, North Carolina, from Cleveland, Ohio. It seemed very hard to get settled. We had to sell our home in Ohio and move back home to North Carolina. In the process of trying to buy a house, my brother told me if we would sell the new Buick we owed money on, he would co-sign for us a loan. This was during the recession that had hit us real hard. As I was praying about the situation, God asked the question, “What do you have in your hands?” The only thing I could think of was the Buick which was in my name.

Soon after that prayer, a real estate lady came by at the right time and said, “I like your car.” I listened intently to her conversation and sold her the Buick. She then gave me her nice Cadillac in its place and helped us to get our first home in Gastonia.

After my husband passed away two years later, I had two small children: a three-year-old and a five-year-old. After about three months or so of doing what I could to survive, there came a weekend that we had no food, no gas in the car and no money. Thank God, I knew how to pray behind closed doors.

I did not tell my mother or anyone else. I called on my heavenly Father and prayed His Word to Him (Philippians 4:19), “My God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” The next day my dad came down from Andrews and filled my car up with gas. My dad said, “I don’t know why I came down this weekend. I was going to come visit you the next weekend.” I knew why. God had to supply my need. He used my father to do so. I also got a check in the mail for $450.00 that the church in Ohio had been holding for me. The next weekend my Social Security check started, and I went back to Ohio for a vacation, rejoicing in the Lord.

Behind closed doors God does hear and answer our prayers.

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