I was born Sandra Lou Mary Tempesti in 1946, right after WWII, to Helen, my Polish/German mother, the eternal optimist, and Dino Tempesti, an Italian ex-professional boxer who was semi-illiterate and a cross between Anthony Quinn, Archie Bunker, and Rocky. My parents were the first generation of their families born in America.
Our home was loud, full of conflict, laughter, strife, church attendance, and food. Kind of like a Jello commercial.
We were poor, but didn't know it. My mother made a game out of how far $25. could stretch for groceries so she always had change in her pocket. My father was a blue collar worker who retired from Detroit Edison after 45 years. I was the first in our family to graduate from high school, I had three younger brothers, and none of them know the Lord to this day, but God is not finished with them yet. My Mother loved the Lord, and taught me to pray and to love spiritual things. My earliest memories are of kneeling in church, listening to the Latin chants, and smelling burning candles and lingering incense. I loved church. I went every Sunday, every Saturday afternoon, each morning before school, Tuesday evenings to devotions, Thurday evenings to Benediction, and Friday evenings to Stations of the Cross. After school I played in the Cemetery and prayed at all the outdoor chapels.
I am just an ordinary woman that I started out living an ordinary life, growing up on the east side of Detroit, but I always had this hunger for something spiritual. When I was little, it was for Jesus. I was the kid who hid in my clothes closet to thank God on Thanksgiving, or to meditate on the crucifixion on Good Friday. I knew Jesus died for my sins, and even at an early age, I knew they were ugly and separated me from Him. But the more I tried to be good, the harder it got.
When I was 11 we moved to the suburbs away from our church neighborhood. I didn't get to go to church as much, but I started reading the bible when I was 12. We had this big family bible that I took to bed with me and would read under the covers with a flashlight.
Unfortunately I started reading in Genesis. It was a big book.
I met Chuck Fleming when I was 16, but I didn't exactly meet him in church. And I was crazy about him. We got married at 18 and 21, and had three little boys by the time I was 22. We had our house in the suburbs where I stayed home with the kids, and my husband was carving himself a lifetime career in the auto industry at that time. He was busy with work and his other various "extra-curricular activities"unknown to me at that time. I was dabbling in the occult, not particularly interested in God, reading feminist literature, but still reading the Bible. One day I remembered that I had been taught that God was supposed to be #1 in our lives. If He wasn't then, I needed to go to Him and ask Him to be #1. So, being hungry for something more, I knelt down by my bedside, told the Lord that I knew He was probably on the list at #13, a few places behind the family dog. I asked Him to make himself #1 in my life, but that He would have to do it, because I didn't know how. Within two weeks I was born again, filled with the Holy Spirit, burnt my astrology and witchcraft books and was telling everybody I knew about Jesus and how he saved me from my sin.
When Jesus saved me, He not only saved me from my sins, he saved me from my circumstances. Things are not always the way they seem, I have learned, and that was true of my life. I thought we were happy. Chuck was miserable. He was leading a secret double life and had left the God of his childhood far behind.
But you know, the Lord knows all the secrets in this world. Nothing escapes his eye. He saw me and my boys kneeling and praying that God would save their daddy's soul. He was there to save my marriage, save my kids, direct me to the right churches, find the right homes in the right neighborhoods and school districts. He provided for me financially when there was no paycheck. He got my husband out of jail when there was no hope. He has walked me through every muddy valley and made the mud into dry ground. He restored to me all the enemy had tried to steal from me. He was there when my folks went on to be with the Lord. He was faithful to bring my husband to his knees on more than one occasion. And when we found out Chuck had lung cancer, it was only after he had saved his soul, restored our marriage, motivated us to pay off our debts, got settled in our new home, found the right church, and provided for many beautiful memories.
It has been one year ago this month, December 18, that lung cancer won and Chuck went on to be with the Lord. Death is the last enemy.
When Chuck died, I was there with him at home in those early morning hours, and I knew he was leaving, I was able to hold him, pray with him, and sing Amazing Grace, (how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me), as he passed from this life into glory. When my husband died, he was not only saved, he was, as our minister nephew put it, gloriously saved. He had been living for the Lord for several years, and this time, he had meant business with God and with our marriage.
I tell you all this to tell you that God is faithful. He has worked more miraculous events into my life than I could ever pack into a book, yet alone these 5 minutes. If you cooperate with God he will turn your sorrow into dancing, your rebellion into service for the King, your desire for revenge into forgiveness, your boredom into a life of excitement. He continues to be my Rock, my friend, my husband, my Lord, my provision. He has a plan for my life and he has a plan for your life if we just let him take the controls. After walking with the Lord for 36 years I am here to tell you it would take more faith to not believe that he is and rewarder of them that seek Him. He has made himself known to me over and over again, and still does. I have a life in Christ, my three sons are married to three godly women and are all serving the Lord. I have 9 beautiful grandchildren that are in church on Sunday mornings... because God had a plan.
God has a plan for your life, and it is not sin, not divorce, not murder, not giving up on those you love, not despair, not poverty, not spiritual famine, and the list goes on and on. He wants us to have life and have it more abundantly. He wrote the Book, and He keeps his Word. This year, start over. Get a life... give it to Jesus. Nothing is too big or too hard for the Lord.
God has a plan!
This is my favorite scripture in the Bible, and I have wrapped my life around it:
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11