Sara – From 2009 to 2011

When I learned that Sara had been go­ing through deep de­pres­sion for sev­er­al weeks, I called her fa­ther to see if I could be of help. Sara re­calls, “we were shocked and amazed, as we felt like this was just like a mir­a­cle from heav­en.” I learned that Sara had been plan­ning for a wed­ding and was crushed when it was called off. Her fa­ther in­formed me that her birth­day was the next day, so I sug­gest­ed that he fly her to the Headquarters so that we could help her cel­e­brate it. She end­ed up stay­ing for about two years. Here is her sto­ry.

Dear Mr. Gothard,

I am so very, very grate­ful and hum­bled by the fact that God used you in my life to lift me up when I was down and so dis­cour­aged. You helped bring me com­fort and peace dur­ing one of the most dif­fi­cult times of my life. God used you to demon­strate Christ’s un­selfish love in such a way that blew me away! During my time at Headquarters, I was blessed be­yond mea­sure.

You gave self-​sacrificially and for that I thank you. I grew un­der your teach­ing and ex­am­ple. I was giv­en nu­mer­ous op­por­tu­ni­ties to serve the Lord in ca­pac­i­ties I would have nev­er even dreamed of. Who would have thought that a heart-​broken gal from a lit­tle city would be able to trav­el to nu­mer­ous states and serve at con­fer­ences, or be able to dis­ci­ple many sin­gle gals on dif­fer­ent Journeys, or even be able to make deep con­nect­ing friend­ships with Godly youth that will hope­ful­ly re­main for many years to come? And who would have thought that a dream of mine would be ful­filled af­ter some 10+ years – that of go­ing and serv­ing in an­oth­er coun­try!

All of this hap­pened be­cause of God’s mer­cy and good­ness be­ing shown through you and the min­istry of IBLP. When I look back at my time at hq and abroad, it was one of the most spe­cial times of my life!

So all in all, Mr Gothard, thank you for re­main­ing strong. Thank you for be­ing who you are in Jesus Christ. Thank you for giv­ing your life to the Lord and His work. Thank you for bless­ing me​.You have im­pact­ed my life in such a good and right­eous way! I will be eter­nal­ly grate­ful! And I cer­tain­ly hope that God will al­low our paths to cross again in the fu­ture!

Thank you,

Sara

Footnote:

During the past year, God brought His choice of a hus­band in­to Sara’s life. She ex­plains that this mar­riage was to­tal­ly of the Lord. She had a per­fect peace from the Lord, and all the par­ents were in full ap­proval. She now states with great joy: “He is the per­fect man for me. God knew ex­act­ly what I need­ed and ful­filled it.”