Nr.4 ended: “I didn’t know then either that one of those students, a young lady would later become my wife, and she didn’t know that the wild friend she was praying for and whose name she didn’t even know, would someday become her husband.” Back on the farm I was really struggling, or should I say there was a battle going on inside of me. That still, small voice in me said, surrender. I realized that God wanted everything or nothing, but none of this half and half business. He is the Creator and has a claim on my life. But my response was, No. And so it went day in, day out, Yes, No, Yes, No. When I went to bed at night, it was there, Yes, No. When I got up in the morning, Yes, No. Milking the cows, Yes, No. Out on the field, Yes, No. Why did I say No? Because I feared what would happen if I said Yes. Later I discovered that many people are afraid of surrendering to God because they think God will ask something terrible of them. Yet the Bible says that God has our good and well-being in mind. To be honest, I felt pretty miserable, and so to make the story short, one day out in the field I finally surrendered, and said, Yes God, if You are really there, You can have me and do with me whatever You want. And then, right there the miracle happened! The Bible calls it the new birth, which means new life, and I sure sensed that! Jesus said that without the new birth you can’t see, and I found that to be true, all at once I could “see”, not with my literal eyes, but with the inward eyes. God was there! How could I have been so blind? And God says in His Word, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone…..and give you a heart of flesh.” Oh how true that was! I had not shed a tear for several years, my heart had become so hard, but now I cried like a little baby. What a transformation! Could this really last? (Go to Musings)