Stepping Into Discipleship Our Journey Begins

By Mary Venable-Vaughn

Mary Venable-Vaughn has been involved in Christian ministries and the church for many years. She has seen the Holy Spirit at work in the lives of God’s disciples. At the same time, she realized how challenging it is to be a disciple. In her new book, “Stepping Into Discipleship - Our Journey Begins”, she shares her experiences

• Language: English
• Publisher: TOPLINK PUBLISHING, LLC
• Release date: Aug 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781949502497

Book preview

cover.jpg

Stepping

Into

Discipleship

Our

Journey Begins

Mary Venable-Vaughn

Copyright © 2018 by Mary Venable-Vaughn.

Cover Designed by Mary Vaughn, this picture was taken in Cape Town, South Africa, of Table Mountain.

Paperback: 978-1-949502-48-0

eBook: 978-1-949502-49-7

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Ordering Information:

For orders and inquiries, please contact:

1-888-375-9818

www.toplinkpublishing.com

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Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter 1 Our Journey Begins – Stepping Into God’s Gifts

Chapter 2 Stepping Into Discipleshiip – Study To Show Thyself Approved

Chapter 3 Mentoring – Godly Advice

Chapter 4 Walking The Walk – God’s Way

Chapter 5 Stepping Into Discipleship – Your Journey Begins

References

Dedication

I am dedicating this book to my mother and father, Ruth and Robert Venable, Sr., who instilled in me the word of God, good moral standards and a sense of fairness. To all the disciple makers that has helped me along my Christian journey, they took the time to plant seeds of love, joy and hope in my life. A special thanks to my husband Rev. Emmanuel J. Vaughn, Sr., who has been the wind beneath my wings. His love and support has inspired me to reach for the moon, his favorite saying is Dare to Dream, Dare to Do. The Holy Spirit was my inspiration to write this book in 2011, but I was having a hard time finishing it. I was about 60% finished in 2013 when my computer crashed, and I lost my manuscript. Starting over has been a test of my faith and dedication, but God showed me that He is still in the miracle business and He is alive and well.

The morning of June 3, 2014, I had a heart attack and had to have bypass surgery, the day started out like any other day my husband and I got up and drove down to the beach for our morning walk. It was a slightly brisk walk on the beach for about 2 miles. As we were walking back to the car I was feeling fine, but as we started to walk up an incline to the parking lot, I began to feel faint, I stopped and expressed my feeling to my husband, he started helping me up the incline, the feeling that I was going to pass out got stronger. The car was about 100 feet away and I began to feel an urgent need to get to the car. I was thinking that I didn’t want to fall on the pavement. My husband heard the urgency in my voice and we hurried to the car, the car door was opened, and I got in and passed out.

My husband told me that he began to freak out, after he didn’t feel a pulse. He began mouth to mouth recessitation and chest compressions, after about 1-3 minutes, I regained consciousness. I was feeling much better, just a little weak, but the look on my husband’s face was one of terror and I could not figure out why, then he told me what happened. We went home and called 911, the paramedic said that all my vital signs were good, but because I was feeling so weak I should go to the hospital to get checked out. So, I did, as we were riding to the hospital the paramedic started humming a song, I said to him I know that song, It is well with my soul, he stated yes and began to tell me the background of the song. At that point I knew in my spirit, that everything was going to be alright, it was God’s message to me. At the hospital, they gave me an EKG, blood test and asked me if I was having any pain, I said No! they told me I was having a heart attack, I said ok, but I feel fine. The next morning my heart doctor ordered an Angiography to check out what damage was done to my heart and if I was going to need surgery to repair any damages. An Angiography is performed by inserting a catheter into a groin blood vessel and feeding it up into the heart. Dye is then injected, into the blood vessels that supply the heart. A special type of x-ray machine is used to take pictures of the dye-filled blood vessel that reveals any narrowing or blockage in the blood vessel to the heart. Well, I have an artery that is 100% blocked! Most times with an 100% blocked artery you must have bypass surgery. During the traditional heart bypass surgery, the surgeon makes an incision (about 6 to 8 inches) down the center of your sternum (breastbone) to get direct access to your heart. You are connected to a heart-lung bypass machine, which allows for the circulation of blood throughout your body. The heart is stopped, and the surgeon then performs the bypass procedure described above. The heart is generally stopped for about 30 -90 minutes of the 4-5-hour surgery. After surgery, the surgeon closed the breastbone with special sternal wires and the chest with special internal and traditional external stitches.

The strangest thing about my surgery is that no incisions were made in my chest, I was not put on a heart-lung bypass machine, no human hands touched my heart and the surgery only took 1-3 minutes. In that 3 minutes, God stopped my heart, placed two blood vessels from the good side of my heart to feed blood to the side with the blocked artery. God is still in the miracle making business! Now back to my doctor, as he looked at the x-rays he could not believe his eyes. There