Blended Heart: Two Hearts—One Calling

By Kent Hamilton and Jackie June-Hamilton

The Christian life can be a challenge at times. In our fast-paced world, it is often easy to get ahead of God’s perfect timing for our lives. Whether you are single, married, or a Christian struggling in your walk with Christ, Blended Heart: Two Hearts—One Calling will be a blessing and encouragement to you. It is an inspiring love story of trials, faith, obedience, and all the blessings that follow.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973631897

Kent Hamilton

God has taken Kent and Jackie through many challenges in their lives. Kent was a small business owner for 20 years and is an accomplished vocalist and songwriter. Jackie retired from a county clerk's office. She was a Pastor's wife for 33 years with her late husband and is a seasoned vocalist and pianist. They met and married later in life. Together their life stories and ministry experiences offer the reader a unique look at the challenges, blessings and rewards of waiting on God and following His will.

Book preview

Blended Heart

Two Hearts—One Calling

KENT HAMILTON AND JACKIE JUNE-HAMILTON

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Copyright © 2018 Kent Hamilton And Jackie June-Hamilton.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the KING JAMES VERSION: public domain.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

To contact Blended Heart Ministries go to www.blendedheartministries.com

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3188-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3190-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-3189-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018907241

WestBow Press rev. date: 01/30/2019

Contents

KENT’S STORY

Chapter 1 — Growing Up In Nashville Michigan

Chapter 2 — The Power of Music

Chapter 3 — Seeking God

Chapter 4 — Wrestling With God

Chapter 5 — If Any Of You Lack Wisdom

Chapter 6 — Preparing The Soil

Chapter 7 — God Works In Mysterious Ways

Chapter 8 — Stepping Out In Faith

Chapter 9 — The Blessings Of Stepping Out In Faith

Chapter 10 — Great and Mighty Things

Chapter 11 — Fully Surrendered

Chapter 12 — Hope Springs Eternal

Chapter 13 — Trust and Obey

Chapter 14 — The Big Transition

Chapter 15 — Trust His Heart

Chapter 16 — God Comforts His Children

Chapter 17 — The Rewards of Obedience

Chapter 18 — Change Is Good

Contents

Jackie’s Story

Chapter 1 — Southern Belle Born and Raised

Chapter 2 — Tragedy Strikes

Chapter 3 — The Faith Of A Child

Chapter 4 — One Plants - One Waters

Chapter 5 — Church Family Make A Difference

Chapter 6 — My First Love

Chapter 7 — A Woman’s Calling

Chapter 8 — My PHT Degree

Chapter 9 — A Long Awaited Blessing

Chapter 10 — Home, Home On The Range

Chapter 11 — A Change In The Wind

Chapter 12 — My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts

Chapter 13 — Learning to Trust God

Chapter 14 — The Truth And Nothing But The Truth

Chapter 15 — I’ve Got A Song

Chapter 16 — Fire!

Chapter 17 — Never A Dull Moment

Chapter 18 — Obstacles Into Opportunities

Chapter 19 — Angels Unaware

Chapter 20 — Finally Home

Chapter 21 — Obedient In My Calling

Chapter 22 — The Difference One Life Can Make

Chapter 23 — Thank God For The Care Bears

Chapter 24 — A Time To Heal

Chapter 25 — They That Wait

Chapter 26 — Moving On - Leaving A Memory

Chapter 27 — Going Down In History

Chapter 28 — Back In Service

Chapter 29 — The Power Of A Song

Chapter 30 — The First Date

Chapter 31 — She Said Yes

Chapter 32 — Almost Heaven!

Chapter 33 — Let The Music Begin

Dedication

To every person who has had a dream, has prayed many a prayer and is waiting for God’s answers always remember that God is listening and He is faithful to answer your prayers!

Just remember that waiting and trusting in His timing is the key.

Acknowledgments

First of all, we would like to thank our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ for our salvation through faith and trust in His finished work at the cross.

We would also like to thank Him for blessing us with wonderful Christian parents. For we know without their Christian influence, we would not be the people that we are today.

We would like to thank Dr. Charles Stanley of In Touch Ministries for his messages on Spiritual Discernment and Waiting on God’s Timing. These messages were of great encouragement to Kent during his years as a single man.

We would like to thank Bruce Wilkenson, author of the book, The Dream Giver. It was through the reading of his book that Kent began to see that God had a real dream for his life, the dream of traveling and singing Gospel music. He helped Kent to see that his dream was important to God and therefore attainable.

We would like to thank Gary Chapman, author of the book, The Five Love Languages. While reading his book we came to understand each other better during our dating years. It was the message of this book that God used to confirm that we were destined to be together.

We would like to thank the Westbow Press Publishing team for their help and encouragement in this project.

Lastly, Kent would like to thank his wonderful wife, Jackie for her steadfast love and commitment to him as her husband. He could not have brought this book to completion without all of her hard work, patience and dedication.

Introduction

It seems like in this hurry-up world that we live in where there is so much instant gratification that it is hard to wait very long for anything. You can go to a drive-through just about anywhere to get a hot meal in just a minute or two. You can go to an ATM to get cash in just seconds. You can go to the internet and order a package to have it on your doorstep in a day or two.

When it comes to seeking God’s Will, waiting is often a crucial part of receiving God’s best for us. When we pray and ask God for anything He often needs time to orchestrate people and circumstances to work in our favor.

If we are not patient and willing to wait on His perfect timing and his orchestration process, then we may totally miss out on His best for our lives. When it gets right down to it, waiting is a sign of how much faith we have in God.

Is God really listening to our prayers and will He really answer them? This is what waiting on God all comes down to, faith in God and trusting that He knows what is best for us.

It is often been said that God works in mysterious ways. Looking back on our lives, Jackie and I can see how God was working during each and every step. Going through all the ups and downs of life during those years was not easy.

We realize now as we look back that God had a plan for both of us. As we both share our life stories in this book it is our sincere desire that our readers will be inspired to seek God’s Will and wait on His timing in their own lives.

Part 1

KENT’S STORY

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Chapter 1

Growing Up In Nashville Michigan

T he earliest memories of childhood that I have are between the ages of 3-5 years old. Growing up in downtown Nashville, Michigan. That’s right! I said Nashville, Michigan! Yes - there actually is a Nashville, Michigan. The two towns (Nashville, Michigan and Nashville, Tennessee) are only about five hundred miles apart - that’s all!. Believe it or not, Nashville, Michigan used to be referred to as, Nashville of the North, because we used to have an authentic Country Music Park there. People would come from miles around to camp in their R.V.’s to hear famous country singers perform.

I often joke that God made a mistake. I think that maybe I was supposed to be born in Nashville, Tennessee, not in Nashville, Michigan. You see, I love music and was raised on Southern Gospel, Country and Bluegrass music. I will talk more about that later.

My favorite past time as a five year old boy in Nashville, Michigan, was riding my big wheel around the block. This was a big deal to me, because when I was on my big wheel I owned the sidewalk. My other favorite past time was looking for warty toads under steel trash cans and such.

As far back as I can remember, Mom and Dad always took me to church, Sunday morning, Sunday evening and Wednesday evening. That’s just how it was for me growing up.

When I was six years old, I remember attending Sunday School and the teacher clearly explained how God, our Heavenly Father sent His only Son, Jesus down to earth from Heaven. Jesus came to earth so that He could one day die on an old, rugged, wooden cross for our sins. I remember the teacher asked us if we would like to ask Jesus into our hearts. That day I knew I was ready to ask Jesus to forgive me of my sins and to be my Savior. One other boy and I raised our hands to show that we wanted to be saved. The teacher took us into a side room to pray and ask Jesus into our heart.

I am so thankful for parents who took me to church as a child, because of this I was able to get grounded in God’s Word at a young age.

When I turned eight years old I had the privilege of getting to attend our church camp for the first time. I remember wanting to go with my older sisters when I was six and seven years old, but not being able to because of my age!

When I finally turned eight, I was so excited, because now I was old enough to go! Church camp had a wonderful influence on me as a boy growing up! I can’t think of anything that is better for a kid to experience (other then being raised on a farm, which I’ll talk more about later) that will draw them into a closer relationship with God more than church camp will.

There is just something about sitting around a campfire under a starlit night sky and singing songs like, It Only Takes A Spark, Did You Ever Talk To God Above, or Give Me Oil In My Lamp.

We sang silly songs like, Magdalena Catalina or In A Cabin In The Woods. This is an environment like no other, where memories are made and God moves in special way in a child’s heart.

After a great time of singing we would often see a funny skit put on by a group of kids from an assigned cabin. They would top it off with great preaching by dynamic speakers. One of those speakers would actually draw their own Bible cartoon characters with colored markers as they shared their lessons.

There were other extracurricular activities during the day that I participated in, such as water skiing, canoeing, air riflery and archery to name a few.

Yes, church camp was definitely a time every summer when I would be encouraged to grow in my Christian walk and I had a great time while doing so.

At the age of five years old our family moved to a house two