The Faithful God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

By Zarah Everly

Born and raised in a small town, author Zarah Everly grew up in poverty and was regularly exposed to sexual abuse and harmful addictions at a young age. As she learned about God, she prayed to Him in the hope of leaving the tough situation. In The Faithful God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, she shares her life journey, speaking of her evolution as a Christian woman, broken, fallen, and in desperate need of saving.

In this memoir, she talks about her intimate walk with God as a sinful, yet justified, individual. Everly chronicles the realities she faced and how she had become an adulterer, fornicator, liar, thief, murderer, coveter, and idolater who was hateful, envious, gossipy, proud, disobedient, unmerciful, and unthankful. And, she describes how by God’s grace she was delivered, healed, sanctified, perfected, and made complete. She became a holy, blameless, and justified friend of God.

The Faithful God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob narrates how God answered Everly’s prayers and tells of the warmth and comfort she received in times of desperation, hurt, and pain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781973645023

Zarah Everly

Zarah Everly is a retired Air Force veteran. She served her country for more than twenty years on active duty and has had eight military assignments, two overseas, and several temporary duty assignments to include a deployment overseas.

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Copyright © 2019 Zarah Everly.

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.

KJV: Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-4501-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4500-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-4502-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018913430

WestBow Press rev. date:  01/15/2019

CONTENTS

Opening

Chapter 1     A Little Town

Chapter 2     A New Beginning

Chapter 3     Prayer for a Husband

Chapter 4     Church Home in Italy

Chapter 5     Complete Trust

Chapter 6     Moving to Florida

Chapter 7     Blended Family

Chapter 8     The Element of Surprise

Chapter 9     Answered Prayer

Chapter 10   House for Sale

Chapter 11   Like David and Goliath

Chapter 12   Child and Family Investigator

Chapter 13   Always with Me

Chapter 14   Not So Merry Christmas

Chapter 15   Generous Giving

Chapter 16   Much-Needed Counseling

Chapter 17   Real Life

Chapter 18   Spiritual Warfare

Chapter 19   More Prayer, More Praise

Chapter 20   More and More of Him

Chapter 21   Grace, Grace, and More Grace

Chapter 22   Gloom and Doom

Chapter 23   Nervous about the Appeal

Chapter 24   Trust

OPENING

E very morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is spend intimate time with God, my Father. I roll out of bed, go into my prayer closet, and enjoy sweet communion with Him in prayer. Then I step out of my private place, hop back into my bed, and cozy up to read from the Word of God. I am always thirsty and hungry for His presence and truth. I love feeling close to God by praying to Him, praising Him, and reading His Word, the Holy Bible.

I pray to Him and pour out all my concerns, desires, hurts, fears, and love. I praise Him to thank Him for who He is, all He has done, all He is doing, and all He will do. I read His Word because I feel closer to Him when I learn about His character, plan, and person by studying the Holy Spirit–inspired testimonies of the saints and learning how He revealed Himself and His love to them.

Then throughout my busy day, when I can sneak away to spend a moment with God, I will open up His Word, tuck my legs under me, and take in the sweet, healing truth that comforts me.

His Word excites and warms me in a way I could never explain. It deepens my love and desire for Him and causes me to anticipate the day He will return and present me with salvation. My greatest pleasure is to spend time with Him.

I share this with you because some will think it odd that someone would be so in love with a God she cannot see. Let me explain to you how I got to this place and why I am so excited to go even deeper into intimacy with the God who created the heavens and the earth.

GOD’S RELENTLESS LOVE FOR HIS PEOPLE

The theme of God’s relentless love for His people, Israel, runs throughout the Bible. He loved Israel with an unfailing, merciful, and gracious love. Though Israel rejected God and continuously served other gods, the Living God showed His people favor and mercy. Even when God’s wrath would come upon Israel for its disobedience, His people would not obey God or turn from their wickedness. Still, God loved them, pleaded with them, and offered them the option of repentance. God would reference His promise to their ancestors as one reason for His mercy toward them ultimately resulting in His glory and faithfulness.

God extends His great love to all who believe and by grace through faith have become His children. What amazing grace and powerful love He offers all. Without it, we would all be doomed. With it, we who believe have life everlasting and peace with God.

THIS STORY

This is my story woven by an amazing, infinite, and all-knowing God. I will tell it in quite an unusual way. When I was writing this book, I thought it was about one thing, but it turned out to be about another. I thought it was about my righteousness, but it was just the opposite. I thought it was about my correctness, but it was just the opposite. I thought it was about how good I was, but it was just the opposite.

During a very difficult time in my life, I put words to paper believing God had given me a great story of victory to share with the world so others would believe in Him as I believe. It was actually a story of a great victory, but the object and source of that victory was not revealed in my heart until long after I had written the greater portion of this story.

So please be patient with me as I start from the beginning with a story written dead smack in the middle of the most painful season of my life. Afterward, I will reflect on what God revealed to me. I pray this will help others better understand the faithful God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and His great love for His people, His children.

CHAPTER 1

A Little Town

I   was born in a little town in Georgia. I was the eldest daughter of my mother and father, who had a total of three children—all girls. We grew up below the poverty line though my dad had a steady job and my mom worked on and off when we were young.

For the greater part of our younger years, we lived in my grandmother’s house. Actually, we lived in her garage, which my mom had made into a little home for us. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds; it was a nice-sized garage, and my sister and I had bunk beds with Charlie Brown mattresses. I slept on the top. It was to the left of the door as you walked into the garage. A huge, white, freezer and a wooden dinner table were straight ahead. My mother and father had a television and a bed that was the farthest from the door that joined the garage to the house, and their bed was the closest to the garage door leading to the outside. The garage was right next to the kitchen, so that made it easy for my mom to prepare meals and bring them to us. It was not inconvenient for us to reside in the garage because it was unusual for anyone in the house to own a car.

Inside the house, several other families were living including several of my uncles, aunts, cousins, and their significant others. There were four rooms and two bathrooms, and about eighteen people lived there on and off. It was a very busy house plagued by sexual abuse and harmful addictions. Many of the adults who frequented and lived there were alcoholics and drug addicts, and most of the men physically abused their wives or girlfriends. That did not exclude my father. I was exposed to all these things regularly at a young age. As I learned about God, I prayed to Him a lot in hopes of getting help in our tough situation.

My middle sister and I were very close as we were only a year and a half apart. We did everything together. We used our imaginations to come up with games that allowed us to escape our harsh reality. We didn’t keep secrets from each other, and we were always the best of friends. We always made each other laugh; we considered ourselves hilarious.

She and I had a way of not talking about the truths of our life when we went off to school and interacted with people outside home. I became a compulsive liar. Almost everything I said lacked honesty, and that went on for years. I fantasized quite often about a better life. I dreamed of my mother and father loving each other and our living in a nice, big home filled with safety and lots of toys and great times.

As I mentioned earlier, my father was a drug addict and an alcoholic and was also very abusive to my mother. That had a great impact on me. I lived every day and night in fear that a fight would break out between my mom and dad. I was constantly anxious. When I was in their company, I paid close attention when they talked to each another. I could detect anger or an escalation in someone’s voice or nonverbal communication that would cause me to fear that a fight was about to start. I dreaded the possibility of these fights one day resulting in my mother’s death.

Some of the fights would get so bad that someone else in the house, sometimes my mother, would call the police. We would be up all night dealing with the aftermath and then have to get up and go off to school the next day as if nothing had occurred.

That may sound abnormal, but it was the norm for us. Even while dealing with the harsh reality of her life, my mother did her best to ensure that my sister and I knew how much she loved us. She was very nurturing and protective.

My mother always tried to bring us joy; she had huge birthday parties for each of us and made sure we received lots of presents for Christmas. She would put up what seemed to me a large Christmas tree that was filled with ornaments. It was the same tree every year—not a real evergreen—but it brought us so much happiness. She would have a large number of presents all around it. Christmas was my favorite time of year for that reason. We did not have much money, but my mother would scrounge together all she could to make us happy on our birthdays and Christmas.

Eventually, after years and years of trying to remain married to my father, my mother decided she could no longer endure his abuse, so she divorced him. I was about twelve when that happened. By that time, my youngest sister had been born, so she had three daughters.

My mom got a job and worked to save money to devise an escape plan from the marriage before she felt comfortable enough to leave. For many years, my dad was the primary provider, so it was difficult for my mother to figure out how she would make ends meet and take care of three daughters on her own.

When we finally left my dad, I was so happy not because I didn’t love him—I loved him very much—but because I felt relieved and safer when he was not around. I didn’t have to be on eggshells all day wondering when a fight would break out or if I would lose my mom to violence. It was just nice not having to deal with such stress. It was exciting to think that life would be a little closer to what others experienced as normal.

My mom, sisters, and I moved into the small city where my grandmother, with whom we had lived earlier, was living. We moved into a small duplex with two bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was beige on the outside, and it had a nice, screened-in porch with lots of trees out back. We really liked it.

One highlight of childhood was that on Sundays, my grandmother and aunt would take us to the church my mom had attended when she was young. We didn’t appreciate it much then, but that turned out to be a huge blessing.

In Sunday school, I annoyed my teacher, a dark-skinned, older, black woman with short, curly hair, with many questions. She would discourage me from questioning the Bible and reprimanded me saying I should not question God. My middle sister and I would get into a lot of trouble at church for laughing and playing. We enjoyed our church visits for this reason and for the older women who would always give us candy to get us to pay attention or at least stop talking.

Every Christmas, the church would give presents to the children who attended Sunday school. One year, they gave out Bibles with each child’s name engraved in gold. My Bible was maroon, and it was my first Bible at least to my recollection. It was a treasured possession. Without being told by anyone, I began to read it every night. I found myself intrigued when reading it, and my desire to understand it grew.

When we moved across town, our aunt and grandmother would come by on Sundays to take us to church. We would come home to my mother cooking some delicious meal that would fill the house with a sweet aroma. My mom has always been the best cook any of us has known. She would cook the most delicious and comforting food, and Sunday dinners were always scrumptious.

As I mentioned earlier, my middle sister and I were best friends. We did everything together and told each other everything, and we depended on each other for support and comfort. As we got into our middle and high school years, we began to talk to boys and even considered dating on occasion. My mother did not condone our dating or our involvement with boys; she spoke strongly against it. She had experienced only difficulty and heartache in relationships, and she made it clear to us that in most cases, that was what dealing with men would produce.

My mom worked in retail and was gone a lot as she tried hard to provide for us. She did not have time to supervise our every move. If she wasn’t at work, she was always tired. Besides being an amazing cook, she was also the hardest working person we knew.

My sister and I received ample warning from my