They Call Me Blessed!: An Empty Nester's Inspirational, True Story of Prayer, Faith and Endurance

By Inez Heller Jones

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

--Romans 12:12 NIV

They Call Me Blessed! Is the captivating, compelling and timely story of the author's odyssey of faith during one of the most difficult periods of her life. Are you in the middle of your own painful situation? Through dependence upon Christ, His Word and the power of prayer, this book will show you how to be an overcomer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891307582

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They Call Me Blessed!

An Empty Nester's Inspirational, True Story of Prayer, Faith and Endurance

Inez Heller Jones

ISBN 979-8-89130-757-5 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89130-758-2 (digital)

Copyright © 2024 by Inez Heller Jones

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

This is a true story. Some names have been changed to protect the innocence of children or grandchildren. Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Holy Bible (also known as the Authorized Version). This translation of the Holy Bible is in the public domain.

Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Inez H. Jones

Chapter 1

The Beginning

Chapter 2

Living in a Bubble

Chapter 3

Christmas 1976

Chapter 4

God's Care

Chapter 5

Decisions! Decisions!

Chapter 6

God's Faithfulness

Chapter 7

God's Intervention

Chapter 8

God's Favor

Chapter 9

God's Provision

Chapter 10

Interim

Chapter 11

Moving On

Chapter 12

Midnight Adventure

Chapter 13

Wade and Honey

Chapter 14

Convalescent Care

Chapter 15

Blessings Galore

Chapter 16

Unusual Happenings

Chapter 17

A Long Trip Home

Chapter 18

Homegoing Celebration

Afterword

Just Some Wandering Thoughts

About the Author

Notes

Testimonies from around the Country

Reader Feedback about They Call Me Blessed!

What a book of perseverance and faith beyond the call of duty! Love is a commitment through the highs and lows of life, and Inez surely portrays a lesson for all of us. She was much loved by family and friends of our congregation, but we did not know the details of her suffering. I believe that her life story would make a great movie. May God encourage and challenge you as you read her life story!

—Judy McPhail, pastor's wife

West Shore Christian Fellowship (1971–1990), Muskegon, Michigan

Dear Inez, your book is wonderful and such a blessing! I wanted to keep reading until I was finished. My husband is next to read it and then my daughters. I will be ordering another copy to be sent to my best girl friend who is a Christian counselor. I was blessed by all the special outpouring of God's spirit in unusual ways that He delighted to bring into your life to encourage and bless you. Thank you for obeying God and keeping the diary to have the record of times and events. We are privileged to know you—a righteous, godly woman who remained strong in the face of adversity.

Love,

J. M., Seattle, Washington

Your book was fabulous, and I could not set it down! You are a gifted author, and your story was just heartwarming. I read parts to my husband also, and we both had tears in our eyes. Your faith is inspirational. Thank you for writing it and allowing others to share it with you.

—Jim and Linda Lewis, Muskegon Michigan

My copy of your book came in the mail Saturday about noon, and I couldn't put it down! I finished it at about 2:00 a.m. yesterday. The details of how you maintained your Christian attitude in the face of all the heartbreaking disappointments you endured is certainly a powerful and encouraging challenge to everyone who reads it, along with the stories of how abundantly the Lord met the many needs in your lives.

—S. M., Louisville, Kentucky

Inez, thank you so much for penning and sharing your book, They Call Me Blessed!, with us. I found it to be quite thought-provoking and easy to read. It communicated to my heart and spirit about life events that affect us all (whether being a Christian or not) and that if we listen for God's voice to direct us, how our lives will be changed forever for the best—His best. I now find it easier to want to listen to His voice and follow Him completely rather than do my own thing, which will always take me away from God's will, not giving me peace and contentment as I walk through my trials. I do not want to stay in crises all my life, going from storm to storm with questions and uneasiness and frustration, but want to follow the all-knowing God, who has all the answers.

—Patricia A. Chambers, Columbus, Ohio

I have just finished reading a copy of They Call Me Blessed! lent to us by our pastor. It has impacted my life in such a way as nothing I've ever heard or read. So often among people of God are heard the words I'm blessed, but no explanation is given as to the how or the why. Of course, I've read the commands and precepts from the Word of God and heard sermons from the pulpit on how to live a life of obedience (and that, most assuredly, is my desire), but other than pastors and a few lay people, I've not seen much evidence of the fruit of such devotion. I could not seem to get hold of just what exactly all those words and platitudes meant until I read your book. Thank you for obeying God and setting an example as a godly woman.

—Vernette Tyson, Branson, Missouri

Thank you for sending me a signed copy of your precious book! Your journey is one worth sharing with others as it draws others to a closer relationship with Jesus as Lord and Savior. The transformation that God began and completed within your family is a compelling example of His amazing love and grace. May its message go forth to bless an entire multitude of people who trust in Him completely.

—D. O., Bexley, Ohio

Inez, I just finished reading your book! What a blessing it was, a wonderful testimony of God's goodness, faithfulness, and guidance. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. I'm so glad you did all the work to write it. It blessed my socks off!

—Alice T., Columbus, Ohio

I could not put the book down. What an amazing story of trust, love, and victory through Christ it is! Thank you for sharing yourself and your journey. I want everyone to read this book.

—Alene Markillie, Kalamazoo, Michigan

Inez Heller Jones writes an inspirational story of her life and family. She really has inspired me spiritually. Christ was always there to support her financially and spiritually. It's so amazing to read how she unfolds the miracles that happen for her. And her daughter, Carolyn, is a symbol, a blessing, and a symbol of God's gift for her and us all. I would recommend this book for anyone who is struggling. She gives us a new perspective and lease on Life.

—Virginia Loraine Queen, Columbus, Ohio

I could not put this book down! I felt like I stepped directly into her world. I was inspired by how Inez chose to obediently follow God, living out His purpose for her life. What a great light she shined to her husband, her daughter, her friends, her family, her church and now, to her readers. We can all learn something from how she sought the council of God, leaning on him for things that were beyond her strength and understanding. Because of this, the Lord opened and closed many doors for her according to his divine wisdom.

She laid herself aside, choosing not to retaliate, but to trust God, even though she was on what seemed like a continual descent. Through her diligence and faithfulness she earned a place of honor and trust, but painfully watched it all be given over to another who was not deserving. She was truly a proverbs 31 woman.

(Proverbs 31:10 - 12) Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

11 The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

12 She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.

What shall separate us from the love of God? For this woman… Nothing!

Romans 8:35-39

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? [36] As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. [37] Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. [38] For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

(39) Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

—Anita D'Andrea, Westerville, Ohio

To my mother, Essie Mae Heller, and my daughter, Carolyn Inez Jones. It is because of these two women that I desired to become like the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31—the woman who looked forward to having her husband and children rise up to call her blessed.

My mother was a woman of God who knew who she was and passed that heritage along to her daughters. It was my desire then that my daughter be allowed to share every aspect of this heritage. As I look at my daughter, I believe God, in His gracious manner, has allowed me to pass it on.

Words to Live By

And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

—Genesis 1:28

And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be taken by her.

—Ecclesiastes 7:26

Preface

I was the last born into a family of eight children. Tim S. and Essie Mae Heller ran a tight ship among their offspring. As the youngest child, born after my three brothers and four sisters, I had heard all my life that God has no grandchildren. Yet over the years, I'd become convinced that like me, many people thought that surely must not be true. Why? Because we had parents who were constantly inquiring of God as to how we should be raised.

We were loved. We were taught to have respect for ourselves and others. We were disciplined (without being abused) by good, old-fashioned spankings. We were raised to be good citizens. We made good grades in school. We went to church. We accepted the fact that we were members of God's family.

In the Heller family, my siblings and I, with little or no question, listened to our parents. We never took drugs and did not become alcoholics. My sisters and I did not prostitute ourselves. Similarly, although my brothers understood about loose women, they did not hang around any. They also did not join in with actions that would incur any prison time. All of my siblings and I married out of our parents' home. When we said, For better or for worse 'til death us do part, we meant it. Once we started our families, we loved being moms and dads, homemakers and breadwinners. And although there were, of course, some conflicts within our families, those raised by Tim S. and Essie Mae Heller always tried to do their part to make things right.

Despite growing up in this atmosphere of relative moral perfection, God had to teach me how to become His child. I had to learn that truly He has no grandchildren.

Inez H. Jones

June 2012

Chapter 1

The Beginning

He left us. I was kneeling at the foot of the daybed in my sewing room, crying out to God and asking Him to halt this calamity in my life. I felt a touch on my shoulder. Then I heard every footstep as my husband of twenty-four and a half years walked through the house. Every sound reverberated inside me. After that, I heard the door close quietly, yet firmly. He was gone. I was alone with a God who did not seem to hear.

I don't remember much about the fall and winter of 1975. We had raised our little chick, a baby girl who had become a woman. She had flown away from the home to start college. Wade and I had more time for each other, yet we were living rather solitary lives in the same house. Since we didn't have our daughter and her activities to unify the three of us, we had lost our ability to be companions without her. We were two people living in the same house who talked at each other over breakfast and dinner about nonessentials.

I was immersed in volunteer work that he couldn't have cared less about. He was intensely involved in his work all day and did not wish to discuss it when he came home. Determined to have a breakthrough, I read the Playboy Philosophy, which Wade had bought into years before. I hated it, but I thought maybe we could argue its points, and Wade would come to look at it the way I did—foolish. He was not impressed with my efforts to enter his world. In fact, he seemed totally disinterested in anything I wanted to do or talk about. I had daydreams of our being more romantic. I didn't understand that we didn't because we couldn't. Our reason for being together was no longer there. We politely ridiculed each other's daily activities and responded uninvitingly to each other's touch. It had to end. I didn't want it to. He did.

Adding fuel to an already simmering fire was my complete distaste for the room that had become Wade's den. Somewhere in the remodeling process, he had decided this room should become his alone. This was despite the fact that together, we had picked out the paneling (light Mediterranean blue), and together we had installed it.

Wade's idea of decorating included a big poster of a half-naked slave man and woman, lewd pictures with ribald commentaries, silken pullchains on the overhead lights, and, of course, magazine racks stocked with Playboy and Penthouse magazines. My revulsion grew with each addition, and I frequently expressed my opinion. When I told Wade I thought it had the appearance of a brothel, he asked me how I knew. Had I ever been in a brothel? I had to admit I hadn't, but I felt that if I were to enter one, it would be like that room. I guess dens were in because I overheard one of the ladies in my neighborhood prayer group say her husband and their son had decorated their den in ways that were distasteful to her, and rather than getting upset, she just never went into it.

I don't know why I couldn't do the same since I had a sewing room that was my own personal space. I didn't even need to enter Wade's den, but for some reason I just couldn't stay out. I told myself it was because of the fireplace. That room made a cozy retreat to sit and read or snooze. The only thing I knew for sure was that I longed for my husband's attention. Could I have been jealous of the time he gave a room?

When Wade was home during the day, he worked on his den. He was so proud of his efforts. Occasionally, he would invite some of his friends over to enjoy the room with him. They would build a big fire in the fireplace and sit, drink and talk until the wee hours of the morning—long after I had gone to bed. At night, when he wasn't working downstairs, he sat upstairs in the living room in his La-Z-Boy armchair. He would watch TV, read, and drink scotch. Then he would come up to claim his side of the bed. I thought, At the very time I want to cement our relationship, he is pretending to be single.

I was firmly resolved not to give up. Mirabel Morgan had just come out with her book on how to keep your husband interested. Mirabel suggested meeting your husband at the door when he came home from work dressed merely in Saran Wrap. I wasn't sure I could do that, but I planned a few other things. They all went bust. Then I took a class that was supposed to be the cure-all: How Godly Women Should Act Toward Their Husbands. That didn't work either.

About March or April of 1976, I began to realize that something was happening with Wade beyond the ordinary. First, he started taking large sums of money out of the savings account. Then every so often, I would come upon him whispering into the telephone. Sometimes if the telephone rang, he would almost knock me down to get to it before I could answer it. Only once do I remember asking him about those calls. When I did, he just shrugged and responded sarcastically, Now you want to monitor my telephone conversations?

I let it go. I didn't care who called him, but I just couldn't understand why his responses had to be whispered. We did have two big fights over his tampering with the savings. We had agreed not to touch that money unless together we decided where it was to be spent.

It's my money. I earned it, he told me. "I would