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Barbara Brabec’s
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Personal Musings about Life

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February 2026

My Encounter with the Living God

God has a plan for your life that will astonish you
once you give Him the reins and trust Him
to work all things together for your good.

Something extraordinary happened to me on the way to sixty that forever changed my life and eternal destiny: I finally had a personal encounter with the Living God. I asked Jesus to forgive my sins and be my Lord and Savior. Believing at once that I’d been heard and forgiven, I felt truly reborn, and it was an incredible feeling that mere words cannot describe.

Suddenly, I realized it wouldn’t take years to change how I thought and acted, but only an instant. In a miraculous moment of unquestioning faith, I gave my life to God, entrusting Him with everything. And what a load that lifted from my soul!

“Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; On you I wait all the day” (Psalm 25: 4-5; NKJV).

Seeing Myself Differently

From that moment on, I began to see myself, my marriage, and my work as a professional writer from a sharply different viewpoint. This new and more enlightened perspective immediately caused me to make several changes in my life, the most important being an attitude adjustment. Where my work as a writer was concerned, I finally understood that the skills and talents I possessed were not something I’d acquired by myself, but gifts given to me by God—gifts I now knew I was supposed to use not for ego gratification but God’s glory.

This is when I also began to understand that God had been directing my life throughout my entire lifetime, even when I was ignoring Him. From that point on, my new attitude and faith in Christ enabled me to remain ever hopeful—even when I found myself in one discouraging valley experience after another as my husband’s health began to fail and my business went south. As I began to see evidence of how God was working in my life, I found myself waiting with joyful expectation to see where God would lead me next and what new patterns He would weave into the tapestry of my life.

“You will show me the path of life; In your presence is fullness of joy; At your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11; NKJV).

A Tapestry in Progress

You may not realize it, but your life is a tapestry in progress, too. The problem is that each of us can see only the backside of our life tapestry, where the picture is obscure and covered with hanging threads in many colors. God alone knows what the front side of our unique and colorful life tapestry will look like when it’s done, and we are unlikely to see it ourselves until we come before the throne of God in Heaven.

Meanwhile, we must continue to walk in faith and trust that God is directing our path and leading us where He wants us to go. Since being widowed in 2005, God has never failed to answer one of my prayers, although sometimes He waited a bloody long time to do it. It took me a while to understand that when my prayers weren’t answered right away, it might be that what I prayed for wasn’t in God’s plan for my life, either at that particular time or not at all, because He had something better planned for me. Here are two verses I’ve long lived by, and I urge you to memorize and believe them:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11; NIV).

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28; NIV).

Once I believed that God truly had a plan for my life and that He was always working things together for my good, I never again questioned why a prayer wasn’t answered. I learned that we must stop trying to move ahead of God because His timing will always be perfect. We should continue to pray for our needs and those of others and trust Him to do what is best for all concerned.

“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps” (Proverbs 16:9; NIV).

May God richly bless your life as He has blessed mine.

P.S. Visit the HOME page for Timely Quotes and links to Featured Articles of the month. Thanks for linking others to Barbara Brabec’s World.

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Musings About Life posts
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January 2026: My $2,000 Guardian Angel Miracle. Every day, God sends His angels to guard His people on earth. I’ve journaled many instances when I believed I had angelic help. Here’s the story of one of them. 

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