God Works In Miraculous Ways!

First of all, I must let you know that Gayle, my precious husband, has given me permission to write and share this to bring hope where hope may be needed:

"A rose is a rose is a rose" is a famous quote written in 1913, often interpreted as meaning "things are what they are".  Having a husband drunk in the early years of our marriage, my twist to the rose quote could have been “A drunk is a drunk is a drunk.” He’d drink at friends’ homes and go to bars with the husband of my friend while she and I stayed home with our babies. That lifestyle seemed normal to her, but I hadn’t grown up in a home that drank alcohol or even excessively. Therefore, I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t nag or argue with Gayle about it. I didn’t like it, but soon resolved to the fact “it is what it is.”

Bars turned to drinking while playing golf at noon and after work every day of the week (except Monday when the country club was closed), drinking with the neighbors, drinking at home, anywhere… drinking, drinking, drinking. Many times, he would come home so inebriated, acting silly that he’d open the back door and throw his cap into the kitchen to see if I was going to throw it back out. I felt “home alone” whether he was there or not. It was draining us financially. At one of my lowest points in dealing with it all and knowing he desperately needed help, I remember asking him, “Are you an alcoholic?” Of course, he replied, “No.”

We had gotten married in 1963 and then fourteen years later in 1977, my world was falling apart from my marriage problems, taking the two youngest sickly children to the doctor 100 times that year, and financial problems. At this lowest point in my life, I received Christ as my Savior and He radically saved me. Since I was on-fire for Jesus Christ, one week later, I asked my teacher’s aide (who had gotten born again the year before) to pray and agree with me for God to deliver Gayle from his excessive drinking. We prayed. God answered. Gayle stopped drinking the next week and didn’t know why. But I knew. As a baby Christian I was ecstatic that God answered my first prayer by setting my husband free from alcohol.

From then to today (49 years later), we praise the Lord that Gayle has been sober and free of his addiction to alcohol and instead is filled with the Holy Spirit and “high” on the Lord Jesus Christ who changed both our entire lives, our marriage…EVERYTHING! This coming Nov. 8, 2026 we will celebrate our “God marriage” of 63 years! We praise the Lord for His love, grace, and mercy! Maybe you can relate to this true story, but don’t know what to do. God says,

“Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things

that you could never figure out on your own.” Jeremiah 33:3

Myrna Brogdon

Los Fresnos, TX