Emily determined to end it all by taking her own life. She planned exactly how she would do it, but she couldn't carry out her plans. Something wouldn't let her. "I know now it was the Lord," she told me.
One day she met a friend she hadn't seen in a long time. The friend seemed different somehow. In the course of the conversation, the friend asked, "Emily, how are you?"Emily told her the truth, and her friend began to tell her about her new relationship with Jesus Christ. "And He can help you too, Emily," she concluded. Before they parted, her friend gave her a devotional book to read.
As Emily read that book, she turned her life and her problems over to Jesus. "My friend was right," she said. "Jesus took away the nightmares, the horror, the words of the psychic that repeated themselves over and over in my mind. Jesus saved my soul and gave me a sound mind. I could once again function as a wife and mother without tranquilizers."
Eight months later, Jim came to know the Lord too because of the change he saw in Emily's life. In time, Emily's brother and his wife received Jesus too. They all became faithful members and workers in the new church we pastored, Glove Cities Assembly of God. Because of the deep waters she has been through, Emily was able to minister to many people who were going through tragedies.
Emily told us that one day she was reading in Psalm 116: "I was brought low, and he helped me." She felt like those words were written just for her, and it brought her great comfort. "I can honestly say if it took this anguish to bring me to the Lord, it has been worth it all."
"Not knowing what happened, not knowing whether Pam is dead or alive, is the hardest part," Emily said. The Spencers believed she was probably dead, but they continued to pray for her. Emily even prayed that if foul play caused Pam's disappearance, the person or persons involved would come to know the Lord and confess the crime.
"When I feel overwhelmed by it all, I've learned to lean harder on Jesus. He has brought me this far. I know He will see me through, come what may."
The last time I saw Emily, she had just turned 80. She told me that every year on Pam's birthday, she wrote a poem to her and had accumulated quite a collection. Both Jim and Emily Spencer are with the Lord now. They never did learn what happened to Pam, but they entrusted their lives to the One who knows all things. And He carried them through.
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