The Call

By Jeremy Sanders and Carrie Sanders

"And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions." -Joel 2:28 RSV

There is a living God that still speaks to His people, and there is a very real enemy that is working against Him. As the Sand

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: May 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890416995

Jeremy Sanders

Carrie and Jeremy are just two ordinary sinners washed clean by the blood of Jesus the Christ. They are living testaments to the power and glory of our God Most High. They were brought out of darkness and into glorious light to be witnesses to God's supernatural works through broken and repaired vessels. They make no claims to be prophets or to speak on God's behalf. They are merely relaying the works and true story of our mighty Lord in their lives.

Book preview

PREFACE

As I write our story of what the Lord has done in our lives, I do not write this story alone. For this is His story and in doing this act of obedience, I am to give all glory to the Lord. I seek the Lord and His guidance upon my hand, as I am merely a scribe for the Lord. We each have gifts that the Lord has blessed us with according to His grace and call upon our lives. One distinct gift that I have learned to be a blessing to me from our Lord is the gift of knowledge. I call this the knowing. This revelation of knowledge has grown in that I just know, and I feel God. He speaks to each of us differently because He created us to be unique. Jeremy is literal, and I am not, so the Lord speaks to us according to the way He created us. Jeremy hears the Lord and sees visions and has dreams. I feel the Lord and know and receive information as to what He wants me to do or say. The Holy Spirit will put a message in me and if I do not release it, it grows like a fire inside me until I obey and relay His message. If you are aware of the many spiritual gifts, then you will also have another name for this type of gift. I desire to be humbled by the Lord and the only title I want is to be called The Lord’s. Our merciful Lord put Jeremy and me together with gifts that balance with each other. His all-knowing glory allows us to give to each other what we need in our spiritual walk with the Lord. I say all of this to let the reader know that many of the writings and scriptures I include in our story were directed by the Holy Spirit to be included. Many of the things I say are backed up by scripture. I do this so you receive the weight of the message that I relay to you. There are things that I say that are hard things to hear, so I include scripture to show you that I say these things under the authority of the one that wrote them. If you do not believe that the Holy Bible is the Word of God, and that His Word is true and we can do what it says we can do in the name of Jesus, you will not believe the words in this book. If you attempt to read this book while under the influence of the spirit of pride, you will reject many of the messages that are delivered. I am honest, I pull truth from the Bible, and I include scripture to back up what I say. I come armed with the name of the Eternal One. And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. Mark 16:17-18 RSV.

In His Service,

Carrie

Write down clearly on tablets what I reveal to you, so that it can be read at a glance. Put it in writing, because it is not yet time for it to come true. But the time is coming quickly, and what I show you will come true. It may seem slow in coming but wait for it; it will certainly take place, and it will not be delayed. And this is the message: Those who are evil will not survive, but those who are righteous will live because they are faithful to God.

Habakkuk 2:2-4

THE CALL

For many are called, but few are chosen. Matthew 22:14

It was a Sunday, and all seven of us were sitting in a line in The Woodlands Church in Katy, TX, listening to a sermon by Pastor Kerry Shook. It was a regular Sunday; nothing would have indicated that there was anything special coming to one of us on this day…but this was the day Jeremy was called.

We had taken our children to several other churches before, but this was the church where we decided to be baptized together as a family. We invited no one; it was our special day with the Lord. There were plenty of people baptizing each one of us at the same time, but then there was a situation where one of the baptizers had to leave which left one of us to stand aside waiting for their turn. After six of us were baptized, one of the baptizers told Jeremy that since he had been baptized that he could baptize Aubrey. It was a very special moment for all of us to be able to witness this. I will never forget that, and I know Jeremy and Aubrey won’t either. Not to confuse the reader, the baptisms and call were not on the same day.

It was not until we got home from church that I knew what had taken place in the middle of church. We all walked into our house in Tomball and scattered to change out of our church clothes and get ready to eat lunch. Jeremy and I went upstairs into our room, and he sat me down on the bed. He was clearly out-of-sorts and looked scared.

I can tell you what Jeremy told me, I can describe how I thought he felt, but I know it would be more organic coming from the one whom the Lord called, so this is Jeremy’s description of the call.

We were all sitting in church with our heads bowed in prayer. I could hear the pastor’s prayer, then I could not. The entire world had fallen away. I was deaf to all except His voice. It overwhelmed me with fear and wonder. I WAS TRULY IN AWE. Yet His voice was the loudest whisper I had ever heard, like rushing waters in absolute silence. He spoke to me. Jeremy, I want you to build a church. I was terrified. I instantly began to plead in my thoughts, No, no, no, please do not command me to do this, I cannot, not me! I was Jonah. Running for the sea, trying to hide from our Lord. But let me tell you something, there are no heights you can climb or any depths you can go to escape Him. He is there. Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. Psalms 139: 7-10. After Jeremy told me this, I said okay. Who am I to even have a response? The Lord is the Lord, and I am nothing. A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. Proverbs 16:9.

Jeremy’s granny passed away and we went to Seadrift to attend her funeral. Granny’s house is an old farmhouse that was the hub of family gatherings. When Jeremy’s grandfather was the Commissioner of Seadrift, the front yard would be a special gathering place for the men to drink coffee and talk, while the woman would be inside talking and scootin’ food around on the long red bar. Granny raised seven children in this house. (The Lord loves that number, seven. In scripture, seven often symbolizes completion or perfection.) After the funeral, John (Jeremy’s father), me, and Jeremy were sitting at a picnic table, talking. John mentioned that no one wanted this old house, and they did not know what they were going to do with it. I knew exactly what we were going to do with it…. keep it. I looked at Jeremy and said, I want it.

We went back to Tomball with a new hope in our hearts. All our children loved it there. It was a wide-open space to run and play, and our oldest son, Casey, loved to fish since he was young. Being that close to the bay was heaven for him and Jeremy. Our lease was coming up on our home in Tomball, but there were no plans for the old farmhouse to be ours yet. With so many children in the Sanders family, there were many hoops to jump to sign off on this property before it could be sold, but we started packing our home in Tomball with no assurance that this house was even going to be ours. We packed up a two-story house, and a seven-member family and waited for the Lord to move. After a while, the Sanders children decided we could rent the house for a small amount until we could buy it. Praise God He made a way! "For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable {for He does not withdraw what He has given, nor does He change His mind about those to whom He gives His grace or to whom He sends His call}. Romans 11:29 (AMP).

SEADRIFT

This is what the Lord says: Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. Jeremiah 6:16

The seven of us moved into our old farmhouse in Seadrift in 2014. The children started a new school, and Jeremy went straight to work with his cousin, rice farming. This left me with a lot of time alone in a new place. I would be lying if I said this adventure was easy. We went from city life with many things available to us whenever we needed them, to a town with a population of approximately 1,000. (That is rounding up.) We still miss being able to order food and have it delivered to our front door. Seadrift is a small coastal town that sits right next to San Antonio Bay and is known as a shrimping town. There are no traffic lights, and it would not be out of the ordinary to see a young boy driving a big farming tractor down the road. I am sure seatbelts were still just an option. Jeremy told me that whenever he came back to Seadrift as a young boy with his father, as soon as they hit the Seadrift city limits his father would roll down the windows and take his seatbelt off. It was just that kind of relaxed atmosphere.

The Sanders family is a huge, loving family, and I was thankful for their open arms welcoming us into their family home. Janie, one of Jeremy’s aunts, is a ball of loving energy and she had pizza on the bar and fresh flowers from the gardens to give this old house a bit of cheer for us when we arrived. While Jeremy was working with his cousin Josh, his wife Ashley would show up every morning to check on me, coffee in hand. The Sanders family is known to be avid coffee drinkers. It is an all-day affair with these people. To this day, we have our morning coffee, then again at 3 p.m., it is just what we Sanders do. All life stops at 3 p.m., to have coffee. Everyone just dropped by in this little town. No phone calls to see if you were home or decent. There were no pre-warnings to when someone would show up. We had to adjust fire with getting a dog to warn us, and I had to wear a bra much more often than I wanted to. Ashley would take me around and show me the ins and outs of the way things worked around these parts. She told me she had ordered my chickens; they would be shipped to the post office, and we could go pick them up from there. I did not ask for this; I assume it is a normal welcome to country life, present from the folks. I still have chickens to this day, and love seeing them dart across the yard with their wide bodies and short legs. They can become a nuisance when you are trying to relax on the front porch with your coffee, but we get along for the most part. Ashley’s other piece of advice was to avoid the small-town drama. Wise words indeed.

I was left to sort things out in the new (old) house while everyone else carried on with their work and schooling. I painted rooms, wandered around the empty house trying to figure out how we fit there, and cried a lot. I left my family back in the Pearland area and did not know anyone in Seadrift besides Jeremy’s family. One day I left to go grab something from the Dollar Store (I call it the mall) and I saw a quote; Bloom Where You’re Planted. I decided from that day on that I was not going to wallow in my misery any longer. I walked towards my fresh new perspective and the days were brighter and my heart was lighter.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the lands! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord is God! It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him, bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. Psalm 100:1-5

NINE YEARS IN THE WILDERNESS

A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. Isaiah 40:3-5

When you walk ahead of the Lord or guess as to what you are supposed to be doing, you will get it wrong every time. He will allow you to walk ahead of Him and He will allow you to fall. We failed our Lord by doing what we thought we were supposed to do instead of waiting for His timing. In the same way He allowed the Israelites to wander in the desert, He will allow us to wander in the desert of our lives. It is true that you can prolong your time in the wilderness by being disobedient and not waiting on His timing. He called us to build a church, so we walked ahead of Him and guessed as to what that meant. We proceeded to create an Ishmael when the Lord promised there was an Isaac on the way.

We started to do a small worship group with some family members in our home. Jeremy felt some pressure to say the right words and to teach what he thought he should teach. He was searching through scriptures and trying