SEASONS OF LIFE

In each season of our lives there is a divine purpose. For two decades, Grace was single and struggled to understand why God had not answered her prayer for a Christian husband. She finally experienced the fulfillment of His promises when He brought Phil into her life after twenty years of waiting. Grace says, “He hears your prayers and knows your heart’s desires. Even when it seems like nothing is happening and nothing is changing in the situation, God is still at work.” Some seasons may be more enjoyable than other seasons, “But I believe you can flourish in whatever season you’re currently in. You can live your life and walk in your purpose,” shares Grace. 

FALL SEASON

This season is a time of release – a necessary season of letting go of offenses, unhealthy relationships, hurts, bad habits, toxic friendships, pride, unforgiveness and other heart issues before we can ever move on to the next season. Just as God provides for the trees and protects them, He is able to do the same for you. In order to grow deep roots we must make the decision to forgive ourselves and others. 

Grace’s family escaped the rule of Idi Amin in Uganda and fled to Duluth, Minnesota, in 1976. The pastor of their first church in Minnesota asked her family to leave because the congregation was uncomfortable with a black family worshipping with them. Their car tires were slashed and a brick was thrown through their living room window because people did not want them in their neighborhood. 

In elementary school Grace remembers going to the mall for the first time. A boy kept starring at her. He pointed at her and asked his mom, “Mommy, why is her skin so dirty? Didn’t she take a bath?” When Grace got home, she was determined to wash the “dirt” from her skin. It would be years before Grace realized her true identity, beauty, and value. The names she was called in middle and high school required a lot of releasing and letting go. She found her identity in the pages of the Bible, “I am a child of God.” 
 
WINTER SEASON

Unexpected challenges and unknown futures describe the winter season. Lessons learned in the storms of this time in our lives are deep and full of growth to shape us and make us stronger. Grace’s struggle for two decades was waiting on God to bring the right man into her life to marry. During her single years, she traveled the world, earned her master’s degree, bought her own home, and ran several marathons. She was intentional about living life to the fullest despite her extended waiting period for a spouse. One of the ways she was able to do this was by focusing on others around her instead of herself. For example, on Valentine’s Day she would send gift cards to couples or offer babysitting for free so parents could have a date night. It kept her from isolating herself and sinking into a cave of depression.

For years, she asked the Lord why He was having her wait so long. She never got an answer. Some people only waited two years to get married, yet she waited twenty. After she married, God finally answered and asked, “Grace, would you rather have a faith that is two years deep or two decades deep?” Grace shares, “The winter season had cultivated a level of faith and developed spiritual roots that no other season could have done. Although it was painful, the faith, wisdom, and spiritual maturity I developed over twenty years could not have happened in two years.
                                                                                    
SPRING SEASON

Be open to new experiences, people, ideas and perspective even when stepping out into the unknown is uncomfortable. Grace met Phil when she felt ready to give up. One of the obstacles she faced as a single person was that she was a minister. It became a deal breaker to some guys before they even got to know her. Although she felt called to ministry, she did not want to remain single. She decided to take matters into her own hands.

Grace’s new plan was to take real estate classes to become an investor while still doing ministry behind the scenes just not from a public platform. She would use the money she made from real estate investing to fund ministries and churches. She thought it was a solid plan. At the same time, she attended Bob Goff’s first Dream Big Workshop. On the second day of the seminar, he said, “Grace, you have something to say, and people need to hear your voice.” He also invited her to speak with him at an event he was keynoting the following week. She had been ready to walk away from her purpose because she felt it must have been keeping her from finding love.

Four months later, she met Phil. He came to work with her church. She says, “I would not have met him if I had run from my winter season, skipped the spring, and tried to enter summer by changing careers. Because I stayed planted in ministry and opened my mind to all that came in the spring season, I was right where I needed to be when God had our paths cross.”
 
SUMMER SEASON

The summer season is a time when everything is flourishing. We experience a deeper level of faith and spiritual muscles which develop our character and perseverance. When Grace shared her story with Phil, he encouraged her to write a book about her life experiences. He also suggested she attend the upcoming SheSpeaks conference which trains writers, speakers, and leaders to communicate their God given messages. Phil was the chairman of the board for the organization that put on the conference. At the conference, Grace had an interview with a literary agent. Prior to the meeting, she asked Phil to pray for her. Later that night they went to dinner to celebrate Phil’s birthday and talked for three hours. When she returned to her hotel Grace asked the Lord, “Is this who you have for me?” She felt the Lord whispered in her heart, “He is My gift to you.” 

Phil was a widow with two daughters. He and Grace dated for eight months and married five years ago before her forty third birthday. She is thankful for God’s faithfulness despite the long winter season she endured. Grace says, “Phil is my greatest gift. We are loving life, walking in our purpose, and serving God together.” They have been married for five years. Together they lead focus412, an organizational leadership and coaching ministry that helps churches grow. Through this ministry, they have worked with some of the largest and most influential churches across the country.

It is possible to be in two seasons at the same time. To be celebrating something in the summer and walking through a difficult situation in the winter. Grace and Phil recently celebrated the joy of a gender reveal party for their first grandchild. Four days later, Grace’s mom was in the hospital having suffered from a medical emergency.  

To purchase your copy of Grace Wabuke Klein's book, Flourish, please visit her website: www.GraceWabukeKlein.com.
            
 
 

On February 12th, 2018, Brian Hines called 911.

Dispatch Operator: “Fire Department… what is the address of your emergency?  

Brian: “Tina! Please Honey! I think my wife is having a heart attack! She passed out!”

Dispatch Operator: “Listen, is she breathing?” 

Brian: “No, she is not!”

Tina was unresponsive.

Brian recalls seeing his wife’s body on the ground, “I've never seen anybody with their eyes rolled back and-and literally starting to turn purple.”

Jeff Logas, their neighbor who had stopped over for a quick visit, tried finding a pulse and then began CPR.

Brain recalls, “Jeff said, 'Brian, I can't do this. I'm not doing it right.' And so, I put the phone down on the rocks and I just start pushing on Tina, pushing on her chest in the middle of her chest, I was panicked.”  

Jeff shares his experience in the moment, “It was – it was like a man giving every last breath that he had to try to get his wife back.”

Brian says, “I thought she was dead.”

First responders arrived at the scene. Paramedics administered two rounds of epinephrine and shocked Tina’s heart. Brian says, “They did it a third time and I'm looking at them going, 'Guys, is-is her heart beating? Can you get her heart to beat? Please God, please make her heartbeat.'"

Tina, still without a heartbeat, is rushed to Deer Valley Medical Center by ambulance as the paramedics continue trying to resuscitate her. 

Tina’s injuries included a gash on her forehead from the fall, a cracked sternum and several cracked ribs from the CPR. With no sign of life for over 20 minutes, Tina is rushed into the ER.

“In my mind, I knew she was dead. There was nothing,” says the Hine’s neighbor Jeff Logas.

Family and friends trickle into the waiting room to pray and be with Brian. “It was a prayer of desperation. I said, 'God, take everything from my life, if you'll give me back Tina,'” Brian shares.

Meanwhile, Tina’s sister, Tammi, and her husband, Dave, rush across the desert from Los Angeles to Phoenix. Dave says, “And she just told me that she had sudden peace, suddenly, something fell on her, peace that Tina was going to be okay. As she told me that story, I got a text on my phone. It was from Brian: “Tina is alive!'"

Bryan shares, "The doctor explained, 'We defibrillated her one-one more time in the ER and she came back. But there was probably 27-28 minutes with limited or no oxygen. We don't know what happened. We're going to induce a coma to allow her body to relax while we're doing all these tests to try to figure out what happened.'"

The doctor continued to explain: most people don’t survive after 5-10 minutes of being without oxygen to the brain… And if Tina pulled through, she would most likely have brain injuries that could leave her with a major brain handicap. Reeling from his wife’s potential complications, Brian stepped into to Tina’s ICU room for the first time.

“I mean, she's vented, the thing’s breathing for her. She's got all these tubes on her. And your eyes just immediately go to that monitor, watching the heart rate thing, the chart and hearing the beeping and seeing the numbers. It was crazy. But I had to be happy too that at least she is alive,” says Brian.

Meanwhile, the ICU waiting room was filled with family and friends crying out to God for Tina, including Dave and Tammi. Dave adds, “And we’re praying the whole time.”

The next day when Tina’s vital signs were back to normal, her doctors needed to determine if she could breathe on her own. They decided to take her off the ventilator. Brian whispered in his wife’s ear, “The doctor needs to know that you can breathe on your own. And I told them that you are superwoman. Can you show him that you can breathe on your own? Her chest went.... When I looked back at the doctor and he goes, 'That'll work.'"

Tina was able to breathe on her own. And once she was fully conscious, Dave placed a pen in her hand and held a notebook for her, “And she just started making marks, and I couldn't tell what it was, and I was almost shaking. I was fixed. I just held the book steady because I didn’t want it to drop.”

Brian recalls, “We figured out that she wrote I-T-S-R-E-A-L. 'What's it's real?' And I go, 'The pain? The hospital?' She's slowly nodding your head. Eyes are closed. She's fully vented. She's moving all this. No, and then my daughter goes, 'Heaven?' And she goes – she nods yes.”

Dave remembers, “And as soon as someone said Jesus, a peace came across her.” Brian says, “I just looked at Dave and said, 'She's going to be just fine.'"

The doctor warned that she may not be able to speak for a while, however…

Tina had a lot to say immediately.  “I just wanted to share that I saw Jesus face to face and the unbelievable rest and peacefulness of what I was experiencing was Jesus standing there with His arms open wide; and right behind Jesus standing there was this incredible glow it was the most vibrant and beautiful yellow."

With her cracked sternum and ribs on the mend, Tina was discharged from the hospital on February 16th, just four days after suffering a cardiac arrest. Without any brain impairments. 

Today Tina’s training for a half marathon and enjoying life.

“God is real in my life. Jesus is real. Heaven is real. I know that God can use every situation to make us who we are in Christ,” says Tina.
 

He’s master of the grand entrance whose presence still holds attention! Terry Bollea made the name - Hulk Hogan - present, with unmatched success and global recognition in sports entertainment. A larger than life icon that transcends wrestling. Saving his biggest splash not far from his Clearwater Beach store and restaurant.  

Question: “Public Baptism. You’ve said – ‘the greatest moment in your life?'”

Hulk Hogan: “Yes without a doubt.”

Question: “What did that mean for you?” 

Hulk Hogan: “It broke down that fourth or fifth wall to tell people the truth about my Lord and Savior, how you should look at things or how you should care for people and not judge people. It set me free. I wasn’t that perfect vessel that I should be or should’ve been. Once I was baptized I felt I was all anew. It really was a major pivot in my life.”  

Aaron Filippone (Pastor of Indian Rocks Baptist Church): “So fun to be a part of Terry’s baptism and to see the ripple effect that it has made all over the world. He had people in Japan calling him just a couple minutes later. This is the way that Christians go public in their faith and he felt it important to do what Christians do.”

Question: “Hulk Hogan, what does the person of Jesus Christ, Terry, bring to you?”

Hulk Hogan: “That God presence in us, you know, that still small voice. What Terry brings to the table is a meat suit (laugh) you know, a meat suit filled with the Spirit of Christ and it’s a testing ground for me. I accepted Christ as my Savior when I was 14 but I derailed. It wasn’t my life. He has given me the opportunity to prove that I’m faithful and I’ll never make those same mistakes again. Going back to my faith, the momentum was overwhelming; there was nothing stopping me.”

Question: “What became the most draining to sustain the Hulk Hogan recognition?”

Hulk Hogan: “Well, 35 years of wrestling - still had that bug in me where I liked to see if I was getting approved. After I slammed one guy and looked to the crowd, I guess I made a crazy face. But the look that I gave gave a better ration than the wrestling move and I went – ‘Okay!’ They wanna see me be a little goofy and have fun in here. And that character launched me into this crazy genre where it all intertwined together, you know, the character and the wrestling.”

Question: “Why the demand for your brand?”

Hulk Hogan: “I like that. Why the demand for my brand. I think its generational trust. Because the parents and the grandparents all know who I am. And the kids know who I am. But like in Mozambique, and Zimbabwe, and Malaysia might not know Tom Brady, but they know Hulk Hogan. It’s kind of amazing how many homes I’ve been into around the world on a consistent basis, every weekend for forty-plus years.”

Question: “Hulk Hogan has that Clearwater Beach store and restaurant. How do you manage the brand and Terry, while tending to the expectations of people?”

Hulk Hogan: “Well the moment I come home, the headband comes off the bald head and you know, it's just Terry - Dad, father, husband, friend. I have no wrestling pictures in my house. No wrestling belts. Just Terry. The problem is, the moment I leave the house, the moment I walk out the front door - the world doesn't want Terry. The mailman goes, ‘hey, Hulk.' So instead of saying, ‘good morning, sir,' I go, ‘hey brother, how you doing?' I give him just a little, cuz they expect it, you know? You know there are a lot of tributaries that all parlays off this Hulk Hogan character, which I really appreciate and value very much, so it’s not just a job. But I learned to separate myself.” 

Question: “The difference between being outside the ring and watching as a spectator or getting into the ring, is if defining, 'this is what I am, right?'”

Hulk Hogan: “Yeah, you can relay that on so many levels because it's almost like people you know that say they’re a Christian and they know of, our Lord and Savior but they really don’t know Him. You know, everybody I meet’s a wrestler, talking about wrestling, but there’s a huge difference when you actually get in that ring just like you said. And that’s exactly the perfect way to describe it.”

Question: “Once you knew that things were scripted, a predetermined outcome, was it difficult for you to maintain the competitive side while entertaining?”

Hulk Hogan: “As a businessman, I look at it completely different because a lot of wrestlers look at it and go ‘it’s predetermined, it’s a “work,” I’ll take it easy on you out there. If I were to grab your arm like this and put you in the top wristlock here – that’s a “work.” (“Uncle”) No. No. That’s a “work”! If I go to the outside, that’s a “shoot.” That means you’re actually trying to hurt someone, break bones, submission holds. ‘Oh it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s predetermined.' Well it does! Because if I’m the good guy and my merchandise is selling five times more than you – that’s a shoot to me!”  

Question: “Don’t make me come over there!”

Hulk Hogan: “That’s ok, I’m way past my prime, you’d have an easy day with me. Real easy. Don’t forget it’s predetermined.” 

Question: “Oh yeah, right. But isn’t that a lot like the lives we live? We attempt to write the script to control the outcome. Right, Terry?”

Hulk Hogan: “It’s very funny. This whole thing is a shoebox, brother. And we’re in the shoebox and He’s in control. And it’s gonna happen exactly the way He wants it to happen. And exactly the way it’s supposed to be. And there are no coincidences. None!”

Question: “All of us are in our own ring. Using stage names, characters. How did you take off that mask?”   

Hulk Hogan: “I get sick and tired of myself. The two people in my head, the ego and the real I AM. I just surrendered. I just said I can’t do it anymore, you know. And I went back to the Bible and I started reading again and I’m either all the way in or all the way out with whatever I do. So if you’re with me there’s no guesswork. If I’m with my Lord and Savior I’m all the way in.”

Question: “What message do you now convey at this stage of your life?”  

Hulk Hogan: “It's a spiritual war in, in this fallen world. To turn to the truth, seek Him, and you shall find, to step outside their comfort zone and, you know, accept Christ. Knowing that He would heal the land and heal this nation and heal the people, it just seems like such an easy choice for everyone. If you'll just surrender and accept Him as your savior.”

“It was just tough to breathe. I knew that that wasn’t normal and wasn’t right,” explained Thomas Carpenter. It was March 18, 2020, just one week since he had been sent home from the hospital with severe flu-like symptoms. “The doctor on the phone said, ‘I’m calling the ER. I’m telling them that you’re coming, so go now,’” recalled Thomas’s wife Angelia.

By then, the World Health Organization had declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and visitors were no longer allowed in hospitals. After dropping Thomas off, Angelia watched helplessly as he walked into the ER, alone. “And I tried to reassure her, and I’m gonna be fine,” Thomas noted. “You just let them take care of me.”

“I just remember on the way home bawling my little eyes out,” said Angelia. “I just let it out before the Lord. I walked back into the apartment, the Lord said, ‘Angelia, what was the word that I gave you this morning?’ And I was like, 'yeah, Lord, You gave me the word hope.' I remember saying out loud, ‘Lord, You did not give me that word, hope, for my husband to die. And I held onto that.”

Doctors told Thomas his oxygen level was dangerously low and they were admitting him to the critical care unit. Thomas called Angelia, urging her to get people praying. Angelia recalled, “I was on mission to fulfill what he asked me to do and to get everybody praying. I am hanging onto that hope that the Lord had spoke to me.”

“My thoughts were just, Lord, you got this,” Thomas added. The 55-year-old was put in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator. Over the coming weeks as his condition continued to deteriorate, Thomas would be one step away from becoming another COVID-19 statistic. “The doctor would call, and say, 'It’s just touch and go. We’re just gonna have to wait and see,'” said Angelia.

By April, reports of the rapidly growing number of COVID deaths dominated the headlines. Angelia did what she could to be near her husband. “I would drive to the hospital and just sit in the parking lot and look at the building. I would just say, ‘Lord, my husband is somewhere in that building and You’re with him,” she explained. “Our two daughters and their husbands…they left their homes just to come and be with me while Thomas was in a coma. It was kind of like calling the family in because Thomas could pass away.”

Dr. Brent Bergen, a pulmonary critical care physician, explained: “When we were putting people on ventilators or life support, we were having them say goodbye to their family. Back then, very few were coming off the ventilator,” said Dr. Bergen.

As missionaries, the couple knew people all over the world who were now praying. Meanwhile, still in a coma and clinging to life, Thomas says something extraordinary happened. He remembers going to heaven. God was by his side, giving him peace. He saw his son Buck who had died after a car accident when he was just eight years old. “When I saw him, he was laying right there in the crook of my arm,” Thomas stated. “And I looked down there and I saw him grinning so big, and I said, ‘Son, you gotta tell me, what were you feeling?’ He said ‘Dad, what are you feeling now?’ And I said, ‘Man, this is just so much peace.’ And he said, ‘Dad, that’s exactly what I felt, because you’re exactly where I was.’”

He also heard people around the world praying for him. “It sounded like I was in a large football stadium, and somebody just scored a touchdown. It was so loud,” Thomas said. He says, then, one person’s voice rose above the countless others. Thomas explained, “I heard my wife say, ‘Lord, would you heal my wonderful husband, Thomas? I need him.’ And it was right then that I opened my eyes.”

It was late evening, Easter Sunday. Angelia got the call the next day. “I talked to the nurses on that Monday morning, and they said they were just in total, total shock,” she said. In fact, they were calling him “the miracle man.”

“It’s the day after Easter, but it feels like Christmas,” stated Angelia. Thomas added, “It’s an amazing feeling. To know that God is concerned about even the least of us…it is just such a blessing.”

Dr. Bergen believes it was divine intervention that allowed Thomas to beat the odds. “What we do is supportive. We allowed God to take care of him and restore him,” he noted.

After several weeks in rehab, hard work, and prayer, Thomas went home…two months after going into the hospital. He and Angelia are thankful for the healing power of prayer. “He was in a coma for 33 days,” said Angelia. “We actually found out later, after he had been in the coma and everything, that he had a three percent chance of making it. He’s just a walking miracle and we’re so thankful for that.”

Thomas concluded, “For everyone that prayed for me, know that I’m here as a result of your prayers. I wouldn’t be here without your prayers and my wife’s.”

(Please click on the link to purchase Angelia Carpenter's book, "Sweet to Trust, Lessons I've Learned From the Life of My Son.")