We had been at Ray Mar close to two weeks when my sister’s cat went missing.  The cat was very important to her so we spent a lot of time over the next three days looking and calling for the cat and with every passing day my sister was becoming more upset.  The night of the third day I decided to pray and ask God to help me find the cat the next day.  As I have noted earlier, I had begun reading the Bible and through this had become aware of the Scripture in which Jesus says “…What things so ever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them”.  I decided to do that.

That’s not an easy task.  Aside from the overt doubts that will arise in ones’ mind, there are many subtle little doubts that will constantly try to creep in.  Constantly.  How do you fight something like that?  Here’s what I did.

From the previous events described within this website, you know that I encountered the problem of the fear that so irrationally appeared; a problem that frightened me terribly.  As you know, I successfully withstood and beat back the fear it generated by repeating over and over again, like counting sheep, the hope that God would save me from it….until I went to sleep. 

But guess what, it was this fight and the manner in which I fought and withstood the fear that gave me the answer to overcoming the doubt.  Did you know that overcoming doubt is also a fight?  As I considered the fight I was having to make with respect to the doubt, I realized that I could reject the doubts the same as I did the fear.  I determined to set a guard in my mind to watch for the slightest sign of a doubt that God would help me find my sister’s cat the next day and to fight it the same way I fought the fear.  Whether that night, or during the following day, on the appearance of the slightest sign of a doubt sliding into my mind, I said to myself, “God will help me find my sister’s cat”….over and over again; until the doubt disappeared.  Thing is, it is impossible to hold two thoughts simultaneously in your mind and, because of this, doubt was unable to take up a residence in my mind….something the scripture  indicates is very important.

The next day arrived and I continued looking for the cat as I was able.  The day passed and in the late afternoon I went down to the community showers to get cleaned up.  As I stood in the shower, the enemy of belief, which is doubt, showed up and tried to secure a place in my mind using the excuse that it was the end of the day and God had not helped me find the cat.  I finished my shower and walked out of the building to see that only a sliver of the sun remained above the horizon.

As I looked at the sun going down and considered the scripture that said “…What things so ever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them”, considered my prayer to God to help me find my sister’s cat, and considered the fact that the sun was only minutes away from setting; I determined to believe the scripture and in rebellion against the doubt said to myself; “that sun has not yet gone below the horizon”. 

Immediately I heard a cat and, looking up at a tall palm tree, about thirty feet up, saw my sister’s cat.  All of us who had been searching for the cat had passed that very tree for the last three days calling for the cat and the cat had never uttered a sound.  I thought: “a coincidence; not likely” and learned something about prayer.  I learned that believing and trusting God is most important but that perseverance in the face of doubt is just as important.

For the next few months, my life went on as normal however after about six months I decided to return to Naples.  It was not long after arriving in Naples that God responded to one of my deepest desires and showed me a short “video”, a dream, of my wife.  Check out the next page entitled “10 – God I.D.’s my wife and Hurricane Betsy!”.