Personal Journey

Tina Bailey

Grace at Work

Romans 8:28 – “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to HIS purpose.”

When Tina Bailey was just five she looked up at the stars and asked “God where are you?” Thirty three years later she is confident that God continually answered her childhood prayer.

Tina is the fourth eldest in a fairly active LDS family of ten children. She was raised in Idaho, near Emmett on thirty acres of childhood chores and adventure. “I learned all kinds of “old fashioned skills” like canning, making bread and butter and milking a cow by hand, being raised in such a large family. She was baptized at the age of eight into the LDS church but in high school she had issues with church doctrine and stopped attending the Mormon Church.

When she was 19 and working in a truck stop, a driver came in and asked her if she knew who Jesus was. She said, yes she did. He asked if she knew Jesus had died for her and again she said yes. Then he asked if she knew Jesus had been resurrected? She did. Finally he asked her if she had ever prayed the sinner’s prayer. She had not, she said, but she’d like to. So after her shift ended she sat at a little table in the truck stop café with her first husband by her side. Together they accepted Christ. Neither knew what that meant.

“When we asked the trucker what to do next he said ‘open the phone book to Christian churches, start at “A” when you find one you like go there’. Instead of finding a fellowship, Tina and her husband found their marriage in serious trouble. He went off to military training in Texas and their communication grew strained.

Before long she was spending lots of time with the man who did emission testing where she worked. Ken was 27-years her senior and a man of the world. He was very charismatic, exciting to be with and interesting to talk to. “I learned about the world outside of Boise, Idaho”. Ken had the “bad boy” image that some women find irresistible and they began an emotional and sexual affair. He was married, with two grown children.

When her husband returned home “it was obvious what was going on, they made a feeble attempt to reconcile then separated and finally divorced.” She moved in with her much-older boyfriend, whose family lived in Salt Lake City. Tina says “I didn’t really want to get married again, but Ken had other ideas and after his divorce we headed to Elko, Nevada and were married.”

For the next three years they lived in Idaho City and during that time Ken met a man who went to St. Paul’s Baptist. Hank Webb kept inviting Ken and Tina to go to church with him. Finally they did Tina recalled. “It was the first Christian church I attended and we fellowshipped there for five years and I was baptized there.

Tina was still very confused about biblical theology. The God and Jesus of Mormonism are very different from the God and Jesus of the Bible. She had lots of questions and a deep thirst for spiritual knowledge and believed she needed someone to teach her about God and the bible. Ken introduced her to a chaplain who was leading bible studies for ex-offenders. “We started attending his weekly studies and he began “mentoring” me in my faith but wound up “talking me out of my marriage.” He was older than her husband and a real rogue pastor that she wound up having an affair with. They lived together for 6 weeks and he was very spiritually and mentally abusive and controlling.

One Sunday while he was out of town preaching, Tina turned on the TV and heard Pastor Bob teaching the bible and when he finished praying she prayed too. I said “God I am so confused and I need help”. Just then her husband called the house were she was living and they talked. “I told him I needed help and was so confused,” said Tina. Ken got them into counseling. We couldn’t be together or we’d fight. So for about three months we only talked on the phone or saw each other at church. “We started coming to Calvary because Bob spoke the truth and I really needed the truth.”

They got back together but her marriage remained rocky. She went through the first Healed and Set Free classes offered at CC Boise, and then she began teaching the classes. “Time after time God would speak to my heart and ask, ‘do you trust me; do you think I can take care of you and your husband’”, remembers Tina. There were times when she had her doubts and it was then that God gave her Romans 8:28 for a life verse. “Two-and-a-half years after they reconciled things were still hard and there was a lot of un-forgiveness on both sides. Her husband found out that he had congestive heart failure and then a couple of days later kidney failure. He was 59-years-old and she was 33.

While on dialysis they told him he was a good candidate for kidney transplant, “I immediately said, ‘I can’t take care of you and give you a kidney too.” I felt as if God was knocking on my heart and said, “Am I Lord of your life? You never even asked me about whether or not you should offer your kidney.” She was blood typed by her Dr. and she had one of the two types of blood that Ken could receive. Several tests revealed she was a good match and both Ken and Tina believe the match to be a miracle of God. Ken’s health continued to decline during this time with each passing day.

The transplant was schedule for December 5, 2005 in Seattle. At the end of October the nurse told me she didn’t think he could last that long. Then, five days before we were to leave for Seattle they cancelled the transplant because he was just too sick.

Tina got angry with God. “I was so angry and fearful for Ken’s life and health that I was ranting, raving and even cursing to Ken’s daughter. Then God spoke to my heart and said, ‘I can heal him if I want. I can take him if I want. This isn’t up to you, Missy.’ I was broken before Him yielded to His plans and perfect wisdom.”

She was soon reminded that God’s timing is perfect. The surgeries were re-scheduled for the day before her birthday in February 2006. By then Ken was stronger, and it was much easier for him to make the trip to Seattle. When they arrive he was healthy enough to undergo the operation. God used the extra time to draw them both closer to him.

He also used the situation to bring an extra blessings into their lives. The illnesses had changed the way Ken’s son and daughter felt about Tina. “I could understand it when his daughter said she hated me,” Tina recalled. “But God worked in her life and heart too. She came to Seattle and took care of both her Dad and Tina after the surgery. That’s just another example of God’s grace at work.”

Almost four years have passed since Tina gave her husband a kidney. She has continued to teach Healed and Set Free many times and is now putting together a class for women who want to live lives of sexual integrity. Her husband facilitates and she host a marriage-focused core group that emphasizes love and respect. “We’ve had enough pain and dysfunction in our lives and marriage that God has “worked all for good” to be great examples of what God’s grace can do.

“I wouldn’t trade all the hard stuff we have been through, because it has directly shaped me into who I am today—a work of God’s miraculous grace.”

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