Dear Friends,
I would like to share my testimony with you all just to remind you that God is real. God will provide you with a wonderful life if only you will ask him to come into your heart and guide you in the right direction.
My name is Mike Duvall, I am fifty-nine years old and I was a lost sinner for forty-seven years of my life. As most of you already know I am a dirt track racecar driver. I started racing in the early sixties and that was the only important thing in my life, nothing else mattered to me. My goal in life was to be the best dirt track driver in history. I didn't even care about family or salvation or anything else in life. I got married at age nineteen a few years later we had a son Mitchell. Neither my marriage nor my son changed my life style. Eventually my wife got tired of putting up with my racing, partying, drinking, and running around and she filed for divorce. Even though I had hurt my wife, son, and the rest of my family I still put my racing first.
During my time of the wild years I had another son to be born his name is Chad. There were many years that passed that I didn't even acknowledge Chad, I was never a daddy to Chad and it really didn't bother me that I wasn't a part of his life.
A few years passed and I got married again, this time I was going to try to be a good husband and a father to my daughter that was born, Amber. After all that had happened in my life I thought that I finally had a stable family and home, but in nineteen ninty-five my second wife filed for divorce. I was really confused because I thought that I had done everything right to make that marriage work.
On July 5, 1997 I got married for the third time. Pam had a son (Jonathon) by her previous marriage and before she married me she told me that she wanted to raise her son in church and she wanted a husband that would go to church with her and her son. We started to church and on November 27, 1997 I swallowed my pride and went down to the alter and asked God to come into my heart and forgive me of all my sins and make a new man out of me. That was the day that I became a real man. I realized that for the past 47 years I was not "The Man." I did not have any morals or any respect, all I wanted was what was best and most convenient for myself.
Pam and I had a daughter on November 16, 1998. The doctors brought the baby out to the window for everyone to see. I was a proud father. I was giving out cigars and glowing with happiness when the doctors came out and called me to the side and told me that Bonnie was born with heart problems and needed surgery very soon. Pam had already had a son (J-BO) to die at age 5 due to heart problems. I was walking down the hall with my head hanging down and my heart broken when the holy spirit spoke to me and the voice that i heard said "I'll take care of her." I took a few more steps and I heard the voice again saying the same thing. Once I realized what was going on and where the voice was coming from I raised my hand up and thanked the Lord. I knew the Lord wouldn't let me down if he said that he would take care of her that's what he would do. I asked the doctors to check her heart again before doing open heart surgery just to make sure that the surgery was needed. As the doctor started to listen to her heart he looked up with a strange look on his face. He stood up straight and looked to the other doctors and his exact words were "There's nothing wrong with this baby, she's perfectly healthy." I explained to the doctors that the Lord told me that he would take care of her and that's exactly what he did.
It took me many years to find out what happiness was all about, but since I got saved I've been happier than I've ever been in my life. I have a great relationship with the son that I never really even knew. I got forgiveness from him and the Lord and now we sit in church together.
These are the ones that have gotten saved since I got saved and started witnesses to them:
Dot Reavis - mother July 19, 1998
Gene Reavis - step-father July 26, 1998
Jonathon Howlett - step-son October 11, 1998
Mitchell Duvall - son February 17, 2001
Dillon Duvall - grandson July 4, 1999
Amy Duvall - granddaughter May 20, 2001
The others, Pam, Tanya, Melissa, Chad, were all saved before me.
Please continue to pray for me and I'll do the same for you.
Thanks,
Mike Duvall