As If She Fell Out Of The Sky - A Jerry York Story

 Another testimony that I am so blessed to share is about Jerry's daughter. For privacy reasons (on her part) I'm not going to mention her name, but this is a fabulous not only 'But God' story but an 'Only God' testimony.

Picture taken from Getty Images

When Jerry and I married in 1995 I already knew that he'd been married previously. Actually, so had I but in Jerry's case he'd had a daughter with his previous wife and for countless reasons, he was not able to stay in her life. One reason was that his ex-wife remarried a military man, and they moved around and traveled to many other states that were very far away, so it became harder and harder to have visits, but another was because he was young at the time of their divorce and the stepfather wanted to adopt his daughter. Jerry really didn't feel he could fight it in the courts at the time. He was without a home of his own as he'd moved in with family and didn't even have a full-time job when all of this was happening. He sought counsel from church leadership who told him that he had to think of what was best for her, so he signed the paperwork and gave custody of his first-born daughter to his ex-wife and her new husband. This was quite devastating and to make matters worse signing those papers enabled them to even change her last name.

Jerry and I didn't marry until he'd been divorced for 10 years but I got pregnant right away and we had our first-born daughter 10 months after we married. He felt the Lord had blessed him and was restoring things missing in his life. Our second daughter came 2 years after that, but I could tell that he still longed for his first-born daughter. I thought of myself as quite the sleuth back then, so I began searching the internet. This was back in about 2000, and the internet was very different back then. Although the internet started years prior it didn't really become popular until the 90's, you had to use something called 'dial up' which didn't always work and it was pretty expensive to even have. There also wasn't as much information at the time. Unless you had access or ways to get in you still couldn't really find information. On top of that his daughter was still under 18 so she wouldn't have had much information on her and then to make matters even more difficult she took her stepfather's last name, and it was a very common last name with hundreds of women with that same name. I sent email after email, and they would write me back saying it wasn't them. I worked on it a little bit daily until we finally just gave up because I had no one else to write. 

One night Jerry went to a church meeting where the Prophet Bill Hamon was going to be speaking and bringing his team for prophetic training. Jerry went that night hoping to get a prophetic word regarding his daughter but that didn't actually happen. However, he knew better than to leave that meeting without sowing a seed into the prophet because of a scripture in Matthew.

Matthew 10:41

He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.

He cleaned out his pockets and sowed into the Prophet Bill Hamon's ministry that night asking the Lord for one specific thing. He'd heard for years through Jesse Duplantis that you should name your seed so that night he did. He said, 'Lord, I want to know that my firstborn is ok, and I really need Your help to find her because I want to see her.' He came home and told me about the meeting and what he'd sown. THE VERY NEXT DAY he went to work, and everything was upside down. Something had happened and the Supervisor over the office was not there. They had replaced the former boss with someone who would only be there temporarily until they could fill the position. It was quite confusing. He liked the former boss and was so surprised when she was no longer there, and this new person was all of a sudden added to the office on a temporary assignment. All day as he sat there he sensed the Lord was telling him to go to this man and tell him his situation. He fought with the Lord on it. This guy didn't know him from Adam. Later on in the day he did have the opportunity to talk with this man and really liked him. He found out that he was an investigator of some kind for the government (I'm absolutely not kidding you). Jerry was in Security at that time, so they chatted about Security, etc... then Jerry did it. He mentioned his situation and how we were trying to find his first-born daughter and were coming up against brick walls over and over. The man who barely knew Jerry said give me her name and birthdate and I'll see what I can find. So, he did as the man asked overjoyed that there was still hope.

THE NEXT DAY AFTER THAT he went back to work again and after getting busy in the office and performing his duties, he was walking by the office that the man was using while there temporarily and he called him in and had him sit down. He said, I have some good news. I found your daughter. You can imagine how excited Jerry was to hear this. God was answering prayer but finding her wasn't even the most mind-blowing part of what he had to share. He not only had her address but had something very surprising to tell him. He handed him her address on a little piece of paper and told him that she was living only 10 minutes away from us in the next city over. WHAT? Are you kidding me? He was rattled for sure. He thought she was in another state and had even heard that she was living in Hawaii at one time. She was literally 10 minutes from us and even MORE mind-blowing was when she moved there. The very same year we moved to the city we were living in she (with her parents) had moved to the city right next to us. Jerry thanked the man up and down. He wouldn't accept any money for doing this. He was just happy to do it and in less than a week he was replaced by the new Supervisor. Was this an angel unawares or was it a real person? Either way within a few days' time after sowing that seed into a prophet Jerry felt he was getting the prophet's reward.

We were both in tears, praising the Lord and shouting for joy. Now he had the address, so he drove over to check it out and was blown away again. Several years prior the Lord had given him a dream. We knew it was significant because he rarely remembered dreams. The dream was that he found his daughter and that she lived in an Apartment Complex. There he was pulling up at the address given to him and it wasn't a house it was an Apartment Complex. So now in the midst of all that was happening he was living in a dream come true. He didn't want to be seen as a stalker or something so realizing he couldn't just sit in the parking lot he did the next best thing and contacted his friend who was also a Pastor and had actually been there and walked with him through the divorce all those years ago and asked if he would possibly make first contact. The friend/Pastor thought about it and agreed. He made contact and spoke with the stepfather who did not want Jerry to have any contact with her at all because he felt she was no longer Jerry's daughter. He also found out something else that was QUITE surprising and odd at the same time. The stepfather knew exactly where Jerry lived at all times. Even when they were in other states, he kept track of where he was. He knew exactly what city we lived in and still decided to move his family there anyway. It felt almost like an obsession in a way, but he told Jerry's friend/Pastor that he watched him because he was always afraid that he'd come back to take his wife and daughter back (there is more to this part of the story, but I won't uncover people more than I already am in this testimony). How did the stepfather find us if we couldn't find them? I don't know except that he was a military man and maybe he had some kind of access to the internet we didn't have at the time. Jerry's Pastor just happened to have a daughter who was attending the same school as her, so he was able to get Jerry an updated picture of her. It was her senior picture and under her picture and name, there was a scripture. I'm not remembering right now but I believe it was Romans 8:28. Anyway, we were on cloud 9 to know that she'd been raised Christian. Of course, he knew his ex-wife was a Christian, but he knew nothing about her 2nd husband so anything could have happened. For an 18-year-old girl to not care what others think and put a scripture under her senior picture in her yearbook, to us was huge and said a lot about who she was becoming.

Jerry struggled now with knowing she was so close because I was now pregnant with our 3rd child, and we were considering moving out of the state entirely for ministry purposes. He really wanted to at least see her, meet her, and be able to tell her that he was sorry he hadn't been in her life, but he'd always loved her, prayed for her, and thought of her daily. It was a bit frustrating, to say the least. Back then I would have told him to beat the door down to get her attention... lol He just really wanted to hear from the Lord and keep the peace. God told him where she was, but he couldn't even see her. He was coming home from work one evening and while driving through the town he now knew she lived in he saw a video store he'd never stopped at, so he decided to go in and browse around. He noticed that girls about his daughter's age were working at the counter, so he went up and asked if they happened to know her. Yes, they said. In fact, they both knew her and while he was talking to one of the girls about her, the other girl behind the counter decided to call her to tell her that her father was in the store. But the girl didn't get his daughter on the phone, she got his ex-wife and within minutes all hell broke loose. A truck came speeding up the hill to the video store and didn't even park correctly and a man got out of the truck and ran into the store to confront Jerry. He was screaming at the girls behind the counter and in Jerry's face telling him to stay away and not to bother his family. You could say it all blew up. Jerry came home and was pretty upset about all that took place. Nothing that happened was his intention. He just wanted to talk to a few young ladies and see if they happened to know his daughter. He couldn't see her so in his mind it was a way of getting to know her by hearing from others. After about an hour or so he called the video store to apologize to the young ladies for all that happened and sadly he found out that the stepfather had literally contacted the store owner trying to get the girls fired. Jerry contacted the video store owner and told him what happened and asked that he please not fire them over something like this. He told him that it was not their fault and felt it was his.

So, there we were feeling like we were back to ground zero. Why would God bring this man (the investigator) into his life to find her address and bless him with this information yet not let him even see her? Several times while driving he came to a Y in the road and had to park and sit. Was he going to go one way and just drive over to her apartment, knock on the door, and say, 'Hi, I'm your real father', or was he going to go the other way and let go and let God. He always chose to let go and let God. At this same time, we had a dear friend who was very ill. She lived a good couple of hours away from us so we hadn't seen her recently, but her husband called to give us an update on her health and tell Jerry that she'd been put in the Hospital, and he was wondering if we could come visit on Sunday after church. The Hospital serviced many smaller communities so was very large but way closer to us than their house was. Jerry agreed but when Sunday came along one of the kids was not feeling well so I hadn't gone to church but Jerry decided to just go ahead and go visit them both at the Hospital by himself. He didn't get to spend much time with our friend because a nurse came in and asked the men to leave the room because they were going to give her a bed bath. The two men decided to go to the cafeteria to grab a cup of coffee and were walking and talking together down the hall. They TURNED A CORNER and there she was. His daughter that he hadn't seen since she was 3 years old and was now 18 standing right in front of him. He knew it was her because of the senior picture his Pastor had recently given him and then of course his eyes fell to his ex-wife standing there as well. She had aged but he certainly recognized her. He said it literally felt like she (his daughter) fell out of the sky and was put right in front of him. She somehow knew he was her real father which surprised him because he had always wondered but when he asked if she knew who he was, she immediately said yes. He talked to her for a few minutes with his ex standing nearby looking very uncomfortable. He found out that his daughter's grandmother (ex-wife's mother) was in the Hospital right down the hall from our friend and she was there to have some kind of surgery. Now this was a huge Hospital so this in itself was a miracle. Their rooms were only a few doors away from each other around a curve. The nurses were also doing something with her grandmother which was why they were standing in the hall. After a few minutes of being able to talk with her and tell her that she had siblings and that he missed her and loved her, he asked if he could hug her, and she said yes. The ex-wife then said, 'Now will you leave us alone'. Jerry was so happy to see her finally and to know that she knew who he was that in order to keep the peace he said, 'Yes'.

We had our 3rd child which was a son and before he was even 6 months old, we moved a 3 days journey away to another state never really seeing her again. We lived in that state for about 7 years and then because of some very difficult circumstances moved to Arkansas which is where we still live today but we kept praying that if she ever wanted to find us, she would be able to. The Lord had supernaturally not only told him where she was but also let him see her face to face and hug her before we moved. She was 18 when he saw her at the Hospital that day. She was well old enough to make her own decisions and he hoped that one day she would want to be a part of our family. One day I got on the computer to check my email, and I WAS SO BLOWN AWAY. I read a letter that was addressed to Jerry and then ran into the living room to tell him. SHE WROTE YOU! She had decided that she wanted to know her siblings and be a part of her father's life and family but not for the reason we originally thought. The reason it took so long was that God used her own marriage to move her in that direction. She was now married herself and her husband had been married previously. He too had his kids kept from him because of a divorce and was trying to get back into their lives. It was a heartbreaking situation, and she was now watching her husband walk through the pain of not having his children in his life. They'd had a son (which made Jerry a grandpa) and she couldn't imagine what it would be like to live her life away from her son. So, she decided it was time to end all the separation and make her own decisions about her real father and his family as an adult. This was back in 2008. By then we'd had our 4th child... lol His daughter quickly flew out to meet us all. She found that she now had 4 step siblings to add to her life and of course, we had a new grandson. Today she has 3 of her own children and is adopting several others so the family continues to grow. We keep in touch mostly through phone calls, texting, and emails because she lives states away, but she has visited us several times through the years, and we have also, as a whole family, gone to visit her as well.

There is so much more to this story that I'd love to add, but it's already gotten very long, and although there were a lot of trials along the way that I could share I don't feel like mentioning them because, with God's help, we got through them all. He ABSOLUTELY GETS ALL THE GLORY. He opened doors that no one else could open. He made a way when there seemed to be no way. She has now been in our lives for over 15 years, and she is a truly wonderful person who is so loving, kind, and giving and has been a tremendous addition to our family.

I'd like to close this Testimony out today by saying, 'God is a God of restoration'. If you have lost something or someone, I encourage you to consider sowing a seed into a prophet or a prophetic voice that you trust and ask the Lord for what it is you desire. Name your seed and believe God will and can do it. He has no problem restoring the years that have been stolen from His children. In fact, He really wants to.

Joel 2:25

“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust,

Sheryl L. York

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