Dear brother Ohio,
I really enjoyed reading your testimony. Like you, I really have to thank Him and praise Him for the "Tony" that he brought into my life. And how I have to thank Him and praise Him for His secret visits to us when we spend time alone with Him in His Holy Word!
The very last sentence of your testimony really stood out to me: "I had to tell everyone about the Lord and the local church!" Notice the very healthy order in that statment: First and foremost is the Lord, then comes the "local church". Subtly, over the decades, this order seems to have been completely reversed. In my own experience, I ended up trying to gain people by showing them that we were the only ones "on the ground" while they were "off the ground", and that they were so poor and pitiful, while we had "all the riches". I am not sure where our Lord was in all of that.
I truly have to repent to all those who were stumbled by such an attitude in me. No matter how glorious any experience in the Body may be, no matter how rich a ministry that ministers to the Body may be, these things are still not the Head. He, and He alone, must always have the place which our heavenly Father chose for Him in eternity past: "Head over all things"! When anything else besides Him takes over the first place in our lives, we lose a lot, even if that thing appears to be "of Him".
May He be merciful and grant us fresh experiences of being gathered into His Name, completely submitted and yielded to Him.