December 31
Four grandparents wait for the arrival of a granddaughter on the last day of the year.I’m sure this baby, three weeks overdue, will be here by years end for I had prayed for that and heard a clear ‘yes.’ Midnight—no baby!
The message had been so clear. Did I misunderstand? At 12:15 the new father reports baby is here. I ask when was she born? “At 11:45,” he says apologetically, “ I’ve been busy cleaning her up.”
“Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.” (Deuteronomy 7:9)
Incredible true stories that touch the heart and tug at the soul. Are they chance or destiny, coincidence or fate? Do you have your own Go Figure story? Want to share it? E-mail us at gofigureamerica@yahoo.com
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Party Icebreaker
December 22
Many of us hadn’t met before so the hostess played a game to break the ice. Each of us was to say three things about ourselves, one of which was a lie. I said:
“I spent a day with poet Robert Frost; President George Bush Sr. greeted me in the White House;and “Tony Randall said he saved my life.”
Actually it was Barbara Bush who greeted me. The game is an exercise in how to deceive by twisting the truth. The master deceiver, Satan, does this all the time..
“Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” (Matthew 24:5)
Many of us hadn’t met before so the hostess played a game to break the ice. Each of us was to say three things about ourselves, one of which was a lie. I said:
“I spent a day with poet Robert Frost; President George Bush Sr. greeted me in the White House;and “Tony Randall said he saved my life.”
Actually it was Barbara Bush who greeted me. The game is an exercise in how to deceive by twisting the truth. The master deceiver, Satan, does this all the time..
“Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.” (Matthew 24:5)
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Speak Up for Christmas
Christmas Week
It is Christmas Eve and my wife and I are to give the “moment of sharing” at all four services at First Church of Christ in Wethersfield, Ct.
Joy has a bad case of laryngitis. We pray hard that she wiil have voice to honor God at the worship services.
At the 5:30 service she is barely audible. People are straining to hear her.
By the 7:30 service her voice is a little louder.Our prayers are being answered.
At the 9:30 service her voice is stronger. Thank you Lord.
At midnight she sounds like herself. I share with that congregation about the laryngitis and how the Lord has been answering our prayers all evening. There is applause for God.
Driving home Joy turns toward me to say something and her voice is gone. It doesn’t return to normal for two days.
"With men this is impossible but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)
It is Christmas Eve and my wife and I are to give the “moment of sharing” at all four services at First Church of Christ in Wethersfield, Ct.
Joy has a bad case of laryngitis. We pray hard that she wiil have voice to honor God at the worship services.
At the 5:30 service she is barely audible. People are straining to hear her.
By the 7:30 service her voice is a little louder.Our prayers are being answered.
At the 9:30 service her voice is stronger. Thank you Lord.
At midnight she sounds like herself. I share with that congregation about the laryngitis and how the Lord has been answering our prayers all evening. There is applause for God.
Driving home Joy turns toward me to say something and her voice is gone. It doesn’t return to normal for two days.
"With men this is impossible but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Christmas Away from Fmily
Week of December 13
Being away at Christmas can be a lonely time. Growing up is New England Christmas to me was snow,pine trees, sleds and clear cold nights.
One December, courtesy of the US Army, I spent Christmas in the tropics. There were card board snowmen, artificial tress and lights in palm trees.It just didn't feel like Christmas for a guy who grew up in the Currier and Ives version.
One enterprising unit had a tank and a santa protruding from the turret and eight jeeps connected by ammo belts to the tank sleigh. This didn't help at all.
It was my first Christmas away from the family and I was a real funk. I took this depressed attitude into the base chapel Chritmas Eve. It was a candle light service with traditional carols being sung and familiar Chritmas story being read.
As I exited the chapel into a clear but warm tropical evening I was reminded that
the first Christmas was held in a desert.I looked up at the stars and there was
a particularly bright one overhead.
I got the message loud and clear."An angel said to them, behold I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord...And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
"Glody to God in the highest
And peace on earth." (Luke 2:10
Robert M Salter
Sarasota, Fl.
Being away at Christmas can be a lonely time. Growing up is New England Christmas to me was snow,pine trees, sleds and clear cold nights.
One December, courtesy of the US Army, I spent Christmas in the tropics. There were card board snowmen, artificial tress and lights in palm trees.It just didn't feel like Christmas for a guy who grew up in the Currier and Ives version.
One enterprising unit had a tank and a santa protruding from the turret and eight jeeps connected by ammo belts to the tank sleigh. This didn't help at all.
It was my first Christmas away from the family and I was a real funk. I took this depressed attitude into the base chapel Chritmas Eve. It was a candle light service with traditional carols being sung and familiar Chritmas story being read.
As I exited the chapel into a clear but warm tropical evening I was reminded that
the first Christmas was held in a desert.I looked up at the stars and there was
a particularly bright one overhead.
I got the message loud and clear."An angel said to them, behold I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior who is Christ the Lord...And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
"Glody to God in the highest
And peace on earth." (Luke 2:10
Robert M Salter
Sarasota, Fl.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Christmas during war
Week of December 6
It is that time of year again when things seem to get a little overwhelming with decorations to display, cards to send, trees and weaths to buy or get down from the attic, presents to wrap and some to mail, lights to unangle and on it goes.
It can be a maddening time, a frustating time even a depressing time. My wife, who the Lord has blessed me with for this journey, sensing my struggle with the emotions of the season provided me with what today we would call a reality check.
I share it here if as you prepare for another Christmas.
She handed me a newspaper clipping with a picture and caption which she has kept in a plastic file folder for the past 18 years. The photo taken by Frank Folwell of USA Today shows a small boy with tight fitting clothes walking with his grandfather who has the scroniest Christmas tree you ever saw strapped on his shoulder.There is two feet between the four branches on this stick of a tree. Yet the expression on the boy's face is one of pure joy.
The caption reads in part; "Christmas Smiles:Despite tough times in Croatia as war raged around them, pure joy illuminaated the face of Dario Rahle as he and his grandfather trugged home with their 1991 Christmas tree."
May we all remember the real reason for the season and share the joy of Christmas despite any presonal circumstances or struggles. Peace on earth and good will to all.
It is that time of year again when things seem to get a little overwhelming with decorations to display, cards to send, trees and weaths to buy or get down from the attic, presents to wrap and some to mail, lights to unangle and on it goes.
It can be a maddening time, a frustating time even a depressing time. My wife, who the Lord has blessed me with for this journey, sensing my struggle with the emotions of the season provided me with what today we would call a reality check.
I share it here if as you prepare for another Christmas.
She handed me a newspaper clipping with a picture and caption which she has kept in a plastic file folder for the past 18 years. The photo taken by Frank Folwell of USA Today shows a small boy with tight fitting clothes walking with his grandfather who has the scroniest Christmas tree you ever saw strapped on his shoulder.There is two feet between the four branches on this stick of a tree. Yet the expression on the boy's face is one of pure joy.
The caption reads in part; "Christmas Smiles:Despite tough times in Croatia as war raged around them, pure joy illuminaated the face of Dario Rahle as he and his grandfather trugged home with their 1991 Christmas tree."
May we all remember the real reason for the season and share the joy of Christmas despite any presonal circumstances or struggles. Peace on earth and good will to all.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Letter to a Soldier
Week of December 1
The Christmas Carol ends and the radio goes quiet.
There is a pause, long enough to look at the radio to see what's wrong. A samll boy's voice breaks the silence.
"My teacher announces class a project. Each of us is to write a letter to an unknown soldier in Irag. I though, that's cool, my dad is serving in the army in Irag. I'll write my unknown soldier just the way I write my dad.
"Dear Unknown Soldier: I love you. Take care of youself. I pray you'll come home soon. Danny.
"My teacher collected the letters and took care of mailing them. Nobody expected to get a reply.
But two weeks later a letter came to my school addressed to me. The handwriting looked familiar. I couldn't believe it. My letter to an unknow soldier had reached my very own dad."
Heard on Northwestern Radio
Minneaplois, Mn.
The Christmas Carol ends and the radio goes quiet.
There is a pause, long enough to look at the radio to see what's wrong. A samll boy's voice breaks the silence.
"My teacher announces class a project. Each of us is to write a letter to an unknown soldier in Irag. I though, that's cool, my dad is serving in the army in Irag. I'll write my unknown soldier just the way I write my dad.
"Dear Unknown Soldier: I love you. Take care of youself. I pray you'll come home soon. Danny.
"My teacher collected the letters and took care of mailing them. Nobody expected to get a reply.
But two weeks later a letter came to my school addressed to me. The handwriting looked familiar. I couldn't believe it. My letter to an unknow soldier had reached my very own dad."
Heard on Northwestern Radio
Minneaplois, Mn.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Answers for Becky
Week of November 22
In 1995 I surrendered all my future dating relationships totally to God, allowing Him to bring the man into my life that He created to be my husband. Sometime later I met Greg at a singles Bible study at church. I learned in conversation that at about the same time I surrendered that part of my life to God, my future husband was also doing likewise. When we both surrendered our dating relationships to God, He brought us together to become one. God is so awesome!!!
In May 2003, I received a letter from the IRS stating that I had a tax bill overdue from a tax return filed 12 years earlier. Believing that I was not liable for this tax bill, I prayed I would be able to locate the documentation that would clear my name and social security number.
About nine months later, I was searching for some unrelated paperwork in some records that were stored and I came across the documents I needed to clear my liability of the tax bill. Praise God for this answer to prayer. God is so good!
God is so faithful in answering prayers of faith.
Becky Tholken
Sarasota, Florida
In 1995 I surrendered all my future dating relationships totally to God, allowing Him to bring the man into my life that He created to be my husband. Sometime later I met Greg at a singles Bible study at church. I learned in conversation that at about the same time I surrendered that part of my life to God, my future husband was also doing likewise. When we both surrendered our dating relationships to God, He brought us together to become one. God is so awesome!!!
In May 2003, I received a letter from the IRS stating that I had a tax bill overdue from a tax return filed 12 years earlier. Believing that I was not liable for this tax bill, I prayed I would be able to locate the documentation that would clear my name and social security number.
About nine months later, I was searching for some unrelated paperwork in some records that were stored and I came across the documents I needed to clear my liability of the tax bill. Praise God for this answer to prayer. God is so good!
God is so faithful in answering prayers of faith.
Becky Tholken
Sarasota, Florida
Sunday, November 15, 2009
I Needed a Car
Week of November 15
When I was 24 and single, I was working at a dead-end job and in debt. In an attempt to get a handle on my spending I attended a Good $ense Finance course at my church (Willow Greek in West Barrington Illinois, a suburb northwest of Chicago.)
I volunteered for Willow’s cars program, which repairs used, donated cars and made them available for single moms. I like working on engines and besides my old Honda was on its last legs and I hoped to get some tips on how to keep it going.
About this time I received in the mail a promotion from my credit union informing me that I was pre-approved for a car loan up to $7500. The wheels in my head began to turn. I figured if I were going to get a better job I would need a better car. Armed with my car loan approval, I drove off to a used car dealer. I showed the promotion flyer to the salesman and we went off into the lot. Funny how every car he showed me was for sale at $7500.
I came home excited about the prospect of buying a better car. That week at church I shared my excitement about buying a better car with my Good $ense teacher. I told him about the $7500 loan
approval and I showed him a car I had circled in the Auto Trader.
“God does not want you to go further into debt,” my teacher said, “why don’t you trust him for the car.”
His words, while spoken softly, hit me like a cold shower. I bristled but he was right, I had agreed not to take out any more loans. At the Good $ense course I had developed a spending plan which was designed to help me live within my income and to pay down debt. We were taught that good stewardship of the resources we have honors God.
When I returned home I threw the Auto Trader in the trash. I was going to trust God. At that moment I felt God was in the next room whispering, “I love you.” He didn’t solve my car problem that day but He showed His presence to me.
The next day I received a call ‘out of the blue’ from the leader of the Cars Team who said he was calling to see how I was doing.
That weekend I volunteered at the church cars program and I mentioned to the chief mechanic how my transmission was slipping and I was having a hard time getting in or out of second gear. I also mentioned I didn’t have any money for a better car right now and I wondered if he could help me fix my old Honda.
I was surprised when he didn’t ask me for more details about my aging wreck. He just walked off motioning with his arm for me to follow. We went to the back of the lot and we stopped at an old rusted out twelve- year- old Buick station wagon.
“It’s not pretty,” he said “And it is too far gone to give to a single mom to transport her kids. But it has a strong engine, reasonably good tires, and the transmission still works. Why don’t you drive it home.”
God did provide. I ended up driving that car for nearly two years until I could afford a better one.
Peter Buchan
Chicago, Il
When I was 24 and single, I was working at a dead-end job and in debt. In an attempt to get a handle on my spending I attended a Good $ense Finance course at my church (Willow Greek in West Barrington Illinois, a suburb northwest of Chicago.)
I volunteered for Willow’s cars program, which repairs used, donated cars and made them available for single moms. I like working on engines and besides my old Honda was on its last legs and I hoped to get some tips on how to keep it going.
About this time I received in the mail a promotion from my credit union informing me that I was pre-approved for a car loan up to $7500. The wheels in my head began to turn. I figured if I were going to get a better job I would need a better car. Armed with my car loan approval, I drove off to a used car dealer. I showed the promotion flyer to the salesman and we went off into the lot. Funny how every car he showed me was for sale at $7500.
I came home excited about the prospect of buying a better car. That week at church I shared my excitement about buying a better car with my Good $ense teacher. I told him about the $7500 loan
approval and I showed him a car I had circled in the Auto Trader.
“God does not want you to go further into debt,” my teacher said, “why don’t you trust him for the car.”
His words, while spoken softly, hit me like a cold shower. I bristled but he was right, I had agreed not to take out any more loans. At the Good $ense course I had developed a spending plan which was designed to help me live within my income and to pay down debt. We were taught that good stewardship of the resources we have honors God.
When I returned home I threw the Auto Trader in the trash. I was going to trust God. At that moment I felt God was in the next room whispering, “I love you.” He didn’t solve my car problem that day but He showed His presence to me.
The next day I received a call ‘out of the blue’ from the leader of the Cars Team who said he was calling to see how I was doing.
That weekend I volunteered at the church cars program and I mentioned to the chief mechanic how my transmission was slipping and I was having a hard time getting in or out of second gear. I also mentioned I didn’t have any money for a better car right now and I wondered if he could help me fix my old Honda.
I was surprised when he didn’t ask me for more details about my aging wreck. He just walked off motioning with his arm for me to follow. We went to the back of the lot and we stopped at an old rusted out twelve- year- old Buick station wagon.
“It’s not pretty,” he said “And it is too far gone to give to a single mom to transport her kids. But it has a strong engine, reasonably good tires, and the transmission still works. Why don’t you drive it home.”
God did provide. I ended up driving that car for nearly two years until I could afford a better one.
Peter Buchan
Chicago, Il
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Jump Start from a Distance
Week of November 8
My goal is to get around Washington DC before dark. I am heading south to deliver furniture to the kid in college. I notice the car is running a little hot towing the U Haul so I stop at a rest area in Maryland between Baltimore and DC.
I go to the bathroom, walk around some to stretch my legs and return to the car. I turn the key in the ignition-nothing. Try again. Dead. Now what?
These high tech cars stump me (mine is a ten-year old Cadillac DeVille). I have no idea what to do next. I call my road service plan and they locate a towing service near the interstate.
“We’ll have to send two trucks,” he says, “One for your car and one for the trailer.” Looks like I will be spending the night nearby.
As I return dejectedly to my car. I say Lord I need help here. A voice in my head says try your spare key. I try the key and the car starts right up. I call my road guy, cancel the tow service and head south.
I have no further problems. I should call those “Car Talk” brothers on Public Radio about this one.
Walter Holloway
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
My goal is to get around Washington DC before dark. I am heading south to deliver furniture to the kid in college. I notice the car is running a little hot towing the U Haul so I stop at a rest area in Maryland between Baltimore and DC.
I go to the bathroom, walk around some to stretch my legs and return to the car. I turn the key in the ignition-nothing. Try again. Dead. Now what?
These high tech cars stump me (mine is a ten-year old Cadillac DeVille). I have no idea what to do next. I call my road service plan and they locate a towing service near the interstate.
“We’ll have to send two trucks,” he says, “One for your car and one for the trailer.” Looks like I will be spending the night nearby.
As I return dejectedly to my car. I say Lord I need help here. A voice in my head says try your spare key. I try the key and the car starts right up. I call my road guy, cancel the tow service and head south.
I have no further problems. I should call those “Car Talk” brothers on Public Radio about this one.
Walter Holloway
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Finding an Answer
Week of November 1
By the time I was 33 I had accomplished all I had set out to achieve in my first five years of medical practice. I had a very busy internal medicine practice in Phoenix, I had opened a second office in Scottsdale, I was named professor of the year at the University of Phoenix , I was teaching at the medical school and was listed as one of the top ten doctors by a local magazine. I was working 80-90 hours a week and was becoming more and more disgruntled with myself.
I remember one day pulling into my driveway in North Scottsdale and sitting in my car thinking…this can’t be what it is all about -no way. I have a wonderful wife, three kids, a great house, money in the bank and I can’t think of anything I need to buy to make me happy. I had reached that moment when I realized that I had everything I wanted only to find I was empty. I thought there must be an answer and I started searching.
One Easter (I usually put myself on call on those holidays so I didn’t have to go to church) I got this call that a consult had to be done on this guy before he went into surgery. I was about two miles from the hospital when they called me back and said, “We couldn’t wait he had to go into surgery, can you be here in two hours to see him when he gets out?” I’m thinking great! Here I am, dressed up, no where to go for two hours.
I’m sitting at a stop light and I notice all these people crossing the street. I look over and I see this huge Baptist church. I thought,“you know it might be funny to go in there and watch all these week people.” So I went in and sat in the back.
The pastor gets up and says, “Some of you can’t believe the circumstances that brought you to this room. In fact some of you have been probably running from this room your entire life and somehow you ended up here today and you think its an accident. It is not,its God.” He continued, “You may have even come here to make fun of us.” He had my attention.He went on, “You may think you are really smart…you may even have given up on God…but you know something is missing….I dare you to read the book of John like you would read any other book objectively. Give it 90 days and don’t walk away from God until you have examined God as an adult.”
I thought, ok I’ll read John and get it off my check list and move on to what life is really about.
I grew up in a conservative Baptist church…my dad was a deacon, my mom did the weddings at the church…I was a church rat.I knew all the stories. So I dusted off my Bible and my plan was to read it at night because I was afraid Tammy,(his wife) who was not a believer,would find out I was reading the Bible. We were moral people but not religious.
I read the opening line of John, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God…and he was with him from the beginning …“ I remember sitting up in bed and going “Oh my God…Jesus is God” I had always seen him as God’s son..but that night I sat up and realized God came here. Once I made that connection everything started making sense. God came here to save me. Pretty soon I’m telling Tammy, “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IS GOING ON HERE."
I was at work one day seeing patients, and I remember sitting on this exam table talking to this lady and I had this profound sense that this is not what I have for you. I went out of the room and went to my nurse and I said “I’m not suppose to be here anymore.” She said what? I said this. She sat me down and went and got my partners. They thought I had finally cracked. They had expected I would because I was doing so much.I was teaching, I had a growing practice and I was the director of a 16-doctor group. They said you have a vacation coming up…go back to Dallas.
We went to Dallas for 10 days and I watched my kids interact with their cousins. We returned to Phoenix and that Monday while sitting at my desk thinking I’m not suppose to be here, the phone rings. Its a guy who has been trying to get me to be a consultant. He asked what are you doing Thursday? I flew out to California.
When I returned from the trip Tammy said we are suppose to go back to Dallas aren’t we? I said, “I think so but I don’t know why.” I turned in my resignation and took the consulting job. I agreed to go all over the country with the condition I was going to live in Dallas.
Tammy and I went to Dallas to look for a house.She walks into this house that had just come on the market and says, “ this is it."We go back to Phoenix and put our house on the market and the next day a guy walks in and says, “this will work, I’ll buy it for what you are asking, cash deal, but on one condition…I need you out in 30 days.”
Within a month of me saying “I’m not suppose to be here anymore,” I changed jobs, we sold our house and bought the one in Dallas and I still have no clue to what is really going on.
The second day in Dallas, I’m unpacking boxes and there is a knock at the door. It’s a boy(around 7) and he says I’m wondering if you have kids. I said yeah we have three, they are not here right now but they would love to meet you. He says, “my mom wanted me to give you these cookies and welcome you to the neighborhood.” I said great. He gets about ten steps down the driveway , turns around and says, “ You think you all might want to go to church tonight? I said, “maybe.”
Tammy wasn’t anti-church it just wasn’t part of our routine. Basically she said , I’m not going to drag the kids to all the churches- when you find one you like we’ll all go.
It was a Saturday night. I looked the church up on the internet and we went. I liked it, kids loved it Our neighbor, David, turns out to be an attorney and one of the founding members of Fellowship Church in Grapevine that had Ed Young Jr. as the pastor. On our way home he asks, “What do you do for a living?” I told him I’m a doctor and a health care consultant. He asks, “What kind of consulting do you do? “ I said I measure outcomes and efficiencies and I help set up health care systems.
He pulls the car over, stops and says, “You are the one. We have been praying for you.” I’m going What?
He asks, “ Can you been in LA on Thursday?” I said I can be anywhere. I’m not doing anything right now. So we fly to Lax. David is the counsel for the Dream Center which had been trying to get a medical ministry going.
I spent the next year and a half volunteering my time between consulting assignments helping them plan and orchestrate a medical ministry. One of my clients was Sarasota Memorial Hospital and I was going to Florida one week a month and to Los Amgeles one week a month.
It was getting close to the time that LA needed a doctor to run this ministry. David looks at me and said you look like a deer in the headlights and I said we’ve been working on this thing for two years and I need a doctor to run this. David says let’s good back to the hotel and just pray. So we prayed and that night at the church service Tommy Barnett brought me up on stage and said I want you to know that Dr. Burns has been working with us for a long time to develop a medical ministy.and I’m sitting there thinking -Yeah but we don’t have a doctor and I’m trying to figure out how God is working.
After the service this guy comes up and says, “Dr.Burns I’m a doctor and I think I am suppose to come here.” He says he had this inner city clinic in Louisiana and they lost their funding. “I was watching TV and heard something about the medical ministry here and we decided yesterday to fly out.
He turned out to be the doctor to staff this clinic. I remember flying back to Dallas thinking I’m not suppose to be the one in LA but I still had the heart to want to do a medical ministry.
Tammy and I had a vacation scheduled for Orlando, but first a swing by Sarasota to do some work while she and the kids went to the beach. Later in Epcot Tammy turns to me and says, “We are suppose to move to Sarasota, aren’t we?” I said I think so. They had been trying to get me to come Sarasota fulltime. I kept thinking this can’t be what God wants me to do. I’m in seminary and we love our church in Dallas where we are small group leaders.I argued with God for about three or four months.
This can’t be what you want us to do. We are not going. Kids are comfortable in school. God just kept saying you are going to Sarasota. We submitted. We weren’t happy about it and we came kicking and screaming. I was angry and was talking to God the whole trip. God I don’t understand why?
Even the house we were moving into wasn’t really what we wanted. It was in a gated community and we had never been in one of those before. I’m in this house that I really don’t like and I’m unpacking boxes and I’m mad and arguing with God I’m saying you bring me to this place, where I don’t want to be, I don’t even have a church and there is a knock on the door.
I open the door and there is a boy (around age 7) and he says “Do you have children?” I said yes, but they are up at the pool but when they come back I’m sure they will want to play with you. He says, “My mom wanted me to bring these brownies to you.” I said Ok and he starts walking down the walk and I’m standing there going one- one thousand, two-one thousand, three- one thousand and he turns around and says “ Would you all want to go to church with us tonight?” And I said “Its Saturday.” And he says “We do church on Saturday.”
I said “Yeah I think we will be joining you at church tonight.”
At the hospital one of my jobs was to oversee the indigent care in Sarasota county. I asked where are the homeless people and I’m told there is this group that South Shore started, called Gifts from God and they serve the homeless in the park.
Several years have passed and I’m active with my church as an elder and volunteer administrative pastor. I’m still with Sarasota Memorial Hospital and that visit to the park has evolved into a mobile medical ministry called Saline Solutions serving the homeless and indigent among us. How all this happened is a series of God stories in itself.
I know now why God brought me to Sarasota.
Frank Burns
Sarasota,Fl.
By the time I was 33 I had accomplished all I had set out to achieve in my first five years of medical practice. I had a very busy internal medicine practice in Phoenix, I had opened a second office in Scottsdale, I was named professor of the year at the University of Phoenix , I was teaching at the medical school and was listed as one of the top ten doctors by a local magazine. I was working 80-90 hours a week and was becoming more and more disgruntled with myself.
I remember one day pulling into my driveway in North Scottsdale and sitting in my car thinking…this can’t be what it is all about -no way. I have a wonderful wife, three kids, a great house, money in the bank and I can’t think of anything I need to buy to make me happy. I had reached that moment when I realized that I had everything I wanted only to find I was empty. I thought there must be an answer and I started searching.
One Easter (I usually put myself on call on those holidays so I didn’t have to go to church) I got this call that a consult had to be done on this guy before he went into surgery. I was about two miles from the hospital when they called me back and said, “We couldn’t wait he had to go into surgery, can you be here in two hours to see him when he gets out?” I’m thinking great! Here I am, dressed up, no where to go for two hours.
I’m sitting at a stop light and I notice all these people crossing the street. I look over and I see this huge Baptist church. I thought,“you know it might be funny to go in there and watch all these week people.” So I went in and sat in the back.
The pastor gets up and says, “Some of you can’t believe the circumstances that brought you to this room. In fact some of you have been probably running from this room your entire life and somehow you ended up here today and you think its an accident. It is not,its God.” He continued, “You may have even come here to make fun of us.” He had my attention.He went on, “You may think you are really smart…you may even have given up on God…but you know something is missing….I dare you to read the book of John like you would read any other book objectively. Give it 90 days and don’t walk away from God until you have examined God as an adult.”
I thought, ok I’ll read John and get it off my check list and move on to what life is really about.
I grew up in a conservative Baptist church…my dad was a deacon, my mom did the weddings at the church…I was a church rat.I knew all the stories. So I dusted off my Bible and my plan was to read it at night because I was afraid Tammy,(his wife) who was not a believer,would find out I was reading the Bible. We were moral people but not religious.
I read the opening line of John, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God…and he was with him from the beginning …“ I remember sitting up in bed and going “Oh my God…Jesus is God” I had always seen him as God’s son..but that night I sat up and realized God came here. Once I made that connection everything started making sense. God came here to save me. Pretty soon I’m telling Tammy, “YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IS GOING ON HERE."
I was at work one day seeing patients, and I remember sitting on this exam table talking to this lady and I had this profound sense that this is not what I have for you. I went out of the room and went to my nurse and I said “I’m not suppose to be here anymore.” She said what? I said this. She sat me down and went and got my partners. They thought I had finally cracked. They had expected I would because I was doing so much.I was teaching, I had a growing practice and I was the director of a 16-doctor group. They said you have a vacation coming up…go back to Dallas.
We went to Dallas for 10 days and I watched my kids interact with their cousins. We returned to Phoenix and that Monday while sitting at my desk thinking I’m not suppose to be here, the phone rings. Its a guy who has been trying to get me to be a consultant. He asked what are you doing Thursday? I flew out to California.
When I returned from the trip Tammy said we are suppose to go back to Dallas aren’t we? I said, “I think so but I don’t know why.” I turned in my resignation and took the consulting job. I agreed to go all over the country with the condition I was going to live in Dallas.
Tammy and I went to Dallas to look for a house.She walks into this house that had just come on the market and says, “ this is it."We go back to Phoenix and put our house on the market and the next day a guy walks in and says, “this will work, I’ll buy it for what you are asking, cash deal, but on one condition…I need you out in 30 days.”
Within a month of me saying “I’m not suppose to be here anymore,” I changed jobs, we sold our house and bought the one in Dallas and I still have no clue to what is really going on.
The second day in Dallas, I’m unpacking boxes and there is a knock at the door. It’s a boy(around 7) and he says I’m wondering if you have kids. I said yeah we have three, they are not here right now but they would love to meet you. He says, “my mom wanted me to give you these cookies and welcome you to the neighborhood.” I said great. He gets about ten steps down the driveway , turns around and says, “ You think you all might want to go to church tonight? I said, “maybe.”
Tammy wasn’t anti-church it just wasn’t part of our routine. Basically she said , I’m not going to drag the kids to all the churches- when you find one you like we’ll all go.
It was a Saturday night. I looked the church up on the internet and we went. I liked it, kids loved it Our neighbor, David, turns out to be an attorney and one of the founding members of Fellowship Church in Grapevine that had Ed Young Jr. as the pastor. On our way home he asks, “What do you do for a living?” I told him I’m a doctor and a health care consultant. He asks, “What kind of consulting do you do? “ I said I measure outcomes and efficiencies and I help set up health care systems.
He pulls the car over, stops and says, “You are the one. We have been praying for you.” I’m going What?
He asks, “ Can you been in LA on Thursday?” I said I can be anywhere. I’m not doing anything right now. So we fly to Lax. David is the counsel for the Dream Center which had been trying to get a medical ministry going.
I spent the next year and a half volunteering my time between consulting assignments helping them plan and orchestrate a medical ministry. One of my clients was Sarasota Memorial Hospital and I was going to Florida one week a month and to Los Amgeles one week a month.
It was getting close to the time that LA needed a doctor to run this ministry. David looks at me and said you look like a deer in the headlights and I said we’ve been working on this thing for two years and I need a doctor to run this. David says let’s good back to the hotel and just pray. So we prayed and that night at the church service Tommy Barnett brought me up on stage and said I want you to know that Dr. Burns has been working with us for a long time to develop a medical ministy.and I’m sitting there thinking -Yeah but we don’t have a doctor and I’m trying to figure out how God is working.
After the service this guy comes up and says, “Dr.Burns I’m a doctor and I think I am suppose to come here.” He says he had this inner city clinic in Louisiana and they lost their funding. “I was watching TV and heard something about the medical ministry here and we decided yesterday to fly out.
He turned out to be the doctor to staff this clinic. I remember flying back to Dallas thinking I’m not suppose to be the one in LA but I still had the heart to want to do a medical ministry.
Tammy and I had a vacation scheduled for Orlando, but first a swing by Sarasota to do some work while she and the kids went to the beach. Later in Epcot Tammy turns to me and says, “We are suppose to move to Sarasota, aren’t we?” I said I think so. They had been trying to get me to come Sarasota fulltime. I kept thinking this can’t be what God wants me to do. I’m in seminary and we love our church in Dallas where we are small group leaders.I argued with God for about three or four months.
This can’t be what you want us to do. We are not going. Kids are comfortable in school. God just kept saying you are going to Sarasota. We submitted. We weren’t happy about it and we came kicking and screaming. I was angry and was talking to God the whole trip. God I don’t understand why?
Even the house we were moving into wasn’t really what we wanted. It was in a gated community and we had never been in one of those before. I’m in this house that I really don’t like and I’m unpacking boxes and I’m mad and arguing with God I’m saying you bring me to this place, where I don’t want to be, I don’t even have a church and there is a knock on the door.
I open the door and there is a boy (around age 7) and he says “Do you have children?” I said yes, but they are up at the pool but when they come back I’m sure they will want to play with you. He says, “My mom wanted me to bring these brownies to you.” I said Ok and he starts walking down the walk and I’m standing there going one- one thousand, two-one thousand, three- one thousand and he turns around and says “ Would you all want to go to church with us tonight?” And I said “Its Saturday.” And he says “We do church on Saturday.”
I said “Yeah I think we will be joining you at church tonight.”
At the hospital one of my jobs was to oversee the indigent care in Sarasota county. I asked where are the homeless people and I’m told there is this group that South Shore started, called Gifts from God and they serve the homeless in the park.
Several years have passed and I’m active with my church as an elder and volunteer administrative pastor. I’m still with Sarasota Memorial Hospital and that visit to the park has evolved into a mobile medical ministry called Saline Solutions serving the homeless and indigent among us. How all this happened is a series of God stories in itself.
I know now why God brought me to Sarasota.
Frank Burns
Sarasota,Fl.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
A Tumor in my Throat
Week of October 25
During a routine physical examination my family doctor found a growth in my throat. He sent me to a specialist who determined it was a five cm tumor that was in such a difficult area of the throat that he recommended another specialist to do the operation. The encouraging news was that the doctor felt it was likely benign.
My position on a local hospital board lead me to see another qualified surgeon but he would not do the surgery but referred me to a surgeon in Texas who he said was considered the best in the nation for this type of operation.
I became very nervous by these developments and my 23 years of working in hospital administration did nothing but increase my anxiety. In short, I became a nervous wreck. This heightened the concern of my adult children who had not seen their dad in such a state.
My online research revealed the potential after effects could be permanent numbness of the tongue, paralyzed facial muscles, speech impediments and vocal cord damage. Now I was a babbling fool worrying about all these possibilities over which I had no control. My research about the hospital and the surgeon gave me some peace of mind but they were both in Texas and I was in Florida. My adult children wanted me to have to operation closer to them so they could be with me.
For the next five months I delayed the inevitable and this was taking a toll on me. I was waking up in the middle of the night in fear of dying. I even rationalized not having the operation if the rate of growth of the tumor was slow enough I could avoid having to remove it. However, reality set in when it became clear that the tumor was blocking my nasal passages and affecting my breathing when I was in certain positions. I was my own worst enemy.
I could see the Lord was trying to help me though other people but I was trying to stay in control. One night I woke up struggling to breath. I got out of bed and fell on my knees and cried out; "Lord I can't do this on my own. I am lost without you. Lord please take control."
During the next week my son David who is a pastor of a church in Massachusetts and who was not expected to make the trip to Texas was able to rearrange his schedule and said he would be able to fly to Houston and be with me. Shortly after this my other son Robert told me he would be with me when David had to leave. I knew this was the Lord showing me that he was in control and working things out.
I flew to Texas for pre-op testing. My confidence in the surgeon was very high. However, he said from the Cat Scan he could see no clear method of removal without the need to split my jaw to gain access to the tumor. He further stated that a group of other surgeons he meets with for pre-op review were all in agreement. The operation was scheduled in two weeks. I was devastated.
I returned home mad about his findings and determined to find another surgeon who would do it my way and remove the tumor without breaking my jaw. I was playing doctor again and trying to take control.This time being a little more aware of the negative effect of my taking control, I called my Pastor Brian and asked for another prayer session with the church elders.
We arranged the meeting and I tried intensely to convince everyone that I needed their support to find another way. One of the elders, responding with love and compassion sent me to yet another ENT specialist. He refused to do the operation but did offer to pursue other surgeons at Moffit Hospital (in Florida) and Massachusetts General (near my sons).
After making those appointments I woke up one night with and even worst breathing attack. Once again I was back on my knees.I had tried to take control again and I failed again.
I arose the next day in obedience to the Lord and called my son and asked him to meet me in Houston for the operation. The morning I left, my daughter gave me some helpful scriptures for reassurance. (Psalm 34:11-18 and Psalm 55:22)(1Peter 5:6-7) and (Colossians 3:15).
I returned to the surgeon who had scared me out of my wit but I was confident the Lord would answer my prayers and guide this surgeon to remove the tumor without breaking my jaw.
The night before the operation I met the surgeon for the final briefing. He again emphasized that I should be prepared for the jaw splitting. He did not want me to wake up in recovery and be shocked by my condition. Knowing the Lord was in control and would answer my prayers, I looked the doctor in the eye and said; "I know you must do what you think you must do but I believe God will show you another way!" He smiled but said nothing.
I prayed that night along with my son. There were hundreds of people praying for me in three different churches. The operation was performed the next day and I woke up hours later in Intensive Cara... without having a split jaw. The operation was successfully completed by the Great Physician guiding the hands of my Texas surgeon.
What I didn't know was that my surgeon was also a believer and he was willing to be guided by our Lord. When he went to operate he noticed a slight opening and he was able to massage the tumor with a finger into a position where he could remove it.
When I was discharged the surgeon said to me, "prayer does get answered."
I can testify to that. Praise the Lord
Robert Polimeni
Sarasota, FL
During a routine physical examination my family doctor found a growth in my throat. He sent me to a specialist who determined it was a five cm tumor that was in such a difficult area of the throat that he recommended another specialist to do the operation. The encouraging news was that the doctor felt it was likely benign.
My position on a local hospital board lead me to see another qualified surgeon but he would not do the surgery but referred me to a surgeon in Texas who he said was considered the best in the nation for this type of operation.
I became very nervous by these developments and my 23 years of working in hospital administration did nothing but increase my anxiety. In short, I became a nervous wreck. This heightened the concern of my adult children who had not seen their dad in such a state.
My online research revealed the potential after effects could be permanent numbness of the tongue, paralyzed facial muscles, speech impediments and vocal cord damage. Now I was a babbling fool worrying about all these possibilities over which I had no control. My research about the hospital and the surgeon gave me some peace of mind but they were both in Texas and I was in Florida. My adult children wanted me to have to operation closer to them so they could be with me.
For the next five months I delayed the inevitable and this was taking a toll on me. I was waking up in the middle of the night in fear of dying. I even rationalized not having the operation if the rate of growth of the tumor was slow enough I could avoid having to remove it. However, reality set in when it became clear that the tumor was blocking my nasal passages and affecting my breathing when I was in certain positions. I was my own worst enemy.
I could see the Lord was trying to help me though other people but I was trying to stay in control. One night I woke up struggling to breath. I got out of bed and fell on my knees and cried out; "Lord I can't do this on my own. I am lost without you. Lord please take control."
During the next week my son David who is a pastor of a church in Massachusetts and who was not expected to make the trip to Texas was able to rearrange his schedule and said he would be able to fly to Houston and be with me. Shortly after this my other son Robert told me he would be with me when David had to leave. I knew this was the Lord showing me that he was in control and working things out.
I flew to Texas for pre-op testing. My confidence in the surgeon was very high. However, he said from the Cat Scan he could see no clear method of removal without the need to split my jaw to gain access to the tumor. He further stated that a group of other surgeons he meets with for pre-op review were all in agreement. The operation was scheduled in two weeks. I was devastated.
I returned home mad about his findings and determined to find another surgeon who would do it my way and remove the tumor without breaking my jaw. I was playing doctor again and trying to take control.This time being a little more aware of the negative effect of my taking control, I called my Pastor Brian and asked for another prayer session with the church elders.
We arranged the meeting and I tried intensely to convince everyone that I needed their support to find another way. One of the elders, responding with love and compassion sent me to yet another ENT specialist. He refused to do the operation but did offer to pursue other surgeons at Moffit Hospital (in Florida) and Massachusetts General (near my sons).
After making those appointments I woke up one night with and even worst breathing attack. Once again I was back on my knees.I had tried to take control again and I failed again.
I arose the next day in obedience to the Lord and called my son and asked him to meet me in Houston for the operation. The morning I left, my daughter gave me some helpful scriptures for reassurance. (Psalm 34:11-18 and Psalm 55:22)(1Peter 5:6-7) and (Colossians 3:15).
I returned to the surgeon who had scared me out of my wit but I was confident the Lord would answer my prayers and guide this surgeon to remove the tumor without breaking my jaw.
The night before the operation I met the surgeon for the final briefing. He again emphasized that I should be prepared for the jaw splitting. He did not want me to wake up in recovery and be shocked by my condition. Knowing the Lord was in control and would answer my prayers, I looked the doctor in the eye and said; "I know you must do what you think you must do but I believe God will show you another way!" He smiled but said nothing.
I prayed that night along with my son. There were hundreds of people praying for me in three different churches. The operation was performed the next day and I woke up hours later in Intensive Cara... without having a split jaw. The operation was successfully completed by the Great Physician guiding the hands of my Texas surgeon.
What I didn't know was that my surgeon was also a believer and he was willing to be guided by our Lord. When he went to operate he noticed a slight opening and he was able to massage the tumor with a finger into a position where he could remove it.
When I was discharged the surgeon said to me, "prayer does get answered."
I can testify to that. Praise the Lord
Robert Polimeni
Sarasota, FL
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Sherry's Wheelchair Story
Week of October 18, 2009
Here is the true story.
On a Monday, on my lunch hour, I had an appointment to see a doctor at the hospital.
I was bleeding and worried. All alonge and trying to be strong, I ventured to the hospital and before I entered I picked up my bible that I always carry in the car and I read a scripture.
As I walked into the hospital I heard God say to me, "Go speak to the man, he is an angel."
I looked up and saw a man sitting in a wheelchair. His arm was propped up in a brace, and his leg was emaciated but stabilized with a series of halos around it.
As I approached him his kind eyes looked into my soul and they took me backwards as he really saw into me. I said hello and he replied hello. I asked if would walk again and he said yes. Then I asked if he knew Jesus could heal hil. He enthusiastically said Yes as it letting me know that I understood and was good to point that out. I extended my hand and said, "My name is Sherry."
He paused, took my hand and said, "I"m Angel."
Then I went upstairs to my doctor and learned all would be OK. When I was walking out I noticed Angel was still there. I went back and let him know that God told me to talk with him, and that he was an Angel. All he said was "Oh." Yet he never denied it.
Curiosity got the best of me and (refering to his injuries) I asked how this happened, to which he said simply, "an accident." I said nice to meet you and God bless you Angel.
The footnote to this story is years later I was meeting with the Hospital Administrator on business and told him this story. He said it was peculiar as the entrance where he sat was an outpatient entrance and the staff never let anyone sit there for very long. Angel he been there for more than a half hour.
Sherry Sargent
Lido Key, Fl.
Here is the true story.
On a Monday, on my lunch hour, I had an appointment to see a doctor at the hospital.
I was bleeding and worried. All alonge and trying to be strong, I ventured to the hospital and before I entered I picked up my bible that I always carry in the car and I read a scripture.
As I walked into the hospital I heard God say to me, "Go speak to the man, he is an angel."
I looked up and saw a man sitting in a wheelchair. His arm was propped up in a brace, and his leg was emaciated but stabilized with a series of halos around it.
As I approached him his kind eyes looked into my soul and they took me backwards as he really saw into me. I said hello and he replied hello. I asked if would walk again and he said yes. Then I asked if he knew Jesus could heal hil. He enthusiastically said Yes as it letting me know that I understood and was good to point that out. I extended my hand and said, "My name is Sherry."
He paused, took my hand and said, "I"m Angel."
Then I went upstairs to my doctor and learned all would be OK. When I was walking out I noticed Angel was still there. I went back and let him know that God told me to talk with him, and that he was an Angel. All he said was "Oh." Yet he never denied it.
Curiosity got the best of me and (refering to his injuries) I asked how this happened, to which he said simply, "an accident." I said nice to meet you and God bless you Angel.
The footnote to this story is years later I was meeting with the Hospital Administrator on business and told him this story. He said it was peculiar as the entrance where he sat was an outpatient entrance and the staff never let anyone sit there for very long. Angel he been there for more than a half hour.
Sherry Sargent
Lido Key, Fl.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
It's a Small World
Week of October 11
In September '97 Hallett Prison Ministries held its sixth annual banquet and celebration. We invited a number of former inmates to minister in music and share their testimony. One of our guest speakers was Audrey.
The first time we ministered to Audrey was at Florida Correctional in Lowell Florida. Audrey was one of many women for whom we provided spiritual guidance and encouragement through message and song. At one of our services she made a recommitment to God. She began taking our correspondence Bible study.
Audrey completed her sentence and was released from prison. It was two years after her release, around the time we were getting ready to have our banquet, that she wrote me a letter to thank us for our ministry to her in prison. I responded and invited her to speak at the banquet. While at the banquet Audrey informed us that she had relatives in Tampa and that she was hoping to put in a transfer and relocate from her present job to Tampa. We all offered prayer for her transfer. Some time later, Audrey called us and told us that they offered her a position in Sarasota and she wanted to know what I thought about it. Well, I told her to take it as a stepping stone to Tampa. And so she did.
Audrey became involved with our church and we offered council and assistance where ever we could. She found a room for rent and began her new job. At this point, Audrey did not have a car so she used either a bus or a cab to get to and from work. However, whenever Mitch, my assistant, and I would go out of town, we would leave the ministry car that Mitch drove with Audrey and we would pick it up upon our return.
One time when Mitch went to get the car, he found Audrey sleeping in the back seat. After talking with Audrey, we discovered that her landlady had been locking her out periodically and Audrey was afraid to say anything for fear of causing trouble, so, she just slept in the car. I talked with my wife, Jill, and we decided that we would help Audrey get her own place. We invited Audrey to our home to stay until she raised enough money for her own apartment.
Making a decision to bring Audrey into our home was a big step of faith and obedience for Jill and me as we had done this before and things hadn’t work out as we had hoped. In fact, we said, "We will never do this again." But, "never say never" when you're controlled by a merciful God. All we knew is that Audrey needed help and we had the resources.
So, we gave unconditionally as Christ has given to us. Consequently, we continued to seek God for a sign that we did the right thing
After getting to know Audrey better we learned more about her. Audrey had been married to a professional football player for 17 years. They had two sons. During a very difficult divorce her sons, age 16 and 13 both committed suicide. At the time that we had met Audrey she was recovering from the loss of her sons and was finishing a 14 month prison term instigated by her husband who charged her with "grand theft auto" of their own car.
One day while out on a road trip, Jill called to say Audrey's mother died in Tampa and that Audrey was going to join her father and other family at the funeral. Audrey's father and mother were divorced. He was remarried and lived in Washington State.
When I returned home Audrey told me that her father, James, thought he knew me. In fact, he referred to me as a "world traveler." I thought that was funny. However, I couldn't remember ever meeting him. Audrey said that her father told her he met me in Washington D.C. - My immediate response was, "the last time I remember living in Washington D.C. was about 15 years ago,” (and I truly hoped he did not know me then.) However, she said he had just recently met me. Well, as I searched my memory banks, it dawned on me that my last visit to Washington D.C. was in October '97 at the Promise Keeper Stand-in-the-Gap Rally.
But surely, in the midst of more than a million men, I could not have met her father.
Well, as the Spirit began to give me more memory. I recalled that there was an occasion when one of the speakers asked us men to turn to someone around us and get in groups to pray for reconciliation among ethnic groups. Consequently, Mitch and I turned to two gentlemen (one Caucasian and one Black) in back of us and began praying. We prayed for everything from ethnic reconciliation to family protection and good health. I never thought much of that moment except that I felt the power of God very strong in our prayers. The Caucasian gentlemen asked if we could take a picture to remember this time. I said, "sure, as long as you will mail me one." I had recently received that picture and it was still in the envelope on my desk.
I went to my desk and opened the envelope, then brought the picture to Audrey and said, "this is a picture of the people I met in Washington D.C."
As she looked at the picture her eyes open very wide as she pointed to the black gentleman and shouted, "that's my dad! that's my dad!" Well, the
hairs remaining on the top of my head were standing straight up. With tears in our eyes we knew that, "It's a small world after all, but we serve a great big God."
For Jill and me, this development was our conformation that Audrey was suppose to be at our home. For Audrey, her faith was increased and she knew that God was working in her life through the prayers of her earthly father. Since that moment, we have had some good times of prayer, fellowship and counseling sessions. Audrey became financially ready and she moved into her own apartment.
God has been faithful and He miraculously demonstrated his love for Audrey, He will do the same for each of us. I pray that this testimony will encourage you that God really cares for you and that He is interested in every facet of your life. Whatever you are going through right now, remember that God loves you and He is always in control. Nothing can happen in your life that God is not aware of and God will always work evil for our good, and good for our better. The key is to pray without ceasing and stay focused through the reading and application of His Word. Put all of your hope and trust in Jesus and He will never fail you.
“The Lord is Good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and He knows those that trust in Him.” (Nahum 1:7)
Rev. Art Hallett,
Hallett Prison Ministries
Southwest Florida
In September '97 Hallett Prison Ministries held its sixth annual banquet and celebration. We invited a number of former inmates to minister in music and share their testimony. One of our guest speakers was Audrey.
The first time we ministered to Audrey was at Florida Correctional in Lowell Florida. Audrey was one of many women for whom we provided spiritual guidance and encouragement through message and song. At one of our services she made a recommitment to God. She began taking our correspondence Bible study.
Audrey completed her sentence and was released from prison. It was two years after her release, around the time we were getting ready to have our banquet, that she wrote me a letter to thank us for our ministry to her in prison. I responded and invited her to speak at the banquet. While at the banquet Audrey informed us that she had relatives in Tampa and that she was hoping to put in a transfer and relocate from her present job to Tampa. We all offered prayer for her transfer. Some time later, Audrey called us and told us that they offered her a position in Sarasota and she wanted to know what I thought about it. Well, I told her to take it as a stepping stone to Tampa. And so she did.
Audrey became involved with our church and we offered council and assistance where ever we could. She found a room for rent and began her new job. At this point, Audrey did not have a car so she used either a bus or a cab to get to and from work. However, whenever Mitch, my assistant, and I would go out of town, we would leave the ministry car that Mitch drove with Audrey and we would pick it up upon our return.
One time when Mitch went to get the car, he found Audrey sleeping in the back seat. After talking with Audrey, we discovered that her landlady had been locking her out periodically and Audrey was afraid to say anything for fear of causing trouble, so, she just slept in the car. I talked with my wife, Jill, and we decided that we would help Audrey get her own place. We invited Audrey to our home to stay until she raised enough money for her own apartment.
Making a decision to bring Audrey into our home was a big step of faith and obedience for Jill and me as we had done this before and things hadn’t work out as we had hoped. In fact, we said, "We will never do this again." But, "never say never" when you're controlled by a merciful God. All we knew is that Audrey needed help and we had the resources.
So, we gave unconditionally as Christ has given to us. Consequently, we continued to seek God for a sign that we did the right thing
After getting to know Audrey better we learned more about her. Audrey had been married to a professional football player for 17 years. They had two sons. During a very difficult divorce her sons, age 16 and 13 both committed suicide. At the time that we had met Audrey she was recovering from the loss of her sons and was finishing a 14 month prison term instigated by her husband who charged her with "grand theft auto" of their own car.
One day while out on a road trip, Jill called to say Audrey's mother died in Tampa and that Audrey was going to join her father and other family at the funeral. Audrey's father and mother were divorced. He was remarried and lived in Washington State.
When I returned home Audrey told me that her father, James, thought he knew me. In fact, he referred to me as a "world traveler." I thought that was funny. However, I couldn't remember ever meeting him. Audrey said that her father told her he met me in Washington D.C. - My immediate response was, "the last time I remember living in Washington D.C. was about 15 years ago,” (and I truly hoped he did not know me then.) However, she said he had just recently met me. Well, as I searched my memory banks, it dawned on me that my last visit to Washington D.C. was in October '97 at the Promise Keeper Stand-in-the-Gap Rally.
But surely, in the midst of more than a million men, I could not have met her father.
Well, as the Spirit began to give me more memory. I recalled that there was an occasion when one of the speakers asked us men to turn to someone around us and get in groups to pray for reconciliation among ethnic groups. Consequently, Mitch and I turned to two gentlemen (one Caucasian and one Black) in back of us and began praying. We prayed for everything from ethnic reconciliation to family protection and good health. I never thought much of that moment except that I felt the power of God very strong in our prayers. The Caucasian gentlemen asked if we could take a picture to remember this time. I said, "sure, as long as you will mail me one." I had recently received that picture and it was still in the envelope on my desk.
I went to my desk and opened the envelope, then brought the picture to Audrey and said, "this is a picture of the people I met in Washington D.C."
As she looked at the picture her eyes open very wide as she pointed to the black gentleman and shouted, "that's my dad! that's my dad!" Well, the
hairs remaining on the top of my head were standing straight up. With tears in our eyes we knew that, "It's a small world after all, but we serve a great big God."
For Jill and me, this development was our conformation that Audrey was suppose to be at our home. For Audrey, her faith was increased and she knew that God was working in her life through the prayers of her earthly father. Since that moment, we have had some good times of prayer, fellowship and counseling sessions. Audrey became financially ready and she moved into her own apartment.
God has been faithful and He miraculously demonstrated his love for Audrey, He will do the same for each of us. I pray that this testimony will encourage you that God really cares for you and that He is interested in every facet of your life. Whatever you are going through right now, remember that God loves you and He is always in control. Nothing can happen in your life that God is not aware of and God will always work evil for our good, and good for our better. The key is to pray without ceasing and stay focused through the reading and application of His Word. Put all of your hope and trust in Jesus and He will never fail you.
“The Lord is Good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and He knows those that trust in Him.” (Nahum 1:7)
Rev. Art Hallett,
Hallett Prison Ministries
Southwest Florida
Monday, October 5, 2009
A Wheelchair Story
Week of October 4
My flight to Sarasota is canceled because of bad weather in the Northeast. I call my wife and tell her the bad news.
“Well, do God’s work,” she says, “look around and see who you can help.”
As she says this I notice a man in a wheelchair staring at his flight ticket. I ask him if I can be of help. He nods explaining his flight has been canceled and he needs to be rebooked. We make our way through the concourse to the appropriate counter and stop behind a line of disgruntled travelers.
The agent looks up and notices my friend in the wheelchair and waves us forward. I wheel Earl forward(we are on a first name basis now.) The agent takes his ticket, taps rapidly on a keyboard for a minute or so, and hands him a new ticket.
“You are on the next flight to Philadelphia with a connection to Dayton. It should be boarding in about forty minutes.”
He then asked for my ticket. “Oh we are not together, I’m trying to get home to Sarasota.”
He looks at my ticket and returns to the computer. There is more incessant tapping on a keyboard. Finally he says, staring at the computer, “I can’t get you to Sarasota today but I can get you to Tampa, would that help?”
My wife drives the 45 miles from our home to Tampa International and we have dinner together that evening because I took her wise suggestion and helped someone in need. By serving others we our served.
Mal Salter
Sarasota, Fl.
My flight to Sarasota is canceled because of bad weather in the Northeast. I call my wife and tell her the bad news.
“Well, do God’s work,” she says, “look around and see who you can help.”
As she says this I notice a man in a wheelchair staring at his flight ticket. I ask him if I can be of help. He nods explaining his flight has been canceled and he needs to be rebooked. We make our way through the concourse to the appropriate counter and stop behind a line of disgruntled travelers.
The agent looks up and notices my friend in the wheelchair and waves us forward. I wheel Earl forward(we are on a first name basis now.) The agent takes his ticket, taps rapidly on a keyboard for a minute or so, and hands him a new ticket.
“You are on the next flight to Philadelphia with a connection to Dayton. It should be boarding in about forty minutes.”
He then asked for my ticket. “Oh we are not together, I’m trying to get home to Sarasota.”
He looks at my ticket and returns to the computer. There is more incessant tapping on a keyboard. Finally he says, staring at the computer, “I can’t get you to Sarasota today but I can get you to Tampa, would that help?”
My wife drives the 45 miles from our home to Tampa International and we have dinner together that evening because I took her wise suggestion and helped someone in need. By serving others we our served.
Mal Salter
Sarasota, Fl.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Surprise Visitor
Week of September 27
The family had gathered for the funeral of my wife, their mother, mother-in law, grandmother or great grandmother as the case might be. Several of us were seated in the family room when the back door leading to the garage swung open.
A large dog, that none of us had seen before came into the house as if he lived here. He walked through the kitchen, dinning room and down the hallway toward the bedrooms. My son-in-law Joe was cautiously following him not sure what to make of this visitro. He was thin, but not starved, he had a collar but no identification tags and a long nose with graying hair.
At the end of the hall our visitor turned abruptly, walked past Joe and back through the dinning room and kitchen and entered into the family room where he proceeded to lay down between my recliner and the chair where mom usually sat.
He made himself right at home. Everyone sat in stunned silence staring at him.
I looked down at the dog and ended the silence. “Mom always said, ‘Paul keep the garage door down and the back door locked, otherwise anything could walk into this house.’ I guess she sent this guy to make her point.”
We were expecting a pastor to arrive at any minute so Joe led the dog outside by his collar. When Joe released him the dog made no attempt to leave. Joe sat on the front step and the dog joined him. They sat there together for several minutes. A cat ambled us the front walk and stopped when he saw the dog. Neither moved. Then the cat came up the rest of the walk and sat next to the dog. Joe, who lives in the neighborhood, had seen neither animal before. The cat stayed awhile and then walked away. The dog remained with Joe.
That evening Joe took the dog home with him fully intending to try and fine its owner in the morning. He put the dog in the garage for the night with some water.
The next morning he fed the dog and then let him out in the yard with his own smaller dogs. The three seem to get along fine. Then the stranger dog walked to the edge of the property, looked back at Joe as if to say farewell and walked away.
You can read in to this. Go figure.
Paul Tuck
Newfield N.J.
The family had gathered for the funeral of my wife, their mother, mother-in law, grandmother or great grandmother as the case might be. Several of us were seated in the family room when the back door leading to the garage swung open.
A large dog, that none of us had seen before came into the house as if he lived here. He walked through the kitchen, dinning room and down the hallway toward the bedrooms. My son-in-law Joe was cautiously following him not sure what to make of this visitro. He was thin, but not starved, he had a collar but no identification tags and a long nose with graying hair.
At the end of the hall our visitor turned abruptly, walked past Joe and back through the dinning room and kitchen and entered into the family room where he proceeded to lay down between my recliner and the chair where mom usually sat.
He made himself right at home. Everyone sat in stunned silence staring at him.
I looked down at the dog and ended the silence. “Mom always said, ‘Paul keep the garage door down and the back door locked, otherwise anything could walk into this house.’ I guess she sent this guy to make her point.”
We were expecting a pastor to arrive at any minute so Joe led the dog outside by his collar. When Joe released him the dog made no attempt to leave. Joe sat on the front step and the dog joined him. They sat there together for several minutes. A cat ambled us the front walk and stopped when he saw the dog. Neither moved. Then the cat came up the rest of the walk and sat next to the dog. Joe, who lives in the neighborhood, had seen neither animal before. The cat stayed awhile and then walked away. The dog remained with Joe.
That evening Joe took the dog home with him fully intending to try and fine its owner in the morning. He put the dog in the garage for the night with some water.
The next morning he fed the dog and then let him out in the yard with his own smaller dogs. The three seem to get along fine. Then the stranger dog walked to the edge of the property, looked back at Joe as if to say farewell and walked away.
You can read in to this. Go figure.
Paul Tuck
Newfield N.J.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Grandmother's Advice
Week of September 20
My grandmother gave me a Bible when I went off to college. She said, “Read it when you feel down or need a lift.” I thanked her politely, packed it away and frankly went on with my life.
Years later, after a marriage, several children and many job changes, I found myself in a bad place. I was really down, lacking direction in my life and I was bordering on serious depression. I really needed to change.
I was rummaging through a closet, I’m not sure why now, and I moved a towel and there was the Bible my grandmother had given me when I was leaving for school.
I stiffened and I felt the hairs standup on the back of my neck. I heard the voice of that gentle sweet lady as if she was standing beside me. “Read this when you feel down or need a lift.” I took her advice right then and there.
A few days later, I was visiting my parents and I told them about finding the Bible and what grandmother had said when she gave it to me years ago.
“What day did this happen,” my mother asked?
When I told her my mother nodded slowly and this knowing smile came over her face.
“That is the anniversary of when you grandmother died,” she said.
I can say the advice my grandmother gave me did a lot more than give me a lift, it has changed my life forever.
James Cooper
Sarasota, Fl
My grandmother gave me a Bible when I went off to college. She said, “Read it when you feel down or need a lift.” I thanked her politely, packed it away and frankly went on with my life.
Years later, after a marriage, several children and many job changes, I found myself in a bad place. I was really down, lacking direction in my life and I was bordering on serious depression. I really needed to change.
I was rummaging through a closet, I’m not sure why now, and I moved a towel and there was the Bible my grandmother had given me when I was leaving for school.
I stiffened and I felt the hairs standup on the back of my neck. I heard the voice of that gentle sweet lady as if she was standing beside me. “Read this when you feel down or need a lift.” I took her advice right then and there.
A few days later, I was visiting my parents and I told them about finding the Bible and what grandmother had said when she gave it to me years ago.
“What day did this happen,” my mother asked?
When I told her my mother nodded slowly and this knowing smile came over her face.
“That is the anniversary of when you grandmother died,” she said.
I can say the advice my grandmother gave me did a lot more than give me a lift, it has changed my life forever.
James Cooper
Sarasota, Fl
Sunday, September 13, 2009
A Glass of Wine
Week of September 13
A pastor related an amazing incident that happened while he was dinning out with his wife. her best friend and her husband.The guy was an atheist, a cynic and was always poking fun at the pastor and his beliefs.
The waiter came to their table and asked for their drink order. The skeptic orders a class of the house wine and the others ask for soft drinks.
When the waiter leaves the man says, “Reverend too bad Jesus isn’t here, he could turn my cheap glass of wine into the best vino.”
The pastor says to himself, I’m not going there." He ignores the comment and the ladies immediately engage in a conversation about something else.
The waiter returns with the beverages and says to the man, “ I’m sorry sir but we are out of our house wine. My manager apologizes and said to give you a glass of our best wine with his compliments.”
“Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he isn’t wise in his own eyes.”
(Proverbs 26:5)
As told by:
Paul Kirbas
San Francisco, Ca.
A pastor related an amazing incident that happened while he was dinning out with his wife. her best friend and her husband.The guy was an atheist, a cynic and was always poking fun at the pastor and his beliefs.
The waiter came to their table and asked for their drink order. The skeptic orders a class of the house wine and the others ask for soft drinks.
When the waiter leaves the man says, “Reverend too bad Jesus isn’t here, he could turn my cheap glass of wine into the best vino.”
The pastor says to himself, I’m not going there." He ignores the comment and the ladies immediately engage in a conversation about something else.
The waiter returns with the beverages and says to the man, “ I’m sorry sir but we are out of our house wine. My manager apologizes and said to give you a glass of our best wine with his compliments.”
“Answer a fool as his folly deserves, that he isn’t wise in his own eyes.”
(Proverbs 26:5)
As told by:
Paul Kirbas
San Francisco, Ca.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Yard Sale
Week of September 7
It wasn’t your typical yard sale. For me it was a desperation move.
I was down to my last six dollars. I needed gas to get to work, the electric bill was overdue and my water would be shut off if I didn’t pay it by Monday. It would be another week before I received another paycheck and I was already one month behind in my rent as well as my other bills.
My wife and I were separated and I had recently been diagnosed with Hepatitis C. I really was at the end of my rope. I needed this sale to survive one more day.
A friend arrived for moral support and I asked him if he would pray with me. We stood together in my empty living room. He prayed, “Lord bless my friend and help him though this situation. Without you we are nothing but with your blessing we know we can get through anything. You said Lord, ‘Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’ We are here Lord and we need your help, Amen.”
Everything I owned was out on my lawn except my mattress, clothes and the computer on which I couldn’t make the payments.
During the first hour I sold $80 worth of furniture including my couch, end table and some lamps.
The flow of potential buyers slowed considerably during the second hour and I took in just $20 more. During a lull in the next hour the phone rang and I dashed into the house to answer it.
The lady on the phone said, “You gave me a quote to paint my house several months ago. Does your offer still stand.”
“It sure does.”
“How soon can you start?”
“Lady I’ll be there this afternoon for the one third
down payment so I can buy your paint.”
I rushed outside to retrieve my kitchen table and chairs from the lawn. Then I told my friend.
“I made a bid to paint a lady’s house six months ago and she calls me today of all days. Go figure.”
My friend looked at me with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes and said, “That call was prompted by the Lord.”
Patrick Lavilla
Kountze Texas
It wasn’t your typical yard sale. For me it was a desperation move.
I was down to my last six dollars. I needed gas to get to work, the electric bill was overdue and my water would be shut off if I didn’t pay it by Monday. It would be another week before I received another paycheck and I was already one month behind in my rent as well as my other bills.
My wife and I were separated and I had recently been diagnosed with Hepatitis C. I really was at the end of my rope. I needed this sale to survive one more day.
A friend arrived for moral support and I asked him if he would pray with me. We stood together in my empty living room. He prayed, “Lord bless my friend and help him though this situation. Without you we are nothing but with your blessing we know we can get through anything. You said Lord, ‘Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’ We are here Lord and we need your help, Amen.”
Everything I owned was out on my lawn except my mattress, clothes and the computer on which I couldn’t make the payments.
During the first hour I sold $80 worth of furniture including my couch, end table and some lamps.
The flow of potential buyers slowed considerably during the second hour and I took in just $20 more. During a lull in the next hour the phone rang and I dashed into the house to answer it.
The lady on the phone said, “You gave me a quote to paint my house several months ago. Does your offer still stand.”
“It sure does.”
“How soon can you start?”
“Lady I’ll be there this afternoon for the one third
down payment so I can buy your paint.”
I rushed outside to retrieve my kitchen table and chairs from the lawn. Then I told my friend.
“I made a bid to paint a lady’s house six months ago and she calls me today of all days. Go figure.”
My friend looked at me with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes and said, “That call was prompted by the Lord.”
Patrick Lavilla
Kountze Texas
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Comforting Revelations
Week of August 1
The first anniversary of my son Steven’s death was approaching. I wanted to be far away from anything familiar so I booked a trip to Tahiti with a co-worker.
On The morning (September 1) I told my friend that I needed to be alone for awhile and I was going for a walk on the beach. As I was leaving our hut, almost as an after thought, I grabbed my camera.
At the beach I sat very still and looked out at the water for sometime. I noticed out of the corner of my eye a figure on horseback riding in shallow water. As the horse drew nearer I could see the rider was a young man, bare to the waist with long blond hair. I felt myself stiffen, fully alert.
When he was right in front of me the young man turned his head in my direction, smiled and nodded. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. He was the image of Steven. Even in my stunned state, I slowly reached for my camera and took a picture. A beautiful calmness came over me. I remember thinking, no matter how far you go to avoid reality, it will follow you.
When I returned to the hut my friend asked if I was ok. I related what happened on the beach and I stated that I was fine, “but if when I get home and develop the pictures and there is nothing there I am really going to freak out.” The picture did come out and anyone I show it to says, “that’s Steven.”
A few years after this episode, I felt it was time to visit Vermont where Steven has died. I only had the name of the town and the name Terrible Mountain. A friend insisted on driving me. As we approached the town we came around a curve and I asked my friend to stop so I could ask a man raking leaves if he knew where the place was. He pointed to a road opposite to where we were stopped.
I walked alone around the place where the house had burned. I looked at the magnificent view my 18-year-old son had seen and I felt at peace.
Back in the car, I asked my friend to please turn on the radio as we drove down the mountain. The first song was The Beatles, “Let it be.” The next song was the Grateful Dead’s “Ripples in Still Waters.” Both songs were sung at Steven’s memorial service.
I am truly grateful to have experienced these miracles which have brought me comfort and helped me face many of life’s struggles.
Margaret (Peg) Salter
New Port Richey, Fl.
The first anniversary of my son Steven’s death was approaching. I wanted to be far away from anything familiar so I booked a trip to Tahiti with a co-worker.
On The morning (September 1) I told my friend that I needed to be alone for awhile and I was going for a walk on the beach. As I was leaving our hut, almost as an after thought, I grabbed my camera.
At the beach I sat very still and looked out at the water for sometime. I noticed out of the corner of my eye a figure on horseback riding in shallow water. As the horse drew nearer I could see the rider was a young man, bare to the waist with long blond hair. I felt myself stiffen, fully alert.
When he was right in front of me the young man turned his head in my direction, smiled and nodded. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. He was the image of Steven. Even in my stunned state, I slowly reached for my camera and took a picture. A beautiful calmness came over me. I remember thinking, no matter how far you go to avoid reality, it will follow you.
When I returned to the hut my friend asked if I was ok. I related what happened on the beach and I stated that I was fine, “but if when I get home and develop the pictures and there is nothing there I am really going to freak out.” The picture did come out and anyone I show it to says, “that’s Steven.”
A few years after this episode, I felt it was time to visit Vermont where Steven has died. I only had the name of the town and the name Terrible Mountain. A friend insisted on driving me. As we approached the town we came around a curve and I asked my friend to stop so I could ask a man raking leaves if he knew where the place was. He pointed to a road opposite to where we were stopped.
I walked alone around the place where the house had burned. I looked at the magnificent view my 18-year-old son had seen and I felt at peace.
Back in the car, I asked my friend to please turn on the radio as we drove down the mountain. The first song was The Beatles, “Let it be.” The next song was the Grateful Dead’s “Ripples in Still Waters.” Both songs were sung at Steven’s memorial service.
I am truly grateful to have experienced these miracles which have brought me comfort and helped me face many of life’s struggles.
Margaret (Peg) Salter
New Port Richey, Fl.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
The Ring
Week of August 16
Our three month-old daughter came home from the hospital in September of 1999. She was born in June weighing 2 pounds 3 ounces and spent the next 93 days under special care. She had now doubled her weight, and they put her in my arms attached to oxygen, weighing 4 pounds 6 ounces and said, “Here you go. She can go home with you now.”
During one of her first few weeks home, while I was feeding her in the library of the master bedroom suite of our country home, I accidentally scratched her with the marquis diamond of my engagement ring. It broke my heart to hurt my teeny tiny girl. I took the ring off and decided to keep it off until after she was weaned.
However, a few weeks later John and I were getting dressed up for a date night out without the children. I wanted to put my ring back on, but sadly, I could not find it. I grumbled about it throughout the night, but John, the eternal optimist, assured me we would find it. For days we looked, but we never discovered it.
I tried to remind myself that it was a material posession and that I should continue to be thankful that the amazing man who gave me the ring loved me with an undying love. The ring was gone, but our love and marriage endured.
Several months later we moved from our country home and were heading to the suburbs. Friends from everywhere came to help us. I rallied the team that was working in the master bedroom suite. I told them my story about the ring and asked everyone to look for the ring as they packed and moved and cleaned. The truck was packed, the vacuuming was finished, and the door was closed, but no ring was found.
The next day John and I returned to the house for a final walk through. I returned to the master bedroom suite, opened the door, and there in the middle of the floor of the library, on the top of the variegated plush carpeting was my ring.I squealed, I leapt, I cried. I was so thankful to find it. I really had missed the ring. John came running and he rejoiced with me. We prayed and thanked God. When I saw the ring it was if God were saying, “Here you go. I have been holding onto this for you. And I am holding onto you as you make this move. Christine, I know you were unsure about this move, but I am with you and I bless you on this new season of your family’s adventure.”
About four years later we were in the middle of what I believed to be one of the most difficult seasons of our lives. John and I had pursued a dream of owning our own business. We owned and operated three coffee shops in Western New York. Financial pressure caused us to close one shop and then a second. The flagship store remained open, but seemingly by a thread. The potential financial hardship seemed unbearable to me.
God brought a new friend into my life during this time. This friend regularly spoke truthfully to me. Granted, her words were not always very comforting, but they were true. She quoted Bible verses such as, “You are pressed down, but not crushed.” I believe God and I believed God’s Word so I had to concede that this was true. But I whined and argued that whatever the single last increment there was in the range of pressed down before you get crushed, whatever that last increment was, that is where I felt I was.
I began to see a pattern in our conversations. My friend did not seem particularly interested in hearing all of the details of my circumstances. She was gracious of course, but she always wanted to talk about God and God’s work in my life. She wanted to discuss the truths about who God is and how He acts. She pointed to the truth of scripture which showed that God does not always rescue us from painful experiences. She would even point me to the martyrs. She repeatedly reminded me that, “God sees you” and “God is for you.”
I would get off of the phone after talking with this friend and mutter, “If God sees me why doesn’t he fix things? He could bring more customers into our shop in spite of our limited advertising budget. He has the power to bless this effort supernaturally in spite of our inadequacies and mistakes. He sees me, indeed.” But I knew it was true.
One afternoon we sat quietly for a few minutes, and then my friend said, “Can you tell me about your engagement ring?” I wasn’t quite sure why she asked or what I was supposed to say. I told her our engagement story and how I was surprised to find the ring in my dessert at the close of a fancy dinner out with John.
Then it hit me, my ring! Oh, my,the ring! I quickly retold the story of my ring and the old country farm house. And I wept. This friend had only known me a short time. She had no way of knowing about the ring story. She believed that it was God who prompted her to ask me about the ring. God used this ring to remind me of his tender mercy toward me again God sees me. He saw me in my pain and spoke to my friend and He reached down and reminded me that He sees me, He loves me, and He has not lost track of me or my family. God comforted me.
The last shop closed in 2004 and it was a sad, painful time. We continue to recover from the financial impact of that journey. But God sees me and our family is together, still seeking and serving our Savior. And any time I need a reminder that “God sees me” and that “God is on my side,” I put on my engagement ring and wear it without the wedding band for a day. It sets up there on my finger as a reminder of how God set it up on top of that rug and said, “Here you go. I have been holding onto this for you. And I am holding onto you. I see you, Christine, and I am for you.”
Christine Bradford
Buffalo, NY
Our three month-old daughter came home from the hospital in September of 1999. She was born in June weighing 2 pounds 3 ounces and spent the next 93 days under special care. She had now doubled her weight, and they put her in my arms attached to oxygen, weighing 4 pounds 6 ounces and said, “Here you go. She can go home with you now.”
During one of her first few weeks home, while I was feeding her in the library of the master bedroom suite of our country home, I accidentally scratched her with the marquis diamond of my engagement ring. It broke my heart to hurt my teeny tiny girl. I took the ring off and decided to keep it off until after she was weaned.
However, a few weeks later John and I were getting dressed up for a date night out without the children. I wanted to put my ring back on, but sadly, I could not find it. I grumbled about it throughout the night, but John, the eternal optimist, assured me we would find it. For days we looked, but we never discovered it.
I tried to remind myself that it was a material posession and that I should continue to be thankful that the amazing man who gave me the ring loved me with an undying love. The ring was gone, but our love and marriage endured.
Several months later we moved from our country home and were heading to the suburbs. Friends from everywhere came to help us. I rallied the team that was working in the master bedroom suite. I told them my story about the ring and asked everyone to look for the ring as they packed and moved and cleaned. The truck was packed, the vacuuming was finished, and the door was closed, but no ring was found.
The next day John and I returned to the house for a final walk through. I returned to the master bedroom suite, opened the door, and there in the middle of the floor of the library, on the top of the variegated plush carpeting was my ring.I squealed, I leapt, I cried. I was so thankful to find it. I really had missed the ring. John came running and he rejoiced with me. We prayed and thanked God. When I saw the ring it was if God were saying, “Here you go. I have been holding onto this for you. And I am holding onto you as you make this move. Christine, I know you were unsure about this move, but I am with you and I bless you on this new season of your family’s adventure.”
About four years later we were in the middle of what I believed to be one of the most difficult seasons of our lives. John and I had pursued a dream of owning our own business. We owned and operated three coffee shops in Western New York. Financial pressure caused us to close one shop and then a second. The flagship store remained open, but seemingly by a thread. The potential financial hardship seemed unbearable to me.
God brought a new friend into my life during this time. This friend regularly spoke truthfully to me. Granted, her words were not always very comforting, but they were true. She quoted Bible verses such as, “You are pressed down, but not crushed.” I believe God and I believed God’s Word so I had to concede that this was true. But I whined and argued that whatever the single last increment there was in the range of pressed down before you get crushed, whatever that last increment was, that is where I felt I was.
I began to see a pattern in our conversations. My friend did not seem particularly interested in hearing all of the details of my circumstances. She was gracious of course, but she always wanted to talk about God and God’s work in my life. She wanted to discuss the truths about who God is and how He acts. She pointed to the truth of scripture which showed that God does not always rescue us from painful experiences. She would even point me to the martyrs. She repeatedly reminded me that, “God sees you” and “God is for you.”
I would get off of the phone after talking with this friend and mutter, “If God sees me why doesn’t he fix things? He could bring more customers into our shop in spite of our limited advertising budget. He has the power to bless this effort supernaturally in spite of our inadequacies and mistakes. He sees me, indeed.” But I knew it was true.
One afternoon we sat quietly for a few minutes, and then my friend said, “Can you tell me about your engagement ring?” I wasn’t quite sure why she asked or what I was supposed to say. I told her our engagement story and how I was surprised to find the ring in my dessert at the close of a fancy dinner out with John.
Then it hit me, my ring! Oh, my,the ring! I quickly retold the story of my ring and the old country farm house. And I wept. This friend had only known me a short time. She had no way of knowing about the ring story. She believed that it was God who prompted her to ask me about the ring. God used this ring to remind me of his tender mercy toward me again God sees me. He saw me in my pain and spoke to my friend and He reached down and reminded me that He sees me, He loves me, and He has not lost track of me or my family. God comforted me.
The last shop closed in 2004 and it was a sad, painful time. We continue to recover from the financial impact of that journey. But God sees me and our family is together, still seeking and serving our Savior. And any time I need a reminder that “God sees me” and that “God is on my side,” I put on my engagement ring and wear it without the wedding band for a day. It sets up there on my finger as a reminder of how God set it up on top of that rug and said, “Here you go. I have been holding onto this for you. And I am holding onto you. I see you, Christine, and I am for you.”
Christine Bradford
Buffalo, NY
Friday, July 24, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Yard Sale
Week of July 19
It wasn’t your typical yard sale. For me it was a desperation move.
I was down to my last six dollars. I needed gas to get to work, the electric bill was overdue and my water would be shut off if I didn’t pay it by Monday. It would be another week before I received another paycheck and I was already one month behind in my rent as well as my other bills.
My wife and I were separated and I had recently been diagnosed with Hepatitis C. I really was at the end of my rope. I needed this sale to survive one more day.
A friend arrived for moral support and I asked him if he would pray with me. We stood together in my empty living room. He prayed, “Lord bless my friend Patrick and help him though this situation. Without you we are nothing but with your blessing we know we can get through anything. You said Lord, ‘Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’ We are here Lord and we need your help, Amen.”
Everything I owned was out on my lawn except my mattress, clothes and the computer on which I couldn’t make the payments.
During the first hour I sold $80 worth of furniture including my couch, end table and some lamps.The flow of potential buyers slowed considerably during the second hour and I took in just $20 more.
During a lull the phone rang and I dashed into the house to answer it.
The lady on the phone said, “You gave me a quote to paint my house several months ago. Does your offer still stand.”
“It sure does.”
“How soon can you start?”
“Lady I’ll be there this afternoon for the one third
down payment so I can buy your paint.”
I rushed outside to retrieve my kitchen table and chairs from the lawn. Then I told my friend about the phone call.
“I made a bid to paint a lady’s house six months ago and she calls me today of all days. Go figure.”
My friend looked at me with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes and said, “That call was prompted by the Lord.”
Patrick Lavilla
Kountze Tx
It wasn’t your typical yard sale. For me it was a desperation move.
I was down to my last six dollars. I needed gas to get to work, the electric bill was overdue and my water would be shut off if I didn’t pay it by Monday. It would be another week before I received another paycheck and I was already one month behind in my rent as well as my other bills.
My wife and I were separated and I had recently been diagnosed with Hepatitis C. I really was at the end of my rope. I needed this sale to survive one more day.
A friend arrived for moral support and I asked him if he would pray with me. We stood together in my empty living room. He prayed, “Lord bless my friend Patrick and help him though this situation. Without you we are nothing but with your blessing we know we can get through anything. You said Lord, ‘Come to me all you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest.’ We are here Lord and we need your help, Amen.”
Everything I owned was out on my lawn except my mattress, clothes and the computer on which I couldn’t make the payments.
During the first hour I sold $80 worth of furniture including my couch, end table and some lamps.The flow of potential buyers slowed considerably during the second hour and I took in just $20 more.
During a lull the phone rang and I dashed into the house to answer it.
The lady on the phone said, “You gave me a quote to paint my house several months ago. Does your offer still stand.”
“It sure does.”
“How soon can you start?”
“Lady I’ll be there this afternoon for the one third
down payment so I can buy your paint.”
I rushed outside to retrieve my kitchen table and chairs from the lawn. Then I told my friend about the phone call.
“I made a bid to paint a lady’s house six months ago and she calls me today of all days. Go figure.”
My friend looked at me with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes and said, “That call was prompted by the Lord.”
Patrick Lavilla
Kountze Tx
Saturday, July 11, 2009
"Live by the Water"
Week of Juy 12,2009
It was clear from the beginning that God’s hand was in our decision to relocate to Florida. The purpose was to take care of our aging parents who had permanently moved to the west coast of the state.
The problems were we had a business and a house to sell and I hated Florida. Furthermore I had a business that I loved in my home, taking care of children, which would have to be closed.
Eighteen years of accumulation of living in one place had to be sold as we were not taking all this to Florida with us. We had to pare down from a 6 bedroom, three story house to a smaller 2 or 3 bedroom bungalow.
God is good. The business sold quickly and several garage sales relieved us of a multitude of our "treasures". Now it was time to sell the house.
I was leaving the house I had dreamed of all my life. I had said, "just bury me in the back yard and I will be happy forever.” Until the day I actually left, my friends said, "she will never go through with it," because they knew how much I loved the home I lived in.
Why then was God calling me to move on? How could I endure such a transplant from a place I loved with all my heart to a place I hated? It is called a leap of faith. I bargained with God. I prayed and said "I am honoring our parents as you have instructed in the Bible and you know the place I am leaving, somehow dear God please make it right for me so I can have a proper attitude to do what I have to do in Florida."
One night just before I was falling asleep God spoke to me in unmistakable voice. I shot upright in bed and He said to me "Live by the water and you will be all right.” From that day forward I never faltered for one minute.. We placed our house on the market. It sold within two weeks and we were on our way.
Many things have affirmed God’s hand on our lives as a result of our decision to be faithful to God’s call to honor our parents. I have never regretted it for one day and praise God for his mercy and kindness to see us through the tough times we have had.We have been blessed with with a wonderful church to worship and fellowship in.
Having lived by the water for 15 years God was totally right….I was all right.
Susie Tholken
Sarasota, Fl.
It was clear from the beginning that God’s hand was in our decision to relocate to Florida. The purpose was to take care of our aging parents who had permanently moved to the west coast of the state.
The problems were we had a business and a house to sell and I hated Florida. Furthermore I had a business that I loved in my home, taking care of children, which would have to be closed.
Eighteen years of accumulation of living in one place had to be sold as we were not taking all this to Florida with us. We had to pare down from a 6 bedroom, three story house to a smaller 2 or 3 bedroom bungalow.
God is good. The business sold quickly and several garage sales relieved us of a multitude of our "treasures". Now it was time to sell the house.
I was leaving the house I had dreamed of all my life. I had said, "just bury me in the back yard and I will be happy forever.” Until the day I actually left, my friends said, "she will never go through with it," because they knew how much I loved the home I lived in.
Why then was God calling me to move on? How could I endure such a transplant from a place I loved with all my heart to a place I hated? It is called a leap of faith. I bargained with God. I prayed and said "I am honoring our parents as you have instructed in the Bible and you know the place I am leaving, somehow dear God please make it right for me so I can have a proper attitude to do what I have to do in Florida."
One night just before I was falling asleep God spoke to me in unmistakable voice. I shot upright in bed and He said to me "Live by the water and you will be all right.” From that day forward I never faltered for one minute.. We placed our house on the market. It sold within two weeks and we were on our way.
Many things have affirmed God’s hand on our lives as a result of our decision to be faithful to God’s call to honor our parents. I have never regretted it for one day and praise God for his mercy and kindness to see us through the tough times we have had.We have been blessed with with a wonderful church to worship and fellowship in.
Having lived by the water for 15 years God was totally right….I was all right.
Susie Tholken
Sarasota, Fl.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Cranston
Week of July 5
It is a peaceful summer day at the lake and I am cherishing the stillness sitting on our deck when loud and clear in my head I hear the word, Cranston.
Why Cranston? There is a city adjacent to Providence, RI named Cranston but I haven’t been there in years. I know some people who came from Cranston and my sister once lived there when her children were small. The hero of an old radio program called “The Shadow” was named Lamont Cranston. These are my only Cranston connections. I have no idea why the word Cranston came to mind so clearly. I busy myself with other thoughts.
Later that day I am reading when I clearly hear again, Cranston! Now this is weird. What does this mean? I share what is happening with my wife Joy.
She is genuinely compassionate to my confused state but of course can offer no satisfactory explanation.
The next morning I am looking for the paperback dictionary. I remembered seeing one somewhere. I ask Joy and she says it is behind the hard covered books on the shelf in the breakfast nook. I reach over those books and pickup the first paperback I feel. It is not the dictionary. I stare in disbelief.
I’m holding in my hand a worn paperback entitled, The Miracle of Lourdes by Ruth Cranston.
I can feel the shivers going down my spine. “Hon. How did this book get here?”
She looks at me with amazement “I don’t know. I remember you bought a stack of books at the church fair one year or maybe someone else left it here.” I vaguely remember buying some books at the church fair but I know I need to read this book now.
Ruth Cranston wrote the book in 1955 “in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of when the Blessed Mother of God appeared to the daughter of a French Miller.”
Ruth Cranston’s book goes beyond documenting many of the miracles at the healing pool at Lourdes, France. The author recounts how many well people annually make the pilgrimage to Lourdes just to serve others who are there waiting and praying for miracle cures.
“The greatest thing at Lourdes is putting God into actual everyday living,” she writes. “It’s a life based on love instead of power-a life of helping one another, serving the weak, sharing strengths. It is another example that the path to happiness is to give not grab.”
Wow, good advice for a man seeking but struggling to include God in his daily life.
I also resonate with these words. “The one way to peace and bliss, every great prophet has told us, is to give yourself away.”
Give myself away-I needed to read that Ms Cranston.
“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. (Matthew 16:25)
R. Malcolm Salter
Sturbridge, Massachusetts
It is a peaceful summer day at the lake and I am cherishing the stillness sitting on our deck when loud and clear in my head I hear the word, Cranston.
Why Cranston? There is a city adjacent to Providence, RI named Cranston but I haven’t been there in years. I know some people who came from Cranston and my sister once lived there when her children were small. The hero of an old radio program called “The Shadow” was named Lamont Cranston. These are my only Cranston connections. I have no idea why the word Cranston came to mind so clearly. I busy myself with other thoughts.
Later that day I am reading when I clearly hear again, Cranston! Now this is weird. What does this mean? I share what is happening with my wife Joy.
She is genuinely compassionate to my confused state but of course can offer no satisfactory explanation.
The next morning I am looking for the paperback dictionary. I remembered seeing one somewhere. I ask Joy and she says it is behind the hard covered books on the shelf in the breakfast nook. I reach over those books and pickup the first paperback I feel. It is not the dictionary. I stare in disbelief.
I’m holding in my hand a worn paperback entitled, The Miracle of Lourdes by Ruth Cranston.
I can feel the shivers going down my spine. “Hon. How did this book get here?”
She looks at me with amazement “I don’t know. I remember you bought a stack of books at the church fair one year or maybe someone else left it here.” I vaguely remember buying some books at the church fair but I know I need to read this book now.
Ruth Cranston wrote the book in 1955 “in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of when the Blessed Mother of God appeared to the daughter of a French Miller.”
Ruth Cranston’s book goes beyond documenting many of the miracles at the healing pool at Lourdes, France. The author recounts how many well people annually make the pilgrimage to Lourdes just to serve others who are there waiting and praying for miracle cures.
“The greatest thing at Lourdes is putting God into actual everyday living,” she writes. “It’s a life based on love instead of power-a life of helping one another, serving the weak, sharing strengths. It is another example that the path to happiness is to give not grab.”
Wow, good advice for a man seeking but struggling to include God in his daily life.
I also resonate with these words. “The one way to peace and bliss, every great prophet has told us, is to give yourself away.”
Give myself away-I needed to read that Ms Cranston.
“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. (Matthew 16:25)
R. Malcolm Salter
Sturbridge, Massachusetts
Saturday, June 27, 2009
He almost beat Tiger Woods
Week of June 28
Brad’s celebrity status is that he was the first golfer to lose a national title to Tiger Woods.
The year was 1991 and Brad Zwetschke was ranked number two behind Tiger in the U.S. Junior Amateur golf. In the championship match Brad was three up after five holes, and two up at the turn at Bay Hill in Orlando. It would be the first of many well publicized comebacks for Tiger who tied the match and defeated Brad on the first playoff hole.
“Coming out of school all I wanted to do was play golf and party. I lived the wild life,” Brad says. Along the way he met Christina Mauldin, a preacher’s daughter from the South side of Chicago. Brad is also from Chicago. Within a year and a half they were married. “She thought she was marrying a golf professional and I thought I was marrying an entertainer from Black Television.” (Christina had done a stint on the program Heart & Soul.)
“My wife is a strong Christian and my loyal supporter. She accompanied me on tour, which was arduous, lots of travel and expensive. Sometimes we slept in our van because we couldn’t afford the hotel prices.
“In November 2001 we were touring in Australia and we went into a little church in Brisbane. The preacher’s message was based on John 21. The message spoke to me especially when Jesus asks Peter, ‘Do you love me as much as these’ (referring to the fish Peter and his friends had just caught).“Yes Lord, You know that I love You.”
“Then feed My lambs.” John21:l5
"I identified with Peter who was being asked to give up fishing. I felt I was being asked to put down my clubs.
Three months later I was driving to the Canadian Tour Qualifying Tournament when I heard a message on the radio quoting John 21. Again I felt the message speaking to me. I played in the tournament but I did not qualify. My heart wasn’t in the game anymore. I quit golf.
“With the encouragement of my father-in law I enrolled in New Orleans Theological Seminary.He too had been called to the ministry by John 21.”
In August 2005, four months before Brad was to finish, Katrina devastated New Orleans. With two children and Christina eight months pregnant, Brad borrowed a friend's van and fled to Beatrice Alabama where they knew a pastor who took them in.
“We lost everything to Katrina. Our apartment was completely flooded. But God had spared our family. Then another kind of flood hit. I could not stop the flow of gifts of clothing, food and furniture that poured in on us. It still hasn’t subsided.
“When it was time for Christina to have our fourth child we moved to Bradenton , Florida to be close to the doctor who had delivered our other children. I took a job as student intern in evangelism and finished my final semester at the seminary on line. In December 2006 my classmates and I received our degrees. Later I became the voluntary chaplain to the Cincinnati Reds farm team then in Sarasota.
“God has used everything in my life for His purposes. Golf had been my idol…now I’m pictured in golf magazines holding a Bible. It took a while for me to accept God’s forgiveness and to accept his grace. That has been huge for me.
“Tiger has become the king of golf. My notoriety as being the first to lose a national title to Tiger still brings invitations to speak at golf dinners and men’s retreats where I get to tell people about the King of Kings.”
Brad Zwetschke
(Brad Zwetschke is now a U.S. Army Chaplain on active duty-Ed)
Brad’s celebrity status is that he was the first golfer to lose a national title to Tiger Woods.
The year was 1991 and Brad Zwetschke was ranked number two behind Tiger in the U.S. Junior Amateur golf. In the championship match Brad was three up after five holes, and two up at the turn at Bay Hill in Orlando. It would be the first of many well publicized comebacks for Tiger who tied the match and defeated Brad on the first playoff hole.
“Coming out of school all I wanted to do was play golf and party. I lived the wild life,” Brad says. Along the way he met Christina Mauldin, a preacher’s daughter from the South side of Chicago. Brad is also from Chicago. Within a year and a half they were married. “She thought she was marrying a golf professional and I thought I was marrying an entertainer from Black Television.” (Christina had done a stint on the program Heart & Soul.)
“My wife is a strong Christian and my loyal supporter. She accompanied me on tour, which was arduous, lots of travel and expensive. Sometimes we slept in our van because we couldn’t afford the hotel prices.
“In November 2001 we were touring in Australia and we went into a little church in Brisbane. The preacher’s message was based on John 21. The message spoke to me especially when Jesus asks Peter, ‘Do you love me as much as these’ (referring to the fish Peter and his friends had just caught).“Yes Lord, You know that I love You.”
“Then feed My lambs.” John21:l5
"I identified with Peter who was being asked to give up fishing. I felt I was being asked to put down my clubs.
Three months later I was driving to the Canadian Tour Qualifying Tournament when I heard a message on the radio quoting John 21. Again I felt the message speaking to me. I played in the tournament but I did not qualify. My heart wasn’t in the game anymore. I quit golf.
“With the encouragement of my father-in law I enrolled in New Orleans Theological Seminary.He too had been called to the ministry by John 21.”
In August 2005, four months before Brad was to finish, Katrina devastated New Orleans. With two children and Christina eight months pregnant, Brad borrowed a friend's van and fled to Beatrice Alabama where they knew a pastor who took them in.
“We lost everything to Katrina. Our apartment was completely flooded. But God had spared our family. Then another kind of flood hit. I could not stop the flow of gifts of clothing, food and furniture that poured in on us. It still hasn’t subsided.
“When it was time for Christina to have our fourth child we moved to Bradenton , Florida to be close to the doctor who had delivered our other children. I took a job as student intern in evangelism and finished my final semester at the seminary on line. In December 2006 my classmates and I received our degrees. Later I became the voluntary chaplain to the Cincinnati Reds farm team then in Sarasota.
“God has used everything in my life for His purposes. Golf had been my idol…now I’m pictured in golf magazines holding a Bible. It took a while for me to accept God’s forgiveness and to accept his grace. That has been huge for me.
“Tiger has become the king of golf. My notoriety as being the first to lose a national title to Tiger still brings invitations to speak at golf dinners and men’s retreats where I get to tell people about the King of Kings.”
Brad Zwetschke
(Brad Zwetschke is now a U.S. Army Chaplain on active duty-Ed)
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Mr. Clarke
Week of June 21
There are some things that just defy logical explanations. This is one of those things for me. I am a mother with a small boy at home. About once a month a Mr. Clarke would stop by, usually late morning, with a suitcase full of small household items for sale. Mr. Clarke, I never knew his first name and he always addressed me as Mrs.Marr. He was an older gentleman of retirement age who was trying to augment his income by going door-to-door selling whatever he could. I felt sorry for him and would always buy something, even if only a pair of shoe strings, so he wouldn’t leave without having sold something.
Mainly we would just chat about the weather or something in the news that week while my little boy played with blocks or some other toy on the living room floor. After several minutes of friendly conversation he would open his suitcase and point out some new item. I would listen to whatever he was promoting and politely say I didn’t think I needed that right now but what we really needed was a box of bandages. I would purchase the item and he was always most gracious as he packed his wares and left.
This went on for about a year and then one month passed and he hadn’t stopped by. Several months passed and no Mr. Clarke. There was a knock at the door one morning and I opened it to find a thin pleasant looking woman.
“Are you Mrs. Marr,” she asked? I nodded.
“I’m Mrs. Clarke, You were a customer of my husband. He passed on you know.”
“I’m sorry, I wondered what happened to him.”
“I’ve been talking with him and last night he gave me a message for you,” she said.
Before I could collect myself to say anything sensible she must have read the expression of bewilderment and shock on my face and went on talking.
“Oh yes. I talk with him frequently and last night he was very clear that I bring a message to you. He said, ‘tell Mrs. Marr there is going to be an explosion.’ That’s it, that’s all he said. I can’t tell you what it means, just what he said.”
She wouldn’t come in, apologized for upsetting me in any way and thanked me for being kind to her husband and she walked away. I was dumbfounded.
I thought of a hundred questions I wanted to ask her but she had gone. I didn’t know how to get in touch with her, or where she lived and I still didn’t know Mr. Clarke’s first name.
An explosion! What to do? My husband worked at an oil refinery and I impulsively called his office. As the call was going through I thought what on earth will I say to him, that a woman I’ve never met before told me her dead husband gave her a message last night to warn me that there was going to be an explosion…
“Hello.”
“Hi Dear, how are you?”
“I’m fine, what’s up?”
I couldn’t tell him at least not now over the phone while he was at work. I would tell him when he got home tonight, besides he would be asking me a ton of questions to which I had no answers. The rest of our conversation was strained and awkward especially on my end. I tried to determine what the rest of his day was like without tipping my hand. I was trying to ascertain that he was going to be right at his desk and not out by the fuel storage tanks or down on the docks where the tankers unloaded. I sensed he was getting curious about my new-found interest in his day. Then he asked the question I was dreading.
“ Tell me is there something on your mind that prompted this call?”
“Oh,” I laughed nervously, “Could you pick up a dozen eggs on your way home?”
When he came home with the eggs I came clean. I was relieved that he was home and we both had a laugh over our cat and mouse phone conversation. He didn’t know what to make of Mrs. Clarke’s message anymore than I did. So we returned to our routine and switched on the evening news.
The lead story was “A Northwest Airliner Exploded Over Lake Michigan Today Killing All On Board.”
I fainted. Our daughter was a flight attendant for Northwest. Bob, after assisting me, called the airline. They wouldn’t give out any information at this time. Our next call was to the Providence Journal. After talking to a few people an editor said he would make inquiries. He did and called us back with the information that our daughter was not on that flight.
We found out later that she was scheduled for that flight but took sick and her roommate had taken her place. It was a sad day for our family and many others.
What about Mrs. Clarke’s message and its source? Was it just coincidence? I wonder? As I said, I have no logical explanation for this.
Caroline Marr
East Providence,R.I.
There are some things that just defy logical explanations. This is one of those things for me. I am a mother with a small boy at home. About once a month a Mr. Clarke would stop by, usually late morning, with a suitcase full of small household items for sale. Mr. Clarke, I never knew his first name and he always addressed me as Mrs.Marr. He was an older gentleman of retirement age who was trying to augment his income by going door-to-door selling whatever he could. I felt sorry for him and would always buy something, even if only a pair of shoe strings, so he wouldn’t leave without having sold something.
Mainly we would just chat about the weather or something in the news that week while my little boy played with blocks or some other toy on the living room floor. After several minutes of friendly conversation he would open his suitcase and point out some new item. I would listen to whatever he was promoting and politely say I didn’t think I needed that right now but what we really needed was a box of bandages. I would purchase the item and he was always most gracious as he packed his wares and left.
This went on for about a year and then one month passed and he hadn’t stopped by. Several months passed and no Mr. Clarke. There was a knock at the door one morning and I opened it to find a thin pleasant looking woman.
“Are you Mrs. Marr,” she asked? I nodded.
“I’m Mrs. Clarke, You were a customer of my husband. He passed on you know.”
“I’m sorry, I wondered what happened to him.”
“I’ve been talking with him and last night he gave me a message for you,” she said.
Before I could collect myself to say anything sensible she must have read the expression of bewilderment and shock on my face and went on talking.
“Oh yes. I talk with him frequently and last night he was very clear that I bring a message to you. He said, ‘tell Mrs. Marr there is going to be an explosion.’ That’s it, that’s all he said. I can’t tell you what it means, just what he said.”
She wouldn’t come in, apologized for upsetting me in any way and thanked me for being kind to her husband and she walked away. I was dumbfounded.
I thought of a hundred questions I wanted to ask her but she had gone. I didn’t know how to get in touch with her, or where she lived and I still didn’t know Mr. Clarke’s first name.
An explosion! What to do? My husband worked at an oil refinery and I impulsively called his office. As the call was going through I thought what on earth will I say to him, that a woman I’ve never met before told me her dead husband gave her a message last night to warn me that there was going to be an explosion…
“Hello.”
“Hi Dear, how are you?”
“I’m fine, what’s up?”
I couldn’t tell him at least not now over the phone while he was at work. I would tell him when he got home tonight, besides he would be asking me a ton of questions to which I had no answers. The rest of our conversation was strained and awkward especially on my end. I tried to determine what the rest of his day was like without tipping my hand. I was trying to ascertain that he was going to be right at his desk and not out by the fuel storage tanks or down on the docks where the tankers unloaded. I sensed he was getting curious about my new-found interest in his day. Then he asked the question I was dreading.
“ Tell me is there something on your mind that prompted this call?”
“Oh,” I laughed nervously, “Could you pick up a dozen eggs on your way home?”
When he came home with the eggs I came clean. I was relieved that he was home and we both had a laugh over our cat and mouse phone conversation. He didn’t know what to make of Mrs. Clarke’s message anymore than I did. So we returned to our routine and switched on the evening news.
The lead story was “A Northwest Airliner Exploded Over Lake Michigan Today Killing All On Board.”
I fainted. Our daughter was a flight attendant for Northwest. Bob, after assisting me, called the airline. They wouldn’t give out any information at this time. Our next call was to the Providence Journal. After talking to a few people an editor said he would make inquiries. He did and called us back with the information that our daughter was not on that flight.
We found out later that she was scheduled for that flight but took sick and her roommate had taken her place. It was a sad day for our family and many others.
What about Mrs. Clarke’s message and its source? Was it just coincidence? I wonder? As I said, I have no logical explanation for this.
Caroline Marr
East Providence,R.I.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Facing Your Mortality at age 45
(Week of June 14)
The disbelief- is this whole God thing a hoax? Is there really a heaven? When this cancer kills me, will I really be with God or is this just something we human make up to feel better?
Answer-forget the feelings, go with the FAITH, what you know about God, what His Word says, what He has done. He has been faithful in the little things and WILL be faithful in the big things.
God's work in my cancer
I remember singing in a small weak, trembling, teary voice, “my hope is based on nothing less then Jesus’ love and righteousness.” Then a chorus of angels sang with me; “On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
God knows about this cancer. He knew about it before I was born. He will use this for His glory and I will be ok, even when I die.
People’s reactions to my cancer varied. “Can I call a prayer meeting at your house and we will all pray for you?” (that was an awesome night)
"Though you slay me, yet I serve you," quoted a friend.
“Wow are you lucky! God must have something really important in mind for you in this trial. He is preparing you for a mighty work.”
“I wish I could take your place. If I could I would, "my mom said this.
I kept track of God’s provision, protection, mercy and lessons in my cancer. God sent me a friend that had chemo,and one who was in healthcare so was not afraid on my cancer and was nonchalant. There were prayer warriors, card senders and one who called every day to check up me and one who came on the darkest day I had and held me as a cried and when I was inconsolable, read scripture to me.
Friends brought me food, took me to chemo, even changed my kitty’s litter. One person asked me if she could see me without my hair and her love and concern was a source of comfort to me. (note: loosing my hair was devastating)
God kept providing and protecting me.
One night I was desperate, alone and scared. I called out to God the way He directs us to call Him in Psalm 50:15.( “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you…”) My fears and confusion were so overwhelming that all I could do was cry out to him like a child waking from a nightmare calls his parents. I cried out GO000D!
Shortly after this the phone rang. It was a dear sister in the Lord who was out of town but had been thinking of me all day. In the middle of a dinner party with friends, she could no longer resist God’s prompting in her heart, excused herself to call and check on me.
One night I was too sick to make something to eat or even know what I wanted to eat. I just told God ‘if you want me to eat you better bring it to my door or else I will just lie on this couch and not eat.’ Minutes later the phone rang. It was a friend and when she found out how I was feeling she said; “Its time for smoothies.” That night she introduced me to smoothies, which are a must for anyone on chemo.
A week after my first chemo I started teaching a small (church) group. They did not know me before my cancer. They only knew me on chemo and without hair. They ministered to me, prayed over me, laid hands on me, gave me self worth and loved me. We even had a night when we tried on hats together. They were the first to see me when my hair started to grow back.
I knew the cancer was in the lymph nodes even when the doctors did not think so at first.In the recovery room from my second surgery, the hospital chaplain asked me to pray for him. I spent the night in the hospital and the doctor brought all his students in several times. They referred to me as the ‘smiling patient.’
I felt the prayers of others that lifted me up especially when I was too sick and too tired to pray.
On the morning when I was going back to Moffit (Cancer Center) for my first follow-up,I asked God to send me a Christian woman who lived in Sarasota and who had suffered with breast cancer to guide and comfort me. On the way home, my friend who had taken me to Moffit told me she ran into an old friend of hers while she was waiting for me and that this friend had just finished her treatment and was coming back for a check up. (Prayer answered)
Scriptures God sent me to (rhema)
Matthew 26:39 -Three times in the Garden Jesus asked for the cup be taken from Him.
John 17- the last prayer Jesus prayed was for us that we reflect His love, that God protect us from Satan and that we know His love for us. He did not pray for good times and fun here on earth. He actually knew we would suffer because we follow him.
Isaiah 29:15- the pot can not ask the potter why he made the pot a certain way. I can’t ask God why I got cancer-He know everything and I must respect His knowledge despite circumstances or my opinion of them.
2 Corinthians 1:2-5 God will comfort us in our pain and we in turn will comfort those in pain with the comfort God has shown us. Ie use what I learned in my cancer to comfort those in need.
(What she learned:)
freedom from worry, well almost ha ha;
a better focus on what is important-less time working, more time serving, loving and living;
it is ok to be weak, to let others know you are hurting, well almost ha ha;
surrender, surrender, SURRENDER! We really don’t have any power anyway, except through Christ.”
Sheree Motola
Sarasota
(We received this e-mail in 2001. Sheree left this world in June 2006-ed)
The disbelief- is this whole God thing a hoax? Is there really a heaven? When this cancer kills me, will I really be with God or is this just something we human make up to feel better?
Answer-forget the feelings, go with the FAITH, what you know about God, what His Word says, what He has done. He has been faithful in the little things and WILL be faithful in the big things.
God's work in my cancer
I remember singing in a small weak, trembling, teary voice, “my hope is based on nothing less then Jesus’ love and righteousness.” Then a chorus of angels sang with me; “On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
God knows about this cancer. He knew about it before I was born. He will use this for His glory and I will be ok, even when I die.
People’s reactions to my cancer varied. “Can I call a prayer meeting at your house and we will all pray for you?” (that was an awesome night)
"Though you slay me, yet I serve you," quoted a friend.
“Wow are you lucky! God must have something really important in mind for you in this trial. He is preparing you for a mighty work.”
“I wish I could take your place. If I could I would, "my mom said this.
I kept track of God’s provision, protection, mercy and lessons in my cancer. God sent me a friend that had chemo,and one who was in healthcare so was not afraid on my cancer and was nonchalant. There were prayer warriors, card senders and one who called every day to check up me and one who came on the darkest day I had and held me as a cried and when I was inconsolable, read scripture to me.
Friends brought me food, took me to chemo, even changed my kitty’s litter. One person asked me if she could see me without my hair and her love and concern was a source of comfort to me. (note: loosing my hair was devastating)
God kept providing and protecting me.
One night I was desperate, alone and scared. I called out to God the way He directs us to call Him in Psalm 50:15.( “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you…”) My fears and confusion were so overwhelming that all I could do was cry out to him like a child waking from a nightmare calls his parents. I cried out GO000D!
Shortly after this the phone rang. It was a dear sister in the Lord who was out of town but had been thinking of me all day. In the middle of a dinner party with friends, she could no longer resist God’s prompting in her heart, excused herself to call and check on me.
One night I was too sick to make something to eat or even know what I wanted to eat. I just told God ‘if you want me to eat you better bring it to my door or else I will just lie on this couch and not eat.’ Minutes later the phone rang. It was a friend and when she found out how I was feeling she said; “Its time for smoothies.” That night she introduced me to smoothies, which are a must for anyone on chemo.
A week after my first chemo I started teaching a small (church) group. They did not know me before my cancer. They only knew me on chemo and without hair. They ministered to me, prayed over me, laid hands on me, gave me self worth and loved me. We even had a night when we tried on hats together. They were the first to see me when my hair started to grow back.
I knew the cancer was in the lymph nodes even when the doctors did not think so at first.In the recovery room from my second surgery, the hospital chaplain asked me to pray for him. I spent the night in the hospital and the doctor brought all his students in several times. They referred to me as the ‘smiling patient.’
I felt the prayers of others that lifted me up especially when I was too sick and too tired to pray.
On the morning when I was going back to Moffit (Cancer Center) for my first follow-up,I asked God to send me a Christian woman who lived in Sarasota and who had suffered with breast cancer to guide and comfort me. On the way home, my friend who had taken me to Moffit told me she ran into an old friend of hers while she was waiting for me and that this friend had just finished her treatment and was coming back for a check up. (Prayer answered)
Scriptures God sent me to (rhema)
Matthew 26:39 -Three times in the Garden Jesus asked for the cup be taken from Him.
John 17- the last prayer Jesus prayed was for us that we reflect His love, that God protect us from Satan and that we know His love for us. He did not pray for good times and fun here on earth. He actually knew we would suffer because we follow him.
Isaiah 29:15- the pot can not ask the potter why he made the pot a certain way. I can’t ask God why I got cancer-He know everything and I must respect His knowledge despite circumstances or my opinion of them.
2 Corinthians 1:2-5 God will comfort us in our pain and we in turn will comfort those in pain with the comfort God has shown us. Ie use what I learned in my cancer to comfort those in need.
(What she learned:)
freedom from worry, well almost ha ha;
a better focus on what is important-less time working, more time serving, loving and living;
it is ok to be weak, to let others know you are hurting, well almost ha ha;
surrender, surrender, SURRENDER! We really don’t have any power anyway, except through Christ.”
Sheree Motola
Sarasota
(We received this e-mail in 2001. Sheree left this world in June 2006-ed)
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Reflections of Grace
Week of June 7
One Woman’s Journey From Complacency to Conviction
“Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.” Proverbs 22:2
I have been a believer in Jesus since I was a little child. Now, as a maturing Christian, I have chosen to be in living relationship with Him. I have found there is a big difference between the two.
I would like to testify to a short but very intense awakening. These events and the reactions they aroused in me are real. They brought me to my knees in tears of repentance. My soul fought battles between submission to the Light and my own dark desire to be the director of my life. Through it all I have learned a little more about God’s love for His wayward children.
Let me begin...
In late April, 1999, I took a one-week business trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was attending a company-sponsored technical fair in which I would demonstrate our team’s newest Internet initiative. The fair was a huge success. We generated a lot of interest and our product was favorably received. After the fair, the vice president on our team offered to take us all out for a dinner. While some of the folks left to drop their PCs in their rooms the rest of us waited outside.
The weather that evening was perfect. The sun had set about an hour earlier, This is the picture I would like you to see through my words. Envision a group of white, upper-middle-class men and women standing on a Minneapolis sidewalk laughing and talking. Suddenly a stranger walks into their midst. He is a poor man—a poor, disabled black man—and he is drunk. Not mean or sloppily drunk, but happily so.
Immediately the mood of our group changes, but the man does not seem to notice. He comments on the beauty of the night and begins a plea for money to take his children to a movie. Someone in the group rejected his request while the rest of us shifted uneasily. Throughout this I was feeling very uncomfortable because I knew I should have been standing separate from my peers by respecting this person’s humanity. I knew what I should be doing, but I didn’t do it because I was afraid that my “friends” would reject me,that they would think me odd.
The man accepted the rebuff with good grace, and then he did something extraordinary. He asked if he could pray for us. Someone in the group said
they did not want a prayer, but he stood in our circle, bowed his head and prayed anyway. He asked God to watch over us and our families. He called us beautiful, although I felt anything but beautiful by then. He closed his prayer with a joyful amen, which I echoed quietly and then our eyes caught and held for just a moment before he turned and made his way up the hill along the well-lit path. As for me and my group, we turned off the path onto a darkened side street, making our way to the restaurant for a well-earned dinner.
The next morning I woke up feeling ill physically, emotionally and spiritually. Sometime during the night, I had been convicted of my own careless disregard for one of God’s beloved children. I spent that morning alone in my room, on my knees before God in tears of repentance. I remember feeling completely alone, so far away from the people who knew me and loved me.
As I sobbed in my misery, I “heard” the gentle voice of the Shepherd. “I am here.” Peace flooded through me, and the sobs became gentle, cleansing tears as I knelt by the bed and allowed myself to finally understand God’s grace.
I had sinned. I am the person who meets God unable to say that I had fed Him when He was hungry and clothed Him when He was naked. Despite this I am loved, forgiven and still oh-so-valuable to the Creator. This is grace.
Two weeks later my husband and I traveled to London for our delayed (by 16 years) honeymoon. Sometime toward the middle of the week, I had an incredible urge for spaghetti and sauce. Finding southern Italian cooking in London is a bit of a challenge, but I had my mind set, so my husband and I began searching for my definition of an Italian restaurant.
We had been searching for over an hour, and it was after eight in the evening as we entered the Underground to catch a train. I was tired, hungry, frustrated and feeling very sorry for myself when I turned a corner and stopped in my tracks. Directly across from me a homeless young man was settling in for the night. He was dirty, skinny and sick. He slid his back down against the wall of the station and pulled a filthy, tattered blanket up to his chin. He had a dog, as dirty and underfed as he was, that gently climbed into his lap for the night.
I stood there in silence with the people of London rushing all around me. It seemed I could see Jesus with His arms outstretched in the shadows behind the pair. The story of The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) came to my mind. I am the rich man. I have never known a moment of real need or total abandonment in my life, I have always been loved, yet I was upset because I couldn’t find a restaurant that served red tomato sauce. Tears came into my eyes and my heart was humbled once again. Grace.
Back in Connecticut three weeks later, I was asked to travel to New York City to do a presentation. I decided to incorporate a walk to the train station into my lunch hour. It was my habit to pray daily at the Church of St. Patrick/ St. Anthony, so I decided to do that at noon, also.
As I stepped out of the train station, I could see that there was a poor woman begging on the corner and that I would have to walk past her. I was immediately enveloped in a terrible and stubborn frame of mind and I decided before I even stepped off the train station steps that I was not going to help her. I put my head down and watched my own feet, determined not to see her. She saw me, though, and I heard her call after me, “Please, Miss.” Five times she called and with each cry for help I became more determined not to hear her.
Halfway up the street I stopped. There was a war between good and evil going on inside me. “Go back,” whispered Love. “No!” shouted fear. I started walking again.
Three quarters of the way and I stopped again. “You know you need to go back and help her.” Love’s voice was soft but impossible to ignore.
I turned and started back toward the woman. “Stop!” shouted fear stridently, “You don’t need to do this. She’ll want something from you. Who knows where it will lead!” Fear gripped me and I turned away once more.
I made my way to the corner and stopped to hear Love’s last plea. “Melina, you know you need to go back. You cannot ignore this. You chose to listen to fear in Minnesota and it made you sick. Will you choose fear over Love again?”
I knew what I had to do—I had known it all along. My fear was really my ego, which never wants to submit to God and His will for me. I turned and walked back down the street. She was still on the corner, but her back was to me and I could have left
unnoticed. Instead I asked, “What is it?”
She turned with a questioning look on her face, “What?” she asked.
“What is it?” I repeated. “You called me and I ignored you, but I came back.
“I’m hungry,” she answered, “and I have no money. Could you give me some money for lunch?” I looked at her closely. She was young, maybe 21 or 22 and her face was scarred by what looked like a knife wound.
I handed her a five-dollar bill as I said, “God bless you.” At those words she looked up at me for the first time. “Will you pray for me?” she asked.
“Yes, I am going to the church to pray now. What’s your name?”
“Denise. My name is Denise. Thank you,” she replied, and we parted ways.
I walked to the church with a million questions running through my head and tears running down my face. I walked into the hushed body of the church and knelt in a pew. I prayed for Denise and then I directed my questions to God, “What is it? What do you want of me?” No answer, just the muted sounds of the street. I knelt in silence for some time and left with no answers, but my heart was quiet.
I did go and get lunch and as I was returning to the Gold Building I was holding a conversation with God in my head.
“Lord, I need a mentor, someone who can tell me what I should do.”
The quiet voice of the Shepherd answered me: “I’ll be your Teacher.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I want someone I can look at and touch.”
“Your heart knows Me and I touch you there,” came the gentle response.
“Yes, I know, thank You.” I smiled as I walked, knowing that I had heard the Truth.
Suddenly a young woman holding a child by the hand approached me. She stopped right in front of me, said “God bless you and your family,” handed me a slip of paper and walked away. I looked down at the paper—it was a religious tract. At the top in large bold letters it read, “Jesus loves you!” Grace.
Melina Rudman
Rocky Hill, Connecticut
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Ct.
One Woman’s Journey From Complacency to Conviction
“Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.” Proverbs 22:2
I have been a believer in Jesus since I was a little child. Now, as a maturing Christian, I have chosen to be in living relationship with Him. I have found there is a big difference between the two.
I would like to testify to a short but very intense awakening. These events and the reactions they aroused in me are real. They brought me to my knees in tears of repentance. My soul fought battles between submission to the Light and my own dark desire to be the director of my life. Through it all I have learned a little more about God’s love for His wayward children.
Let me begin...
In late April, 1999, I took a one-week business trip to Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was attending a company-sponsored technical fair in which I would demonstrate our team’s newest Internet initiative. The fair was a huge success. We generated a lot of interest and our product was favorably received. After the fair, the vice president on our team offered to take us all out for a dinner. While some of the folks left to drop their PCs in their rooms the rest of us waited outside.
The weather that evening was perfect. The sun had set about an hour earlier, This is the picture I would like you to see through my words. Envision a group of white, upper-middle-class men and women standing on a Minneapolis sidewalk laughing and talking. Suddenly a stranger walks into their midst. He is a poor man—a poor, disabled black man—and he is drunk. Not mean or sloppily drunk, but happily so.
Immediately the mood of our group changes, but the man does not seem to notice. He comments on the beauty of the night and begins a plea for money to take his children to a movie. Someone in the group rejected his request while the rest of us shifted uneasily. Throughout this I was feeling very uncomfortable because I knew I should have been standing separate from my peers by respecting this person’s humanity. I knew what I should be doing, but I didn’t do it because I was afraid that my “friends” would reject me,that they would think me odd.
The man accepted the rebuff with good grace, and then he did something extraordinary. He asked if he could pray for us. Someone in the group said
they did not want a prayer, but he stood in our circle, bowed his head and prayed anyway. He asked God to watch over us and our families. He called us beautiful, although I felt anything but beautiful by then. He closed his prayer with a joyful amen, which I echoed quietly and then our eyes caught and held for just a moment before he turned and made his way up the hill along the well-lit path. As for me and my group, we turned off the path onto a darkened side street, making our way to the restaurant for a well-earned dinner.
The next morning I woke up feeling ill physically, emotionally and spiritually. Sometime during the night, I had been convicted of my own careless disregard for one of God’s beloved children. I spent that morning alone in my room, on my knees before God in tears of repentance. I remember feeling completely alone, so far away from the people who knew me and loved me.
As I sobbed in my misery, I “heard” the gentle voice of the Shepherd. “I am here.” Peace flooded through me, and the sobs became gentle, cleansing tears as I knelt by the bed and allowed myself to finally understand God’s grace.
I had sinned. I am the person who meets God unable to say that I had fed Him when He was hungry and clothed Him when He was naked. Despite this I am loved, forgiven and still oh-so-valuable to the Creator. This is grace.
Two weeks later my husband and I traveled to London for our delayed (by 16 years) honeymoon. Sometime toward the middle of the week, I had an incredible urge for spaghetti and sauce. Finding southern Italian cooking in London is a bit of a challenge, but I had my mind set, so my husband and I began searching for my definition of an Italian restaurant.
We had been searching for over an hour, and it was after eight in the evening as we entered the Underground to catch a train. I was tired, hungry, frustrated and feeling very sorry for myself when I turned a corner and stopped in my tracks. Directly across from me a homeless young man was settling in for the night. He was dirty, skinny and sick. He slid his back down against the wall of the station and pulled a filthy, tattered blanket up to his chin. He had a dog, as dirty and underfed as he was, that gently climbed into his lap for the night.
I stood there in silence with the people of London rushing all around me. It seemed I could see Jesus with His arms outstretched in the shadows behind the pair. The story of The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) came to my mind. I am the rich man. I have never known a moment of real need or total abandonment in my life, I have always been loved, yet I was upset because I couldn’t find a restaurant that served red tomato sauce. Tears came into my eyes and my heart was humbled once again. Grace.
Back in Connecticut three weeks later, I was asked to travel to New York City to do a presentation. I decided to incorporate a walk to the train station into my lunch hour. It was my habit to pray daily at the Church of St. Patrick/ St. Anthony, so I decided to do that at noon, also.
As I stepped out of the train station, I could see that there was a poor woman begging on the corner and that I would have to walk past her. I was immediately enveloped in a terrible and stubborn frame of mind and I decided before I even stepped off the train station steps that I was not going to help her. I put my head down and watched my own feet, determined not to see her. She saw me, though, and I heard her call after me, “Please, Miss.” Five times she called and with each cry for help I became more determined not to hear her.
Halfway up the street I stopped. There was a war between good and evil going on inside me. “Go back,” whispered Love. “No!” shouted fear. I started walking again.
Three quarters of the way and I stopped again. “You know you need to go back and help her.” Love’s voice was soft but impossible to ignore.
I turned and started back toward the woman. “Stop!” shouted fear stridently, “You don’t need to do this. She’ll want something from you. Who knows where it will lead!” Fear gripped me and I turned away once more.
I made my way to the corner and stopped to hear Love’s last plea. “Melina, you know you need to go back. You cannot ignore this. You chose to listen to fear in Minnesota and it made you sick. Will you choose fear over Love again?”
I knew what I had to do—I had known it all along. My fear was really my ego, which never wants to submit to God and His will for me. I turned and walked back down the street. She was still on the corner, but her back was to me and I could have left
unnoticed. Instead I asked, “What is it?”
She turned with a questioning look on her face, “What?” she asked.
“What is it?” I repeated. “You called me and I ignored you, but I came back.
“I’m hungry,” she answered, “and I have no money. Could you give me some money for lunch?” I looked at her closely. She was young, maybe 21 or 22 and her face was scarred by what looked like a knife wound.
I handed her a five-dollar bill as I said, “God bless you.” At those words she looked up at me for the first time. “Will you pray for me?” she asked.
“Yes, I am going to the church to pray now. What’s your name?”
“Denise. My name is Denise. Thank you,” she replied, and we parted ways.
I walked to the church with a million questions running through my head and tears running down my face. I walked into the hushed body of the church and knelt in a pew. I prayed for Denise and then I directed my questions to God, “What is it? What do you want of me?” No answer, just the muted sounds of the street. I knelt in silence for some time and left with no answers, but my heart was quiet.
I did go and get lunch and as I was returning to the Gold Building I was holding a conversation with God in my head.
“Lord, I need a mentor, someone who can tell me what I should do.”
The quiet voice of the Shepherd answered me: “I’ll be your Teacher.”
“I know,” I replied. “But I want someone I can look at and touch.”
“Your heart knows Me and I touch you there,” came the gentle response.
“Yes, I know, thank You.” I smiled as I walked, knowing that I had heard the Truth.
Suddenly a young woman holding a child by the hand approached me. She stopped right in front of me, said “God bless you and your family,” handed me a slip of paper and walked away. I looked down at the paper—it was a religious tract. At the top in large bold letters it read, “Jesus loves you!” Grace.
Melina Rudman
Rocky Hill, Connecticut
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Ct.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wherever You Are, God is There
Week of May 31
“Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, and serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.” Romans 12:11-12
Often I felt troubled by what was going on with my life, my husband’s situation, our daughter’s uncertainty and our parents’ care needs. I wondered what it was all about and whether I would ever have any calm or control in my life. It seemed that as soon as one situation got better another obligation became more onerous.
I began to pray that God would show us what to do and make our way clear. Often, late at night, I affirmed: God is my help in every need. God does my every hunger feed.
I reminded myself what the Prophet wrote:
“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11).
Then suddenly, in one day, the way became crystal clear in a matter of hours. At 11:00 a.m., Gary called with the wonderful news that he had been offered a job he had applied for many months before in Florida!
As I was wondering how and when to tell my employer and friends the news, I was called to an unscheduled meeting and was promptly laid off, but with severance pay. My head still spinning, I called my daughter, in her senior year in college, to tell her the news. She had informed us several months earlier that she would not be looking for a job near us after graduation. When I told her the news she said, “I am coming with you!”
Within the next few weeks the following occurred:
•I was able to rent an apartment that allowed dogs, was convenient, and had major appliances—from the first phone number picked from the newspaper.
•Our house sold in a matter of weeks.
•We found a new house in Florida in the first week.
While there are still more changes to come, we don’t doubt that all things work together for good, in God’s time, and often situations that to normal human understanding are negative clear the way for good. Because of how these events unfolded, we feel confident that we are where we are supposed to be, and that none of these things came about “by coincidence.” The presence of God watches over us wherever we are, and His timing is awesome.
Janet Clinton
Miami, Florida
“Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, and serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.” Romans 12:11-12
Often I felt troubled by what was going on with my life, my husband’s situation, our daughter’s uncertainty and our parents’ care needs. I wondered what it was all about and whether I would ever have any calm or control in my life. It seemed that as soon as one situation got better another obligation became more onerous.
I began to pray that God would show us what to do and make our way clear. Often, late at night, I affirmed: God is my help in every need. God does my every hunger feed.
I reminded myself what the Prophet wrote:
“For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (Jeremiah 29:11).
Then suddenly, in one day, the way became crystal clear in a matter of hours. At 11:00 a.m., Gary called with the wonderful news that he had been offered a job he had applied for many months before in Florida!
As I was wondering how and when to tell my employer and friends the news, I was called to an unscheduled meeting and was promptly laid off, but with severance pay. My head still spinning, I called my daughter, in her senior year in college, to tell her the news. She had informed us several months earlier that she would not be looking for a job near us after graduation. When I told her the news she said, “I am coming with you!”
Within the next few weeks the following occurred:
•I was able to rent an apartment that allowed dogs, was convenient, and had major appliances—from the first phone number picked from the newspaper.
•Our house sold in a matter of weeks.
•We found a new house in Florida in the first week.
While there are still more changes to come, we don’t doubt that all things work together for good, in God’s time, and often situations that to normal human understanding are negative clear the way for good. Because of how these events unfolded, we feel confident that we are where we are supposed to be, and that none of these things came about “by coincidence.” The presence of God watches over us wherever we are, and His timing is awesome.
Janet Clinton
Miami, Florida
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Jenelle's Experience
Week of May 24
The economy was collapsing, I had lost my job and my previous employer was laying people off. I applied for a job with the Census Bureau.
In the spring I was trained and sent out as a pre-census canvasser. I was working a familiar neighborhood when a former acquaintance came out to say hello. She walked with me as I made my way around the block always canvassing to the right.
She told me she had lost her husband in November and felt lonely and lost. Its hard for her to get around and she has to take the bus to get anywhere. She didn’t have a car and she doesn’t drive.
I said why didn’t you call me and she said she didn’t want to bother people.
“Don’t feel bad asking for help, I told Lois,"that’s why God put us on earth to help one another. He would have stopped at one if he didn’t mean for us to take care of each other. Besides, when you ask someone for help you are actually doing them a favor because it makes them feel needed and wanted. It gives them a purpose.”
We continued walking around the block and then she went her way and I went mine. I didn’t think much of it.I had given her my number and figured I was on her call list.
The next day I was canvassing across the street. I parked in a driveway of a house I new to be empty and proceeded to walk the block.
Someone drives up in a van with Lois in it. She flagged me down and said she was on her way to the emergency room, she said she had chest pains. The man driving the van was with Jehovah Witness who said “he felt the need” to stop by her house that day. He didn’t know why he just knew he had to drop by.
He walked in the door and took one look at her and asked what’s wrong. He had driven her to a walk in clinic and the people there said to take her to the emergency room. He said he had other engagements and couldn’t stay with her, could I?
I said I would finish this block and meet them in the ER.
When I arrived she was sitting there alone, feeling anxious with pains both in the chest and back. I became her hand-holder. We chatted and I learned her family lived mostly in Minnesota. I said once she was admitted I would call them and let them know her situation. She called a neighbor, who was like an adopted daughter, and asked if she would come down.
The doctors came by and said her EKG and other tests were normal and they felt it wasn’t a heart attack and that made her feel better. When her neighbor arrived she seemed agitated and more upset than the situation called for and I didn’t understand why. By this time it was nearly 7 P.M. and Lois was getting hungry so I left her with her neighbor and went out to get some food.
I brought her some chicken soup and a turkey sandwich which seemed to hit the spot. When they finally found her a bed the neighbor and I accompanied her to her room.
Later when the medical staff came in for another test the neighbor and I waited out in the hall. I was the first time we were together without Lois.
It was then that the neighbor told me Lois’s adult son passed away in Minnesota that afternoon. It was out of the blue. He had had a ski mobile accident months before and had been in rehab and seemed to be healing. Apparently a blood clot broke loose from somewhere and lodged in his heart.
Her neighbor was distraught. How could she tell Lois under the circumstances. She shared the mews with the medical staff who suggested waiting until the next day when all the tests would be back.
When I returned home that evening I found a card in the mail from my sister. The card had a picture of a steaming cup of coffee and it read: “Good morning this is God. I will be handling all your problems today, I will not need your help…so have a good day. Love God.”
I took Lois this card and some flowers the next morning. She hadn’t been told yet. Later on, when all her tests came back ok ,the doctor told her about her son.
I believe God wanted her to be somewhere safe before she received the news. He even had me deliver her a card.
How else do you explain my reconnecting with Lois when I did, The Jehovah Witness
man being urged to call on Lois,the mysterious pains that coincited with the son's death miles away, and the card with those uncanny words "from God."
God did take care of Lois that day and has since. As I share this Lois is visiting her family in Minnessota and when she returns I will pick her up at the airport.
Jenelle Pullin
Venice, Florida
The economy was collapsing, I had lost my job and my previous employer was laying people off. I applied for a job with the Census Bureau.
In the spring I was trained and sent out as a pre-census canvasser. I was working a familiar neighborhood when a former acquaintance came out to say hello. She walked with me as I made my way around the block always canvassing to the right.
She told me she had lost her husband in November and felt lonely and lost. Its hard for her to get around and she has to take the bus to get anywhere. She didn’t have a car and she doesn’t drive.
I said why didn’t you call me and she said she didn’t want to bother people.
“Don’t feel bad asking for help, I told Lois,"that’s why God put us on earth to help one another. He would have stopped at one if he didn’t mean for us to take care of each other. Besides, when you ask someone for help you are actually doing them a favor because it makes them feel needed and wanted. It gives them a purpose.”
We continued walking around the block and then she went her way and I went mine. I didn’t think much of it.I had given her my number and figured I was on her call list.
The next day I was canvassing across the street. I parked in a driveway of a house I new to be empty and proceeded to walk the block.
Someone drives up in a van with Lois in it. She flagged me down and said she was on her way to the emergency room, she said she had chest pains. The man driving the van was with Jehovah Witness who said “he felt the need” to stop by her house that day. He didn’t know why he just knew he had to drop by.
He walked in the door and took one look at her and asked what’s wrong. He had driven her to a walk in clinic and the people there said to take her to the emergency room. He said he had other engagements and couldn’t stay with her, could I?
I said I would finish this block and meet them in the ER.
When I arrived she was sitting there alone, feeling anxious with pains both in the chest and back. I became her hand-holder. We chatted and I learned her family lived mostly in Minnesota. I said once she was admitted I would call them and let them know her situation. She called a neighbor, who was like an adopted daughter, and asked if she would come down.
The doctors came by and said her EKG and other tests were normal and they felt it wasn’t a heart attack and that made her feel better. When her neighbor arrived she seemed agitated and more upset than the situation called for and I didn’t understand why. By this time it was nearly 7 P.M. and Lois was getting hungry so I left her with her neighbor and went out to get some food.
I brought her some chicken soup and a turkey sandwich which seemed to hit the spot. When they finally found her a bed the neighbor and I accompanied her to her room.
Later when the medical staff came in for another test the neighbor and I waited out in the hall. I was the first time we were together without Lois.
It was then that the neighbor told me Lois’s adult son passed away in Minnesota that afternoon. It was out of the blue. He had had a ski mobile accident months before and had been in rehab and seemed to be healing. Apparently a blood clot broke loose from somewhere and lodged in his heart.
Her neighbor was distraught. How could she tell Lois under the circumstances. She shared the mews with the medical staff who suggested waiting until the next day when all the tests would be back.
When I returned home that evening I found a card in the mail from my sister. The card had a picture of a steaming cup of coffee and it read: “Good morning this is God. I will be handling all your problems today, I will not need your help…so have a good day. Love God.”
I took Lois this card and some flowers the next morning. She hadn’t been told yet. Later on, when all her tests came back ok ,the doctor told her about her son.
I believe God wanted her to be somewhere safe before she received the news. He even had me deliver her a card.
How else do you explain my reconnecting with Lois when I did, The Jehovah Witness
man being urged to call on Lois,the mysterious pains that coincited with the son's death miles away, and the card with those uncanny words "from God."
God did take care of Lois that day and has since. As I share this Lois is visiting her family in Minnessota and when she returns I will pick her up at the airport.
Jenelle Pullin
Venice, Florida
Sunday, May 10, 2009
The Missing Book
Week of May 10
My friend Janae is seeing her daughter off to school when she does a foolish thing. She places a small book on the bumper of her Suv while she helps her daughter Sidney into a friend’s vehicle who is the designated driver for the car pool this day. Janae tells herself she will remember to retrieve the book before driving off. Of course she forgets.
It isn’t until Janae returns home that she remembers the little book. Naturally it is no longer on the bumper. This book had been her companion since she received it as a gift a week earlier. She drives back over the route she had traveled that morning but there is no evidence of the little book.
At noon I am at my hairdresser’s. While Lisa is doing my hair she tells me that her husband Joe came by her shop earlier and dropped off a book he had found in the middle of Bahia Vista Road. When he saw te book he pulled over but before he could get to it, two cars ran over it.”
The battered book is a copy of Joyce Meyers, "The Secret Power of Speaking God’s Word."
“Joe really got into the book,” Lisa said, “particularly the chapter on anger. He has been angry with God all these years since the accident so it was good for him to read about that. Then he noticed the handwriting inside the front cover, ‘To Janae from Wendy,’ and brought the book here.
You are a Christian woman Deb do you know a woman named Janae?”
“I know a Wendy and a Janae. They both go to my church.”
I called Wendy on her cell phone and yes she had given a copy of the book to Janae. Wendy called Janae who then called us at the shop to confirm that she had lost the book while driving that morning.
Lisa gave me the book to return to Janae. On my way I stopped by The Living Word book store and purchased a new copy of Meyer’s book.
Janae inscribed the new copy, thanking Joe for finding and returning hers. I added, “Joe: I know God wanted you to have this book.”
Deborah Smith
Sarasota, Florida.
My friend Janae is seeing her daughter off to school when she does a foolish thing. She places a small book on the bumper of her Suv while she helps her daughter Sidney into a friend’s vehicle who is the designated driver for the car pool this day. Janae tells herself she will remember to retrieve the book before driving off. Of course she forgets.
It isn’t until Janae returns home that she remembers the little book. Naturally it is no longer on the bumper. This book had been her companion since she received it as a gift a week earlier. She drives back over the route she had traveled that morning but there is no evidence of the little book.
At noon I am at my hairdresser’s. While Lisa is doing my hair she tells me that her husband Joe came by her shop earlier and dropped off a book he had found in the middle of Bahia Vista Road. When he saw te book he pulled over but before he could get to it, two cars ran over it.”
The battered book is a copy of Joyce Meyers, "The Secret Power of Speaking God’s Word."
“Joe really got into the book,” Lisa said, “particularly the chapter on anger. He has been angry with God all these years since the accident so it was good for him to read about that. Then he noticed the handwriting inside the front cover, ‘To Janae from Wendy,’ and brought the book here.
You are a Christian woman Deb do you know a woman named Janae?”
“I know a Wendy and a Janae. They both go to my church.”
I called Wendy on her cell phone and yes she had given a copy of the book to Janae. Wendy called Janae who then called us at the shop to confirm that she had lost the book while driving that morning.
Lisa gave me the book to return to Janae. On my way I stopped by The Living Word book store and purchased a new copy of Meyer’s book.
Janae inscribed the new copy, thanking Joe for finding and returning hers. I added, “Joe: I know God wanted you to have this book.”
Deborah Smith
Sarasota, Florida.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
God Calls Debbie
Week of May 3
I love my God. The God who sent Jesus Christ, My Lord and Savior, HE is my everything. So when people would share how God clearly spoke to them and they were going to do something out of clearly hearing God’s word, I would become puzzled and often wonder, “Why isn’t God talking to me?”
Well, one fall a thought came to mind. It was that I should maybe consider moving back to St. Louis. (I had been in Florida for 5 years.) When I left St. Louis I had experienced a very painful divorce and a lot of heartache so I never felt it was a place I would return to live. But the idea of moving back continued to come up in my quiet time and I did not understand.
Pastor Brian’s sermons were jumping out at me. He talked about quiet time, taking time to really spend with God in prayer and adoration. Let me tell you, it is awesome what we can hear from our Lord when we are quiet and consistently seek his word and desire for us.
Two months into this, I was going back home to St. Louis for Christmas. I was clearly hearing from God that He wanted me to return permanently, but I had never experienced this before, so I was wanting to make sure I was getting it right.
Mary is a dear friend, a woman who truly walks and talks with our God. What Faith she has. She sent me to Florida with much love and blessings and over the past five years never once asked, “When are you coming home?” So I prayed to God to please somehow reveal to me through Mary that this is what He wanted me to do.
Six of us ladies, friends for almost 30 years, meet for lunch while I am in St. Louis. As we are leaving, my friend Mary pulls me aside and says, “Debbie, God has really put you on my heart for the past several months. I think it is time you came home.” ( I began to tremble inside because I knew God was letting me know His desire for me.)
I jokingly said to her, “One problem, I need a job”. Then she proceeded to tell me another “God Thing”. Two days earlier a friend of hers, whom she had not talked to in months, just showed up at her door. Mary claims this Nurse Recruiter friend has never done such a thing before. She would normally call and ask to come by and visit. She told Mary she did not know why God led her to the house that morning, but just felt a strong need to visit her friend. During the conversation, she told Mary she was in need of a Nurse Case Manager and did she know of anyone. Oddly enough, Mary tells her that we are having lunch in two days and she would discuss it with me.
Mary then tells me to fax my resume to Karen and let God do the rest. I share with her what I had been praying for and how she revealed to me this is what God desires for me and I want and must be obedient. We both began to cry and thank God for his goodness.
I returned, put my condo up for sale and had a telephone interview from Florida for a Nurse Case Manager position the very next week. I have clearly heard God’s word to me and as frightening as a move, new job, etc. seems, I am excited and must be obedient. I don’t know what God has in store for me in St. Louis, but what ever it is, I will be able to get through it because I love my Lord and He is always with me. He is my Rock and my strength and is ever present.
I encourage you to spend quiet time with the Lord. Pray, read scripture and then, most importantly, be still, “listen, and know that I am God.” We MUST listen to God and be obedient to his will in our life.
Debbie Houston
St. Louis, Missouri
(Debbie received the position, found a nice house and is happily living in the St. Louis area.-Ed)
I love my God. The God who sent Jesus Christ, My Lord and Savior, HE is my everything. So when people would share how God clearly spoke to them and they were going to do something out of clearly hearing God’s word, I would become puzzled and often wonder, “Why isn’t God talking to me?”
Well, one fall a thought came to mind. It was that I should maybe consider moving back to St. Louis. (I had been in Florida for 5 years.) When I left St. Louis I had experienced a very painful divorce and a lot of heartache so I never felt it was a place I would return to live. But the idea of moving back continued to come up in my quiet time and I did not understand.
Pastor Brian’s sermons were jumping out at me. He talked about quiet time, taking time to really spend with God in prayer and adoration. Let me tell you, it is awesome what we can hear from our Lord when we are quiet and consistently seek his word and desire for us.
Two months into this, I was going back home to St. Louis for Christmas. I was clearly hearing from God that He wanted me to return permanently, but I had never experienced this before, so I was wanting to make sure I was getting it right.
Mary is a dear friend, a woman who truly walks and talks with our God. What Faith she has. She sent me to Florida with much love and blessings and over the past five years never once asked, “When are you coming home?” So I prayed to God to please somehow reveal to me through Mary that this is what He wanted me to do.
Six of us ladies, friends for almost 30 years, meet for lunch while I am in St. Louis. As we are leaving, my friend Mary pulls me aside and says, “Debbie, God has really put you on my heart for the past several months. I think it is time you came home.” ( I began to tremble inside because I knew God was letting me know His desire for me.)
I jokingly said to her, “One problem, I need a job”. Then she proceeded to tell me another “God Thing”. Two days earlier a friend of hers, whom she had not talked to in months, just showed up at her door. Mary claims this Nurse Recruiter friend has never done such a thing before. She would normally call and ask to come by and visit. She told Mary she did not know why God led her to the house that morning, but just felt a strong need to visit her friend. During the conversation, she told Mary she was in need of a Nurse Case Manager and did she know of anyone. Oddly enough, Mary tells her that we are having lunch in two days and she would discuss it with me.
Mary then tells me to fax my resume to Karen and let God do the rest. I share with her what I had been praying for and how she revealed to me this is what God desires for me and I want and must be obedient. We both began to cry and thank God for his goodness.
I returned, put my condo up for sale and had a telephone interview from Florida for a Nurse Case Manager position the very next week. I have clearly heard God’s word to me and as frightening as a move, new job, etc. seems, I am excited and must be obedient. I don’t know what God has in store for me in St. Louis, but what ever it is, I will be able to get through it because I love my Lord and He is always with me. He is my Rock and my strength and is ever present.
I encourage you to spend quiet time with the Lord. Pray, read scripture and then, most importantly, be still, “listen, and know that I am God.” We MUST listen to God and be obedient to his will in our life.
Debbie Houston
St. Louis, Missouri
(Debbie received the position, found a nice house and is happily living in the St. Louis area.-Ed)
Saturday, April 25, 2009
God's Healing Touch
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6.
Saturday, September 2nd, was a gorgeous, end-of-summer day. Marla and the four boys spent the day at Uncle Rich’s house in Monson, Massachusetts, as Chip flew back from an out-of-state conference.
Jared, age 31/2, was walking at the top of a six-foot retaining wall next to the driveway when he slipped in some sand and fell to the pavement below, landing on his forehead. Uncle Rich heard the impact and ran over as Jared stood up bawling and clutching a big scrape on his forehead.
Rich brought Jared inside to Marla and laid him on the couch. She said, “Jared, open your eyes.” He did—and one eye looked at her, while the other was angled strangely away toward the ground. Fearing a serious head injury, 9-1-1 was called.
Jared continued to cry, and Marla, Rich and the boys gathered around him and began to pray. Marla laid her hand on Jared’s head as she prayed specifically for healing.
Ben and Brian did their best to help by announcing each emergency vehicle as it arrived. Chris was very upset and crying, first staying near Jared, then hiding in the house as rescuers arrived. Police officers arrived, then Monson Fire Department EMTs came on the scene and quickly immobilized Jared on a backboard. As they were strapping him in, Jared suddenly cried out “Ow, it’s burning!” and grabbed at his forehead. After this he was more calm and subdued.
Marla rode with him in the ambulance on the 25-minute trip to Bay state Medical Center in Springfield, while Rich followed with the boys in the van. On the way, Jared became less and less responsive and then fell asleep. Was he exhausted from crying and missing his nap? Or was this a sign of brain swelling? Concerned about this change, the EMTs tried to keep Jared awake and called for a paramedic unit to meet them on the way to the hospital.
Jared’s left eye was now totally swollen shut, bulging from the bleeding behind the eyelid, and scowling a dark, angry purple.
A paramedic unit from Ludlow Fire Department met up with the ambulance, and the medic started an IV, hooked up a heart monitor, and gave other advanced life-support care. Knowing that everything was being done that could be done, Marla was able to let her tears flow. As a pediatric nurse, she had cared for many children with head trauma and was well aware of the potential for a devastating outcome.
At the ER Jared was scanned, X-rayed, poked and prodded. His brothers got to see Jared, and had their many questions answered by the excellent Child Life staff person. Chris was afraid Jared would be operated on and was very relieved to find no surgery was needed. Jared was diagnosed with a non-displaced skull fracture over the left eye, extending into the eye socket.
Thankfully the doctors could detect no bleeding in the brain. He was admitted for observation and, after finding a bed on the pediatric unit, he quickly fell into an exhausted sleep. Uncle Rich took the other three boys to his house overnight and left a message on Chip’s cell phone with details of the accident.
Chip landed at the airport at 10:30 p.m. and got the message off his cell phone. It was a quick trip up I-91 to Bay state, all the while making phone calls to
mobilize prayer support. Chip walked onto the pediatric floor to find Jared asleep, being cuddled by Marla.
Jared's left eye was bulging, black and blue, so swollen the lashes were out of sight. He had a three-inch circular abrasion on his forehead, scrapes on his face and left ear, and an IV slowly dripping into his arm. Marla slept in the bed with him, and he was being awakened hourly to check responsiveness. Interestingly, Jared never complained of pain.
We prayed over him. He awakened around 1:00 a.m. and spoke clearly with Marla about the entire incident. Marla felt her worries melting away, replaced with a peace and assurance that Jared would be okay.
By the next afternoon his spirits had improved. He got to play with toys and ride a tricycle around the pediatric unit. Uncle Rich brought the three other boys to visit, and Grandma and Grandpa drove up to see him. By late Sunday afternoon the pediophthalmologist pronounced him fit for discharge, and he was home for dinner.
The swelling should have taken about a week to disappear, but it was nearly gone in three days. His bruising could have taken two to three weeks to fully disappear, but it was gone in one week. We were amazed at his quick recovery.
We know that with God involved we should not have been surprised, but it was rather incredible to see the healing!
As a family, we all read “Curious George Goes to the Hospital” and Jared recognized many things from his experience—nurses, name bracelets, X-ray machines, the tricycles, and the IV. It was a good way for him to talk about his experience and compare what happened to him with what “George” went through. It was also good for the brothers to see what happened to George and learn that the same things had happened to Jared, lessoning the mystery of “behind closed doors.”
In follow-up exams, Jared was found to have no lasting injury of any kind. We thank God for many things! The fall could easily have injured Jared much more severely, but it didn’t. We had quick responses from competent professional caregivers up and down the chain. Modern medicine was able to quickly dispel fears about the severity of the head injury. Our family was supportive and involved throughout. Rich (who is a single guy) cared for Jared’s three brothers by himself for an extra day and made the key phone calls to Chip and family. We had prayer chains working overtime across the country. Pastor Jey and Joan Deifell personally checked on Jared’s progress about every four hours. God’s spirit worked mightily through the body.
In hindsight, we believe God healed Jared before he was put in the ambulance. Remember Jared saying “Ow, it’s burning?” There are many reports of spiritual healing associated with heat or a burning sensation. At the time, Jared’s cries seemed to be indicating further injury—but we believe God was healing Jared and then allowed him to fall into a restful sleep in the ambulance.
When we got to the hospital, his left eye was swollen shut, but when the doctor pried the lids apart to check it, both eyes were, miraculously, in perfect alignment. The doctor was baffled by this change from what Marla and the EMTs reported.
Despite his confirmed skull fracture, Jared didn’t complain of pain—but it all makes sense: God was there in power. We believe the relatively minor extent of Jared’s injuries and his fast and full recovery are due to guardian angels, God’s intervention, and answers to prayer. He is able! He hears and responds! He cares for us! Thank You, Jesus.
Chip and Marla Darius
Cromwell, Connecticut.
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Ct.
Saturday, September 2nd, was a gorgeous, end-of-summer day. Marla and the four boys spent the day at Uncle Rich’s house in Monson, Massachusetts, as Chip flew back from an out-of-state conference.
Jared, age 31/2, was walking at the top of a six-foot retaining wall next to the driveway when he slipped in some sand and fell to the pavement below, landing on his forehead. Uncle Rich heard the impact and ran over as Jared stood up bawling and clutching a big scrape on his forehead.
Rich brought Jared inside to Marla and laid him on the couch. She said, “Jared, open your eyes.” He did—and one eye looked at her, while the other was angled strangely away toward the ground. Fearing a serious head injury, 9-1-1 was called.
Jared continued to cry, and Marla, Rich and the boys gathered around him and began to pray. Marla laid her hand on Jared’s head as she prayed specifically for healing.
Ben and Brian did their best to help by announcing each emergency vehicle as it arrived. Chris was very upset and crying, first staying near Jared, then hiding in the house as rescuers arrived. Police officers arrived, then Monson Fire Department EMTs came on the scene and quickly immobilized Jared on a backboard. As they were strapping him in, Jared suddenly cried out “Ow, it’s burning!” and grabbed at his forehead. After this he was more calm and subdued.
Marla rode with him in the ambulance on the 25-minute trip to Bay state Medical Center in Springfield, while Rich followed with the boys in the van. On the way, Jared became less and less responsive and then fell asleep. Was he exhausted from crying and missing his nap? Or was this a sign of brain swelling? Concerned about this change, the EMTs tried to keep Jared awake and called for a paramedic unit to meet them on the way to the hospital.
Jared’s left eye was now totally swollen shut, bulging from the bleeding behind the eyelid, and scowling a dark, angry purple.
A paramedic unit from Ludlow Fire Department met up with the ambulance, and the medic started an IV, hooked up a heart monitor, and gave other advanced life-support care. Knowing that everything was being done that could be done, Marla was able to let her tears flow. As a pediatric nurse, she had cared for many children with head trauma and was well aware of the potential for a devastating outcome.
At the ER Jared was scanned, X-rayed, poked and prodded. His brothers got to see Jared, and had their many questions answered by the excellent Child Life staff person. Chris was afraid Jared would be operated on and was very relieved to find no surgery was needed. Jared was diagnosed with a non-displaced skull fracture over the left eye, extending into the eye socket.
Thankfully the doctors could detect no bleeding in the brain. He was admitted for observation and, after finding a bed on the pediatric unit, he quickly fell into an exhausted sleep. Uncle Rich took the other three boys to his house overnight and left a message on Chip’s cell phone with details of the accident.
Chip landed at the airport at 10:30 p.m. and got the message off his cell phone. It was a quick trip up I-91 to Bay state, all the while making phone calls to
mobilize prayer support. Chip walked onto the pediatric floor to find Jared asleep, being cuddled by Marla.
Jared's left eye was bulging, black and blue, so swollen the lashes were out of sight. He had a three-inch circular abrasion on his forehead, scrapes on his face and left ear, and an IV slowly dripping into his arm. Marla slept in the bed with him, and he was being awakened hourly to check responsiveness. Interestingly, Jared never complained of pain.
We prayed over him. He awakened around 1:00 a.m. and spoke clearly with Marla about the entire incident. Marla felt her worries melting away, replaced with a peace and assurance that Jared would be okay.
By the next afternoon his spirits had improved. He got to play with toys and ride a tricycle around the pediatric unit. Uncle Rich brought the three other boys to visit, and Grandma and Grandpa drove up to see him. By late Sunday afternoon the pediophthalmologist pronounced him fit for discharge, and he was home for dinner.
The swelling should have taken about a week to disappear, but it was nearly gone in three days. His bruising could have taken two to three weeks to fully disappear, but it was gone in one week. We were amazed at his quick recovery.
We know that with God involved we should not have been surprised, but it was rather incredible to see the healing!
As a family, we all read “Curious George Goes to the Hospital” and Jared recognized many things from his experience—nurses, name bracelets, X-ray machines, the tricycles, and the IV. It was a good way for him to talk about his experience and compare what happened to him with what “George” went through. It was also good for the brothers to see what happened to George and learn that the same things had happened to Jared, lessoning the mystery of “behind closed doors.”
In follow-up exams, Jared was found to have no lasting injury of any kind. We thank God for many things! The fall could easily have injured Jared much more severely, but it didn’t. We had quick responses from competent professional caregivers up and down the chain. Modern medicine was able to quickly dispel fears about the severity of the head injury. Our family was supportive and involved throughout. Rich (who is a single guy) cared for Jared’s three brothers by himself for an extra day and made the key phone calls to Chip and family. We had prayer chains working overtime across the country. Pastor Jey and Joan Deifell personally checked on Jared’s progress about every four hours. God’s spirit worked mightily through the body.
In hindsight, we believe God healed Jared before he was put in the ambulance. Remember Jared saying “Ow, it’s burning?” There are many reports of spiritual healing associated with heat or a burning sensation. At the time, Jared’s cries seemed to be indicating further injury—but we believe God was healing Jared and then allowed him to fall into a restful sleep in the ambulance.
When we got to the hospital, his left eye was swollen shut, but when the doctor pried the lids apart to check it, both eyes were, miraculously, in perfect alignment. The doctor was baffled by this change from what Marla and the EMTs reported.
Despite his confirmed skull fracture, Jared didn’t complain of pain—but it all makes sense: God was there in power. We believe the relatively minor extent of Jared’s injuries and his fast and full recovery are due to guardian angels, God’s intervention, and answers to prayer. He is able! He hears and responds! He cares for us! Thank You, Jesus.
Chip and Marla Darius
Cromwell, Connecticut.
Copyright Thanks Be, First Church of Christ, Wethersfield, Ct.