My Mother’s Journey

The following is an update on my mother and her life since I wrote my original testimony.

***

There are lyrics that sometimes come to mind when I think of my mother – “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger…”

My mother tried to maintain some sense of normalcy in my early childhood. I see pictures of her looking radiant and beautiful on their wedding day, and she worked with the Phoenix Mountains Preservation Council and led our Girl Scout troop. 

At the same time she looked like an active, productive woman, wife, and mother, she was also playing with ouija boards, tarot cards, and seeing things none of the rest of us saw.  Her mind and personality began to change, or perhaps be revealed. At some point her health began to decline, and her past collided with the spiritual darkness she dabbled in, and it all came back to haunt her, and all of us. 

As a child, though, all I knew was my mother didn’t love me. By the time I was 17 and left home at her request, irreversible damage had been done to our whole family.

After I was saved several years later, I tried desperately to have some kind of relationship with her. I prayed for her salvation. I invited her to church and to a women’s retreat. But it always went horribly, painfully wrong. And I knew if I was ever going to have a chance to heal, I was going to have to let go of my desire to have a relationship with my mother. That dream would have to remain a dream. And so it was.

My mother had always agonized over tragedies she’d endured as a child, a teenager, and a young adult, but it was not that long ago that one of her sisters told me that as a child my mother had once purposely jumped in front of car. Something had been wrong for a long time, maybe from the womb. I do know she held a lot of pain inside her mind and heart. 

The longer I lived the more I came to understand the effect all that pain could have on a person, especially when that person doesn’t know Christ. And the more I walked with Christ, the more He gave me the ability to forgive her. And the more I was able to forgive her, and He began to heal my own mind and heart and fill them with His grace and mercy, the more empathy I had for my mother.

Then one early morning I got a call from my sister saying our mother’s health was severely declining, that she probably wouldn’t be with us much longer, and did I want to go see her? I opened God’s Word and prayed about it over the next hour or so, asking Him to speak to my heart and show me what to do. His still, small voice prompted me to go. 

We visited her in the assisted living place she now called home.  I sat on her bed in front of her with my new mind and new heart, and told her I loved her. She laid there and looked me in the eyes with a slight smile on her face. What little she did try to say my sister had to interpret.  I held her hand and we just looked at each other. She wasn’t throwing things, screaming, or calling me names. She was looking at me with love in her eyes. We were able to communicate a bit, and had a picture taken of the three of us. That day was the only good memory I have of my mother, and I am grateful the Lord allowed me to have it.

Though in the past she’d claimed to be a Christian, I never saw any fruit of it, so I continued to pray the Lord would have mercy on her. He knew the truth, whether she had ever been converted or not, and I trusted Him to do what needed to be done for the salvation of her soul. 

I was able to make a couple more trips to see her, once while her eyes were still open, and again after she’d slipped into unconsciousness. Still, I knew my God wasn’t limited to our state of awareness of this world, and I continued to pray.  I prayed the Lord would not let her go until she had received Him as Lord and Savior and was filled with the redeeming, sealing, promised Holy Spirit.

The nurses said she didn’t have much longer, yet she continued to live, and I continued to pray.  A trained hospice worker said she probably wouldn’t live more than 24 hours, yet she continued to live, and I continued to pray. Wherever her mind and heart were in this state, Jesus was there.  And maybe He had her attention more during that time than ever before. Over the next week I kept praying for mercy, for grace, and for saving faith to fill her. And then one day, she was gone.  

Only God knows what happened in those twilight hours, but I am trusting He heard my prayers.

And I am trusting that one day we will all be together again, perfected in Christ and filled with love for one another the way we were always meant to be, basking in the joy of Christ forever and ever.

For His Glory,

Sunday Praise and a Prayer for the Persecuted

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you, and we thank you for all you’ve blessed us with.  Forgive us for the times we take those blessings for granted, and we ask that you would remind us often to be grateful to you for pouring out onto us more blessing, more freedom, more love and grace than we can imagine.  I pray our gratitude will lead us to be a fountain of that love, grace, and mercy that you’ve so generously given to us.

Lord, we lift up our brothers and sisters around the world who are being persecuted for their faith, those who are in prison, who are being tortured, who are separated from their families.  Father, in Jesus’ name I pray you would fill them with your Holy Spirit and your might so that all you desire to accomplish in and through them will be done. May you do miraculous things, things that only you can do.

Lord, please fill them with your peace that passes all understanding; fill them with your strength to go on from one hour to the next; fill them with your love and forgiveness so that their hearts don’t become hardened or bitter; fill them with your joy so they are a light to those around them; fill them with boldness to continue proclaiming the gospel and the name of Christ; fill them with hope as they remember their great reward is with you. 

May they feel your presence with them, and may you, in the mighty name of Jesus, bind the hand of the enemy. May our brothers and sisters continue to trust you, put their faith in you, and may they see, even if only a little bit, the fruit of their labor.  And may we always remember them in our prayers, and honor them with our lives, boldly and freely proclaiming the gospel and the name of Jesus Christ.  It’s in His precious and matchless name I pray, amen.

My Dad’s Journey to Belief

I thought I’d write an update about what God did for each of my parents in the years since I wrote my testimony.  I’ll start with my dad.

***

My dad wasn’t sick a day in his life.  Well, not in the physical sense.  I don’t remember him ever having a cold or a stomach bug.  Nothing.  But there was something hidden deep inside him, something even he would later be hard-pressed to articulate, that made him turn to alcohol.  I do know that he had a quiet, expressive soul, and that combination is a hard one to deal with.

Most days of my childhood I could smell the alcohol on him, except for the days he didn’t come home.  Still, he was kind and willing to listen when I needed someone to talk to.

I left home a month or two after high school graduation. The next time I saw my dad a couple of months later he had aged more than I thought he should have. After that I didn’t see much of my parents for a number of years until after their divorce, and I was able to talk to my dad again.

When I became a Christian, I wanted more than anything for my family members to be saved and our family restored. I thought about it, I hoped for it, I prayed about it. 

Sometime while I was away, my dad quit drinking.  He’d had an experience that frightened him and made him stop.  So without the alcohol, and without my mother, we were able to reconnect.

Both of us being chatterboxes, we’d talk on the phone for long stretches at a time.  We’d theorize and philosophize about everything under the sun.  And every now and then I’d try to work into the conversation my very favorite topic – Jesus. 

My dad would be struggling with something and I’d tell him about the One who knows how to untangle life’s messes.  He’d be hard-pressed to understand something else and I’d tell him about the One who gives peace.

I ‘d talk to him about salvation, I wrote him long notes explaining the way to salvation, and his answer was always the same: “I’m trying.”

I’d tell him “Dad, you don’t have to try, just believe in Jesus.”  Still, salvation hung in the air, ungrasped, year after year.  And during those prayers I lifted up for my dad, the Lord would sometimes speak in that still, small voice, letting me know that it wouldn’t be until just before his death that he would finally receive Him.

A few years later I got a call from my aunt letting me know my dad was sick.  The worst kind of sick.  He hadn’t wanted to tell anyone for fear they’d look at him or treat him differently.  I called my dad and we had a hard conversation. He continued to work until it was impossible.

It was May, and I got another call from my aunt letting me know Dad was in the hospital.  I rushed there, day after day, and sat next to him, holding his hand. His mind was already starting to go.  He didn’t know where he was or even what year it was. I kept praying and had others praying, too.

One morning someone called, I can’t remember who, to say he’d had some kind of seizure, or something. Our assistant pastor and his wife, our dear friends, graciously met me at the hospital.

There were no more seizures, and the funny thing was, he now knew what year it was. Pastor T went in to talk with him and when he came back out sometime later, he said he’d asked my dad if he wanted to pray to receive Jesus, and my dad said yes. Grasped.

Almost immediately after that, he was a candidate for hospice.  One never knows if a hospice bed is going to become available, and if so, how long it will take.  But one opened up almost immediately, and the one God chose was perfect.

It was in a home with a beautiful garden. If there was anything my dad loved, it was gardening.  He loved the soil (don’t call it dirt!), he loved earthworms, he loved planting.  We used to say that once he was able to retire from civil service he should work at a nursery. He would have loved it.

My family, my sister and her family, and my aunt, uncle and cousin sat outside among the gardens eating together for Memorial Day while the hospice workers looked after Dad. We wished so much he could have enjoyed the beauty with us.

The next morning I got a call at 6 am from one of the hospice workers saying he probably didn’t have much longer.  I quickly dressed and drove the several miles to get there. 

I walked into the room and my cousin was standing by his bed, telling me he had just passed. His beautiful blue, tear-filled eyes were still open. I had just missed him.  Still, I held his hand again, and said, “I love you, Daddy.”

My Heavenly Father had, in a miraculous way, kept His promise.  Whatever that seizure was, God allowed a moment in time for my dad to be aware, and our friends to be there at just the right time, so he could believe in Jesus and receive Him, and I could have that assurance.  That was just five days before he stood before the Lord, washed clean of his sins, and was welcomed with open arms. The peace and joy that had always alluded him in this life was now his forever.

I think about the day I’ll see him again when nothing, and no one, will ever separate us again, and I thank my Heavenly Father for this most precious of gifts.

Eternally Grateful,

 

 

So Much More to be Thankful For

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before Him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is He who made us, and we are His;
we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving
and His courts with praise;
give thanks to Him and praise His name.
For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;
His faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100

 

Yes, we have much to be thankful for.  We can all look around and see the many ways we’re blessed.  But as God’s children, we have so much more.  Right now we still most easily see with our eyes, but God knows that the temporary things of this life will leave us wanting, and so He continually invites us to see with our hearts.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Cor. 5:7  “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”  Hebrews 11:1

And what we do not yet see is all God is building for us, inside our hearts and souls, and inside His kingdom that is to come – our future and forever home with Him.

No matter what’s going on in our lives right now – the pain, the heartache, the sickness, the missing of our loved ones – by God’s Spirit we can choose to see with the eyes of our hearts all God has done, is doing, and will continue to do. 

Through our struggles God draws near to us, and calls us to draw nearer to Him.  He speaks to us in our pain; He loves us in our sickness, comforts us in our grief, and has filled us with a deep and lasting joy nothing can take way.  Through it all He builds a powerful faith on the foundation of Christ that will bring us a future reward we can only dream of, for now. Those are the true blessings so easily overlooked, yet will bring us a future reward that will outshine anything we can see with our eyes.  

We can join as one voice with our brothers and sisters in Christ and look up.  Shout for joy to the Lord for His magnificent love He’s showered on us, for sending His Son to die in our place, for filling us with His Spirit to comfort us, minister to us, heal and restore us, lead us, give us wisdom and peace, and to give us gifts to use to bless the Body. 

To preserve us until the day we see the Lord face to face, and to be filled with the hope that He’s prepared for us a home with Him where we will live in peace and safety with no end.

We can enter into worship with thanksgiving, not just for the things we see, but for the riches we have in Christ, both now and waiting for us.

God’s made us His own and called us His children, and we know that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

Nothing on earth compares to that, and for that we can truly give thanks.

What are you thankful for?

This is God’s Will for You

 

“…give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  1 Thessalonians 5:18

Thanksgiving week comes and we hear people talking about the things they’re thankful for. Maybe you sit around the Thanksgiving table and tell one another what you’re thankful for. But maybe you’re a little hard-pressed to think of anything to be thankful for this year.

God tells us to give thanks in all circumstances. All is a pretty inclusive word.

Not just the good stuff. But all the stuff. Now, I know that’s a really hard to thing to do sometimes. When you’re missing family members, when your health is bad, when the money is tight.  Sometimes it’s an act of sheer will, of obedience, of faith that God is going to do something in and with those circumstances.

It’s easy to give thanks once that circumstance has passed and we can see the good the Lord has wrought in it.  But we are to give thanks when we’re in the middle of the mess.

When we don’t see what God’s doing.

When we don’t know how long it’ll last.

When we don’t know how we’ll get through it.

But why is this God’s will?

Giving thanks in the storm makes us humble and crushes our pride.  It keeps us from allowing bitterness and resentment to settle in, creating a Grand Canyon-sized gap between us and God.  It keeps those vital communication lines open and that allows for His peace to flow into our hearts.  It keeps us following Him, allowing Him to do the good He desires to do with those circumstances instead of going through them with no fruit at the end.

It’s no coincidence that God tells us “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  Philippians 4:6

Continually placing all circumstances in the Lord’s hands gives us His peace and assurance, and naturally – or more accurately, supernaturally – the thankful heart will come, and we can confidently go through any circumstance with hope and the joy of the Lord. 

Once we’ve walked with the Lord a while, and I don’t just mean knowing who He is, or going to church on Sundays, but really walk with Him, day by day, circumstance by circumstance, conversation to conversation, we’ll see more and more that He is a Father we can trust.  We can rest assured that He is with us no matter how far down in the pit we are, no matter how bleak the circumstances feel.

Remember, Jesus knows what it’s like.

For the One who gave His life for us, we live a life of worship, and all great acts of worship start with the first one – a thankful heart that’s trusting our Father’s goodness and grace to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.  

I Will Give Thanks to the Lord

psalm9-1-2
 

It’s so easy and so natural to focus on the negative.  And there is a lot we could be negative about.

But….

We who are in Christ must never forget – we are of the supernatural.  We are filled with the power of the Spirit of God, and no matter what we’re going through, whether good times or bad, we know our God is with us, providing us a way through by His very presence.  

So we are not just thankful in a general sense, but, having our spiritual eyes and eternal souls awakened, we are able to see and acknowledge that all things come from the hand of a good and loving Father and we give thanks to Him for His provision in our lives.

Ultimately, it is He we are thankful for, for “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights…” (James 1:17) And all things, no matter how they look on this side, are being worked together for Good by a masterful Weaver for those who love Him.

It is He who gives sunshine; it is He who gives rain; it is He who gives air to breathe, keeps our hearts beating, and gives them the capacity to love.  It is He who provides for us in a million different ways, and it is He who our hearts and voices are privileged to acknowledge with thanksgiving for all things.

And when we do, it is He who is glorified, and our lives fulfill their ultimate purpose.

There is more that I am thankful for than I could ever begin to list here.

I will start with my salvation.  That story is a miracle all on its own, and when I look back at all that went into it, every person involved, every prayer lifted up, every perfect step taken that lead to that day, that place, that moment, when the Spirit of God overwhelmed me and called me His own, I am overwhelmed by His goodness.

That He would come after me, pour out His grace and mercy, open my spiritual eyes with belief, fill me with His Spirit and love, and call me His daughter, is enough to keep me praising His Name forever.

But that wasn’t enough for Him.  He has continued to do miracles and pour out His blessing in countless ways since that day 27 years ago.  He is my bounty, and I am forever thankful to my El Shaddai.

I know you have much to be thankful for, too, and I’d love to hear it!

What are you thankful to God for?

 

Give Thanks to the Lord

“Open to me the gates of righteousness,
that I may enter through them
and give thanks to the Lord.
This is the gate of the Lord;
the righteous shall enter through it.
I thank you that you have answered me
and have become my salvation.”
Psalm 118:19-21