Obedience and God's faithfulness

In the early 1980's I began seeking a deeper relationship with God. My brother had flown out from California to visit us and told us about an experience he had that had transformed him. His pastor had told his church people to draw an invisible circle around themselves and ask God to change the person inside the circle. They were not allowed to try to go into anyone else's circle, but stay in their own. I loved the concept so I prayed that prayer. I knew there were things I still had not totally surrendered to God and I was afraid to because they had become my security and I had no clue what I would do without those things, though they were killing me spiritually. I had finally told God that he could change me anyway he wanted to as I surrendered to Him. One day he told me to go to our church 20 minutes away and pray for revival until he told me to stop. It made no sense and I asked God why I couldn't just pray at home, but I had no peace so I obediently drove into the city. The church was locked so I sat in the parking lot and prayed for about 2 minutes. I had no "spirit" of prayer whatsover but I wanted to be obedient. The second day I drove there again, but this time the church was unlocked so I knelt at the altar for another 2 or 3 minutes and prayed and left. The third day as I knelt there and began to pray I was suddenly filled with an intense desire to pray and pray I did. I knelt there for a long time and left continuing in prayer. I prayed all through the day and would wake up in the night to pray. One of the things that troubled me is that I had asked God to fill me with his Holy Spirit but I didn't feel anything different. I truly hoped I would receive the gift of tongues but when it didn't happen I decided it was all bogus. I asked a friend to pray with me, and the two of us knelt at the altar together. While they were praying out loud I was praying to myself. Suddenly words in another language filled my mind and I began to pray in that language. I knew that God had given me a prayer language as evidence to me that He had answered my prayer. I do not put this on anyone else. I know there are thousands of Spirit filled Christians who do not pray or speak in tongues. But obviously God wanted me to have this, and I was a little amused. At that moment I realized God had a sense of humor and he was showing me that what I had come to believe was not true was indeed true! After we were through praying I drove over to a couple's house I knew to visit. I said nothing to them about what had just transpired. The wife was practicing a song with two other ladies and I was sitting on the floor in front of her husband who was sitting in a chair listening to him talk. Suddenly I was hit with so much joy I could hardly contain it. I didn't say a word, nor did I express it in any way. It was an amazing experience. God had given me a baptism of joy along with a prayer language and the joy lasted for a whole week. "Joy unspeakable and full of glory!" What I didn't know is that God was preparing me for one of the worst experiences I would ever have. About a month later I would lose the man in my life that the sun rose and set on, my Dad. I had no idea the kind of bond I felt with him until I lost him. He had already had strokes and a huge personality change. That had been devastating to see an outgoing man suddenly with nothing to say and suffering from extreme paranoia. I had a panic attack from it and ended up in the emergency room, and they sent me home because they said there was nothing wrong with me. I didn't realize what had happened until years later. About 3 years after his first stroke my parents were going to Florida to visit my brother, Richard, for a couple of months and then on to California to visit my oldest brother, David. Bill and I had driven them to the Syracuse airport to get their flight. We were waiting at the gate for them to leave as no prohibitions had been put on non-passengers at that time. As soon as they walked out the door to go down the ramp I was suddenly hit with a "knowing" that I would never see my Dad again. I went into deep grief and Bill had to hold me up as I walked out of the airport to our car. When we got home I laid on the couch in the fetal position crying and asking God to give me a promise to hold on to. Suddenly he filled my mind with the verse, "Unless a kernel of wheat fall to the ground and die it remaineth alone." John 12:24 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, еxcept a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. ... Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." I had no idea what that meant but I knew God had given it to me and that somehow God would use me to carry out what he had started through my Dad. Bill had some time off of work so we decided to go to Florida while my parents were still there. We spent a couple of weeks with them and flew home. We weren't home a week when I got a call from my brother one morning saying, "Dad's gone to Heaven." Bill was working night shift and hadn't been asleep too long when I woke him up sobbing. My heart was totally broken. When I prayed I told God I didn't want to talk to him, I wanted to talk to my Dad who was there with him. My Mom flew home with my Dad's body and made funeral preparations. I could not be consoled. Everything seemed to be in 3D to me. When they buried him I could see him lying in the ground. It was as though he was still alive in there. To say it was horrible is an understatement. At church during the singing I would always cry. It felt good in some ways to let out the emotion of grief. One day a man walked up to me after church and told me to stop that crying as my dad was in Heaven. It didn't help at all. Instead I felt very judged. A year later I was at a ladies event at church and a man was speaking and sharing his experiences on being a father to his children. It was more than I could bare. As soon as he was through I walked into one of the Sunday School rooms to the opposite side and faced the wall and cried. I didn't think anyone saw me, but suddenly the speaker, Tom Priest, came up behind me and gently spoke to me and put his arms around me and told me how sorry he was. God used that dear man to help heal my heart. I no longer sobbed my heart out but the pain was still there, and I felt it suffocating me. In prayer I talked to God and told him that he promised to be a woman's husband when he was no longer there and I asked him to be my Father since mine was no longer here. God heard that prayer and totally healed my heart. I am so grateful for a loving heavenly Father who will be to us everything we need. That experience 34 years ago taught me to never judge the way people grieve. I had no control over my response to losing my father, and neither does anyone else have any control over their emotional response to losing someone. Neither can there be a time put on grief. Since that day I lost my Mother and I lost a brother, and though I was sad to lose them I did not grieve as i did for my Dad.

Her name was Laura. I met her and her friend around 8 years ago in the town down from where we live. I was impressed at how gentle and sweet they were, but was also aware that they were obviously lacking in this worlds goods. I started to pray for them to include finding a way to get them to come to our church. I didn’t know that God would soon answer that prayer and that in answering it I would learn many valuable lessons. Laura and her friend were placed in a motel not far from us, and that was the beginning of a very interesting relationship. They came to church and challenged all of us to love like Jesus loves. They were from a culture that the majority of us had no idea about called the culture of Generational Poverty. Our church reached out to them by supplying their needs and welcoming them as they did everyone else. We had them in our home for meals and gave them rides. Something I discovered is that this culture is one of constant transition as they never stay in one place very long. Laura was a severe alcoholic and at 44 she looked like she was a very old woman. She turned 52 this year. Our ladies group wrote to her when she ended up incarcerated for a time, continuing to pray for her and show her unconditional love. They moved in and out of our area and our life a number of times and one day I noticed one of her eyes was completely blown and she was blind in it. I asked her what happened and she grinned a little and shrugged her shoulders. I hadn’t heard from them until last week when the phone rang and Laura was on the other end just calling to tell us hello as “it had been awhile since I talked to you.” She sounded happy and we had a nice conversation. Before she hung up I told her that we loved her and her friend and she responded with, "We love you too.". Her friend called me a few days ago and he was crying, “Laura is in the hospital in a coma”, he said. They had been together 28 years. Bill picked him up on Wednesday and went to the hospital to see her. It was obvious she was being kept alive by machines. Laura had a Grand Mall seizure, which caused a stroke which caused a heart attack. She had no family so they let her friend make the determination to take her off the machines today. I don’t have the answers to the questions this kind of story generates; all I know is that Jesus calls us to love and told us that whatever we do for the least of these that we have done it unto Him. Does God place the marginalized in our lives to show us our hearts? Does he do it to teach us what unconditional love looks like? My heart is sad as hers is a sad story on so many levels and I know many whose stories are the same. They are “sheep” without a “Shepherd”. I will continue to pray that her friend will be drawn to the Father’s love and be rescued from his life of addiction into the joyous and abundant life that Christ offers.

Onondaga Reservation..

1986.. Bill and I were attending Lyncourt Wesleyan Church in Syracuse, NY and teaching a new converts Sunday School class. My Mom, who had been widowed, was an ordained minister and was pastoring the Onondaga Indian Reservation Wesleyan Church in her retirement. My Dad had pastored there prior to becoming ill. I loved the people and having grown up with Native Americans in South America, I felt very much at home with them. One day I began to feel very compelled to help my Mom with the work. Bill had never shown any interest in that ministry so I wasn't sure how he would respond, but when I told him it is what I believed we should be doing he immediately agreed. I was totally surprised but thrilled. I also did not know that it was the beginning of an amazing journey God had orchestrated. My next dilemma was to find someone to teach our Sunday School class. We agreed not to tell anyone what we were planning but to pray. If God provided a replacement for us we would know it truly was what God was calling us to do. So we put out our "fleece". Two weeks later we had just finished our Sunday School class and were walking to the sanctuary for morning worship when a man met us and said, "I hope you guys aren't offended but I truly believe God wants me to teach your Sunday School class." What an amazing God we serve! We joyfully gave our class over to him and began attending Onondaga. My heart was for the children and I took over the ministry to them. The first thing I discovered is that the Native kids were very different than city kids in their response to Sunday School and Children's Church. They were thrilled to be there and they listened with rapt attention and participated. It was obvious they had been taught to respect their elders and did not have the attitude of entitlement that so many children have. I was "tickled" one day while teaching my Sunday School class of 9, 10 and 11 year olds, when one of the kids asked me what my clan was. They were totally surprised to find out that I was not Native American. Truth be told I do have Native American blood in me (I think 1/32) and found out a couple of years ago that it is Onondaga. How cool is that! Because it is a Matriarchal society, my Mom was highly respected and it sure didn't hurt me either. I was concerned that we didn't have more children coming so I made it a focused matter of prayer. The very next Sunday to my absolute shock and joy 12 new kids came walking through the door. I was also very pleased that others stepped up to the plate to help with this ministry. We were there for two years and unbeknownst to any of us my Mom was exhibiting signs of dementia as she started to lose her place more and more while preaching and told the D.S. that she was ready to officially retire. There was no one to take over the work and the D.S told us that the district was talking about closing it. What happened next would change our lives forever after. Without hesitation Bill said, "I'll do it until you can find someone else." What a shocker that was! He had never preached nor had any inclination to but was soon to be the new Pastor at Onondaga while still working a full time job at G.M. As this was also the calling on my life I jumped into the ministry with everything I had, doing the midweek Bible study, children's program and visitation. Some of the visits were extremely interesting. Especially the ones where I was called at 2 in the morning because someone was in the hospital due to an overdose. On one of those calls the young man told me that nobody cared anything about him. My response back to him was, "Don't you dare say no one cares about you! It is 2:00 in the morning and I should be sound asleep. Instead I am here because I DO care about you!" I fit in perfectly with my outspokenness as that is how they communicate, and I had been raised in a Native American culture in South America that was the same way. One of the things that was extremely challenging was the huge spiritual warfare that was waging all the time. I know it is everywhere but it was tangible out there. Thankfully, I found some wonderful and not off the wall books on the subject and used them frequently. I don't want to become too graphic on here by going into any details but I was so happy that "Greater is He that is in me than He that is in the world." One thing I will share is that I was hit wit extreme depression. I do suffer from seasonal affected disorder but this was beyond that. Another church in our district called me on a Friday and asked how they could pray for us. I shared with the person what I had been going through and they told me they would pray all weekend. On Sunday morning I got up and felt overwhelmed with depression and did not have any desire to go to church. I wasn't awake very long when suddenly I was hit with unspeakable joy. In the middle of the living room I began to sing and dance in rapturous praise. That kind of depression never hit me again. A beautiful little girl came walking up the sidewalk holding the hand of an old man one Sunday. I didn't know then that she would become an integral part of our lives. She started attending Sunday School and church regularly. One day she took me home to meet her mother. Her mother was around 42 and had been an alcoholic since she was 11 years old. She didn't know what it was to live life sober. We became good friends and I would often visit her. One day she asked Bill to dedicate her daughter and asked us if we would be her godparents. We were very honored and said yes. I spent a lot of time with her and she lived with us for a summer. It put a crimp in her style as she had been totally on her own for so many years and now she had a "Mom" and a "Dad" putting parameters on her. After we were there for two years Bill had a month vacation through GM and we decided to take it as we both needed the break. I had distanced myself from this lady as I was pouring so much time into her and she had no heart for what I was offering, and others were being neglected. Just before we left, the lady called me and told me she was scared as her eyes and skin were yellow. I told her to go to detox and we'd see her when we got back. When we got home I got the news that she was in the hospital. I went to see her and found her in a coma and her body was twice it's side from fluid. She was dying from liver failure. I felt intense anger at Satan for using the weapon of alcohol to take out one more precious person made in God's image. I suddenly heard that still small voice of the Holy Spirit telling me to pray for her healing. My response was, "Why should I God? You know she will never serve you!" And in a totally clear response He answered, "Because I love her!" Her boyfriend and cousin were in the room and I told them that I was going to pray for her. As they looked at me with skepticism in their eyes, I said, "The same God who created her is able to recreate and heal her!" I left there with no faith but total faith in the One who was leading me. So I began to pray, and pray I did morning noon and night asking God to heal her. The more I prayed the more faith I had. About 10 days later while kneeling in my living room I heard that still small voice again that said, "Stop praying and rejoice!" I still was skeptical, but I took some anointing oil and went up to the hospital to see her. When I walked into the room I couldn't believe my eyes. She was lying there with her eyes open looking at me. She had a breathing tube so could not talk. I called her by name and she nodded her head. I asked her if she knew she had just experienced a miracle and she again nodded her head. The next morning they removed the tube and in 3 days she was in her own room. He best friend had gone into the hospital the same time with the same problem and had died. But here she was alive and well and I was ecstatic with joy! I read I John to her and suddenly a light came on as she responded with "So it's saying that if we say we don't sin that we are a liar?" I said yes. She still didn't surrender her life to the Lord but she was on the mend. She went home but that next Fall she was in the hospital again with something else. Some Native singers from Oklahoma were at our church and after I told them of the situation they went to see her and one more time shared the good news of the gospel with her and she prayed and surrendered her life to the Lord. There was a young man who had hurt his brain badly on drugs. We dearly loved him and prayed for him and most importantly that he would surrender his life to the Lord. It seemed he couldn't focus enough to do it or didn't see the necessity. One day at church we were talking and praying with him with that huge wall still in place. I felt led to verbally come against the powers of darkness that were preventing him from doing what he knew he needed to do, so that is what I did and the very next moment he was able to focus and pray. What a mighty God we serve! Psalm 107:31 "Oh that men (and women) would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works for the children of men (mankind)."

Remembering