I came to Christ at the tender age of eight. I had been attending church with my sister, 11 yrs my senior. She had developed an relationship with Christ, and was the one instrumental in bringing my parents back to God and me to Him for the first time. We were attending a small country church where the minister ended each service with an invitation for anyone wanting to be “saved” to come forward. Even as a child I so wanted to go forward. My heart would pound and I knew I should go. I also felt like no one would take me seriously as I was a kid. This seemed to be an adults only situation. I did not speak to anyone about it. I just kept thinking someday I would have the courage to do it.
Come mid summer there was a revival. It was the annual three nights of church services aimed at bringing as many as possible to Christ. We had a special guest speaker and singers. On the final night, church members were asked to take a pew and invite enough people to fill it. My family, although attending, were not official members and were asked by another member to attend. I believe there were some doubts about the status of my dad’s soul, so we counted. He was only attending church sporadically at that time. We were assigned to sit on the front row of the church. Just prior to service starting an older lady had a heart attack and EMS was called. Service was started after she was taken to the hospital by ambulance. The invitation at the service end had a large number of responders never seen before in that church. The entire wooden alter was completely surrounded by people on their knees. Seeing mortality up close and personal will do that I suppose. What the situation and my front pew location did for me at age 8 was provide an easy access for kneeling at the alter unseen by the adults. It was just a couple of steps and I was there. I knelt and told God I wanted to be “saved”. I immediately felt a hand on my shoulder and my dear 19 yr old sister was there praying for me. She led me in a prayer admitting my sins and asking for God’s forgiveness. I asked him to live in my heart and help me live my life for him. Even at 8 yrs old I knew something wonderful had just happened. I felt a lightness of spirit and soul alike none before. It was not emotion of the moment. It was not the fear of dying. It was not the singing nor the sermon. It was God calling me to be his. I answered yes and He showed up. Even the poison ivy on my arm was completely healed without my asking. No rash— no itching. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt I had met God.
I invite you to consider where you are right now. Do you, reader have a relationship with God? He so desires one with you. He so much desires one that He sent His son to die on a cross so that he could have the opportunity to have that relationship. (John 3:16) Jesus willingly gave his life in order to have a life with you. For Jesus did not stay in the grave, but defeated death and the powers of this world in order to guarantee you to a life in Him (Romans 5:10-11). None of us were good enough to gain that life in Him without the sacrifice Jesus made. (Romans 3:23). He just asks that you admit your need of him, otherwise known as you have sin that needs forgiven, desire a relationship with him, and accept Jesus as Lord of your life. (Romans 10: 9-10). Praying and believing those words will allow God to enter your life, forgive your sin, and begin a relationship with you. (Romans 5: 1 and 8: 1). This is a love that nothing can separate you from (Romans 8:38-39). If you prayed that prayer let me be the first to welcome and congratulate you on the miracle of your new life! You are a child of God for praying those words. You are reconciled with your creator, perfect father, and savior who calls you by name and loves you beyond description! I encourage you to visit YouVersion.com where you can download a free Bible (The Message version is a very easy reading translation. On here I use the New Living Translation) There is also an app for some resources to begin reading about your new life in Christ. I also recommend you connect with a local church to join with other believers who can help you in your new life in Christ. There is no pastor or lay minister I know that would not be very happy to meet and speak with you about your new life in Christ.
My childhood experience as real It started a relationship with God that I still enjoy to this day. The road has not always been smooth, but God as always been faithful Now let us fast forward several decades one of these exceptionally rocky times. As I said, I had lived a life as a Christian. I had kept my relationship with God close. I had worked in and for the church in many capacities. I had grown in my belief and understanding of God. I had been Spirit filled and led for the majority of my life. So how does a decades long believer come to a crisis of faith? For me it was anger and the desire for control. You see, I had never really been angry at God. I did not think one could or even should be angry with God. He is God right? He is creator, savior, and a loving Father. How could I consider being angry with Him? Well I did. I became very angry with God.
You see I had two precious sisters. My oldest sister, Debbie was 18 years older than I and unfortunately had a much more difficult life than I had. She was the only child from my mother’s first marriage. Debbie had the misfortune of being a baby that was to be what held a marriage together and as we know that usually does not work. Her dad did not want to be married to our mother. He married her because of the pressure of his mother to settle down. With the lack of desire to be a married family man, it became apparent he did not want my sister. It was evident in everything he did for the rest of his life. I loathed him from the time I new of his existence for hurting my mother and sister. I should have pitied him. That unfortunate man will never know the wonderful blessing he cast aside.
Two years later my dad and his family entered my mother and sister’s lives. He married my mother when my sister was nearly three. In what should have been a wonderful family situation, Debbie suffered abuse of another kind. Completely rejected by her dad and abused in a family that should have helped her heal from the rejection, Debbie was set for an emotionally difficult life. She found God, her loving father, as an adult and lived what she believed. She married out of high school, but had tumultuous relationship due to her past experiences with men in general. The culture was one of covering family secrets not dealing with them. Therapy was not prevalent in that time period, so she never was able to deal with the past hurts and emotional damage the way she needed to. I am not saying Debbie did not have a good life or good times. She had people that loved her, a nice house, a good job she like, newer car, friends, a church family, and at first glance an over all good life. It was just a life where she always seemed to be working for something. Like she aways expecting to be rejected. She always felt inferior, not enough, not worthy….. Growing up I didn’t to know all of her history. I knew of her dad, but not the complete rejection. I did not know about the abuse until I was an adult. I just knew Debbie although appearing strong had a weakness and needed protecting.
At age 65 my dear sister, who was only ever hospitalized to give birth, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It is a cancer with one of the lowest cure rates. The difficulty is that is can be present in the body for years without symptoms. Once the symptoms start, it is often too late for treatment to be successful. She went in for surgery to remove the cancer, but with some early exploration was found to already have metastatic areas throughout her liver and colon. The curative surgery turned to a palliative effort to permit her to eat for a while longer. As soon as the nurse came out to give the report of the metastatic disease I knew all of my prayers and those our family were not going to be answered the way we wanted. Unless God chose to do a miraculous healing, my sister had just been given a medical death sentence. It was one of the very few moments in my life I wished I did not have the medical field background and knowledge I had. I heard the death bell ring. This was something I could not protect her from nor cure. I most certainly had lost control of the entire situation—like I ever had control of any of it to begin with. I was struggling with Debbie’s diagnosis and my medial knowledge juxtaposed with my faith and desire for a miracle. My experience that God could do and still does miracles. the former tended to overshadow the latter. She chose to attempt to fight the cancer and when able began chemotherapy. I was the only one that did not want her to do it because I knew it would not be successful and would result in some terrible side effects. Despite this I supported her in her desire and choice. I prayed. I prayed and prayed. Every prayer chain that existed in the area had her name on it. Every praying person I knew was asked to pray. The chemo did not work. The miraculous physical healing did not come. For the next eight months I, along with my family had to watch a physically strong woman wither into near nothingness. She was in pain. She was nauseated. She vomited. She lost her hair. She was a shadow of what she had been before. She was suffering. I was not in control of any of it. I could not fix any of it.
I became so angry at God. If He was not to going to heal her then why leave her here to suffer? Why not take her in her sleep so that she could have the new body we are promised on the other side. Why was she suffering so much for so long? Why were new diagnoses of deep vein blood clots and a broken ankle from a fall being allowed? Why was she suffering the humiliation of bed bathes and incontinence? Why was my sister who had suffered so many insults and hurts in her life going through this too? Why was she living this nightmare when she has tried so hard all her life to live what scripture taught? These were the questions I asked. One particular night even Debbie who had such grace during this whole ordeal asked for the first and only time I heard, “Why me?” I had no answer, but to cry with her. Later that night after she was asleep I walked outside to scream at God under the stars. I was angry and could not see Him there, because the situation was not what I thought was best. We were supposed to have a miraculous healing. We were supposed to be able to share with all those praying how God had answered those prayers with a healing that confounded the medical world. She was not supposed to suffer this way. The supposed to’s did not happen and I was very angry. Despite my yelling there was not a lightening strike. I was left standing in the yard with the stars still twinkling. This is where crisis of faith can happen. It is where I yell at God from a back yard.
I read the book “A Ring of Endless Light” by Madeleine L’Engle as a teen. It was one of the last books she wrote and dealt with death in various fashions. In it the grandfather tells the main character when she is struggling with a death that God can handle your anger. I had never been angry with God. I had never before wanted something so different from what He was doing. It was difficult to seek him in my anger. It was difficult to praise him in my anger. I began pulling away. Romans 8 talks of nothing being able to separate us from God’s love. He never stopped loving me regardless of my anger. He kept on loving me when I yelled. He kept on loving me when I pulled back. He kept on loving me when I was so sure I was right. He kept loving me no matter how angry I was. Ms. L’Engle was right. God could handle my anger. Even after Debbie did have a perfect healing on her way to heaven and she was buried I was angry. It took time, but I was able to finally talk to God about it and come to terms with God being sovereign. We live in a spiritual kingdom with the perfect king. It is not a democracy where I get to vote. Yes He is my father and wants to give me all I need for an abundant life. Because He is omniscient He is able to see so much more than I can see. He makes his choices on knowledge I do not have and most likely cannot comprehend. I do not have to understand or even like what He chooses to do. My job is to have faith and trust that He has the ability to see the big picture and know what is coming before I. I was devastatingly surprised in a hospital waiting room, but God was not. He had the whole situation in his hands. I can speculate that maybe we needed the time for goodbyes. Maybe Debbie needed the time. Maybe Debbie needed to know how much we loved her as her sisters and daughters took shifts in days to take care of her. Maybe our bed baths, hand holding, cooking, and cleaning spoke volumes to her. Maybe it made up for the times we did not or could not say words that should have been said before the end. Maybe her husband needed time to come to terms with losing his wife. Maybe her daughters needed just a little more time with their mother. Maybe I needed the time to sit bedside my sister and watch HGTV making the last Valentines she would give her grandkids. Maybe…… just maybe.
I do believe God was there. As I said Debbie faced all of this with such grace. God had to be there. She was not bitter. She was not angry. She was peaceful. She amazed me in this. I think that is how God touched and provided for her on this side. Her passing was peaceful. I was not able to be at her side at that moment, but all there said she attempted to sit up smiling at the foot of the bed. She was assisted back to a lying position and still smiling breathed her last. I know the God that I had asked to heal my sister did. He healed her completely with a new body and gave her a beautiful world without cancer or pain. That same God then helped me through my anger and pain to a belief that He is there even when I cannot see him. He is there when I do not understand. He never stopped loving me. Madeleine was right. God can handle my anger.