On January 8th I was
reading a Beth Moore book about the heart of David. {A Heart Like His: Intimate Reflections On
The Life Of David} I don’t usually buy
Kindle books. You can get so many for
free that I don’t see the need unless it’s one I really want, and even then, I
usually put it in my wish list that I check daily to see if it went free for a
day. But on this day in January, I saw a
book of hers on sale, only a dollar, and something told me not to wait to see
if it went for free. I felt I had to get
that book, and RIGHT NOW.
So I got it, and started reading
it at work one day when the little guy I look after was lying down for a
nap. This particular day he was resting
quite late, and the other little guy I look after was out with friends that day. The book doesn’t start right
off talking about David, it talks about Hannah, and her prayers and pleas for a
child, so that we have the back story of Samuel, who is the back story to
David. If you have not heard the story
of Hannah, she prayed with all her heart that God would bless her with a
child. Her desire made even stronger
because her husband had a second wife who had bore him several children, and
that wife kept rubbing it in Hannah’s face how blessed she was with all these
children when Hannah had none. Hannah
broke down, her heart in as much anguish as mine was many, many times, and she promised God that if He would give her a child, she would hand
him back over to God.
Well, Hannah became pregnant, and
nursed her son. When he was weaned
{scholars speculate he was about three years old} Hannah took him to the temple
and left him with Eli the priest. At
this point, the author of the book steps out of telling the Biblical tale, and
asks some pretty interesting questions, and shows some insight. Hannah wouldn’t have just raised Samuel and
then dropped him off at the age of three at the temple without spending time
preparing him. She would have told him
about God and the life he would lead every chance she got. She would have prepared him for where he was
going, and what he was going to do.
At that point I felt God
challenging me. I have always said I
would not raise my children in God until they were older, 10 to 12 years of
age. I was saved when I was four, and I
don’t know what life is like without God.
When we lost our son, and I wanted to walk away from God, I could never
say He wasn’t real, but I did feel I couldn’t trust Him. People warned me to
remember what life was like without God so that I’d realize I didn’t want to
walk away. But I didn’t remember what
life was like, and couldn’t visualize it.
I’ve always known God, or of Him.
I don’t recall a time I didn’t have God in my life. I feel it’s like hunger. Someone that has never had to wait for food
has no real appreciation for it, certainly not like someone who has starved for
years on end, they have a real appreciation for food. I feel that way about my faith at times, and at times worry that
I don’t have a real appreciation for God, not like I could if I knew what life
without Him is like.
But on this day when I was reading
this book about David, God asked me to change my mind, and make a promise to
Him that I would raise my children in Him from the beginning. It was hard, I wrestled with it for several
minutes, and then realized I could do as He asked. I still wanted this baby so badly, and I would do whatever it took to get them. So I promised then and there that I would
raise my children in God from their first breath. I had talked to my son a lot about God in our very brief time together… I
could do so again. God asked me to take
one step further and promise to get a children’s Bible. The children in our church had done their own
advent with the Jesus Storybook Bible, and all the parents said how much they
loved that Bible once they got it. So I
promised then and there to get a copy of that very Bible within the month. I made this promise at 4:30 in the afternoon.
I was literally exhausted after
all I’d read and learned and prayed about that day. But still, I went to Prayer Meeting that
night. The lady that had put the advent
readings together for the church and the children’s area met me at the door of
prayer meeting and handed me a late Christmas gift. I felt a bit bad, I had none for her. She brushed off my worry, and told me God had
asked her to give me this gift.
I opened it, and lost my
breath. There in my hands, was the VERY
Bible I had just promised God only 2 ½ hours ago that I would get! I am sure I looked very silly just standing
there staring at this book as tears filled my eyes, but I couldn’t move for
several seconds. She told me later how
she had gone to buy one for doing the readings with the kids, and how God asked
her to order a second one for someone.
She then spent the next few weeks trying to figure out who God wanted
that person to be. But every time she
checked with someone, they had already bought it, some having just bought
it. The store called her and let her
know when it was in, and it was when she went to pick it up that God told her
that that Bible was for me. The funny
thing is, she’d had it for a month before she could get it to me. Had she given it to me even one day earlier,
I am not sure I would have learned as much as I did from God when praying that
day.
This gift really
boosted my faith. There was no way all
of this happened as a coincidence. There
was no way this lady could know what I’d prayed that day. She had no way of knowing how perfect getting
this Bible right then was. And in my
heart, I finally had joy about getting pregnant. IF God needed me to raise my child in God,
there REALLY was going to be a baby, this child REALY would spend time in my
arms, and I REALLY needed to just be trusting.
So for the next few months after
that, that is what I did. When the
doubts would come in, I’d just tell God I was going to chose to believe, even
if it didn’t make sense. Even if it
seemed crazy. And in doing so, I admitted
to a handful of people about the nursery in our home as an act of stepping out
in faith.
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