Yesterday's devotional was such an encouragement to me, but it wasn't what was written in the passages after the verses, though that was encouraging, too. It was the verses themselves from Acts. Here they are:
"Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. 'Quick, get up!' he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists." (Acts 12:7)
"About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God... Suddenly ether was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose." (Acts 16:25-26)
I had all the kids sitting around me and I asked them what they had noticed in the two passages. To me, it was obvious. I'm not sure they caught on right away. I explained what had jumped off the page to me.
Immediately, the phrases I "bolded" above stood out to me - "Suddenly", "chains fell off", and "everybody's chains came loose." Without even reading what the devotional said, I immediately felt such a sense of hope from God's Word. It was just like I had written the day before. God can do anything He wants.... and without warning. He can free us with an angel coming to visit or with an earthquake... and our chains will fall off and we will be loosed.
Such an encouragement! Then I did read the following devotional and it reminded me of how God can and will be a deliverer. One author wrote, "He possesses a resourcefulness equal to any difficulty." Nothing in my life is a challenge to Him or a surprise. "It is always safe to trust God's methods and to live by His clock."
It closed with these great words, "Difficulty is actually the atmosphere surrounding a miracle, or a miracle in its initial stage. Yet if it is to be a great miracle, the surrounding condition will be not simply a difficulty but an utter impossibility."
So, once again, that's how we prayed, so grateful for what appears to be utter impossibility, for difficulties, that we might just truly be in the initial stages of a miracle. As we sat around the table, immediately I asked the kids, "Don't you remember when God has worked like this in our lives? Can you remember a time? I sure can!" I quickly retold one of the greatest stories of God's working out a miracle in our lives at a time of utter impossibility.
It was when I was only a few weeks from delivery our 7th baby. We were in the middle of building the house and had been told we needed to leave the rental house as our landlords intended to move in. We needed a place to live for only a few more weeks until the house had its occupancy permit. Otherwise we were going to be homeless. I mentioned it at our ladies' prayer meeting that week as a point of prayer. Later on that same week, I went to another ladies' spring banquet where there was a speaker who spoke on how faithless the disciples were as they went out fishing and caught nothing. Yet because Jesus told them to try again, they did, and of course there nets were overflowing. I can't remember much of her talk except I came home encouraged to think I just needed to believe that God was going to provide "fish" for us. I shared it with the children the next morning, specifically thinking about housing, when suddenly the phone started ringing. Within a few minutes, I had two phone calls from women at church saying they had accommodations for us. One was a little further away, but would have been suitable and one was slightly closer. We just needed to go check them out. I hung up the phone in awe! Within minutes of sharing what I felt we needed to do, God was beginning to work "suddenly"!
Off we went to visit the one closer by - it was amazing! Our friends had just finished their basement, intending to rent it out. They were willing to let a family with 6 children and two adults stay downstairs, oh, and of course I was still imminently due... very brave of them. This is when the miracle became apparent. Up till this point, the places we had been staying had no air conditioning. It had to be the hottest spring on record, or at least that's how it felt to this very pregnant mom. I was dying! I wasn't sleeping, I was getting more and more swollen, and was generally suffering - not to mention the emotional upheaval I was experiencing. It made for a very bad combination.
When we moved into their basement, which had 3 bedrooms (unheard of for a basement apartment), I nearly died and went to heaven. Not only did the air conditioning work, but it seemed to work unusually hard because we were downstairs. All of my discomfort was gone! On top of that, just because God can do this, He threw in a pool. Yup, our friends upstairs also had a pool which our children were allowed to use pretty much whenever they wanted to. I'm not sure my friends' knew what they had signed up for when they let us move in! My kids were in that pool nearly all day it seemed! The miracle there was I didn't have to go anywhere!!!! I could waddle up the stairs with my coffee and sit and watch them or even go in the pool to cool off myself. It was heaven on earth. On top of all that, God gave me a friend to talk to the whole time I was there. My friend who lived upstairs became someone I came to know even better just because we saw each other everyday in the backyard by the pool! Perhaps she doesn't even realize the gift she was to me during that very hard time in my life (you know now, dear friend!)
The funny side of the story is that I ended up giving birth in their basement - didn't quite make it to the hospital.... and our 7the baby became known as "Basement Baby". Oddly enough, and just to keep the bond between the two families strong, he was born on their daughter's 1st birthday! God has a sense of humour.
As I reminded the kids of the story, it encouraged us to know God has worked "suddenly" in our lives, without warning. I never in a million years could have pictured we would have lived at our friend's house, in their basement! I had actually prepared myself for camping the rest of the summer... what a relief that God had a better plan, a "resourcefulness equal to any difficulty", so I am filled with hope.
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