Yes, God still works miracles! A few years ago, I was blessed to be a part of one! There is no other explanation of how all these people and circumstances could “just fall together”!
It all began on a fall Saturday morning. I was in Montgomery at His Vessel Ministries attending a meeting. After the meeting, I ran into an old friend. We’d met through a Discipleship class at the Ministry. As we were talking she shared that she and her husband had decided to adopt a child through the foster care system. They had been married 24 years and unable to have children. They now wanted desperately to adopt a child. She asked me to pray for them because the foster system was so overwhelmed with placing children in foster homes there wasn’t much time to find them a child to adopt. Immediately someone came to my mind. “I might know of a child.” Her face lit up like a Christmas tree! I didn’t want to get her hopes up, but I was already getting excited myself!
On my way home to Cullman, I called my friend. She and her husband have been foster parents for several years. I knew they had a baby that would be up for adoption soon.
When I told her the story, she said, “We have decided to adopt the baby. But, the three girls we have now are getting closer to being ready for adoption!”
Wow! Three girls! She only said they wanted one! I better check. She might not be ready for 3 little girls. Well, not only was she interested, they would have taken them at that very moment if possible! I reminded her, “This is not final yet!” But already a seed of love had been planted in her heart.
I invited her to come up and visit us the following Sunday. They went to church with us and my friends with the girls then ate lunch with us. I know you’ve heard “love at first sight,” but it was! The girls and this couple fell in love! One of the girls climbed up in the woman’s lap, looked her in the eyes, and said, “Can you be my mommy?” Yes, we cried!!! And the other two were glued to the husband.
They of course, didn’t want to leave, but they had to go back to Montgomery. The seeds of love were growing! In my heart I was praying that they wouldn’t be disappointed. But I was also praying that God would join these girls and this couple.
Another amazing detail, the women had met before. My friend in Cullman had been to a meeting at the Montgomery friend’s house with me. I had forgotten that. So, they were already connected which helped the process of adoption.
The couple applied for respite care, and 2 months later they were taking the girls for weekends. All of us were praying that somehow God would put this all together. But, actually God was the originator of it all! Through court dates, and appeals, wondering and waiting, God continued to bring it all together.
Of course there were challenges, these girls had been through the trauma of being taken from their home, living in foster homes, and not understanding all of this. Yes, they had behavior issues. But the two mothers were able to help each other through this.
A year later, the husband made a call to their lawyer telling him they were finally ready for a court date. Usually this takes months; they didn’t have months. His father had some serious health issues, they needed to go to Texas to take care of him. And he, being in the military, had been transferred to Mississippi.
That night he got a call from the lawyer. “Can you be here in the morning.” ?!
The next morning, three little girls became “their little miracles”!
All glory be to God from whom all blessings flow!
Yes, I believe in miracles! A husband and wife married 25 years decide to adopt a foster child.
Three little girls half a state away needed parents. And God had a plan!
He always does!
I reckon calling different times of life a “season” seems to make perfect sense. Seasons change and life changed, so we went from seeing each other every single day to seeing each other on special occasions and when we happen to be at the same place at the same time. When that happens I have been known to squeal with excitement. As we sat there soaking in our time and happenings in our families’ lives, drinking our caffeinated beverage of choice, amidst an endless supply of buffalo check and country store decor surrounding us, “Season’s Greetings” made its way into my mind (defined by the same above source as: an expression of goodwill at Christmas or the New Year) I wondered where the expression had found its origins.
“That’s Jesus.”
…music that stirs the soul
…the lisping wisdom of a 4-year-old
…gazing into the innocent eyes of a child
…jumping in piles of leaves
…dancing in the rain
…strolling down a tree-lined lane
to me. Sometimes I find myself searching for them more than I do the One who gives them. In those times I have to back up and regain my perspective. I have on occasion had a sign intervention. Like the time, when I was 9 month pregnant with a baby that was the fulfillment of a promise to this once barren woman and a sign led me right into such a distracted state that I got to ride in an ambulance for the first time in my life.
In a matter of seconds I had managed to wreck my car. In a matter of moments more I found myself on the side of a road with a paramedic placing a giant IV in my bruised arm. And within an hour I was taken to the Emergency Room to check on the baby I was carrying.
senseless. I was literally begging the Father to intervene, bargaining with everything I had in me. Every Moment I that was not consumed by other things I was trying to figure a way out of the most certain detriment that was sure to befall my loved one.
In the late winter to early spring of 2015, I was having a bad day. The kind of bad day that lasts for weeks. I was walking to my assigned task for the day when I happened upon another kind of sign. Painted on the side of a wagon. I speculated on how it had come to be right in my path, right when I needed it. I had concluded, perhaps it was abandoned as a transportation device when its occupant declared “I can walk by myself” or its cumbersome nature proved too challenging to continue the journey onward. Maybe it’s squeaky wheel was too much an annoyance to overrule its functionality. Regardless of the circumstances that rendered it in my path on my way to do what I do, it’s message from My King was a welcome and encouraging reminder. He is indeed with me always…even until the end of the Age. Conclusion: I am not alone, He is with me always.
There is a Pastor I adore that has often said “God speaks to us in the Language we can hear.” I agree. God knows that if the messages I have received from the sign interventions had come in other ways, I likely would not have received them, but because I needed a sign in that moment, He gave me one. He is good like that. The reality is though, I do not have to ride around looking at the marquee for a sign, a word of encouragement or direction to take. In fact He has given me a huge 66 books contained in one big, best-selling book. The Bible, His word is full of direction, a road map of sorts. His word is a treasure trove full of reminders of what I need in the moment I need them. I just need to be looking for them.
We would probably all include murder, robbery, assault and such things in our definition of sin. We readily agree that anything that breaks one of the 10 Commandments is sin. But then… we back pedal when it gets to some of the “lesser” of the commandments. You know what I mean. “Bearing false witness” – we justify with the unspoken excuse, I didn’t really lie. I just revealed the part of the story that doesn’t make me look bad. “Honor your father and mother” – Oh, but you don’t know MY father, surely God didn’t mean for me to honor him? “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” – I know it’s supposed to be a day of reverence, but we have to… You can finish the sentence. And I won’t even dig into commands 1 though 3 about no other gods before me, no graven images, and not taking the Lord’s name in vain. These 3 have fallen by the wayside with most of our modern world. But these 10 commandments only scratch the surface of the “what is sin” question.
Often in our struggle against any kind of sin we fall into the trap Joshua Harris mentions in his book Sex Is Not the Problem (Lust Is). While talking about content that we allow to enter our minds he says, “…Instead of seeing how much I can avoid, I spend my energy trying to see how much I can handle.” (page 118) This is so true. Our enemy lures us into thinking we’re strong enough to play around with things that lead us to sin. We’re like people gathering beautiful stones on the rim of a 
Set Your Heart on Things Above. Disappointment is the result of unmet expectations. We set our hopes on things that are seen instead of things that are unseen. We crave and we desire and want. We are selfish, stubborn creatures. We think if things would just work out the way we think they should. We live in a world of our own making. Always looking to what we wish we had, what is just around the corner that will make us happy or fulfilled. For my husband, it was a failed business venture. His heart was set on what he thought would be the answer to his questions about provision and purpose. When that venture failed, those dreams were lost. His heart was crushed.
Set Your Mind on Things Above. When my husband and I fell into that foreboding pit, the only thing we could do was look up. As our heads turned to the light, we saw one beautiful, nail scarred hand reaching down to us. Jesus was the only One who was strong enough to not only drag us out of our pit, but set our feet upon a rock and make our steps secure. (Psalm 40:2)
My husband and I were able to experience the beauty a few years ago as friends drove us from the flat, cactus covered desert of Phoenix up through the mesas to the beautiful painted deserts of Sedona. As if it couldn’t get any better, we continued north and began to drive through breath-taking mountain ranges and beautiful canyons all the way into Flagstaff where there was snow on the ground. All in one day! Our creator definitely caught us by surprise that day and I couldn’t help but shed a few tears and worship my wonderful Creator as we listened to the song that day.
We can see the greatness of our creator even in the smallest of things. I remember tiny purple flowers, no bigger than a pencil eraser that I used to pick as a little girl. I love to watch the beautifully painted butterflies landing here and there in the yard on flowers. And honey bees gathering the nectar and pollen so that we can have honey. Sweet baby calves as they play about with one another in the pasture by my house.
One of my favorite memories with my older children is when we lay on blankets in the back yard on a cold winter night and watched the heavens declare the glory of the Lord and the sky proclaim his handiwork (Psalm 19:1). We watched meteor after meteor shoot across the star filled sky that night. My heart still rejoices in those moments of worshipping our creator as we watched that show and the verse resonated in my mind.
Priceless 