I love the sun. I do. I have always been a summer time kind of girl. I love the beach. Today was a beautiful day. I got out on the beach around 10 with my daughter. We have been on a much needed mini vacation. We've come down to the Atlantic coast of Florida for her belated birthday gift. This is what she wanted. Time away.
Thanks to my sweet friend we have had a perfect little cottage to spend the weekend in. Perfect for just the two of us.
Around two my daughter had had enough and I brought her back to the cottage then, having gotten enough sun, I changed into a t-shirt and shorts and went back out onto the beach alone. I sat there in my beach chair, reading my book written by my friend Kathy Hannah. Her story has some incredible similarities to mine. Two of her chapters were almost more than I can bear.
Today is my youngest son's birthday. Today is difficult. Today I sit here in one of my favorite places, a beach chair in the sun on a sandy beach, but just a few short years ago this day would have been so different. Instead of a beach on the Atlantic, it would have been the white sand of the gulf. Instead of being here alone there would have been a house full of people. Instead of my son being 348 miles from me he would have been playing in the surf at my feet. Instead of him celebrating his birthday with his parents together, he now has to have a gathering with separate parents on separate days.
Life is not fair. There I said it. It's not. I look around me and wonder...how did I get here? To this place. 47, alone on a beach in Florida. In my chair with a book, written by a person who randomly became a friend, watching other people's children play, but not mine. Life is not fair.
I glance at my Facebook page every now and then. I see a post from my friend Sheila. I was there when she married her husband Allen. I was there when their first daughter Heather was born. We were so young back then. Then odds were against them then, the odds are against them now. Allen has cancer. It is taking its toil on him. He is only 48. He has small grandchildren who adore him. He and Sheila are finally to a point in life where they could be enjoying their lives, but this stupid disease has viciously attacked his body. He has his good days and his bad days, today is a bad one. Life is not fair.
My friend Tara battles cancer daily also. Just short of two years ago, we were comparing notes almost daily of the workout routines that she and I were participating in. She had begun to run a couple of miles a day until suddenly she gets a compression fracture. She had an adorable 11 year old. She had just begun a great new career. She was working on getting healthy and fit. It seemed she had it all, until she got pneumonia that turned out to be cancer. Ovarian cancer. The doctors have been kind but they have not been encouraging. Life is not fair.
Nicole was born with Cystic Fibrosis. Nicole is married to my cousin Shawn. She is beautiful and smart and has the sweetest personality of anyone you will ever meet. She gets up every morning to a daily routine that cannot waiver. It could mean her life. She has by far outlived her life expectancy by decades. At 35, her day is consumed with bags of IVs, machines to loosen the lungs, medications to measure. The slightest respiratory bug and she is at risk. The days of this once lively, vivacious beautiful girl who loves people are now days of isolation. Life is not fair.
My friend, Tony was just 16 years old when a freak car accident took the life of his young cousin while Tony was behind the wheel. Years later his brother-in-law and then his sister both were gone in an instant at their own hands, leaving Tony to raise his nephews. Four weeks ago, Tony's nephew Cameron, whom he had raised, who worked as his office manager and spent every day with him, was tragically killed in a car accident. Tony once again is devastated. Life is not fair.
The Sunday before Easter, my children and I walked back through the doors of Liberty Church. My brother greets me and says, "its a good day to be here, the early service was awesome, the message is incredible."
He was right.
The message was just what I needed to hear. Chris Dixon, the pastor spoke on a passage that I have never heard a sermon on before. Sun Stand Still. The text was from Joshua and highlighted the story of Joshua as he battled the Amorites. His army was defeating the enemy, every blow of every sword depleted the numbers and yet there was more battle to fight than there was day left. Joshua knows that if he does not finish the battle today, that the chances of killing the last of the Amorites is not likely. Nightfall will surely allow some to slip away. Joshua prays a prayer of incredible faith and his faith does not waiver.
Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon." Joshua 10:12
God honored this faith filled prayer. The sun stood still. The enemy was defeated with the last Amorite falling victim to the sword at what should have bee the midnight hour.
The day continued, we had our Easter gathering so that my little man could be with us and we went ahead and celebrated his birthday with my side of the family. The sermon from that morning still ringing in my ears, I later googled Sun Stand Still. Little did I know that one of my favorite pastors had done a sermon on this topic and had written a book about it. I. of course ordered the book from Amazon and I am hoping its in my mailbox when I get home.
The next night after my kids were in bed, I settled down with my devotions. I grabbed my grandfather's Bible. I placed it back on the table then picked it up again. I usually do not read from my grandaddy's Bible, but tonight I feel a need to connect with him. I sit down to my Bible study in Joshua, I'm in the first chapters in my devotions book. I flip the pages through grandaddy's Bible. I find the book of Kings. I stop and I pray, "Father, tonight, could you let me see something that will speak to me in my Gradday's handwriting? My heart is heavy and I just need to hear from him and You." I gathered several pages between my thumb and forefinger in an attempt to find the first chapter of Joshua. The page opens to the page in the picture above. In my grandfathers script, written sometime between 1968 and 1979, (the Bible was given to him by my Grandmother just a few months after my birthdate in 1968) were the words I needed to see...SUN STAND STILL.
Oh how I love when the Father shows up like this. It is in moments like this that I am assured that he hears me. Then the flood of shame washes over me.
You see, I have seen Sun Stand Still moments. I have had Sun Stan Still moments and yet my feeble heart harbors unbelief even still.
When your doctor tells you that you will never carry children to term, yet you deliver a healthy baby boy, that's a Sun Stand Still moment. When you are told by several physicians that you will never conceive and 13 days later you are expecting, that's a Sun Stand Still moment. When the doctor tells you that your 29 weeker is not going to live and yet he does, that's a Sun Stand Still moment. When the evangelist's wife is scheduled for surgery to remove a brain tumor, and doctors stand in front of an MRI bewildered because moments prior to surgery there is no sign of the cancer, that's a Sun Stand Still moment. When the DFACS agent comes to remove your children from your home based on a false report and they show up at the wrong address that's a Sun Stand Still moment. When there is no way possible for you to make your mortgage payment and a check appears in the box from out of the blue, that is a Sun Stand Still moment. When the Holy Spirit gives three people the discernment to know there is something wrong and their acts of obedience prevent you from taking your own life, that is a Sun Stand Still moment.
1Jn 5:14, 15 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
At least 34 times in the Bible, asking and receiving is addressed. From we have not because ask not to ask, seek and knock. God sometimes requires us to ask of Him.
Tonight friends, I am asking for some Sun Stand Still miracles. Some miracles that can only come about by no other means than a Divine touch from our Heavenly Father. Please pray with me for these I have mentioned. But let's not just pray, let us come boldly before the throne of God, let us ask bold prayers! Let us ask God to do the impossible! Then let us believe that He can and He will.
You see the one thing that Joshua possessed more so than I, an audacious faith that dared to ask God for the impossible, yes. But also dared to believe that God would do what was asked of him.
Father,
Tonight I come boldly before your throne. You word says that we have not because we ask not and Father tonight that is not the case. Father tonight I come thanking you that you hear my prayers for miracles and the prayers of all those that read this page. I come thanking you for healing for Allen, Tara and Nicole. I come thanking you for peace for Tony, Steve, Sheila and Shawn. I come asking you for comfort but most of all I come before you now, knowing that you are the God who sees us. You are the God who formed each of us in our mother's wombs. You Father, own the cattle on a thousand hills and there is nothing too hard for you. So tonight Father I humbly and boldly in reverence and awe ask you for miracles that only You may get the Glory for. I ask that doctors be astonished, bodies be made whole, lungs like new, cancer not just in remission, but completely gone. Lives changed and families restored for Your Glory. I thank you Father that you hear our cries. I thank you that is your great desire to lavish good things upon your children. I thank you for the testimonies that will come from these miracles and I thank you for the souls that will be saved for your kingdom as a result. I praise you and thank you for your Glorious victory over death and Hell. I thank you for the blood of your son, Jesus Christ and it is in HIS name alone that I ask all these things.
Amen.
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