280 – Behold the Children

280– Behold the Children

November 1, 1987

Tony Martorana spoke on the Flow of the Spirit that he’s been privileged to be part of. God has been using him to help people and see God heal them. He invited all of us, especially the children, to join him for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He suggested the parents talk to their children and offer to come up to the front with them. Steve and Mark were enthusiastic to go up. It just happened to be communion Sunday so all the kids were in the service.

Dan took the boys up and Palmer Johnson (a beloved teacher) met them. He sat on the step and talked with them and they followed him in prayer.

Timmy sitting next to me, cried. He had told me a few weeks earlier that he was having some questions about the Lord. Perhaps being in the public school setting is stirring him up. I feel he will be able to fully decide soon. Dan is going to talk to him at home.

Stevie and I went to Elim for the evening service. A missionary who served in Jamaica spoke: Jesus is entrusting you with people He cherishes and we are to treat them carefully.

He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.” Mark 10:14

November 3

The kids and I had a good close time of prayer and talking before Timmy left for school. Then Stevie, Markie, and Daniel and I danced and sang and praised God!

I talked to Barb and we prayed for our sons in their second grade classroom. Downstairs Steve and Mark were singing a praise song where you have to scream and shout over and over!

Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. Psalm 8:2

126- Following God’s Trail – #8

June 1 –Although we sold our house for $8,000 less than the appraisal, bought a car we cannot afford, have not gotten the obstetrician I wanted, the peace of God is totally meeting me. It’s wonderful. We’re in a dimension of faith that is far beyond us. We have over-extended ourselves in faith. We are in His grace. Yet, I can’t think too hard about the new car. It’s done. Dan agrees. We have to rest and trust Him.

A few hours later, Reno Dodge called for us to return the car!! It had already been sold to another man who was irate when he came to pick it up and it wasn’t there. OH NO! But what a relief! Dan said when he prayed last night, wondering if we’d done the right thing, he’d felt God had said, “There’s a way out.”

This was amazing. We learned some valuable lessons without a tragic mistake. The air cleared and we could see that the car was not big enough and not gutsy enough. Praise Jesus—You saved us once again!

June 2 –packed boxes, called mom about selling the house and told her the car story.

June 3 –people in my Bible study are praying about my doctor’s stand-in ob/gyn and the house sale and the car!

The reason having baby number 4 early was so important to me is that my babies increased in size: #1 almost 8 lbs, #2 almost 9 lbs, #3 was 10 pounds. I wanted #4 to be more in the 8-9 pound range. My lady friends were taking up my cause and praying for the doctor to say okay to an early delivery!

Dan did a devotional at the church property, excellent! Praise God.

June 4 – worried about taking a newborn baby across the country in July. All the boys will have just had their birthdays: Tim 5, Steve 4, Mark 2. Did not get into the Word today—it shows.

Dan did finances—bummed out. “God, if You want us to go to NY we will need to raise support here and I will have to work there.”

Met the on-call doctor since mine will be out of town at the time of the birth – professional, caring, compassionate. He will deliver ten days early.

HH at Elders’ meeting told Dan to “go home and ask God if you made a mistake on house sale.” (taking such a loss). He thinks God is able to deliver us from a bad decision, like He delivered us from the bad decision on the car! We do feel we were hasty, so we are before the Lord.

June 5 – I fell down out by rabbit cage two times! The second time it felt like I was PUSHED! Shaken and very worried about my baby. Called Karen to pray. Dan prayed. Worried. Called doctor. No spotting. Rested.

June 7 – Bob & Berta came by wanting advice—they are pursuing YWAM. They prayed about everything with us and we prayed for them!

June 9—signed escrow papers.

June 10 – Woke up before 5 and began thinking. BAD. Got uptight. Finally went to the Word. I felt very clearly led to psalms and felt that Ps 71:6 will be our baby’s testimony: By You I have been sustained from my birth; You are He who took me from my mother’s womb; my praise is continually of You.

June 11 –When I got up at 5:30am my Bible was opened to our guest speaker’s text yesterday at church: Isaiah 35:6b-7a For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. Speaker said revival is coming to this valley very soon.

What am I to do with this Lord? You know our lives are before You. We would change our plans if we thought You wanted us to stay here more than going to NY. Speak, Lord, Your servant is listening.

Dan and I prayed both morning and evening – long prayers.

115- Have You Heard Of….?

115- Have You Heard of ….

September 18, 1983

Have you heard of a condition called Erythema multiforme? Writing it brings up my emotions as I remember our son’s experience.

Erythema multiforme (EM) is an acute, self-limited, and sometimes recurring skin condition that is considered to be a type IV hypersensitivity reaction associated with certain infections, medications, and other various triggers.Erythema multiforme may be present within a wide spectrum of severity. (from emedicine.medscape.com)

During exceptional events, life is so disorganized that journaling does not happen. My journal skips from September 18 to September 24.

Such was the case when Mark (#3 son), age 18 months, woke up one morning with a high fever and alarming signs of bruising on his torso. He had not fallen, it was not an injury. We were flummoxed. We took him to the pediatrician, and she put him in the hospital. She said it was a disease that she had heard of but never dealt with.

We immediately called the church prayer chain and friends responded heroically to help us out with babysitting, meals, and every support possible.

Because of Mark’s young age, his hospital crib, which was tall enough for him to stand up in, had strong bars and looked like a cage. The bruising increased and moved around on his body. It looked like he had been severely physically abused. We got many strange looks from people.

Elders from our church and friends came to the hospital to pray.

Mark did exceptionally well in his ordeal. Friends’ prayers brought tons of grace to his spirit and he was not afraid. All of the nurses loved him.

Our friends’ prayers sustained us also.

Life happens. There is no substitute for being in a Bible-teaching church and making good friends there. You can be there for them and they will be there for you in the good times and the stressful times. We have never been more than a few weeks between churches, and in 40 years and living in several US cities we have had primarily excellent church experiences.

87- Me in the Way

October 5, 1982

At the prayer meeting I found myself thinking, “perhaps this is the night I will receive a prayer language from the Lord.”

My emphasis has always been–

ON JESUS GIVING IT –

but also …

ON ME GETTING IT –

ON ME HAVING IT –

ON ME USING IT –

THAT LOOKS LIKE A LOT OF ME!

I felt I experienced a real desire to love Jesus as He would desire me to love Him. Something selfless…..something not very familiar anymore because my life is so full that I don’t make as much time for being close to Him.

Because of my full life, I find myself looking for ways others can serve me, ways I can escape from the overwhelming fullness, rather than on presenting myself for Jesus’ use. (Actually, I do ask to be used, but He seems to call me to such quiet, unspectacular service—exhorting my family, doing housework, diapers…)

**My life is full of these wonderful people! Here, everyone is participating in Markie’s kitchen-sink bath on a sunny June afternoon.**

67- Don’t Name Him Silas!

Post-partum depression was not invented when I was going through it in the early 1980’s. I just thought I was a little koo-koo. Several years ago I calculated that I was pregnant or nursing for 7 ½ years except for two weeks.

I became pregnant on the third day of our honeymoon at age 32, nursed each of the boys for 6-12 months. Our 4th baby was born when I was 39 and I nursed him for 6 months. It’s not a Guinness record, but it is remarkable for me– since we seemed to be moving at warp speed in our Christian walk, and I was pretty much out of my comfort zone.

Our story about the birth of our third son is that I had a check-up scheduled with the doctor on my due date. I was very large and very uncomfortable and was determined to gather up my courage and insist that I deliver our baby THAT day. The doctor’s examination revealed that my body was ready, and he told us to meet him at the hospital and that our baby would be born that day.

Dan and I went home and I called my mom (no cell phones then). I packed for me, and Dan packed a bag for Timmy and Stephen. We dropped the boys off at Papa and Tutu’s and then made our way to the hospital. The doctor had been waiting two hours, expecting we had been on our way to the hospital after leaving his office. He was not very happy. He got over it, and Mark made his appearance. In those days both mom and baby automatically stayed in the hospital for 2 or 3 days. I appreciated the rest and was happy to be waited on a little bit as I snuggled our little son.

We had been considering the name Silas, because Paul and Silas were such Bible heroes for rejoicing while in prison. My mom and our good friend, Lynn, were very against Silas because they both claimed it was a very odd name to saddle a kid with.

Our niece, Jeannie, Aug’s daughter, wanted us to name our baby Auguste after her dad. Auguste was a long-time family name from the French side.

Mumbo’s friend, Daisy, said she had a dream that we named our son Mark.

So we honored them all and named our son Mark Auguste.

Our friends Bruce and Diane loaned us a beautiful cradle that Bruce had made. My Mom, Grayce, aka GG, flew to Reno to cook for us, cuddle her new grandson, and to play with the boys. Timmy and Stephen were very curious about their new little brother. Hmmm, what changes were coming with this new guy joining our family?

Soon the boys realized that life would go on pretty much as usual: Mom would still take them on walks, Dad would still read lots of books, and there would still be sandbox time every day.

Mark was born in March, 1982, and in April we moved into the solar house that Dan had built. Timmy turned 3 five weeks after Mark was born, Stevie turned 2 four months after Mark was born. Yes, they were born very close together. It was God and it was GOOD.

66- The Tale of the Insurance Company Miracle

I found this God-story in a stack of letters I wrote to my parents:

Jan 22, 1982 I called the hospital this week to talk ‘money’ so I could know how to fill out the forms and so I could call our insurance man for advice about filling them out. The woman said to have a well baby (no complications) is $1,600 approximately—PREPAID. I told them that was impossible, and she began to tell me the credit terms, etc. I called John, our friend and insurance man. He was out of town and returned the call to Dan the next day, saying we had no maternity coverage!! (Mom, this is another story about God, by the way!) As he and Dan talked, Dan reminded him of their conversation—vivid in Dan’s mind because the coverage for my age group was only $1.60 a month (it is much higher for the younger ladies that they expect to have babies—foiled them!) John had NO recollection of the conversation at all! Our deductible is $1,000 anyway, so I was already in our minds as a major expense. But we were disappointed to say the least. But we had victory in that we both (Dan and I) praised God FOR the situation. We know God is sovereign, we are not irresponsible, we have given our lives to Him, and we KNOW He will never leaves us in the lurch. It was wonderful to have such a heartfelt inner response. So we committed the situation to Him and left it there. That night at the baby shower I was attending, I mentioned it, and a friend said: “Don’t worry. We didn’t have insurance when our baby was born and a man came to our door with a check for $1,000! Our baby didn’t even have a T-shirt, and God provided so many clothes and every item we needed, we ended up with 2 of almost everything!” Well, we LOVE stories like this, and the people we hang around with have tons of them. I told Dan that night. The next day the insurance man called. He had called the company the day before, told them the story, and they said they’d call back, and did call back. The company decided that if we would pay the amount of the back premiums ($11.48), they would give us the coverage!!

The 35 year old letter about God’s amazing provision~

Our friend was floored. He said not one in 2,000 companies would do that. We thank God. He is sovereign. He takes care of His children. Praise Him! PS-I was ready to just call our neighbor who’s a retired OB/GYN and ask him to come up and deliver junior for us! We’ve paid off the gynecologist almost (one more check) and we will plunk away at the hospital bill.