During life God affirms that He is intimately involved in our lives. He is not just a belief, concept or idea. He is a person upon whom we can depend who comes to us and stands with us in our darkest hours. It’s the ministry of HIS presence!
Henri Whitfield
We knelt to pray beside of her bed, as we often did, suddenly she fell to the floor clutching her Bible. As she lay there in her favorite blue-green night-gown she pushed her Bible into my chest, her arms fell limp, and she slipped out of consciousness. I called out to my step-father who came and grabbed her away from me, he yelled her name, Maggie!!!! Mag!!!! And then he rushed to the phone to call an ambulance. As I sat there alone confused, bewildered and afraid a few moments later I watched as white foam began to flow from her mouth, I realized her life energy was slowly fading from her. God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, the divine comforter, had come into the room. She was no longer gasping, struggling, and clinging on to life. She was suddenly at peace, and I too was suddenly at peace…it was a strange kind of peace.
What should have been a devastating night of horror was a night of affirmation. It was a night of proof that God truly is intimately involved in the lives of His chosen. It was the first time in my life that I realized that God was not just a belief, but He was a person upon whom I could depend. That night in November of the eighteenth year of my life. I realized that in my darkest hour He came and calmed me. He stood with me as they carried her….my mother… from the room and rushed her to the hospital.
Hours later, as I waited at home alone with my younger sister, who slept through all of the commotions, the door to the carport opened and in walks my step-dad. After a dramatic pause that seemed like an eternity… he told me “Your mom just died.” Subsequently studying his face, I noticed that he had been crying, at that moment what I already knew was confirmed. I immediately pushed past him and ran into the night. I ran only a short distance into the crisp, fresh Georgia air gasping for breath, screaming, crying and struggling trying to fully comprehend what had just happened, my 44-year-old mother had just died. Slowly I came to myself and returned home to find that our neighbors had begun to gather into the house. This was the night that my mom’s life ended. In fact, it was the end of a lot of things… but my belief catapulted into faith! I had no choice, I had been taught to believe in God, but I had never depended on God. Until now there was no need…. Mom was there. That autumn night in the eighteenth year of my life, in Savannah, Ga I learned that I had been chosen by God, everything that I had been taught crystalized into a solid, though small, foundation of faith that would carry me throughout my life.
With my world collapsing around me, I stood firm on the faith that I had seen develop in my mother. Through all the disappointments and the troubles of our lives, we learned to trust God. My mother was no saint by the stretch of anyone’s imagination, but she eventually learned to embrace what Gods’ will was for her life. With 20/20 vision I know that her purpose was inextricably tied to getting me here so that I might fulfill the legacy that has been started in my family. We are a priestly family, and we have a mission which is to show the love of God to a shadowy world that has no true concept of love. By faith, I set my sights on going forward and becoming what God called me to be.
“…for by grace have ye, been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, that no man should glory. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God afore prepared that we should walk in them.”[1] (Ephesians 2:8-9)
[1] American Standard Version (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1995), Eph 2:8–10.
