Going out on a Limb

Sometimes we are inspired to do the impossible, to go out on a limb for what we believe, for who we love. For me, those are the times where I have to let go of what I thought or expected my life would be like. I throw myself on the mercy of God and trust in His love for me and for those I love. I bare-facedly admit that He is in control and I am not. My job is to pray and believe and trust....to get ready to accept the miracles that He is doing for me, for my family and for the people that are so dear to me. Because really...in the end, we do have a very Good, Good Father and His son, Jesus... loves us beyond measure......to the point of death and beyond that to NEW LIFE. The times where we are blessed to SEE Him and experience Him are HOLY and inevitably seem to be times of great change and healing. Looking back...I can also see they are times where LOVE floods in and that is why the healing happens, on this side of life, or in the next!

I am going to try to chronicle the miracles God has done in my life, and the life of my family, although, I know I will miss so many! God is so very, very, very, very good!

1961 I am born and though my mother is sick, God gives me her best friend Maxine, who names me and cares for me as a babe and shows me what LOVE and DELIGHT feel like! I have them solidly planted deep in my heart and soul and I feel safe and cherished in the world. There is no fear.

1965  While attempting to fly down the stairs, I fall and hit the base of my skull. I am hospitalized and have convulsions, a concussion. At some point, maybe during the convulsions, I don't know, I slip away. I am with Jesus, who looks into my soul with the most loving and earnest gaze. He reviews my little life with me and tells me I will need to be kinder to my brother. I am so happy to be with Him, but He tells me I have to go back. I can't feel or move anything on one side, as the doctor pricks me, going down my body with a sharp instrument. There is no fear. I think the hospital is a good place.   After ten days in the hospital, I am released and able to walk and feel again! I don't remember that I was paralyzed on one side.

1969   My best friend, Dory is dying of leukemia. The miracle is that she and I are at peace. We have each other and we trust completely in God. There is NO FEAR.  Perfect love casts out all fear. Later, I believe I am going to heaven to play with her again, and my mom catches me as I head out the door, sleep walking. I am disappointed. "I almost made it!" I think, and I wonder what would have happened if she hadn't stopped me.



1971   God protects me and helps me say, "NO" and prevents further harm to come my way. During that time, Jesus takes me away during painful experiences, and I am spared the memories for many years. When I am away, I am with Him in a place that is completely white and there is no pain.

1976 I wake twice, late in t
he night, to a brightness and a gentle wind filling my room. Jesus is with me! I feel Him first, then I see Him! There is no fear, but there is great LOVE!  Each time, I get out of bed. I go to Him...then He is gone and I fall back to sleep.  I wonder if I did something wrong, by trying to touch Him. As the days go by, though, I am so happy! Like the apostles, He has appeared to me, too! Later, when my faith is challenged, I know deep inside, that I can not really deny Him. Because I KNOW Him and have seen Him with my own eyes! Perhaps, I need that...for my faith to stay strong, and God, knowing me and the battles I will face, gives me that grace, so I will not fall away permanently.

1978   At a retreat in New Orleans, I meet an old woman dressed as a nun, who has a goodness that is beyond human. There is no wavering, or double wills in her. She serves God completely and speaks to a deep need inside my heart. I can't remember what she said, but it is clear that she is angelic and just being close to the brightness of God in her, quenches the sadness and the thirst inside me. When she has to leave, I try to get her to stay a little longer, but she has to go speak to another young person. I ask, "How long have you been doing this?" "Oh...for thousands of years," she smiles. Later, I feel at peace and confident in some new way, as I sit there alone, waiting for the retreat to begin.

1981  After starting college, and some shaming experiences, I hit rock bottom. I have turned away from God and am wounded and crying. In despair, I pray, "Jesus, if you exist, please help me. I am no good at guiding my life. Please...You do it. I give myself to you." Peace and healing flood into my heart and my life. In church, I feel the urge to speak in tongues. I begin to date Robert and my life shifts and changes in God powered ways. The day I get my engagement ring, I am waiting for the bus, and time freezes. The busy street becomes silent and a Jamaican dread locked man speaks to me. He knows Robert and I by name and knows things that are happening between us, and I sense disapproval. He asks to see the ring and then he says, pointing, "You two are not supposed to be like them..."Then in slow motion a black limousine drives by. A man and a woman sit in the back seat, cold, wealthy, not speaking. After that, sounds come back, cars drive by again and my bus arrives. We both board and I look over to where he had been holding a pole to steady himself, as the bus surges forward. He is gone.

1983 I marry Robert, whose love heals me in ways that only such a patient, generous and kind love can. I completely trust him and believe he will always love me, "No matter what." That gives me a peace and a courage, that I can't explain. We head into life in an old car with a rusted out trunk, named, "Leroy." There is no fear, but only great hope and joy.


1989 After losing three babies to miscarriage, Kelly is born in one of the holiest, most miraculous experiences of my life. Robert
kneels by my side, hand on my forehead as waves pass over me, gently lapping.  Her's is a peaceful, gentle birth. The mid-wife swears she hears music, but there was none....We forgot the cassette player. God takes any intense pain and there is NO FEAR and no medicine.  She is 5.5 weeks early and I was on bed rest for 7.5 weeks before that. Even so, she is perfect and beautiful, with the most bright and wide eyes. Her head turns to the left, concentrating hard, when she hears her father's voice. She knows him! What a miracle! We are in awe!

1990 I feel God is guarding and shielding us from view. Then I go on my first weekend alone away from Robert and Kelly, who I believe is weaned, to a training session. On the ride home from Houston, my diesel truck is running out of gas. I wait too long for a station. I see a deserted looking gas station that is full service only, with a broken rusted sign that swings in the wind, beside the empty fields between Houston and College Station. I am feverish with mastitis and in pain. I a
m desperate. The man fills my tank with $5 worth of gas and almost immediately the truck begins to rattle and shake. I drive on in fear, praying for a gas station, or store... for anywhere I can call for help. A male voice inside my head begins urgently directing me, "Pull over!" "Pull over!" Finally, I can and I turn off the key and then once more, turn over the engine. "Get out of the car NOW!" the voice shouts. I do. My car is towed to College Station and the mechanic explains that the tank contained three gallons of regular gas and about a cup of diesel. They are different weights and the engine was pulling the remaining bits of diesel, mixed with gas, first. A diesel engine can't run on regular gas and when the diesel ran out, the engine would have exploded.  Later I search for the station that had made the mistake. It's not there and the corporate office say they've never had a station on that stretch of highway. I thank God for preserving my life!

2000 Robert is in ENT Residency and being singled out for terrible treatment by one female attending doctor. We have drifted apart, since his decision to leave Mathematics and go to medical school. I feel afraid and uncertain by the change and memories of childhood abuse begin to surface, making me a volatile and frightened wife. It hurts him. I work on healing my wounds, but my PTSD affects our relationship in tragic ways. He urges me to quit therapy, since it is only making me worse. I pull away from him, feeling I can't trust him any more. I also know I can't live with the intensity of the pain I am in and I search for a cure.  I go to EMDR without his knowledge and habits born of abuse slip away, as my memories are healed. I begin to feel more loving towards him, when we move to Missouri, and I find myself wanting my husband's love and attention back. Maybe he senses that. He is so very angry and unhappy that he leaves for about 3 or 4 months, saying that when he looks at me, he feels nothing but anger. God uses that time to heal my heart and help me to honestly look at our relationship and what I have done to injure it. I ask for forgiveness by letter, since I never see Robert face to face. I pray that the great anger in his heart will one day melt away when he sees me...that God will do a cleansing miracle in his heart....but of course, Robert makes sure to pick up Kelly, when I am not present!

While Robert is gone, I am soaked in prayer, by a charismatic prayer group, and by a prayer warrior, who is my client at Boone County Council on Aging.  Robert makes arrangements to pick up all his things and I sort them in the garage. He doesn't show. "Well baby, maybe he wants to come home," my prayer warrior says. "No...I don't think so," I reply, sadly.  I believe my husband is not coming back and I want to start life fresh, and clean, with no bitterness or pain. Finally, one night, I spend about 5 hours in prayer, releasing every hurt that I need to lay down and forgiving Robert completely...starting with the big wounds, and ending with his socks left on the floor, which doesn't really bother me!  I feel a lightness and a bright presence with me in the room, as I lay my burdens down. I am ready for my new life! The next night, Robert calls and asks if he can come and watch a movie and he tells me the sunset is beautiful and that I should go see it. I am cautious but agree. I take the dog out for a walk. He sees me in the distance and when he does, he says that all the anger he has been harboring, just slips away. We walk together then, and he asks if he can stay. "Do you mean, for the night?" "No. Can I stay forever?"  "I'm not sure..." I reply tentatively. But he does stay.  God does another miracle and we begin again, more loving and grateful for each other, than ever before.

2001 Dillon is conceived through much prayer. What a blessed pregnancy it is. I feel like Mary carrying the baby Jesus! Just so completely blessed! I know the Lord is with us! My prayer group and prayer warrior soak us in prayer again, as pre-term contractions begin at about 17 weeks gestation. The Saturday of his birth, is five weeks early and 10 days after 911,  Dillon is in fetal distress and a medical student stands at the foot of my bed, praying. I feel a calmness at his presence there. He is given the privilege of delivering Dillon, when he is born. Dillon is a very sick baby, with a PDA, a heart valve, that hasn't closed and also with viral pneumonia. He has bubbles coming out of his little mouth, when I try to nurse him, and his lips and fingers are blue. They schedule him for heart surgery the next afternoon and Robert asks the church to pray with him that Sunday morning for the valve to close. The doctors cancel the surgery around 11 am. It closes!  But Dillon is still sick, and doesn't move or cry and we don't even know the color of his eyes! The nurse says that a baby with compromised lungs like this may be in the hospital for 2 or 3 months. They send me home, without our baby. But after 10 days, and access to my breast milk, Dillon becomes well enough to breathe on his own and to come home to us! As a small child, he has an extraordinary wisdom and calmness. He is often confused about family, as he believes everyone....all the people around us, are our family. God's family!

So many miracles and such a long post! There are many many more times God has blessed us with miracles, in the years since 2001, but I think they will have to wait for another time. I know these things sound perhaps, a bit crazy, and maybe unbelievable, but God is so very, very real and so very, very good. I suspect there are countless miracles in your life that you may not even know about!  I share these, first to remind myself of His goodness and secondly, to encourage you to BELIEVE and to ask the Lord for help, in your times of trouble. He is so very, very faithful, if we will just reach out for Him and make Him the Lord of our lives! Finally, I share them to give HIM the Glory! I have been too shy for too long to speak boldly about God's great miracles and it is time to proclaim from the rooftops the Greatness of our God!