Sunday night our church had an incredible worship service and I truly believe that lives were changed; I know mine was. The following is what I feel was spoken to my heart and spirit during this service.
I am sure most of us recall the stories of the Bible that captured the lives of the Israelites in the wilderness! We read, in the Bible, the story of them being freed from slavery in Egypt, their escape through a DRY Red Sea, and being fed manna from heaven. I have read and heard these stories my entire life and never received a revelation from these stories until Sunday night!
Let’s just review: After the Israelites were freed from Egypt they instantly started complaining because the traveling was hard; they told Moses that God brought them out just for them to die. After they walked on DRY LAND through the Red Sea, they once again complained that God brought them out to die. Even as God dropped manna from heaven…they doubted God’s plan. Now that we have that reviewed I can tell you what was spoken so clearly to me Sunday night and what I “saw”.
Most people reading this know about what all we have been through with Felicity’s health and know what a fight we have had. For us, receiving word that she was going deaf felt like a punch in the gut. I am not gonna lie and say that I didn’t doubt God. I definitely have had moments where I just threw my hands up, crying and asked God “Are you serious? Haven’t you seen what all she has already endured? Why her? Why can’t she just be left alone?” Overall, in my heart, I knew there was a plan and a purpose, but I was so angry at the fact that she was having to face yet another issue. Felicity already feels so “abnormal” because of previous and current health stuff and now this was just one more thing to make her feel “abnormal”. It made me so angry that I just wanted to scream. In fact, I had several heated conversations with God about this. Dale and I said we would take our cues from Felicity about how to help her and what she needed from us to be able to deal with this new challenge; that didn’t mean that I couldn’t be a little, ok a lot, ticked off about it. In my heart I knew that God did not put this on Felicity because He is a perfect God and is totally incapable of giving His children bad things; I KNEW this was from the enemy and I was determined that he wouldn’t win. Sunday, during worship something in my head and heart began to overwhelm me. I began to weep and my anger turned into sheer determination to let the enemy know that he was losing. I was reminded that that enemy tried to kill Felicity in 2004, but she lived because she had not fulfilled her purpose yet! I was reminded about 2010 when she was so sick and malnourished, living on death’s door, that the Lord brought us to the exact doctor we needed that saved her life and told us what was making her sick. I literally saw myself standing with the Israelites in the wilderness complaining, right alongside the Israelites. I was standing there asking God why He saved Felicity from all she had been through over the last 8 years only to bring her to another “wilderness”. Then I felt as if a hand went over my mouth telling me to “stop, wait and listen”. So, I stood there in the middle of worship and I stopped singing and I just listened; I focused on every word being sung and every word spoken. I cannot even tell you what song was being sung, but I can tell you what happened to my heart…my heart shifted. I wasn’t in the wilderness anymore, I was watching Felicity in a field in Africa doing what she KNOWS God has called her to do. She still had Celiac Disease and yes, she was deaf, but she was still fulfilling her calling. She was touching the lives of parents and children, both deaf and hearing. They were thanking God for her and she was praying blessing over every patient. Suddenly, I saw everything we had seen her go through and remembered the time when she told us that she had seen angels. Then I felt the hand lift off of my mouth and I started crying while I almost shouted whatever song it was that we were singing. I felt the Holy Spirit speak so very clearly to me that the angels she saw are angels that are still completely surrounding her. That God used everything that has happened with her health as a tool for us to minister to others and has made her such an amazingly strong young woman of God. I thought back to every person we had spoken to or shared Felicity’s story with that told us how much it ministered to them. I knew, during the service, that Felicity was working in the kids area and I "saw" her in with the angels around her. The vision of her in Africa…the angels were around her. Going through all of the tests for her hearing…the angels were around her. I was reminded that her having Celiac Disease didn’t mean she couldn’t do things…it meant she did things different. We always told Felicity that she was just like the other teens her age, she just had to do some things a bit different. Being deaf, whether partially or fully, didn’t mean she couldn’t do things…it meant she would do things differently. Yes, we have friends who are deaf and I have seen them do “normal” life, but it wasn’t until this moment that I finally “got it”. I no longer was seeing this as a sad time, but rather another challenge for us and we had to determine if we would let the enemy win with his attack or if we were going to allow God to use it as a ministry tool. I then saw and felt the angels that were surrounding Felicity as they came to surround Dale and I. We weren’t alone in this process…the same angels that protected Felicity with every attempt to snuff out her life, were the same angels that would protect Felicity and us as we fight through this next challenge. With the angels surrounding us, there is no fear because any hit that comes our way…the angels take the hit on our behalf. Our job is to go through the challenge and show God’s light through it to those we come into contact with. People will be placed in our path ON PURPOSE…specifically for US to minister too! So the jobs during this challenge are as follows…God: fight the battle, Angels: protect us from flying arrows, US: keep holding the light up high to point to the One fighting the battle! Immediately, I felt peace!
The point of this blog is not to weird people out about what I saw or what I feel the Holy Spirit spoke to me. The point of this blog is to remind others that we will ALL face challenges; we have even faced them in the past. In order for us to be facing challenges NOW, it means that we overcame the challenges from our past! That means…we won! The purpose of this blog is to encourage anyone facing any challenge right now to not focus on the challenge, but rather to focus on holding up your light to shine on the One who WILL fight the battle and WILL win the battle on your behalf! After all, we are ALL surrounded by angels who are protecting us from the flying arrows so all we have to do is hold up the light! Holding up the light is worshipping God even though we are in the heat of the battle, after all, God is fighting it anyway! What about when the challenge is over?! Well, we are still standing, which means we are still holding the light, which means we are still worshipping God! Often times, we wait to hold up the light and worship God until AFTER we see that the battle is over and won. True trust and faith KNOWS that God is fighting and KNOWS that He will win so we may as well start the celebration during the battle…after all…we are gonna win anyway!
