THE SCARLET CORD ~ part two
This morning, as I was having a telephone conversation with my second
daughter, Kelly, I mentioned or reminded her of a miracle that God did for
my husband and me years ago. She didn't even remember it. I said "that is why people don't hear of them, because they are hardly ever recorded. Our lives have been full of them, and yet after the years go by, they are forgotten and many never remember. "
How sad that is, if the stories are not passed down to the children, they are never known or forgotten as they grow older. We older ones need to remind ourselves of the many miraculous times God has supernaturally provided and preserved us. Realizing that when my older generation is gone there will be no earthly
record of all the miraculous things God did for my family and myself, I am
beginning to record them. The memory of them fades away, so they have asked me to please record them as I remember them and this is one of those occasions that I am feeling led to tell as this story unfolds. This story tells of one such miracle.
It involves a scarlet cord
My husband Morris and I have pastored very small churches after we were
married 18 years ago, and usually carried the financial burden for keeping
the bills paid. We willing went where he led us and would just have to
take a stand and stand and stand and stand! Only knowing that God had sent us could we do this.
It was not our responsibility to build the church, it was our responsibility to go where we were sent in obedience, minister to all that came through the doors and try to shepherd the faithful ones to the best of our ability through
Christ, as well as minister to the majority outside the church walls. God says, "Unless the Lord build the church, it is built in vain."
Most of our Kingdom work has been done outside of the four walls, as it
should be. We have great services and God moves and the glory is present as we worship and move with the Holy Spirit in the giftings of the Lord.
There have been many hard and trying times, but when you know God has sent you somewhere and he hasn't changed your marching orders, you had better stay and be faithful with the little that you have been entrusted with.
My husband also sold Life Insurance for over 20 years. At an age when most of our peers were paying their homes off and getting close to retirement,we were starting all over, with nothing, but God and His provision. It was more than enough! God made a way where there seemed no way.
Morris' brother and his wife, Gordon and Youvon, generously allowed us to take over payments on a rent house they owned, until we later refinanced it. A way was made to have a home we both appreciated so much. The space would have been fine, we loved our little home together, except Morris suddenly became the Pastor/President to a Fellowship of Ministers from all over the United States and a few in Africa. We loved it, but had the problem of many ministers staying in our home, with one bathroom! This became a major issue for me, because I could never get a turn !
After one trying time, ( He had been promising to build onto the house for
this very reason ) I told him "I have had it," and he told me that the next
time my daughter's house ( which was in the country and on a lake) became available to rent, we would move into it, instead of renting it out for her.
We had just rented it out to a lady and her daughter just prior to him saying this.
We went on a company trip he had earned through his work to the Bahamas. We came back after a long weekend to find they had moved. It was too much land for her to take care of. You can read between the lines. We moved into the three bedroom, two bath brick house on the lake and rented our own small house out. Problem solved for many years! How blessed we felt !!!
During that time I received a call from a lady in personnel at Pilgrim's Pride asking me if I would come and clean their administrative offices. They needed someone they felt they could trust in there at night with all their computer equipment and for many security reasons. The Personnel Manager happened to be a friend of my daughter and she thought of me when faced with her problem.
I chose to take the job and at that time it was not that big, but it continued to grow at such a fast pace that it was way more than I could do
alone. My husband began going with me so I wouldn't be there alone at
night and because I needed the help. He sold Insurance during the day and
worked half the night with me cleaning the officers and had the church and Fellowship also.
Suddenly, the area that he sold and collected Life Insurance dried up after
the big steel plant there almost shut down. His income was cut off there.
Then suddenly both our jobs at Pilgrim's were lost at the same time. We
had no income! The Pilgrim's plant had grown so fast and so large they had to hire a whole company to do the cleaning. We were suddenly with the same bills and no income.
[I have to include another miracle of provision years earlier when we were in a very tight bind. God performed a miracle concerning our car. We were going to lose it.
We went on a trip to Kansas to a big Christian Convention there. The Lord had miraculously provided us years before with a good, sound older Cadillac that we would have driven until it died. It had been such a blessing. We had gotten two payments behind and knew when we came home they would probably repossess it.
We stopped in Tulsa, Oklahoma and spent the night on our way home with
other minister friends in their home, Revs. Robert and Reba. We were leaving the next morning and she suddenly said, "Wait, the Lord wants me to anoint your car and pray over it." We had not said a word to anyone about how it would probably be gone by Monday. She proceeded to anoint our car with oil and pray over it and we left and continued our trip home.
When we arrived home, I was able to mail in half of what we owed on the car. It wasn't long before it was returned in the mail! They returned it saying that they had no record of the car or the debt, and there was no place to apply the payment. Our credit report declared it paid in full as agreed! My husband went to the bank and tried again to pay them, there was no where to put it, the record of that debt was gone.]
We drove that particular car for years, put in a new engine and two transmissions. It was a gift from the Lord. At the same time Morris' insurance income dried up, the second transmission quit working. We took it to Paris, Texas to a Christian brother's repair shop and while it was stored outside vandals trashed it and it had to go to a grave yard for cars. So now, along with no income, we were left without a car and our credit going downhill fast. Here we were Pastors and had no way to get to church! We went to a car lot and asked to" try one out over the weekend" and used it to get to church that week end, and took it back on Monday.
We really liked that car and drove it to another car lot in hopes of being able to buy one. We needed one desperately. While we were at this other lot, a Christian brother asked about our situation and said he could get us a new one, just like this one for less money. It was brand new, but never sold. We ordered it and filled out a credit application and prayed. We hadn't even seen it, we just knew we liked the one we tried out. It was a Prism, by the way.
We received two phone calls from him that we had been turned down, not
once, but twice, so we gave up and all we could do was pray; "God, you know we are desperate for transportation and need a way to get to church and work, my husband still had to run his route even though it was costing us rather than making us any income. God, we are your servants and your servants should not have to do without. What do you expect us to do?" All these cries came forth, mostly from me. I get right down to the nitty- gritty with the Lord, he is my friend and he understands me.
On Saturday, with us facing Sunday again with no transportation, I received a
phone call from this car salesman and he said," Betty, are you ready to
come and pick up your car?" I was speechless. I finally said " Are you
serious?" He was and it was waiting for us, a brand new 1992, beautiful
rosewood colored Prism. I loved it and I am particular about color! I asked him,
"How did you get it?" He told me, " I explained your situation and that you were not in it because of a lack of responsibility or trustworthiness. He told them some one needed to give us another chance to get reestablished and he said I got on my knees and begged them." This car salesman is now retired and working with his wife in the Mission fields.
So now, here we are in my daughters house with the responsibility of seeing to it her house payments are met and we had new car payments as well as usual debts and our jobs at Pilgrims are suddenly lost! Two incomes gone in a moment of time. The renters in our house were not paying their rent to top it off.
We found our selves again in a place no one wants to be in. A place we
didn't ask for nor felt we deserved. We were both hard workers and diligent. We also never neglected the ministry, so why were we here again? The ministry to the Lord and his people were our priority, we tried hard
to do all things well. " Why us Lord, why are we here again?"
We naturally did a lot of praying. I am more vocal, my husband very quiet.
I couldn't keep my concerns to myself and he went about his business as if
nothing was wrong, yet I knew he was torn up inside also. God had blessed us with the car we needed, a second chance to restore our
credit, with a lovely home to live in and be host and hostess to our
frequent company, and here we were again perhaps going to lose it all. We told no one of our distress, except our close family members. The house
didn't belong to us and we felt very responsible to keep the payments made
on time.
I received a phone call from a Pastor in Lone Oak, Texas. We had met him
many times at a friends services that were held on Saturday nights in Sulphur Springs, Texas. Sharon Asbill was the Pastor, it was called
Restoration Fellowship. Sister Sharon held these services on an off night so many Pastors and other ministers could come. It was such a glorious watering hole for us all, such a blessing for many years.
We had shaken hands with this Pastor from Lone Oak and greeted him many times, but didn't really know him. When he telephoned, hesaid," Sister Betty I am having two women in tonight to minister, they are here to minister at Women's Aglow and I was fortunate enough to get them for a service. I felt the Lord impressing me to call and tell you that you should be here and I don't
know why."
We went.
I have never seen before nor since such a team ministry in action, so anointed to flow as one and yet they were two. One would preach and stop and the other would pick up where the first left off. One would move in prophecy and then the other, one would sing and stop and the other would pick up and it just flowed . It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen in regard to ministering. I wish I could recall their names. They were absolutely spirit led. What a ministry they had! Their husbands provided well for them, so they were free to travel and
minister as the Lord led with their husbands' total support and agreement.
What a blessing they were!
They preached on Rahab !!!! They acted out the part of Rahab hearing from
her "customers" the stories that were circulating about this God that delivered all His people from Egypt etc. Hearing about all the exploits the people of this God were doing and there was fear in the hearts of all that opposed them, because this God was on their side.Then suddenly Rahab facing the spies of this God and having to choose what to do about it. How she chose to believe and save them, protect them, thus saving her own life and those of her family.
At the end of the service they said that the Lord wanted them to do a prophetic act. Those that wanted to receive of this act by faith to come forward. God, symbolically was going to cut off pieces of this scarlet cord and dividing it among those wanting to take it and share it with others. Hope being divided into pieces to be shared every where you went, with all that were in need. You had better believe we were some of the first ones at the altar !
I know first hand what a lack of hope does to someone, I know what despair is, and I wanted with all my heart to be an imparter of hope to the hopeless, a deliverer to those in captivity, a healer to those sick in mind, body, and spirit.
"Oh, God you did it for me, please use me to do it for others". It was my heart's cry.
I had often cried out to be like Jesus and one time a prophetess I knew
and totally trusted told me, "Betty, you wonder why you have suffered so many things, God heard you when you asked him to make you like Jesus and he took you literally." Jesus suffered many things that he would learn obedience. He suffered so he would know how people felt, he was acquainted with our grief and sorrows we are told in the Bible. Jesus could feel the hurt and heart aches of others. He cared and I wanted to care also.
We were in the prayer line at this service about Rahab and the imparting
of the scarlet cord. When they came to me, one of the women said, " When
the service is over, I want to talk to you." She also said, "I see you going through catalogs and God is going to give you stuff !" My husband just rolled his eyes and said, "She doesn't need any more stuff!" Little did he know that one day soon we would be tripling the size of our own home and would need lots of stuff for building and furnishing it. God has been faithful to fulfill that Word, providing more than we could ever have imagined or expected.
We went and sat down thinking the services were going to be ending and the
other woman minister stood up and turned to me and said,"God has spoken to me that we are to give you our offering tonight ! The first one that said she wanted to speak to me after the service rose and said, "That is what I was going to tell her after service." God had told them both to give me their offering that night. I have never heard of such as that before nor since.
They asked the pastor of the church for permission to put out offering plates and for anyone that felt led to come and give into an offering for us. No one but the Pastor knew us, and he only slightly. None of them knew our situation, but God did. We were two car payments behind and would be getting behind on my daughter's house and no hope in sight for a reprieve. No hope in sight.
We left there that night and I was crying and my husband overwhelmed. It
was beyond our comprehension that God would speak to strangers to give us
money, much less the ministers to give us their offering from the service.
Our God is an awesome God and is so personal. He knows where we are all
the time and really cares. He is a one-on-one God. I can't say that enough for any \one reading this, please listen!
We got into our car and started home and I opened the envelope that I was
embarrassed to open in the church and what I saw made me cry even harder !
The thing that touched my heart so much was not only did we receive a $750.00 offering that caught us up, but in the offering was a pair of ear rings and a ballpoint pen! Two people that had nothing to give gave what they had. You talk about feeling humbled. That touched us to the core of our being and will never be forgotten. Heaven recorded that day a miracle in the making because of the obedience of two women and then the Pastor and the congregation.
We did not lose our car, we didn't get behind in the house payments and we
were able to catch up and go on. There were times when we look back on
things that we don't know how we ever survived and kept a church open.
You can't even see how some times, yet it just happens. He takes you
through. Many times in peoples lives they see no way out, but God is
seeing and knows. We only have to trust him, believe Him, take Him at His
Word.
He says, " I will never leave you nor forsake you, I am a friend that
sticketh closer than a brother." " When you pass through the fire, when
you pass through the floods, when you pass through the shadow of death,
when you see no way out, he tells us he will be with us and he will take us
through to the other aside. When you are in the Valley of Achor or
trouble, I will make it a door of HOPE."
The scarlet cord was passed out that night and we were charged with the
responsibility to pass it on to others. We are dispensers of the only real
hope there is and that is the Gospel of the good news of Jesus Christ
and his love for each individual and his personal intervention in each
life that will allow him to.
He says in His Word, as he cried over Jerusalem in Luke 13:34 "Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her ! HOW OFTEN I WANTED TO GATHER YOUR CHILDREN TOGETHER, AS
A HEN GATHERS HER BROOD UNDER HER WINGS, BUT YOU WOULD NOT ."
Psalms 17:6-8 says, "I have called upon You, for you will hear me O God,
incline thine ear to me and hear my speech. Show Your marvelous loving
kindness by your right hand. O You who save those that trust in you, from those who rise up against them. Keep me as the apple of thy eye; HIDE ME UNDER THE SHADOW OF THY WINGS, from the wicked who oppress me,from my deadly enemies who surround me.
How can you explain what it is like to be hidden and sheltered under the
wings of God? To be covered by His feathers and protected and provided
for? How can you tell someone that has never been there, that there is a
secret place to abide in God where you are safe ?
I am trying my best by telling examples of His miraculous provision and
preservation. A heart and life that was captured from devastation by the
love of God and brought into His glorious Kingdom, saved, delivered,
restored and continuing being restored. His Word says "I will restore
to you THE YEARS that the canker worm and the palmer worm have eaten.
Who would have believed that God doesn't stop with just having us saved,
but even wants to restore TIME THAT WAS STOLEN, robbed from us by
circumstances? There is no limit to what he wants to do and will do for
those that desire him to, ONLY BELIEVE.
The scarlet Cord of Hope is still there extended, the blood still flows, reach out and accept it and His full provision and benefits. It is a package deal, God designed it Himself, and we are on the receiving end. He eagerly waits to show himself to us as God, Father, and friend without reservation.
I give you a portion of the scarlet cord...
