Testimonies from The God Box

We got a contract on our house tonight!

Thank You, Jesus, and 

thanks to all who've helped us pray.

Thanks @KelleyDibble

for the God box!

~Jeanine via Twitter

Exciting news from Jeanine over the weekend!

But first, a little background. At the end of August 2011, she tweeted, asking her Twitter followers to pray that her house would sell.  Yesterday.

So I wrote a request on a slip of green, folded it and dropped it into The God Box.  

31 Aug 2011

Dear God,

Please sell Jeanine Blake's house.

{It's done!}

IN YOUR NAME!

Fast forward to a January Sunday, Manila lunchtime, after Jeanine tweeted that a contract had been placed on their house Saturday evening her time (hence, the introduction to this post).  I replied that I couldn't wait to go home and update the prayer request by writing "CONTRACT" on it!  She requested a photo.

iPhoto

"Woohoo!"

she replied.

"I see you saved room to write SOLD!"

Prayer works!  I am a living witness!  I hope to write just that-- {SOLD!} -- no more than one month from now!  Wouldn't that make a lovely Valentine's Day sentiment?!

So, I think this to be the appropriate time to share what I did with The God Box idea on Guam last month.  And don't say you were not warned to grab a tissue!  You just might need it.  

iPhoto

The Chinese take-out "God Boxes"

I bought on Guam

for less than $1 each.

I loved my friend Val's idea so much-- this idea!-- that I used it at our December Daughters of Zion monthly first-Monday prayer meeting.

First of all, what is Daughters of Zion? you might ask.

DOZ is the convening of women on the first Monday of each month for the single purpose of praying for children-- their children, your children, all children.  Children in the family and children who have no family.  Children in the church, neighborhood, community, city, county, state, nation and around the world.

Again, I am a living witness: the prayers offered by the Daughters of Zion avail much!

Here are the beautiful ladies of Guam and their God Boxes- the Chinese take-out boxes I provided as inspiration.

DOZ ~ Guam, December 2011

Something I shared before our prayer time was this-- something I believe with all my heart:  We are responsible to give children Truth. It is our duty.  Just as it was Dr. Tsifutis' duty and responsibility to give to me the truth about my second child born twenty-five years ago. . . .

Somehow we were released from the hospital after I delivered our Thanksgiving (turkey) weekend baby, and she was very sick.  Unknown to me, she was so ill, our pediatrician, Dr. Tsifutis, had not even signed the newborn's release from the hospital.  As I stated, though, somehow the hospital released us to take her home anyway.

When I took her for her first week's check-up, Dr. Tsifutis was livid.  A tall, stout Greek gentleman, even his calm, controlled, thickly-accented voice boomed, "I scolded that nursing staff.  One of dem gave your baby a cold. A veddy bad one."  It was true.  She was congested, stuffy and her breathing had grown increasingly difficult.  

"You must do as I say," he instructed after examining her carefully.  "I don't want this baby to go out of your house.  Do you understand?  Here is a prescription," and he tore the paper from his tablet.  "I will call in the prescription, but I want you to keep this paper one just in case.  Call your husband from here and ask him to pick up the medicine.  You take the baby straight home.  Double the first two doses of medicine, and then proceed normally.  You must promise to keep her home until I say she is well enough to go outside of your house.  I want to see her in a week, but remember, do not take her out of the house otherwise."

Our precious new baby's condition was graver than I had imagined.

"But, doctor," I began, my heart pounding, "you don't understand.  My sister is getting married a few days before Christmas. The wedding's two hours' drive away.  I won't miss my own sister's wedding, will I?"

The doctor leaned away from the back of his chair, so close to me, I could see the lint on his glasses.  "Mrs., it is you who does not understand.  If you don't do as I say, your daughter will end up in the hospital."  And then he added emphatically, "Or worse."

Or worse?  I thought on the cold drive home.  Oh, no.  This is awful.  Our baby's so sick.  No one else can nurse her but me.  I can't put her on a bottle and leave her to go to my sister's wedding.  The baby needs me more.

And then I sighed.  And sighed.  And sighed some more. I'll have to call my sister and tell her.  I braced myself for the feathers that were fixin' to fly: Kelley's not going to her own sister's wedding.  

Right.  Sure.  The baby's too sick.  Tell me something else I can believe.  We know what it is.  You don't like that guy, and you don't support the marriage.  My sister said none of these things; in fact, no one did, but I feared these were everyone's unspoken thoughts.

Truth.  My doctor had told me truth.  That was his duty.  To tell me the truth.  As my child's physician, he was professionally and legally responsible to share with me the truth.

I, in turn, was responsible to respond appropriately in obedience to that truth.  I was my baby's mother.  It was my duty not only to respond to the truth about her condition, but if she were to grow worse, for how I responded I could be held legally responsible.  Every moment of her recovery depended upon my response.

My choice?  I had only one.  There were no other options: I was staying home with my sick child and would be absent, MIA from my only sister's wedding.

To say that the bride-to-be was deeply hurt is a gross understatement.  On the phone, she simply muttered, "It's OK.  I understand," but I knew she was offended.

And my parents?  My father was so angry, he stated, "I will never, ever forgive you for this."

The missed-wedding side of this testimony is still so very sad.  (My sister's marriage lasted two decades, ending in a cruelly painful divorce that is still rocking her and her five precious children's world.)  We've never brought up again the painful truth of this part of our family's story.

That our baby-- who got a seriously ill start in life-- twenty-four years later celebrated her own marriage to a terrific guy, followed by a surprise "Hello Kitty" twenty-fifth birthday he threw for her is the lovely truth of the better part of this story.

The "Hello Kitty" Thanksgiving weekend Baby turned 25!

As women, sisters, aunts, mothers, grandmothers, we, too, are responsible to share truth.  It is our duty.  It is our responsibility.  What the recipients of truth do with it, how they respond to it is their choice. However, truth will never change although it may come with a price.  Truth has always been truth, it is truth today, and it will forevermore be truth.  Jesus said,

"I am the way, the truth, and the life"

(John 14:6).

"Any testimonies?" I asked after our spectacular December DOZ prayer time.

Tina (above, seated second from left), a mother of two adult daughters and two adult sons stated, "I just want to say how thankful I am for Daughters of Zion.  We prayed for so long for my children, and look who is here with me tonight!"  The fruit of much prayer!  It absolutely amazed me to see Tina's firstborn Christiana, a mother of two, and Tina's baby Candace, a college student, going to and putting their arms around lady after lady, crying with them, praying with them during the prayer meeting.

near back, 

Christiana and Candace, behind lady in pink (standing),

praying at either side of Gilda (in white, wiping tears)

Candace later testified the reason why. "You all here finally get to see the fruit of some of your prayers.  Every one of you prayed for my sister and me.  And now here we are, and we get to see what those prayer meetings were like.  You prayed for us. Now it's our turn to pray for your children.

"... It's like you'd said, [Kelley].  Mom always told me the truth.  She always gave me truth.  And usually I'd say, 'I know, Mom.  I know!'

"I thought for awhile, I'll live for God later.  I know exactly when I want to live for Him.  I've got it planned out perfectly. Then in college they tried to teach me there are no absolutes, that there's nothing that's either true or it's false.  They tried to teach me it was gray.

"One day I was talking with some friends, and I heard the words come out of my mouth, 'Yes, there is truth. There is a real God and He is sovereign.' It shocked me when I heard myself defending the truth.  That's when I knew I would get my heart right with God.  

Ever since,

there's been no turning back

for me."

Are you praying about something?  Someone weighs heavily on your heart?  Worrying your mind?  Me, too.  So let's write them on slips of paper, date and fold them.  Put them in your God Box, in a drawer or between the pages of your Bible.  Leave your troubles there and forget about them.  Let the Lord handle them all.  He's going to be up all night anyway.

Here's what D' did with The God Box idea!