In my office, I have a favorite piece
of artwork; it’s entitled “Praying Women,” and it consists of three wooden
carvings of faceless women. I have them
arranged in a prayer circle. I look at
them often and stand in awe at the power of prayer. These statuettes remind me
of a story from my favorite devotional book, Streams in the Desert. This
is the story:
“There is an old and beautiful story of how one Christian
woman dreamed she saw three others at prayer.
As they knelt in prayer, the Master drew near to them. As He approached the first of the three, He bent
over her in tenderness and grace, with smiles full of radiant love and spoke to
her in accents of purest, sweetest music.
Leaving her, He came to the next but
only placed His hand upon her bowed head, and gave her one look of
loving approval. The third woman He
passed almost abruptly without stopping for a word or glance. The woman in her dream said to herself, “How
greatly He must love the first one, to the second He gave one look of loving
approval, but none of the special demonstrations of love He gave the first; and
the third must have grieved Him deeply, for He gave her no word at all and not
even a passing look. I wonder what she
has done, and why He made so much difference between them?”
As she tried to account
for the action of her Lord, He Himself stood by her and said: “O woman! How wrongly hast thou interpreted
Me. The first kneeling woman needs all
the weight of My tenderness and care to keep her feet in My narrow way. She needs My love, thought, and help every
moment of the day. Without it she would
fail and fall. The second has stronger
faith and deeper love, and I can trust her to trust Me however things go and
whatever people do. The third woman, whom
I seemed not to notice, and even to neglect has faith and love of the finest
quality, and her I am training by quick and drastic processes for the highest
and holiest service. She knows Me so
intimately, and trusts Me so utterly, that she is independent of words or looks
or any outward intimation of My approval.
She is not dismayed nor discouraged by any circumstances through which I
arrange that she shall pass; she trusts Me when sense and reason and every
finer instinct of the natural heart would rebel—because she knows that I am
working in her for eternity, and that what I do, though she knows not the
explanation now, she will understand hereafter.
I am silent in My love because I love beyond the power of words to
express, or of human hearts to understand, and also for your sakes that you may
learn to love and trust Me in Spirit-taught, spontaneous response to My love,
without the spur of anything outward to call it forth.”
The
examples of these three praying women ring true for my life; I look back and
see how the hand of the Lord has ordered my life and kept me in the hollow of
His Hand. At various points in my life, I’ve been in the situation of each
example of the praying women in the story. But I wasn’t always like one of
these women; the early years of my life, before I came to know the Lord, were
full of fear. Fear of finding myself
alone once again in a room with an uncle
bent on victimizing a little girl who didn’t know how to stop the
molestation. But even then, I believe
God protected me—I just didn’t know it then.
When I was 13, I accepted the Lord as my Savior during a revival. I still remember the evangelist—Kleddie
Keith—and the wooden, tear-stained altar I knelt before and asked Jesus to be
Lord of my life. It was then that I
moved into the example of the first praying woman. As a teenager and new
Christian, I needed constant affirmation of my salvation. Shortly after my conversion, I was filled with
the Holy Spirit—another experience that is still very vivid in my mind. But it was still a difficult time; my parents
only attended church sporadically at that time, but I had grandparents who
faithfully took me to church. I credit
them with instilling a sense of faithfulness in me. Even though the first praying woman is in
constant need of God’s attention as I was at this point, she is still praying,
and God loves her even in her weakness.
I am thankful that God loved me in all my frailty as a young Christian.
I
believe I was still living the example of the first praying woman when I left
home right after high school. No one ever
talked to me about what I wanted to do with my life; in fact, I went through
high school believing I wasn’t going to college. No one suggested that I should. It wasn’t until the end of my senior year
that I made a spur of the moment decision to attend Texas State Technical
College and pursue a degree in commercial art—of all things. It was during these few years that I believe I
began to transition to the example of the second praying woman. I learned a great deal about living by faith
in those years, and perhaps for the first time, I began to seriously pray and
study God’s word. I learned to hear
God’s voice as I spent time reading scripture.
I would like to tell you that my life was trouble free during this time,
but that would not be true. The reality
is I made many mistakes; this was the first time I had ever been on my own and temptation
was and is everywhere in a secular college.
But God kept His hand upon me just as He placed His hand upon the head
of the second praying woman. It was also
during these years that I met my future husband, Max. I wasn’t completely aware
of it at the time, but I was right where God wanted me to be.
Thankfully,
it wasn’t God’s will for me to be a commercial artist; He had other plans. Max and I married and settled into a routine
of work, home, church, and children.
Many of those years have been difficult ones. We often struggled financially in those early
years and lost our third child through miscarriage. God used this tragedy as a pivot point for
me; it hurt deeply; it made me stronger;
it made me sure of God’s love, and I learned to have a deeper trust in
Him. I was beginning to transition into
the example of the third woman. Let me
say, the example of the third woman is a difficult place, but it’s a secure
place when you have the confidence that “God has your back.” Through all those difficult years—the years
of raising our children; the years of financial struggle—God was faithful and
my trust in Him grew steadily.
That
faith was tested again a few years ago in 2006, during a routine medical test, and
I realized I still needed the reassuring touch received by the second praying
woman. My world stopped spinning a few
days after the test when I received a call from the hospital; the doctor wanted
additional tests because of “something” suspicious. I couldn’t breathe; this was a disease women
fear most, but there was a calmness that I don’t think I had ever experienced
before. For some reason, I felt I
shouldn’t tell many people. I called a
close friend to pray, and I told Max—no one else. My next move was to grab my
Bible; I needed to read scripture about healing—or so I thought. I dutifully began searching for scriptures
dealing with healing, but found myself reading scripture about fear. God directed me to Isaiah 41:13, “For I am
the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not
fear; I will help you.” It was then that I realized the real battle was against
fear as I waited for the results of the additional tests, but I held firm to
that promise—I wouldn’t allow myself to give in to the fear; I constantly read
God’s promise, holding it close to my heart. The Lord was faithful; the results were
good—no cancer. A couple of years later,
I received the same phone call from the hospital after another test. Another test of faith was at hand. Again, I went to God’s word. This time, I immediately went back to Isaiah
41, but that wasn’t God’s promise this time.
This time, God directed me to Isaiah 43:13, “Yes, from ancient of days I
am He.
No one can deliver out of my hand.
When I act, who can reverse it?”
My promise was clear. Again, a
good report from additional tests.
Looking back, all those
difficult times of my life prepared me for what was to be my greatest challenge
to date—the challenge that placed me squarely in the position of the third
praying woman—trusting Him when my granddaughter Avery was born. I already had three beautiful, healthy
granddaughters and expected no different with Avery. When she was born with a heart defect that
could have ended her life; my world once again stopped spinning. My heart broke not only at the possibility of
losing Avery, but with the agony of watching my own daughter suffer as she
watched her new daughter struggle to hold on to life. I had never been asked to place the life of
someone I loved dearly completely in the hands of God—until that moment. I steadfastly refused to believe anything
except that God had Avery’s life in His hands.
I am, and will always be, eternally grateful for all the prayers offered
up by students, staff, faculty, and administration at SAGU; those prayers made
a difference. A few nights after Avery’s
birth and heart surgery in which the surgeon, as he explained it, literally
filleted and reconstructed her heart, God directed me to Ephesians 6:13,
“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes,
you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to
stand.” This was the only “word” I felt
the Lord speak to me concerning Avery, but it was at that moment, I knew I had
God’s certain promise that all was well.
Over the next several months, standing firm on that promise was often a
difficult thing to do, especially when every doctor who came into Avery’s
intensive care room had something negative to report. It was then that I realized something about
the example of the third praying woman; God was always with her, and I believe
she could feel His presence. It has
taught me to know that God is always present and faithful, even when He is
seemingly silent. Today, Avery is a
beautiful, healthy 2-year old little girl who has amazed her doctors by proving
all their dire predictions about her future health wrong.
The
dream of the Christian woman of the three praying women, although just a story,
serves as a strong lesson for us all.
God is patient with us and loves us in spite of ourselves. Let us all strive to have the faith and
confidence of the third praying woman, the confidence that God always “has our
back,” and “having done all, to stand.”
