Today I find it fitting to tell you a story about my uncle Larry who lives in Tennessee.
I was speaking with my father this week and was told about an event in my uncles life that set him on the right path for the rest of his life that I had never heard before. I called Larry this morning and spoke with him about the event.
Uncle Larry was a man who lived his life drinking and living as he desired. He had become consumed with alcohol and living in the bars. He had many times been in great danger where shootings were taking place but it never shook his world enough to stop living a rebellious life.
Each time he would go to see my grandmother she would tell him he needed to get his life cleaned up and start serving the Lord.
My granny Creekmore never hesitated to tell her children or grandchildren that God was real and had the power to stop them in their tracks. She was a song writer and wrote a song called, "Hezikiah". One of the lines to the song was Hezikiah, Hezikiah get your house in order lest you die.
Uncle Larry living his life the way he seen fit, became upset with Granny Creekmore and even had gotten to where he didn't want to go back home because of her testimony of Christ. When he did go to visit and would say things about a shooting he had seen, she would say, "Son, that was a close call, you better get your heart right. God is trying to tell you something."
One day Uncle Larry was driving a buggy with horses across an area and suddenly the ground under the buggy was gone. He had driven across an old well that had been covered up and suddenly he realized he was lying in the bottom of the old abandoned well with no way to get out. He could barely move as he had suffered many broken bones and the ribs being among some of the broken, he was in great pain.
When my grandmother realized her son had nearly gotten killed she became so excited and starting rejoicing, serious loud rejoicing. Uncle Larry couldn't figure out why his mother was excited and rejoicing and had turned from a Southern Baptist woman into a Pentecostal one when she heard he had nearly been killed.
Granny stopped rejoicing and told Larry, "I was praying for you and told God to do whatever it takes to shake your world and get your heart right with Him. Son, God has just shaken your world and it's time you get right because the next time he may just kill you if your not willing to listen."
Uncle Larry did get his heart right and is no longer an alcoholic living his life for himself but is a preacher of the gospel of Christ and prays with other people as they pray for their own children that God would shake their world that they may turn back to the Lord.
I have watched the Lord shake the world of many folks and them turn their heads away but there will come a day the Lord says, "It's time you get your house in order."
Do you find it fitting that without knowing this story we named our ministry many years ago, "Digging a Well"?
My grandmother was the inspiration of my life to keep on keeping on when things seem to be crumbling all around as she stayed around to see her children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren turn to God and serve him faithfully.
Prior to my mother taking her own life she spent about three weeks at our home in Colorado and she spent most of that time grieving over her family as she was watching them turn from God to living worldly lives.
She was raised in a home where alcohol played a big part of the family and she had watched her family fight and nearly destroy each other. She had watched her father consume alcohol and died of kidney failure. She had prayed her entire adult life over her husband, siblings and children and suddenly she was watching her children turn away from God instead of turn to God. This left her feeling as if she had wasted her entire life.
Instead of choosing to have hope, she made the choice to leave this world and all it's darkness because she didn't have the power to make change the people around her. She became so consumed with defeat, fear and despair that she left us and never seen the day when her family finally did turn to the Lord and started serving Christ. She never experienced the joys of watching her grandchildren grow up. She didn't stay around to pray over all of us for the years of trials we would go through. She just checked out on everyone.
I also came to that crossroad as mid-life seems to be packed full of changes and defeat. Early in my life I did nothing other than train up my children in the path they should go day in and day out. I didn't run around with other women and have fun or get consumed with TV, games or events. I didn't work outside the home during their early childhood stages, I only focused on being a pastors wife who gave 100% of my time and devotion to my husband and children until my youngest son was in 5th grade and the other four were teenagers at which time I started working a few hours each day while they were in school.
As the adopted children and our own children began to leave home one at a time I was reminded a few times what a horrible parent I had been.
Being strict I could understand why they were angry and thus I turned my anger towards my husband who had set the rules very high for them to live under and not only did they begin to leave home but they didn't want to be a part of our lives and began to push away leaving me deeply lonely.
I watched my entire family crumble and found myself living the same life my mother had lived yet trying to write and give other people hope.
My marriage was broken and we had separated for years and then tried to mend it but still had segments in our relationship that was shattered and causing deep grief.
The crossroad I found myself at was, do I make the decision my mother made or do I stand and live like my grandmother did?
My granny, a lady who would make others angry because she believed so much in her God that she prayed daily for her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to come to God and that He would put a hedge of protection around each of us, yet also would shake our world if we ever strayed outside of His will until we turn back to Christ. Never leaving us to be fulfilled if we were living our lives in this present world of sin.
This particular day I found myself at the crossroads and I was in great despair and had wept for six or seven hours over feeling my husband didn't love me (even though it wasn't true) and my children had turned their own ways instead of turning to Christ.
I had written two books and people had even told me, "How can you write books about your heritage and see that four of your children have turned completely away from the faith showing training them in the way of the Lord doesn't always turn out so well?
All this began to eat away at my flesh and I got into my vehicle and drove for hours upon hours. Not knowing where all I had turned and driven, as the tears flooded down my face I made my final decision.
I pulled into a parking lot, got out of my truck and walked into a store. As stupid as it sounded I had decided today I was no longer going to live this way; defeated over my marriage and my children.
Today I would stop expecting my husband to love me the way I thought he should love me. I would draw the line in the sand and say, whatever they do they are doing to the Lord and not to myself. Words and deeds can't hurt me and I will live with the power of Christ as a hedge around me and not become emotional over every little thing that comes against me, but will take those times to dig a little deeper. I will live in hope, knowing that God will be victorious over all our lives, though it not be apparent on this day.
Understanding these times are just wakes and as I ride the wakes there will be times I feel the waves will engulf me. The waves will try to take my breath away but if I stand, it will be the ride of a lifetime.
As I walked up to the counter at the store; a lady was there and I said, this may sound totally stupid to you but I need to purchase a wedding ring.
She looked around and said, "Is your fiance here with you?"
I told her no, and she was puzzled as to why he wasn't purchasing the ring or at least come with me. I said, "I was so defeated the last few hours that I wanted to take my own life as my mother had but instead I have made a very unusual choice.
I said, "I am here by myself to buy a wedding ring to wear that I can look at and be reminded that no matter what happens in my life that God is in control and I will not lose hope that he will intervene and turn my family around. Though I may not see it as long as I live, may I have the faith that my granny had to know there is a God greater and more powerful than anything that I will face and he loves, loves, loves me.
The lady fell on the ground and started weeping and praying and weeping and praying. When she got up she said, I came to work this morning angry because I live pretty far and my manager called and said he needed me for two hours today. I told him I don't want to come to work for two hours because that doesn't pay my gas to the job and back home and I go to church every Sunday and he knows that and I can't believe he's calling me to come in.
The manager would not give up and said, I need you at the store for two hours today, no exceptions. She said I have only been here a short time but lady I'm telling you that God himself sent you to this specific store today and sent me here also and I will be happy to help you select a ring of hope for you to wear.
We selected the ring and she gave me every discount she could find in the store and we talked for a long time about how the enemy desires to sift us but if we stand our ground and continue to have hope God will be victorious and she prayed victory over my life.
Four or five years has passed since that day and soon after that day God began to break down walls in Digging a Well Ministries and we have gone into more than seventy countries and have over 66 thousand hits on the blog.
Digging a Well Ministries found it's purpose and God has shaken some lives over the past few years. There have been some that changed and there have been some that have been shaken and they ignore the hand of God.
God will come back and He will shake them again. My prayer is that instead of having to dig themselves out of the well as Uncle Larry had to do, they will chose to dig a well so others may live and find real meaning and purpose in life.
As I was speaking with my uncle this morning I began to cry as I realized the power of a woman praying over her family. Through those prayers the gospel of Christ has spread so far and wide and though she never traveled the world, her prayers have and those prayers will continue to spread out further in the days coming as together continue to Dig a Well.
