Tag Archives: faith

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Tested and Tried by Fire

I have been blessed over the years to attend several women’s retreats and conferences. I have heard inspiring Bible teaching and been challenged in my walk with the Lord. My favorite sessions have included clear teaching from God’s Word and practical application for my life. I can remember hearing Elisabeth Elliot speak in 1973 at Urbana (a college age missions conference).  I can’t tell you the times her words have challenged me in the many years since that conference. I also was blessed by a godly Bible teacher, Sally Fesperman, starting in 1975 and spanning many years. She was an older woman who took seriously the Biblical mandate “older women should teach younger women to love their husbands and children.” Titus 3:5

I can remember thinking how blessed I have been by their example and I wanted to be used by God as they were. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

I sensed the Holy Spirit asking me at that time – “These two women bless you, yet are you willing to suffer what they have suffered? Their lives have been tried by my refining fire.”

Whoa.

I was stunned.

 photo from www.onethankfulmom.com

Elizabeth Elliot lost her husband when he was murdered by the native people in Ecuador he was making contact with. His intent was to share Jesus with this remote group of people.

    photo from findagrave.com

Sally Fesperman lost her first son as an infant and her second son was killed by a run away dump truck soon before he was to be married at age 24.

These women were sharing with us from the refining fire of suffering. Their words were powerful because they had been forged by holding unto the Truth of God’s faithfulness in spite of the circumstances. They both had suffered, yet when hearing them share, you saw joy and peace radiate from their faces.

I could not answer yes to that question stirring in my heart. I didn’t want to suffer – to lose my husband or my children. I was clearly NOT ready to share with others what I had not lived through myself. Sharing others’ stories can be good, yet the testimony of a woman tested by time is powerful.

I also have come to realize that I held unto several false beliefs because I wanted them to be true. Those false beliefs would have been stumbling blocks to anyone I shared them with.

God in His wisdom has allowed me to be tested by time. The difference from who I am now and what I have to share is 73 years of God’s faithfulness. In spite of my weakness, He is strong. The amazing fact for me is that even though I was arrogant and even prideful thinking I had something to share when I was young and untested – God has seen fit to allow me to share from His Word.

Isaiah 43: 1-3

But now, this is what the Lord says—
He who created you, Jacob,
he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name, you are mine.

2 When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

3 For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

That is ALL I have to share that is of any worth – the Truth of God’s Word. I have been tested by time and God is faithful!

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Focus

Several years ago our daughter’s pastor shared that he prayerfully chose a word each year on which to focus. As the year unfolded it blessed him to see God using that word to illuminate areas in his life where God was indeed working. As followers of Jesus, we by faith believe that God is working in us and through us, yet often are oblivious to the specifics. That idea of intentionality resonated with me.

It is so easy for me to go through life day by day and NOT notice what God is doing until I intentionally stop and look. The focus of a specific “word” has helped me do just that. My words the past few years have been “grace”, listen”, “humility”, “follow” and the first one – “focus”.

So lately I have been asking the Lord to impress on me what my word should be for 2025. I did not receive any clear impression. Should I continue with “listen” again? Maybe I needed more focus on listening?

Every year my sister-in-law Renee sends me a beautiful calendar of calligraphy scriptures by artist Timothy Botts. I was getting ready to switch out last year’s calendar with the new one and my eye caught the artist’s statement from the 2024 calendar. “A Love for Art and the Word”. YES!! That struck my heart! I love God’s Word and God has blessed me with artistic ability.

Timothy Botts goes on to say in his statement that his artistic expression responds to the prayer – “Day by day, oh dear Lord, three things I pray: to see thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, follow thee more nearly”

Then yesterday I was reading my devotional where I pray for each of our grandchildren, and now our great-grandchild. In the forward this quote appeared attributed to Richard of Chichester (1197-1253) “For these three things I pray: To see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, to follow thee more nearly.”

I took it as confirmation that those three phrases are my “word” for 2025. My prayer.

Psalm 25:4-6 says –

Show me the right path, O Lord;
point out the road for me to follow.
5 Lead me by your truth and teach me,
for you are the God who saves me.
All day long I put my hope in you.
6 Remember, O Lord, your compassion and unfailing love,
which you have shown from long ages past.

I will now be looking this year for the ways God answers this prayer.

God is faithful.

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Silent Night, Holy Night, Again

Adahlyn Wood Ledford, Caleb Ledford, and Alice Caroline Ledford

Silent Night
By Abigail Hardy
It was December 5th, 1992.  As I rushed with my parents into the emergency room entrance late that night, a gurney sped past us.  Like a snapshot, I can remember, the sight of a leg, knee up in the air covered with a white sheet and below the knee, unnaturally, something large and black was bisecting the bloody leg.  Is that really what I saw?  I was too unsure to ask my parents.  I could tell they were more scared than they were willing to admit to me.
I sat in the waiting room of the ER.  I felt lost and unsteady as my parents went back to talk with the doctors.  Words like “accident” “coma” “racing” “head-on” were punctuating the air of the waiting room as people from our small church slowly filled it. 

Things like this do not happen to us.  Not to kids coming back from a church youth group trip.  Surely not, God. 

The van, driven by our church’s youth group leader and my Dad’s closest friend, had been hit head-on by a man in a Corvette.  He had been racing 120 mph down the curving road, some pieces of his car left hanging high in the trees. 
My oldest sister Hannah had been in the back of the van with four other junior high students from our church youth group, and two adult leaders in the front.  Kirsten, the energetic college student from WCU who helped with the youth group, died instantly.  Hannah was in a coma.  Mr. Brown, the driver, was the victim we had seen as we rushed into the ER with the brake pedal stuck through his lower leg and a broken pelvis and ribs.  He had been pinned in the car and had prayed with the kids and kept them calm until the emergency services arrived and were able to cut him out.  Another student had a serious head injury and the other three had escaped with broken bones or scrapes and bruises.

My sister had been airlifted to Memorial Mission in Asheville soon after my parents and I had arrived at the local ER.  When I got to visit her in the hospital the next day, I remember the sight of my mother, holding her hand, singing hymns and Christmas carols to her unresponsive body. 

On the third day, as my mother sang Silent Night to her daughter, she heard my sister’s voice join with hers.  Hannah had woken up.

This is the meaning of Christmas, lived out by the people I lived with. 
Mr. Brown, speaking peace to panicked kids as his own pain loomed like a giant wave above him. 
Kirsten, losing her life in the middle of obedience to Christ’s call on her to minister to kids.
My mom, singing Silent Night over my sister in total faith that God is our healer and restorer.
My sister, given back life through no merit or effort of her own, and, oh, so thankful for that gift.

And, yes, the tears fall when I sing Silent Night at Christmas.  Because this is a beautiful, broken world that our Almighty God was born to save.