To God Be The Glory, Great Things He Has Done
It’s been a minute.
I love that phrase. I probably overuse it. And my repetitious use of it probably annoys those in my listening (or instant messaging) range.
It’s just so darn handy! When was the last time you had a tuna melt? You know, it’s been a minute. When was the last time you saw that person in person? Oh, it had to have been pre-COVID; it’s been a minute. When was the last time you dusted off the ol’ pen and paper and wrote something? Oh, about a year, it’s been a minute.
But my lack of writing hasn’t been due to a lack of things to write about. O contraire my friend (or acquaintance or internet stranger.) God has been so active in the past year.
I’ll recap because recaps are fun, but I’ll try not to get into the weeds because busyness bragging is not fun.
Last summer, Silas started preschool, which isn’t very noteworthy beyond the fact that it introduced a new rhythm to our daily routine. Then we had to go through a time-intensive church planter assessment process. Then our first resident intern (and his family) moved into the parsonage and started doing intern-y things. Kudos to Danny for always handling things before we had to ask. It was crazy. Things happened. We would turn around and something would be done. It was the best.
Then the Lord sparked a ministry idea, involving coffee, as we were talking to people at Silas’ birthday party. But we had to take the idea to prayer for a bit because we’ve learned the hard way that making plans first without consulting the Lord, and then asking Him to bless said plans, doesn’t work out so well.
Then the Lord brought a young couple to our church and we had an outdoor baptism service at the beach. What a celebration!
Three Sundays later we learned that a young lady who had attended our outdoor baptism service asked her dad if he would baptize her. He invited us to come watch her baptism after church. We love watching baptisms, so of course we were going to go! Makena’s testimony was so powerful and we were just in awe of what Jesus had done in her life to rescue her from darkness.
Then came the whirlwind. As October came to a close, my friend Amy and I hosted a weekend retreat for Alliance Women in our district. As soon as that was wrapped up, our district superintendent came down mid-week to give us some hard news. There was some unprofessional ugly crying. At church on Sunday, as we were processing the news, we learned that Makena was in the ICU. We spent our entire Sunday evening prayer meeting asking Jesus to move miraculously and heal Makena. The diagnosis was bacterial meningitis encephalitis. It hit hard. My dad died of bacterial meningitis 20 years ago in November of 2002. It’s aggressive and progresses quickly. And so we prayed.
Jeff was able to visit. We asked for updates, and prayed some more. We emailed our C&MA prayer network and many interceded for her.
I attended a women’s conference that next Saturday and while I was planning to skip the breakout sessions to get some work done, once I was there, the Spirit changed my mind and I went to a session on grief. The speaker was a licensed biblical counselor and after I asked a question during the open Q&A time, she said, “let’s talk after.” I got a free hour of therapy and prayer. Turns out, she serves at Shepherd’s Canyon, a ministry that specializes in counseling ministry folks to prevent, or heal from, church burnout. God did a mighty work in that little school room trailer that first Saturday of November. It was so redeeming and healing to have this woman of God listen to my story, listen to the uncertainties of my life, and pray for me. And (and!) all this happened while my 3 year old was being watched by the church’s pastor and other dude volunteers.
During this whirlwind period last fall, the quote that I kept repeating to myself was one I had learned at a Soul Care conference with Dr. Rob Reimer. One of the truisms that he emphasized was, “Jesus isn’t nervous. He hasn’t had a nervous day in 2000 years and today is not that day.”
Makena was in the ICU for a few weeks and the doctors didn’t expect her to survive. Her neurosurgeon didn’t expect her to survive. But our God is a God who does more than we can ask or imagine (Eph 3:20.) Jesus is Healer, and He is so good (Matt. 8:16–17.) He is alive and active today (Heb 13:8.) In His kindness, He healed her. Miraculously, Makena was out of the ICU by Veteran’s Day, was meningitis free a few days later, and home by Thanksgiving. She stumped the infectious disease specialist who had to cancel his treatment regimen when tests came back that she didn’t need it anymore. Though my dad didn’t come home for Thanksgiving after he contracted bacterial meningitis, Makena did; and God used that to show me how He continues to redeem.
Well, after seeing a miraculous healing, it wasn’t so hard to bring our other tough news to prayer, asking for a different outcome in an even-keeled, not-panicked tone. And, praise God, the outcome changed mid-December right before Christmas. We were given a longer leash to implement our long term vision (if the Lord tarries) for ministry here in Chula Vista.
So in the new year, we hit the ground running and planned out our year.
But of course, 2023 has already seen its fair share of major ups and downs. I’ll confess when Jeff preached on Acts 27 about Paul’s shipwreck a few months ago, I asked him if he could preach on something smoother than the storms of life in the future. Why? What’s the “harm” in going through Acts 27? The “harm” is that God wants you to learn (like, actually learn.) And since He is a good teacher - and because He has a great sense of humor - He has a tendency to make you live out the text and deepen your faith as you’re going through it. Learning about holy desperation? Learning about the necessity of prayer? Learning about relying on the eternal rather than the circumstantial? You’re going to face a moment (or two or three) when you’re desperate for God to intervene in such a way that you can only say, “God did that.”
Until the day was about to dawn, Paul kept encouraging them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been constantly watching and going without eating, having taken in nothing. Therefore, I encourage you to take some food, for this is for your survival, for not a hair from the head of any of you will perish.” Having said this, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all, and he broke it and began to eat. All of them were encouraged and they themselves also took food. We were 276 people on the ship in all. When they had eaten enough, they began lightening the ship by throwing the wheat out into the sea.
Acts 27:33-38
That’s been ministry and life thus far - we’re living out our metaphorical storms in faith in the One who is steadfast. We’re continuously facing situations where we can’t see the next step. Some days we have nothing to say but, “I may not be able to see the next step, but I can see Jesus.” Yes, that is the prize. That is the point. Jesus has been so near (Philppians 4:5) and so we rejoice.
And so we navigate the next adventure of our journey, a business as mission (BAM) venture. South Bay Coffee Alliance is coming soon to a church parking lot near you (if you’re in Chula Vista, that is.)
Thanks for reading. Please keep praying for us.
To God be the glory, great things He has done, and continues to do, in our midst.
