The avocation of my life for the last twenty-seven years has been international missions.\u00a0 In partnership with dozens of national churches in six continents, I have sought to serve God during two week, church-to-church, evangelistic projects.\u00a0 In most of the places where I\u2019ve gone, I\u2019ve lived with a church member and grown to know and love the people in a way no tourist could appreciate during a short vacation.\u00a0 Always I\u2019ve returned home knowing that I have been blessed.<\/p>\n
Fifteen years ago, while on a partnership mission to Venezuela, I heard an old man give his personal testimony.\u00a0 He stood for a few seconds without saying anything.\u00a0 I stared at his long white beard and white hair, and wondered what on earth he could say that I, a young stay-at-home mother, could relate to.<\/p>\n
He spoke very softly, and soon everyone was leaning forward, straining to hear his every word.\u00a0 He told us that God had saved him from a life of drugs and alcohol.\u00a0 He further explained how God had saved him and his family from the ravages of divorce and a broken home.\u00a0 He went on to tell us about life in prison and how, by the grace of God, he had been spared.\u00a0 His story was so incredible and so unlike mine all I could do was marvel at how God, the Hound of Heaven, seeks and speaks to every kind of person, wherever they are.<\/p>\n
In the closing minutes of his talk, the man revealed that, indeed, none of these calamities actually had happened to him.\u00a0 \u201cFor more than seventy years,\u201d he said, \u201cI have walked with God.\u00a0 He\u2019s been my closest friend.\u00a0 I\u2019ve tried to listen and heed what I heard.\u00a0 Though I\u2019ve disappointed Him many times, He\u2019s always forgiven me, and He\u2019s kept me from the temptations and sins that could so easily have entrapped me.\u00a0 But, I began my walk with God when I was a young boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wow!\u00a0 What a testimony, I thought, and then I realized that my experience with God had been much the same.\u00a0 I\u2019d really been struggling with what to say when I talked with people through a translator overseas, and how best to share my faith with people at home.\u00a0 My story seemed so boring, so ordinary, so uninviting to anyone seeking a dramatic, life-changing experience.<\/p>\n
There never was a time that I can remember not knowing God loved me.\u00a0 My earliest memories are of church.\u00a0 My first songs are the ones I learned in Sunday school.\u00a0 As a child I wanted to please my parents and I wanted to serve God.\u00a0 I learned to talk to God about my problems and my disappointments.\u00a0 Bible characters like Jacob and Paul were heroes to me.<\/p>\n
Gradually I began to realize that sometimes I did things that I knew were wrong.\u00a0 I did them just because I wanted to.\u00a0 It was impossible to forgive my friends when they hurt me.\u00a0 I tried very hard to obey what I read in the Bible, but the older I got, the more frustrated and guilty I felt.\u00a0 No matter how hard I tried, I was never going to be good enough to deserve heaven.<\/p>\n
One Sunday morning, during the sermon, I understood that, on my own, I had neither the will power nor the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to enable me to live the life God wanted.\u00a0 In those quiet moments as I sat in the pew, I gave control of my life, as much as a twelve year old could know of it, over to God.\u00a0 I asked Him to forgive me of my pride, stubbornness, and disobedience; I asked Him to empower me with his Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n
Nothing very dramatic happened at that moment.\u00a0 I remember thinking how good it felt to confess my helplessness, and I somehow knew that nothing would be the same again.\u00a0 As I studied more and prayed more, I developed a confidence and sense of security that was not typical of most of the \u201860\u2019s teenagers I knew.<\/p>\n
God had a plan for my life, and I wanted to live that life.\u00a0 I felt God\u2019s guidance as I made those \u201cbig\u201d decisions as to where to go to college, what to study and who to marry.\u00a0 Of course, disappointments, hurts, tragedies and some painful consequences of my own willful disobedience, have come my way.\u00a0 I\u2019ve questioned God from time to time about things I didn\u2019t (and some, I still don\u2019t) understand.\u00a0 But, I have a \u201cpeace that passes understanding\u201d most of the time.<\/p>\n
Troubles and trials come to everyone.\u00a0 It\u2019s how we handle them that make a difference.\u00a0 Just like my friend in Venezuela, I know that God has directed my path through the difficult relationships and circumstances not of my choosing.\u00a0 He has, at times, given me words to say that I\u2019d never thought of, and sometimes He\u2019s shut my mouth.\u00a0 One doesn\u2019t have to live very long to have been gossiped about, slandered by a friend, rejected, or judged unfairly.\u00a0 In those times, God has comforted and encouraged my through His Word.<\/p>\n
God has taught me how to forgive, when it would have been my nature to retaliate.\u00a0 He has given me grace so that I can grace others, even when I don\u2019t feel like it.\u00a0 These are things that did not come overnight.\u00a0 It\u2019s been more than forty years that I have walked with God.\u00a0 I know His voice.\u00a0 When He gently speaks to me and I ignore His counsel, He speaks again, louder and more sternly until I humbly obey.\u00a0 He will not let me go.<\/p>\n
Hearing that old man\u2019s story gave me a new anticipation for a long walk with God.\u00a0 After Venezuela, I never again apologized for the lack of drama in my childhood commitment.\u00a0 However, it was only after my own children became pre-teens themselves that I truly came to appreciate the unique gift I had accepted as a young girl when I met God personally.\u00a0 It was then that I realized I wanted my children to have a \u201cboring\u201d testimony just like mine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The avocation of my life for the last twenty-seven years has been international missions.\u00a0 In partnership with dozens of national churches in six continents, I have sought to serve God during two week, church-to-church, evangelistic projects.\u00a0 In most of the places where I\u2019ve gone, I\u2019ve lived with a church member and grown to know and […] Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":810,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions\/810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/janicebyrd.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}