Exodus 14:14 The Lord God Fights My Battles

I'm thriving in this life because I made Jesus Christ Lord of my life somewhere between the ages of 9-12. I am sure I have eternal life because I know God loves and accepts me even when I may not feel worthy. I know God fights for and defends me even when I encounter overwhelming obstacles.

I became a born again Christian as a child, so I don't have much life experience without God, but this does not mean my life since has been easy. However, the peace, joy, comfort, and power that comes from God, as a result of trusting in Christ alone, has seen me through a vindictive divorce, the loss of my home, the betrayal of long time friends, the loss of my beloved mother, several prolonged times of $0 income.... No not easy, yet through it all I had a kind of supernatural peace, knowing and trusting in God's plan. He granted me comfort, joy, contentment, peace, strength to keep on going, faith to face fears, guidance in all areas of my life, and a miraculous power in overcoming every obstacle. One such obstacle came several years ago when my second husband and I had been attending a church for about 7 months. I was selected to co-lead our church's VBS... this was about mid February. After several weeks of trying unsuccessfully to coordinate a meeting with my co-leader, she suddenly informed me she was no longer attending our church... this was late March. I went to the Pastor and asked if VBS could be moved back a month or two. His reply was "VBS is always the first full week of June. We can not move it as this is the week everyone plans for their grand kids to visit so they can attend." I later learned that he was actively attempting to sabotaging the VBS program as he saw it as a waist of time and church resources. He was certain I could not pull together a decent VBS program in 8 weeks, and that would give him the excuse to cancel the ministry altogether. I first went to the Pastor and asked if I could make an announcement that we need as many people as we could get to help. He told me "No, that isn't the best way to get help." I was told to approach people on an individual basis. Being new to the church I didn't know who was feuding with who, who wasn't talking to who etc. By God's design I inadvertently teamed feuding people together, and God use that to heal many relationships in the church at that time. The church had a vision of VBS I had never encountered, for them, VBS was set in a school format. Kids come, sit, listen, turn in homework, are quiet, well behaved, and do what they are told. The kids would meet all together for music, then go to their assigned classroom determined by age, go to another for games, return for snack and more teaching until parents came to pick them up. I went home got on my knees with my husband, and prayed over this one daily. My vision or VBS was quite different. Kids come in, get loud, move to the worship music, break into groups of 4-6 lead by a teenager, and alternately travel from room to room, participate and interact with the teaching, becoming part of the story in Bible time, and are introduced to The God who loves them so much He died for them. The Pastor asked a lot of questions about my plans, and in my naiveté, I answered all his questions. and every step he told me it can't be done or we don't do it that way. I told him my plan to convert our stage into a Mount Everest base camp. He told me "No, as that would mean the instruments have to be moved." "There isn't enough time to do that. It would look stupid, or at best trashy." I went home and prayed, the next day the Pastor tracked me down and said he had a great idea, "Why not turn the stage into a base camp, the church has a number of Christmas trees you can put up." I told him my plan for the snacks. Each day a special snack would be prepared that would reflect and/or reinforce the day's theme. He told me "NO!" in no uncertain terms. "All snacks had to be prepackaged, to reduce the chance of food poisoning." I prayed,. The next day he came to me with a suggestion, "Why not have snacks that can reinforce the days Bible theme?" I asked "Do you think it is safe to do that?" He answered "Well, this one time I think it'll be okay." God provided me with a dedicated crew of 8 - 10 people (at least 3 of them were not members), who were at the church almost daily for about 8 weeks. In that time we created 2, Mount Everest settings complete with realistic looking, hand painted backdrop of Mt Everest (one of which was 12' tall), trees, tents, camp fires, snow, the works! In the end we ended up with a slightly better than mediocre fusion of both versions. However as we were cleaning up at weeks end, the pastor turned to me and said "You know maybe this VBS thing is worth continuing. I can see it's potential." He then told me to start working on the next years VBS "because with more time it can be better still" And with a years worth of pray and planning, it was indeed a great success, growing from 13 kids the first day of the first year to over 30 by the fifth day of the second year. We saw 3 kids come to Christ by the end of the week in year 2.

I have witnessed God's divine provision, protection and have watch Him eliminate every obstacle that stood in the way of me accomplishing His will. Considering all I have witnessed God doing in my life, I know for certain God loves unconditionally, He is always with me, fighting for me, and defending me. I am continually filled with a sense of adventure as I pray, asking His help yet again, wondering how God will deal with the latest obstacle the enemy has placed in my path. Because of what I have witnessed God doing in my life, because I experience the love, comfort, joy, and peace God gives me on a daily basis, I have hope, and the blessed assurance of heaven. I know without a doubt I will spend eternity with Him in heaven.