Choose the Miracle

~ Written by Viki Rife

Anna felt all alone. The husband who had needed her care night and day over the past decade had just passed away. Her own health had deteriorated during that time. Now she was left with no friends, no family nearby, and the huge specter of anxiety and depression hanging over her. The isolation of the Covid shutdown had her almost paralyzed.

One morning she decided to make a list of things she could do that day. She grabbed her walker and made her way to the desk, where she found a notepad in the drawer. She started to write: Take a shower. Organize meds into a labeled contained so she would know which ones she had taken. Read a Psalm as a prayer. She was surprised at the satisfaction she got from checking each item off the list.

The next day her list was a bit bolder. Reorganize her sock drawer. Dust one room of the house. Write a get-well card to someone from church. Call Betty, her old high school friend she hadn’t talked to for years, just to catch up.

Betty was delighted to hear from her. Anna was struck by how little it takes to encourage someone else. After that, Anna made a point each day of including in her list at least one item that would bless or encourage someone else.

As time went on, she then started adding some occasion to celebrate God’s goodness each day. Eventually, the day came when she was able to sort and label a box of old photos, all the time thanking God for the memories rather than feeling sorry for herself. As she finished that project, the thought hit her: “I can choose to live in joy. And I’m doing it!”

Anna’s journey from anxiety and depression to joy seemed like a miracle to all of us. But as she summarized it: “Be Thankful. Bless others.”

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Paid To Pray

~ Written by Cassie Rayl

His question couldn’t have come at a harder time. I had just lost my job and was walking the tightrope of paying the bills but knowing my heart was called to ministry. It felt more hopeless than it was, but at 21, I was convinced God had it out for me.

Then, to pour salt on the wound, a deacon in my church approached me and asked, “If God provided a sustainable job for you where your main job was to pray for the Body of Christ and its ministries, would you take it?”

What? I remember exclaiming mentally. I mean, absolutely, but there’s no way God could do that. None. Thanks for reminding me ministry doesn’t pay, friend.

Still, my mind wandered through his inquiry for months. What would that look like? Is it feasible? Are there really employers out there who just want believers behind them as a prayer force? If that’s true, sign me up! Ultimately, my dreams of having an office with an ever-growing online prayer database and a warm reading chair to pray in eight hours a day never turned into reality.

I think often of my friend’s inquiry about getting paid to pray for a living. My current job is the farthest thing from “ministry” I’ve gotten in my lifetime as an employee. I sit at a computer and punch numbers, verifying an endless number of accounts and faceless customers. It’s a blessing of a job for my family’s current situation, but it’s not the glorious ministry position I once envisioned.

And yet, the job pays. My mind is allowed to wander often, and it wanders towards people and ministries within the Body of Christ. Often, while inputting data, my mind is in the Throne Room, interceding for whoever comes to mind. Eight hours out of the day, if my spirit is willing, I’m paid to pray.

This year has countless people—including myself—muttering, “This isn’t what I wanted!” It’s so easy to focus on the negativity that statement presents, and yet, what if we just need to step back and look for how God works within the shadows of these otherwise-inconvenient changes?

After all, of all the things that have changed, Christ and his character have not.

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His Eye is On The…Bluebirds?

~ Written by Viki Rife

Our yard has two bluebird houses; at least, that’s what they are supposed to be.

I’m pretty sure no one can see an Eastern Bluebird without falling in love with these small, colorful birds. When I first moved to Indiana, they had all but disappeared from our area. Thanks to the efforts of concerned citizens and the Department of Natural Resources, we learned that providing the right kind of housing could make it possible for them to return.

So we have two houses with all the specifications. There’s one problem: sparrows also like the same kind of facilities, and they are much more aggressive than the happy little bluebirds.

Sparrows took over the first house this spring. We set up another, armed with the information that a certain kind of halogenic streamer placed near the birdhouse would deter the sparrows but not the bluebirds. It worked! A cheery little bluebird couple started making its home in the second house.

Then one day I came home to find sparrows trying to get into the second house. A piece of farm equipment had come by and apparently torn the streamer off and carried it away. We never found it.

I rushed around trying to find a substitute as the bluebirds watched from the safety of a high branch of the nearby apple tree. Finally, I was able to find another streamer and attach it. The sparrows stopped trying to get in.

But it was too late. The bluebirds had given up. All summer that second house stood empty, with a half-finished nest bearing witness to the bluebirds’ defeat.

I keep asking myself: Why didn’t they try again? Why didn’t they stick around a bit longer to see the sparrows back off? And the one that makes me the saddest: Did they give up because they saw me by their house? Did they choose not to trust me?

It’s convicting because I’ve done something similar with God most of my life. I give up too soon. I assume the bullies in the world will always get their way. And when God steps into the picture, I assume he’s a threat instead of a Helper.

Those two bluebird houses are a stark reminder of what happens when I don’t trust my God. What a crucial lesson!

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It Would Have Been Enough

~ Written by Viki Rife

When the toilet paper shortage hit earlier this year, it brought back the long-forgotten memory of an experience I had while part of a missions team in college. The country we were in was experiencing great political turmoil, accompanied with economic scarcity. Our team was staying in an unused Bible institute dorm and fending for ourselves.

There was no supermarket, only the meat market, produce stand, drugstore, general merchandise store, etc. The lines were long at each.
We decided to divide and conquer. Each would go to a different place to purchase what we needed for the next few days. I was assigned to get toilet paper and coffee.

The line was clear down the sidewalk. I stood in a windy drizzle for about an hour before I was finally able to enter the comparative warmth of the small store. When my turn came to be waited on, I learned there was no coffee available, and the sale of toilet paper was limited to one per customer. It wasn’t a double roll, either. It was the sorriest, thinnest, roughest toilet paper ever!

You can imagine how carefully our team of six stewarded that priceless roll. We prayed for a miracle comparable to the little boy’s loaves and fishes that fed 5,000. And amazingly, it was enough!

I’ve thought about the experience often this year. Abundance and scarcity are words that are defined based more on our expectations than on some mathematical equation. What one person sees as scarcity (one package with eight rolls of TP) would have seemed like abundance to our team.

I’ve been convicted as I’ve realized I sometimes treat God as if he weren’t giving me enough. I have a mentality of scarcity because I expect much more than what he knows I need right now. I want to stockpile, not just physical resources, but spiritual and emotional ones as well. I want to be able to see for myself that I will have everything I might need.

A part of the Jewish Passover is singing Dayenu. This song of gratitude recounts the ways God led them out of Egypt and settled them in the Promised Land. Its words point out that even if he had only done one of his gracious acts, it would have been enough. That’s the spirit we need to live with: acknowledging that God doesn’t owe us anything and whatever he does do for us is enough. With that mentality, we can truly acknowledge that no matter what happens, he is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

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The Life God Won’t Use

~ Written by Cassie Rayl

I love the potential represented by a blank piece of paper. It doesn’t take long before my mind starts whirlingand my love of words fill the page’s emptiness with strokes of black which artistically paint a picture for my audience. There’s such satisfaction as the blank spaces slowly disappear!

I still have days, though, where blank pages and deadlines collide and I don’t even come up with enough intrigue to fill a kindergartener’s primer. Writer’s block feels suffocating and endless, whether it exists for weeks or minutes. There are literary exercises you can perform to think of something, but to this day, whenever I hit writer’s block, my brain conjures up one simple, mundane and wandering sentence:

“I walked into the Throne Room, looking for the Father.”

Every time a blank page intimidates me rather than inspires me, I write that sentence and mutter, “Just show me something, Jesus. I’ve got nothing.”

Hebrews 12:2 calls Jesus “…the author and perfecter of our faith.” It always makes me smile to think of Jesus as a fellow wordsmith who takes joy in weaving a story. But, unlike myself, Jesus is never intimidated by the blank pages of a life.

Even when our life choices slow down His plot, or sin patterns fill our lives with mistakes which take years to erase, He still thrives writing on the pages of our lives. Not once does Jesus sit down, contemplate furthering the story of our individual lives and think, “I’ve got nothing on this one.”

If we truly trust Jesus as the ultimate Author, we can always trust that he can make beauty out of nothing, and gold out of our biggest mistakes.

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The Secret to Mountain-Moving

~ Written by Viki Rife

As I picked up my computer bag to pack up at the end of the week, the temptation to just not bother began to take over. The whole week seemed to have been spent on nothing but tiny details, troubleshooting, and unexpected setbacks. It felt like nothing at all had been accomplished.

I’m putting in so much effort and just spinning my wheels, I thought. Maybe I shouldn’t even waste my time trying. Nothing I do really has any significance in the long-term.

My computer cord caught a small clear-plastic ball and knocked it off my desk. As I picked it up, I realized I hadn’t really paid attention to it for a long time. It was something I had bought twenty years ago. It had inspired me then. The ball is full of sand, with two halves: One has a perforation that says, “Perseverance moves mountains….” “The other half has holes and reads:” …one grain of sand at a time.” It doesn’t take long to see the sand sift through and form mountains every time I turn it over.

It hit me that twenty years ago, when I bought the desk ornament, I had been feeling the same way. It felt like I was getting nowhere. But now I can look back and see what God has done in those twenty years. Impossible dreams have become reality. Many things that didn’t turn out my way actually turned out better.

All I have to do is give my little grains of sand to God. He’s the one who moves mountains, and each grain does matter.

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Breaking the Cocoon

~ Written by Tabby McMonagle

I was up all night. I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t know how to process my feelings. This week a friend asked me to watch her kids. She was in a tough spot. I knew she was desperate, so I said yes. It was wonderful. The kids had a fun time. I did, too. I expected to sleep well. I didn’t.

Just one day with her kids had exhausted me. She must feel like that every day! She is a single mom going through a rough time. My heart was breaking for her. I wanted to take her pain away, but I couldn’t.  What does it look like to bear one another’s burdens in a healthy way?

I called a friend to help me put it into perspective. She said, “What you did yesterday, watching her kids, making her dinner, was bearing her burden with her. Today you are trying to carry something that is not yours to bear. You have to give your broken heart to the Lord in prayer. You can always think of other ways to help her, but you have to leave the rest in God’s hands.”

Her words reminded me of a story Hannah Whitall Smith told in one of her books:

A friend found a butterfly cocoon and kept it to watch it open. When it began opening, she found it struggling to break free. After a while she couldn’t bear to watch it any longer.  She used her sewing scissors to delicately help the butterfly break free. Soon afterwards she noticed something was wrong. The butterfly’s wings were limp and just dragged behind it. It later died with lifeless wings.

Later she met a specialist and asked him what happened. He explained the struggle of a butterfly to leave its cocoon is what brings blood and life into its wings. Without the struggle, the blood cannot pump into the wings, making the them lifeless and useless.

My heart is heavy for my friend right now. I can pray and help when she needs me. The rest is up to her.

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Oblivious Pride

~ Written by Tabby McMonagle

I don’t want to brag but I am an expert on being oblivious. It is human nature to be self consumed and society encourages it. Being oblivious feels comfortable. I was so oblivious I was oblivious to being oblivious.

For years in my oblivion, I was running the show in my Christian walk. I believed I was allowing God to be in charge. The fact was I saw God as my puppet and I held the strings. I told Him what to do and how to serve me.

One day I found an old journal. As I flipped through the pages, I watched my prayers go from humble fervent requests to micromanaged demands. I realized my daily Jesus time routine went from something I enjoyed and needed to a reason I deserved God’s love.

One day it all came together. All the little hints turned into a picture that I then recognized as myself. It was not the picture I had in my mind. I was an ugly prideful twit. I had to repent and ask God to help me.

My Heavenly Father began to readjust my thinking in my times of prayer. Slowly but surely, He held up the mirror. I could only see a little piece at a time.

I’d like to say I did this willingly and all went well and quickly. It did not. I was ashamed of what I saw and who I had become. I wept bitterly, and had a long pity party.

In attempts to fix myself, I allowed lies from the devil to comfort me. I began to believe I’d never be enough for God. I stopped writing. I even stopped praying. I was mad and hurt, but I still made feeble attempts to seek HIm.

One night I woke up and heard the words “God doesn’t want to hear what I have to say.” I realized that was the lie I had been clinging to.

I repented. I asked God to help me be a servant like Him. I surrendered myself up to His work and asked Him to transform me. I couldn’t do it myself.

With God’s help I am stepping out of being oblivious to become more self-aware for God’s glory. Won’t you join me and ask God to continue His good work in you?

Humble us, Lord, that we may receive Your grace.

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Always Enough

~ Written by Cassie Rayl

I found my old Bible in my parents’ closet this summer. Finding this obviously-forgotten treasure immediately brought back a torrent of emotions as my fingers traced the embossed leather, and the Bible’s pages flipped to passages I’d dog-eared 10 or 15 years ago.

I’ve had the heart of a writer long before anyone had ever seen my name in print, and this Bible was proof of that. Most of the pages’ margins were completely filled with questions, elaborations, and prayers corresponding with a passage.

It was like stepping into a timeless memory reacquainting myself with my youthful spiritual growth. My faith had been tested early on due to life-threatening medical issues, but I was captivated by the obvious innocence of my deep faith. In the margins of one page I wrote, “May you always be enough.”

Over the years, I had forgotten about this Bible. I had forgotten my passion for learning God’s word. I had forgotten so many things, but God never forgot that prayer. Through the highs, lows, gains and losses in my life, he knew he’d bring me back to that simple prayer.

Even when I didn’t think God was enough, he stayed faithful. Even when I thought I’d lost everything, he remained. I prayed such a simple prayer out of innocent desperation, and he used it to give my life purpose.

He’s always enough, even if we don’t understand how deeply we need him.

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Like Tulips

~ Written by Viki Rife

My friend planted 100 tulip bulbs in her yard last fall. She couldn’t even remember where they were all planted! They lay under snow all winter, then under the mud, until they came up and started to bloom. The entire area was awash with color! A blessed view for anyone staying home all day in quarantine.

As she described her investment, I was struck by the similarities to what I’m observing and experiencing during this pandemic. Those who have invested in spending time with God seem to be more resilient. Each truth about God that was lying under the surface has started to spring up to bring comfort and blessing. The more they planted, the more they’re reaping.

As the Charis Fellowship discusses our handling of the pandemic, we’ve talked about three stages. The first is the blizzard that causes us all to hunker down. The blizzard will be followed by winter, a time of venturing out occasionally. But then will come a new spring of opportunities. The more we invest now in our relationship with God, the stronger we will be and the more ready to bless others with truth.

Keep planting, dear friends! We never know how God will use it.

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