Two Weeks - Two Miracles!!

1st Miracle – My mother is coming home!

My mother, Becky, lives in Pocatello, Idaho, where she has lived for 11 years. I’ve been begging her and trying every way I can think of to convince her to move back to Spokane ever since she moved away. I’ve been praying for and asking other people to pray for God to motivate her to come back. I love my mom dearly and wouldn’t be who I am today without her influence. And of course, I want my children to know her and have a relationship with her. Plus, she struggles with several different health problems, and it concerns me that she’s down there without any real family around her.

The whole reason she’s down there is to be with her boyfriend, Bob, a Native American that is paralyzed from the waist down due to an unfortunate accident that happened when he was in his early twenties.

On Monday, October 27, 2008, she called me to say that she and her boyfriend, Bob, had broken up. When I asked her if she was planning to move to Spokane, she said she was going to give it three months, and that if they didn’t get back together in that time, then she would consider moving. That was pretty much what I expected her to say, so I wasn’t too distraught. I told her that when she decided to move, I’d rent a U-Haul and drive down there and get her.

That same night when we were on the phone, I talked to her about the global political and economical climate, which she was largely unaware of because she doesn’t watch the news and doesn’t have internet access. She said she was glad to be able to think about those things, and then we hung up.

The next morning I was laying in bed in that half-dream state between being asleep and being awake. And it was like God was praying through me, planting words in my heart and in my head to pray, over and over again. The prayers went something like, “O Lord, if there truly is a global catastrophe on the horizon, please, please, please let my mom move back to Spokane before it happens.” I remember praying those prayers, but I didn’t consciously set out to pray them… They just happened.

That night my mom called again and said that she had decided to move to Spokane immediately, and that she would be giving her two weeks notice at work the next day. She had visited with Bob that day and told him what her plans were, and he insisted that he felt it was very important that she move to Spokane as soon as possible. She explained to him that if she moved to Spokane, she would probably never move back to Pocatello again, and he told her that if they decided to get back together, he would move to Spokane! (This is a miracle in itself, as I’ve sent him multiple letters in the past asking him to do that very thing, and to which he responded with so much anger that he decided he would never read any more of my letters…)

So she’s coming home! We’re preparing a room for her! I can’t wait to see her and be able to see her and talk to her and hug her on a regular basis. May God grant her traveling mercies, comfort and a calm and focused vision of where He wants her to be.

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2nd Miracle – God captured my father’s heart again!!

My dad, Larry, stopped going to church when I was a small child, declaring that the church was full of hypocrites. From there he began to develop his own views of God.

These are his own words about the way he has been:

“I confess that for most of my life, I have not liked God… I have blasphemed God with words beyond profanity.”

During my childhood, I remember him shaking his fist towards Heaven in anger for many different irritants--cold, snow, ice and winter... A favorite football team losing... Inconsiderate drivers... Not winning the lottery…

I’ve been praying for him for years, but trying to avoid discussions about Christianity as much as possible because they only ever led to arguments and contention.

Here’s the miracle:

Tuesday night, November 4, 2008, he called our house and said he was coming over. When he walked through the door, he had a new Bible in his hand and a 6-page handwritten letter to me detailing his “journey into the light.”

In His mercy, God opened the eyes of my dad’s heart. God captured his heart again and restored him to peaceful, joyful fellowship with Himself. My heart and spirit are awed and humbled. I could have spoken 10,000,000 words to my dad and not have affected him at all. But God turned his whole life around in one beautiful and holy moment. Thank You, Lord!