"Follow Me" by Bobby Mikul (pdp) |
At the onset of an August evening, I walked alone down the red wooden plank stairway to the lake in Maine and sat down near the water to pray. I needed a word from the Lord on direction for our lives. I heard a strange sound. Looking up, I saw high in the sky against the light of the setting sun a huge flight of geese in "V" formation, headed south.
My attention was also drawn toward a flashing red beacon tower on the horizon toward the south end of the lake. God spoke in my heart. "I'm taking you south!" he said.
"South? South to where?" I dared to ask. "South to Massachusetts or south back to New York? Where south?"
"South to Florida," he said.
"South to Florida! Why Florida?" I ventured to ask.
"Because I am gathering my people together," he said. My task was to obey. Mary and I hustled to pack our home and prepare to leave. We were ready for a change, but the work of packing and the lack of funds wore at my wife.
I phoned through the morning hours and located a rental trailer for the low, low price of $25 to haul to Florida. What a deal! The catch was I had to drive north for an hour to pick it up. I invited my young son, Brian, along for the ride.
When I arrived at the distribution center deep in the forest area, a lovely country lady with freckles nicely hooked up the hitch for me, safety chains, red tail lights, and all. Brian and I started our drive home. Almost a half hour out along the country roads, a safety chain broke off the trailer and clanged violently as it beat the pavement. Not good!
I turned the rig around in the road very carefully and drove at moderate speeds to return to the distribution center. The young woman came out, picked the one remaining trailer and hooked it to my station wagon.
After I pulled the trailer late into the garage, I entered the kitchen door and found my wife crying tears at the kitchen stove. She cried from the frustration of trying to reduce a household of five children to fit the space of a five by eight foot trailer.
During the day, she carefully measured everything, the dressers, the table, the boxes. She cut the ladder-back dining room chairs down so they would stack. She drew on paper and measured off the baby's crib mattress, planning just the things she could fit into the trailer. She gave away our washer and dryer, then our Boston Rocker to an elderly woman in the church. My wife planned to take just the very bare necessities.
"How do we really know this
is God's will?" she cried.
Trying to remind her of the geese didn't seem the right thing to do at the time. I gave Brian the broom and asked him to sweep out the trailer. He headed out the kitchen door. In a moment, he came rushing back.
"Mommy! Mommy!" he shouted with glee. "Look what I found!" He was holding high in his hand a shiny silver cross. Inside the front left corner of the trailer, he found lying in the dust a little homemade, silver, stainless steel cross.
Mary rejoiced!
Later, I finished packing the trailer and our family prepared to leave the house. I knew I was deep into a moment of faith. We were prepared to leave Maine for Florida on a two thousand mile trip, and I counted only thirty-two dollars in my pocket! We would drive out of the driveway and leave the trip to God.
“This trip is yours, God!” I said
to my Heavenly Father.
Just then, a car drove in carrying a few church people. Kindly, they presented us a money tree from the congregation. It amounted to $350! Mary and I praised God as we drove out that evening. But the miracle wasn't over.
As we traveled south, we visited friends along the way in Boston, in New York on the Hudson, in Virginia Beach, in Jacksonville, and Ocala. Friends and relatives along the way not only fed us a grand supper to eat and beds to spend the night in, but each couple unexpectedly gave us a sacrificial gift! We arrived in South Florida with $1400 to start our new assignment for God.
"And he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live” (Acts 17:26 NIV).
– Bill Hunt
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2 comments:
Oh Bill, God is so good as you well know. This is just how it should be, the church taking care of its own, what a wonderful miracle for you! Your faith is truly an inspiration. Lori
LORI,
Thank you for your perception on this articles. Faith seems to be a step we must take in obedience, then God's special blessing will follow. He's an awesome God!
Bill
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