It was a Sunday

It was the first Sunday of 2025. We were a week into the new year and I really had not paid much attention. Oh, we ate the cabbage and black-eyed peas for good luck and prosperity in the new year (even though we don’t believe in that kind of thing) but really it was just another year gone by.

We decided to go to a new church in Arkansas that is pastored by a young man that we met six years ago in Summersville WV. He called himself not an evangelist but a revivalist. Though I had no idea what that meant, that young man preached like his pants were on fire then and this Sunday was no different and it brought back memories of when and why we met. Know before I go on, you should know a little bit of the back story to really understand the message. And yes, there is a message in the madness.

After retiring from the military, Mark and I moved to Texas to start civilian life. We were happy enough. Adjusting was a little hard but hey, we moved forward. We had a working farm, a lot of animals and we were going to church. In 2011 the church we were attending offered a mission trip to Brazil. It was 10 days, and it was sure to be a relationship with God changing trip. As we had the farm with animals and chores, Mark couldn’t go but he gave his blessing for me to go and indeed it was a relationship with God changing trip. When I got back, Mark told me that he had had an encounter with God while in our field. He said that he heard the Lord say, “GO”. Still reeling from Brazil I of course believed him and was excited to see what God was going to do. I was sure that somehow my newfound close relationship with my God had something to do with his speaking to my husband. Wow, right?

We came into agreed with God to be obedient. He led and we followed… for 4 years. We knew what we were supposed to do but fear kept Mark from fully committing. So, for those 4 years I waited. I started a homeless ministry that eventually led to the start of a ministry called On the Go Mission. Finally, in 2016 God started closing doors and broking ties in Texas making it impossible for us to not move. Again, long story short we sold everything we owned, bought a truck and RV and headed east. I have skimmed over the 4 years, which is a wonderful story of what God did when “Yes” was finally the answer but for now I want to get to how and why we met this young revivalist.

Its late 2017, and we’d been on the road almost 2 years sharing the Gospel of Jesus in gas stations, grocery stories, laundry rooms, truck stops and campgrounds all across middle and east America with great success for the Kingdom of God. Then it happened, God spoke to me the word “Revival”. I pushed it away the first time or 2 I heard it thinking, surely not. We had never done a revival and had no idea where to begin and we weren’t sure we wanted to but finally relented and immediately God began doing did miracle on top of miracle on top of miracle and a 5-day revival took place in the small town of Summersville in rural West Virginia in the summer of 2018. It was called Restoration Crusade.

Over the course of some months, we had made some great friends and fell in love with the pastor at the local church of God who was one of only 4 churches that actually wanted revival in their community and didn’t care who God used to do it. It was incredible and surreal and awful all at the same time. Yes, awful. Don’t get me wrong, people got saved, delivered, and set free but the turmoil that continually surrounded us was crushing. Even some of those who had come to help became overwhelming stumbling blocks.

After it was over, and the tent came down we left. We couldn’t put Summersville WV in our review mirror fast enough. I was hurt, disappointed, and confused. But more than that, I was angry. We had come in love to share Gods message and they were cruel. In the midst of all the emotions, I was angry at Mark for no reason, I was angry at the people, and I was angry at myself. But most of all I was mortified that I had failed my King and yet angry because He let it all happen.

The trip back to a North Carolina campground where we had based ourselves and the subsequent trip back to Texas was filled with quiet self-conflict and confusion. I couldn’t seem to feel anything but the weight of indescribable anger.

That year I got a crash course in humility, expectation and offence. I discovered among many, many other things, that when God gives you an assignment it will likely not be at all what you think it will be. For me, in my human eyes, it was a failure; I was a failure. And in my spiritual immaturity at the time… I didn’t understand and I took it personally.

In case it has escaped you to this point, suffice it to say my love for the Lord is everything. I did not always know Jesus as my Savior. I did not grow up with Him as a child nor did I go to church. He saved me in my early 30s. He rescued me from a life of addiction and changed every single solitary thing about me. There are no lengths to which I will not go to honor him and to glorify him and to lift him high. My hearts one and only desire is to serve Him by serving His people and leading them to the foot of the Cross where they too can surrender, find deliverance and be made freedom in and through Christ Jesus. In my mind, that revival was something that I was doing for Him. In all my zeal, what I didn’t understand was He was using me to achieve His purpose in both that community and in fact, in me.

Sometime around Oct or Nov of that same year, the phone rings and it is the pastor from the church of God in WV expressing his concern for our wellbeing and that we need to come back to hear a young man preach and find healing. He was told NO.

A week or so goes by, and he calls again with the same request telling us the dates in January (2019), and we really needed to come. He was told all campgrounds close down in WV for the winter so there was no way because we would have nowhere to park the camper even if we could get into the state at that time of year due to the extreme snowfall. He was told NO.

Another week or so goes by, and he calls again. This time the man of God said, “in due time you will pack your bags, load up the dogs (which is a whole other story), leave the camper and drive the truck. You will stay in my house; we will feed you and you will attend the revival and be healed…says the Lord”. Now you really can’t say NO to that so at the end of January we did as we were told and got to Summersville the day before.

He was a young, on fire man of God and every word pierced my heart. Over the course of the week, we attended this meeting where Holy Spirit Himself was present. Before long, my heart began to give way and I began to let my anger go. I remembered that God never told me the revival would be easy or that it would go any other way than exactly the way HE wanted it to go. Every time my heart tried to say, “yea but I…” or “we worked so hard to…” or even “we gave up so much to …” I was immediately convicted. By the second night I was mush in the hands of my King. Only then could He speak to me in a way I would hear, and He said, “I never said it would be easy or look like you thought it would. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. All I asked for was your obedience and you gave it.”

A lot of people know a lot about God. They have been in church for years, repeated the prayer, and were delivered of their past but never set free to a new life. What does that mean? Being delivered is about location while being made free is about position. The people of Israel followed Moses following God out of captivity to the great river at which time they looked up and saw Pharaoh coming up to kill them. I followed my husband following God to go to WV to bring revival when I looked up and the people tried to slander our ministry and run us out of town. Both the people of Israel and Mark and I, decided to follow God to another place. God delivered us both to another location but when things got hard, we both wanted to turn and run rather than be made free by our position seated in His many promises, by His protection, and by His provision. But that was fixing to change.

That Sunday 6 years ago I began to feel again and not be angry. It was then I learned one of the most important lessons we can learn… that God never does anything to hurt us. He has a plan for His creation, a good plan. But He never promised it would be easy getting there, in fact, the opposite. He also never said that He wouldn’t use any one He wanted to to achieve His purposes. Does He need our help? NO, but when we are asked to do something, obedience is the key. Following Him and trusting Him even when it hurts, bares much fruit. It’s how we grow, how we “love others”, and how we show our love for Him. Obedience moves heavens hand.

Over the course of that week, I learned that had we not been obedient and returned to WV we’d never have seen the miracles that God accomplished that summer. We would have stayed angry and missed the blessing that God used us to achieve His perfect will and purpose.

This first Sunday of 2025 I was reminded of His goodness and how position at His feet can truly “made you free”. Be encouraged in His promises because there is a plan playing out before our eye. Always be obedient because you are part of that plan and He loves you!