"Trust Me, Try Me, Prove Me saith the Lord of Hosts
and see, if a blessing, unmeasured blessing,
I will not pour out on thee!
(words from on old Baptist Hymn)
(words from on old Baptist Hymn)
Perhaps those were the words that were running though my mind for the next couple of weeks after Mother's death. They certainly were with me a good portion of the time I had left in Texas. I'd think when they haunted my thoughts, What other "god" of any major religion on earth gives such an invitation? I knew the words came from the Old Testament... specifically Malachi 3:10. "...prove me...,saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." I was learning to "follow Him". I was learning through these painful, dark days in my life that if I would do what He tells me to do, then He, would do what He said He would do.
Mother's funeral was held the following week at the First Baptist Church in Riesel, Texas. It was a beautiful service and well attended. Riesel was her hometown and her family had been there since the early 1900's. My Grandpa, "Daddy Sam" as all his grandchildren called him, had been the village blacksmith. His dilapidated old shop was one of my favorite places to visit as a child and probably one of the things that ignited my love of history. He died before I was born so I only knew the "legend". But that was enough to make me love him and think of him as bigger than life. Now as an adult I realize that he was just a humble village blacksmith but as a child I saw him as a smiling, friendly, man, adored by all. He was a German Jewish immigrant who had changed his name from Kohn to Coone. That fact alone makes me want to research his life and family. Were they persecuted for being Jewish? Did they flee Germany? It piques my curiosity. But I digress...All this to say that Mother came from a fine family with a good reputation in the community. They were Jewish by blood but Methodist by persuasion. Somewhere along the line they became Baptist.
After the funeral was over and all the friends and relatives had departed, Daddy and I had some huge decisions to make. Daddy had suffered for years from Parkinson's Disease which meant he really couldn't take care of himself. Ted's tour of duty had just begun in Spain and I couldn't stay home and take care of Daddy. He basically had no one but me. We talked about it for several days during which time Ted called and we talked to him about it. Finally it was decided that he would sell the farm and come back to Spain with me. I'd go to bed at night with my head swirling with questions. Ted had asked, "How long do you think that will take?" I just looked at the phone, then asked him, "How long do you think it will take?" He laughed.
Along with the farm we also had livestock to get rid of, a couple cats and a dog. The dog was Joel's little miniature Greyhound, Susie. We had left her with them when we went overseas. Mother had loved and petted Susie like she was her baby and the night Mother died, Susie howled all night long. She would not be comforted. I'd put her in bed with me, stroke her and talk to her and she'd jump down and run into the kitchen and continue howling. Finally we put her out on the back porch and closed the door. When we'd wake up we could hear her still howling. It was pitiful and eerie. I'd always heard from my East Texas relatives that dogs howl when a person dies, but I never believed it until now. I had a lot to learn.
We began the overwhelming job the week after the funeral. The first thing we did was go to Waco and apply for a passport for Daddy. The lady at the court house told us that it would take about six weeks for the passport to come in. I felt like she had punched me. Daddy tried to encourage me on the way home. He said, "Why don't you just go on back to Spain and I'll try to get someone to help me with everything here? You can't leave your family that long."
I thought about it for a few minutes. It was really tempting, but then I thought about everything he'd have to do, clean out the house, get it ready to show, sell all the farm equipment, the livestock and everything stored there, sell his car and fly alone to a foreign country. I looked at him, his hands shaking in his lap, unable to even hold a full cup of coffee and I said, "No, we are going to trust God. He will take care of every detail, just like He has been doing." I spoke those words with a lot less confidence than I felt, but I think it fooled Daddy.
We went home and immediately started going through "stuff"... and they had lots of stuff. Mother had a chest-o-drawer in her bedroom with five drawers that was full of papers and receipts. I found receipts in there that went back to 1942! I don't think the woman ever threw anything away. I was tempted to just dump each drawer into the burn barrel and strike a match but I knew I needed to go through every paper. It contained their "important" papers, such as insurance policies, marriage license, medical records, etc. So I dumped the first drawer out onto the bed and sat down in the middle of the pile and began to sort.
People had been checking in on us since Mother died and they didn't stop after the funeral. Neighbors and relatives started showing up to help Daddy clean out the barn and the sheds. Aunts and cousins came to help me with the house. My friend helped me with the papers asking questions as she sorted. There was a crowd there every day. I could literally see the progress at night. Not only did they work but they brought food! It was good, country, Texas cooking that we were living on. They prayed with us and cried with us and laughed with us. They loved us.
About the end of the first week a stranger drove into the yard and asked for "the Mr. Stanley who wanted to sell his farm". Someone took him to Daddy who began to show him around the place. When they finished, the man asked, "How much?" Daddy gave him the price and the man asked, "Does that include the farm, the house, all the equipment, the livestock and the furniture?" Daddy said, "Yes, and I'll even throw in the two cats! We're keeping the dog. She belongs to my grandson so she'll be going to Spain with us." The man offered his hand to Daddy and said, "Sold!"
Daddy came in and told me excitedly, about the sale. He was praising God. "He's taking care of us, daughter!" he said. Then he added. "The buyer wanted to know how soon we could be out and I told him we didn't know because we are waiting on a passport. He said he'd like to move in in a couple weeks."
"Well, he'll just have to wait with us!" I said, but it did make me a little anxious. I was afraid he'd get tired of waiting and renig on the agreement.
Ted called than night and I was able to update him. "Please pray that passport doesn't take five more weeks. We still have to sell the car, get Susie to the vet and Daddy to his doctor, finish cleaning out the house and take my piano and cedar chest to an Aunt's house." The job ahead was still very big.
We went to the bank on Monday morning to close on the farm. That made me feel a little better. At least the fellow couldn't back out on the deal now, but I went home and faced the cleaning job with a feeling of desperation. Lord, will it never end? I prayed, as I looked at a fresh pile waiting for me to sort through. I could hear the anxiety in Ted's voice when last we talked to him. The Harrisons, a young couple from our fellowship had moved in with him and the kids, so they could help take care of them until I got home and he was grateful for that. "But," he said, "they need their mother, and so do I."
I got up the next morning early so I could sit at the table and read my bible. I recognized that my faith was growing weak in spite of all the wonderful things I'd seen the Lord do since I left Seville. I had been reading through the books of Kings and was in 2 Kings 20, the story of King Hezekiah. The story there says that Hezekiah became "sick unto death" and Isaiah the prophet came to him to tell him he was going to die. In verse one it says, "Thus says the Lord, Set you house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover." Well I was setting my house in order and that frankly was discouraging. So I was identifying with it on some level. Then it went on to say that Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed. He asked the Lord to remember how he had walked with Him with a whole heart, and had done what was good in His sight. I said, "Lord, me too! Where I haven't, please forgive me!" and the story goes on to say that God stopped Isaiah before he left the court yard and told him to go back and say, "I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold I will heal you. On the third day, you shall go up to the house of the Lord...I will deliver you!" It was a strange story and really didn't apply to me but I believed, all of a sudden that God was speaking to me! Hezekiah then asked the prophet for a sign that God was really going to do this and he told him that the shadow of the sundial would move either ten steps backward or then steps forward. "It's your choice, Hezekiah. Which way do you want it to move?" Well it moved forward naturally so Hezekiah asked God to make it move backward just so he'd be sure the sign was from God. I got so excited that I rushed out into the sunny morning and looked for shadows to start moving backward. Now I'd like to tell you that they were moving all over the yard, but unfortunately they weren't, so I just shrugged and said, "Lord, am I losing it?" Now I know that I wasn't "losing it" but I was "believing it" and after all is said and done, that's all He wants from me.
I went back into the kitchen, finished my coffee and closed the bible. I just won't tell anyone about this, I thought. But don't you know, as soon as Daddy walked in from milking, I told him the whole story. He said, "So?" I said, "What if the Lord brought everything together in three days? What if your passport came in three days? Could we leave?"
"Well, the car hasn't sold and the dog needs to go to the vet. I guess I could take her today when I go for my doctor's appointment. But don't set your heart on it... it's impossible."
"Well, I'm going to work like it's possible!" I declared and dug in to my job.
That was Tuesday morning. On Friday morning Daddy went to the post office early then came home waving his passport. I cried tears of amazement and joy. It had been a little over a week since we applied for it. "Call the airlines and book us a flight," he said.
Over the weekend we went to church and told everyone goodbye, surrendered the keys to the buyer of the farm, sold the car to a cousin who volunteered to drive us to Dallas to catch our plane on Monday and finished our cleanup job. Sunday after church we visited Mother's grave one last time. I stood there looking at the new headstone crying, but running through my mind was a scripture which had been spoken by an angel. It was, "Why seek ye the living among the dead?" I wiped my eyes and said, "Thank you, Lord."
We didn't have a chance to call Ted again. "He'll be surprised when I call him from Madrid airport," I said. That very morning in Seville, he was sitting at the dining room table with Judy and Jerry Harrison, talking about how bad he felt because he couldn't be there with me and Daddy to help us get everything done. He said, "Maybe I should just hop the next transport to the states and go help them. Would you keep the kids for me?"
Judy said, "Sure, but I think you should pray about it for a day or two before you go running off to the states. You don't know what's happening there."
Ted said, "I tell you what... the bible say that the Lord controls the "casting of lots". I have a pocket full of change. (He said there were at least 10 coins in his pocket, maybe more.) I'll grab them and dump them on the table. If they all come up heads, I'll leave today for the states. If even one comes up tails, I'll stay home." He dug into his pocket and grabbed the coins in his fist, opened his hand and dropped them on the table and the three of them started carefully sorting through them, looking for a "head" among the "tails". There was not one. All the coins came up tails. He looked up at Judy and Jerry and said, "I guess I'd better stay put." The next afternoon about three o'clock I called him from Madrid airport and told him to pick us up in Seville that evening. If he'd left for the states, he would have passed us about mid Atlantic.
Now I'm not going to try to interpret all of this. I'd like to say I've always lived that close to God since then, but that would be a lie. I've had ups and downs in my Christian experience just like everyone else, but so much of what happened to me at that time has sustained me and taught me to rely on God for little things. I felt at the time like a child who was asked to cross a very dangerous road, frightened and alone, only to have his big strong Father grasp his hand and say, "Come on, we'll do this together!" It was the time in my life that taught me to "trust Him, try Him and prove Him" like the old hymn said. Since then I've done it over and over again and He has never failed me. Another old hymn had played an important part in this story. It was the Christmas hymn that blasted our eardrums and it's way into our minds and souls the night before mother died..."Joy to the world, the Lord has come!" That was a time in my life when He proved over and over to me that it was all true. He had come and He was there beside me all the way. His promise to me had come true, He had not "left me comfortless but had come to me!" Which makes me want to close this story with yet another hymn...
"...that soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
He will not, He will not desert to his foes.
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
He'll never, no never, no never forsake!"
With this assurance there really is joy and peace and the bleakest, darkest Christmas is "Merry"!
copyright(c)lauragehrke2014
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