This is a Test -- This is Only a Test

     Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.  They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness. Lam. 3:22,23

     Sometimes God works in your life and there's just simply no way you can explain it to people, so as to convince them that it was God!  You know it.  Your as convinced of it as anything else in your life, but when you tell it to others they look at you like they want to pat you on the head and say, "Of course He did."...pat, pat.  Well this is one of those times that it happened to me and I'm so sure that it was God that I keep telling it anyway. So here it goes again...

      "This is a test, this is only a test!"  How many times in my life has that little phrase from the Civil Defense Organization ran through my head as I faced something too big for me to handle!  You know... it's followed by that long obnoxious techy sound that assaults your ear drums and makes your eyeballs spin. It sounds something like "aghhhhhhh".  It blasts over the radio or television and you rush to turn it down or mute it because it so unpleasant.
     It is an alert from the state and local authorities that if a disaster is approaching, we can be assured that they will be broadcasting emergency instructions on that frequency.  I always think to myself, But what if the electricity is knocked out and the channel isn't open?  Where will we be then? 
      Fortunately, I have come to believe there is one channel that we can always count on to be open.  The power supply will never go out and we'll always receive instructions, relief and help...it's God's channel.
     I have had to learn that lesson over and over in my life, and I won't say I've learned it even now because each test seems to be a little bit harder than the last one.  To my shame, I failed one of these tests just last week. (This was written in 1984 so it's not accurate to the present, although I'm not above failing one again this week.) But I've come to understand that these tests boost my faith when I reflect on them.  The following is a story of one such test.
     Our family learned a lot while we attended college in 1976. I've already told you about the "coat incident" and paying it forward, but besides these spiritual lessons we did learn a lot from the professors.  We were in Grand Rapids so Ted could train for the ministry and little did we know that the training would come from outside the class room as well as inside and would include the whole family,...especially me.

    As I mentioned  in previous stories, each weekend Ted supplied pulpits for churches all

over Michigan, whose pastors were either sick or on vacation, or for churches who were without a pastor and were searching for one.  It was great experience for Ted and provided us with a little extra money while it helped out the churches.  He had been doing this for about four months in February of 1976 and I was getting really tired of it.  That encouraged me to start praying that God would give Ted a church to pastor while he was in school, so he could stop supplying.

     We had never spent Sundays apart except those years when we were in the Air Force and he was separated from us.  Since we got out of the Air Force we'd shared everything about Sunday...the church services, Sunday dinner (sometimes with friends) Sunday afternoon naps, fellowship and special meetings after the evening service, etc. With Ted gone, every Sunday was lonely.  I no longer enjoyed the day.  As a matter of fact, I began to dread and resent it.  Our four children ages five to seventeen, had to be awakened, fed, dressed, and hurried out the door twice on Sunday.  Then if we were invited to dinner or a special meeting after church, I either felt like a fifth wheel without Ted or refused the invitation and disappointed the kids. Even if I let them go alone  to the various activities, I'd usually end up driving through the icy, dark winter streets to pick them up.
     It was a miserable, complicated time for all of us.   Added to this, the winter was hard and interminable.  It had been snowing since September.  I wasn't accustomed to such weather and here it was February and no sign of letting up.  Then there were the high heating bills, which we couldn't  pay.  Ted was always gone, teaching missionary aviation for another college in town. Then he had his own classes to attend, even at night and there was never enough money for things we really needed like tires for the cars, groceries, utilities and the endless needs of four school aged children.  My list of complaints were as interminable as the cold weather!
     One  Sunday evening as I sat in the church pew, listing all these gripes in my head, fuming about another miserable Sunday without Ted, I realized I'd not heard a word the preacher was saying.  This added guilt to my raging emotions.  However I couldn't dislodge the thoughts that plagued me, so I just gave in and reviewed my disastrous day again.
     Ted had received an early morning phone call from the man who ran the missionary aviation program where he taught flying.  He said, "Ted I was supposed to supply the pulpit at Butternut Bible Church up east of Greenville today and I woke up with a very sore throat.  Do you think you could possibly take my place?"
     "Sure, just give me directions to the church and give them a call so they'll know to expect me." replied Ted.
     He was out of the house by eight o'clock and I was once again alone and miserable.  I had complained all morning to the Lord and yelled at the kids.  We went to the morning services then came directly home afterward.  I was so agitated and forlorn all afternoon that I couldn't take a nap, so sitting in the pew tonight, I was tired and disgruntled.
       My mind went back to an hour or so earlier when we had all piled into our old car to go back to the evening church service and the car refused to start.  In complete exasperation, I'd instructed the kids to go back into the house and we would just stay home!
     " I wouldn't start either if I had sat out in 16 below 0 temperature!" I yelled as I threw the car keys onto the couch.
     "But how are we going to get to church?" one of the kids asked.
     "We're not!  We're going to stay home!" I yelled again.
     "But we're having a youth fellowship after church tonight and there's a special speaker coming.   I don't want to miss it!" she complained.
     "Well, I'll just call the Moshers and have them pick you up.  I staying home!" I declared.
     So I called Nan Mosher and explained the situation and she said, "I'm sorry, Laura, but we promised the neighbors across the street that we'd give them a ride to church.  There just wouldn't be room for the kids, even the older two." 
     "Fine!" I said and hung up.  To the kids I said, "Forget it! We're staying home."
     Of course they all set up a howl and I told them to "shut up!"  I was threatening to put them all to bed when the phone rang and it was Nan.
     She said, "Laura, I called (someone, a deacon whom I can't remember at this time) and he said he'd swing by and pick you all up for church.  Just be ready when he gets there."
     "We'll, you shouldn't have done that!" I exclaimed.  "I'm not going.  I don't know this man and I'm too upset to go.  I'm tired of going without Ted and cars breaking down and not having enough money to fix them and this everlasting snow.  I'd rather just stay home tonight.  Just call him back and tell him to forget it!"
     I could hear the kids in the background pleading with me to accept the offer.  I kept giving them the killer looks that I had become so adept at over the seventeen years I'd had kids, but they wouldn't be quiet.  On the other end of the line, Nan was trying to reason with me.  While sandwiched between these two forces, I heard a knock at my front door.
     "Oh, all right!  All of you just be quiet and leave me alone.  I'll go to church...but I won't enjoy it!" I yelled as I slammed down the phone.
     We grabbed out coats and ran out to the man's car.  I got into the front seat and grunted at the hapless deacon, then frowned and stared silently out the window all the way to church.
     Now here I was, sitting in the pew, not listening to the sermon and stewing in my own juices.  My mind was in such turmoil that I couldn't listen.
     Finally the sermon ended and we stood to sing the closing hymn.  It was a familiar old song...one that I had sung for years, even in my childhood, but for the first time in my life, every word of it hit me like a sledge hammer.  The first verse came worming through my mind and into my heart.  It said:
   

"Be not dismayed whate're betide,

God will take care of you.

Beneath His wings of love abide,

God will take care of you.

God will take care of you, through

every day, ore all the way.

He will take care of you...

God will take care of you!"

     By this time, tears were coursing down my cheeks.  I didn't have a tissue of course, so I wiped them on my sleeve.  Joel was holding the hymnal for me and he looked worried. "What's wrong, Mom?"

     "Nothing!" I said, Shhhh!"  Then the next verse started:

    

"Through days of toil when heart doth fail,

God will take care of you;

When danger fierce your path assail,

God will take care of you;"



     Pound! Pound! went the hammer on my heart and the tears kept flowing.

     "Mom, some thing's wrong! What is it?" persisted Joel.

     "Shhh!" I blubbered again through my torrent of tears.  The song continued...

 "All you may need He will provide,

God will take care of you;

Nothing you ask will be denied,

God will take care of you."

     That's not true! I protested silently,  I've asked You to help us pay our bills while we are in school and we're behind on everything!  I've asked that Ted would get a church while he's in college and seminary, so we can all go to church together and he can quit one of his jobs.  I've asked for a lot of things and we don't have them!  We have been reduced to taking handouts to survive and now we can't even get the car started so we can go to church!  The tears kept coming, I kept complaining and the song kept mocking me...

"No matter what may be the test,

God will take care or you;

Lean, weary one, upon His breast,

God will take care of you!"

     Suddenly I felt ashamed.  I was supposed to be leaning on Him...trusting Him.  How can I possibly be a Pastor's wife, Lord, when I can't even trust You?  I'm so selfish I don't even want to share my husband with the church.  I'm so self-centered that I have to be part of the action to be happy.  I'm such a foot-stomping, snot-nosed brat that I take it out on my kids when things don't go my way!  Why on earth would God give us a church to pastor, when I'm such a terrible example to everyone?  

     That's when  I really lost it!  I pushed past Joel and ran out, crossed the vestibule and ducked into the Ladies room. I went into a stall, blew my nose and sat down on the toilet and cried some more.  After a moment a strange thing happened... I stopped crying. It was like someone turned off the waterworks. Then I noticed that the anger, the worry and fear had all stopped too.  I was completely at peace.  For some reason the thought went through my head, Ted is going to be called to a church!
     I started to argue with the thought, then stopped myself and said aloud, "Well isn't this interesting? Maybe I've snapped!" (If someone else was in that bathroom, they'd be certain I had snapped.) I chuckled at the thought and said to myself, Don't mess with it!  It feels pretty good!

Butternut Bible Church

     I washed up and walked out of the Ladies room to gather my kids, with a smile on my red face.  Joel looked at me like I'd grown another head and shrugged.
     Later that night Ted came in and said, "Hi, how was your day?"
     "Great!" I answered. "How about yours?"
     "Interesting." he replied.
     "You were offered a pastorate, weren't you?" I asked.
     He looked shocked and said "Yes, how did you know?"
     "Oh, I just had a feeling." I replied.

The Parsonage

     Butternut Bible Church called him to pastor their church with the understanding that he would finish school.  They moved us into their parsonage, paid us a salary and provided us with love, fellowship and a place of ministry for twenty-two years until Ted's death in 1996.
     Now as I said at the beginning of this story....I failed one of these tests just last week.  I'm 65 years old at this writing.  I was a Pastor's wife and a Sunday school teacher for twenty five years and still sometimes I fail the "trust test".  My question is, how many more of the ear blasting, eyeball spinning situations do I have to go through to know, without a doubt that God's channel is always on the air and He will take care of me?



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