by Amy Newmark
We later learned that Bradford pears, although exquisite in appearance, are trees that are notorious for uprooting and breaking.
My early morning funk was replaced that day with profound gratitude — gratitude for something even as simple as a wrong number.
~Eva Carter
Answered Prayers
Expect Miracles
Miracles happen to those who believe in them.
~Bernard Berenson
During the Rwandan genocide of 1994 more than a million people were murdered in three months; by the grace of God, I was not one of them. At the time I was a twenty-four-year-old university student visiting home on Easter vacation when the long-brewing tribal hatred in my African homeland erupted into an unspeakable slaughter of innocents. When the killers arrived at our doorstep, my dad sent me running to a neighboring pastor for protection.
For the next ninety-one days I cowered in a hidden, tiny bathroom with seven other terrified women while rapists and murderers relentlessly hunted for us. I opened my heart to God and prayed night and day that He spare my life and also, spare my soul, and not allow the hatred I felt for the killers to turn my heart to stone.
God heard my prayers and answered them.
Whenever the death squads ransacked the pastor’s house searching for us, God blinded them from seeing the bathroom door and finding us.
Three months later, the genocide was over and I came out of hiding. I was emaciated, but alive. My heart was sad and I wanted the killers brought to justice, but I wasn’t filled with poisonous hatred. On the contrary, to my amazement, I was ready to love and forgive.
With those prayers answered, I thought I’d used up a lifetime allotment of miracles. But I was wrong.
Outside the bathroom, the world I had known was gone. My once breathtakingly beautiful homeland had been transformed into a grotesque landscape of death and destruction. All my neighbors and my immediate family, with the exception of one brother who was living abroad, had been viciously murdered. My childhood home, which my father had built with his own hands as a wedding gift to my mother, had been burned to the ground. All I saw was the smoldering ruins of burnt out houses and a countryside strewn with corpses.
I had gone from being a happily pampered, only daughter to a starving orphaned refugee.
With no money, food or a single friend left alive, I made my way toward the Rwandan capital of Kigali in hopes of finding work, but there was none. No stores or businesses were open, there was virtually no power, no buses were running, there was precious little clean water to drink, the roads were littered with leftover landmines and wild dogs fed on the bodies that still lay in the street.
On my way to the city, I met and joined a band of fellow refugees at a temporary camp for displaced persons. One woman in the group owned a house in Kigali, so at least I had a roof over my head — but we had no food and faced starvation. The only remote possibility of employment was secretarial work at the United Nations office that had just reopened. Unfortunately, I didn’t speak English, I couldn’t type, the only clothes I owned were the rags on my back and I hadn’t had a bath in months. On top of that, the United Nations wasn’t hiring, and even if it was, it had a long-standing policy of not hiring Rwandans.
Nevertheless, I walked the dangerous footpath to the UN every day to fill out a job application. Every day, they told me not to come back because they had no jobs. But I continued this routine for weeks until my legs buckled beneath me one day, not strong enough to keep walking to a job that didn’t exist. I sank to my knees on the charred brick and broken glass of the ruined city in despair, and once again opened my heart to God.
“Lord, you have given me so much already, and I wouldn’t ask for your help unless I truly needed it, but I need it Lord! I don’t know what else to do. I have no money, my clothes are falling apart, and no one will give me a job. I know you didn’t save me from the killers to let me starve to death in the streets. Help me find a way to make these UN people notice me and give me a job! I don’t think I can last much longer.”
I stood up and brushed myself off, certain God would answer my prayer—and I wanted to be ready when He did. I trusted He would arrange for me to have an interview at the UN, so I would need my high school diploma and some presentable clothes. The only place I could possibly find both would be my university dorm room more than 200 miles away and completely impossible for me get to.
At that very moment a car pulled up beside me and the driver rolled down his window.
“Immaculée, is that you? I hardly recognized you, you are so skinny now. I’m so happy you survived. Can I drive you anywhere?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. It was one of my professors from the university and he just happened to be making the five-hour drive to the campus!
I arrived at the university the next day and the dorm was in shambles; the door of my room had been heaved in with an axe and all my clothes and books had been stolen.
Everything was gone, except for a single envelope on the floor. It must have fallen beneath the bed when the looters pillaged the room. I picked it up and opened it . . . to find all my school records and $30 from my scholarship award! Suddenly, I was rich! I had enough cash to hire a taxi back to Kigali, with money left over.
When I returned to the city, two shops had reopened near my house while I was gone—a secondhand clothing store where I purchased a new outfit, and a beauty salon where I had my hair done. On the way home I used the last few dollars to buy groceries to feed all my housemates for a week.
A few days later my prayer was answered in full—after an interview, I was picked to start a new job at the United Nations.
I also started a new life, knowing that whenever I opened my heart to God I could expect miracles.
~Immaculée Ilibagiza with Steve Erwin
Before the Baby Comes
A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.
~Carl Sandburg
Donna was the first friend I made after moving from Vermont to Nashville in 1986. Since we both worked in the medical field and enjoyed walking, gardening, and laughing, she quickly became a dear friend. Besides attending a weekly church group together, we hoofed it around the Vanderbilt track on a regular basis in our usual fruitless effort to lose weight.
Donna had always wanted to be a mother but for five frustrating years nothing had happened despite Pergonal shots and endometriosis surgery. We all rejoiced when she finally conceived, but then at three months, the unthinkable happened — she miscarried. I cried with her at the painful loss of her baby and her hope. The painful saga continued into year six: every month starting hopeful but ending with bitter disappointment. Since I knew she and her husband would make ideal parents, I prayed (along with her family and church group), but no further pregnancies occurred.
Unlike Donna, I was ambivalent about motherhood. Did I really want to lose all my free time, money, and sleep? Did I want to deal with nasty diapers and whining? What if I turned into a cranky, inept mother? What if my children turned into selfish brats, drug addicts, or pedophiles? I was afraid to rock the boat, or in this case, the cradle!
My husband, however, wanted children and I knew he’d make a fantastic father. When I turned thirty-one, my husband tossed out the gentle hint: “You’re not getting any younger, dear.” As a doctor, I already knew birth defect rates increased after age thirty-five, and with Donna’s experience, that conceiving could take years. I decided to just let nature take its course. “We’re not going to try,” I insisted. “We’re just not going to prevent it—if it’s meant to happen, it will.” I figured with our hectic schedules, it would takes months, maybe even years.
Wrong! Try one month! I couldn’t believe it when the very first month I got off birth control I conceived. My husband bounced around the room while I retched into the toilet, nauseated and in shock.
Once I was over the morning sickness, I warmed up to the idea of motherhood, except for the overwhelming guilt t
hat consumed me every time I walked the track with Donna. Why me and not her? She had yearned for a baby for years and had tried so hard. I got pregnant the first month. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right, and I dreaded telling her.
In fact, for months I didn’t! Instead, I begged God to bless her with a pregnancy before I had to tell her. But by my sixth month, I was showing and couldn’t delay anymore. When I told her, she cried. “I didn’t even know you wanted a baby.” Talk about guilt.
I petitioned God even more on her behalf. I researched promising scripture verses and all the Old Testament stories of infertile women who eventually conceived: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah. As I prayed, I begged God to bless Donna, just as He had blessed these Old Testament matriarchs. I also added a caveat: Please make it happen before my baby is born. I knew it would be difficult for her to watch me with my newborn, and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt her or put a wedge in our friendship. Day and night I uttered the same prayer: “Bless Donna with a baby, and let her conceive before my baby is born.” It became my mantra.
Eight months into my pregnancy, my water broke and nine hours later, at 8 a.m. on October 4th, my wonderful son, Steven, made his debut. Instant love and joy flowed through me as I gazed at my adorable little boy, a true blessing from God.
Once Steven was asleep, Nate and I called our friends and family with the news. I dreaded calling Donna. In fact, she was the last phone call I made because I was disappointed with God. Never had I prayed with as much faith, consistency, or fervor as I had prayed for Donna. But I had nothing to show for it. It had all been a waste of time. I made the dreaded call, and she promised to come by later that day.
After oohing and ahhing and agreeing that yes, Steven was the cutest baby on the face of the earth, Donna said, “There’s something I’m dying to tell you. I found out at 7:00 this morning that I’m pregnant!”
My mouth dropped. She was pregnant? Tears welled in my eyes and I couldn’t stop grinning. God not only answered my prayer, but timed it to the very hour!
Of course, I knew I wasn’t the only one praying for Donna. Her husband, family, friends, prayer group, and even a missionary in Japan were all lifting up prayers and petitions daily. Some had fasted. But that God had timed it to the very hour before my son was born was God’s special blessing.
Nine months later, Donna delivered a healthy, beautiful baby girl who she named Michelle. Michelle is now a beautiful twenty-two-year-old missionary and will marry this spring.
~Sally Willard Burbank
Faith Happens
Faith is not without worry or care, but faith is fear that has said a prayer.
~Author Unknown
There was no mistaking the lopsided thump my husband, seven-year-old son and I felt as we traveled home from the mall one Saturday afternoon; we had a flat tire. This was the first long outing we had taken since recently acquiring the car from my father. My husband had wanted to stay home that day and watch sports, but I had convinced him that family time at the mall would be more entertaining.
After turning on the hazard lights, my husband guided our car safely to the side of the road. Since we were on the interstate, other vehicles seemed to zoom past us at record speeds, and I worried for my husband’s safety since he would be changing the tire so near those speeding vehicles. “What are you looking for?” I finally asked after watching him rifle frantically through the glove box.
“There is a special tool made for this particular car that I have to use for tire changing. I put it in the glove box in case we ever needed to use it,” he answered, still deeply engrossed in his search.
Should I tell him I had already seen the “special tool,” and had removed it thinking it was something my father had accidentally left behind? Wouldn’t it be better to allow him to believe that he had forgotten to place the tool in the glove box? After all, I was the one who had insisted we take this jaunt to the mall in the first place; he had wanted to stay home and watch the game. Finally I mustered enough courage to confess my crime. “Was it a little metal thingy shaped like an L?” I asked, innocently.
“Yeah, that’s it. Have you seen it?” he asked. Several alternate explanations raced through my mind as possible means of salvation. I was leaning toward the “mugger snatching it from me as I sat cleaning it in the grocery store parking lot” scenario when I finally blurted, “Oh . . . I thought Daddy had accidentally left that in the car, and I put it on top of the fridge so we could give it back to him.”
There it was. I had confessed my crime and waited for the consequences. I received a look of disgust and disbelief followed by the silent treatment.
With no tool to change the tire, we had only two options: call a wrecker and spend money we didn’t really have, or continue at a snail’s pace, with the hazard lights flashing, and chance ruining the wheel.
After what seemed to be hours (but was more like several minutes) of slowly thumping down the interstate, my seven-year-old, who had been unusually quiet this entire time, offered some advice. “Mom, Dad . . . we could pray,” he suggested.
The look of frustration and impatience on my husband’s face seemed to mirror my own feelings, and I noticed his jaw muscle jump ever so slightly beneath his skin. Of course we could pray, but this wasn’t the type of situation to pray about . . . not when there were far more dire situations in the world that needed God’s attention. Besides, how could prayer solve our problem? Would our tire miraculously heal itself and become plump with new air? “Okay, son,” I said. I sounded tired. “You sit back and pray.”
With each metallic crunch and thud, I felt myself tense against the sound and shift toward the “good side” of the car. Somehow it seemed there would be less weight on the tire if I held my breath. I didn’t really believe that, of course, but I found myself involuntarily wincing after each fatal clunk anyway.
A few motorists actually slowed down and offered their help, but none of them had the “special tool” necessary for changing tires on our particular car. It finally got to the point where we wished people would just stop asking. Our luck changed, however, when a large white pickup truck passed us and then stopped on the side of the road. It looked promising, so we eased our car over next to the truck as its doors swung open and five men—all wearing the same sort of T-shirt—bounded out. Our disgruntled attitudes were in stark contrast to their ear-to-ear smiles, and they all seemed overly anxious to help us. The part I found most peculiar was they just so happened to have the specific tool necessary to change a tire on our car. And boy, were they fast! They had the flat tire off and the spare on in a matter of seconds, it seemed. Their smiles never left their faces, even as they loaded our flat tire into our trunk, and told us to have a nice day.
Everything happened so quickly and in such a surreal way that my husband and I just sat dumbfounded watching the men, one by one, pile back into their truck and wave goodbye. Then we heard a small voice from the back seat: “I told you we should pray.” I glanced up just in time to see the truck’s bumper sticker before it disappeared in the distance. It read, “Faith Happens.”
~Cynthia Zayn
Circle of Prayer
Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but earnestness of soul.
~Hannah More
Most likely, the doctor found the first birthday card startling. I pictured him pausing, trying to pinpoint my motivation, before tossing the correspondence in the wastebasket, only to lift the card back out and place it on his desk. There, he’d glance at it whenever he passed by, recalling that he nearly took my life, only to save it two days later. He probably thought it odd that I remembered the day he was born. But how could I forget?
At thirty, I needed a tonsillectomy. Years of strep throat and failed antibiotics necessitated their removal. I read the risks and possible complications listed on the surgical consent form. But like most patients, I signed without much thought to the medical warning
s and envisioned nothing more than a soothing Popsicle in the recovery room, followed by moderate pain for a couple of weeks. I could not have been more wrong.
After the surgery, I went home feeling as though I’d swallowed shards of glass. My five-month-old son Holden needed my attention, so I rested in between caring for him. The next day, a warm, thick liquid trickled down my throat, followed by the distinctive taste of copper. I called the surgeon’s office as instructed for post-operative bleeding.
“Gargle with ice chips,” he said.
“Excuse me?” I asked, believing that I’d misheard him.
The doctor explained that a blood clot might be holding a vessel open and, if knocked off, the bleeding would subside. I gargled the ice, and it worked . . . for a while. The next bout of bleeding—heavier and faster—increased my worry, and I called the office. I gargled with ice chips once again as instructed, and the bleeding stopped. Later in the day, I headed to the hospital without calling the doctor because the bleeding had increased. Shortly after my arrival in the ER, the bleeding eased.
“It looks like the problem has corrected itself,” the doctor said as he looked around in my throat. “I’d hate to stir things up. I think we’ll let it be and send you home.”
The thought of leaving the safety of the hospital frightened me, but I didn’t object. The doctor appeared to be a bit rushed. I noted his dress clothes. “Going somewhere fancy?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s my birthday today. We were out to dinner. In fact, my wife’s still at the restaurant waiting.”
I had interrupted his birthday dinner. Probably made him leave before the arrival of his cake adorned with candles. I suddenly felt stupid for rushing to the hospital without calling for his advice. He instructed me to go home and rest and to call the office if a problem arose.