Have you ever been in a situation where you couldn’t bear to see someone go through something? My brother-in-law Ron was diagnosed with cancer in his palette and he was in Sloan Kettering Hospital in NYC recovering from mouth surgery. The surgery was about 10 hours long and they had to reconstruct his palette and remove three teeth. They had to take skin from his arm to rebuild the roof of his mouth and skin from his leg to replace it.
It was the third day after the surgery and we had just walked in to visit him. I sat down in the chair and he was sleeping due to heavy sedation for the pain. His wife Debbie went over to him and asked him how he was doing. Ron replied “Why do I have to suffer so much?” I immediately got up from my chair, grabbed my purse, my Bible and headed to the elevator. I went down to the lobby where the chapel was located. I immediately walked to the front, knelt on the floor and started to sob.
Let me give you a history of what happened before his surgery. Ron went into this surgery with a pair of boxing gloves on because he was determined to fight the good fight of faith. Our sayings would be “I’ll snap the neck of Satan” and “crack his teeth.”
A week before Ron’s surgery, he went into Home Depot and was in the checkout lane, he looked up and saw Larry Holmes (the famous professional boxer) standing in front of him. After a brief conversation, Ron felt like God was confirming to him that this was a fight and he was never to give up. Satan would not win. Put on your boxing gloves and get ready to crack the teeth of the enemy.
There I am in the chapel and I am a mess. I have said every prayer and petition possible. I cried out, “LORD HELP HIM FIGHT THIS BATTLE!” “GIVE HIM THE STRENGTH TO FIGHT!” My plea was that in Ron’s state he would fight. I sat in the chapel for almost two hours reading through Psalms. I was in total peace and felt connected to my Father. When I was ready to leave, I started to close my bible and Psalm 3:7-8 (NLT) was right in front of me. It read “Arise O Lord! Rescue me, my God! Slap all my enemies in the face! Shatter the teeth of the wicked! Victory comes from you, O Lord.” I started to laugh and thank the Lord. God was speaking my language. Shatter the teeth means I’ll crack your teeth. I knew He heard my plea. God is so merciful.
I composed myself and gathered my things. I went back to the Ron’s room and Debbie asked if I was in the chapel praying. I boldly exclaimed “yes”. She explained that while I was in the chapel, Ron out of nowhere started to proclaim to the world “I AM FIGHTING – I AM FIGHTING!” I stood in the doorway and began to cry. My prayers were answered! God is so amazing! I knew God was with Ron during this battle and that Ron was fighting.
After that experience, the words intercessory prayer came to my mind so I decided to look them up. During the search, I found this awesome description of intercession from the RCCM International Garden of Prayer:
What is Intercession?
Intercession is the act of going on behalf of someone else that needs help from Almighty God, to be merciful and gracious unto someone else and not self. In most cases it is prayer for those whose situations or circumstances need the mercy and grace of God’s immediate attention. Intercession touches the very heart of God, the Ministry of Jesus and the help of the Holy Spirit. Intercession requires a giving up and giving unto, as an act of God’s love, mercy and compassion. The intercessor must be ready and sensitive to God at all times, totally yielded to Him, and willing to be touched by the infirmities of someone else. Intercession requires you to become selfless, forgetting about your needs, desires and wants. Wow-I read this and thought that is incredible.
Jesus intercedes for us with God. He is our intercessor. Have you ever wanted to help someone and didn’t know how to? Intercessory prayer can be the biggest gift you can give someone. I had no I idea that’s what I did. All I knew is that my spirit could not sit there and do nothing. That got me thinking of ways going forward how I can bless and stand in the gap for someone else. I no longer have to feel powerless. I will not go down with out a fight in any situation. I don’t know about you but I have some teeth to shatter!
James 5: 16 (NLT) The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
God's Protective Power by Kelly Liberto
Have you ever heard from other people that they could not accept a loving God when there is so much evil in this world? They have a certain perspective on God, all evil is His fault, yet, how do they explain the good, even great things that happen in our lives?
You cannot predetermine a belief based merely on one aspect of the evil in our world today.
Let me take this thinking one step further, and suggest that God DOES bring good out of evil. I know having experienced sexual molestation at age nine, as well as battling choriocarcinoma some thirty years later.
I will suggest to you that God does allow suffering in this world, however, much good can come out of the suffering that we experience.
Case in point, at the very naïve age of nine, I entered my brother’s bedroom when a childhood friend called me in. It was not uncommon for me to play with my brother and his friends as we are twins and I was a bit of a tomboy.
What happened next was so traumatic to me, that I could not even think about it for the next thirty years. I “blocked” the incident from my memory.
The years after this experience were marred by a constant sense that I was dirty, that I was unworthy. My grades suffered, as well as my sense of security in other people. After all, this was a boy who I thought was my brother. He took my trust and smashed it, along with my innocence in one thoughtless act of selfishness.
Though my mom and dad are Christians, I had no concept of a protecting, loving God. Unbeknownst to them, I learned in church that God was a miserable, demanding tyrant. So, at the time of the molesting, I felt completely alone. My abuser threatened me if I told anyone what had happened.
Fast forward to my forties~ I have a family, a wonderful husband and had accepted the Lord as my savior. Many would look at my life and see a very blessed, happy homemaker with a full life.
I have three beautiful daughters, and managed to bury my fears, raising them was the joy of my life. Once in awhile, feelings of unworthiness, fear, self doubt would kick in, but, I just assumed that everyone struggled with these things.
At forty years old, my “normal” world came crashing to the ground at the sound of my doctor’s voice telling me that I had cancer.
Thankfully, and miraculously after three months of heavy duty chemotherapy, I was declared “cancer free”.
While God had delivered me from cancer, I could still not shake the sense of doom and gloom or
the sense of being unprotected.
I had nightmares at night where a shadowy figure was pursuing me. At forty years old, there was still a sense of urgency in dark places, like parking lots and other public places. I had a morbid fear that someday I would be attacked and raped.
As these fears and panic attacks intensified, I attempted to resume some normalcy in my life. My doctors put the anxiety down to the chemically induced premature menopause that I was thrown into from the chemotherapy. All the while, experts were amazed by my quick healing and lack of side effects from the drugs.
A friend of mine approached me in 2005, four years after my battle with cancer. She asked me if I would like to study biblical counseling with her. I accepted.
As a result of studying the word of God and applying it to my fears, the molestation surfaced and the process of healing began.
I felt that I needed to deal with the irrational fears that I struggled with on a daily basis, as well as needing to understand the word better while speaking at different places on how God had healed me from cancer.
I wanted to be ready with an answer for those who had questions about why God allows such tragedies to exist.
Today, I am free from the anxieties that plagued me through my youth, and I’ve been set free from any residual trauma of having been molested. I rarely feel afraid for no reason at all.
And, I know a peace and a joy that I have not ever known before. It is a peace and joy grounded in the knowledge that God is my protector.
The biblical counseling has helped me to encourage others through similar traumas. The world needs overcomers to show others that though we walk through the valley of death , we can fear no evil.
It is possible because our great and mighty God is there to sustain us. He simply wants us to know him through the trials and tribulations that we go through.
God is a God of impossibilities. He has taken a broken little girl and brought her back to wholeness as a grown woman.
Would I want to go through the trials and suffering all over again? No, probably not. But, I can’t help but be grateful that God used these trials to help me experience him on a deeper level.
It’s a mystery for sure. And, I sure do love mysteries.
Psalm 121
1 I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
from where shall my help come?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
8 The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.
You cannot predetermine a belief based merely on one aspect of the evil in our world today.
Let me take this thinking one step further, and suggest that God DOES bring good out of evil. I know having experienced sexual molestation at age nine, as well as battling choriocarcinoma some thirty years later.
I will suggest to you that God does allow suffering in this world, however, much good can come out of the suffering that we experience.
Case in point, at the very naïve age of nine, I entered my brother’s bedroom when a childhood friend called me in. It was not uncommon for me to play with my brother and his friends as we are twins and I was a bit of a tomboy.
What happened next was so traumatic to me, that I could not even think about it for the next thirty years. I “blocked” the incident from my memory.
The years after this experience were marred by a constant sense that I was dirty, that I was unworthy. My grades suffered, as well as my sense of security in other people. After all, this was a boy who I thought was my brother. He took my trust and smashed it, along with my innocence in one thoughtless act of selfishness.
Though my mom and dad are Christians, I had no concept of a protecting, loving God. Unbeknownst to them, I learned in church that God was a miserable, demanding tyrant. So, at the time of the molesting, I felt completely alone. My abuser threatened me if I told anyone what had happened.
Fast forward to my forties~ I have a family, a wonderful husband and had accepted the Lord as my savior. Many would look at my life and see a very blessed, happy homemaker with a full life.
I have three beautiful daughters, and managed to bury my fears, raising them was the joy of my life. Once in awhile, feelings of unworthiness, fear, self doubt would kick in, but, I just assumed that everyone struggled with these things.
At forty years old, my “normal” world came crashing to the ground at the sound of my doctor’s voice telling me that I had cancer.
Thankfully, and miraculously after three months of heavy duty chemotherapy, I was declared “cancer free”.
While God had delivered me from cancer, I could still not shake the sense of doom and gloom or
the sense of being unprotected.
I had nightmares at night where a shadowy figure was pursuing me. At forty years old, there was still a sense of urgency in dark places, like parking lots and other public places. I had a morbid fear that someday I would be attacked and raped.
As these fears and panic attacks intensified, I attempted to resume some normalcy in my life. My doctors put the anxiety down to the chemically induced premature menopause that I was thrown into from the chemotherapy. All the while, experts were amazed by my quick healing and lack of side effects from the drugs.
A friend of mine approached me in 2005, four years after my battle with cancer. She asked me if I would like to study biblical counseling with her. I accepted.
As a result of studying the word of God and applying it to my fears, the molestation surfaced and the process of healing began.
I felt that I needed to deal with the irrational fears that I struggled with on a daily basis, as well as needing to understand the word better while speaking at different places on how God had healed me from cancer.
I wanted to be ready with an answer for those who had questions about why God allows such tragedies to exist.
Today, I am free from the anxieties that plagued me through my youth, and I’ve been set free from any residual trauma of having been molested. I rarely feel afraid for no reason at all.
And, I know a peace and a joy that I have not ever known before. It is a peace and joy grounded in the knowledge that God is my protector.
The biblical counseling has helped me to encourage others through similar traumas. The world needs overcomers to show others that though we walk through the valley of death , we can fear no evil.
It is possible because our great and mighty God is there to sustain us. He simply wants us to know him through the trials and tribulations that we go through.
God is a God of impossibilities. He has taken a broken little girl and brought her back to wholeness as a grown woman.
Would I want to go through the trials and suffering all over again? No, probably not. But, I can’t help but be grateful that God used these trials to help me experience him on a deeper level.
It’s a mystery for sure. And, I sure do love mysteries.
Psalm 121
1 I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;
from where shall my help come?
2 My help comes from the LORD,
Who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not allow your foot to slip;
He who keeps you will not slumber.
4 Behold, He who keeps Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The LORD is your keeper;
The LORD is your shade on your right hand.
6 The sun will not smite you by day,
Nor the moon by night.
7 The LORD will protect you from all evil;
He will keep your soul.
8 The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in
From this time forth and forever.
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