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The Angel on the Mountain – Kevin Spencer
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Mt. Mitchell

Mt. Mitchell

For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways, they will lift you up in their hands. Psalm 91:11,12

With a low groan I forced open my eyes, and the familiar dimensions of my Montreat College dorm room focused into view. The clock beside my bed said a little after 10:00 p.m. Fumbling for my glasses, I heard my best friend softly snoring in his sleeping bag on the floor beside my bed. Eddie had come up from NC State to visit for the weekend. We were college freshmen and best friends. That much I remembered. What I didn’t know was what we were doing back in the dorm room.

Fifteen hours earlier, Eddie and I had decided to go hiking. We had first walked around the campus, but Montreat wasn’t that big.

“Any trails to the top of the mountain?” Eddie gazed up at the mountains that surrounded Montreat.

“Sure.” And without another thought, off we went. It was a beautiful winter Saturday at the little Christian mountain college outside of Asheville. The sun was shining, and it was warm. Eddie and I took off up the mountain trail in just our light windbreakers.

After a hard push up to the ridge, Eddie and I fell into the easy conversation of old friends. We had been virtually inseparable through four years of high school, but having gone to separate colleges we had a lot to catch up on. We hiked and talked, and the hours slipped away.

Hiking upward, under the tree canopy, neither one of us noticed the temperature falling, or the clouds moving in. Nor did we keep track of time. Our trail eventually crossed the old Mt. Mitchell Toll Road, and breaking into the open out from under the trees, it was the first indication we had that the weather had changed. The sun was gone, and with it the warm day. It had turned bitterly cold. Dark gray clouds hovered. We realized it was late afternoon, and there was no possibility we’d find our way back to the college before dark. And then, right on cue, it began to snow.

We had no choice but to push on toward the Blue Ridge Parkway, and hope for a ride back to the college. Eddie and I trudged through the snow to the Parkway. But when we reached it, there were no tracks in the snow that covered it. The Parkway was closed because of the weather. There would be no cars and we were in trouble. We were alone, on the highest mountain east of the Mississippi, in a driving snowstorm, in already wet tennis shoes and windbreakers. Worse… no one knew we were here.

With no other alternative, we kept hiking. Soon we reached the large stone sign that proclaimed the entrance to Mt. Mitchell State Park. We were exhausted and cold. The snow was inches deep. There was a small ranger cabin at the entrance. I suggested we break in to get out of the snow, but Eddie had another idea.

“Let’s pray.”

So we did.

Eddie sat on one side of that granite Mt Mitchell State Park sign, and I sat on the other shivering uncontrollably. The snow piled up around us. And we prayed… fervently.

And God heard us. I have an impression of a light streaming through the snow, with the individual flakes sparkling in its brightness, a warmth coming over me, and dropping us deep into sleep…. waking in my dorm room.

I don’t know the mechanics of what happened in between. I don’t need to know, and probably wasn’t meant to know. I DO know my Father heard my prayer, and Eddie’s (who also remembered nothing), and He rescued us. An angel came and lifted two careless young men out of a snowstorm off of Mt. Mitchell, and deposited them safely back in their home.

Our Father always hears us. Always. He guards us without question. No matter how great your problem, give it to Him.

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Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. He is a staff writer for ChristianDevotions.us.  A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.

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Another Easter Story – Kevin Spencer
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Easter Bunny?

Easter Bunny?

Don’t have anything to do with godless stories and silly tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly. 1 Timothy 4:7

Our grandson Caleb was having a blast dying the Easter Eggs and re-coloring the dining room table, when he stopped short. I could see the wheels turning.

“Opa,” he said, “bunny rabbits don’t lay eggs, do they?”

“Nooooooo….” I replied cautiously, not sure where he was going, but knowing any question involving reproduction was one I wasn’t ready to get into.

“Then where did the Easter Bunny come from?” Caleb asked.

Where indeed? I knew the answer, but wasn’t sure Caleb was ready for it. I pondered a moment, prayed a quick prayer, and plunged in.

“A long, long time ago there was a king named Nimrod. He was King of Babylon.  When he died, his widow didn’t want to give up being the Queen, so she declared that Nimrod was a god…the sun god. When she became pregnant again (she said the rays of the sun did it — that was her story and she was sticking to it), she declared her baby was the reincarnation of Nimrod, the sun god. She named him Tammuz.”

Caleb lost interest in the egg he was dying and listened intently. His eyes widened as I quickly explained reincarnation, and moved on.

“All was good until Tammuz was forty years old. One day he was gored to death in the spring by a wild boar. The people of Babylon were so upset they declared a yearly remembrance. For forty days every spring, one day of each year of Tammuz’s life, they’d give up something pleasurable to them.”

My wife, a Catholic, looked up at me. “Hey, that’s just like Lent.”

I smiled and continued.

“When Tammuz’s mother, the Queen of Heaven, died years later, so the story goes, the gods sent her back to earth. On the first Sunday after the vernal equinox, the reincarnated Queen landed in the Euphrates river in a giant egg, which split open to reveal a new goddess named Easter. Easter was the goddess of, uhmmm, well never mind what she was the goddess of….that’s not important. What is important is that in order to proclaim her divinity, Easter changed a bird into an egg-laying rabbit.”

Caleb’s eyes gleamed. “That’s the Easter Bunny.” Then he stopped, thought, and looked at me.

“Is that story true?” he asked.

“Part of it,” I said. “Nimrod was a real King who was rebellious to God, but the rest of it is just a story that people told about him. And people really thought Easter was a goddess, but she was just an imaginary woman. And no, the Easter Bunny isn’t real.”

Caleb sat there, toying with an egg, that familiar look on his face as he worked something out. I let him think about it.

He hadn’t asked about the Easter eggs, which is just as well. I was pretty sure he wasn’t ready for that truth. Not many Christians are. In sun god worship, after the forty days of self sacrifice, on the first Sunday after the vernal equinox, at Easter Sunrise, the priests would impregnate virgins on their pagan altar. A year later, those three-month-old babies would be sacrificed on that same altar, and to commemorate the event, eggs were rolled and dyed in the spilled blood of the infants. To this day, in Orthodox and Eastern Catholic traditions, Easter eggs are always blood red. Shocked? Oh, and that ham you’re cooking for Easter Dinner… commemorates the wild boar that killed Tammuz. Just thought you would like to know.

Caleb asked, “Opa, where was Jesus in that story?”

Where indeed? That sweet boy asked the perfect question.

Jesus isn’t in that empty tomb of Babylonian traditions. Those traditions, like yeast rising through dough, have tainted every religion, including Judaism. But Jesus CAN be found, free of the tomb, risen again, and shining bright, in the untainted Word of God. Jesus IS the Word. Seek Him. Train yourself in the real Word.

Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net and Patou.

Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. He is a staff writer for ChristianDevotions.us.  A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.

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Little Lotte’s Christmas – Kevin Spencer
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One piece of candy

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1

Little five-year-old Lotte had to pee. She had to pee some kind of bad. Unfortunately she was locked in the Spielzimmer, the playroom, with the other children her age. She jiggled the locked door handle. Her head full of red curls bounced as she jumped up to try and peer out the window. She called, but no one came.

Nestled under the Alps in the heart of Bavaria, the imposing four-story Catholic orphanage in Augsburg, Germany was a large place. To the children living there, it was huge. Unfortunately, in the years after World War II there were far more orphans than there were nuns to shepherd them. The nuns did the best they could, but sometimes they needed to be in two or three places at once. They resorted to the only option they had, locking the children in a room for a moment, for their own safety, while they moved about the orphanage.

The number one no-no, as poor little Lotte knew, was to wet her pants. She desperately pulled on the door, but it remained locked. She peeked out the window. There was no sign of a nun’s black habit swooshing and rustling back down the hall.

So sweet little Lotte did the only thing she could. She broke a windowpane out of the door and, standing on tiptoes, reached through to unlock the deadbolt. Little red curls bouncing, she raced off to the bathroom. Lotte crept slowly back from the bathroom but there, standing over the broken glass, was her nun, hickory switch in hand. And poor Lotte had her bottom spanked.

But five-year-olds are resilient, and because it was the holiday time of year, Lotte quickly forgot about her punishment. For it was almost St. Nicholas Day! In Bavaria, St. Nicholas comes on December 6th. For the children of the orphanage this was a truly special day. It was the only time all year they received candy and toys. All the children, Lotte included, couldn’t stop chattering with excitement as the day drew near.

The morning of December 6th dawned. Lotte could almost taste the candy. She hoped St. Nicholas would bring her a new doll. The children gathered, and the nuns began to pass out the gifts that St. Nicholas had left. Finally, it was Lotte’s turn. She was handed her gift and eagerly tore it open. She stared in shock, for St. Nicholas had left her the hickory switch she had been spanked with a few days earlier, with one single tiny piece of candy tied to it. Tears welled in her eyes. This couldn’t be. She looked about her as the other children squealed with glee with their candy and toys. Her heart broke, and unable to control her weeping, she stumbled back to her bed, and eventually cried herself to sleep.

Eventually, Lotte, who in truth had never really liked that name, would leave the orphanage in Bavaria and come to the United States. She would begin to go by her full first name, Charlotte. Every year she would embrace Christmas with all her heart, having known what it was like to miss it. Oh yes, and one more thing, eventually she would marry me.

Not the happy feel good Christmas story you were hoping for? Does your heart ache for sweet little Lotte? Think about this: How does our Lord and Father, who loves us so very much that He, in the body of Jesus Christ gave His life for us, feel when our sins entangle us and bring about our punishment? For sweet little Lotte, it was a separation from the joys of Christmas, and a valuable lesson learned. For us, without accepting the loving sacrifice of Jesus, it can mean eternal separation from the love of God. He offers His love fully. Please accept His gift.

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Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. He is a staff writer for ChristianDevotions.us.  A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.

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Distractions – Kevin Spencer
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Duty Called

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light. Ephesians 5:8

Once upon a time, in the last half of the last century, I was a Boy Scout. My BSA Troop 749 met at my church, Ardmore United Methodist in Winston-Salem, NC. As it happened, I was also active in the church as a singer in the youth choir and as a Sunday morning acolyte. Being an acolyte meant I got to wear a white robe, solemnly light the altar candles to start the service, solemnly extinguish them to end the service, and in between, sit all by myself on the very front pew, which was reserved every Sunday just for the acolyte.

In the Scouts, I’d worked my way through the procession of merit badges and classes, and had been selected Patrol Leader of the Bat Patrol. As Patrol Leader, I was expected to lead my patrol at meetings, guide them up the Scout accomplishment ladder, and most fun of all, shepherd them on camping trips.

It was inevitable that eventually, a weekend Scout camping trip would coincide with my Sunday to be an acolyte. Unable to find a replacement to be the acolyte, I resigned myself to doing both duties that weekend. I would take my Bat Patrol on the troop’s weekend camping trip, and my dad would pick me up early Sunday morning at the campground and take me to do my acolyte thing in church. I had it covered.

The camping trip went smoothly, and right on schedule Sunday morning, Dad showed up to herd me back to shower and change. At church, I slipped on the traditional white cassock and cotta, checked to make sure my candle lighter worked, and waited for Reverend Hutchinson to give me the go sign. He did and out I went, walking with pace and reverence to the altar where I lit the candles, and then returned to my reserved front pew.

All was good. During the first half of the service we Methodists do a lot of standing and singing, so I was fairly active. And that was great, because, boys being boys, I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep the night before. We played poker by flashlight, talked Tobacco Road basketball, told each other ghost stories, and most of all, speculated endlessly on the wondrous hidden mysteries of female anatomy. Sometime long after midnight, we all fell asleep in the big tent.

And so it was, that as Rev. Hutchinson launched into the sermon, my eyes slowly began to shut. My head drifted back, back, back to rest on that lonely front pew, and I went sound asleep. There I was, in front of the entire congregation, mouth wide open, snoozing away.

At the end of the sermon, the kind lady sitting behind me gently nudged me awake. I quickly woke up enough to go extinguish the candles as the service concluded. Later I learned Rev. Hutchinson explained to the congregation my double duty weekend, and told them to just let me rest, but at that moment . . . I was mortified.

It would be wonderful to tell you I learned my lesson that Sunday morning, that never again would I let the bright baubles of the world distract me from learning about God’s word. But the truth is, I’ve had to learn that lesson over and over. And I’m still learning it, as hours slip away from me on Facebook and the Internet.

One of these days I’m going to feel that gentle nudge on my shoulder again, and I’m going to turn to see my Lord. I hope I’m not mortified, again.

Spend your precious hours here in this life seeking His face, in His Word.

I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.

Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. He is a staff writer for ChristianDevotions.us. A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.

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Leaves – Kevin Spencer
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The Color of Fall

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. Ecclesiastes 3:1

I stood in a long shuffling line of inmates that slowly approached the Prison Mail Room. The Mail Room was actually a separate building. We were lined up in front of a small window where the Florida Department of Correction’s Officer assigned to handle our mail, read, censored, and dispensed our contacts with the outside world.

I was in prison; a victim of my own stupidity. It was Fall, which throughout my life had been my favorite time of year. Now, my spirits were at rock bottom. I had been here a little over a year and despite my Lord’s promise to me that I would go home, I could see no end to my incarceration. I was stuck here. I missed home. I missed the change of the seasons.

In central Florida, the seasons don’t change. Okay, that’s unkind. There actually are two seasons in Florida: The brutally hot green leaf season, and the not so warm brown leaf season. Here at the prison we were currently in the transition between the two. I so missed seeing the leaves change color. It was bad enough seeing the outside world through a double chain-link fence topped with razored serpentine wire, but to watch the distant Ocala National Forest just slowly turn from green to olive to brown was even more depressing.

My heart was empty. I didn’t think God was listening to me anymore, but as I stood in the line, I silently prayed again. “Please Father, I just want to go home. Please.”

Finally I got to the Mail Window. I was fortunate in that my dad wrote me almost every day. Sometimes just a couple of lines. Usually some clippings from the local paper about life at home in Raleigh, and later Lincolnton, North Carolina. Dad was great about writing. And the result was, I was in the mail line every day. The Mail Officer knew me perhaps better than she knew some of the other inmates.

She glanced up as I approached, and I saw something in her face as she looked at me. She motioned me to step to the side door. This had never happened before, but I did as I was told.

She opened the side door and told me, “I can’t let you have this, but I’m going to let you see it.” She handed me a large manila envelope. It was from my dad. I opened it and slid out a handful of red, yellow, and orange leaves that Dad had evidently picked up in the yard, and knowing how much I missed the seasons, had sent to me. My eyes welled up as I fingered them for a second. I smiled at the thought of my dad walking through the yard picking up leaves like a little boy.

“I’m sorry I can’t let you have them,” she said. I struggled to keep the tears back, and mumbled something about it being okay. Fingering the leaves one last time, I handed them back.

“Thank you,” I told her.

“You’re welcome.” As she shut the door, she said, “Watch your feet.”

Glancing down automatically as the door clicked shut, I saw at my feet, a bright scarlet Sugar Maple leaf. She had dropped it there for me. A small kindness. I scooped it up, stashed it in my Bible, and carried it with me until I eventually went home. God had answered my prayer, not in my way, but in His. I didn’t get to go home, not then; but He had brought a small piece of home to me. And He had told me He was listening to my prayers — always.

He listens to you too. Talk to him.

And P.S…thank you Father, again.

Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. He is a staff writer for ChristianDevotions.us.  A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.Read Kevin’s devotions
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Faith – Kevin Spencer
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Shackles and Chains

What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see. Hebrews 11:1

On a sweltering hot Florida summer day in 1987, confined in handcuffs and leg irons, I shuffled off a prison bus and stepped into Florida’s Marion Correctional Institution. Carrying a 46 year sentence, I stepped into the world that might be my home until I was an old man. 46 years meant 46 years. There was no parole in the Florida system at that time. What the judge handed down, you served.

The drag to pull me into the prison world that surrounded me began almost immediately. Catcalls from other inmates who lined up to see the ‘fresh fish’. In this, my shackles and leg-irons actually helped, because they marked me as someone the DOC considered ‘dangerous’. I didn’t feel very dangerous. In fact, I felt scared to death. But I knew better than to let it show. In response to my fear, I remembered MY bible verses, the one the Lord had given me on the cold floor of a concrete jail cell months earlier.

“My sheep hear my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” John 10:27,28

In that desperate moment, in that jail cell, completely broken I had reached out, and He had answered. He had touched me, and given me peace. And He had told me I would survive this, to have faith, and even more important, that this wasn’t the end of my life. I clung to that, my Father’s promise, desperately.

If there is a hell on earth, it is in a maximum custody prison. There is little of God’s love and peace to be found. The system doesn’t care if you survive your sentence, just as long as you serve it until it’s over or you stop breathing. In that environment, it’s hard to survive, to live, without letting the system trip you up. But God was faithful. He was with me every minute, even those times when I was so frustrated and wanted to give up on ever going home. Those times when I wanted to just surrender to the world I was in.

I kept my nose clean, and within 18 months of my arrival, something remarkable happened. The crack cocaine epidemic in Florida had so flooded the prison system, that they had to start letting inmates go early. This ‘gain time’ was issued based on your prison record up to that point. Because I had believed in God’s promise, had believed I would go home again, my record was clean. And I started to get to receive time off my sentence. It would take 5 more years before I would accumulate enough to go home, but in time, that day did come. On April 14th, 1994, I walked through the prison gate for the last time, and into the loving arms of my mother and father.

God was faithful. His promises are certain. Trust in Him. Put your faith in His everlasting love.

Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. He is a staff writer for ChristianDevotions.us.  A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.

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End to Enders – Kevin Spencer
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“…and you will hear a voice say, ‘This is the way, turn around and walk here.’” Isaiah 30:21

Hanging on the wall in my office (okay it’s not so much an office as a corner of the living room), we have a framed document proclaiming that my dear wife Charlotte and I are official “End to Enders.” Part of a promotional campaign for the Blue Ridge Parkway, the document is ‘awarded’ to anyone who has traveled the entire length of the Parkway.

From almost as long as I have memory, my family has traveled and camped on the Parkway. When I was a boy, it was a road of mystery. There might be waterfalls, amazing vistas, ancient log cabins, or deer, and maybe even a bear around every bend. The Parkway is host to a lifetime of memories, from camping to picnicking to racing my little brother, David, up Mt. Pisgah. (He won, the speedy little scoundrel.)

From a host of mountain tops up and down the length of the Parkway, you can look down and see miles of the ribbon of concrete as it winds along the ridge tops below. As a boy, I imagined this must be how God sees us, gazing down on us from some remote spot high above, occasionally brushing aside a cloud to get a better view.

As I’ve grown older, though, I’ve discovered that my youthful analogy has held up. No, I don’t think of God peering down through the clouds anymore, although He might, but rather that He lives in me and with me. But what is comforting, like my boyhood image of God looking down on the Parkway, is that God can see all the twists and turns of my life from beginning to end. God can see what I can’t.

He can see what lies around the bends in the road. He can see what joys and dangers are hidden from me by the curves of life’s road. He provides for me what He knows I’ll need. He teaches me lessons that will serve me up the road, in some future situation I can’t even imagine now, because He knows where my life’s road is going. I take comfort in that…when I remember it. Unfortunately sometimes He has to remind me that He is in control, that He knows the road ahead far better than I do.

When the curves in your life’s road seem to be too sharp to handle, remember that He knows what lies around the corner. From birth to death, God has an ‘End to Ender’ certificate for each of our lives. Trust in Him.

Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.Read Kevin’s devotions

In the Blink of an Eye – Kevin Spencer
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Therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Matthew 24:44

Charlotte screamed.

Sitting beside me in our Ford Escape on the first day of vacation, my wife Charlotte and I were in fast-moving heavy traffic in Knoxville, Tennessee, heading to the mountains. In front of us, hemmed in on all sides, was an 18-wheeler hauling scrap lumber. Covered mostly by a tarp, the back left corner flapped in the wind. I’d noticed this abstractly, but my attention was focused on the truck itself. I was ready to hit the brakes if his tail lights came on or the distance between us suddenly closed.

It was beautiful in a way, the manner in which the board lifted off the back of the trailer directly in front of us. The slipstream flowing over the truck had created a vacuum and suctioned the board right out through the flapping gap in the loosened tarp. The board, long and at least an inch thick, floated beautifully in the air for a fraction of a second, before diving for our windshield.

When Charlotte screamed, there was nothing I could do . . . no time to react. I didn’t think of death, although death was out there soaring toward me and closing fast.

Jesus told his disciples they (we) must always be ready for his return, “…for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” The same is true of our going to Him. Unless you happen to be on Death Row and your appeals have run out, none of us knows when our time will come to be called home. Most of us don’t even want to think about it, me included. But that day will come for all of us.

I don’t particularly worry about that day. Like a toddler on the beach holding his father’s hand, I hold my Father’s hand. I get knocked down by waves and trip over my feet and get distracted by shiny shells, but my Father’s grip never wavers. And when that day comes, He’ll still be holding my hand.

About that board flying toward me at sixty miles per hour . . . turns out it wasn’t my day to go home. At the very last fraction of a second, an angel lifted the board onto its side and it flew down the side of the car. Neatly sliced off my mirror and scraped the door panels, but that was all the damage done. Thank you, Father. Thank you!

Someday, though, that final day will come for all of us, probably in the blink of an eye. Are you holding His saving hand and walking in His love?

Be ready.

Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. He is a staff writer for ChristianDevotions.us.  A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.

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Happy Birthday – Kevin Spencer
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Dial up the "impossible."

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Matthew 19:26

A few weeks ago my wife celebrated her birthday by losing her cell phone — 400 miles from home, in another state, in a Wal-Mart.

We were on the first day of a much needed vacation and stopped to see an old friend, Tammy Shook. Tammy knew both of us before Charlotte and I knew each other, and she’s been a great friend to us over the years. When Tammy asked to see some pictures of our grandson Caleb, Charlotte reached for her phone.

“It’s gone. I’ve lost it off my belt,” she said.

We had one of those tracking program apps for our phones and by using my phone to look it up, we were soon watching Charlotte’s phone moving away down Highway 70. It was gone . . . stolen.

Charlotte was crushed. Her pictures, videos, songs from her home in Bavaria, Germany . . . all gone. And on her birthday too. The look on her face tore at my heart.

I silently prayed, Please Father, fix this. Please.

There was nothing more we could do except continue on. The phone was insured. Verizon would ship a new one to her within twenty-four hours wherever we would be, but it couldn’t replace the memories the old phone held. We got in the car and navigated our way out of Hickory to I-40 east.

Charlotte used my phone to call Verizon and cancel the number, but she couldn’t seem to connect. I suspected it had more to do with the tears in her eyes than the inability of the phone connection, but I didn’t say anything. Instead I continued to pray, Please Father . . .

The last turn before we hit the Interstate, I saw a Verizon store. Knowing they could cancel the number faster than we could, I pulled in and stopped. The Verizon employees were very helpful with cancelling the number and taking care of the insurance. Still, the loss haunted Charlotte. I felt so bad for her and although I continued to pray, I’ll admit I didn’t think there was anything that could be done. The phone was gone. Even the tracker had lost it.

Charlotte’s number was cancelled and we got the insurance information we needed. As we turned to leave, the pain was still evident in Charlotte’s eyes. The kind lady who was so helpful to us when we first arrived was busy with another customer, so I just caught her eye and waved good-bye.

“Wait!” she said as she reached in her pocket and pulled out a phone. “Someone just turned this in.”

As soon as I saw it, I knew it was Charlotte’s.

The joy on Charlotte’s face was priceless. She began to praise and thank God right there in the store and everyone started to clap. Obviously bewildered, the store manager shrugged. “I don’t understand it. This has never happened before. It’s impossible.”

Charlotte smiled sweetly at him and said, “Not for Jesus.”

As for me, I turned away so no one would see the tears in my eyes. “Thank you, Father,” I prayed. “Thank you so much.”

Nothing is impossible for God. A lesson I seem to constantly be relearning.

Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. He is a staff writer for ChristianDevotions.us. A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.

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Bobby’s Prayer – Kevin Spencer
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Please, Lord, rescue me! Come quick Lord and help me. Psalm 40:13

The year was 1937. On a sick bed in Caswell County, North Carolina, a seven-year-old boy lay dying of pneumonia. In 1937, before penicillin and sulfa drugs, pneumonia was death.
It was a lingering death, at that.

As the young boy’s condition worsened, ladies in the neighborhood came to relieve his exhausted mother. They would sit through the night at his bedside, wiping his fevered brow. But their efforts did nothing to slow the gradual strangling as the boy’s lungs filled. He could keep no medication down. He was dying.

At last, the end came. “The last day,” the boy’s doctor said. His name was Dr. Simpson. He had been coming to see the boy twice a day, visiting and treating him in the family home. And now he gave the family the bad news. The boy wouldn’t last the night. The young seven-year-old, although drifting in and out of consciousness, nevertheless heard this. He understood his condition and although he could no longer speak, in his heart and mind he began to pray, “Lord please don’t let me die; it would hurt my mother too much.”

Day drifted into night. The boy, when he was conscious, continued to repeat his simple prayer. And then, in the upper left corner of his darkened room, a light appeared. Out of that light came a voice: “Stop worrying. You are not going to die. Go back to sleep. You need the rest.” Immediately a deep peace came over the boy and he drifted back to sleep.

When the boy next awoke, Dr. Simpson was back, checking his breathing. Daylight filled the room. The boy heard Dr. Simpson tell his parents, “I don’t want to give you false hope, but his vital signs are just a little better than yesterday.” Again the boy slept, and again he awoke to Dr. Simpson checking him. Late afternoon light filled the room. The doctor turned to the boy’s mother and told her, “There is improvement. I think we may be turning the corner.” The boy’s mother left the room so no one would see her tears.

Dr. Simpson turned to pull the boy’s covers back up. As he did, the boy touched his arm and struggled to speak. “I’ll not die,” he rasped out.

Dr. Simpson bent low and spoke softly. “No, Bobby, you’re not going to die.”

He started to rise, but Bobby wasn’t finished. He tugged at the doctor’s arm again. and spoke, his voice barely a whisper.  “Last night I prayed, ‘Lord, don’t let me die.’ and He answered me. God told me, ‘You are not going to die.”’ That took all the boy’s strength and he collapsed back onto his pillow.

Dr. Simpson leaned close and said, “Bobby, you keep talking to God. He is a better doctor than I am.”
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Bobby would keep talking to God. Through his recovery from pneumonia and through his multiple surgeries as a teenager to recover from the devastating effects of polio, Bobby kept talking to God. And God kept answering with His healing mercy. I know this, because Bobby was, is, Robert Eudean Spencer, my father. And on March 26, 2012, he will celebrate his eighty-second birthday.

God listens. He hears. Put your cares before Him . . . and listen for His answer.

Kevin Spencer lives in Tennessee with his beautiful wife Charlotte and grandson Caleb. He is a staff writer for www.ChristianDevotions.us.  A former prodigal son, Kevin is now trying to use the gifts God gave him, and by the grace of God has a life far better than he ever deserved.

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