“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1 KJV
For the last two weeks I have not written anything in our Forum because I been evaluating what we do & our purpose & calling here. This is most definitely orchestrated by God- divine appointment. I began to evaluate the events of Manchester, London & atrocities around the world. Silent. Waiting. Listening. “Without a vision Your people perish”. If we as Gods children do not hear His Word, then we can expect the world around us to break down. In all of the craziness & chaos in this life, in one day even, we must stop, be still & hear from God. Another trauma has hit the people of London, Your children too. Now the devastating fire at Grenfell Tower, West London How much more Lord? It is so much to bare. Your children are suffering & we are under enormous attack from the enemy. In my silence I having been enquiring, ‘What does The Lord want to say through us to His children?’ How does He want us to comfort them? To encourage them & build them up, to hold them supportively or to be still as we await the charge of deliverance through the Holy Spirit & the Angel of The Lord to come to us; for we are not immune from the pain & suffering too. Terror, evil & destruction is prevalent around the world & indeed, the UK has been pierced in the heart by the terror attacks She has suffered. Three in three months. I began to survey the mountains of conversations which have taken place since the attacks & the prevailing question by almost everyone has been “why?” Hosea 4:6″ My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:” why? Because we do not seek God. I began to seek, deeper in prayer. I awoke today & the words “faith” was placed in my spirit along with “no greater love The Father has for you that He gave His life for you”. I was lifted & too, by the melody of “His eye is on the Sparrow” sounding in my head. God sings over us too “The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”Zephaniah 3:17 God is gently reminding us to have faith in Him alone
From a young age since coming to know Jesus Christ, my late Parents taught us, my siblings & I, to “trust God but know Him for yourself” & as I grew in age, physically & spiritually, so did my relationship with My Father, Jesus Christ, especially in the ‘valley seasons’; getting to know who He is; as well as witnessing how He delivered (& still does). He healed a baby my Parents fostered (my little sister); her life expectancy at best, was five years. I never asked “why God”? It has been more like “how long?” if I’m really honest! Inpatient. Lack of faith. Something I ask God to release me of. The one out three things we as people ‘do’- when it comes to God. Blame Him. Doubt Him. Impatience with Him.
My sister was born chronically ill & the doctors prepared my Parents, who then prepared us; that she may not be with us for a long time because her condition was life threatening but we had to learn all of the complexities of her care & feeding regime, as well as ‘what to do’ should an emergency happen. We had a mountain of “whys?” “It’s so cruel & unfair” & “how could this be?” Baby sister was tube-fed & this in itself, had enormous risks to her tiny body. “Why Lord?” Every aspect of her life was under medical care & scrutiny to minimise the danger the condition had on her. She really was immensely small but what a mighty bundle of joy! My Parents had faith & if it could be said, my Mother had more than enough faith for our entire household! The road ahead looked ridiculously hard but one my Parents gladly accepted. “God has chosen us for this season” Mum said, one day after we had taken turns in cleaning up the umpteenth projectile feed baby sis’s body rejected. Being one of 8 children & having a plethora of ‘foster’-siblings, I grew up witnessing my Mum never concerning herself with “why?” Along with my Dad, they daily observed how to intricately care for my sister over a period of time at the specialist Children’s Hospital then each week, one of us went along with Mummy to learn too, in preparation for ‘baby’s homecoming’! We were not allowed to provide that care but She wanted us all to know what caring, feeding & supporting such a sick, high-risk child involved. Love. My baby sister was treated exactly as my Parent’s biological children. When the doctor said she ‘would be medicated for the remainder of her life’; ‘her major organs were affected; including her hearing & vision’; she would ‘never be spoon-fed or take food orally’, my Mum inwardly rejected that. She said simply told the doctor “thank you” & observed. I remember overhearing my Parents speaking & my Dad said, “one day he will meet God?” I had no idea until years later what that statement meant. They were speaking about that doctor. About that lack of faith. About Him meeeting Jesus, that was there prayer. As yet the doctor didn’t have the vision of healing for our baby sister. 7 months later – earlier than medically time-tabled, baby sis had her homecoming party! We were excited! We were terrified! We cried with joy! Quickly turning to annoyance when she kept crying & being sick! We had No faith or patience! We memorised the ‘Emergency Protocol’ & waited for the emergency services to arrive but some how, they never came. Every day my Mum fed our baby sis at the exact time that we ate. Feeding tube or not. She sat at the extended, hand-made, 16 seater dinner table, with us all. 7 months became a year. At 15 months I distinctly recall my baby sister taking a spoon and putting it in her mouth. The sensation made her gag! We all panicked but Mummy stood calmly observing- “Why aren’t you taking it from her Mum?” “Have faith in God” she replied. My sister put that spoon in her mouth continuously until it no longer made her gag. Courage, curious, persistent & hopeful! Child-like faith that she would do it! Then she began to try & take food from the plates on the table either side of her. By 18 months old, my sister was eating orally, small pieces of a very specific diet & the doctors were baffled! How? “This” they told my Parents, “should not happen toachild with her condition” but it was! She walked when she should not have as the muscles in her leg were not strong enough. But, she was walking! At first, ‘calf-like’ then ‘John Wayne-like’ BUT THEN strong as we all did! Doctors said ‘this shouldn’t happen’ but it was! She spoke when the Speech & Language Specialists said ‘she would struggle to form words properly due to the cognitive function in her brain being affected by this condition’ BUT you couldn’t stop her singing & talking! Surpassing doctors expectations, baby sis attended mainstream nursery; then mainstream school, despite a place being made at a specialist one for children with disabilities by Social Services. Do you realise baby sister was now 5? She was alive? Still here #faith!
Instead of growing weaker, she thrived. Instead of giving up when her body began attacking itself, she fought and surrounding her at all times, was a wall of resounding unequivocal faith & prayer. As we witnessed hope after hope, miracle after miracle; we had no option but to take God at the very Word He spoke to Moses “I AM“. In this process of watching my sister grow, get sick & recover- I realised more how hope & faith were the tools which were implemented in the & out, of the valley season. When many people questioned “why did your Parents take such a difficult & so very different child, than the ones they “normally foster?”; when they said “why isn’t God healing her?” after innumerable hospital admissions, when they stopped visiting because of ‘how many times in an hour baby sis could vomit’, love, hope & faith stood firm. My baby sister finished Secondary school, surpassing ALL medical & social expectations, gaining her GCSEs & then went onto to study at College, qualifying in her desired field! Her doctors are still using her case with their new medical student doctors at one of Britain’s Leading Children’s Hospital. One calls her the “faith child” because my Parent’s hashtag was “by faith she will make it”, their staple diet based on the “Promises of God, they are sure if we believe”. Their food was the word of God, as when doctors was a hestitant smile of ‘reality’.
Today, my baby sister is a wonderful, determined, 27 year old Mother of a healthy 7 year old. Another miracle in itself. Almost dying during pregnancy & post birth. A child who was NOT supposed to live past five years old, based on ‘medical fact’, is today alive & well. Though she faced much life threatening adversities, she refused to not fight. She has remnants of the condition which she must still, as an adult adhere to but “Gods grace is sufficient to keep her” & has been through everything. He will keep you too. My baby sister is the vision God purposed for her life. She is the product of the promises of God. She is the complete ‘hope & faith’ my Parents placed in God. Without faith they couldn’t please God. They trusted Him implicitly. Baby sister’s life was mapped out differently to the one doctors had for her. To everyone facing a storm & who questioned “why?” at the hands of destruction in their life, to the Victims & their families from the Manchester & London attacks because of the evils of terrorism & the utter disregard for the sanctity of life more recently; to the Victims in despair, sorrow & rage at the Grenfell Towerblock fire, I want to encourage you about continuing in hope. If you don’t know how or you think “what’s the point?”, I want to encourage you that you have a God-given purpose & a promise ordained for your life, just let go & say ‘I need help’. God will come with healing in His wings. He promised to send us help from His Sanctuary. David said The Lord hear me in my day of trouble & the name of the God of Jacob defend me” God will defend you even in the prison of the situation. You can make it by faith, despite the devastation you are facing. With the walls of prayer & love surrounding you, you can survive because God has a plan for you. Out of ‘a barren situation & a valley of dry bones’, you will live again. Why do we believe God when the world seems ‘upside down’? Because we have to have hope. This hope is not carnal. It is not man-made. It is God-sent. It is God-given. It has no expiry date. It is infinite. We walk in the faith, which is this hope Christ Jesus has given us. Of themselves my Parents would have said “8 children & 5 foster-children, a chronically sick baby with a short life expectancy was something inconceivable for us to take on” but faith spoke. Of themselves when my baby sister’s liver was failing they would have given up. Of themselves when the doctors said her brain was not growing the fear to turn away would have overtaken them. Of themselves when we as teenage children said “we seem always to be at the hospital more than home..we’ve been here so long today”, they could have panicked because of our impatience. But they never, ever wavered in their faith in God & love for our baby sister! The didn’t just say “we have faith she will get well” but they demonstrated it through the steps they took & God Himself acted on their faith in Him. There is something about ‘good‘ coming out of a ‘darkened’ situation. Like Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his own brothers but God turned His disappointment into something miraculous & marvellous & made him a Ruler in Eygpt. Love & compassion & unity has poured out of the kindest people not only of Manchester & London but the surrounding Cities, neighbourhoods & communities by spectacularly & selflessly coming together. God has turned this heartache into something beautiful, the enormous outpouring of love cannot be put into words. Communities have been serving those in need. It is The Light of God. Stare down the barrel of that tunnel which today may look dark & bleak & envisage a chink of Light. You may not see it but I am asking you to now take a tiny leap of faith into Gods hope for your life; “faith without works is dead” try it please. We have to put a tiny ‘mustard seed’ of faith in & we will reap the bountiful harvest after, even if we have to wait because God will bring us out with a song. What is the alternative? It is the “why?” Though always good to question things, do not stay stuck in “why?” To every question we have, Jesus has the answer for us. The alternative is to blame. Blaming instead of living, turns to anger instead of healing. The alternative is to live in doubt. Doubt instead of trusting God. Wavering & becoming unstable leading to all forms of unhappiness. It causes fear & irrational reactions. The alternative is to be impatient (as I too have struggled with) causing us to take the longest journey of our lives looking for answers in the wrong place when all along, the answer IS Jesus Christ. Impatience makes us hastily react, instead of waiting, standing & embracing the “fruit of the Spirit” & the promises in Gods word that “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” By placing our faith in God, Our “Why?” will become “How did I ?…” & we will be able to finish it with “How did I make it without Jesus?” I am a testimony to this. In my enquiry in prayer, God reminded me of Who He is; What He has done, not only my life but the lives of those around me & ‘Why’ He does it because of His matchless love for us. I see a life not worth living without Jesus, in fact, I often ask myself “how” do people make it in this world without God. Hold onto Him, I can testify that good will come from the brokenness we face because God turns “our mourning into dancing” & He gives us “beauty for ashes” We are conquers through Jesus who loved us. One song writer sang “Living by faith, in Jesus above, trusting confiding in His great love; from all harms, safe in His sheltering arms, I’m living by faith & I feel no alarm” I am increasingly understanding the depth & beauty the author found in trusting God & sheltering by faith, ‘under the shadow, the protection of The Almighty’. No matter what comes, we must not live in fear or the enemy wins then & he has already been defeated from the beginning. Jealous & trying to tear us down, he comes at us incessantly, persistently & full of evil. Like all the problems Britain has recently experienced-the enemy is the reason “why?” but Jesus IS the answer & above Him, there is no other. So I invite you, put all of it, the little strength you have left, the doubt, the hurt, the blame & impatience, our sorrow in God, sow it in Him by faith, because it’s the best investment you will ever make. I, like you, did when my family suffered the trauma of losing our brother. The brokenness when he died suddenly, no full explanation “why” but God knows it all. He rose us up out of the ashes. He made us smile again & gave us HIS strength we had none. That faith in His promise of deliverance & to live with Him in eternity, is sure to them who believe Him. You will not have hoped in vain. Jesus tells us so awesomely, take no worry for tomorrow “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Matthew 6:26-30″ We are that precious to Him.
Today, come. Step out in faith into the face of adversity. step out in faith when faced with terror; when you really can’t take anymore but you can’t give in either. Step out in faith in all of your adorned brokenness. God is here.
Please pray for the Victims of the Grenfell Fire, those who are still missing, their families and friends who’s lives are devastated by this tragedy. Pray for a special blessing over the brave emergency services & medical teams caring for the injured. Pray for healing in the months to come. Please let us help them however we can. Such a beautiful wall of kindness & love from all communities has opened up to the Victims. It has erupted passionately, silencing the abyss of the angry fire that have robbed & hurt so many, many families.
Please, if any officers, staff or readers require advice, support or prayer, do email or contact us here at LPCF, we are here for you. Please follow @metpoliceuk on Twitter for all updates.
God bless you today??
Samantha?
