"If He has become God alone to you, giving POWERFUL evidence of His unfailing love, you have a story to tell. Start talking."
It has been a few years since my parents have been gone and I have had so many stories of His faithfulness along the way that I never want to forget. I started writing them down, along with verses that were so special to me during those years because, not only did I not want to forget them, but I want my children to be able to read them one day and also anyone that can benefit from them. What is the point of going through something, such as this, without sharing those powerful moments with as many people as you can share them with.
God gave me a sweet story and I intend on sharing it!
My Testimony
God became real to me on March 15, 2009. A few years
ago both of my parents were very sick. Facing life without them was my ultimate
fear. My dad was coming home on that Saturday March 14th after being in the
hospital a month from having a bone marrow transplant, also that weekend my
mother went into the hospital after a bad fall. I was 38 weeks pregnant at the
time and my brother called me to let me know that my mom was spiraling downward
and they were not sure how much longer she would be alive.
Everyone went to be with
her except me, no one wanted me to travel being so pregnant, so I decided to go
to the doctor to get the green light to go...once I got there the doctor told
me that I was not going anywhere b/c I was having contractions that were 5
minutes apart.
The day progressed but oddly I felt an overwhelming sense of
peace. I was right where God wanted me to be. We all sent texts and called each
other all day long to inform the other of what was happening. At 6:45 that night, my sweet daddy called and
my mother had passed away..2 hours later at 8:45 my little Brooks was born. My
mom had always joked with me that she wanted to be in on one of my deliveries
and I would never let her. That night I believe she got her wish, somehow I
feel like, that in those two hours, she saw everything that was happening before
she made her final glorious journey to Heaven.
That night He became SO real to me..this
unbelievable Gift of a baby boy given to me on a night that would have otherwise been
unbearable. As if to say, "I got this Laura, I will take care of
you!!"...In the weeks and months that passed I had a huge feeling of a
peace that surpassed ALL understanding and a Joy that was indescribable...a
supernatural joy and peace that can only come from Him!!! Just 18 months later,
my dad lost his battle with Leukemia..and the Lord was faithful again..more
strength, peace and joy that I can barely describe but will forever be thankful
for. When I surrendered my weakness to Him..Lord I can't do this but KNOW you
can, there was a power that came through me that I have never experienced
before....God may not change your circumstances BUT He will and can change the
way you feel about your circumstances!! He is able!! Give it to HIM!!! “Thanks be to God for his indescribable
GIFT.” 2 Corinthians 9:15…for a sweet baby boy given to me on a night that
would have otherwise been unbearable…. Thanking God for His PLAN and His GIFT
and His TIMING…Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty!
Let Go and Let God
When my dad was first diagnosed, I was so upset. I
felt like I was living in a nightmare. I had called him on a Wednesday night
b/c he was going to keep Logan for me the next day so that I could go to
Mistletoe. He told me then that he had just gotten a call from his doctor and
said he would not be able to keep him. I asked him why and he said that he had
to go to the hospital. My first thought was that maybe he had a hernia or
something, I definitely did not expect what was about to come out of his mouth,
“I have Leukemia”. The next hours and days were mostly a blur but the next
morning we went to Jackson to go with him to his doctor’s appointment. As we
all listened to what the doctor had to say, my mind was swirling, my heart was
heavy. When we got in the car to go home, I looked down and I cried with so
many thoughts… How would we get through this? What would happen next? How would
he do in the hospital? How will my mom handle all of this being sick herself???….And in His perfect
timing, I looked up at the car in front of us and on the bumper sticker it said “Let go and Let God.” So from then on,
that is what I did. My prayer was often, “Lord I don’t like this, I don’t
understand this, but I know you are a GOOD and LOVING God and I trust you. Help
me!”
A Sweet Promise
I remember after my dad died and it was time to
clean out their house. We had all been dreading it, so we all decided to have one last stay at their house, the way it had been for 25 plus years. We invited my cousin and her girls
to come too. We all had so many wonderful memories with my parents in
that house. As it was time to leave, and our weekend had come to a close, all of the
kids were outside playing in the driveway and this is what we came out to find:
“God’s promise of a future of happy memories.”
A Prayer Answered
About a year after my parents were gone, I had told
Robert one night that I was having a hard time and that all I wanted to
do was talk to someone that had gone through what I had, losing both parents. I
had a few people in mind but I was not one to ask for help. I remember praying,
“Lord, if you would just have one of those people reach out to me, casually in
an email or in person, and we could talk b/c I am hurting Lord and I need some
direction”. About a week later, I had to
drive for a field trip to Jackson. In the car with me, was another mom, they
had put us together. I did not know her at the time and was wondering if we
would have anything in common. She
seemed nice and we talked and then what she said next gave me chills up and
down my arms. She told me that she had lost both of her parents within the last 5
years, she kept on with her story and my heart skipped a couple beats. I then
told her about my parents. She, being a few years into the grieving process,
began telling me all about what to expect, how to create new traditions, and just to keep
on keeping on. She was an answer to prayer. She encouraged me. I could not believe that God placed
her right there in my car one week after I had prayed.
The Music Box
The Music Box…This is by far the most special gift I
have EVER gotten. My dad made it for me after he was diagnosed with Leukemia
and to this day I cannot make myself turn the music box on. It plays his
favorite song “Amazing Grace”. On top of
the box is a calendar of 365 verses for each day of the year, the verses are
ones that my great grandmother had marked in her bible that she actually
memorized during her lifetime. My dad
made sure to put special verses to coordinate with our birthdays…verses for us
to claim for many years to come. The
verse on the day he died, August 28, was not one he planned on, not knowing
what would happen to him…but it is the one that God planned for us to read on
that day…. “Every day I will bless thee, and I will PRAISE thy name for EVER
and EVER. Great is the Lord, and GREATLY
to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works one to
ANOTHER, and shall declare thy MIGHTY acts.” Psalms 145: 2-4
3 Long Months
My dad did wonderful after his bone marrow transplant. He lived a year and a half, and for almost all of that time, he had no problems at all. We went on many trips with him during those months, stayed with him at his house as many weekends as we could. One of times I am most glad I was able to take care of him were the last 3 months of his life. We were able to be with him almost 24 hours a day for 3 months. We cared for him and had quality time with him that I will forever remember, but it was hard...really hard. About a month into our stay at UMC, I had told Robert that I really did not have much peace like before...this was hard...was God with me this time like He had been before? To backtrack a little, I had noticed in those 8 hours a day I would spend up at the hospital with him that there were a few things that would usually bother me that did not. For starters, I never thought I would be able to see my dad in the state he was in without crying all day long, but when I was with him, I was not crying at all, somehow I got through it and even enjoyed being with him. I hated the food up there and lots of times picked at my food, yet I never felt like I was really hungry. My dad changed the thermostat in his hospital room a lot, from super hot to cold..people who visited always noticed. I usually would notice something like this but never bothered me. The couches up there were, to most people, extremely uncomfortable..for some reason, even with my usual back aches, they were not. Lastly, I was running back and forth to Jackson and Hattiesburg,while raising 3 little boys, but for some reason I was never really tired. After I told Robert that night about my lack of peace, and questioning was God even with me this time, I went to bed. The next day I went to UMC. When I got to his room. I was a basket case. I did not want him to see me cry. How could I have been so together for a month straight and now cry every time I look at his face? I then noticed how cold or hot it was in the room, my back ached from the couch, I was tired, I felt really really tired. I left him many times that day just to go and cry and cry and cry. On top of that, I was starving to the point of feeling dizzy. I went to the McDonalds at UMC and I cried all during my lunch and then it hit me, "Lord, you HAVE been with me, just when I doubted you, you showed me that you had been giving me STRENGTH all those weeks!!" He let me do it one day in my own flesh and thank you Jesus that He only made me do it like that once!!!! I understood then and there that He was giving me a bunch of STRENGTH...and the peace would eventually come.
A Baby Girl
Soon after my mom passed away, I really started missing that mother/daughter relationship. Having no sisters in my family and three precious sons, I really mourned that relationship. We had always talked of having a fourth. I would have loved another boy b/c we knew how to do boys and I love boys, but I really loved the idea of having a girl to relive some of those fun memories/relationship with her. In 2012, I found out I was pregnant again...with a girl! Another blessing from the Lord in the form of pure pink sweetness!
Anna Laura Elaine Owen (Elaine after my mom)
Rock your world
A few months before my dad was diagnosed and life,
for the most part, was normal, I began questioning God. Actually, I was kind of
mad at Him a little. My mom had been sick for years and I was now watching her
start dialysis. My younger brother and his wife had lost a sweet baby girl
midway through her pregnancy. I spent a lot of my days thinking, if God were
such a good God then why would all of this happen? I had a friend that had just
lost her husband to Leukemia, yet she always seemed to describe God as Faithful,
Loving, giving her Peace. I believed her and I knew and trusted all these
things to be true but I was really struggling.
I heard a sermon where my pastor said that during his wife’s cancer
struggles, it was oddly one of the greatest times of their lives, they had
experienced God in a way that he they had never experienced Him before. That
perplexed me, how could that be a good time. I spent several months questioning
things. A few weeks before my dad got sick, our pastor challenged us to pray
for God to ROCK your world…no matter what it was, to ROCK it for His good and
His glory. I prayed, but my prayer was “God, ROCK my world but don’t let
anything bad happen to anyone, just ROCK it without anything bad for your
glory. Amen!” Well, my world was rocked
when my dad got his diagnosis. I started
to experience God in a way that I had never experienced him before, I felt
things I had never felt before, and they were all good…they were all great. Not
that his diagnosis was not hard and watching my mom go through years of
sickness was not hard..it was, I hated it, which is why it is so hard to put
into words what I was feeling. It was as if God had me high and lifted up, over
and above my circumstances, hidden in His arms to shield me. I really can’t
describe it b/c it was supernatural..it makes no sense to feel that peace
during a time as horrible as that one. It
was a personal low but a spiritual high! I read a quote somewhere along the way
that said something like, God is more
concerned with the big picture and your spiritual well being than the troubles
you face here on Earth…sometimes He has to rock your world to bring you and
others close to Him. Remember this is not our home, Heaven is…that is what He is
preparing us for!! Not the few minutes we are here on Earth, and our “light and
momentary troubles”, but our eternity in Heaven! He is getting us ready for our
HOME!
Wall of
Blessings
A few months
after my parents were gone; I really started to miss them. The idea that they
really were not coming back began to settle in and I began to really focus in
on that. One night I was telling Robert this and how I just could not believe
they were gone. I could not believe I would not get to experience life with
them here on this Earth anymore. I could not believe our kids would not get to
have their sweet Nana and Granddaddy in their lives anymore. Christmas and
holidays would be different. It was really overwhelming. God used Robert to
tell me something that changed the way I viewed their deaths, he said, “Instead
of focusing on what you don’t have, you should try really hard focusing what
you DO have.” Wow! So true!! I had 3 healthy boys to enjoy, a husband that
loved me, brothers that I so enjoyed spending time with, friends, other family
members, a nice roof over my head, a town we LOVE living in. That night as I
went to bed and thanked God for all that I did have, I started thinking that I
needed a daily reminder of what I did have.
The next morning, I woke up and I started making a wall of blessing. I
got out every picture frame I had and found pictures of all my family and fun
trips/memories we had and I put them in frames and put them all in one area of
my house to remind me that I am most definitely BLESSED!
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Praising Him
anyway…
Our months at
UMC were long ones. It was 3 months but felt like 3 years. I remember during
that time, sometimes my heart would slip and I would start to get bogged down
with everything, feeling overwhelmed. I would be focusing more on my circumstances
that on God and I felt a little nudge or voice inside myself that said, “Praise
Him anyway.” I did not feel like praising Him, not that I was mad at Him. I was
not…I just was not in a great mood and really was not in a praising kind of
mood…but I did it anyway. I remember the first time. I turned on KLove on
one of my drives back to Jackson. I did not want to listen to all those peppy
people singing songs. I decided I would just listen, but not sing, just for a
few minutes…just see what happens. As I turned on the radio, and this happened
time and time again, my heart swelled with joy, with peace, with love, with the
feeling of being blessed. As I let those
songs and words sink into my heart, I felt more joyous and so in love with Him.
I cannot describe it, but from then on, it was really the best medicine for my
soul, to praise Him ANYWAY…despite the way you feel on the inside!!! You are
mad? Praise Him! Sad? Praise Him! Depressed? Praise Him! Confused? Praise Him!
Skeptic? Praise Him! Why not? See what happens!
You are not alone
After my dad died and both of my parents were gone, I felt like I was the only one who had had lost BOTH parents at such a young age..it made me feel kind of lonely. Thomas had just started his second grade year a week before my dad died. There were about 20 kids in his class and I was having a real pity party for myself feeling like I was the only one who was going through losing both parents at a young age (34). So what does God do? He places Thomas in a specific class…of all the kids in his class, 3 of the moms, besides myself, had lost BOTH of their parents within the last 5 or so years. I believe God put him in that class with those sweet moms to show me that I was not alone.
New Life
The weekend that my mom died, it was the end of the winter months. Trees were dead, grass was brown, it was dark and dreary. I noticed in the days after her funeral, after she was laid to rest, that the grass turned green again, the trees and flowers started to bloom, the sun came out! I never noticed a spring quite like I noticed that one. God's way of saying that she was NEW again, she was ALIVE in Heaven. Even with the birth of Brooks, a new life both in Heaven and here on Earth.
An Unexpected Gift
After my parents died, my family met in Jackson at my parent’s house to clean it out. We had been dreading it…25 years worth of memories there. I was 9 years old when we moved into that house and I could not bear the thought of it ever being empty. In the middle of cleaning everything out, my brother found, in my dad’s workshop, his testimony. Sure the furniture, old notes, pictures were treasures but this was a jewel! It was hidden within a stack of papers. We had heard he had given his testimony to his Sunday school class 2 weeks before he was diagnosed with Leukemia. I would have love to have heard the rest but I am pretty sure it would still contain stories of God’s faithfulness to come in what would become the biggest battle of his life…God is good all the time, but even sweeter in sickness and in death.
VERSES of 2009/2010
From the moment my dad was diagnosed with Leukemia, I immediately had friends text or email me verses. These meant SO much to me, I can barely describe the impact they made on me and still do. I started making a list on my computer just weeks after his diagnosis. Here are some of them that have encouraged and empowered me more than I can put into words.
"The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great
delight in you. He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with
singing." Zephaniah 3:17
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting
God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his
understanding is unsearchable. He gives POWER to the faint, and to him who has
no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young
men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their
strength. Isaiah 40:28
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to
come." Rev 4:8
God is our merciful father & the source of all comfort. Corinthians
1:3
When you humble yourself under God's hand and say, I'm weak, Lord. You
are strong. Show Yourself sufficient in me right now. When that's your
attitude, there's a power coming into your life that you haven't experienced
before. There's something about our weakness that opens the flow of God's
strength. Ask Him for it. ( James MacDonald.)
Be joyful always, pray continuously, and be thankful in ALL circumstances."
If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.
"When suffering strikes, remember that I am sovereign...Do not try
to run from pain or hide from problems. Instead accept adversity in My name,
offering it up to Me for My purposes...your suffering gains meaning and draws
you closer to Me. Joy... emerges from the ashes of adversity through your trust
and thankfulness." Sarah Young- Jesus Calling
"Bring me your weakness, and receive My Peace. Accept
yourself and your circumstances just as they are, remembering that I am
sovereign over everything. Do not wear yourself out with analyzing and
planning. Instead let thankfulness and trust be your guides through this
day; they will keep you close to Me."
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass
through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the
fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the
LORD, your God,the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; (Isaiah 43:2,3b, NIV).
Do not fear for I am with you; do not be dismayed for I am your God. I
will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous hand.
Isaiah 41:10.
Sufficient grace is not just enough to survive, but enough to have
supernatural joy in the midst of anything He allows us to go through. -James
McDonald
It's time for healing...whatever You are doing inside of me it feels
like chaos but somehow there's Peace...I'm giving into something Heavenly"
(Sanctus Real)
You go before me and follow me.
You place your hand of blessing on my head. Psalms
139:5
He is greater than our circumstances
You are FIRMLY IN HIS GRIP OF GRACE
In His grasp, by His grace, for HIS glory!!
"God doesn't always smooth the path, but sometimes he puts springs
in the wagon." - Marshall Lucas
“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him. He
alone is my rock and my fortress; I will never be shaken…find rest in God
alone…trust in Him at all times, O people, pour out your hearts to him, for God
is our REFUGE.” Psalm 62
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing the
GLORY that will be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage, do not be
afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Joshua 1:9
“Finally brothers, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is
pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or
PRAISEWORTHY-Think about such things.” Phil. 4:8
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many
kinds, b/c you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”
James 1:5
“For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your
ways; they will LIFT you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your
foot against stone.” Psalm 91:11-12
When you go through life's difficulties are you asking God, "Why
me?" or "Use me."
"Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you
do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and
glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of
your souls." 1 Peter 1:8-9
And though the storms may come, I am holding on to the ROCK I cling.
How can I keep from singing Your praise. How can I ever say enough. How amazing
is Your LOVE. How can I keep from shouting Your name! I know I am loved by the
King and it makes my heart want to sing, I will lift my eyes in the darkest
night for I know my Savior LIVES!! …love this song
If He has become God alone to you, giving powerful evidence of His
unfailing love, you have a story to tell. Start talking.
The very same God
That spins things in orbit
Runs to the weary, the worn and the weak
And the same gentle hands that HOLD ME when I'm broken
They conquered death to bring me VICTORY!
I KNOW my Redeemer LIVES!
“And I will rise when He calls my name
No more sorrow, no more pain
I will rise on eagles' wings
Before my God fall on my knees
And rise
I will rise
And I hear the voice of many angels sing,
"Worthy is the Lamb"
And I hear the cry of every longing heart,
"Worthy is the Lamb"
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