Oil & Water

Living in the dorms of a strict Baptist college, my wild roomate and I were weary of being “good.” We wanted to have a good time but seemed to have no options. We decided there was nothing wrong with what we were planning to do but we were going to keep it quiet because other Christians wouldn’t understand. Well, toward the end of the night, I was ready to call our fun quits but she wasn’t. She dragged in very late, drunk and with a new boyfriend from campus (that wasn’t right for her).

The next morning I dragged myself to church, alone, feeling very guilty and hypocritical. The class prayed for me right there that day as I confessed on my own free will of how miserable I felt. When I got back to our room, my roommate and I were like oil and water. The room was filled with such tension and division from that point on that I could barely stand to be in my own room!

One weekend she left and stayed out of town so I finally could relax in my own domain. It occurred to me from another person’s testimony that I might could touch everything in her room with olive oil and pray for her as I went around the room and perhaps it would restore what had been lost and bring back the peace. So, I sang and praised God, alone, in our dorm room and anointed her shoes with prayer and each and every hanger she would touch to get her clothes down and the stereo knobs, etc.

When she came back, I left. I was gone a couple of days, but when I came back and walked through the door, she had Christ adoring music playing and had taped notebook paper ALL OVER the entire dorm room (my side, too) with messages of repentance and forgiveness and prayers for God to forgive her. Like I anointed the room everywhere, so did she.  She apologized for our problems and I stood amazed looking around the room at about eight or nine notes taped randomly in our small concrete room. I was told it wasn’t the oil as much as it was my faith. “The anointing breaks the yoke.” Isaiah 10:27

Why we call His word ALIVE

In high school, not long after contemplating God could be real, I had went to a Christian’s house for a slumber party. There were 22 girls there from Satsuma High School. We prayed for an hour holding hands in a circle and I was shocked that it was so meaningful and interesting that it only seemed like ten minutes (my, my what families could do if they replaced TV with that!). If you had told me beforehand that I would sit and be in prayer for an hour I would not have liked that.

I lost a piece of cheap jewelry (highly prized by me at the time) and swore up and down that someone had stolen it (thinking evil of others). Mrs. Dean, now Mary Dean Sikes, (the lady that hosted the party) with kind eyes, helping me look for it, was a little shocked with my value differences and was sure that no one had done such and quieted me with a loving firmness. I remember that as a defining moment not to think evil of your Christian brother. Lo and behold, there it was in the bathroom floor against the cabinet! I felt relieved and ashamed. Her values were clearly more pure than mine. I was saved AGAIN that night as I asked Jesus to be the LORD of my life. I was high emotionally for about two weeks after this experience but it did begin to fade. They had taught me the concept of having a “quiet time with the Lord.” It sounded good and I was trying to implement it with diligence. Just me and God, alone, talking everyday.

One day, a cheerleader from the party skipped up to my locker to ask how I was doing as a new Christian, and I, being in a deeply serious mood, kinda snapped at her, “Well, let’s see…I have had nightmares three nights in a row of Satan scaring and paralyzing me. My mom works at night and I am at home alone. Why would God, who loves me so much, allow this?!” I skipped all the “hello, thanks for asking, it’s nice talking to ya.” She didn’t wince at my sarcastic tone a bit but tried hard to remember just the verse I needed…”Oooh it is something about snakes and scorpions…here, here is my phone number, call me when you get home and I will have it for you!” I was flattered because I thought she belonged to a higher class than me but didn’t take her seriously. By the time I got to class, I had decided to throw her number into the wastebasket by Mrs. Salter’s desk. I got home that afternoon and fixed a nice big bowl of cereal (my habit everyday) and went to the TV. I debated on whether or not I would have my “quiet time” with the Lord since the new was wearing off and all.
Captain Crunch and I decided I would. So, I begin in prayer, "God why are you letting the devil do this to your child? Three nights of the same terrible dream. Don’t you love me? Are you really there?" I opened that Holy Book and my eyes fell on Luke 10:19 and it has been a part of me since. “BEHOLD, I give you POWER to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and NOTHING shall by ANY means hurt you.” Out of the thousands of verses I could have looked on, THAT very one? I mean in 1989 there was no youtube or internet for me. So, ironically I am digging a phone number out of the phone book (hated doing abc order as a lazy teen) that I had just trashed two hours earlier to call cheerleader Amy and tell HER the verse. This was a big deal to me because I didn’t know the Bible well and was a baby Christian. I was proud!
So, His word is alive in me.

God Plays Basketball

I spent a great deal of time at my very athletic boyfriend’s house when I was a teen drinking all of their milk and eating their ice cream. His parents loved me and his brother hated me (maybe because of the ice cream). We had dated five years and I was proud of that. When God began calling me and him, he refused and I accepted the call.
It went something like this:

I explained how we could not be unequally yoked together and that I couldn’t be in an intimate relationship with him if he would not make Christ the center of his life and become a Christian. He and I were alone that day at the house because my mom had dropped me off. There were no cell phones, really, back then. He full well let me know he wasn’t going to go to church and be what I expected and I was hurt that he was going to throw our whole five year relationship away at this turning point. I was going home! Called mama, but she wasn’t answering. So, I, sulking, sat there in front of him on the couch. I thought “what now, God?” So, the strangest thing happens. Boyfriend asks me if I want to play basketball. Umm, dugh, NO! Play basketball when you are throwing our relationship away? That's how I felt but I yielded instead of letting him have it! First of all, I only played that game when we were bored out of our minds around there for I was allergic to sports and not very adept at them. How could he simply ask me to play a game when my heart was breaking?! Since, I had just asked God “what now” and I had heard somewhere that he works in mysterious ways, I accepted this weird current.

A little background info:
(not my photo)

There was a special spot I stood in when throwing the ball toward the net, it was much closer to the goal than normal. My boyfriend stood farther back in the normal range. He always won but encouraged me through the game. I really hated it. I began making a few good shots that really surprised me. I got the idea that maybe God was going to use this game somehow to fix the problem at hand. So, I got bold and moved to the area that he shot from instead of my little spot. I wanted God to get full glory. Shortly after, the ball hit me in the face-- you could probably see my nose throbbing like a cartoon. I would have used that excuse to quit and he knew it because he ran up to me apologizing and saying, “We don’t have to play, we can go in.” I said “No, we will play the game.” I had just thought to myself while holding my face “a fruit of the Spirit is longsuffering.” So, I would suffer.
Now, my words aren’t going to be able to capture this part but I’ll try. I threw the ball furiously trying to keep it from him and it would go into the net. I was suprisingly good for a bit and he began to argue and cheat over a point (at this point I was flattered). I let him have the point because I knew by now that God WAS in this game. I would win. I played with the faith of a child. Then I made some poor shots again. “Oh no, what’s wrong?” I thought. Then I thought again “Are you going to have faith, still?” I said yes to me and kept trying (although I think, now, some of my thoughts were really not my thoughts at all but the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit). That ball, I would throw it and it would land on top of the entire goal board and spin only to fall into the net. It was hilarious a few times how I kept getting points. But the final win put goose bumps on me with waves of warm joy. Instead of trying to get the ball from me, he stood, watching me as I was going to attempt a three-pointer (all the way back to his chain link fence) to win this game. The girl who had a special spot close to the rim because I had weak upperbody strength, now had a special trot. I was nervous a little though. I steadied and prayed seeing only the ball in my face and the blue, cold sky around it. “Jesus, please help me get this ball in.” I threw it with all I could and IT DID NOT EVEN TOUCH THE RIM, WHOOSH! Into the net it went. I heard “you can do ALL things through Christ that strengthens you.” And I looked at Boyfriend after I did the happy dance for a second, and said to him earnestly, “You can do all things through Christ that strengthens you.”
I have reflected on this story through the years and shared it a few times. It’s funny to me how all of life’s events are like the ups and downs in this game. When I was doing well, it stopped and I began missing shots. Would I still believe? When I got hurt doing something good, would I be willing to suffer for it? Pay for it? Would I know the sufferings of Christ? You will suffer in this world. Either for good or evil. Would I live life in the comfortable special spot or do greater things than my own ability with Christ and faith?
With some of the crazy shots that I had made, I can see that my ability-my own strength-won’t make it by itself—God’s gotta put a spin on it.