The Signs of Spring

I noticed several signs of late spring around my place this last week. Besides the smells of flowers blooming and the sounds of baby birds chirping that they are hungry and want to eat, are those sinus infections, spring colds, bronchitis, and of course that nasty influenza that dragged on through winter, then snuck into spring with no thought of leaving. Such a drastic contrast!

For a couple of weeks I endured that rotten spring flu bug … I mean rotten. It’s interesting when something like this comes on, you aren’t sure what’s going on at first as it begins with a tickle in your throat. Then you begin to feel a thickening on the inside of your mouth, a tightening of the chest, and oh, how tired you become. Is it a cold? Is it your sinuses? Is it still that leftover winter flu? After all we are already counting the days for summer.

You’ve been faithful to the Echinacea, well, most of the time, and you have wiped your hands real good after touching everything in sight at the local family super.

At first of course you continue with your analyzing about what it is you have and how it got there. Maybe it is a sinus infection due to the pollen in the crisp spring air. Surely it must be a sniffle caught by Sister Ruby Dee Dawn over at the church potluck the other day. Is it going to burrow its way into your chest and keep you coughing for the next month or two? Just what is it and how did it get there?

Eventually, you get tired of all that analyzing as you watch your fever jump sky high, and your feel your body ache all over, and nothing, absolutely nothing sounded good to eat.

It’s better at times like this to try to sleep in the other room at night because your hacking will keep your poor husband or cat awake, and besides, you certainly don’t want to pass this garbage on to them.

Why is it we all must suffer through these plagues and pestilences? As I tried to rest each day and ponder my way through my “disease,” I thought about many things. One I reflected on was the similarities of our lives to the changing of seasons, the birds, the flowers, and of course those nasty maladies and woes of which we find ourselves in the middle.

Of course the season of Spring (and I know we are well into it by now) brings us sunshine and rain, cool weather and warm, stormy times and calm. So much is that like our daily lives. So much is that like my own. Some days I wake up and sense that my day will become something wonderful, and I’m going to feel refreshed in the Lord, like a breath of fresh spring air. Then there are other days where I wake up and notice the overcast in my life. Something is missing, or maybe there is something I haven’t taken care of. I feel stale; I haven’t been reading God’s Word as I should. Then the rains begin falling, the trials of my life, sometimes feel like a thunder.

I know good and well those trial days are there for a reason. Either the Lord is teaching me patience in an area of which I have very little, or maybe it is the enemy coming against me because I am doing something right in the Lord … Anyway the rain just pours. Oh, and then I realize those days where I was particularly cool towards the Lord. You know the days when you are just too busy to include Him? I have those. But then again, come the balmy times. My compassion for the needs of others overwhelms me, and my affection for the Lord soars. (I love those days).

We know the stormy days that plague our lives like the ones that send us those nasty dragging colds, or irksome flus and bad hair days (when the trials of our life are at the lowest point. We also know that it is in times like this that we need to keep looking up anyway, and then take a moment to ask God what he has to teach us through it. If it takes the flu, or a sinus infection, or a nasty cold to get our attention, so be it. But the quicker we learn the lesson of life God has, the sooner those germs will leave and land on someone else, or better yet, blown away by wind of late spring.

"If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen" 1 Peter 4:11

Faithful Is He
Submitted by Jodi

This true story has needed to be told for over 15 years now. I had only a small part but I have decided to try to put into writing a testimony that will, I hope, build up someone’s faith for another such miracle.

You may choose to believe or not, and as I cannot claim credit of great expansive education (only a little more than High School), I just simply ask you as a Christian, to digest this story and use whatever part you can to build up your own personal faith in Christ’s blood. We are told His stripes are for our healing. It happens all the time, but this one instance is very special to me and all the people involved are personally known by me. It happened that I had a great heartache that was threatening to take over my life.

I sang in a gospel trio and the other two girls were like sisters to me. In all our years we never had a disagreement or an argument. As they watched me pinning away they had great empathy for my heartache and prayed with me on numerous occasions.

One of the women in the church had a father-in-law who had been stricken with lymphoma. Our prayer line had been activated several times to pray for him the first time he had chemotherapy, and the second bout with it, we were called even several times a day. This man was a full time preacher in a little country church.

One particular Wednesday night, I took my heartache again to the altar for prayer.

That night our lead singer, Reta, was also helping with those who came for prayer. She began to pray with me. Soon our tears were mingled together and shortly afterward, I felt her body swoon and she collapsed on the floor, still weeping. I stayed there awhile, then slipped back to my place in the pew, but she kept weeping and just lay there praying. This continued through the service. Once she made it to the altar, but went back to the floor. Toward the end of the service she got to the pew but lay over, still weeping quietly.

Later, she told me during this time, she saw oily hands, and recognized them as her own. When service ended, her face was swollen from the tears and weeping and she felt compelled to pray for "someone". The father-in-law was mentioned, but he was in a hospital 120 miles away. Someone suggested we call his home and see if they were home yet. Getting no answer, it was decided that our pastors and Reta, would go on to the hospital even though it was already late. As they started out the door, someone said, "Try one more time." So they rang the number, this time getting an answer. They had just arrived home and some of the congregation had met them and helped to carry Rev. Lloyd Mattocks in and set him in his recliner. They asked if they might come and pray for him at that time and he said for them to come.

It was an hours drive to his home and when they arrived, they were welcomed in and offered coffee which they declined saying, "We came to pray."

Our pastor had brought the bottle of oil and as we usually did, he started to touch the tip of Reta’s finger to the bottle. She said, "No, preacher, just pour it over my hands." So he did. They began to pray all together, some in the heavenly language.

Rev. Mattocks had a tumor in his stomach that he could feel. This man was 6' 5" and in his prime weighted about 220. This night he weighed 127 pounds. He was a walking skeleton. Someone in a concentration camp might look like he did.

Reta laid her hands on his stomach and they prayed on. Somewhere during the prayer they both looked up. "It’s gone!" he said and they began to praise the Great Healer. Joy overflowed them all. Rev. Mattocks told me later he never went to sleep that night, instead he prepared sermons all night and toward morning (feeling good) he thought "It’s getting light and the grass around the church needs mowing so I’ll just get that done." After that, he decided to do the bar ditch and edge around the trees, then he said, "My neighbors don’t know about this, so I think I’ll cut their grass and wake them up with this good news." (Which he did - still weighing in at 127 pounds.)

Today he stands tall and sturdy with his full weight back. Drs. have searched a number of times for any sign of the cancer which almost took his life 3 different times but no sign of it has ever been found.

The first time the lymphoma was found, he went through chemotherapy and his reaction to it was very adverse. He almost lost his life. The second time it came back the chemo itself almost killed him. The third time the doctors said they had literally burned up his blood vessels and they would certainly cause his death if they tried again and felt it more humane to just send him home to make his arrangements. They gave him 10 days to possibly but not probably 60 days to live on that Wednesday morning. But the evening gave him a whole new life. He has given his testimony many times, and I wanted so badly for him to write his testimony. Finally he told me why he did not. "Because," he said, "I have to remember how very ill I was, and I won’t give the devil that much attention." So I asked permission. This is one miracle I have studied for many years since it was so close to home. Maybe I found one key element. I don’t really know, I just remember all the empathy that was flowing for my heartache, from another Christian who was "bearing my burden" so heavily. Something serves as a catalyst for a raindrop - perhaps it’s that way for a miracle too. The yielding of her spirit may have triggered it - her sweet compassion for my ache. I will ask when I get to Heaven.

There are healings, there are miracles. This one was so precious to witness. With 10 days to live, he was healed and fifteen years later no trace of cancer has been found though they have looked long and hard. When God does a miracle, He does it well.

This is a true story known by so many in our area it has almost become common. Not to me. I love the Lord for what he did for Rev. Mattocks and for a faith that has been only more and more steady through the years as I have studied what happened that night. To me it will always be a beautiful story of compassion, mercy and love and truth. I do hope you can find the faith to believe it. If so, your own miracle may not be far behind.

Joan Clifton Costner
Used by permission

"RECIPE SHARING"

From the Kitchen of Nanny Karen...

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Sharing Hearts One with Another... The following letters are excerpts from the correspondence Hearts for Christ Ministries has been receiving. We hope you will write in as well. Our Dear Hearts Counselor, Victoria will quickly respond as will other women in ministry on this team. Thank you all and God bless you. Dear Hearts For Christ: My son is a pastor of a very large growing church. I have loved him as only a mother can. He was prayed for all his life, given all we had but now will have nothing to do with us. I have begged, pleaded etc., I would do anything for him. I know of no wrong we have done but ask forgiveness for anything he might think. My heart is broken and as Mother's Day comes once again I know I will hear nothing as birthday, Christmas etc.. I feel my reason for living is over and would really like to go home. The grief is overwhelming. I have no idea how I got to you, just thanks for listening. In His Love, Sandy Dear Sandy, As I read your letter and felt the deep sorrow you have expressed over the situation with your son, this scripture came to me immediately, Psalms 147:3 "He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds." It sounds as though you have tried everything to mend the relationship with your son, asking for forgiveness for any possible wrong. Though it seems that your son has not acknowledged your effort, you have done all that you could do. Now it is a matter of trusting that the Lord will work in his life and reveal to him those things that he must surrender, in essence, "righting any wrongs" (Matthew 5:22-24). As difficult as it will be to leave the matter with the Lord, He knows all of the pain and grief you have gone through. Dear sister, please know that your heavenly Father cares for you and is with you. He knows the depths of your pain, as hard as it seems to bear, you must not give up. As you keep your eyes lifted to Him, He will give you strength and carry you through this valley. Psalm 121: 1, 2 "I will lift up my eyes to the hills~From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Psalm 3: 3, 4 "But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head. I cried to the Lord with my voice, And He heard me from His holy hill. Selah" He Alone is Faithful, Victoria, Hearts for Christ Ministry Team Dear Hearts for Christ, I am very interested in joining your webring. I am starting my own Christian website and God led me to this ring. My daughter had open heart surgery and my husband just recently suffered a heart attack. Our site will be called Roses of the sacred heart. The Lord has kept my husband and baby alive though their hearts have been pierced like the Lords. I now know how our lady felt watching Christ being crucified. The pain of watching someone you love suffer is profound. My babies nickname is "Apples". I know that I am supposed to meet you. I am moved by your site. God bless you and your loved ones, Mary Dear Mary, Thank you for sharing with us at Hearts for Christ, how the Lord led you to begin a website. We are always touched in reading of how the Lord works in each of our lives and how His purpose(s) are revealed even through our path of pain and suffering. May He continue to provide many ways for you to encourage others with the comfort you have received from Him (2 Corinthians 1:3-5). To see our loved ones suffer is a very difficult path, however, through it we can see the Lord's mercy and grace flow into our lives. The Lord sustains us always, in those moments that it seems most difficult, He draws us even closer. We pray that your husband and infant daughter will both continue to improve and be strengthened in their physical bodies, however the Lord chooses to manifest, medically or His healing hand. We know He is caring for you and your loved ones, in the Precious Name of Jesus, Thy will above all else, Amen. Psalm 3:3-5 "But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, My glory and the One who lifts up my head. I cried to the Lord with my voice, And He heard me from His holy hill. [Selah] I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustained me." Regarding your website: you are welcome to submit the information about your site to any of our three webrings by clicking directly on those webrings and placing the applicable information there (http://heartsforchrist.org/links.htm). Our Ministry Team will then review your site and if it is in accordance to our own statement of faith (http://heartsforchrist.org/about.htm), we would be blessed to have you join with us. You may also be interested in joining our Koinonia community or our msn group: http://heartsforchrist.org/koinonia/; or prayerfully consider becoming part of our Ministry Team: http://heartsforchrist.org/colaborcontact.htm. We hope to hear from you again soon. In His Strength, Victoria, HFC Ministry Team

Are You Ready to Share with Us? What is the Lord doing in your life today? Do you have a question, an experience, or a victory in trial you would enjoy sharing in a future newsletter? Send your comments and inquiries to "Dear Hearts for Christ." Article Submissions and Testimonies should be sent to Shirley@heartsforchrist.org. No names will be included without permission, and the editor reserves the right to edit submissions.