The Button of Faith

The Button of Faith

by Lollie Starbuck

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

I am so richly blessed by the singing, well, by every part of camp, but, you know, just before, just after the announcements, Priscilla woozled over to me. You know what woozling is, don’t you? That’s a Lollie expression. She woozled over to me. She says, “Lollie, it’s already a quarter of nine. Can I have one more song?” And I said, “Of course.” Well, little did she… doesn’t know what I’m speaking about tonight. She never once has asked us what we were speaking about. And many singing leaders will come and say, “Now, tell me what talks you’re giving this week so I can make the music match.” Well, gee, we, you know, change our times, maybe change our minds, maybe five times a day. I mean, it just, you know, whatever. But we really try to oblige them. But Priscilla is very in tune because my talk tonight, once I get into it, is on miracles. And that beautiful song that she wrote is such a blessing to me. I was on the committee with her to put this songbook together. And I remember when that was submitted to us, someone that loved it submitted it, and we asked Priscilla to sing it. And it was so touching. It was just beautiful. So thank You, Lord, for the way You have us all interwoven.

And You who are the great choreographer of all life. And, Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight and in Your body of Christ’s sight this night. Because You know, Lord, You’ve been singing this song to me for, oh, about six months, this talk I’m giving tonight. The sharing. Not a talk, the sharing. And so I just lift it up to You and praise You ahead of time. For You are our miracle God. Indeed You are. Before I begin, because it’s the night of the healing service, I have a joke about healing that I love. And you may have heard of it, but, you know, you’ll be really sweet and laugh harder than ever. It actually was about Tony, but I can’t pin this on Tony because he would never do this. But Tony knows how it feels to be a new minister coming to a new church, right? And he wanted to do everything just right. And the very first thing they did was tell him there was a woman at the hospital, critically ill, on the verge of death, and he must go and pray for her. And, you know, they didn’t really train him how to do that. Now, this isn’t Tony anymore.

This is Reverend Sirius. And he had never been trained to do this. But, you know, he thought, well, I’ll do my best, you know. And he takes his little Bible, his safety blanket, his Bible, and it’s everybody’s safety blanket, isn’t it? It’s what we should hang on to. And he goes up to her at the hospital. And he, you know, he says, “How do you do, Mrs. Jones? I’m your new pastor.” And here she is, just so weak. And he says, “What can I do for you?” He says, “Pray for me.” And he says, “Oh, I will pray for you.” And so he shuts his eyes and timidly puts his hand on her hand. And he says, “Lord, Your will be done.”

And, you know, as he says it, she sort of starts stirring. He feels things moving under the covers. And all of a sudden, a hand comes out and yanks out her intravenous feeding. And another hand shoves the covers back. And her legs come out. And she sits on the side of the bed. And she says, “I’m healed. I’m healed.” And she gets up. And she goes running down the hall, telling everyone she’s been healed. And here is Pastor Sirius sitting on the bed like this. And he takes his Bible. And he goes down to his car. And he leans against the car door. And he looks up in the next guy. And he says, “God, don’t You ever do that to me again.”

Only believe. It’s so simple. And we make it so hard, don’t we? We have lots of things to get out of the way so we can believe. So to start, I want to read the beginning of Psalm 62 to you. Psalm 62. For God alone, my soul waits in silence. From Him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall never be shaken. You see, when we read that and say that to ourselves, it puts that right into us. As I told you the other night, when I keep saying, help my anger, help my this, help my that, I’m just claiming it more and more. But if I use the opposite words, and this Psalm is so positive, I shall never be shaken. Every cell in my body knows that though I go through an earthquake and find out that you can’t even trust the earth, you find out when you’re in an earthquake that God is all you can trust, that I shall not be shaken. And I wait in silence. It’s powerful. And I just, I read that again. I had it written in my notes, a different version of it. But I just read that tonight, and it just blessed me all over again. And isn’t that like it with you?

You have read something over and over, and all of a sudden you read it, and it has a whole new love bath for you, a whole new depth. Well, that’s the way it happened to me this evening. About a quarter of seven I was reading that, and it was just, mmm, blessing me. Well, I want to thank Becky for writing her song about miracles, because ever since I first heard that song, I knew her. And I was so thrilled that she had written that song. And you see, she’s been sending out a world broadcast in that song, making people aware of miracles. And we need to be aware of them. We who are God’s people, you know, we come to CFO to practice kingdom of heaven living. And here’s your test for tonight. How do we come into the kingdom of heaven? As college graduates? As doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs? No. How do we come into the kingdom of heaven? As children. And you know, there’s something that a child has in his natural, beautiful state. And that’s that gift of believing and expectancy. They have an awe of life, and they’re excited about it. And they expect wonderful things. You know, if you tell them that you’re going to give them an ice cream cone, their eyes light up, and they believe you.

And that’s why we’re here. We as athletes of the Spirit have to practice those simple, childlike things of having faith and expectancy. And it’s a key that we have because miracles are all around us. Miracles are here. Why am I whistling?

Is that too close? I can hear it. Miracles are all around us, but we don’t see them. It’s like I said the other day, we haven’t been nourishing our souls. Our eyes were so busy that we miss the miracles around us. And yet we as Christians have been given keys because we are to be God’s miracle workers. He said to us, didn’t He? “The greater things than I have done, you shall do.” And that’s pretty awesome. And we don’t even know we’re doing them sometimes. We don’t hear about the times we’ve blessed somebody and they felt better because they never told us. But there are things going on all the time for us as Christians that are as natural as breathing our prayer life. And miracles are part of the natural process of belonging to God. I thought we would look at some definitions of miracles. I’m a crossword puzzle fiend. I gave up the daily crossword puzzle, but sometimes on Sunday I start one. And Harry knows I get pretty crabby if I can’t break it by myself, if I have to wait for the solution. And he helps me, especially with the geography.

First of all, as we… I want to say this. I see it in my notes and I want to say it just the way I wrote it when I was praying about it. We need to keep our minds and hearts in tune with the principle involved in looking for, expecting, and being aware of God’s miracles in everyday occurrences. Because the more evident, the more… I can’t say it, but because the more we see and look for them, the more evident they become. There’s a key here that as we look for something, we find it, we draw it to us. If I’m looking for crabby people in my life, I’m going to find them. I’ll just have them flocking to me. If you pray for patience, what do you get? Things to teach you patience. But when you believe in and look for and are aware of miracles, you draw them to you. There’s a magnetic drawing that just automatically takes place as we think and expect God’s best. And isn’t this what having the eyes and minds of Christ is all about? Isn’t this having what we’re praying about, that Christ mind and the love glasses of Christ that see love everywhere, that we can see God at work in His world? Like the little child whose daddy took him to see where he used to live when he was a little boy and it had turned into this ugly slum.

It was just terrible. Trash everywhere. Nothing pretty to see, the father said. And the little girl is walking beside me. “Oh, Daddy, look at the daisy growing there right in the sidewalk. Look at the daisy. Oh, it’s so pretty.” She could see beauty in the world where she went. And this is what God asks of us, not only in the world around us, but the people about us too, that we see it and draw it forth, because there it is lying, maybe asleep, dormant in every human being, the beauty that God created each of His human beings to have. Okay. Now, to the dictionary. What is a miracle? And there’s, you know, all kinds of answers in the dictionary. But one is, the first one is, an event that overrides or contradicts scientific law or what is expected, a supernatural act of God. And this is one aspect of miracles. It’s a wonderful one. It’s also a remarkable event or a quality that can be brought to pass. And as Christians, we give God the glory for being the cause that makes these things happen. And why does He do it? Because He loves each one of us so much that He’s willing, desirous, of changing His accustomed ways, just to show us that He’s our sovereign God, that He loves us, that He has all power, and He’s real for each one of us.

Try Him and see. Try Him and see. It’s a dare that Tony read last night that as we try Him, He will prove Himself to us. Okay. I think I have to read that. I think of me, a little 11-year-old girl at the Chicago World’s Fair. And it was teeming with thousands of people. And my mother had given me a dollar to go take some rides. Well, each ride was a dollar. And they didn’t last very long. And she and my sister went into the English village. And I waited. And I waited. They told me they’d be there. I waited. They were there the whole morning. And the little girl of 11 isn’t too patient. And it got to be lunchtime and people were walking by with their food. And I’m sure that a tear was rolling down my cheek. I was really scared. I didn’t know what had happened to them. And all these people walking by, no one paying any attention to me. And there I stood, sort of at the edge of where I had said I’d meet them, looking across at that English village, wondering if they were really there. When all of a sudden, out of this huge crowd was this voice, “Laura Lee, what in the world are you doing here and all alone?”

Oh, it was my Aunt Minnie. Everyone was my aunt in my family. We aunted everyone. Mother was one of mother’s school teacher friends. And she came over and I told her my troubles. Oh, she went and got me a hot dog and marched me over to the English village and told them they should find my mother. And of course, pretty soon out came my blithe spirit mother that had been forgetting me a lot of times in her life. And, you know, they just had let the time go. The point isn’t that. The point is that the miracle of God’s blessed timing and watching over me that out of all this bunch of strangers, here was my Aunt Minnie. We didn’t know she’d be there. And this happens over and over again as I look at my life. This talk has been forming and rolling through me for months, you know, and every now and then I’d go and make another little notation. So, if I tried to share with you the miracles that have happened in my life, I couldn’t. I couldn’t begin to end. There’s just a constant scroll of wondrous things that God has done for me through my life and I’ve appreciated the song because that’s what got me started. Besides that, everywhere I, you know, and God wanted me to do this because I would read something like, oh, the, what’s that magazine?

Well, we belong to an HMO called Secure Horizon. They sent out a little monthly here. It was a beautiful article, testimonies of different people and miracles that had happened to them. Not just miracles of healing, but other miracles. Everywhere I’ve turned, in the newspaper, in our newspaper, which is the Christian Science Monitor, we love it because it’s very impartial and always has positive things in it, here was something about miracles. And I would clip them out and read them and study them. And of course, Guideposts. You couldn’t read a copy of Guideposts without reading a miracle story. It’s in the air. God wants us to be aware of His miracles. Furthermore, I have a giant secret for you. We are His miracle people. Yes.

Let’s just say, I am God’s miracle person. I am God’s miracle person. So then. So there. Amen. Amen. Isn’t that fun? I call this divine timing when something pops up like my Aunt Minnie. And we hardly ever saw her. She lived in another city, but oh, divine timing. It happens over and over. I go like this because I’m not a choir director, but I am so in tune sometimes with the ebb and the flow of God’s plan, you know, whether it’s the waves or the ocean or music. And my son just used to tease me so about this. I’d come home from a doctor’s appointment and say, “Oh, God has been so good to me. I was so late going to that doctor’s appointment, but I prayed and I made every single signal.” And my doctor, my son, who’s always had a scientific mind, would say, “Mother, let me explain to you how signals would work,” and he’d go through all this electronic hocus pocus that the signals are set to work a certain way and my praying couldn’t change them. And I say, “But Bill,” he said, “now, now, Mother, you were in the ebb and flow of life and so you got the…” See, he helped me with that. He said, “You were just in the ebb and flow,” and that was our joke between us.

And it’s right. When you ask God to help you, it takes a miracle, particularly in those days when I was stressed out and wouldn’t allow enough time and expected God to get me somewhere on time. You see, we make our angels work overtime, don’t we? We’re funny people. But He… But you see, by giving me that sense of trusting Him, I could catch His ebb and flow and go right through and get there on time. Not always. But the times that I did, oh, how I thanked Him. And of course, He taught me to take a little more time getting ready and honor my thoughtfulness of other people and be a more untimed person. You see, that divine timing that God has for us, and it works in so many situations. And to me, those are miracles. It’s not always the great big huge healing miracles or getting a million dollars in a… What’s the magazine? That’s the Reader’s Digest or the other one, the publishing house. And you know, there are some of us that believe in those things and send them all in.

Now, I’ve changed the words to Psalm 62 so that it goes like this. Yeah, comfort him a little. I have to get even with him here and there. Psalm 62 in this shorter version from another interpretation says, “Wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from Him.” Now, I like the one I read where it said, wait in silence, but I want to say that again and let’s say it together. Wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from Him. Can you remember that now? Wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from Him. You see, I take my expectation off of other people, off conditions, and place it totally on Him. Totally on Him. And I know that when I put my expectation on Him, that gives the miracle principle of believing that I may receive. You see, it’s the same thing. It’s just, my message all was sort of interweaves with the same theme. But as we believe, we will receive. And so, as we look for and expect and believe miracles, they will happen. They will happen. And if I expect something great from God, I’ll get something great. If I expect just a little bit, that’s what I’m going to get. Doesn’t matter. And all the miracles that we receive aren’t ones that we ask for at all.

Not at all. And I know this, that my faith has to rise above my doubts. The minute I ask something and then doubt, that’s going to wreck the whole thing. It’s kind of like a Polaroid camera. You know, how many of you have had a Polaroid camera? They’re really neat. And when you take them overseas, they’re really popular because particularly in those developing countries, people are just thrilled to get a picture. And you have to be careful because if you do one for one little person, then 10,000 other little persons want one and maybe you only have 10 pictures there. Anyway, when you take that picture, there is everything all set up for you in the camera, but you have to punch the button before the picture comes out and before it goes into operation and finally comes out. I call that the button of faith. You see, that button of faith that believes totally, no doubts included, punch. But, if you don’t punch the button, nothing’s going to happen. The other thing I like to picture with this is that, and this happened, that’s what made me think of it. I had film I didn’t realize I’d had sitting up in the closet. I won’t tell you how old we finally realized it was.

And here were my grandchildren doing adorable things. And I took a picture and it came out all blurry and distorted. And that old film is when we don’t let go of all the old stuff that we’ve been talking about and letting go all week. All those fears and negatives that contort the picture and make it blurry. So we have to have fresh film and let God make us new daily. And lift the old stuff up to Him so that the new film can be put in. So that we can have beautiful pictures rolling out of our Polaroid camera, us. Okay? And you know, the other thing before I share some more examples is that miracles can’t happen if we’re wrong. You know, if we’re not right with God or if we’re demanding something that might hurt someone, you know, if… Well, just something as simple as a parking place. If I… And, you know, I’m using this example because that was my mother’s biggie. We just thought she was so square the way she could praise God for a parking place before she got it and then going to all this thank you afterwards and I’d nudge my sister and we’d go… You know, gosh. And I do it all the time now. You know, we do pick up the habits of our parents and when they’re good ones, it’s great.

Okay. So I pray for a parking place but oh Lord, I don’t want to zip into a handicapped spot and deprive someone of having the place he needs and so many people do this. I don’t… I mean, I can walk perfectly well but often when I’m in a hurry and I have to go to the city hall or something where it’s really hard to find parking, I do. I thank Him in advance for that perfect parking spot and just invariably as I pull in, if I really have faith, particularly when I’m alone without any doubters with me, you know, I’ll get it. Same with losing things. When I say that, that which is mine is lost, which I mentioned to you the other day, it gives it the power to become a miracle and I have found things that, well, like in the wastebasket, how would you expect to find an opal in a wastebasket? It should have just gone out with a trash, but miracle of miracles, miracles. It came back to me. See, that’s how it works as we take all the doubt out of it and that it doesn’t hurt anybody. I don’t want it to hurt anybody. If I asked to have somebody else that’s beautiful fur coat that I didn’t deserve, that I didn’t earn, that I didn’t work for, God couldn’t do a miracle for me.

We have to be right with God. It has to be in His perfect will. His perfect will. My granddaughter, Shauna, my oldest granddaughter, she’s 22, she’s finished Pomona College and is going to be going to Harvard on a total scholarship and she’s in love. And her boyfriend was a semester behind her so he graduated a year later. She had taken a year off to work in the Philippines in social service work. And she’s back and she said, “Grammy, is it wrong for me to pray that Wayne gets to go to Harvard too?” And I said, “No, it isn’t wrong. Tell God you’d like to have him go there, pray about it and let go of it.” Well, Wayne didn’t get to go to Harvard and she was devastated. And you know, that’s just it. You see, there was somebody else that needed to go to Harvard more than Wayne did. And I can’t tell her that. She has to find out for herself why all the things she asked God don’t work. But there are reasons why God doesn’t always answer our prayer requests. And I just wanted to use that as a small example that we can’t blame God when we’re asking things that would help us personally. But in the overall picture that God sees, there was some other person that needed more.

And he got a wonderful scholarship to UCLA. They’re going to be across the country from each other. And maybe this is exactly what their relationship needs. A test. A separation. To see if it really is… If their love is really going to work or not. I don’t know if any of you have boyfriends or girlfriends that live way far away. I mean, it’s hard. But this is one of the tests God’s given us. And if love is real, that distance won’t mean a thing. Not a thing. Okay.

Miracles are usually, to me, a surprise. Something delightful that you don’t expect. How many of you have had a miracle that you didn’t expect? When has? You have? Look at the miracles in this. We’ve all had some. Well, if you start making a list, you’ll just be amazed at the times you can think that something amazing has happened to you. I can remember getting money in the mail when I was wondering why I was going to pay the next bill. You know, maybe some silly little amount. Maybe I said in a coupon where you got $5 back if you got something and it came just at the right moment. Or maybe it was a larger check. But God takes care of His people. And every one of those is a miracle. See, it isn’t the great big things that show off. It’s every little thing. Thank You, God, for Your miracles surrounding us. I think of my personal safety. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had so many close calls Harry and I have, by an eyelash, missed being involved in several terrible accidents on the freeway. And we live, hmm, four blocks from the most… Is it the busiest one in the United States or in California? I think it’s the busiest one in the world.

Yeah. Highway 5, up and down the coast. We’re just above San Diego. In the middle of the night, it’s crowded. I mean, it’s just a busy, busy freeway. And we’ve seen, you know, we’ve been so protected. Coming from Oregon with my first husband, oh, me and my husbands, we were coming across the… I sound like Elizabeth Taylor or something.

We were coming across the… whatever that last grade is as you leave Oregon. And, you know, we didn’t have our radio on to get any warnings. And we were in a camper van, kind of like Carol’s. And we turned this turn and here was all this snow ahead of us in this accident just all over the place. A great big cement truck spewed across the road and cars out in the ditch. And it was thick snow. You know, here we were in dry and all of a sudden we’re in snow. And, of course, Gib jammed on the brakes and we skidded. And, you know, in a van, there’s no motor protecting you. And I’m sitting right up there in front, you know. And, you know, this wonderful calm came over me. It’s that reservoir I was telling you about. This calm, you know. And I kind of watched just like I wasn’t even there. And we started skidding into this semi-truck. And all of a sudden it was like this wonderful hand just steadied us and stopped us. And we were about this far from this truck back when we stopped. It was divine intervention. I know it was. I felt it. And thank You, Lord, for that. The truck driver hopped out. You know, that was close.

And he says, “You know, I’ve just heard a notice. This only goes for one mile. And with your van, you can make it.” He says, “There’s enough clearance here for you to go through. And if you would go first, some of these cars could follow you.” Here this van was. This truck was totally incapacitated. But he was helping us. And my husband was gutsy. He just pulled through there, you know, and up this grade we went. Sure enough, it wasn’t even a mile. We made the turn. And here it was all clear again. And all these other cars could follow us. So you see, God gives us miracles. And often, they’re to help other people too. You see, that’s it. A miracle is to be shared and to praise God. To let people know that we have a miracle God. Now, what’s our Bible verse? I have to look back. Wait thou only upon God, for He is my expectation. Let’s say it again. Wait thou only upon God, for He is my expectation. Yeah.

Here’s a quote from Norman Vincent Peale that I put in because I really like this. “When a person gets aboard spiritual power and moves away from his weak, defeated self, things, wonderful things really begin to happen.” You see, as we move away from the false ideas we’ve had about ourselves, we don’t have to be defeated. We don’t have to keep our heads down. We don’t have to think that life is against us. And that’s what Jesus is here to tell us all. And I think every one of us at some point forgets who he is and believes that. And there’s the Lord telling us all the time, “Move on, get aboard My spiritual power.” And it takes other people to help us sometimes. Have you noticed how other people reach out to help you? I shared with you the story of how my mother died which caused me to have the quantum leap in my journey. And, you know, it just happened. I don’t know if any of you have heard Bert Kerley speak. He’s from… Oh, I know Charlotte has. And, yeah, and he gives a whole talk on a bit of luck. It’s just a bit of luck. You know, just a bit of luck that I decided to have lunch at home that day so that I was there when the phone rang that my mother had had a heart attack so I could be at the doctors or could get to the hospital.

Just a bit of luck that I was able to be there and have that blessing. It was a miracle of God’s timing that gifted me with a whole new spiritual journey. And that’s just the beginning of a list of miracles of His timing for me, of things that happened. Mmm. My marriage to Harry. You know, it was just a bit of luck that I happened to have a vision in the night that I was telling the young people about last night that made me need to give him a message at camp. And I didn’t fall in love with him then. God had to hit me over the head practically. No, it was Harry. He wrote me some neat letters and we had the same interests. And it was just a bit of luck that the council ring that I was on, only one person the ring even knew he had written to me and invited me to this retreat. And they invited him to be on our council ring. And this one gal wrote and said, “Lollie, maybe it would help.” She says, “I have a feeling Harry is shy.” She says, “Maybe it would help if you wrote and encouraged him to join our ring. That we would be a prayer cover for him.”

And so, you know, I was already writing to him, but they didn’t know that. So I did encourage him. And then I even thought, that’s going to be complicated. There’s at least three widows on that ring. And, you know…

I thought that. I’m human. And, you know, well, actually, you know, the week we were together at camp, I told another girl, “Now, there is a really nice man that would make you a good, solid husband.” And he even asked her for a walk. He didn’t know what I was doing. But she took her mother along and that discouraged him.

And I said, “But that’s a miracle.” You see, God was doing miracles. He wanted us together. Can’t you just see the angel at the switchboard when his wife died and my husband had died and they knew we’d read the same books and had the same spiritual trips and why that made the connection right away? There was no way we could miss each other. It’s a miracle of God. I claim that as one of His miracles, the things in our life. And Harry and I have seen miracles as couples have come to us on the verge of divorce. We’ve seen the miracle of what love words can do as two people, so angry they couldn’t speak to each other, would sit looking at each other. And Harry would sort of smile and, you know, put the oil of forgiveness on them silently. And he said, “You know what I’d like you two to do? I’d like you to remember back to where you were dating and what attracted you about that other person. And you go first, John. Would you just give us some words that you remember about Sally? You know, things you liked about her.” Oh, he’s so mad, you know. But he grinds out a couple of words and she kind of looks surprised, like, “Oh my goodness,” you know.

And she didn’t hear it. So you take a turn. You know, it isn’t any time at all until all that anger is dissipated and miracle of miracles. They’re getting back in connection again, in communication. It doesn’t mean they don’t need more healing, but the miracle of change that takes place when we let love in. You know. And here’s another case where it takes someone else to help us. I thank my mother. Oh, I never finished that. I was telling you how my mother, how lucky, how wonderful it was, not lucky, how wonderful it was that God allowed me to be there at her death. And later, when I got her Bible, I missed her so and I was reading through her Bible and this little slip of paper fell out. And it was a prayer she had issued to God in my behalf. You know, it had taken years since she’d written that prayer. It has taken many years. But don’t ever give up on your kids and the prayers you say because God does hear them. And it all works out in His beautiful plan. You know, when we pray for someone and lift them up to God, it is done, even if our eyes never get to see it. And you know, I really believe, stepping on further out, that in eternity, it’s done.

If we don’t get to see it in this life, it’s going to be done. That’s His promise to us. Didn’t He say, every knee will bow, every tongue confess? We’re going to be there together someday, all humanity, kneeling and confessing together. I believe that. I believe that. Do you believe that? Yes.

I have witnessed wonderful miracles of healing in my life. Wonderful miracles of healing. All kinds. And you know, there aren’t all the spectacular one where somebody hops out of his wheelchair and goes flying up and down the room, but I, the one I’m thinking of first is my own recent one. When we were going to Australia, I still had the after effects of a very poor surgery on my heel. I had had this just start up. I don’t, you remember the technical term for it, but my doctor over here, Carol, could probably tell you what it was. She’s very medically inclined. Oh, shoot. It was on my heel, a, something or other. Spur. And I was miserable and we had it removed finally. And when it started healing, it was worse. So I went to another doctor and found that this man had been very anxious to get fees for an operation. And there were a lot of things he could have done first before he ever did this. And because we had moved and I didn’t have the doctor, I had always trusted this had happened to me. But hey, you know, am I going to sit around and pout and be mad at him the rest of my life? That’s not going to help a thing.

The Lord led us to this dear, young, new doctor. When I was telling him about it, asking him who he could recommend, he says, “Let me try a shot of cortisone.” So every year, I’ve had a shot of cortisone, you know, for several years. And that would just make it perfect. But by the end of the year, it would wear off. So just when we were ready to go to Australia, it was getting that way again. I knew it. And when I went to my doctor, he said, “I can’t give you any more cortisone in that heel. The muscle can only handle so much cortisone.” I said, “Okay, fine.” He says, “Just, you know, just use Advil for now. And when you get back from your trip, we’ll see what we can do.” So we trotted all over Australia. It was, that was a miracle in itself, our wonderful trip. I’ll put that on my little finger. And when, and you know, at every camp, at some camps, they ask for a healing service, but there wasn’t a camp we went to that I wasn’t praying, and Harry too, that we weren’t praying, healing for people, individually or in the group. And you know what? I don’t think I took any Advil. I don’t remember it.

If I did, I don’t remember it. But when I got home, all of a sudden, I woke up one morning, and I, you know, my heel isn’t bothering me. That’s right. It hasn’t been bothering me. And I kind of reached down to touch it, and there was this beautiful little soft cushion sort of on the back of it. I can wear any of my shoes now. Trouble is, I’m not used to high heels anymore, and they kind of bug me, but only because of the high heels. I told you, I was a mountain mama. And I had a healing, you know, and I’m thanking God for that. It’s wonderful to have that heel free of pain. And who knows when I touch the hem of His garment? I don’t even know. But our God is a miracle God. A miracle God. And there are those healings where you ask for it. I fell, and running my dogs. I had two dogs, and I was running them. I loved to run in those days. And I tripped on the sidewalk, and I didn’t want to land on them, so I sort of flew over them. And I landed on this hand particularly, on that sidewalk. Talk about sidewalk burn. And oh, it was so sore that I could hardly hold the steering wheel.

And hard. It got really hard and awful. And there’s a technical word for that too. And, you know, I looked at that, and I said, “Wow, I’m going to be seeing my friend, Dr. Kahn, soon,” a wonderful Japanese CFO speaker. His name was Dr. Kahn, K-A-H-N. And we would always debate. I was always teasing him, so they called me pro and him con. And he was precious. He’s in heaven. And I said, “I’ll be seeing Dr. Kahn next month. I’ll have him pray for it.” And I suffered with that thing. And you know, we were at the annual meeting, is where we were as CFO, and it was a busy week for me. And the last breakfast before we left, he said, “Come and have breakfast with me. I am so sick of asking, of giving people free diagnoses.”

And I loved, oh, you know, I don’t love to tease. I wouldn’t cornflake anybody’s bed. I twinkled, and so I sat with him and started eating breakfast, and then I held my hand. I said, “Now, Dr. Kahn, I have this hand, and it needs help.” And he looked at me, you know, we just have this wonderful, fun game going on. He said, “Now, Wally, this is,” and he gave me the right name, and he held it up and shook it and said, “In the name of Jesus, be healed.” And he kind of put it down, you know. Silly, funny, joke. Finished breakfast, went back up to my room. My suitcase was all packed, but it wasn’t closed. I threw a couple more things and then banged it and shut with both hands, and oh, I used that hand. Oh, I used that hand.

The hardness was gone. Didn’t hurt. It was totally healed. Miracle. You see, I trusted God to work through him. And it happened. It happened. I did it. Other times, your friends will do it. Poison oak all over me. I had never had poison oak, and so I didn’t get poison oak, and our whole backyard was full of poison oak, and we moved up to the redwoods. And so, this is first husband again. And he’s careful. He won’t go near it. And I’m all covered up with gloves and all, but I get in and pull it and rake it. And of course, the gloves and the shirt separate, and I’m poison oak here. And if you could have seen these wrists, they looked like I had great big life things on those. You know, great big, oh, terrible. Well, then it started weeping. And you know, I did go to my doctor, and here again, we had just moved there. A naturalist doctor, who didn’t believe in giving it anything serious, so she just had me soaking it in herbs. And it wet so much that I had to borrow diapers from my daughter. She wasn’t having a baby in diapers. And I’d wrap a diaper around each one, because how can you cook with this yuck dripping?

You know, it was unpleasant. Did I feel sorry for myself? I was having the best pity, party. Me, the healing agent of God, just so sunk in my own sickness. It was such awful fun. And every hour, I had to soak my hands, and put the ointment on, and put the new diaper on, you know, throw them in the wash. Oh, gee. Well, Sunday morning, Sunday noon, we were having a steak barbecue, and knock at the door, and there was my spiritual father, Evan, and oh, he has such a healing gift. He says, “Lollie, I went to your church this morning, and they said you were really badly laid up with poison. Oh, and I’ve come to pray for you.” Well, can you stay for lunch? No. And I said, well, it’s all ready. And I, oh, what a time to come. You know, I’m thinking, I want you to know what goes on in this head sometimes. And I thought, well, let’s get this over with. And so I said, “Okay, but I’m soaking my hands right now.” And then his wife said, this is just the funniest thing. I have my hands in the water, and he puts his hands right in the water on my head, and he says, “Don’t touch your honey, you’ll get it.”

And I thought, oh my goodness, let’s get this. Go over with, let’s get them. They’re not going to eat lunch with us. The steak is going to be overcooked. And so I’m just sitting there, da, and he says his little prayer. And very, you know, we get them out of the house, and they go. And I go to put the salve on, and I put the diapers on, and it was fun having dinner and trying to eat, you know, with these diapers.

At the end of the hour, and I mean, this was raw. And I went, at the end of the hour, I went to change them. The diapers were dry. There was no discharge. By the next hour, they were coming down in size. By the end of the day, those wrists were back the way they should be.

Miracle of God. You see, I wasn’t willing to receive that. I was just so ungracious about God’s gift to me, but He gave it to me anyway. That’s His miracle. But somebody else had faith for me. You know? And somebody else is having faith for you when you need it. That’s why we need the body of Christ. That’s why we need to get together. That’s why we need to agree together for healing. Oh, the power in this room, the power of healing that’s here. And it isn’t always the things that we expect. You know, I can ask for healing of my… What have I got to have? Well, my deaf ear. You know, I was… D-E-A-F. I don’t… Try not to use that word too often because I still expect Jesus to stand at the tomb of that nerve that died and say, “Come forth.” And believe me, when I hear out of that ear again, you’re going to know it all around the world. But so many people prayed for me and told me what was wrong with me because I didn’t receive it. In the meantime, I have other ways to hear. You know, I have to learn to turn my head and keep hearing. But you know, we don’t care about that.

What we care about is the fact that Jesus loves us and honors where we are and knows that there’s healing for us. And the healing that I’ve had because of that deaf ear, because you see, having that deaf ear makes me listen more to the Lord. I call that my listening to the Lord ear because it’s so quiet there. And the minute I block this ear, which I used to do when my teachers bored me, I’d just sit like this and block my good ear and I didn’t hear anything. Or my mother. But you see, I can really hear God because I can have it quiet faster than anybody. What about a fear that children have of being alone in the dark? And you know, I told you I’d had that fear as a child. And I had a strong husband. And then when he died and all the family went home, I lived way out in the country on this little dirt road. And I was on vigil. And I had two dogs. And I was on vigil all night, you know. I would sort of lightly sleep. But oh my goodness, I’m in the woods. There’s deer probably tramping around and the raccoons and the squirrels, whatever moves around in the night. And oh, I’d hear these noises.

And you know, I went through about two nights, just a regular basket case. I was sort of a zombie. And the third night, I went to bed. I said, “Lord, I can’t handle this.” And He says, “Why don’t you give Me that little girl fear of the dark? Why don’t you just give that to Me?” I said, “Oh, I will. I want to give it to You. I can’t go on like this. I have to trust You. If You took, give to heaven, then I’ve got to trust You to take care of me.” And I just, just sort of handed over to Him and kind of snuggled down and I slept like a baby. And it was nothing that I did. That’s what I wanted you to hear. It was nothing great that I did. Believe me, there’s not a great bone in my body. It was God and a miracle. And I never was afraid again. I was not afraid all through that time. Now I have a husband to count on. I don’t want to go through that again. But I know when he goes away for a week, I do. I do. I just go around and I hate to go to bed when he isn’t there because I’m used to having a husband to take care of me now.

But underneath it all, I know that God is my protector. God is my guardian. And I still say my childhood prayer. Do you know that prayer about the dark? The dark is kind and cozy. The dark is soft and deep. The dark will pat my pillow and love me while I sleep. God made the dark for children and for birdies in their nests. All through the night, He watches us and guards us while we rest. That’s for all of us. Because you see, we all go through darkness at some time or another. But when we call forth that Jesus light, the darkness is gone. And you see, that’s… We call it a miracle, but to God, it’s natural. That’s my next point. It’s all natural to God. And yet, the more we praise Him for it, the better it is. The better it is.

Now, I’m thinking of another interesting example of healing. And I’m thinking of one of my early camps, and there was a woman there that should have been in a padded cell. She was really out of it. And she sat on the front row, and here, this beautiful speaker was speaking about love. And all of a sudden, she starts screaming and saying, “Don’t listen to him. He’s the voice of Satan.” And all this stuff, you know, people came over and loved her. And everyone started singing a love, wonderful CFO song. And this precious man just looked down at her with such compassion. And they took her out and lullabied her. And I’m like, my goodness, you know, I was pretty new then. She shouldn’t be here. You think of the noise of our dining halls. This one isn’t as bad as some, but they can be really nice. You think how our kids whoop it up. And a person like that needs quiet. You know, that by the end of the week, that dear lady was all together. And I’m sure she needed more healing. But she stood up and thanked us for loving her through, apologized for her behavior. It was beautiful. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. Another case where a woman was just worn out from her children and her burdens and, oh, on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

And in my prayer group, and every day, we put a sleeping bag on the floor in the middle and had her lie down. And we just soaked her that whole hour. Loved her. Let her have that quiet time. Took the responsibility of her children away from her. She’s a very dear friend of mine. I’ve known her for years. This is called The Ministry of Presence by Rabbi Nancy Faham. I have to read this story. It’s so darling. “As we clear our minds to be fully present to another person and give him our full, loving attention, we’ve become that conduit for divinity to express itself.” And to me, that’s the description of CFOs. What we do is we minister to one another, caring for people and loving them. “Whose hands are God’s hands, but our hands.” That’s what St… Not Teresa. Help. Where is it? St… Yes, it is Teresa of Lisieux said. That was in the 19th century she was telling people that. Whose hands are God’s hands, but our hands. Our hands. And you know what? As we refer back to the Bible, the miracles aren’t all about lightness and joy. No. Many of them were confronting evil. Overcoming it. And that’s the miracle that I see too. When I think of our young people and what they have to reject in these days that we’re in.

We’ve always had that choice to make. But it seems like now there’s more of a call to young people to make wrong choices than there have ever been. And so we need to be in constant prayer for them, for their protection. Oh, the miracle of our young people being able to grow up and have healthy, normal lives. I have a grandchild that was adopted. My oldest daughter, who I told you her husband left her the same week that her daddy died, remarried. But she was 43 when she remarried. And after two years, they went to the doctor because they were wanting to have a child and they were getting close to the edge of the time allowed for having children. And they, after trying to adopt and everything else, all… And she was on a CFO council ring. At 45, she became pregnant. Was it Mother’s Day or Easter? We were having this big dinner for the family. And all of a sudden, her husband said he wanted to say the prayer. And he was blessing all the mothers. And he said, “And the little new mother.” Well, she was sitting next to me. And I just knew in my heart that it wasn’t that they’d finally gotten their adoption and that she was pregnant.

And we were so thrilled at the miracle of this, that the ham got cold. You know, just forget food. Because the doctors had said not one, but both of them had a very small chance of being able to form a baby, you know, to have a baby. But right after she got pregnant, they got the notice that there was a little boy available for them. A little boy that had had a mother on drugs. So tell me about drugs. It’s no fun. This mother evidently didn’t take them while he was having them. But after he was born, and she was married, but she had run away from her husband through this, and she would, you know, people would call the police because they’d see her throwing up in the air or feeding a two-week-old baby orange juice. Not strange or anything, just anything, you know. Bad thing. We don’t have to hear about it all. But that little child has so much healing of the memories, and he’s getting it because he got into the right family. And the miracle of her, because she knew she couldn’t have more children, and to have it all happen at once, at three months pregnant, she would have, by the time they got him, he was, when the baby was, when her, the baby in her was three months pregnant, the little boy was six months old when they got him.

He’d had a wonderful foster home. They’d even taken, actually, the woman had had a baby book of him. I guess there were three little babies she was taking care of. Little Austin, they named him. And he still needs lots of help. But we just love him to pieces. And he’s a miracle. And Laurel told him, you know, she’s letting him know. He asked her. She wouldn’t tell him until he asked her. But she told him that they had ordered him specially, that she couldn’t have him, but that another mommy had grown him in her tummy so that she could have him. And he cried. And he said, “I wanted to be in your tummy.” And she says, “I know you did. But since it couldn’t be that way, this other lady did it for me. And it makes me love you all the more.” And to me, that’s a miracle that these things can happen for our young people. And I praise God for that. Not because it’s my personal miracle, but because so many people that had prayed for Laurel know that God answers prayers. Do you know that practically everyone in California CFO takes credit for Becca, Rebecca, the little girl that she had? And that’s the other part of the miracle. She didn’t run to see what that baby was.

But she told me secretly that she hoped she really didn’t want to adopt the little boy if she was having a boy because she wanted a girl. And I said, “Oh, you can’t say that. You know, this sounds to me like this is it.” She says, “Well, we’re going to have him because Tom wants him so much.” And of course, being 45, she did finally have to have the sonogram and everything and pretty sure it was a girl. But these are the miracle things that God is doing for us. I wish we, maybe we can, before the camp is over, share with one another some of the miracles that have happened in their lives. Because there’s power in thanking God for miracles and sharing about it.

Winning the battle. Once you’ve been on drugs. Cigarettes. It’s all the same. You know, you get hooked on something that isn’t the Lord. And it’s a battle. But God has won the victory for us. For each one of us. And we can come through those times. We really can. I have this little thing about healing I want to share with you. It’s from, it’s from, well first from Proverbs. A merry heart doeth good like medicine. But a broken spirit dryeth up the bones. I love that. Those bones, those bones, those dry bones. But in God Calling, it says this, “Take your fill of joy outside. Because sun and air are My great healing forces. And that inward joy changes poison blood into pure, healthy, life-giving flow. Never forget that real healing of the mind and the body and the spirit comes from close, loving contact with your spirit pressed to My spirit.” Do you let your spirit be pressed against the spirit of God? And you know, that’s so. When you know the Holy Spirit is in you, you can just lean up and press against the spirit of God. When I’m driving, I used to drive a lot working and I would just picture God as the seat and I’d lean into that seat because I had to drive long distances and I’d press against Him and I’d be revived.

It’s wonderful what we can do with that gift of divine imagination. And He’s there. It’s real. It’s real. Here’s another one. “Sunshine helps to make glad the heart of man. It’s the laughter of nature. Live outside as much as possible by medicine or the sun in the air representing trust and faith. Trust is the sun. You’re being wrapped by the divine spirit. Faith is the soul’s breathing in of the divine spirit. Nature is My nurse for tired souls and weary bodies.” Then it ends up, “Sunshine is the laughter of nature.” Feed your soul. Go out and enjoy nature. Get healed. Isn’t that beautiful? Go get a God Calling. It’s just full of things like that.

And so it is that miracles surround us in nature, in science. Under the hood of my new car I looked at it and I thought, oh, how intricate. I have no idea what half that stuff is. I could kind of figure out a Model A Ford, those simple things, the stick shift things, you know, you could, but now, I know, wait, I do know where the oil goes in and a couple of things, but, you know, it’s a miracle what’s in a car. It’s a miracle what God has sent through to us in science, in medical science, in the transplant of organs, heart, pacemakers, all the things that God is giving us miracles for our bodies. But you know what? We need to be miracle workers and keep praising Him for our scientists, finding a remedy for cancer, for AIDS, for Alzheimer’s, for muscular dystrophy, all these things. We can help the scientists by picturing them getting this done, getting these remedies for all of these things because they’re waiting for us. They’re just waiting. There are already ideas in God’s mind. It’s already done. And when the right person gets that clue, there it is. There it is. So whether it’s a parking place or a healing of something very serious, it’s this miracle.

It’s as simple as that. Wait thou only upon God for my expectation is of Him. Let’s say it. Wait thou only upon God for my expectation is from Him. And last of all, I’m really closing, but I have to read you this. I’m going to tell you most of this and just read you the main part. This was in Guideposts, and it’s one of the beautiful miracle stories that has really touched my heart. It’s about a black lady in Florida, which is very flat. And she lived very near to Lake Okeechobee. We’ve been there. And there was a day when this hurricane was coming. And you know, she lived in one of the little simple homes nearby. And there was a hurricane coming, and she had children, and her husband was there. Her name was Lucinda. And the wind was whipping up, and all of a sudden this big gust came, and her roof blew off. And her husband looked at her in a startledness. And at the same time, a nine-foot dam, and believe me, that lake is just about the same level as the land. The nine-foot dam that held the water back on their side broke. And all this water started gushing toward them. She grabbed her little girl. I think she was three.

The father grabbed the two little boys. The only place they could go with this old, gnarled tree out in front of their house. And they rushed out there. He dropped one of… The water was coming already. He dropped one of the little boys and had to sort of fish around and get him. It was extremely, dramatically dangerous. And they climbed up that tree with these children as high as they dared. And there they clung. And the rain came. And the wind, it was terrible. The water kept rising until finally it was up to her chest. She was holding little Effie above her head. Sort of had her propped in this other branch. And her husband called out to her, “There’s nothing we can do. We’re lost.” Now I’m going to start reading. That’s where we are. “Cindy, we’re going to die. The end is near,” he called. And she shouted back, “I tell you, we’re not going to die. The end is not near. God is with us and He’s the God of miracles.” “Cindy, it’ll be a miracle if we ever get out of this.” “Okay, Charles, then expect a miracle. Let’s do it. Let’s make a miracle happen.” The storm rose in intensity as they called out. And all of a sudden, Lucinda began to sing, sending her confident voice out against that hurricane.

Jesus, lover of my soul, let me to Thy bosom fly while the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high. It’s night, pardon me. Hide me, oh my Savior. Hide till the storm of life is past. Safe in the haven guide. Oh, receive my soul at last. Other refuge have I none. Hangs my helpless soul on Thee. And it sure did, didn’t it? Leave, oh leave me not alone. Support and comfort me. As the song ended, three distinct flashes of lightning pierced the sky. And Lucinda, being a believer in depth, said, “Oh, thank You, Lord, You’re working a miracle.” She had no doubt. She believed. She believed with all her heart, body, mind, and soul. And what the good Lord must have been thinking in His heart as He looked at her. And when He sees a human in such dire need, believing, it must be a wondrous happening for Him when He sees this. But the wind died down, and the rain ceased, and there was a great calm. And this little family had to cling to that tree all night until dawn, when the water finally receded, and they could climb down to a place of safety. They were suffering from shock. But kind hands ministered to them, and Lucinda, eight days later, experienced another miracle, the miracle of birth of another little girl, a healthy little eight-pound girl.

Our God is a God of miracles. And what He said about she was a believer in depth. Oh, Lord, help us to be those believers in depth so that when we’re clinging to the tree of life and it seems like the waters are up to here, that we can call Your name and that storm will abate and You will rescue Your people because that’s Your promise to us that You will do that for us. And as we go into our healing service, Lord, thank You that we can believe, that we can trust You, that we can trust one another to be Your ministers. And we’re all Your ministers. When we have our healing service after the nine o’clock prayer, we’re all going to be ministering to one another. There will be teams up here when we set it up when it’s time, but you’re to reach out and minister to each other too. Let’s sing Only Believe before we go on into the world broadcast. Only believe, only believe, let us stand up, all things are possible, only believe, Yes, I believe. All things are possible. Only believe. Yes, I believe. Yes, I believe.

Yes, I believe. All things are possible. Yes, I believe. Oh, we have to do this other verse because it’s so true. Jesus is here. Tell somebody. Jesus is here. All things are possible. Jesus is here. Jesus is here. And He’s so dear. All things are possible. Jesus is here. And let’s just quietly beam that to the world before we say our prayer. This is our world broadcast day, Lord. And angels, you just take that out on the winds and pour it out to the whole world. We believe. Yes, we believe. And You’re here all around Your world for the healing of our world tonight, Lord. Amen.