Journeying through the industries of freelance writing and music

A collection of thoughts and experiences related to the industries…and whatever else I should decide to post.
Thanks for stopping by, and may the joy and peace of God rest on you now and always.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Miracles Along the Journey of Hope Beyond Hope, part 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, it recently occurred to me that I have been entirely too quiet regarding testifying about the miracles that I experienced along the journey of recording Hope Beyond Hope. When we testify about what God has done for us, it causes the faith of others to increase. Sometimes just hearing or reading the real life stories of what God has done for someone else, especially if it’s someone else that we know personally, can give us the faith to believe for what we need or would like to see happen in our own life.

As I write this, it’s as though I relive it -- sometimes right down to the very emotions. So perhaps the one doing the testifying also somehow gets strengthened in their own walk. Nevertheless, I believe that the reason that it occurred to me that I’ve been entirely too quiet is because the Holy Spirit is prompting me to testify about these things. That being said, if you haven’t read part one yet, I highly encourage you to start there and then come back to part two so that you can receive the full blessing of what God has for you.  

It seemed that everyone around me was sick in one way or another – mostly upper respiratory issues. Unfortunately, I was having my own struggle with a persistent sinus issue that wouldn’t seem to go away. I didn’t worry too much at first. The convention was still a few months away at the time that the issue started. But when it got to be about three weeks away and over the counter meds weren’t working, I started to get nervous. A sinus issue for a singer is like a sprain for someone in sports. You just aren’t going to do as well because your body won’t let you.

I’ve always been radically healthy all of my life, and so I tend to be very stubborn about going to the doctor. In fact, I prefer to seek the Lord first and go to the doctor as a last resort. So I asked my prayer warrior friends to pray over me that God would heal me. No one even hesitated. We all believe that the Lord can heal through prayer. While my healing wasn’t immediate, about a week later, the sinus issue was gone and I remained radically healthy up to and all the way through the convention. In fact, the problem never returned.

So when the morning to leave for Florida arrived, I was grateful that I had no worries and everything seemed to be going reasonably smoothly. I was running a bit behind regarding finishing up my packing and picking up the rental car, but that was easily resolved with a phone call. Little did I know that running behind is part of what God used for yet another miracle that He would do for me along the journey of recording Hope Beyond Hope.

Snow flurries floated through the sky and smacked against my windshield. I smiled. Thank you Lord that I will be driving out of this and am going somewhere warm!

By the time I got things squared away at the car rental place and had transferred my luggage form one car to the other, the snowfall had gotten pretty heavy. And as I drove along the interstate, it seemed to be getting worse. Nevertheless, I was reasonably kicked back as I enjoyed one of the several audio books that I had brought with me for the journey.

I had been driving for maybe a couple of hours when I began to notice that the road was starting to get slippery even though the snow seemed to be tapering off. I began to get nervous and slowed down a bit, asking the Lord for protection and thanking Him with a renewed gratitude for the prayer warriors that I knew were praying. I saw red tail lights up ahead and began to gently apply the brakes. Then I started to slide.

Unable to remember if I had anti-lock brakes or not, I began to pump the brakes. It seemed to get worse. My palms broke into a cold sweat. The car up ahead was getting uncomfortably close. “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” I called out continuously, now mashing the breaks as hard as I could. I still wasn’t stopping. People slammed into one another in front of me. Metal banged and crunched together to my right and left. I suddenly halted. Then I glanced in the rear view mirror just in time to see someone slam into the person behind me. I closed my eyes and cried out to Jesus some more, anticipating impact. Everything suddenly stopped.  I opened my eyes. I was completely untouched yet everyone around me had plowed into someone else.

“Oh my God! This is Psalm 91 in action if ever I saw it!” I exclaimed in tears.

I sat and cried for a minute both in an emotional response to the terror of the moment and out of gratitude to God for His divine protection.

Slowly, those whose cars weren’t completely incapacitated moved them off to the side of the road. Once I calmed down a little, I moved out of the way of others. Though I was still pretty badly shaken from the experience, I was determined to keep going. I weaved around those who couldn’t move their cars. Sirens wailed in the distance. I couldn’t believe the number of people who were involved, and called my husband, Gary, to tell him what God had just saved me from.

“I just read about that on the internet. You were in that?” His stunned voice asked.

“By God’s grace, no! I was saved from it!”

“That was a 41 car pile-up! The snow storm system is a huge one that goes through about three states. It’s so bad in so many places that the police are telling people just to exchange information.”

It would have been nice if that was all there was to that portion of the adventure, but it wasn’t. Traffic crawled along the interstate for hours. What should have been a 15 hour drive, was expanded to a 24 hour one. I actually ended up missing check-in and orientation, but there wasn’t anything going on until the evening after that. Even so, the sunny sky and spring-like weather that greeted me when I got there was certainly a welcome change to what I had just finished traveling through.

To check out the Hope Beyond Hope album and sample some of the music, please visit:
http://elizabethdelaney.tmgartist.com/ 

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