Answer to Prayers?

There's a signpost up ahead.

A friend asked, "What was the most remarkable answer to a prayer you've prayed?" I was stumped. There are so many remarkable answers to prayers I've seen I can't really choose. God has answered long nagging prayers, formal prayers, walking prayers, thought prayers and one word cries for help. One of the most memorable ones happened when my wife and I were running an intergenerational day care center in Tyler, Texas.

We'd been working hard that autumn to get the budget under control and to handle some personnel issues we had going at the time. There were three individuals in particular who were giving us a hard time in particular. We'd gotten the budget under control, but in doing so we took a little of the authority away from the folks who had gotten us into trouble in the first place. I'd gotten a grant to cover my own salary so the center wouldn't be on the hook for that. We revised the accounting system with another grant that gave us a consulting CPA. We were on our way to having a healthy cash reserve in order to move the center from the church facility we were then occupying into a new facility we were planning to build or purchase. 

The church was unhappy with us. They were worried about a recent incident at another church center and feared we could be sued if something like that happened with us.  Secondly, they had been carrying the financial overages for the center and couldn't why the books looked good but the center was unable to contribute rent to the church. Finally, one of the staff, a church member was sowing discontent in the congregation because she'd not been given the executive director job and I had.

In the middle of all of this, Sheila and I decided one Saturday afternoon in April to drive out to Caddo Lake where our daughter and son-in-law and my son were camping with friends. On the way, we drove past the day care center and saw three cars in the parking lot. It was our three disgruntled employees.

We though, "Oh, oh, this can't be good." I dropped by and sure enough the two department heads and the bookkeeper where huddled in the office. When we came through the door you never saw a guiltier looking bunch. When I asked them what they were up to, they all looked guilty and made vague excuses for being there. Sheila and I left after a few minutes and headed off across country for the lake. 

As we drove, we talked about the problem. Staff loyalties were divided and trouble was a-comin' to be sure and we both knew it. After an hour of talking about possible solutions, we couldn't find one. Firing the bunch would alienate the church because one of them was a member. The staff, meanwhile not realizing what was going on, would find it arbitrary and there were 26 women working there and me the only male. Just so you know, the alpha dog thing doesn't work among groups of humans. When you have 26 female employees, you're just outnumbered and there's nothing you can do about it. 

So we took it to God. I drove and Sheila prayed because I'm better at the one and she's better at the other. In God's work you learn to stick to the talents he's given you.  After we prayed, we drove along quietly for a time. Finally, my wife turned and asked, "You got anything yet?"

I shrugged. " The only thing that comes to my mind is, 'Be still and know that I am God.'"

"That's funny," Sheila answered. "I had that same thought. I prayed all night about that and that's what I kept getting over and over all night long."

"It's going to be tough to do basically nothing," I shook my head.

We drove on along this tiny two-lane backwoods East Texas road for a few more minutes in silence, me thinking, this is one problem that's going to take some action. If I didn't get ahead of this little revolt, the whole thing could come apart. 

Then suddenly my eyes were drawn to a pretty little white country church along the road up ahead. It had one of those message board signs out front and I kept my eyes on it as the words became readable. In big black letters it said, "Be still and know that I am God."

I did a double-take. "Did you see that?" I asked incredulously. Sheila turned and looked hard at me, then quietly nodded.

"I think we've had as clear an answer as we're going to get," she laughed.

You're always a little quiet when God has spoken to you that clearly. We drove on to the lake and had a lovely day with the kids. On the way back, we thanked God for his answer. Monday, we went back to work and did what we should have done, just like any normal day. Our three revolutionaries didn't say much for the next few days until it became obvious that the wrath of Tom was not going to fall upon them.

Sheila and I remained still and let things work out. Within three months, the childcare director was offered a better paying job, the bookkeeper quit without warning and the titular adult director quit suddenly. I gave her two weeks severance pay.  All were replaced with very nice people who helped us a lot. The center lasted another year, but economic factors forced us to close. When we did, we were a happy group who hated to be going our separate ways. I still have friends from our time there.

As it turned out, God solved our problem for us. All we had to do was be still and know who was God and who was not!

 © 2016 by Tom King

Getting Settled In



We're in the Carriage House to the right.

Just a personal note this time. We're all moved in to the carriage house.  It's a lovely writer's retreat.  Nice folk in the big house.  Wife's a teacher.  Husband owns a music store.  They're a couple of years older than us.  Alan even offered to sell me a banjo at cost through his music store.  That's cool.  I may even be able to take him up on it soon if my writing business keeps picking up.  Right now I've got more work than I can do - all of it pays reasonably well too. 

Still got to get down to Texas to get my truck, but it's forced me to get to know my "friends" here better.  Last night we bummed a ride to Wal-Mart with a buddy and his wife and new baby.  Lovely people.  On the way home up the driveway we met a couple of deer - both does - coming down the road.  Lovely  creatures that just run wild in the neighborhood.  The place has scads of birds and squirrels. My dog is in barking at the trees heaven.  It's all she can do to keep the squirrels in their trees where they belong.  Should take a little weight off her.

It's a quarter mile to the mailbox and the dog and I hike it two or three times a day (her favorite pooping spot is in a patch of woods about half a mile from the house).

We have a wood Franklin style fireplace to heat the house.  Splitting wood for it gives me some badly needed upper body workouts every morning.  I'm thinking of taking my machete and cutting some hiking trails through the woods.

Now that we're in this quiet place, Sheila is beginning to heal. Our diet has improved (less greasy hamburger).  I've restocked the pantry and fridge and scouted out next summer's blackberry picking ground. There's even a big freezer in the garage to store berries and produce. 

I've even ordered a case of my favorite vegetarian food - Loma Linda Tender-Bits and plan to barbecue up a can of them when they get here tomorrow.  Mmmmmm.  Mama's Southern style mashed potatoes, broccoli and cheese, a tossed salad with Honeymama's homemade wheat rolls.  Life is good again......

To all my friends who have remembered us in their prayers..........it worked!  God blessed us and we thank you all so much and Him most of all.

Still pickin'

Tom

Be Careful What You Pray For

© 2012 by Tom King

Back in my halcyon days at summer camp I enjoyed a brief period in my life where I felt strong, highly-skilled at my job and confident that I knew a little about everything that needed to be known.  I worked for five summers at Lone Star Camp during my academy, college and early teaching days. I realize now, I was attending God’s summer school for emerging Christians.

One camp director that I highly respected used to describe me as “walking to the beat of a different drummer”. I grew a beard every summer, wore leather moccasins and a leather headband that my buddy and I had made from scraps from leathercraft class. I’d passed a very tough life-saving class and had advanced from garbage man to small craft safety instructor and for possibly the first, last and only time in my life felt competent to do my job. 

I learned a valuable, if uncomfortable lesson one particular summer. We had a Texas Conference youth director who’d been imported from the South American mission field. We gave him a fairly tough time. He was used to being obeyed. We were used to doing things our own way. Our camp director ran interference, between the big boss and the line staff and kept things pretty happy all in all.  Then teen camp came.

 

We had a group of boys that drove up from Houston. Their dad was a doctor. They brought their own skis and ski jackets. They wore sunglasses and had attitude. You could tell right off they’d come planning to do things pretty much their own way.

The staff managed to shut them down by threatening to kick them all out of skiing and put them in a nature class for the week. After that, we managed to get a more cooperative attitude from the boys, but all week long they chafed under the reins we kept on them.  By Sabbath they were ready to explode. Word got around Saturday afternoon that the boys were planning to “tear the camp up” that night.

This spooked the big boss and just before campfire that evening he announced to staff that after campfire he was taking all the kids over to the swimming area for a watermelon scramble. “That’ll wear them down,” he opined. “Then they’ll be too tired to get into trouble tonight.” The lifeguards went pale. 

A watermelon scramble is a contest we do at the water show as part of the week’s ending activities. We’d had to cancel the popular event that week and the kids had been very disappointed. The scramble works like this.  You place a greased watermelon in the middle of the swimming area, line up two cabins full of kids on opposite docks, blow a whistle and they all go after the floating melon. The winner is the cabin that manages to wrestle the melon free from the others and drag it to their own dock. The side that gets it out of the water wipes off the grease and eats the watermelon. The game can get rough so we always have lots of lifeguards in the water, on the towers and docks to keep it clean and make sure no one drowns. The scramble is tough enough to lifeguard with 30 or 40 wrestling kids in the water in the daytime. The idea of doing it at night was horrifying. 

“Sir,” one guard held up her hand. “That’s awfully dangerous – doing a watermelon scramble at night.” I thought she was understating the case, myself.

“We have plenty of lifeguards,” the boss dismissed her objection. “When I was in Chile, we used to take 200 kids to the beach with just two adults to supervise.” 

“Well, yeah,” one wit muttered under his breath, “But in America, we actually like our children.”  Someone jabbed him in the ribs aside from a snicker or two, nothing more was said. We knew the boss too well. The more we pushed him, the more firmly he would stand by his decision. He walked away and left us talking worriedly among ourselves.

“What’ll we do?” another lifeguard said as we put our heads together. This is crazy!” 

Many ideas were tossed around. We thought about refusing to participate, but we knew he’d have fired most of us and sent us all home. Then he’d have done the watermelon scramble anyway – at least he made us believe so. We were afraid not to be there lest a kid drown and spoil our perfect camp record. Finally, one lifeguard looked off down the lake and saw a single dark cloud scudding across the sky, far off and low down above the trees. 

“We could pray for rain!” she suggested half-heartedly. 

We all looked skeptically down the lake at that one forlorn little cloud on the horizon. “Might as well,” another agreed. “I don’t see any other way out of this. You can’t do a watermelon scramble if there’s lightning.”

Imagine doing this in the dark!

So we made a little circle at the back of the campfire area and we prayed for rain. Actually, we got rather more specific than that.  We prayed for a nice big lightning storm to give us an excuse to halt the watermelon scramble. We also added a prayer that God would help prevent our young toughs from starting a riot that night.  For the rest of the campfire program, we watched the horizon anxiously.

Incredibly, that little black cloud grew. The sky turned blacker and blacker. As we stood for the prayer song at the end of campfire, fat drops of rain began to fall.  As we sang “Amen” lightning popped overhead, lighting up the sky.

“We’re going to have to cancel the watermelon scramble,” the boss announced, a touch of irritation in his voice. “Hurry back to your cabins now,” he instructed the counselors. Our little cadre of lifeguards grinned smugly. God had answered our prayers. 

It was very hard not to sing the “Nanny, Nanny Boo Boo Song" as we headed back to toward the cabins feeling pretty full of ourselves.

The rain began to ratchet up in intensity. Long peals of thunder rolled across the sky. Lightning cracked. Everybody picked up the pace till we were pelting down the trail for the cabins as the sky seemed to open up. We managed to get the kids inside and the shutters pulled down just as the worst storm I ever experienced at Lone Star Camp unleashed its fury on us. 

Once we got the kids in the cabins, the waterfront staff still had to get back to our own cabins. It was about then that we got the lightning we’d asked for.  A group of us took shelter in the open sided dining pavilion. We wound up huddled close by the big stone fireplace as rain lashed the structure violently, whipping up in sheets under the edges of the roof. It was pretty scary. The lightning popped round us, blasting trees and light poles. It looked for all the world like God was angry with us.

One of the lifeguards, Jack, made a run for the showers from the staff cabin in the middle of the storm. He always made the trip wearing only a towel and flip-flops and carrying a bar of soap.  As he crossed the little meadow near cabin 1 (where our young hooligans were staying) a lightning bolt struck a nearby tree.  Jack did a half flip and landed flat on his back in a puddle, dazed. His towel was blown off, but came fluttering down to landed strategically across his waist. He managed to get back up on his feet and stumbled down the trail to take shelter in the shower house.

Consternation grips the staff - the deadly watermelon scramble approaches!

In cabin 1, the counselor responsible for our would-be terrorists, my buddy Mark, also a lifeguard, had got everyone inside and they were all hunkered under the covers, listening to what sounded like an artillery barrage outside. These guys, Mark told me later, were really looking nervous, lying there on steel army cots while vast bolts of unfettered electricity raged around them. Mark had been having worship before bedtime every night that week and none of the boys had once shown the slightest interest in participating. Mark had pretty much given up on them, so he made his own prayers and was about to flip off the single light bulb that dangled at the center of the cabin.

Without warning, a terrific blast and blinding flash of light struck the cabin. The overhead light bulb exploded raining shards of glass down on everyone. Electrical outlets spurted blue flames. A couple of the guys screamed involuntarily.

The room went black and silence fell, the only sound the steady rush of the rainstorm beating on the shutters.

“Counselor,” a voice asked timorously in the dark. “Can we pray now?”

Cleanup the next day was massive. Limbs and trees were down all over camp. Trashcans were turned over; gear scattered everywhere. But the kids didn’t “tear up the camp”. It seemed that God had done it for them.

Since that night, I’ve stopped telling God how to answer my prayers. I decided that from then on I would just ask for His help and leave the actual method of answering my prayers up to Him. 

It’s much safer that way.

Tom King

*Special mention goes to Stephanie Beary Johnson, famous teacher and leader of the great washing machine robbery who suggested praying for rain. It was a truly frightening experience and at the same time increased my skepticism of authority.