Thrift Shop Special

  Wow! It is in a fantastic whirlwind of events and information we now find ourselves! It has been a crazy amazing journey for which I will ever be grateful... and I believe if we keep a "yes" in our hearts, He will prove this is just a glimpse of things to come!
  Where to start in the unravelling of my thoughts on all of this?? First, I want to share a "behind the scenes" story of God's faithful hand of guidance in bringing us to this place. A couple of weeks before we moved to KC, I felt that I was supposed to go to a specific thrift shop in Baraboo. Though it had been what I would call a "faint" leading, I journeyed there, without any real understanding of God's purpose in laying this trip on my heart. Pulling into the parking lot, the name of the thrift shop was highlighted to me..."Bethesda." "Hmm," I thought, and dismissed it, distracted by the curiosity of my reason for even being there.
  Once inside the shop, I began a 'treasure hunt' as to my purpose there. Initially, formulating a quick assessment of the place, I found that nothing stood out to me. I began wandering around, digging through the discards of others. As I waited on God to release understanding, I fingered through the clothes racks, tried on a few items, and continually prayed for understanding. Eventually, I decided to take a stroll around the thrift shop. I walked the entire perimeter of the store, and as I neared the door, my eyes spotted it. It was a vivid picture of a mountain, displayed with grandeur and bordered with a radiant gold frame. I was instantly captured with intrigue as God spoke to my heart in an all but audible voice, "I am going to move mountains for you." And with that I walked out the door, completely satisfied. He had blessed me, not just with one treasure, but two: hope and promise.
   On the way home, recalling the seeming faintness of the call, I marveled at the strong clarity of His words to me. I went home and told the whole story to Owen, who had not even been aware of the divine leading for my travel to Baraboo that day. Over the next few days, as we began to apply with IHOP and get our house ready for sale, those words of promise "I will move mountains for you" became my anthem. I waited expectantly for God to make good on His promise.
  Late one night, as Owen and I spent some time in prayer, we put fleeces out before God. We said that if it was His will for us to be in the internship, we needed our applications to be accepted, tuition for the entire family, and housing. Not only that, but we asked God provide a testimony so miraculous that there was no way for us to take any credit, that all of the glory would go to Him. It was nearly 2 a.m. when we finished praying, and Owen turned to me and said,"Emmy, I just want people to be able to look at the testimony of His faithfulness in our lives and have the faith to pick up their own mats and walk." Moments later, as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep (which should NOT have been a struggle at that hour), I had a sudden, overwhelming urgency to look up the name "Bethesda." I tried to dismiss it, thinking it could wait until morning, but the Holy Spirit prompted me with another wave of urgency in my spirit. At first, I reached for the dictionary, but felt a strong leading to look in the concordance instead. So I got out my exhaustive concordance to find the name "Bethesda" mentioned one time (ONE time!) in the scriptures. Eagerly I read it:
     "Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”
     “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”
     Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”  At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked."  John5:1-9a
  God is SO faithful to confirm His tender guiding in our lives. I have found that when there is a "yes" in our hearts, He will faithfully woo us into deeper relationship with Him. When we follow Him by faith, He makes our steps firm. As a result, we no longer qualify those leadings as faint, but rather recognize the still, small voice of God.