Dates are funny things. Through them we track progress and loss. We use them to remember significant events. As I grow, God uses them in the most peculiar ways. One date that forever changed my life is January 19th. To tell you where I found God, I must tell you about this day.
In the eighty-sixth year of the 19th century, January 19th may not resonate with many. Yet, to a small girl in Oklahoma, it was a monumental day. One winter day, strangers knocked on her door and her spirit rustled. They were members of a local Baptist church and invited her family to church.
She jumped at the chance to go.
The following week, adorned in her dress, she waited for the little white bus. It never came.
Devastated, she sobbed.
A few weeks later, she finally boarded the little white bus, heading out on her grand adventure! Her parents didn’t go with her. She traveled across town to the small Baptist church. There she played games, sang songs and enjoyed her time.
The people introduced her to a man named Jesus. They said he died on a cross for her sins. She was a bit uncertain about what sins were. But she knew there was something special about this man.
For several weeks, she returned to the Baptist church. Some weeks she boarded the bus alone. Others, her brother joined her. Together, they enjoyed their time learning about this man named Jesus.
One day, when she boarded the bus for home, the bus driver asked her a very special question. “Would you like to ask Jesus to live in your heart?” He said. “If you do, you will live with him in Heaven, forever.”
The little girl said “Yes, I do.”
And so, on the 19th day of January, in the year 1986, she gave her life to the Lord. In return, this man on the little white bus gave her a little white Bible. Inside he inscribed the date.
Unfortunately, she didn’t see Jesus that day.
She spent most of her life in an abusive home. Many nights monsters lurked outside her bedroom door.
As a child, she remembered her mother teaching her a prayer. She prayed it many nights when the darkness closed around her. She prayed it believing that God would keep her safe. Many nightsshe prayed
“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
“Now I lay me down to I pray the Lord my soul to keep. I pray the Lord my soul to If I should die before I
And she meant it.
But as time went on, she grew up, forgetting about her prayers and fears.
She recalled this man named Jesus, from time to time, but never saw his face. 15 years escaped her before she found him. This time, they met in the most peculiar place.
In 2004, she sat in the front row of a movie theater, watching “The Passions of the Christ”. Her boss invited her and gave her a free ticket that was purchased by his church.
Although he didn’t know this $7 movie ticket would change the course of human history.
Now 24, she sat in this movie theater as a different person. Healing from a divorce, she was a single mother, struggling financially and afraid. An active duty Airman, with one military deployment behind her, she knew life would continue to be hard.
She found herself pregnant, unmarried and afraid. Desperate had scheduled an abortion. Here, alone in the darkness, she sat. Here, for the first time, she saw the true face of Jesus.
For the first time, she saw God’s holy love: a love that rocked her to her core.
This time, for the first time, she saw Jesus covered in blood, beaten and hung on a wooden cross. For the first time, God became real.
In that moment, unannounced to her conscious mind, she promised to never miss Him again.
Earlier, I said that dates are funny things.
That date, January 19th, would resonate in her life like a soundtrack stuck on repeat. Time and again, God brought her back to this date to solidify a very important point in her life. January 19th become her future husband’s birthday; the day God gave him life. It become their wedding anniversary; the day they pledged their love to each other.
She wouldn’t know this until age 39, when she found that little white Bible.
One difficult day, she reached into her hope chest. There it was. She opened the worn Bible and saw the date inscribed on the inside cover.
At that moment she realized God had walked with her through every moment of her life. His love never ceased to carry her. His heart was never too full for her pain. She realized, for the first time, that God had loved her for a lifetime.
And she vowed to never, ever to miss Him again.
So, where do I find God?
Today, I find God in the silence. I find Him in the whisper. I find him in the cancer diagnosis, in the abortion-minded woman, in the broken heart mourning for forgiveness and in the wooden pew on Sunday morning. I find Him in the bells, in the drums and in the trained and ready soldiers as they rush past me on my way to work.
I find Him in the laughter of my children, in the embrace of my husband, in the unanswered prayers of my friends and in the wind as it blows upon my face. I find Him in the lost voices of loved ones who no longer walk this earth. I find Him both in the calmness and in the clamoring of each and every storm.
Here, and in so many other places, I find God.
And I vow to never, ever miss Him again.
I pray today, in some peculiar way, you find Him as well.
All my love,
Danita
“For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness.” Ezekiel 34: 11-12 (NIV)