STAND ON GOD’S WORD
Both myself and Tony know the power that comes from standing on God’s Word! It’s strange because I personally struggle to understand some things in the Bible which makes reading it difficult. I suppose that’s why I don’t like to miss Church as the message always helps me to see things in the scriptures that I haven’t seen before. Tony always tries to study the Word and we both look at our calendar which has a daily scripture. We pray over this and ask God to speak to us through it.
We both love to hear a fresh word from God but we also have a scripture that as a couple we stand on every day.
Psalm 121: I lift my eyes up to the hills where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, maker of Heaven and Earth. The Lord will keep you from all harm, He will watch over your life. The Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.
When we first read this verse many years ago, we instantly knew this was for us! For so long we had just tried to get through the day in our own strength and we found out quickly that by doing that we were soon feeling tired and burnt out. Even though we were so tired, I personally struggled to sleep as I constantly worried about what tomorrow would bring. You see, our oldest son Tony had become a Christian (which is how we both became Christians) but we still had 3 other children; two of which were regular visitors to the Police Station. We really did need God’s help!
From that moment, this Psalm has become our life verse. We declare it over our lives and we daily stand on the promise that He will watch over us and keep us from harm. Lifting our eyes up to God is our first reaction now, trusting Him to give us our help and handing everything over to Him is literally the first thing we do. It takes away all our fears and worries knowing that God is by our side and that we are safe in His arms. We have so much testimony of His goodness to us and we would never want to put our trust in ourselves or in anyone else.
God really has held us up through some hard times with our children and He has since saved the two that we used to spend so much time worrying about. We are still praying for our youngest and we have faith that one day he also will give his life to Jesus. God never just ends there though, he doesn’t just see us through hard times, He uses the experiences and turns them to good. The more we prayed the Psalm over our lives, the more he called for us to trust Him more and he grew our hearts and gave us a passion to help other children. We actually became foster parents and over the years have cared for many beautiful children who all became part of our family. We have always relied on God for our help as many of the children brought their own set of challenges but we never again worried about tomorrow. We had and still have a confidence that God has us in His hands and we always know that He will keep us safe through any trials we were facing.
One of the major battles we had was when I was aged 65 and Tony was aged 67! We were retiring from being foster parents but we knew the amazing little boy we had (Liam aged 4) needed to stay with us. We applied for Special Guardianship and we handed it all over to God. We knew that the courts would see our ages as a barrier but we knew that God could intervene and although we drafted a back up plan for the future of Liam, we trusted God to help the courts look favourably on us. We had so much love for Liam and we knew that nobody could look to him and care for him like we could. God certainly turned up for us and Liam eventually became ours permanently!
I am not saying that every day is easy, in fact these last few months have been difficult for us. Liam is now 13 and he gained 8 kilos in 3 months which is a worry due to his complex needs and Cerebral Palsy. Doctor’s first thought Liam had Lymphoma or a tumour and that there was a blockage somewhere. CT scans did not reveal anything untoward but still his face and body remained bloated. We have no answers but we both pray daily and Psalm 121 still speaks to us. The view from our kitchen window is of the hills reminding us to lift our eyes up to the hills from where our help comes from as we know that it is from the Lord, the maker of Heaven and Earth.
We pray The Lord's Prayer every night over Liam as he goes to sleep and he smiles as we say in Jesus name Amen. Things remain the same and he now has a swelling that he is having an Ultrasound today. We will not worry or live in fear of the results. Instead, today we both simply stand in front of our window lifting our eyes up, looking to the hills, knowing our God, the maker of Heaven and Earth is in control.
by Valda & Tony Creech 8th March 2023
