How early have you noticed God started to deliberately protect and shield you?
At the age of 2
At the age of 2 - Have you ever asked yourself why I am still here? What is my purpose in life? When I sit back and reflect on all of the things I have gone through in my life I have to believe that I have been kept alive only by and for the purpose of Almighty God. I had a tragic accident at the age of two of third degree burns where I was hospitalized for over one year and many of the little children with one and two degree burns died. My mom told me that one day she went to visit me and found my bed well-made and empty. As she looked at it she began to scream because she believed I had suddenly succumb to my injuries although she had left me in high spirits that day, but when the nurses realized what she was thinking, they quickly informed her that they had moved me to another section since I was no longer in danger.
At thirteen
At thirteen my mom was placed in charge of a regional hospital where me and my siblings visited her when school was closed and she would come home on her vacation time. On one of our visits, I recall spending many days reading on some logs under the house where we lived. I would go there and spend hours upon hours reading and falling to sleep there. It was my get away place while mom worked. After our two months of visit and we returned home mom called two days later to say that among the big logs I was lying on every day was a boa constrictor. I was not there but I nearly fainted. A boa is a very large snake and this one was able to camouflage with the huge logs under the building. As I began to think of the times I laid there I recall the occasional slight movements I would feel from time to time under me but just passed it off as adjusting under my weight. I knew that God had preserved me every day while I was there. That snake decided to leave after I had left.
At 27
At 27 during my wedding preparations my mom suggested that I visit my doctor to make sure it would be safe for me to get pregnant. I was surprised to hear him state quite emphatically that not only should I not get marry but pregnancy was out of the picture. We both left the doctor’s office quiet all the way home in our own thoughts. However I did not only got married but got pregnant and decided to go back to my doctor for him to give me a full examination to make sure everything was in order. As I walked into his office, he stood up and with dropped jaws he stared at me in shock. Not only was my tommy enlarged but very enlarged. It was amazing how the left side of my abdomen stretched to such capacity. He examined me and in his own words said, “I don’t know what to say.” He wished me all the best and admonished me to be careful.
The surprising thing about my tummy was that it was very large, the kind of large that you couldn’t slip into the pews of my church. I had to stretch myself on my toes to raise my tommy over the pew to get in. I looked at my friends over the years and they carry normal tummies throughout pregnancy. But I believe God was trying to prove a point, because I was able to carry not one but two large tummies in my pregnancies. My first baby was 10 pounds 8 ounces and the second 9 pounds 7 ounces who are now 6’3” and 5’ 11” in height. And so I believe God has preserved me for something special.
At 48
At 48 I had just hung up the phone from a call where I completed all arrangements for a radio show I was going to host. I picked up my keys and my bag and left my office to take care of an errand for my mom. The next thing I knew is that after checking to ensure the road was clear to cross I began to turn out of the middle lane and proceeded to cross when out of the blue there is this ambulance coming up the rise on the very street at a terrific speed with no lights or sirens on and there I was right smack in its path. I knew I couldn’t get across in time so I turned to the passenger’s seat and I said “Jesus, you have to take care of this,” and I felt the impact.
As I was being dragged a few yards with this terrible noise of metal clashing, I kept calling the name of Jesus and then there was silence. Still fully conscious I unlocked my seat belt and attempted to open my door only to find that it won’t. I then turned to open the back door when it opened and someone said “I got you, I got you.” I was taken to the hospital and I can see that they couldn’t understand why I could talk and chat and explain over and over very clearly what happened.
The nurses, police officers, fire police officers kept coming back to me to enquire if I was alright, over and over again. I was discharged about five hours later. As the nurse rolled me out in the wheel chair to my husband’s waiting car and closed the door behind me, she turned back to me and said, “I have to tell you, this is a miracle, they don’t survive.” She said this while shaking her head and her face in awe. My Grand Pre which I loved was totally destroyed. All I suffered in the days following and even into weeks was a whip lash behind my neck and a torn ligament in my right knee.
As you are reading I am very sure all of your escapes and rescues by the Lord are coming to mind. Jeremiah 29:11 informs us that God has a plan for our lives and this is why he rescues us when we find ourselves in distress. It is therefore very important for us to discover the purpose and plan of God for our lives, because if he is going to go to all of that trouble to save us it means that his plans are very real and on purpose. He says it is for an expected end. What expected end do you think God has for you and your life?
On the same evening of the accident, I went to the scriptures and the Holy Spirit was careful enough to show me what had transpired in that accident in Psalms chapter 18. I was able to see the battle in the heavenlies God was engaged in to save my life. As my deliverer (vs. 2) he saved me from the enemy (v. 3), and when the sorrow of death (v.4) and the sorrows of hell compassed me about (v.5), God came to my rescue when I called on him. He said the earth shook and trembled: God was angry (v. 7), he discomfited the enemy by sending out arrows and lightenings (v. 14); and according to verse 17, he delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me. I lived on this entire chapter for two weeks and consoled and rejoiced in the God of my salvation who went to great pains in the heavenlies to save my life.
My friends this is the God we serve. He so loves us that he would help us run through troops and leap over walls of death (v. 29), girding us with strength (v.32) and making our feet like hinds feet setting us on a high and enlarged place so that we do not slip (v.33,36).
I came to realize that God has kept me alive on purpose, to be that beacon of light to his creation that he is always there if we call for him. What has God been saving you from and for what purpose?....
Like David I can safely say if it had not been for the Lord on my side I would have been consumed already.
Psalm 124
Do you understand what God’s purpose for your life is? Moses did not understand it until he was eighty years old; Daniel and his friends while they were yet teens; Esther while she was yet a teen; Elizabeth when she was about eighty years old. It doesn’t matter your age, now is the time to understand the purpose of God for your life so that you may live a good and peaceable one.
Blessings,
Jacque