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Topic: Mountains (09/20/04)
TITLE: "BY MY SPIRIT, SAITH THE LORD By Cyndy McNaul-Nelson 09/26/04 |
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Her American friends called her Mary. Mary was thinking of them as she stoked a fire in the miniature wood burner she used to make her small meals, as she prepared her morning tea. She liked sharing teatime with them, but they went back to America and she was alone once again. She opened the wooden shutters to the only window of her one room mud-brick abode. It was daylight, but her little house sat in the dark shadows of the high mountains that surrounded her residence.
It was difficult enough for a Chinese widow to eke a living in a country where the government had imprisoned her husband and only son for missionary activities. And it was in prison, where her loving family died. She tended the little patch of garden her husband had carved into the side of the mountain, where it got only fours of sun on a good day.
The easiest produce to grow with little sun and cool temperatures were cabbages, radishes, turnips, and a few herbs. Once a month or less, Mary would walk into the nearby village to barter for the few necessities she needed. God always provided what she needed to sustain life.
Mary’s routine remained consistent throughout the days as they stretched into years following the loss of her family. After stoking the morning embers, Mary would take water bucket in hand, and fetch water for the day at the mountain stream that flowed below her little house. She boiled water for her tea on the stove and would partake of a portion of rice left over from her meager meal the evening before.
As was her normal custom, she scheduled prayer and devotions during her morning tea. It seemed appropriate to Mary to give thanks and praise as she sipped her hard-to-come-by nutrition. She thanked God for another day of living, and another day with which He had provided food for her.
Diligently, Mary made sure her prayers were full of praise and thanksgiving. With years of government oppression and hardships, she learned a long time ago not to complain. But Mary held one request in her heart, which was to wake up to the sun warming her with its rays in the mornings and see the blue skies. Could this mountain be removed?
Mary sang the old song her American friends had taught her in her heart, “By My Spirit, Saith the Lord.” Government’s crack down on religion may outwardly stop God, but no one could stop God in people’s minds and hearts. So Mary sang as loud as the birds in her heart every morning, as she sipped her cup of tea.
“Not by might, not by power
But by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Not by might, not by power
But by My Spirit, saith the Lord.
This mountain shall be removed.
This mountain shall be removed.
This mountain shall be removed.
By My Spirit, saith the Lord.”
One morning as Mary meditated over her cup of tea, she heard a far off explosion and her cup rattled to the floor. Stunned, Mary stumbled out the door of her bungalow watching men from the nearby village and government officials bustling around the area past the bubbling brook, which supplied her daily water.
A man from the village, whose family checked on Mary from time to time as underground Christians take seriously this God given responsibility, stopped to let Mary know that the offending mountain was coming down. The dynamiting had started to clear a passageway. He told her the government was putting a road through the mountains to allow easier access to the mainland for the mountain villagers.
Humbly, Mary bowed as she clasped her hands together and thanked her neighbor for bringing such good news. She spent the rest of her days thanking the Lord for answering a request from one of His grateful children. She appreciated the scripture verse that kept her believing in God’s promise that faith the size of a mustard seed can move mighty mountains. That faith had moved her mountain and she was sure that somehow in heaven her husband knew of this event.