Beth’s Speech 3.22.13 (I was asked to give my testimony back in March. I must admit it was much easier to write than to give as I cried many times throughout it. Struggling with the future lately and know the best way to reassure myself of God's faithfulness is to go back and see His faithfulness in the past. I hope this blesses you and stirs up your faith to trust God in whatever circumstances you might find yourself in.)
Hello, my name is Beth Bailey and my daughter Hannah is a part of the HOPE ministry here at Bell Shoals Baptist Church
One day a few months later, I was feeling very heavy hearted over the uncertainty of the future when the Lord spoke to my heart and said “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to use Hannah to touch people’s lives.” A wave of peace washed over me, and about two weeks later while out to lunch with my sister she spoke those exact same words to me. I knew it was confirmation.
Being the baby Christian I was at the time I began to come up with the plan I wanted God to use. I remember telling God it was fine if He wanted to use Hannah. He could touch as many people as He wanted and in whatever way He wanted, but He only had three years to do it. I didn’t even want to entertain the thought that my precious daughter wouldn’t start kindergarten on time and with her “typical” peers.
Well, after three years came and went I found myself sitting in an IEP meeting to discuss the best placement for my daughter within Hillsborough County ESE program. I was crushed and fell into a deep depression. As Hannah went off to school everyday I continued to pray, but I could feel my heart hardening. Where was God? Didn’t He care? If He really loved me, how could He allow this to happen? What possible good could come out of all this? These questions played in my mind until they became my thought life and the entire meditation of my heart.
Looking back I can honestly say that although I was a Christian I had very shallow roots. It was not difficult for Satan to begin to build lies upon my questions, the biggest lie centering on doubting God’s love. With each passing day for two long years I became more frustrated, bitter, and angry with God. As everything I thought I knew was being stripped away I hit a pivotal moment … the cross. Was this a lie too? Would it be stripped away also? As I pondered this, my heart’s deepest desire rose up in me … to have a conversation with my daughter. I knew if I chose to walk away I would be giving up on any hope I had of experiencing this here on earth. Likewise the promise to experience this in Heaven for eternity would be gone too. The choice was clear. So it was just me, Jesus, and the cross. It didn’t seem like much to hang onto at the time, but God knew it was all I would need.
Shortly after my re-dedication I found out I was pregnant. I was so excited! It had been my prayer for awhile to have another child, but I had also told the Lord I couldn’t handle another special child. Certain God had heard my prayers the thought never occurred to me that something might go wrong. On March 5, 2009 our perfectly healthy, beautiful baby boy named Gabe was born. As a busy wife and mother of three, the next 18 months flew by. All the while I continued to pray for Hannah but found myself struggling with the thought that her condition couldn’t possibly be God’s will. In one moment I felt like I needed to pray, anoint her with oil, bind Satan, loose Satan … I didn’t know what to do, but I felt I needed to do something. The next moment I found myself at peace and resting in where God had us. As you can imagine swinging from one extreme to the other was emotionally exhausting. So I began to seek the Lord specifically asking Him if this was His will.
In December 2010 we had Gabe dedicated. As I had done with my other two children, I wanted to buy Gabe a child’s Christian book for his dedication. Not wanting to duplicate books, I began to search the house for Jacob and Hannah’s books. When I found them my breath was taken away in complete astonishment. Before I tell you the book I bought for Hannah I must tell you Hannah was dedicated when she was 6 months old, long before I had any idea what was coming our way. The book was Max Lucado’s “The Crippled Lamb.” (Brief overview of book.) God had not only answered my question with a resounding YES, this was His plan, He also showed me He had a divine purpose in it. I finally had peace – a peace that would carry me through another blow.
In February 2012 our son Gabe was diagnosed with Autism. I remember leaving the doctor’s office in shock. I drove home intentionally listening to praise and worship music and forcing myself to sing along. I refused to let anything out of my mouth until I got home and in my Bible. When I did God directed me to Exodus 14: 13&14 “Moses told the people, fear not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord which He will work for you today. For the Egyptians you have seen today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace and remain at rest.” I instantly received it as truth and God’s promise for my family’s situation, especially the part about not seeing those “Egyptians” again as concerns over our son Jacob having children began to invade my mind.
I must say throughout this journey God has richly blessed me with friends and family who have helped, prayed for, and encouraged me. My church home here at BSBC is a huge part of that. I am so incredibly grateful to Brenda for her obedience to God in starting the HOPE ministry. My family didn’t attend church for years because we couldn’t find a place to take Hannah , and we couldn’t take her to church with us as her extremely sensitive ears would allow us to get through one song during praise and worship and we would have to go. I truly believe the years we spent isolated from the body of Christ was one of the biggest reasons the enemy was able to successfully attack our emotions for so long. There was no one there to help us divide God’s truth from Satan’s lies. The respite events through HOPE are also a huge blessing for my family. Our oldest son Jacob gets very limited time and attention as his sibling’s demands are so great. These respite events give my husband and me an opportunity to give Jacob the time and attention he needs while doing fun activities that we cannot do with the other children.
Another major help along the way has been the Heart to Heart women’s ministry here at BSBC. I deeply treasure the friendships I have made through this group and can’t imagine walking all this out without my beautiful sisters in Christ. In fact it was actually during a Beth Moore Bible Study with this group that God began to open my eyes and allow me to truly see my circumstances the way He does. There are a few truths I’d like to share with you that I believe are universal regardless of the problems we face.
2. GOD’S NATURE AND CHARACTER ARE NOT DEFINED BY OUR CIRCUMSTANCES! This lie from Satan can be traced way back to the Israelites wondering in the wilderness. We tend to equate God with what is happening in our lives and blame Him for it. This opens the door for Satan to dump wrong thoughts in our head. He tries to use the tangibles of this world to warp our spiritual truth. This is why it’s so important to know the Word! Only the Bible reveals the true nature of God. He is love (1 John 4:8). He never leaves us or lets us go (Heb 13:5). He is faithful and compassionate (Ps 145:8&13). His mercy and grace abound to us (Neh. 9:31 ).
3. THE WILDERNESS IS NOT A PUNISHMENT! If you look at Exodus 13: 17 -18 and Luke 4:1 you will see the Israelites and Jesus being led to the wilderness. In both cases they were divinely led. We tend to think the only way God can deliver us is by removing the trial, but the truth is sometimes He delivers us through trials. While salvation is instantaneous, sanctification is a process. This process requires us to grow and be refined so we can be transformed into the very image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18 ). Trials are really an invitation to know God more deeply because they cause us to come to the end of ourselves and face to face with our Creator. Yes, we all love the mountaintop but intimacy with the lily of the valley is not found there.
4. NO MATTER WHAT THE CIRCUMSTANCE, GOD’S PEOPLE ARE BLESSED! Maybe like me you’ve gotten so caught up in seeing your circumstances in light of the curse listed in Deut. 28 that you have missed the fact that Christ has completely redeemed you from the curse (Gal. 3:13)? I’m not saying that we will never experience suffering. The Bible makes it quite clear we will (John 16:33), but if you are in Christ you can be assured that whatever difficulty you face God will turn it for your good and for His glory (Rom. 8:28)! Deut. 23:5 says “But the Lord your God has turned the curse into a blessing for you, because He loves you.” I’ve come to realize that blessings come in all different kinds of packages, and the harder a package is to open the greater the blessing that is in store.
5. THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS! Who, what, where, when, why, and how? Trials usually require us to make decisions, and Satan will pounce on this opportunity to overwhelm you. Prov 3:5-6 tells us “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.” God already knows what will and won’t work. Don’t waste your time trying it your way first. Seek God and ask Him for wisdom (James 1:5). Know your steps are ordered of the Lord and He will be faithful to direct you (Ps. 37:23).
6. WATCH YOUR WORDS! The Bible has much to say about our mouth. Our words have creative power for good or bad depending on how we use them … “He creates the fruit of the lips” (Is. 57:19). Words start as thoughts and end as actions. Thoughts have a snowball effect … negative leads to more negative and positive leads to more positive. Satan knows this and will try everything he can to get you to think wrong thoughts. Remember to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5)!
7. OPERATE FROM A POSITION OF FAITH NOT FEAR! Heb. 11:1 tells us faith is a substance used to create the things we hope for. If that’s the case then it is safe to say fear is the substance used to create things we don’t want. However, faith means uncertainty and vulnerability and can be a little scary at times. If God allows a difficulty in your life you didn’t think you could handle it’s because He wants you to personally experience that you are more than a conqueror through Him, that His strength is made perfect is your weakness, and your sense of insufficiency is the container He wants to fill with His grace (Rom. 8:37, 2 Cor. 12:9).
8. RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO COMPARE! “Thou shalt not covet” (Deut. 5:21 ). Why did God feel this was such an important topic that it is among the 10 Commandments? Where does coveting stem from? Coveting is the result of comparing. We see someone else having what we want to have, doing what we’d like to do, and experiencing what we wish we could experience. The emotions of envy and jealousy that arise keep us from being content and enjoying what God has given us. Then we find ourselves striving in our flesh to obtain these things instead of striving for the only thing the Bible tells us to strive for … to enter His rest (Heb. 4:11). While it is undoubtedly a blessing to enjoy earthly things, our focus is to be on the eternal not the temporal because the eternal is what will last (2 Cor. 4:18 ).
9. TRUST IN GOD’S SOVEREIGN PLAN ! We serve a faithful God who has a good plan for each of us (Jer. 29:11). Nothing catches Him by surprise. He knows the beginning from the end (Is. 46:10). His plan, purpose, and timing can be trusted, but love is foundational to that trust. Allow me to prove it. Think of the person you most trust. Why do you trust them? Does it have anything to do with their unconditional love for you? Our trust and His love are closely linked. While reading scriptures about faith and trust are good when I am feeling doubt and unbelief creep in, most of the time meditating on scriptures about His love is what reassures my heart and brings me back to a place of trusting God’s sovereignty.
10. GOD WANTS TO USE YOU! As a Christian you have enlisted in God’s army, and God has an assignment for you. He knows our characteristics and strengths and has chosen each of us to do a certain job that we are to do as unto Him (Eph. 2:10 , Col. 3:23). But what if you aren’t happy with the task you’ve been assigned? Well, you’d be in good company. Biblical figures such as Joseph, Gideon, Daniel, Mary, and yes even Jesus come to mind. All these people where assigned jobs they probably wouldn’t have picked. They did them anyway and through their perseverance became powerful witnesses of God. God wants to use you in much the same way. Who better to testify of God’s faithfulness than someone who has experienced pain and watched God turn their tears into laughter and make beauty from ashes (2 Cor. 1:4, Is. 61:3)?!
In January of 2012 God began to show me that I was a part of the plan He had told me about years ago when He said “I’m going to use Hannah to touch people’s lives.” It is with great humility that I now realize that my life was one of the lives God wanted to touch through Hannah, and the perspective I have gained is both precious and priceless to me. God then led me to start the LOVE ministry (the Lord Orchestrates Victory in Everything); a support group for parents of children with special needs that works in conjunction with the HOPE ministry. I also started a blog called “Turning Life’s Lemons into Lemonade.” I am amazed at the number of people who read it most of which do not have special needs children but are dealing with some other difficulty. The response I have had from both of these activities has been tremendous. I have never felt more fulfilled, and it is so exciting to see the bigger picture God had in mind all along begin to come to pass.
Well, I sure wish I could wrap up my story with a nice big bow and say “The End,” but God is not through writing it. Hannah is now 12 and recently started using an iPad to assist her with communication. Gabe is now 4 and just learned to ride a bike. I give God the glory for these accomplishments and thank Him in advance for the ones to come. Our family is expecting a forth and final child in July. As my faith has been tested concerning the health of this child God has again taken me back to Exodus 14: 13&14. Turns out the part about not seeing those ”Egyptians” again was for me after all. So I will continue to fight the good fight trusting in God, submitting to His plan, advancing His purpose, and being patient with His timing because I know the Lord truly does orchestrate victory in everything. Thank you!
