TESTIMONY
THE UNEXPECTED NEWS
One beautiful cold afternoon in Rhode Island, right in the middle of the business of the day, I picked up a phone call from one of my cousins who had recently moved to Canada.
– “Hello, what’s up, cousin?” I answered in a perky voice
– “I’m okay and you?” he replied hesitantly.
– “I’m fine thank you” and I paused to listen.
– In a frantic tone, my cousin said: “Medgine, I don’t know how to tell you this, but your mom went missing. She left the house yesterday afternoon and I didn’t know until recently, a friend just called me to let me know about it.”
– I fearfully responded “Oh no! I thought you said you had this settled for me before you moved to Canada. I thought the person whom I rented the place from also agreed to keep an eye on her for me. As you already know the Country (Haiti) is so unsafe and now my mother is on the streets with no food, no water, no money, no sense of direction in a country where Gang members are killing people just for the sake of it. Isn’t the landlord someone you are familiar with from your Church?”
– “Yeah, but I don’t think she is a woman of her word, and I have not been able to reach her.” After a brief silence, he said: “Now I don’t even know what to do because your mother is fairly new to the area, nobody knows her there so even if someone finds her on the streets, he may not know who to contact.” As I was listening to my cousin I could feel his anxiety by the tone of his voice. As he continued talking, I was picturing all the things that could potentially happen to my mother: she could easily get shot, kidnapped, sexually abused, or assassinated, and what if she is dead? How will I process this? Would I even know where her body is? Am I even ready for her burial? Overwhelmed by all those crazy thoughts, I quickly snapped myself out of them, and I heard my cousin say: “Let me go ahead and call some friends and tell them about this so they can be on the lookout for me, and I’ll call you back.”
– “Okay, please call me back!” I replied sadly. As I was still holding my cell phone, my hands started to sweat and shake, I was feeling hot and cold at the same time. And I remember saying: “Lord, what am I going to do?”
GOD STEPPED IN
At that time my relationship with God was not where it could be but not where it used to be. So, immediately I went to my prayer closet, placed my phone behind the closet door and I put the volume on low. As I strived to focus on getting God’s attention by imploring His name and crying out for His help in this emergency; God granted me His grace and stepped into the problem. I may not be able to tell you verbatim what He said to me because God’s word comes with deep revelation and sometimes it can be too deep to be articulated properly. So first, I remember He told me not to worry because my mother is still alive, then He told me that He is God and He is not limited to time, and then He told me that He wants them to know that He is God (and I didn’t even get that part until many years later but that’s another story for another day), then He said to me “Your mother will be found”, and as the word found was still echoing and fading, suddenly something that looked like a screen popped up in front of me and I saw an unusual being with a shiny garment appearing so bright (an angel) and he grabbed my mother’s hand, he was pulling in one direction and my mother was trying to go to the opposite direction and then the screen just disappeared. I was clueless about what just took place and what the whole thing meant, but I knew one thing for sure, God visited Me, and I got a word from Him. Then, I felt my strength come back to me, and I was praising and thanking God, feeling all faith-filled and confident not realizing that the moment I received the word from God about the situation, was when the real challenge began. I got out of the closet room and picked up my phone, I realized that I had missed many calls and text messages from family members, and friends and everybody wanted to know what I was going to do about the situation as if I could do something about it. Suddenly, I felt fear, worry, doubt, and stress start to creep in. I remember there was this cousin who sent me a flyer with a picture of my mother on it in case someone found her, and I remember trying to master the strength to believe what God just told me and I texted him back saying, “God will bring her back home.”
And so, on day 1, no sign of my mother, just a word from God and people are blowing up my phone to do something. On day 2, no sign of my mother, no sign of God and people are still pressuring me. Now, what do you do when all you have is a word from God with no evidence, and fact what you are seeing is the total opposite of what He told you? Do you believe what God says or do you believe the people and succumb to the pressure? On day 3, no sign of my mother, and fear, doubt, and stress kept knocking at my door, but on the third day around mid-day, God visited me again, and He came up with a solution for my worry and anxiety and stress but it was not what I was expecting, He said to shut down the noise completely, as I struggled to obey Him by turning off my phone. I even thought that God was getting a little insensitive here because how could God ask me to shut down the noise completely in a situation like this? Well, I did not realize that God was helping me. He was not only proving to the enemy that no weapon that he formed against me would prosper, but He was also teaching me how to trust Him and gave me an uncommon strategy to pass the test. In other words, we can say that God was using one stone to kill two birds so to speak. And so, I listened to Him, and I shut down my phone completely despite the fear, the uncertainty, despite what I knew some people were going to say and think. So, on day 4, no sign of my mother, no sign of God, but I felt lighter, and I was calmer and collected which made it easier for me to keep the faith because the pressure subsided.
WEEPING WAS FOR A NIGHT BUT JOY DID COME IN THE MORNING
Then on day 5, as I woke up that morning while still in bed not knowing what the day may bring, there was a victory song that kept playing in my head, I started singing the song and raising my hands in the air like I just don’t care thanking God like crazy. I couldn’t even explain why I felt the urge to just praise Him and thank Him. Then, I heard “Congratulations, your mom was found.” For a brief moment, I thought I was hallucinating, but then I jumped out of bed, I felt a strong impression to turn my phone back on, and of course, I saw all the voicemails, text messages, and missed calls, but I went straight to my cousin’s missed calls and noticed that he called me earlier that morning, so I quickly called him back, but he missed my call, then he call me back and I missed his call. So, I kept the phone in my hands because I strongly felt that God was up to something, and finally my cousin called me back, I quickly answered, and he said:
– “Girl, I have been trying to reach you since this morning, to tell you that one of my friend’s friends found your mother.” I started crying heavily, I was so emotional and filled with so much joy. And yes, God kept His word, He did it and everything felt so surreal. Now, I understand what it must have been like for Peter when the angel delivered him from prison the night before his execution, I am pretty sure when he got out, he felt like he was dreaming. It also felt like I was daydreaming.
THE BEHIND THE SCENES MIRACLE
As I was trying to handle the over-excitement, I dared ask my cousin how the friend’s friend found her, and this was the part that completely blew my mind. He said, “Well, there was this guy who had surgery not too long ago, and when my friend told him about the situation and showed him your mother’s picture. The guy said that as he was lying in bed, he felt the urge to just go outside for a walk and then he saw my mother going in a different direction, so he grabbed her hand and said to her let me take you home.”
I was so speechless and so blown away when my cousin said that to me. God handled the situation (what I thought was an emergency) in such a way that my head started spinning. And I learned some new things about God that day that I never knew before. I’ve learned that God is real, He is everywhere, He is the God of His word, and He is not limited to time. God performed that miracle in such a way that I couldn’t doubt what I had witnessed even if I wanted to because the proof was in the pudding. He did it in a way that all glory goes to Him; an experience I cannot dare forget.
I pray that this testimony helps you on your journey with the Most High God. Be blessed!
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