Women of Faith - Amazing Freedom: Devotions to Free Your Spirit and Fill Your Heart

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Amazing Freedom: Devotions to Free Your Spirit and Fill Your Heart

2007 Women of Faith

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Published in Nashville, Tennessee by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations are taken from the following versions: The New Century Version (NCV). Copyright 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Message (MSG), copyright 1993. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. The New King James Version (NKJV), copyright 1979 , 1980 , 1982 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). Copyright 1973 , 1978 , 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. The Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT), copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. THE N EW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE (NASB), copyright i960,1962, 1963 , 1968 , 1971 , 1972 , 1973 , 1975 , 1977 , 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. The King James Version of the Bible (KJV).

Cover Design: Tobias' Outerwear for Books
Interior Design: Lori Lynch, Book & Graphic Design

ISBN 10: 0-8499-0177-4
ISBN 1 3 : 978-0-8499-0177-5

Printed in the United States of America
07 08 09 10 QW 9 8 7 6 5 4

contents

Barbara Johnson

Nicole Johnson

Sheila Walsh

Marilyn Meberg

Thelma Wells

Luci Swindoll

Barbara Johnson

Marilyn Meberg

Mary Graham

Thelma Wells

Sheila Walsh

Nicole Johnson

Pasty Clairmont

Mary Graham

Barbara Johnson

Nicole Johnson

Thelma Wells

Patsy Clairmont

Marilyn Meberg

Luci Swindoll

Sheila Walsh

Nicole Johnson

Thelma Wells

Luci Swindoll

Mary Graham

Sheila Walsh

Nicole Johnson

Patsy Clairmont

Barbara Johnson

Sheila Walsh

Mary Graham

Patsy Clairmont

Luci Swindoll

Marilyn Meberg

Thelma Wells

Barbara Johnson

Luci Swindoll

Patsy Clairmont

Marilyn Meberg

Mary Graham

Freedom from Fear in
the Storms of Life

Barbara Johnson

He calms the storm, so that its waves are still.

Psalm 107:29 NKJV

Bfore Hurricane Rita hit the Gulf Coast in September 2005, Veronica Alexander and her husband, Karl, along with their seventeen-year-old son, Kassel, had to make a hard decision whether to leave their home in Louisiana. There was a mandatory evacuation order, said Veronica, who told her story to one of my friends at a Women of Faith conference last year. But we couldn't just jump in the car and go.

Veronica's sister and brother-in-law, who lived about a half hour's drive south, had severe health problems and were not able to evacuate on their own. So Veronica and Karl hurried to pick them up. But by the time we got them back to our home, the traffic was bumper to bumper on the road leading away from our place. It was too late to go any farther, she said. We knew if we left we would be caught in the storm. Besides that, my husband refused to leave, and I wasn't going to leave without him.

So they made what preparations they could before the hurricane swept over their part of Louisiana. We really didn't have time to do much. My husband took me aside and said, 'We're probably going to lose everything,' said Veronica. I've always teased him of being one who sees the glass half empty while I see it half full. I told him I believed God was going to keep us safe.

As the rain began and the winds picked up, Veronica walked through the rooms of her home. I prayed, and I said that I was taking authority over this storm in the name of Jesus. I prayed for protection over our home and our family and our possessions, and then I felt completely at peace.

Her husband couldn't help but fret, however. He insisted that he had to do something to protect their home. So he went outside and tied the grandkids' trampoline to a tree, even though I'd said he should just leave it, Veronica said.

That night, the family members sat inside the sixty-five-year-old, thousand-square-foot home, alternately talking about the goodness of God and watching the televised storm reports. The power finally failed about two in the morning, along with the water and phoneand all were out for two weeks.

Looking through the windows, they could see the ferocity of the storm. Meteorologists say the most destructive winds of a hurricane occur along the east wall, and that's the part of the eye that walloped their area. Then, as if the hurricane itself wasn't enough, the storm spun off several tornadoes that swirled around them as well. Outside, the world was turned upside down, and the noise was deafening. Yet inside their wood-frame home, which Veronica and Karl had renovated with eleven-inch-thick walls, there was quiet peace.

We prayed and talked and laughed and cut up, Veronica said. We felt completely free from fearnone of us felt any fear at all. In fact, they felt such peace they all eventually went to bed and slept soundly as the storm blew through.

The image of Veronica, Karl, and their loved ones sleeping peacefully in their beds brings to mind this fact from John 8:36: If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed (NIV). Who else could have provided freedom from fear that night as a monster storm passed over their home? No one but the Son of God.

As if to prove just how powerful the storm had been, early the next morning when the family members awoke, they found destruction all around them. We had to use chain saws to clear the trees out of the road leading to our home, Veronica said. Many homes were totally destroyedjust gone. Our neighbor's brick home was heavily damaged, and the roof was blown off his barn as well. There are several metal structures in our area, and many of them were demolished. Sheets of tin were strewn everywhere.

But like an island in the middle of ocean, Karl and Veronica's home remained intact and untouched.

Oh, wait. There was one thing that was destroyed: the trampoline Karl had insisted on tying to the tree. That was the only tree in our yard that blew down, Veronica said with a laugh, and it landed on top of the trampoline. We stood on the porch and watched it happen. My husband just hung his head, and I stood there, laughing.

Now, Veronica doesn't recommend defying official orders and staying put when the authorities tell you to leave. But when you find yourself trapped in a storm with no way outwhatever kind of storm it isshe can tell you how to feel freedom from the fear that, by all accounts, should be part of the experience! We prayed, and we asked God's protection, Veronica said. We knew that whatever came, we could handle it because of our faith in him.