Mrs. Carol Hopson-Trusting God in Times of Trouble

You probably want to know how he was going to use me,
don't you? You see, we always had a huge missionary barrel
in the entry of our church, and people were supposed to
bring nice clothes, blankets, shoes, etc. to send to the missionaries.
We would fill several barrels and then send them
off to the missionaries we supported. One day, after seeing
that people had donated their "very used underwear" and
some "used teabags" for the missionaries, my dad got an
idea. He wanted his "flock" to see what we should be giving
to God and to His work, and he was extremely saddened at
what people were giving. So he had put a huge missionary
barrel up on the platform that morning; no one knew why
it was there. Then he called me up to the front. As I walked
up those big steps, he picked me up and hugged me. With
tears in his eyes, my daddy set me down in that big missionary
barrel and said, "This is what we should be willing
to give to God!" I will never forget it, and neither will the
people who witnessed it.
Several years ago, while speaking at a retreat in the
Pacific Northwest, I was approached by an elderly woman.
She told me her name, which was vaguely familiar but I
didn't know why. She asked if she could share something
with me, and of course I sat down to hear her story. She told
me that she had come to know the Lord in my dad's church
over fifty years ago and was just rejoicing in what God had
done in her life over the years. Then she said, "Do you
remember when you were just a wee thing, and your daddy
called you up to the front and put you in that big missionary
barrel?" I responded that of course I did. She went on to
explain what a turning point that was for her. She had been
holding on to her children as her possessions and never
thought she needed to release them to God to do with as He
chose. She had always feared that God might take them far
away. That very night, she surrendered her children to the
Lord, and peace flooded her soul. Now, she said, all of her
children were faithfully serving the Lord in various parts of
the world, and her joy was abundantly above all she could
ever ask or think! "I have no greater joy than this, to hear of
my children walking in the truth" (3 John 4).


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