VL - Issue 17 - August 2015

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PRISONER OF HOPE by Joan Tyson “Well, it’s a mixed bag,” my doctor explained. “Your CT scan is amazing. Your organs look great, and your blood stats are wonderful. But…your bone scan does not look good.” These are not the words you want to hear from your oncologist. I looked from him to my dear friend Valerie (I always take a praying friend with me to my appointments) as he continued. “The medicine you have been on for the last three years is no longer working, but I have a new medicine that was FDA approved just three months ago, that I want you to try.” As I took this in, God reminded me of an amazing fact: The medicine that I had been on for those three years had only been expected to work for three months. So I replied, “Do you mean that God loves me so much He kept me on a medicine that was supposed to work for three months, for three years, just so another medicine could be invented for me?” My oncologist smiled. We all smiled. “I need to pray right now,” I said. Everyone bowed their heads. “No, I need to hold your hands and pray,” I insisted. We all joined hands, and I prayed aloud, giving thanks to our Daddy God. In Zechariah 9:12 nkjv, the Lord says, “Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope. Even today I declare that I will restore double to you.” We who believe in Jesus are, indeed, prisoners of hope. Hope holds us captive! We have hope no matter what we face in life. In 2005, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I call cancer the “little c,” because Christ is the “big C.” It wasn’t easy, but God brought me through that “little c.” I could feel the power of prayer lifting me up and carrying me on. My friends in the body of Christ and I continually trusted that God is faithful and His Word is true. I decided I would not let “little c” become my focus; instead I would focus on lifting up the “big C” so others could know the hope that I had. I was determined to pray with every doctor and nurse who touched me. God opened the door to pray with them, and I saw Him work in wonderful ways in the medical field. The place I did not want to go became the place where God used me greatly. After eight chemo treatments and thirty-five back-to-back radiation treatments with no side effects, I hoped that He had healed me. Then came November 2011, and I awakened one morning barely able to walk. Thinking it was my sciatic nerve, I waited until January to see my doctor. She ordered an MRI and the news was not good. So back to the oncologist I went, where I learned that the breast cancer had spread to my back. I had eleven more radiation treatments, and after that, the radiologist declared that my back was secure and normal. My friend and I stood with the doctor and gave thanks to the God of hope. The doctor called it a blessing. Now, I’m going through another life trial. Isaiah 43 says that we all must go through trials. I cannot choose the trial, but I can choose how I will go through it. I choose hope. I am its prisoner forever because I know that hope has a name, and His name is Jesus. I choose joy because joy has a name, and His name is Jesus! I choose love because love has a name, and His name is Jesus. I choose to be light in the dark places of life because I know that my God will never leave me or forsake me. I choose boldness to pray with doctors and nurses and patients so that others can know the hope that I have. With Jesus as my hope, I am in a permanent win-win situation. Richard Lovelace wrote, “Stone walls do not a prison make.” Every one of us has a choice today—we can be prisoners of defeat, despair, and dread, or we can choose to be the prisoners of hope that He has called us to be. Will you choose hope? Will you choose Jesus? He has called us to be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). We are the only ones who can shine the light to those lives in whatever part of the world He has placed us. Here is my prayer: Lord, help us to shine brightly this day, no matter where we are or what the day holds. Help us to shine so the world will see the hope within us and know that You, Jesus, are our only hope and theirs! May we, with joy, be Your prisoners of hope, knowing that You alone can set us free and give us life—a life that begins the moment we receive You as our Lord and Savior. May we truly believe! May we truly receive Your life and hope. It can only be found in You, this day and every day! We love You, Lord Jesus, and we pray this in Your precious, glorious name. Amen. V Joan Tyson lives in Virginia, and is an active member of her church. Joan loves to sing and worship, and she shares the Word of God on the beach. 14 www.kojministries.org
A PERSISTENT GOD by Chris B. This is my life story. I don’t know why, but I feel an urgency to write it down and send it to your publication. This is a first for me. I must warn whoever reads this—you may want to take a Tylenol, as my life story is certain to bring on a headache! In the beginning, life was good. Things changed, however, at the age of eight, when my stepdad came into the picture. Although there are many fitting names that I would have liked to call my stepdad at one time or another, I’ll just stick to his given name, Roy. Roy wasn’t a very nice person. He was physically abusive at times and verbally abusive all the time. This may sound crazy, but the physical abuse wasn’t as bad as the verbal. I was a tough kid and could heal from the physical pain; the verbal abuse damaged me for a long time. I couldn’t get away from the hateful things Roy had spoken into my life. I can still remember our first time playing football together. He laughed at my feeble attempts at throwing, catching, and kicking a football. “You should go put on a dress and go play with dolls, you little sissy! You catch like a sissy, kick like a sissy, and you throw like one, too!” And that was that. He walked off laughing as I sat there and cried. No matter what it was, I was never good enough, strong enough, smart enough, or fast enough. According to Roy, I was a complete failure; a waste of time and space. He told my mom she should have had an abortion instead of having me. I tried to prove him wrong many times, but I always failed. Even when I gave something my all, I still messed up. I soon gave up trying and just accepted Roy’s words as truth. He must be right; I must be a failure. Roy often looked for ways to get me out of his hair, even when it meant sending me to church. One day when I was ten years old, an old bus operated by a couple in their eighties came into our neighborhood to pick up kids to take them to Sunday School. Seeing a great opportunity to get rid of me for a few hours, Roy put me on the bus. When we arrived at Sunday School, we were escorted to our classrooms according to age. My teacher looked a lot like Roy Clark from the television show Hee Haw. At the time, I really liked that show and began to loosen up a bit. The Roy Clark lookalike showed us a big bag of coins. He told us that each Sunday, he would read from the Bible, and then the following Sunday, he would ask questions about what we had read. He explained that each question we answered correctly was worth a certain amount of money. This got my attention, because my family wasn’t too well off. I listened closely to what the teacher read. I even asked for a Bible so I could study at home. The first Sunday I made $16! The teacher was amazed. Each week, I studied and answered questions. I brought home so much money, my stepfather accused me of stealing from the church. Finally, the teacher began to pay me $10 just to keep my hand down so other kids could have a chance to answer. Even though things were bad at home, I could always look forward to my Sunday School class. They were the best hours of my whole week. Of course, I really liked making money, but I also enjoyed all the Bible stories. The Roy Clark look-alike really made the whole experience enjoyable. But as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. When I turned eleven, I was put into a class for older kids. And just like that, bye-bye money and bye-bye cool Sunday School teacher. I was very disappointed. I did make a friend in this new class, however. Since I didn’t have many friends at the time, this was a nice addition. The only problem was, this kid was totally anti-Christ. He hated even the mention of Jesus’s name. He was there only because he had to be. I found myself stuck in the middle. On the one hand, I liked hearing about Jesus and all the other people in the Bible. On the other, I really liked this kid. It was nice having a friend. I would start out listening to the preacher, but then I’d get caught up with this kid, making fun and playing around. He told me these people were just there to brainwash me. I was torn. A couple of weeks after meeting this guy, a woman preacher came to our church. She was a real hellfireand-brimstone preacher, if you know what I mean. HE IS HOLY; HE IS LOVE. HE IS JUST AND MERCIFUL AND FULL OF GRACE. BUT TO ME, MORE THAN ANYTHING, HE IS PERSISTENT. She yelled and cried and told us we shouldn’t smoke or do other things to defile our bodies. She seemed so serious and genuine about what she was saying, but my anti-Christ buddy was laughing the whole time. I laughed right along with him, even though I was halfheartedly believing what she said. After the service, my friend and I went to the bus to be taken home. Wouldn’t you know it, there was the woman who had just been preaching to us about not defiling our bodies—and what was she doing? She had lit up a cigarette in the church parking lot and was hanging all over some man who wasn’t her husband. My buddy began jumping up and down in the bus, yelling, “See! I told you it was all a bunch of crap! Look, she ain’t even married, and she’s practically jumping that guy’s bones in the church parking lot. And she’s smoking!” In my young, eleven-year-old mind, I was thinking the same thing. How could I have been so dumb to almost have fallen for this load of crap? And just like that, my Jesus days were over. I refused to go back to church after that incident. Life went on. I made a few new friends, compliments of my anti-Christ buddy, but they were all just like me…miserable! They, too, had messed-up families in one way or another. Pretty soon, they introduced me to cigarettes, weed, and alcohol. To pay for my new habits, I started stealing. By the age of sixteen, I’d quit school and moved in with one of my so-called best friends. It was in his home that I was introduced to heavy drugs of all kinds. More than once, I almost died from an overdose. You would think these near-death experiences would wake me up, but they didn’t. For years I continued this cycle. One day my boss, who’d noticed I was having trouble staying awake on the forklift, introduced me to crystal meth. One hit, and I was addicted. I simply couldn’t function without it, even though I could clearly see the physical toll the stuff was taking on my body. I looked like death, and I felt like death. In less than six months, I went from 180 continued on page 20 www.kojministries.org 15
Page 1 and 2: REAL PEOPLE | REAL STORIES | REAL H
Page 3 and 4: *Three pending World Records The ex
Page 5 and 6: Table of Contents Issue 3 2015 4 No
Page 7 and 8: Ugly Houses and Beautiful Flowers b
Page 9 and 10: On Assignment by Bonnie Hagemann Se
Page 11 and 12: REDEEMING LOVE | from page 10______
Page 13: AN ITALIAN FALL | from page 12_____
Page 17 and 18: Photo Credit: AP Press In this Jan.
Page 19 and 20: Left: Murf hits the waves for the f
Page 21 and 22: A PERSISTENT GOD | from page 20____
Page 23 and 24: HAPPY FEET by James Islam Life was
Page 25 and 26: TIME ON MY HANDS | from page 24____
Page 27 and 28: 56,OOO MAGAZINES PRINTED SO FAR IN
Page 29 and 30: Me Mode by Nate Miller Much of what
Page 31 and 32: Thank you to the following organiza

VL - Issue 17 - August 2015

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