Grabbing my cell phone on Friday morning, June 26, the first thing I saw was a group text I share with my two daughters. Tapping the message, I saw an image of the weather forecast for Columbus, Ohio for that Friday to Monday. Sunday showed cloudy with 51% precipitation expected. Weird, right? I smiled and gave God praise!
That image was sent to my phone at 10:04 PM the prior night. Only a designer who is planning a photo shoot would keep such a keen eye on the weather! Please indulge me so I can testify!
“I’m worried about the weather,” she said. “My photo shoot is Sunday and the weather shows rain and thunder storm.”
“De-Ann, trust God to change the weather,” I replied. “You don’t understand. Now I would have to find another date. I already have things planned out . . .” her frustration mounted.
“De-Ann,” I said, “Let me remind you of God and how He works. When I led Fun Day and VBS 2018 at Mizpah SDA Church, two weeks prior to the fun day, members kept telling me of the weather forecast for the fun day. It was scheduled to rain cats and dogs! We planned bounce rentals, outdoor games - fun galore for the community.
“Sister Fiona, you should change the date,” members constantly reminded me. “Nope! I’m not changing the date. I will pray instead,” I told them. People looked at me as if I was out of my mind.
The Saturday night before the fun day, my now deceased sister-in-Christ, June (RIP, J) and me, through pouring rain completed our last minute shopping for the fun day. The following morning, the day of fun, I was up at 5:00 a.m. Rain was pouring. Looking outside, I felt down, but immediately I spoke to my spirit and began preparing to leave home for the fun day. We had a lot of cooking and other preparation to accomplish. By 6:00 AM, I was about to leave the house.
I grabbed my umbrella. Opening it at the door, I literally heard the Spirit speaking: You prayed for sunshine, where are you going with that umbrella? Immediately I closed the umbrella, placed it in a corner in my house and proceeded through the rain to my car.
Picking up J, the rain was still falling but she left her house with no umbrella. Entering the car, she said, “Well, God has to show up today where this rain is concerned.”
“Indeed He has to,” I replied.
Reaching the church, it was still raining. We paused in the car and prayed again regarding the rain. It was fun day! We needed to have fun without rain!
We unloaded items from the car in the rain, discussed the fact that we needed to place a sign on the post regarding parking. After unpacking, I wrote the sign and proceeded outside to place it on the post.
Opening the church door and stepping outside, something stopped me. There was NO rain! Just a few minutes before, when we arrived at the church the rain was still pouring. It was early but the sun was peeking through the clouds! I raced back into the church, found June in the kitchen, told her the news and we started shouting praises to God!
This was a big thing because everyone at church knew of the fun day and was skeptical of the threat of rain. We said nothing but people kept finding June and me and exclaiming how great the weather was. But there is always a Doubtful Thomas – One of the brothers who warned us about rain showed up in his rain gear with a big, long umbrella.
“What are you doing with that umbrella and dressed like that when you know we were praying against the rain?” I asked. His response is not worth repeating.””
I wasn’t sure my daughter was convinced after hearing of what God had done and can do again. A few days later she called complaining about the rain still being in the forecast and was wondering if she should change her photo shoot date.
“De-Ann,” I said, “Do not call me again complaining about the weather forecast for June 28. Trust God for yourself and see what He can do!”
The next thing I heard from her about the weather was the image she sent last Thursday night, showing a change in the forecast from 80% chance of rain to 51% precipitation. On Saturday she sent another image showing 30% chance of rain. Sunday morning she called me from the Indian Runs Falls Park, declaring answered prayers.
“Even the sun is out!” she exclaimed. Jeremiah 33:3 encourages us: “Call to me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”
What a mighty God we serve! No man can stop the rain or change the course of the weather. There is no doubt that had to be God stepping in for her like He promised. We just need to exercise our faith. When we pray, we need to leave the situation to God, and transform to expectation mode.
THANK YOU LORD!
- Contributed by FH