Hopeless and confused, describes how I was feeling in 2015 after hearing from several doctors that I would need surgery.  So, waiting to see the neurosurgeon for my herniated discs, I didn’t have any hope for recovery apart from surgery. As I reclined on the sofa, also recovering from a bout of vertigo, our youngest daughter and her husband came by to give me a belated Mother’s Day gift. I will never forget how beautiful she looked that day. As she walked around the sofa and handed me a small piece of paper, I understood why she was beaming, and even seemed to be glowing. My gift was a sonogram printout of my “in utero” grandchild! Unfortunately, shock overshadowed any elation I might have felt.

My mind raced: “how would I be any help? How involved could I be as a grandmother? I could hardly walk to the bathroom on…

That incredible Friday, June 26, 1981, I left the church as Mrs. Rodney Alan Phillips! I could not wait for the night of becoming “Mr. & Mrs.” and now it was a reality. The ceremony was superb from the singing to the reading of 1 Corinthians 13, The Love Chapter, with the reciting of our vows thrown in. I just knew our love could survive through whatever came our way. I was 18 and he was 21, and the thought of making a home “free from disturbances” filled me with so much hope. And 1 Corinthians 13 solidified my desire for being on the receiving end of that type of sacrificial love. I fancied keeping the home while “Mr.” brought the ultimate sacrifice of warming it with that atoning adoration.

Shortly after leaving the church that night, we drove into the bay of a car wash in Kinder, Louisiana…

Have you ever been rescued from a scary plight you ignorantly got yourself into? Well, it is possible there were many, but one perilous circumstance took place while experiencing college life as a middle-aged teen. Being somewhat gullible and not to mention naïve, I allowed myself to be escorted by a guy I had just met. He seemed nice enough. But as his tour left the college campus and soon, with a blanket of darkness covering the sky, I stared over a precipice beholding a beautiful city ablaze in lights. After being “starstruck,” I became eerily aware of my surroundings which had faces gawking from behind paper-sacked bottles.

That night I literally felt God shut the mouths of Lions just as He had with Daniel of old (Daniel 6)! But Daniel was not in the den of lions because of any careless act! Daniel was in the Lion’s den because…