I'm just a common housewife……in the fast lane. I know that ‘the fast lane’ makes it sound like I might lead a certain kind of life but I am pretty sure it isn’t what it might appear depending on what those words mean to you.

A blogger, writing on blog titles and giving humorous corresponding comments wrote that mine “was every male drivers worst nightmare”. A fifties teenage boy might have a different interpretation when the word fast was used to mean something else. I used this play on words when I chose to embark on my last fast, which is something I do for spiritual warfare purposes.

Believe me, I do not see myself as anyone special. I don't view myself or my life as anything worthy of anyone elses attention. I am common, I have no special earthly gifts. I can read music and took four years of piano and clarinet lessons but I am certain that you would NOT want to hear me play. I am good with children, I have alot of insights there, but I know for a fact that there are better ones out there. I have been a faithful wife, I'm an attentive grandmother, and I try to love everyone that comes my way.....yet, I know there are many wonderful people out there that can and do as much or more than I do. The only thing that I have that is worth anything in this world is something that God did not give me especial at birth. He gave it to me when I received Him as my Savior and He has caused me to grow daily in it. I went through many years of struggling just to hang onto what little I had. With no encouragment and no leadership, I just dug my heels in and kept after God. I got baptised in the Spirit at the altar of the little Baptist church in our town even though they don't preach that there. That's another testimony. I just wanted God so bad that I wasn't going to let Him go....even when things were hard, even when I couldn't hear Him, even when I didn't know which way to turn. Faith, that's all I really have. In the end, when I stand before the Lord, it will be all I still have.

Jesus, speaking to his disciples, told them that sometimes, even when our hearts are right before God, we do not manifest the power that He would like for us to because certain demons do not respond except by prayer and fasting.

“There was a man who came to Jesus and knelt before Him saying, ‘Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him’”

“Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.” “

“Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out? So Jesus said to them,

BECAUSE OF YOUR UNBELIEF; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there’, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

HOWEVER, THIS KIND DOES NOT COME OUT BUT BY PRAYER AND FASTING.”

When I talk about having faith for healing one of the thing I am accused of saying is that people who don’t get healed didn’t have faith. People get very upset about that. I’m not saying that they don’t have faith for salvation, or even faith for healing. But there is some kind of unbelief there somewhere. Is it such a shame to admit that we don’t know our own hearts? What is the shame in saying that we don’t know everything about God? I cannot count the times I have thrown myself before the Lord in weakness and confusion and told Him I don’t understand. I am certain that I will do that on and off for the rest of my earthly life. I DON’T know all there is about God. But the things I DO know, I KNOW.

We are all growing in faith, amen? None of us have cornered the market on it. Obviously there are people in the Body of Christ who have an anointing for healing but I think that is only because they have pressed into God to find it more than the average Sunday morning Christian has.

I do not claim to have all the answers here, and I am sojourning here just as everybody else is....but I believe that Jesus set the standard for us, He role modeled what He wanted us to do, and all we have to do is read the Word with an open heart and with a desire to live like Jesus lived.

Jesus said that we are not seeing the miracles we are praying for because we have unbelief. If Jesus said it, then why are people upset when I say it? I do not believe it is God’s will that there be a few and far between ‘super-Christians’ who seem to have an anointing that no one else is entitled to. I believe that God gives us these Christians to show us that He CAN do these things, WANTS to do these things, and wants to do the same through US. If we think that only THEY have this anointing, and don’t press into God to receive it for ourselves, then what difference is there between New Testament Christians and the Old Testament Jews?

When our prayers go unanswered, or a loved one is not healed when we prayed, many times, in our pride, we feel the need to make excuses about why it wasn’t our fault.

“Well, it was God’s will.”

I’m sorry, I don’t believe this lie from the pit of hell anymore. Oh, doesn’t Satan just love it when we blame everything on God? And in our pseudo-spirituality, we like to say, ‘oh, no, I’M not blaming GOD!’ but it’s my opinion that we absolutely do, if even in the confines of our own heart. Every unanswered prayer, every untimely death, every unanswered plea for healing, pricks at us and tries to suffocate that faith and joy that God has so freely given us.

“Satan is the one that comes to kill, steal and destroy. Jesus said that HE came to bring life and that more abundantly” (John 10:10).

Once you get a revelation of the life that Jesus wants to bring to your life, your children’s life, your friends life, your church’s life, you will become as defiant as I have and you will accept nothing less. Suddenly you will begin to see infertility as a curse, not as a blessing.

I had a young guy friend who got married and had a child around the same time my daughter had my first grandchild. About four years ago. We had fun exchanging e-mail photos of our babies. One day he was in town visiting his parents and stopped over. I told him the testimony about my daughter’s conception (the one I shared a couple days ago) and that got me apreachin’ about infertility and how that is never God’s will.

He rebuked me. Just think, here I am, old enough to be his mother and he is rebuking me! Harshly! He actually got that real low condescending voice going, and even rolled his eyes. “Connneeeee”. Writing it does not convey the depth of his concern for my mental health. “You don’t reeeeaaalllly beleeeeeve that, doooo you?” It was all over his face. A cross between a smirk and concern for my well-being. This guy who was in youth group during my days there, was now thinking that I’m agettin’ ‘too radical with this thing’. He told me that he knew a young couple who is infertile and was in the process of adoption. “Just think, Connie, this little baby wouldn’t have been adopted if they hadn’t been infertile”.

O Lord Jesus, help me now! We were in my living room where I have a wall that we call the ‘wall of fame’. It has nine 10x16 size pictures, one each of all my children. I was dumbfounded by the fact that he would make that ignorant statement to me, knowing all the adopting we have done in the past ten years. I just pointed to my wall and struggled to get my voice....

I said, “You think I don’t know anything about the children that need to be adopted out there? First of all, because of all the abortions there is a very long waiting list to adopt newborns, in some cases many years, and secondly, it is not God’s will for a godly Christian couple to be unable to conceive if that is what she and her husband desire.”

Hasn’t it occurred to ANYONE else out there that there are millions of promiscuous teenagers out there getting pregnant all over the place and having abortions or giving birth to children at uncommonly young ages, but there is an epidemic of godly Christian adults who are being told by doctors that they cannot conceive? How does anyone explain this inequity if you do not believe that it is a devil that wants to steal your godly heritage from you? It’s just coincidence? You will never convince me. If a couple doesn’t want a child it is not an issue for them, but if they do, it is highway robbery.

Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Now, let me just state that the prerequisite to Him giving you the desires of your heart, is you delighting yourself in Him....but please notice, He WANTS to give you the desires of your heart. He doesn’t want to withhold a good thing from you! He said that “all GOOD gifts come from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). Isn’t a baby a GOOD thing? WHY would God want to withhold this from any Christian married couple?

Now, remember….if you are in no way interested in God, you don’t seek Him, you have no desire to accept Christ or serve Him, what responsibility does He have toward you? If you don’t know His Word and don’t accept the Word as the literal Word of God, don’t care about His promises to those who are in Christ Jesus, than the God of the Bible owes you nothing. That goes for every area of life.

On the other hand, if you do accept that Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, God come in the flesh, and you have committed yourself to live for Him, then you are a guaranteed recipient of His promises.....but not you don’t believe it and don’t want to trust Him for it. You still have to believe them and appropriate them for yourself. You have to get rid of your UNBELIEF!

I have had this unbelief, and I may still have some for all I know, because I agree with Jeremiah that my heart is deceitful above all things. I do not place myself above anyone else in this matter. I think we are all working our salvations out with fear and trembling. I freely admit that I don’t have all the answers but when I have an issue that is affecting my life I am going to seek out God on it. I know that when I’m told that I am being denied a grandchild, I’m going to do whatever I have to do, even giving up a few unneeded meals to make it happen.

I have used infertility as the focal point in this essay because I gave my testimony on that the other day, but I believe that this also holds true for any type of healing. I cannot give you the answer for every situation but I will never be convinced, for the rest of my life, to put circumstance over God’s Word. Jesus healed everyone that came to Him, even some that didn’t even ask, but just touched His robe. I know of no story in the Bible where He refused anyone.

As a last note, I would like to remind the reader of the scripture I quoted. Some of these things do not come out but by prayer and fasting. I’m sorry if fasting is hard for you. It has always been hard for me too. But I would encourage you, if you consider yourself a born again Christian to investigate this method of warfare and begin to use it for the purpose of building your faith, seeking God’s purposes and in a direct defiance to the plans of the enemy that have, and will continue to, come against your family. I am not willing to settle for second best for the people I love. I may not be able to change everything....or anything by my prayers and fasting....but I’ll go to my grave fasting and praying that I do.

Today is April 1st, 2006. I am five days away from being 53 years old. I remember when I was a kid and I was thinking ahead to the year 2000. I thought, “oh, I will be forty-seven then…..that is soooo old…..practically dead!”

I remember walking to and from my high school each school day. It was about 1½ miles from my home. There was a very old woman who used to walk to the store about the same time in the afternoon every day after school.

I would look at her....stare at her was more like it....I don’t know how old she was, but she seemed ancient. She was white-haired and stooped. She moved very slowly and determinedly, while my friend and I walked quickly, ran at times, even with loads of books in our arms (backpacks were for camping in those days!), jumped over puddles, climbed up on snow banks in the winter and tossed snowballs at each other. We laughed about inane things and talked about what we would do if we ever had a million dollars. Getting old sure wasn’t in our future plans. I looked at the lady across the street, plowing along at a snails pace and I felt sorry for her...but then I had another thought.

“I don’t want that EVER to be ME!” I was looking at the outward, hobbling deformity of her body. I had no thought to whatever inward beauty or wisdom there might be. I think I may have actually hoped to be dead before I got to that age.

Sometime after that I accidently walked in on my mother while she was changing. My mother was a very beautiful woman in her day. Even at her elderly age now men still show interest. At eighty years old she was asked by a long time friend to marry him. She turned him down, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t interested. I remember the look of her middle aged body though, so unlike my newly budding one, somewhat sagging after five children, and many years of living. I remember thinking again, “I don’t want that EVER to be ME!”

I visited a nursing home for the first time when I was a teenager. It was a nice one by most standards. Yet, I remember the stuffy, unventilated smells of life and humanity, and I saw old people in wheelchairs lined up and down the hallway. As I walked past them they made incoherent statements to me and I alternately looked away and peeked at them with some fear and loathing. Not that I didn’t feel sorry for them or have compassion....I just didn’t ever want to BE them. Somewhere in the back of my mind I made the decision that I would not.

My conclusion was that I didn’t want to be old....and that I wouldn’t be. Now I tell my kids, ‘grow old or die young’. Some people would say to ‘die young and you will leave a better looking corpse’. Just as my youthful thoughts were very ignorant, so is that statement.

I didn’t think of the wonderful things that happen when one is old, which I’m sure my young readers are struggling to imagine as they read this. It was inconceivable to me that anything could be good about being old. At least as good as when one is young. When one is young you have that feeling of being on top of the world, carefree and innocent, being young and active and being able to do what ever one wants to do with no constraints but that which is put on you by adults.

I made the inane decision in my head that I was NOT going to be old. I was going to be young forever…..that must be what the Bible calls the ‘folly of youth’. The things we think that are not true, but we think we can make them true just because we think them.

I’m not as old as the people in the nursing home….I’m not even as old as the woman limping up the street while I sauntered down. I don’t remember how old my mom was the day I walked in on her, but I’m pretty sure I’m older now than she was then. She wasn't a grandmother yet and she was a young one, while I was not.

I’m old enough to be a grandmother.

I’m old enough to have picked up a box of apples the other day and to still feel the pain in my back, two days later, when I felt a muscle complain. That pain gets better as the day goes on but when I arise in the morning I am so stiff that I am more hobbled than the woman on the street.

I’m old enough to have to hand over my younger granddaughters when I stand up because I am fearful of walking with them, holding them in my arms while I am walking, just in case I might trip. I didn’t feel that way even four years ago when I babysat for, and carried, my oldest grandson everywhere.

I am old enough to feel so tired at the end of the day that I can’t even think straight and my eyes are blurry. I am old enough that when I want to do my crossword puzzle I need my middle-aged granny glasses, the same kind my mother used to wear, to help me see the numbers. I never wore glasses before and am finding them a nuisance. I can still see the clues without them, if I squint hard enough, but I will put the wrong answer in the wrong box because I cannot make the numbers out at all. Since I’ve always had a penchant for doing the puzzle in ink it makes quite a mess if I don’t have my glasses with me!

I’m old enough now to have changed my mind.....and to know that the change isn’t based on conceit that might come from old age, or fear of death, but on the humility that life can breed.

I’m old enough to know that it is better to be old and feeble yet to possess wisdom, than to be young and stupid.

I’m old enough to know that a dinner of herbs and a dry morsel with quietness and love, is better, especially when spent with one close friend or family, than a steak dinner eaten with hateful, nasty folk.

I’m old enough to know that pleasant words, not those sassy, sarcastic, putdowns that I have heard on annoying TV sitcoms, are like honeycomb…they are sweet to the soul and health to the bones.

I’m old enough to know that children’s children are the crown of old men....and women too. Even to the unsaved. This is a non-sectarian crown. Let me just tell you about them grandchildren again....

I’m old enough to know that the name of the Lord is a strong tower and that whenever I have run to it I am saved. I’m old enough to know that in quietness and repentance I have found my salvation.

I am old enough to know that the discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, but the contentions of a wife are a continual dripping, which is why I work very hard at not being that nagging hen-pecker that is so aggravating to be around.

I’m old enough to know that laziness causes deep sleep and that slackers can get to the point where they are so lazy that they won’t even lift their hand to their mouth to eat.

I’m old enough to know that he who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord and the Lord, Himself, will repay whatever is given.

I’m old enough to know that death and life are in the power of my own tongue and that I will reap the fruit of whatever I speak.

I am old enough to know that I would rather be poor than to be a liar.

I am old enough to know that strong drink is a mocker and a brawler and it is not a wise choice, which is why, even though I grew up with very respectable social drinkers, I still do not imbibe and have cautioned my children from such use.

I’m old enough to know that a good name is better than great riches and even if you don’t have a good name with men that you can still keep your heart pure before God and that is even better.

I’m old enough to know that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child and that discipline, which is training, not punishment as some think, and which is uncommon these days, will drive it from them

I’m old enough to know that without the hope of heaven… without the knowledge that there IS something more, this life becomes about “being born, living and dying, and going in to the ground”.... with no hope.

I am old enough to know that my outward shell may be dying, but my inward man is being renewed day by day.

I don’t believe in God because I want to assuage some fear of being left in a coffin with nothing to look forward to at the end of my days. I believe in God because if I don’t, life....this life, is as Solomon the Preacher said, vanity. ‘All is vanity’. I have lived long enough to know that a life lived in and for Christ is not vain.

The Lord has taught me to number my days that I might gain a heart of wisdom. He has taught me that this life is temporal and it passes like vapor into the air. It is like the rose that buds and blooms and then withers and dies.

That’s what I was seeing when I was 15. The withering and dying...but I couldn’t see past that. I couldn’t see that middle age can be the most fun time of one’s life, depending on how one spends it, but old age can be, depending on how one views it, the most wise, the most settled, and the most close to heaven that we can get while still living here on earth.

I do not claim to have discovered all this wisdom for myself. I contend that I have lived long enough, seen more than enough, and suffered plenty enough to have learned the truth of things that I read from the Word when I was younger and did not comprehend.

If we are unable to see the handiwork of God by the time we have grandchildren, I dare say we never may. I watched all three of mine be born...and there is a miracle in that which will never leave me.

I have talked to atheists about their grandchildren and the same wonder comes to their eyes that I know is in my own. The same desire to show off pictures, talk about the cute things they do, etc. The only difference between these other Papas and Nanas and myself is that I know that my Redeemer lives and I know that I will stand with Him on that day, and because of that I know the Author of my blessings and praise Him. And grandchildren are SUCH a blessing, aren’t they Kozy? People who don’t have them yet don’t know...but you wait, you just wait!

I so loved allowing the Holy Spirit to bring these things to my mind that I think I may do it again sometime. For now though, I hear the second generation of my progeny arising, so I must beg off now. There’s just something about living to see your children’s children. Can I just say that it doesn’t get any better than this on this side of heaven?

I wrote this piece, extemporaneously, without the benefit of scripture in front of me so I did not include the references to my paraphrased verses…….so if you should recognize the plagiarism of my writing as something you may have read from God’s Word, I heartily recommend that you find yourself a concordance, which can be found for free on the internet as well as in book form, and look up the verses, mainly in Proverbs, but a few other books as well, for yourself. I thought about looking them all up for you, dear reader, but the Lord checked my spirit on that and said to leave it to you if you are so inclined. Particularly if you don’t believe my words… but even if you do.