Hope for Your Heart: Finding Strength in Life's Storms (7 page)

Lightweight, but with high holding power, the fluke anchor buries itself in the watery bottom, working best in sand, mud, or clay.
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Jesus is our anchor.
Like the fluke anchor, Jesus stabilizes us with a powerful hold. He is strong and steady, yet His presence brings us peace—a lightness even amidst difficult circumstances (poor choices, money problems, prodigal loved ones, painful accusations). When we struggle within ourselves and question our decisions . . . when we have unforeseen challenges and changes . . . when we doubt who we are and even doubt who
He
is, Jesus anchors us with His power and peace.

Biblical example
: Jesus sent the disciples ahead of Him by boat to the other side of the lake so He could have time alone to pray. In the middle of the night Jesus walked toward the boat . . . on the water. Astonished, Peter instantly wanted to join Jesus on the water. Jesus said, “Come,” and Peter did! He stepped out and began to walk, but then his faith was swallowed up by fear. As he took his eyes off Jesus, Peter faltered with fear, started to sink, and cried out. Jesus then reached out and rescued him.

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. (Matt. 14:28–32)

Jesus has proven Himself to be my personal “fluke” anchor
amidst tumultuous trials and painfully poor choices. My years as a church youth director again come to mind. For weeks someone had been maliciously placing nails on the ramps into the church parking garage. All staff members were asked to be on the lookout for the culprit. I soon received word that a ninth grader in my division, whom I’ll call Dave Todd, was to blame.

I really liked Dave, “all boy” that he was. But it was my job to inform his parents of the disturbing news. Dave’s mother was a kind and well-regarded Vacation Bible School teacher at our church. It didn’t take long to locate her. After broaching the topic of Dave’s misconduct, I told her where the security officer was holding Dave.
If I
were a parent, I’d want to know
, I told myself.

That evening I received an irate phone call from Dave’s father, a highly influential lawyer. “How dare you talk to mywife in front of her friend?” (To be candid, I was so focused on finding Mrs. Todd, I didn’t realize anyone else was around!) “Meet me at your office tomorrow morning,” he demanded. “And you had better be ready to make your statements about my son stand up in court!”

Petrified, I envisioned a gut-wrenching showdown. It was that and more. At the beginning of the early-morning conference, which lasted three hours, I apologized to Mrs. Todd. “Sharing about Dave in front of your friend was totally insensitive, and I am so terribly sorry,” I told her. “Would you forgive me?” She said she would.

However, the momentary relief I felt following her gracious response was quickly overshadowed by Mr. Todd. I can truthfully say that up to that point in my life I had never been talked to in such a manner. He would ask a question, and as I began my answer, he would cut me off mid-sentence with sarcastic antagonism. Over and over again I was dismissed, disregarded, disrespected.

As my mock trial continued—filled with yelling, accusations about my character, and threats to have me fired—I chose to say nothing. Instead I spoke silently to God. Soon Proverbs 16:7 began to anchor me in the Lord’s unchanging truth: “When a man’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him.”

In the end I was not fired from my job. Instead I learned an important lesson: “Praise in public, confront in private.”And I learned about God’s surpassing greatness as a stabilizing anchor in my life.

Plow anchors are typically massive and heavy and are often able to swivel. Versatile and adaptable, they are effective in rock, kelp, grass, weeds, sand, and mud (though not in heavy grass).
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Jesus is our anchor.
Like the plow anchor, Jesus stabilizes us when all we can see around us are problems. With the plow anchor’s swivel capabilities comes an agility and adeptness to anchor. Jesus anchors us even through life’s most difficult circumstances—the death of a loved one or a devastating diagnosis, for example. When our problems are overwhelming and what we see saddens our soul, Jesus never fails to be our anchor.

Biblical example
: Early in His ministry, Jesus traveled to Capernaum, where he was approached by a high-ranking Roman soldier, a centurion in charge of a hundred men. The man’s beloved servant was paralyzed and in deep pain, and his only hope for relief was healing from the Son of God Himself. Jesus agreed to go to the centurion’s home and heal the servant, but the centurion respectfully stopped Him. In recognition of Jesus’ authority and power, he humbly professed, “Only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”
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Jesus marveled at the centurion’s powerful confession of faith and said He’d seen nothing like it in all of Israel. And then He healed the suffering servant.

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour. (Matt. 8:13)

Jesus has proven Himself to be my personal “plow” anchor
amidst one of the most painful losses of my life—the death of my precious mother. In 1998 Mother was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer. She died the following year at age eighty-three. A kinder, more humble, thoughtful, and loving woman I have never known.

Washington Irving said, “A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
⁷

Such was the case with my mother. I don’t know how it would have been possible to love another mother more than I loved her. How I treasure the incredibly precious times I shared with Mom during the last year of her life. One Sunday evening holds an especially tender place in my heart.

Ravaged by cancer, for the entire weekend Mother had no sleep—not even an hour—and she had become uncharacteristically restless, frequently trying to get out of bed, yet still hooked up to an IV tube. Meanwhile her hospice nurse was unable to comfort her.

I arrived at midnight, hoping to help. When I began singing softly to her, the music calmed her. So I slipped into bed beside her and just put my arm around her. Then she gently placed her head on my shoulder. For the first time in seventy-two hours, she was calm as I sang hymns of faith to her, along with all of her fun favorites, for six hours straight. We would often sing together, “You’ve Got to Accen-tuate the Positive.”

Never will I forget the love in her eyes throughout the early morning hours, Mother gazing up at me doe-like during this musical marathon. Around 5:00 a.m. she finally drifted into a peaceful slumber.

Though I knew our time together was short, God graciously anchored my soul—my mind, will, and emotions—in the painful, yet comforting truth that one day it would be far better for Mother to be “away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). To all who knew her, it was evident that God’s peace, favor, and comfort rested upon my mother, whose hope remained steadfastly in Him until the moment she took her last breath on earth and entered into the Savior’s waiting arms.

After my mother’s death, Eleanor, one of my dearest friends, confided that by watching Christ anchor me during this painful time of loss, she had rock-solid hope during her own beloved mother’s homegoing that she too would be anchored by Christ.

Originally designed for offshore gas and oil rigs, claw anchors are most effective on rocky, gravel, and coral bottoms.
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Jesus is our anchor.
Like the claw anchor, Jesus stabilizes us when we are victimized . . . when verbal abuse, violence, or sexual abuse claws the heart and batters the body, leaving us emotionally and spiritually scarred. For the times when we feel powerless and preyed upon, Jesus is our powerful anchor, holding us strong and secure.

Biblical example
: Jesus one day told His disciples that they would all go across to the other side of the lake. Once on the water, Jesus fell into a deep sleep and was not awakened by a powerful storm that swamped the boat. The experienced crew believed they would surely drown! In desperation they cried out to Jesus. With only a few words He calmed the storm.

The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to drown!” He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. “Where is your faith?” he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement they asked one another, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him.” (Luke 8:24–25)

Jesus has proven Himself to be my personal “claw” anchor
during one of the darkest times of my life—a time when a traitorous “friend” stealthily sought to sabotage our ministry . . . and me.

“Julie” came to Hope For The Heart from another highly regarded ministry. In fact, I didn’t recruit her—she recruited me. “God told me I need to come help you,” she announced confidently during our first conversation. I was humbled and overjoyed that our little ministry, only a few years old at the time, could attract such an experienced pro with what sounded like a stellar record of achievements. What’s more, the head of our ministry had moved to Canada to follow her husband’s career reassignment.
God sent Julie to me just in time
, I thought.

But six months after her arrival, odd, inexplicable things began happening around the ministry with growing regularity. Unwise expenditures were authorized with my approval . . . except I
hadn’t
approved them. A key ministry relationship was terminated at my request . . . except I
hadn’t
requested it. Hurtful accusations about our staff were attributed to me . . . except I
hadn’t
said them.

Before my eyes, everything our team had worked so hard to build . . . including our staff’s
esprit de corps
—suddenly seemed to be unmoored and drifting out to sea. I knew something was horribly wrong, yet I was unable to ascertain the source.

One day, about a year and a half after Julie’s arrival, I was feeling frustrated and confused. Then after a board meeting to help other ministries, I sighed under my breath, “It’s wonderful to help others, but I can’t help myself.”

Unknown to me, my lament had been overheard by an astute businessman who had been standing at an angle far behind me. John immediately followed up, pressing me to explain. Though embarrassed and a bit ashamed, I finally told him about the ministry’s mysterious woes and how powerless I felt to stop them.

John immediately asked permission to conduct a thorough investigation, and I agreed. After three weeks he revealed his findings. “June,” he bluntly said, “you have a snake in the grass, and that snake is Julie.”

John presented incontrovertible evidence of Julie’s fraudulent, unethical practices, corroborated by countless staff, vendors, and other colleagues with whom John had spoken, individuals reluctant to come to me because of lies they’d been told. Earlier I knew about a few little white lies; however, I had let them slide.

Armed with the truth, I terminated Julie’s employment. Even after her departure, I learned more about how she had sought to pit one staff member against another.

Little by little, equilibrium began to return . . . to the ministry, to the staff, and to my life. With it came the blessed reminder that through one of the darkest storms of my life, one that threatened the very life of this ministry as none other before or since, God did, in fact, serve as my anchor, stabilizing me.

In the midst of the pain Jeremiah 29:11, the ministry’s theme verse, comforted me time and again: “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

Throughout this ordeal,I was given a divine opportunity to do for myself what I have counseled thousands of
Hope In The Night
callers to do: “Hold on to hope.” By taking my own advice, I learned two priceless lessons: First, confront any and every breach of integrity, and second, Jesus is my Anchor, and He is holding me.

Don’t give up the hope to which He has anchored you . . . hold on and keep on holding!