Empowering Women To Walk In God's Glory

When I was but four years old, I witnessed an incident that shook my sense of protection. This event is one of the most lucid memories living in my head today. There we were, my sister Karen and I, with our mother in our kitchen. We were screaming and trying to rescue Mom.

My mother was being choked and had obviously been hit numerous times. Bruises colored her soft flesh, which I loved to nestle on under more tender circumstances. And here I was witnessing one of the pillars of my life marred and abused. She was the one who cuddled me, bathed my body, and sang spiritual songs as she cooked for us, cleaned the house, and went about the tedious yet rewarding career of mom-in-chief. The devastation that day measured 8.0 on the Richter scale.

My little 4-year-old heart pulsed with seizure after seizure as I helplessly and with grim defeat tried to save my mother. Karen, 9 years old, threatened to pour hot boiling water on the evil man who now stood between me and soundness of mind. He pushed her away with his size and vehement threats. An intruder?A robber? A ghoulish figure had slid into our house from the front door.

From then, even into my twenties, every ambulatory sound, emergency alarm, or alert tugged on my heart, making me fearful that my mother was again in danger. Whether I was blacking out circles on my Scantron test card at school, playing tetta ball or hopscotch, I’d jump and cringe at certain sounds. At school I feared being called to the principal’s office to be told my mother had been found dead. The ambivalence of trust in God and worrying myself to death was torturous.

Fast forward 40 years and I sat in my hotel room pecking away at the computer keys composing this vignette. Streams of opposition glared at me from the dark corners of the room, compelling me... “Don’t you dare reveal family secrets.”

I pushed against the mental haranguing with a sharp rebuke because I wanted little girls and women all over the world to hear my story. And, more importantly, how it ended. On that miserable day for Karen and me, our lives were spared. And so was my mother’s. We lived out Psalm 91:10,11 in the way a family rides out a night storm – only to find themselves safe and unharmed in the morning. What was most astounding is that this incident never led to a greater sin or crime. And my mother uncovered a biblical promise which protected us from future evil:

“No evil shall befall you, Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling; For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.” (NKJV)

Karen and I often reminisce about that clear-skied day gone grey and confusing for two innocent girls. The clarity and sweetness of our brief lives turned into a purple haze.

Now when we look back, we don’t shudder or cower in fear like we’d done in September 1971. A sense of peace and freedom fills us due to God’s grace, which demolished the shame and scars we once wore.

All I can say is that the Word of God is filled with promises that work. Learned from my mother, I have tested and tried every ounce and bushel of Psalm 91 since that time…

Still, God is even more wonderful than what I can communicate. There’s no wonder Ray Lewis, the former linebacker for the 2013 Super Bowl Champion Baltimore Ravens, wears this Scripture on his t-shirt.

In Jesus I know there is a Hiding Place.