This message was delivered by Sheila Schuller Coleman from the pulpit of the Crystal Cathedral. It was aired during the Hour of Power program on Hong Kong's ATV World Channel on 4 July 2010.
Today, I am continuing our message series, "HA, Hallelujah Anyway!" I'm preaching from my brand new book called "Mommy Power: Discovering your Mommy Strength." The principles found in the book can be applicable to all of our lives, as you will hear, no matter where you are in life, no matter where you are as a mother, a father, or none of the above.
I am so indebted to my parents. They modeled so many wonderful traditions that my husband and I have adopted for our family. One of my favorite traditions is date night. As we were growing up, we saw Mom and Dad go off on a date night every Monday. They would have dinner and take a walk along the beach. They took the time, just the two of them, away from their five kids.
I thought that was a wonderful idea, so when my husband and I got married, we decided we were going to have date night as well. Then, as those four boys came in rapid succession, I got to the point where I was living for date night - one meal a week where I could sit and not have to jump up with spilled milk all over me, or have to navigate a fight between the boys over one strand of spaghetti. You all know what that's like. Mealtimes were not very restful in a home when you're a mom. But date nights, those were fun.
Now, we were blessed to have family members who would babysit for free and they loved it. It gave my siblings a chance to be with their nephews. And mother and father did their fair share of babysitting, as well. This created wonderful memories for our boys.
Nicholas, the youngest of the four, was sick a lot as a little kid. So, one time when Mom and Dad came over to babysit, before we left I said to Mom, "Now Mom, there's some medicine for Nick up on top of the fridge." Everything that I didn't want the boys to get a hold of went on top of the fridge. "Be sure he gets his medicine before he goes to bed."
Then Jim and I left. We had a wonderful dinner, and a wonderful walk along the beach, and then came back home. As we walked in the back door, Dad heard us come in and he said, "Uh-oh, they're home Arvella. Are you going to tell them or shall I?"
"What is it that we need to know, Dad?"
Mom said, "Shh, shh, Bob, I said don't tell them."
I said, "Now you've got to."
Dad said, "Well, she just screamed, she screamed, and screamed."
I'm beginning to wonder what in the world happened. I looked at Mom and she says, "Sheila, I'm so sorry. You remember how you asked me to make sure Nick got his medicine before he went to bed?"
I said, "Yes," as I'm thinking to myself that she must have forgotten to give him his medicine. That's not that big of a deal, but why would that make her scream? "So, Mom, you forgot to give him his medicine?"
"Well no, I remembered to give him his medicine," she said, "but I was worried that I may have given him a teaspoon and it was supposed to be a tablespoon or vice versa so I took down the bottle and I checked the label to make sure that I'd given him the right amount."
Dad said, "That's when she started screaming."
Mom said, "Well, it said ‘for Autumn Coleman.'" Autumn Coleman was our anorexic Irish setter.
"You gave my baby the dog's medicine?"
"He spit and sputtered," said Mom. "I had a hard time getting it down him. I didn't know what to do, so I called the poison control center. The poison control center said, ‘Lady, we've never had anybody call and tell us they gave their grandkid dog medicine before. We don't know what to tell you.'"
They told me that Mom then called the vet who told her the same thing - that never had anybody called to tell them that they'd given dog medicine to a child before. The vet said, "Don't worry; it's just a really strong vitamin."
Nevertheless, Mom was feeling very, very bad about it all. So the next morning she called and she said, "Sheila, I couldn't sleep. I worried about Nicholas all night long. How is he?"
I said, "Mom, I went up and I checked on him and his hair is shiny, his nose is cold, and he's barking orders at me, but otherwise he's just fine." And that's a true story. Nobody could make that up.
Can we laugh, anyway, when things are tough? Can we laugh in the face of anxiety? Can we love in the face of antipathy? You know, that's revulsion. Can we love the unlovable? Can we believe in the face of adversity? Can we forgive in the face of animosity? Today, I hope you will learn how to do these things.
Today many of us are feeling oppressed. We're feeling weary. And what I want to say to you is that victory can be yours. The secret is this: Stop trying to be strong and accept the fact that we are weak. We are weak. Stop trying to do it on your own power. Become less of a self-sufficient adult and more like a dependent child. Acknowledge your powerlessness and acknowledge God's strength. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
The principles in my book, "Mommy Power," are the principles I learned as a young mother. The principles that I use today as a leader are very simple - they're six words: LOVE STRONG, BELIEVE STRONG, and FORGIVE STRONG. Can we learn how to do that? We cannot do it on our own strength. That's the secret.
So, the first is to LOVE STRONG. The movie, "The Blind Side," many of you have seen it. If you haven't, I highly recommend you do. Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award for her acting in that movie. She played the role of Leigh Anne Tuohy. It's a true story. Leigh Anne, a wonderful Christian woman, lived an affluent life with her family - her husband and her two children. Driving toward home on a stormy night, they see a young man walking their way; the rain is pelting him in the dark and cold. She asks her husband to pull over, she jumps out of the car, and she says, "What are you doing? Where are you going to sleep tonight?"
"I don't know," the young man said. He was a big, big boy. A bit rumpled in appearance, she later found out that he was not doing well in school and was flunking absolutely everything. One of thirteen children, he had no parents to speak of. He was somebody that society had overlooked. Somebody that nobody had truly loved until Leigh Anne Tuohy took him home with her. He slept for the first time in his own bed. She hired a tutor. She got him through school. And then Michael Oher became a champion NFL football player. He was adopted as one of their family - now that is strong love.
That is a strong love that God tells us that you and I are not capable of on our own. But He can give that strong love to you and me. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." I can love strong through Christ who strengthens me. My love is weak but His love is strong.
Can you believe in the face of adversity? How are we going to BELIEVE STRONG, men and women? How can we do that?
I'll never forget it was 4 a.m. in the morning. I was a young mother with little boys and the phone rang at 4 a.m. Now we all know what that's like when that phone rings in the middle of the night. Your heart stops and you know something is really wrong. I went with my husband into the room adjacent to the bedroom to answer the phone and I heard Mom's voice. She said, "Sheila I have really bad news for you." You need to know that Dad traveled all the time and we were always hoping that, when he traveled, he would make it home okay. We knew he was in Amsterdam on his way to see the Pope. So, Mom said, "Your father has had an accident. He's in a coma and he's undergoing brain surgery right at this very moment. We do not know what the prognosis will be. We do not know if he will live or die. If he does make it through surgery, we do not know what his condition will be like."
I felt as if my whole world had come tumbling down and I began to sob. My husband asked what was wrong and, as I told him, we both knelt there and prayed immediately for my father, my strong, powerful father who now was lying on a surgical table halfway across the world.
Mom left immediately for Amsterdam and she would call and give us updates on how Dad was doing. He made it through the surgery okay. But we were still not sure of his prognosis; the blood had pooled on the speech side of his brain. My father - who made his living and shared his gift to the world through his words, his talks, his speech - we didn't know if he'd ever regain that. But when I heard his voice on the phone, wow! I can't even begin to tell you what that meant to me. My heart leapt with joy to hear Dad say, "Hi, Sheila," from Amsterdam.
A week had passed after his surgery and we thought he was doing better. Then Mom called and she said, "Sheila, his brain has started to bleed again. He has to go in for a second surgery. Can you come and stay with me?" I immediately jumped on a plane and flew to Amsterdam. I couldn't wait to get there to be by my mother's side, to be by my father's side. I thought that I could be a rock for my mom, that I could be her strength and her shield.
When I arrived, Mom took me straight to the hospital where I saw Dad. I had thought that Dad was doing much better based on what I had been hearing, but what I saw and what I encountered stunned me. His head had been shaved for the surgery. He didn't look anything like my father. And he couldn't talk, really, truly. He couldn't put two words together. He would try to say, "Why am I here?" He couldn't even do that. I had to help him and I thought that this is not my father. I was so shaken by what I saw.
That evening, Mom and I went back to our hotel room and, as I climbed into bed, my insides were just quivering. I looked over to see my mom - I will never forget it, it's etched in my mind, a picture of this woman. She was kneeling at the side of her bed with her book, her prayer book, her Psalms, her Bible, reading one Psalm after another after another, and she was praying. I saw this tremendous woman of God with this strong, strong faith even in the midst of not knowing what in the world was going to happen to her husband.
I waited until I thought she had fallen asleep, and then I crept across the hall to where I knew there was a phone where I thought I could talk privately. I called long distance and got a hold of my husband. I could hardly wait. As soon as he said, "Sheila, hello?" I started to cry. I said, "Jim, Jim you can't even believe it. This isn't Dad. I don't know what's going to happen. I came here and I'm so scared. I'm so scared." Jim prayed with me and he calmed me down. After I blew my nose and wiped my face, I tiptoed back to the room and climbed back in bed thinking Mom never heard.
And then she said to me, "Sheila, are you okay?"
I thought, great. I come all the way to Amsterdam to try to be strong for my mom and she was the one who was strong for me.
Can you believe strong? Can you? I can't. But I can believe strong only through Christ who strengthens me. My belief is weak, but His belief is strong.
FORGIVE STRONG. What do we do when people have hurt us deeply? What do we do? I get e-mails from people and they say, "Sheila, you talked about forgiveness. I can't forgive. Do you want me to forgive my husband, my ex? He beat me. He had affairs on me. You want me to forgive him?"
And I say to you, "Yes, but do not say yes to victimization; say yes to forgiveness. Forgive him not for his sake, but for your sake. Yes, forgive." Forgive strong. How do we do that? How do we forgive when we've been so deeply, deeply hurt?
Years ago in the early days of our church, there was a woman who joined our church. Mom and Dad called her Mom Shug and we kids called her Grandma Shug because all of our extended family lived back in Iowa. Grandma Shug - Bernice was her name - lost her one and only son in World War II to a kamikaze pilot, and she carried that bitterness with her for her whole life. However, she had fallen in love with our family and she asked us, "Will you all be my new family since I lost my family in World War II?"
"Of course," we said. "Yes!" We were thrilled to have Grandma Shug come over after school and make us poppy seed rolls. She was really, truly part of the family.
Then one day, Dad decided to interview a kamikaze pilot who'd given his life to Jesus. At the last minute, his mission had been aborted and, as a result, he survived World War II. He gave his life to Jesus Christ and his life was truly redeemed in all ways possible. So, he was the interview guest that Sunday.
Grandma Shug came to Dad and she said to him, "Bob, I hope you won't mind. I'm not going to be able to be at church this Sunday. I just don't think I can sit there, look at, and listen to a man who is very much like the man who took my son's life. Surely you can understand that."
Dad said, "I do, Mom. I do understand." Then imagine Dad's surprise when, at the end of the service when he and the pilot, who had given a stirring testimony, were walking down the aisle together, all of a sudden out of the back row stood up Mom Shug. She moved to the middle of the aisle and blocked them from leaving. Dad was wondering what she was going to say. As they got closer and closer, suddenly she threw out her arms, she wrapped them around my Father, she wrapped them around the pilot, and she said, "Can you forgive me for thinking ill of you? I forgive you for what you've done because Jesus forgave you and Jesus forgave me."
Men and women, that is strong forgiveness. That's forgiving strong. Wow. What would happen to our world if we all were able to love strong, believe strong, and forgive strong? You and I don't have the strength to do it, but God can and will give that to you. Let's ask Him to do that right now.
Lord God Almighty, we sit here as Your children, weak children, dependent children. But we have a strong, strong God, a powerful loving Father. Now, oh God, we pray that You will put strong love in the hearts of Your children today. Put a strong faith in our hearts. Help us to forgive strong, oh Lord, for Your sake. Thank You, Jesus, for loving us so very, very much. We are weak, but You are strong. Amen.
© Copyright Hour of Power 2010. This message was delivered by Sheila Schuller Coleman from the pulpit of the Crystal Cathedral and aired on the Hour of Power, May 23, 2010.
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