What's That In Your Hand?
This week on Wire Talk I interviewed 90 year old mother and missionary, Betty Loudermilk. It is different from our normal episodes, but I think it really will encourage your heart! Betty’s daughter, Mary, was my best friend way back in 2nd grade. Mary was adopted from Japan, and over the years my family got to know her family well. Back in 1955, Mary’s mother Betty heard there was a need for workers in the country of Japan because they were so devastated from WWII. And so, young, single, and female, fresh out of college, she followed God’s lead. She ended up living and working in the nation of Japan for more than 50 years!
Hearing stories of her faith during our time together blew me out of the water. From accepting her first daughter, Mary, from the Japanese farmer who was her grandfather, to taking her 15 adopted children back to the United States, and trusting that God would provide, her life was one faithful step after another. Betty was a single lady with no prospects of a husband in the 1960s when she brought her first adopted child home. From that day on, Betty said, “she never turned away a baby.” And during all of those years, God was faithful to her.
Toward the end of our interview I asked Betty how on earth she managed, raising all of those children on her own, and she told a story of going out to wash diapers one day (moms, can you even imagine…having to GO OUT to wash out your baby’s cloth diapers??) and asking God the same question. She asked God, how was she supposed to take care of this baby when she had so very little? And she said that God clearly spoke to her heart, “what is that in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2)
This question comes from the book of Exodus, chapter 4. In that passage, God has just called Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but Moses is afraid. He is afraid the Israelites won’t follow him and that he won’t be up for the task. In response to Moses’ “buts,” God asks, “what is that in your hand?” “A staff,” Moses replies. It was just the thing he used all day, every day. The ordinary stuff of shepherding. To Moses, his staff was nothing special. But when he gave it for God’s purposes, that staff became the stuff of miracles. God had big plans for Moses’ staff. God used it to bring the nation of Egypt to its knees. God used that staff to part the waters of the Red Sea, and to bring water from a rock in the desert. Just a simple staff, something only God could make miracles out of.
On that day, Betty recalled that she looked in her own hand and saw a diaper. A diaper, moms. The ordinary, everyday stuff of motherhood. And Betty made the decision to give it to God and to let Him work out the miracle.
Betty didn’t go to Japan with some grand plan to begin an adoption ministry, or with the idea to adopt children as a single woman, or to one day have 15 children! So often we “make a plan,” and then we get frustrated when God doesn’t make our plan succeed. Maybe we can all learn from Betty and simply be open to whatever plan God has for us.
Look at what’s in your hand right now, momma. What might happen if you gave it God and let Him work out the miracle?