October 3, 2018
Wherein I suffer trouble… even unto bonds (such as chemo infusions that will keep me tethered); but the word of God is not bound. 2 Timothy 2:9 KJV
While I’ve been sidelined from my speaking schedule and will be bound for months to come due to chemo treatments and radiation, praise God! His Word is unbound! One of my prayers is that the ministry to which God has called me would continue uninterrupted through every means possible except my travel and personal appearances. Almost before I had finished praying, God sent me evidence of one answer through the picture sent to me by my beloved friends, Carey and Melanie Casey. They were visiting Mid America Seminary in Memphis, TN, and saw this poster! Wow! Thank you, dear Jesus, for answered prayer! Thank you, Rich Bott and the Bott Radio Network, for your commitment to our two radio programs: the daily broadcast Daily Light for Daily Living, and our weekly broadcast Living in the Light. And thank you, dear Melanie and Carey, for your thoughtfulness to share the picture.
Please join with me in prayer for God to breathe His life into all** of our audios, videos, books, Bible studies, and radio broadcasts so that in these last moments of the last days, He will use us to draw people into His Word that they might know Him better. Below is a testimony sent by email that we just received that underscores evidence of one answer to this prayer, which again, came almost before I’d finished praying! To God be the glory!
I had never read a book of Anne’s or even listened to a message by her until the day of her father’s funeral. When she spoke I immediately felt a connection, a strong connection. (Weird I know) I didn’t have a great spiritual upbringing but have learned to put my name in the Bible to make it personal, I stop and ponder what Jesus is trying to tell me. It was crazy that she studies like I do. All this time I thought I was weird or crazy because no one else studied like me. Anyway, I also related to her declaration to her father; I will preach the Gospel, I will serve in a way that 5 minutes before I appear before the Lord I’ll had no regrets. All of that led me to her book Just Give Me Jesus and began a small group study at my church. We are LOVING it. So many people had ask me how do I study the Bible and get so much out of it and then came Just Give Me Jesus. It was perfect! God has already worked within our group; one of the ladies stepped out of her comfort zone and led in worship last Wednesday night while the pastor was away doing a revival. What a blessing it is to teach, lead, serve and grow with other women. — R.K.
**Visit here to view all [free] resources available on Anne’s website
September 27, 2018
I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener…Every branch that does bear fruit he trims clean so that it will be even more fruitful. John 15:1-2
Yesterday I had my one-week check-up after breast cancer surgery. While there are some issues to be expected, the doctor believes that all seem to be healing nicely, for which I praise God. The surgeon then revealed, with compassion in her eyes, that she had the pathology report. As she went over the numbers, it became evident that the results were not what I had prayed they would be. A trace of cancer was found in the lymph nodes which alters the follow-up treatment significantly. So beginning October 18th I will begin eighteen weeks of chemotherapy, with additional treatments stretching out over the next twelve months. The adventurous journey through the valley of the shadow will be longer than anticipated. BUT I am still confident the Shepherd will walk with me each step of the way until He sees me safely through!
The hardest thing facing me is the need to clear my schedule. By necessity, I will have to cancel commitments throughout the next year in order to take the cancer treatments. As I looked ahead at the calendar, I could almost audibly hear the “click” of the Divine pruning shears.
I’m confident that the Gardener knows exactly what He’s doing. I’m more expectant than ever of bearing much eternal fruit. For His glory.
Thank you for your prayers and your concern! So many of you have sent cards, gifts, pillows, emails, texts, and testimonies of your own experience. I have been blessed by every single one!
There is one devotional thought that has been sent to me by quite a few of you. It is entitled, What Cancer Can’t Do. It then lists about a dozen things. It’s a great list, and I was encouraged when I read it. But I wanted to turn it around. Although I’ve only known about my cancer for a little over a month and so in no way qualify as an expert. I have experienced some things already, and I’m expecting to experience even more things, that cancer can do. I want to share them with you. Feel free to add to the list.
Cancer Can…
…enrich love
…refocus hope
…strengthen faith
…deepen prayer
…command peace
…bolster confidence
…increase endurance
…multiply friendships
…enhance memories
…open doors
…realign priorities
…grow courage
…create empathy
…tenderize compassion
…develop character
Cancer can be a blessing in disguise.
Cancer can be the preliminary to bearing much eternal fruit.
Cancer can be a display case for God’s glory.
Please continue to pray for my healing, and that I will not miss what cancer can do for me.
September 17, 2018
…He is the Lord; let him do what is good in his eyes. 1 Samuel 3:18
Hurricane Florence is still making her presence known. My cell phone alarm is continually giving me alerts that the storm is swirling all around, spinning off thunderstorms and tornadoes as well as flash floods. And this is the day, exactly one month following my diagnosis of breast cancer, when I go in for preoperative procedures before my surgery in the morning.
What I want to convey to so many of you who are praying is that the storms may be swirling around me, but they are not swirling within me. I have total peace. Joy. Expectancy. Trust. I know I am in God’s hands. I know also the reason for what I can only describe as a vibrant calm is that I am not only being carried by our Heavenly Father, I am being carried by your prayers. So before I know the outcome of the surgery, I want to praise the Lord for His great faithfulness, and also to say a heartfelt “thank you”…to you! Please continue to pray!
Below is a link to a song that I listened to this morning as I stretched and worked out. I pray it will bless you as it has me. My eyes are fixed on Jesus. Therefore, all is well.
IT IS WELL | Bethel Music
For more from Anne, click HERE.
September 27, 2018 Blog Post | What Cancer Can Do
September 19, 2018 Update from Anne here or here.
September 17, 2018 Blog Post | A Vibrant Calm in the Storm
September 10, 2018 Anne’s Interview with WRAL – Grateful for prayers during cancer battle
September 5, 2018 Please see update from Anne here or here.
September 4, 2018
In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith…of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire…may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 1 Peter 1:6-7
What fuel has the Refiner added to the fire as He works to reveal Jesus in and through you? He has recently stoked the fire under me! I’m encouraged when I remember that when a refiner purifies gold, he melts it in a pot over the fire. He keeps turning up the heat until the dross, or impurities, rise to the surface. He then bends over the gold to skim off the dross, and continues doing so, until he can see his face reflected in the surface of the gold.
Gold being refined in the fire is a meaningful visual of the way God refines and purifies you and me.[1] He knows exactly how hot the fire needs to be in order to bring the impurities in our hearts, minds, and lives to the surface of our attention, enabling Him to skim them off, until He can see His own image reflected in us.
The Refiner has just added fuel to the fire in my life. On the afternoon of August 17, 2015, between 3:00 and 3:30, as you may know, I discovered my husband, Danny, unresponsive in our pool. Two days later he was Home! Three years to the day, on the afternoon of August 17, 2018, at the very same time of day…3:00 to 3:30…I was diagnosed with breast cancer. When I realized the strange “coincidence” of the timing, I came to the chilling conclusion that it was an assignment from the enemy. But just as that thought was forming, I heard the soft, gentle whisper of the Spirit, reminding me that it was on a Friday, during that very same time…between 3:00 and 3:30 in the afternoon…that God’s Passover Lamb was sacrificed. Jesus died on the very same day of the week, at the very same time of the day, crushing the head of the serpent, forever defeating the devil and death.[2] Praise God! The cross…the blood of God’s Lamb…trumps anything the devil can throw at us or assign to us!
So I am left to worship and totally trust our God who is ultimately in control. Of everything.
Each day since the diagnosis God has given me promises and encouragement from His Word. God has been…and is…my refuge and strength, an ever-present help in this trouble. Therefore, I will not fear…[3] BUT He also has made it very clear that my healing will be in answer to not just my prayer, but the prayers of others for me.
So please! Would you pray for me? Pray for God to heal me in whichever way He deems would bring Him the most glory. Healing without surgery, with surgery, with surgery and follow-up treatment, or through the greater miracle of the resurrection. Amy Carmichael’s eloquent and moving prayer below has given me words to express my heart’s desire…
From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from winds that beat on Thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher,
From silken self, O Captain, free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.
From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakenings;
Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified,
From all that dims Thy Calvary,
O Lamb of God, deliver me.
Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay,
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire,
Let me not sink to be a clod:
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God
–Amy Carmichael
Please pray for me…and my family… as we follow the Good Shepherd through this Valley of the Shadow. The bottom-line of our prayer is that our faith would be purified, God would be glorified, and Jesus would be magnified through every step we take on this new journey, until the Refiner sees His own reflection mirrored in my life.
Sincerely,
…Pray for each other so that you may be healed. James 5:16
[1] Malachi 3:2-3
[2] Matthew 27:45-46; Genesis 3:15; 1 Corinthians 15:55-57
[3] Personalized from Psalm 46:1-2
July 31, 2018
Encourage the exhausted, and strengthen the feeble. Say to those with anxious heart, “Take courage, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance; The recompense of God will come, But He will save you.” Isaiah 35: 3-4
I have not caught the headlines for the last two and a half weeks. Not at all. I never opened up the news when I was in Israel and Jordan. I just had too many other things on my mind. I was aware there are tensions in the south border but world news I was oblivious to. So I came back and watched the news for as long as I could take which was about 10 minutes. I just look at the headlines online and I’m so aware that the world is unraveling … spiritually, morally, politically, racially, socially in just about every category. To be gone and come back and be hit in the face with all the news… including the tragedies of that Duck Boat going down with 17 people drowned and the shooting in Toronto and the forest fires in Greece and it’s just astounding.
And so I was talking to the Lord about it yesterday morning, and He led me to Isaiah 35. And if I could entitle this devotion, I think I would entitle it — Hold On: There’s a New World Coming.
(This devotional was shared by Anne at the AnGeL Ministries’ quarterly Ministry Update Meeting July 26, 2018)
