January 17, 2008

• Rejection, suffering and loss by Pastor Alice Vedder

  Last Saturday was a delightful Woman’s Luncheon at Glory Oasis Fellowship. Our Women’s Luncheon is this Saturday, and you are invited if you are anywhere near West Hurley, New York, just click on the Living Word Chapel link to find directions. Our luncheon is from 1-4 and you would be welcome.

  The Pastor At Glory Oasis Fellowship is Pastor Angella Michels, and it is located at 1903 Route 44, Pleasant Valley, NY 12569 – which is near Poughkeepsie. I was introduced to this fellowship a few months ago when a friend of mine spoke. It is nice to meet other believers and worship with them. Each luncheon they invite a different speaker to speak, sometimes from surrounding ministries. This past Saturday the speaker was Pastor Alice Vedder. She and her husband Pastor Hank have a ministry called Brooks of Living Waters Ministries, located at 384 Middle Road, Unit 4, Hudson, NY 12534.

  She shared some of her testimony and it touched my heart as I know it will yours.

  Pastor Alice told us that, like an old fashioned radio, we are God’s transmitter and receiver.

  She had a song played before she spoke. One line of the song is I lift my eyes when I am in trouble. And it concluded that You (God) alone could help.

  She asked us if life was bad or do you only focus on the negative. There is righteousness as well as suffering.

  Pastor Alice was born on Long Island in 1930 of European parents. She told us that her mom did not want children, so from the womb she had faced rejection. Her mom claimed that she had heart palpitations, which was one reason a doctor could give to let her mom have a legal abortion. The enemy tried to take her out by having her mom get this abortion, but at the last minute, her mom changed her mind. Her mom grew up with a Catholic background and because of what she learned as a child, she was unable to go through the abortion.

  Pastor Alice had two half brothers, and after her parents separated, she was lonely and depressed. Her dad drank. As a child, to find comfort, Pastor Alice would climb into the maple trees in her yard and sing and talk to God. She had the impression that God would raise her for Himself. She always loved righteousness and wanted to do right and be obedient.

  Romans 3:10-12  As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands;  there is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.”

  She learned later that we aren’t righteous in our own flesh, but we are made righteous through the Blood of Christ. The Righteousness that Pastor Alice wanted God was really after.

  When she was 7 or 8 years old, satan tried to take her out again. She was hit by a car coming out of Sunday School.

  She kept herself righteous. She married her first husband at the age of 16. It wasn’t because she was pregnant. This was during the war years, and her husband was going to be shipped off to the war, so they got married. Before their marriage they did not act lustfully. They married for love, not because of lust. Her first child was born when her husband was out of the army three and one half years later. She did not realize that her husband had a drinking problem until he came home from the army. She always had a love for the Lord, and baptized that baby and all of her children were baptized or dedicated to God. She had many children. But her husband’s drinking progressed. Her children were brought up in a Godly way. Her ministry at that time was music and solos, and she kept her love of righteousness.

  After 27 years of the alcoholic marriage, her children grew up. Some went on to use alcohol and drugs themselves. It was hard, for they had no real help or role model, but all had accepted the Lord and then strayed.

  She used certain scriptures to keep going.

  Isaiah 60:4b AMP  They all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be nursed at your side.

  Isaiah 61:3-5 To console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.” And they shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. Strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the foreigner shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers.

  She then told us that she thinks that the reason she was asked to speak was because of events during the past five years. In three years she lost three sons, in 2003, 2004, and 2005. She said that as hard as her previous life had been, these years contained her biggest struggles. If not for God, she would not have gotten through this and have found the Joy of the Lord in the midst of the pain.

  Her first son died on her husbands’s birthday. There was a growth on his tongue that was cancerous. She then fell in November and broke her knee.

  The following year, just 11 months after her first boy passed, her youngest overdosed and took his life. He was in a coma for a week and she had to make the hard decision to take him off of life support and let him go. God did a sweet thing to let her know that her boys were safe. God delivered according to His Word and Promise. She praised God in the midst of her sadness. In the third year her middle son passed away with a brain aneurism. He didn’t drink or use drugs, he had a wife and children, was very talented in music and poetry.

  Pastor Alice told us that she felt that she had more than she could bear and she was angry with the Lord. She told the Lord, “You say you love me, yet you take all my sons. Give me a break.”

  Over time He has shown her the reasons why they are gone, and helped her to get over the painful memories. We can rejoice. She told us she would rather have suffered than to see her children suffer, but she still kept worshipping God. She found that God would help to remove the non-productive things in her life

  Philippians 3:7-15 NKJV  But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.

  God is maturing us, burning out all the dross, making us according to His will and purpose. Pastor Alice told us that He had a plan all along for her life, and now, instead of focusing on all the other things, she focuses on Him, and Him alone.

  Philippians 3:16 Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.

  God wants us to be of the same mind. Her current husband, Hank has helped her to refine what God is doing, and God has been guiding both of them. She did not tell us how she met Hank, but they have been married 25 years. She knows that she and Hank are both in God’s hands.

  In 2003, after her first son’s death she was at the Syracuse Airport Christian Ministry and received a prophesy from a man and a woman. They saw a vision of total depletion for her, and they focused on the fact that there was no crown on her head. God told them, “I am Her Crown of Glory.”

  Pastor Alice had to keep carrying on through her grief. People would criticize her because they could not understand how she could get over the pain, or why she was not broken down in grief. They did not realize that God carried her through.

  She realized that the righteousness that she wanted she couldn’t do on her own. That she needed to be a fool for Christ, to be foolish in the Lord. All was for God’s glory, and He helped her to be strong in her weakness.

  Job 22:21-30 AMP Acquaint now yourself with Him [agree with God and show yourself to be conformed to His will] and be at peace; by that [you shall prosper and great] good shall come to you. Receive, I pray you, the law and instruction from His mouth and lay up His words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty [and submit and humble yourself before Him], you will be built up; if you put away unrighteousness far from your tents, if you lay gold in the dust, and the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brook [considering them of little worth], and make the Almighty your gold and [the Lord] your precious silver treasure, then you will have delight in the Almighty, and you will lift up your face to God. You will make your prayer to Him, and He will hear you, and you will pay your vows. You shall also decide and decree a thing, and it shall be established for you; and the light [of God's favor] shall shine upon your ways. When they make [you] low, you will say, [There is] a lifting up; and the humble person He lifts up and saves. He will even deliver the one [for whom you intercede] who is not innocent; yes, he will be delivered through the cleanness of your hands.

  God has a plan and a purpose for us all, and this plan was in place before we came into the World.

  Katherine Kuhlman, at the end of everyone of her shows said, “As long as God is on His throne, everything will turn out right. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be His work. Blessed be all of you.”

  God is with us even in the painful places.

  (Heather’s comment, people were very touched by what she shared. It for me was wonderful to see someone holding onto God even in the midst of such tough things, it is an encouragement to see how God pulls a person through what would in the flesh be an unbearable situation. It amazes me how awesome God is, and how He can help us in all the tough issues. It took me a long time to learn that He never leaves or forsakes us, and is with us through thick and thin.)

  Hoping this talk from Pastor Alice blessed you.

  Have a wonderful night.

  Heather
  
  

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