Come Walk with Me

By Joyce Hightower

Every day events can teach important life lessons. Author Joyce Hightower shares some of the amazing spiritual lessons she learned throughout her life, while raising her three children, and during the times she lived in and led mission trips to Africa.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449740146

Joyce Hightower

Doctor Joyce Hightower is a medical doctor who grew up in Southern California in a loving Christian home. She accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as her savior at the age of seven, in a Sunday school classroom. As a young adult she lived in Kenya for seven years before returning to California with her three young children. She completed medical school and worked as a practicing family physician in Northern California, where she raised her children, before returning to Africa to live in The Democratic Republic of Congo as a missionary for eight years. There she began an ongoing ministry helping orphans and widowed mothers of young children. She also works for an international health organization in Africa. In her spare time she writes books and songs, sings, and teaches for the glory of God.

Book preview

Come

Walk with Me

Joyce Hightower

logoBlackwTN.ai

Copyright © 2012 Joyce Hightower

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1-[phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4014-6 (e)

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/02/2012

Contents

Who told you?

Too much water

It’s Not a Dream

Bend Down

The Kitchen Garden

Eyes

Time to Play

The Big Water

Times with Friends

Faith, Flowers and Fathers

Lurking Whys

Look at You

The Mouth of the Lion

Throw Away the Key

Where Are You From?

I Will Be Back for Your Money

Mama Joyce Has a Song

Times with Nature

The Beach

Anything but That

What am I to do with all of this water?

The Mix

Times with Strangers

The Yellow Car

No Bullet Will Touch You

Told You So

To Buy Fish

Don’t Stay Here Tonight

The Black Madonna

Do You Know What That Sound Is?

Times with Straight Talk and Sight

The Laptop

Some walks last more than a day

Jump

Broken Promises

I Am Going to Figure This Out

The Big Yellow House

Also by Joyce Hightower:

No Shadow of Turning

To my three children who have taught me so much and to my family and friends who have enraged and pacified, lovingly encouraged and discouraged me as I have grown into who I am in the Lord

Introduction

I have always enjoyed hearing a good story, especially the way my Dad could tell them. I wanted so much for people to enjoy these stories about his childhood and the Bible, stories that taught life changing principles that I began to tell them myself. I now have my own life stories to tell and Bible stories that changed my life.

I used them as examples of God’s intervention in real life situations for friends and for my children. I also loved to tell Bible stories at bedtime, especially stories about David. I was however, surprised one day to receive a call of concern from my son’s teacher. While she had been mentioning King David in class as a wonderful example that they could learn from, my son had raised his hand and stated the following.

My Mom knows him. Maybe she can invite him here.

God’s word and the Holy Spirit are real and can teach us so much every day, if we open our hearts, ears and eyes.

After being asked to write my personal experiences down so many times, I have decided to do so.

This book is a collection of true stories. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent /guilty or because I lacked name memory, but the events are real.

I pray that this book allows these stories to serve to enlighten and encourage people as much as when I tell them personally.

Who told you?

One of the things that impacted our life in Kenya’s rural area was the fact that our small house had neither electricity nor running water. There was a very precious hurricane lamp that served as our only source of light in the evenings. We used it during the time between sundown at 7:00 pm and the children’s bedtime at 8:30 pm, as well as during the time afterward, as I stayed up to do my work or leisure activities. The fact that this lamp dispelled the fear of darkness for the children and enabled me to work while they slept made it a necessity. Knowing that the purchase of such an item was expensive on our tight budget compelled special care in its handling.

My four year old, Wilbur had become enthralled with the daily afternoon process of cleaning the glass chimney. He would position himself on his knees on the dining table chair and eagerly watch as the wick was trimmed and the glass was carefully taken out and washed to remove any of the smoke residues that might block the light from shining clearly. He asked many times, if he himself could do the cleaning.

The thought of him breaking the glass and me having to purchase another one, always prompted me to say, No, not until you are older.

One particular day, I could see that he was struggling with the acceptance of the rule not to touch the lamp. He looked with longing as I replaced the chimney and then pressed the lever to lift it to allow access to trim the wick.

Can I push to make it go up? he asked for what seemed like the 1000th time.

No. You are not to touch the lamp, I answered for what seemed like the 1000th time.

Having completed my task, I placed the lamp in the center of the table and told Wilbur to get down from the table and to go and play with his sister in the play pen. He obeyed quickly as usual, knowing my mantra was delay is disobedience. I then went into the small room I used as a kitchen to prepare dinner.

I realized after a while that there was silence in the living room and went to see why. The baby was sleeping, but Wilbur was absent. My suspicion was confirmed as my eyes verified that the table, where I had left the lamp in the center, was empty. I went to look out of the window nearby and saw my son smiling intently, as he squatted next to the lamp on the ground. He carefully lifted and lowered the lever that caused the chimney to rise and descend. He did this time and time again, enraptured. Then he closed the lamp for the last time, before picking it up and heading back toward the door of the house.

I quickly slipped back into the kitchen and listened carefully, as the front door quietly opened. Light footsteps headed toward the dining table. There was the sound of a chair slightly scraping the floor, as it was moved to make room for the return of the lamp to the table center. I walked back into the room when I heard him call his sister.

M’kena, wake up.

Hello, honey!

Hi, Mommy… what’s wrong?

Didn’t I tell you not to touch the lamp?

Yes, Mommy, you said ‘Do not touch the lamp’. He seemed startled by the question and frowned.

Well then, why did you take it outside?

Who told you that I took the lamp outside? He stood up, utterly surprised and confused as to how he had been discovered, after having been so careful.

Baby, even when Mommy cannot see you doing things, God can and he expects us to be honest.

Oh… He told you!

You have to please Him, even when nobody else is there.

Mommy I did not break it! But I was not honest. I promise I will not touch it again, Mommy. Okay? I say sorry to God, too. Don’t be sad.

You will have to go to bed early, because you were disobedient. You will not get a spanking, because you did not lie about it.

Okay Mommy. Don’t be sad.

I hugged him closely and prayed that I myself would remember that even when nobody else is around, I have to please God with what I do.

Desire, Lord is a powerful enemy of integrity at any age, even at four years old.

Wanting, desires and passions are the reasons for untold human loss and destruction. Especially, when one does not or cannot understand what risks are at stake, it is better to just obey.

Yes, better to just trust you and obey. That sounds so familiar.

Does it now? Are you ready to continue?

Yes, but first I’ll say sorry to God and ask Him not to be sad because of my disobedience.

He smiled. It’s already forgiven and forgotten.

Too much water

L ord, today is the day that I take Jackie to the beach. Let this be a good day!

This day was exciting because I was taking my tutorial student to the beach for the first time in her life. Jackie was a skinny little ten year old black girl, who had everything going against her succeeding in life. She was a student at a primary school that was located in the projects, in one of Los Angeles’s poorest inner city areas.

The projects were overcrowded cookie cutter two story buildings constructed by the government to provide decent housing to the very poor at a low cost. There were no back yards or personal outside areas. Everyone saw or heard through the paper thin walls, what everyone else was doing. Young children played outside until single mothers came home from work in the evening. There were a few children whose mothers trusted them to have a front door key. They could enter their parentless houses in the afternoon, which was at least some protection from human predators or bad weather. These were called latch key kids, because of the front door key they wore on a string around their neck to prevent its loss. Rarely was there any landscaping or maintenance of the external building painting. The dreary gray or brown color that had seemed so clean on all the buildings at the beginning had long ago been allowed to become part of the unkempt dusty, stained and cracked backdrop to the poverty, dreams deferred and violence that pervaded the area. The occupants were mostly African Americans with a few Hispanics.

I met Jackie through an outreach tutorial project at my university, a mostly white upper class student institution. The program paired a volunteer university student with a student from a disadvantaged primary school, to give academic tutoring in math or reading. I had been paired with Jackie, because her teacher thought that she needed to improve her reading ability. However, as I worked with her on her reading, I found she was very intelligent. My questions as to why her homework was often not completed, brought an explanation that ushered me into a world, which I could barely comprehend.

She was the older sister of two brothers. All were the children of a single mom, who left early in the morning and returned in the evening, because of the hours of work and then the long bus ride home. Jackie had been given the responsibility, at ten years of age, to be the adult in the house, when her mother was not there. She did her best to rise to the occasion, but it was