Stand

By Keisha Richards

One minute, we’re on top of the world, then everything changes. One minute were on top of the world where life just seems to be going up, up, up, and in a flash, everything changes, and we are free-falling to the ground with no safety net below to break the fall. The winter of 2013 began a season of sifting for our family, and during the p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Jan 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781640886759

Book preview

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STAND

Keisha Richards

Trilogy Christian Publishers

TUSTIN, CA

Trilogy Christian Publishers

A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

2442 Michelle Drive

Tustin, CA 92780

Copyright © 2019 by Keisha Richards

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Cambridge Edition: 1769.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information, address Trilogy Christian Publishing

Rights Department, 2442 Michelle Drive, Tustin, Ca 92780.

Trilogy Christian Publishing/ TBN and colophon are trademarks of Trinity Broadcasting Network.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Trilogy Christian Publishing.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-64088-674-2

ISBN 978-1-64088-675-9 (ebook)

Contents

Acknowledgements v

Introduction vii

Chapter 1. The Making of Our Faith 1

Chapter 2. Night Draws Nigh 5

Chapter 3. The Storm Moves In 17

Chapter 4. The Storm Inside and Outside 35

Chapter 5. Code Blue 47

Chapter 6. Life in the Storm! 51

Chapter 7. It’s Not Funny Anymore—Faith on Trial 75

Chapter 8. God of the Hurricane 87

Chapter 9. Darker than Midnight 101

Chapter 10. "Heavenly Father, Have You Forgotten Us?

Should We Still Stand?" 119

Diary of My Thoughts in the Moment 127

Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to my husband, Jason:

Thank you for your love and support throughout the years. You have allowed me the grace to grow, thrive, and be as creative, bold, and unpredictable as I can imagine. Your trust and love for the authentic me is priceless. You are my forever love.

To my children, Jason Jr., Jonathan, and Jessica:

Thank you for showing me the true meaning of love and helping me to believe in the things I cannot see. Your faith in God has made me trust God more and pursue a purpose-filled life. My love for you is endless.

To my parents:

Thank you for loving me and allowing me to be myself. Even when it seemed as if my train had derailed, your love and support always created a no-judgment zone and allowed me to recover faster from my mishaps. Mom, I remain grateful for your prayers when I couldn’t pray or didn’t want to.

To the memory of my cousin, Loria Ann Kerr:

Thank you for seeing greatness in me and reminding me that I was the answer I was seeking. You helped me to understand that all of my answers were hidden inside of me.

Introduction

Thank you for deciding to purchase and read my work. I urge you to read the introduction before diving into the rest of the book. I do not want you to be disappointed since this is not a churchy kind of faith book. This book is about my personal journey to trusting God and understanding what faith means for me. I could only come to that understanding after developing a relationship with Him (God)…a relationship that no one could teach or preach me into; it is one of self and God-discovery.

This kind of faith is the one that gets you a few miracles, possibly making it a new normal to see the supernatural power of God. There is a place in this book where I may lose the religious and the traditional churchgoer. Some people may disagree; however, this faith wasn’t birthed through long organized prayer and good old hymns. It didn’t happen by me changing my physical appearance to look like a Christian, how I wore my hair, refusing to use makeup, or living a blameless life in the sight of man. I have always been viewed as the rebellious one, and I am known to say the wrong things at the wrong times. Instead, my faith was birthed out of a place of deep emotional pain, trouble all around, inner turmoil, heartache, and disappointment. This was not just in people around me but also from feeling disappointed in God.

Yes, I was disappointed that God didn’t show up when I thought He should have reached down and made the pain go away. Even while being disappointed in Him, I couldn’t let go of Him. I was like that child whose dad tells him or her every week, I’m going to take you to the ball game this weekend, but he never shows up. You keep hoping that he will show up the next week. So while you say to yourself, Let go, you can’t, so what you have is more anger and more disappointment, making you feel as if you don’t love him anymore.

When I spoke to God, my prayers would not be considered normal prayers because a lot of them sounded more like me just yelling to myself rather than praying to God. I said things like, God, why? God, where are you? Don’t you love me? Why? Why? Why? Am I really that far gone? Then within minutes, I would be saying, I’m still here in case you forgot! These rantings were in no specific order and came out at no scheduled time. There was no Bible reading before praying; at times, it was just me screaming into a pillow when I couldn’t be alone or in the car as I drove by myself.

Most times, it was followed by minutes of nonstop crying. This was my prayer time, or I like to call it conversations with my Father. What I knew about God could not be articulated. I guess He really understands the language of tears because it had been my preferred method of communicating with Him. God normally answers my crying prayers in unexpected ways. For example, I had prayed one of those silent prayers where I asked God for a specific amount of money. Within an hour of having that thought, I received a call from someone letting me know that they wanted to give me some money to make sure I had extra in case we needed it. When the person stated the amount, I knew without a doubt that it was God. God could see my heart.

As a child, I grew up in the church. I went to church as an adult, took my own children to church, and believed with all my heart that I was living the Christian life God wanted me to live. I soon realized the faith I had in Him was limited and almost powerless. See, I had faith in God to pay the bills, help me get a new car, get me the discount on the cute pair of shoes, to meet the guy, heal the baby’s cold with the medication the doctor prescribed, and heal the broken bone after six to eight weeks. If it was bigger than the everyday stuff, faith became just a word with no substance and no tangible evidence.

God had to allow everything in my life to fail so I would finally allow Him to orchestrate my life with events He knew would awaken the big Father/God factor in me and lead me back to Him. In the end, I realized He just wanted to take me to the place where He dwells in all glory, honor, might, and supernatural power. He created a hunger I never knew existed within my soul and one I never thought I could have. My life had so many twists, turns, and collisions that I had counted myself out because, after all, God doesn’t talk to mess-ups. As my mother explained, I entered the world a month early, thus rebelling against my physician’s suggested due date. I came out with pouting lips and enough attitude for a lifetime. I did everything based on my own timetable without skipping a beat. Growing up, all I heard was how rebellious I was and always did things my own way. I just saw things through a different lens, and apart from my parents, I was mostly ignored at church or frowned upon. I reasoned within myself that if the people around me didn’t have time for me, maybe God didn’t have time for me either. No one ever said this to me; it was just my interpretation of my surrounding. I just chose to live my life how it best suited me; after all, don’t we just get saved so we don’t go to hell? I am young. I have enough time for that, right? I say all of this so you will have an idea of who I was as an individual. I was too unclean for most Christians and too clean for the world, but I did have a strong sense of what loyalty is and should look like. I fall into a group of people who are mostly misunderstood and don’t care because we are meant to be misunderstood anyway. For this reason, we dwell on the sidelines and in isolated rooms. We are the ones who stand in a room of five hundred people but cannot shake the feeling that we just don’t fit. As you read on, you will notice that I have included a few verses from the Bible because, as I started to really look to God for answers and for divine intervention, it became increasingly impossible to understand Him without the encouraging words from those who have gone on before us who relayed their stories in scriptures.

The Bible has answers and instructions for every problem we face in this world. It also brought me to the realization that my process might have been less brutal if I had read the Bible more intentionally. I just know that I found peace and understanding about my process in the scriptures that I will share. I discovered I needed a relationship with God more than I needed a relationship with family and friends. Without a relationship with God, I cannot treat family, friends, and the stranger I meet on the street with love, respect, and compassion.

Chapter 1

The Making of Our Faith

And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy FAITH fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.

—Luke 22:31–32 (KJV)

In the scripture above, Jesus is telling Simon, one of his disciples, that the devil, Satan, Lucifer, the accuser of the brethren, wants to rip us apart. The plan of the devil is to make you and I doubt all that God said about our life’s purpose and assignment. Satan wants us sifted, and in the process of being sifted, each of us