I Will Lift up My Eyes: The Power of Praise and Prayer
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Does God still speak to us? Can Gods voice still be heard today? Do miracles really happen? Is there a difference in praise and prayer? Is God able to make something beautiful out of the worst situations?
To these questions, Ann Melton gives a resounding Yes! She has experienced God in success and failure, illness and heartache, work and play. In this book you can see that through all her encounters with God, she has discovered that any form of sincere believing prayer directs Gods power into our lives and this is especially true of prayer blended with praise. It is possible for anyone to have a close walk with the Lord. Simply by calling his name and pouring out your heart to him, miracles can happen.
Ann Davis Melton
Ann Melton grew up in Western North Carolina and married her high school sweetheart and the love of her life, Frank. She received her doctorate from the University of South Carolina and after thirty years in education, she retired as a public school superintendent and traveled with her husband the next seventeen years. Ann is the mother of two, and the grandmother of five, and the author of seven award-winning books.
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I Will Lift up My Eyes - Ann Davis Melton
Copyright © 2013 Ann Davis Melton.
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ISBN: 978-1-4497-8870-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4497-8871-1 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4497-8869-8 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013904831
Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV
and New International Version
are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
WestBow Press rev. date: 04/04/2013
Table of Contents
Preface
Praise Him
We Waited and We Waited
Jesus Appeared
Touched by Jesus
Rescued by an Angel
God Has Already Answered
When You Pray and Get No Answer, Try Laying Down Fleece
When You Seek God’s Will, You Will Be Successful
I Forgot God Loved Him More
We Started Over
Difficult Decisions
Working Their Way Home on God’s Plan
Wet but Wiser
Tested Again
God Had Other Plans for Me
Move Out of the Shallow End
Wait on the Lord
When I Open My Mouth, Let It Be Your Words That Come Out
Just Thirty Minutes a Day
Taking God into the Workplace
They Are So Bright But …
He Set Us on High
Not Just a Pump Knot
A Lesson Not Learned Until Later
The Prayer of the Opened or Closed Door
God Is in Control of My Life
Just a Stepping Stone
God Will Counsel You with His Eye on You
God Will Meet Our Needs
A Lesson Learned
The Gift of Healing
I Think God Intended for You to See This Doctor
You Can Do All Things through Christ Who Strengthens You
One Extra Chair
The Grant
Do Not Be Anxious About Anything
Pray About Everything
Peace Is the Presence of God
Lay Your Burdens at His Feet
Distributing Bibles in China
God Speaks to Us through His Word
Please Don’t Let the Violet Die
Answered Prayer
Earthly Angel
We’ll Take It as a Sign and Claim the Promise
What is Your Rainbow?
A Ladybug
A Butterfly
A Flower Garden
The Dandelion
Traffic Lights
Old Family Photographs
Sheep
A Rock
A Puzzle
A Mountain
Accept Christ as Your Savior and Begin Your Walk with Him
Author’s Statement
My Prayer
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
T his book is the result of the friendship, encouragement, and support of many people. First, I want to thank my husband, Frank; my children, Myra and Buddy; and my first cousin, Mary Katherine Lowder (who is really more like a sister than a cousin) for their willingness to share with so many others the story of God’s gracious dealings with our family. Living in a glass house is not easy. Next, I offer my deepest appreciation to all my wonderful friends who have been willing to share their joys, sorrows, heartaches, and victories in this book: Tina and John Stovall, Linda Minor, Kathy Whiteside, Ann Ledford, Ann Culpepper, and Lorraine Lee. I want to thank several of these same folks for their patience as they also helped me critique my work.
I want to especially thank two very special ladies. First, Doris Howard for the many hours she spent reading and rereading the text checking for errors when she had so many more important things to do, like filling shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. And second, I want to thank Susan Kingshill for giving her time to this project when she had so many critical family issues to deal with during the busy holiday season. Their love of the Lord and their patience with me has put them both right up there with Job in my eyes. My thanks also to my sister Vikki Ganger for all her wonderful ideas! She is really the writer in the family!
And a special thanks to Dr. John Bunn, pastor emeritus at Sylva First Baptist, for his encouragement. I don’t believe I would ever have published this book if he had not believed in its value or worth.
I waited patiently for God to help me; then he listened and heard my cry. He … set my feet on a hard, firm path and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, of praises to our God. Now many will hear of the glorious things he did for me, and stand in awe before the Lord, and put their trust in him.
Psalm 40:1-3 LB
Preface
I n the following pages I have shared with you some very personal times in my life and in the lives of family and friends. It is my hope that they will provide a small measure of help in your journey - that because of these stories you will be encouraged to pursue a close personal relationship with the Lord. I have shared some stories that I and others would rather have forgotten, but I believe that it is in our mistakes, heartaches, sorrows, and victories that we learn some of our most valuable lessons. I have recorded all these stories in an effort to glorify God.
I hope that through these stories you will come to see that prayer and praise can change your life. The time you spend with the Lord in prayer can re-energize you and renew your spirit. It can renew your mind and body and provide healing. Prayer can calm the greatest storms in your life and leave you better able to cope with the stresses of day-to-day living.
Prayer and praise bring you into the presence of God. After only a few moments of sitting quietly, talking with him and listening for his direction, you will find comfort and peace. As time goes by and you continue to meet the Lord in prayer each day, you will discover that your eyes are gradually opened to his word and that you will begin to grow in wisdom and understanding. However, prayer does not need proof. It needs practice.
It is also my hope that the reader will see that the Bible is not some antiquated document but a holy book filled with the timely words of God. It has the power to meet your every need and to help you in your gravest hours. It has wonderful examples of prayers. It is filled with promises – powerful promises. To open the Bible is like opening a treasure chest filled with promises, hope, and wisdom that can change your life in wonderful ways. It is my prayer that the scripture passages given in this book will serve to whet your appetite and cause you to search the scriptures yourself for those verses that fit your needs.
I pray that after you read this book you will be filled with a longing for a closer relationship with God. My promise to the reader is that if you will take the time to develop a close personal relationship with the Lord, your life will never be the same again. Instead, your life will be filled with miracles – daily miracles. Your life will be more exciting than that of any action hero you have ever seen on the silver screen. I promise you that the lives of characters like Indiana Jones will in no way compare to the excitement of your life. Each morning when you open your eyes and begin your day, you will do so in great anticipation, waiting to see what God has in store for you – what miracles he will perform. In your adventure you will find increased hope, renewed spirit, new friends, a stronger faith, deeper commitment, greater love, and peace – a peace that will pass all understanding.
A song that I love says, It is no secret what God can do, what he’s done for others he can do for you.
I encourage you to step out in faith, claim his promises, and go to him in prayer asking for what you need. Praise him, spend time with him, give him the glory and honor that he deserves, and watch the miracles come into your life. I pray that you will come to see how wide, how long, how high, and how deep God’s love really is and will experience his love for yourself.
It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for me. How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom; his dominion endures from generation to generation.
Daniel 4:2-3 NIV
Praise Him
A person’s life can change forever in the blink of an eye. Such was the case when my cell phone rang and I answered it only to hear the panic and fear in the voice of Carla, our daughter-in-law. Buddy’s been in an accident! He had just loaded some cattle onto a truck and was shutting the heavy steel gate when a cow kicked the gate, causing it to crash into his face.
Where is he now?
I asked.
He has been transported to the trauma unit in Asheville.
We’ll pack our things and be on the road in an hour,
I assured her. Nine hours later we walked into our son’s hospital room. Once there it didn’t take us long to realize that we were listening to a miracle unfold.
I knew the injury was really serious,
Buddy said, and I was afraid that I was going to black out. No one knew where I was or what I was doing. If I had blacked out, I could have bled to death before anyone found me, and the cattle could have come off the truck and trampled me.
But the Lord was with him in that pasture because he was able to lock the gate to keep the cattle on the truck and then call 911 on his cell phone. This was amazing as there are few places on that mountain where one can get cell phone reception.
After calling for help, Buddy knew that he had to somehow get from the barn and down the mountain to his house so that if he blacked out he would do so in his yard where help would find him. Miraculously, he was able to do just that.
Surgery was scheduled and would involve three teams of surgeons: neurosurgeons who would do two craniotomies to remove the bone fragments that had cut into the lining of the brain allowing the spinal fluid to leak, maxi-facial surgeons who would work to reconstruct the damage to his face, and plastic surgeons who would work to rebuild the nose and the bone between the eyes.
My son was taken down to surgery at 6:30 Sunday morning. When the surgery began, it soon became apparent that Buddy’s injuries were far worse than the CT scans had indicated. An ordeal that was expected to last five and a half hours lasted eleven.
The surgery went well. After one day in ICU, he was moved to a step-down