Editor's Note: This story is written by and about Paul Cheeseman. Paul is the father of one of our mission workers. Prayers of the faithful at work!
I had been fighting God for 30 years and as little as 4 months ago probably had one of the hardest hearts going. My wife and kids had been praying for me, my faithful loving wife for 22 years, and over the last 3 months I had started to question many things. I was starting to check the boxes. Yes there is a God! Yes there is an emptiness in my life. Yes my family deserves better. Yes I am sinful and need to be saved!
My marriage hadn't been going well and there were also some big issues at work. These difficulties however were not as big as the growing dread I was having about getting older, becoming more alone and dying into nothingness or hell. The big problem I had was surrender. How did it make any sense that I could be me and at the same time give up control to God. That is what some people would call pride but for me it was more a case of not wanting to give up my independence.
I am not sure why I had signed up to go on the Guatemala mission trip. Certainly, even now, I wonder why the church would have let me. I was, after all, a declared non-Christian at that time... actually an enemy of God. As you can imagine, you can't go to somewhere like Guatemala without seeing a very different world and being affected but I did not expect that it would be as life-changing as it was.
Early on during the trip I was challenged regarding the whole surrendering issue, but it was a small girl of eight-years-old, who speaks no English, (and I speak no Spanish) who God chose to help work His miracle in me.
The day before this miracle I had found myself feeling very useless regarding one of the older kids in the mission who had an accident and now was on crutches with a bar in his leg. What do you say to someone in such a situation? I am used to solving problems and I could do nothing for him. I knew only God could help him. That night I prayed that God would give me a sign that he was real and that he cared for me.
We were on the bus returning from the amusement park with the kids and I had asked this little girl her name. "Como Te llama?" She answered Amy and a long sentence in Spanish that was clearly longer than her family name. I asked again and she gave the same answer. I asked the translator (who happened to be sitting next to us) and he told me that her name is Amy Gomez and that she had a picture in her head that she had to tell me. I asked her to tell me and he translated that it was a picture of birds in the sky. I flapped my arms stupidly but she shook her head. He had translated wrong. Looking up the actual word she had used on his phone he correctly translated that the picture she had for me was a kite flying high in the sky.
I clearly knew this was important. People don't normally walk up to you and say that they have a picture for you in their head. Especially when they have never met you, are only eight-years-old and don't speak a word of the same language.
I've flown kites! Two string kites that you can control to do all sorts of incredible things. Kites that fly high in the sky. Kites that ride the wind. Kites that are free and beautiful. Kites that are gently and firmly controlled by the kite master.
It took me the next 18 hours to work out the significance of the picture. We can only live our lives to their full, highest potential if we surrender to the kite master. To the director who has a script for each one of us. Independence at the end of the day is a sad reality tv show, a kite with no strings that will always be destroyed by the winds of the world and is ultimately destined to crash and burn.
I hadn't prayed for over 20 years. I hadn't cried for over 20 years. Over the last week I've started praying again and I've had lots of tears. An eight-year-old Guatemalan girl named Amy, a picture of a kite and a sad, hard-hearted executive came together so that God could work a miracle. I have now submitted to the kite master and look forward to flying high in the sky under his loving direction.
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