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Valley of Aloneness
Our Walk By Faith Part Four We stepped out of the boat in 2000. Yet when the Father called Barry and me that year to walk by faith in order to live our dream to serve Him together, at that time if I looked behind me, I could still see the boat. We could retreat back to it like Peter did, if things didn’t work out. Now it was 2004. For several years we had embraced our call to the Northwest and to the nations with all our hearts. But now when I turned to look back, there was no boat. There was no back up plan or optional way to live. There was no savings or retirement to fall back on. Consequently, we could only depend on the Lord of Hosts with all our being. Our absolute trust in the Father was our only security. Much to my relief, out on this wide expanse of faith-challenging water, the Father was there. His right hand was faithfully stretched out toward us. During the hard times, He always said to us…
“Just keep holding on to My hand. This steadying reassurance from our Abba Father was our lifeline. It was our place of safety. I’m so grateful He was faithful to help us find our way once again to that place of rest in Him, because ever since our return from Africa in January 2004, we were fiercely attacked. We were battered by the same hindering that Paul faced when he wrote…
“I shall remain in Ephesus until Pentecost. Due to this thwarting by the evil one, Barry and I also remained two years in our Ephesus, the Northwest. But no matter how relentless the obstacles were, we stood in tenaciously determined faith that we would return to Africa. When Paul was thwarted for a season, he pleaded with the believers in this way…
“Dear friends, I urge you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Then as a result of the fervent prayers of God’s people, Paul eventually went to the Thessalonians in Macedonia. Barry and I knew that we also would fulfill our Macedonian call to the nations because of the faithful, determined prayers of those standing with us. I quietly reflected on all of this as we traveled slowly one day along the country road to return to our favorite secluded place by the Skykomish River. It had been two years since we had been down by the river. When we emerged from our car, we stood side-by-side and marveled at the beauty of the fall leaves that shimmered in the sun with vibrant hues of gold. Moments later we sat in a restful silence on the eroded embankment that overlooked the swiftly moving river. In that peaceful haven, once again I gratefully listened to the comforting, familiar sounds of the rushing Skykomish and recalled this word of encouragement from the Father that someone had sent us earlier that morning…
“I need Ruth and Barry to finish this difficult race! One of those “attempts to thwart us” was a serious attack on my health during the years of 2004 and 2005. There was a silent killer in my body that my doctor described as “astronomical levels of lead and mercury poisoning.” This extreme toxicity was steadily eroding my health and making it increasingly more painful for me to walk. As this assault on my strength intensified, the Father comforted me by speaking this message to my heart. It is an encouragement He wants His children to know He is saying to each of us during the very hard times when we feel we can’t make it…
“I tell you, with all the authority of heaven and of My Word, that what the enemy has stolen from you, I will require that he give back to
you many, many times over. Many a day, these powerful words watered my spirit and were a healing Balm of Gilead to my weary soul. At the same time, to regain my health we stopped all public ministry. During this time of being hidden away, I found a place of peace deep within me whenever I ran to my Abba Father and recalled those encouraging words that He had so lovingly revealed to me. Meanwhile, the treatments to remove the heavy metals made me severely ill and the searing nerve pain in my left leg increasingly crippled me. Many a night this made sleep impossible. During the day I had difficulty remembering what I was saying or what I was going to do. It was as if my thoughts were in a distant fog. When we researched the damage from heavy metals, we learned that one of the ways they ravage the body is by attacking a person’s ability to think clearly and remember. Consequently, I had the symptoms of advancing Alzheimer’s. This was the most challenging time in our walk by faith. The needs we had to believe for were tremendous due to the astronomical medical expenses. We also could not return to ministry work unless my health was restored. Even though we were faced with this steepest of all mountains, none of this could touch our spirits. We had learned to be at peace in the midst of whatever hardships came against us. Consequently, we could always retreat to that amazing place of rest in the presence of our tenderly loving Father. For years now He had trained us to look at everything through His eyes, including our every impossible need and our every heartache. Now what He had taught us was the truth that sustained us. Also ever since I was born again in 1972, the Lord had strongly impressed on me to make the Word my established perspective on life rather than dwelling on the physical pain in my body that wearied me. Therefore, I once again riveted my focus on His words, rather than on the tumultuous feelings that were at times so chaotic in my soul. These lessons now strengthened me. Yet due to the hard times both physically and emotionally, there were days when I felt like David who wrote…
“My God, my God, every day we call to You, but You don’t answer. I’m so grateful I can be this honest with the Father. I’m equally thankful that throughout the Word men and women He used in amazing ways also told Him exactly how they were feeling, even as they trusted Him and believed in His Word with all their hearts. It is a comfort that we can be real with God. For when we are vulnerable and transparent in His presence, He listens to us with compassion, and never with judgment or disapproval. Then after we’ve poured out our honest emotions to Him, He takes us by the hand and helps us go to the place in our thoughts where His Word-perspective brings peace. Therefore throughout this very difficult time, I was totally honest with my Abba Father. Often, I cried out to Him with the same words David once said…
“Unless You had helped me, I soon would have died. Whenever I poured out my heart to the Father, He scooped me up into His understanding embrace and encouraged me with His closeness. This kind response renewed my hope and this reviving was critical because…
“Faith is the confident assurance For without hope, our capacity to trust is paralyzed. The weeks passed by while Barry and I waited for the attack on my health to be definitively defeated. We lived with this expectancy because the Word assures us…
Once again, I was also repeatedly comforted by recalling these words by Paul the Apostle that capture his refreshing honesty and his unwavering declaration of victory in the midst of his worst trials…
“We are pressed on every side by troubles, During this painful season, the frequent silence of the Father concerning our desperately needed provision depleted us in every way. Sometimes the suffering we felt was painfully overwhelming. Yet all we could do was thrust ourselves on His mercy and cry out…
“Please, Father, send help. I often felt alone in this valley with Barry and the Lord because frequently our greatest suffering was not my health issues, but the tremendous amount of money we constantly needed for my pressing and extremely high medical costs. The expenses for our regular needs also continued, even while the ministry was silent due to our sabbatical from public ministry. However, because of our walk by faith, we could not share with people about this area of hardship. We could only say to those who asked how we were doing… “ We are having a very hard time.” Because this silence about our extreme funding needs was so important to the Father, no matter how much it drained us emotionally and physically, and no matter how often we felt painfully alone, we obeyed. This was such a difficult time that I couldn’t even play my harp or sing my love songs to the Lord. One morning I felt profoundly sad about this loss because the times of worship with my harp before the Father always gave me comfort and strength. As I longed for those moments to return, I grieved. Each time I grappled with this deep sense of loss, He encouraged me. Soon I realized that His words of reassurance were for many of His sons and daughters who are also in a valley that seems like it will never end. Yet it is overwhelming. So this is how the Father comforted me, and if you are in a serious time of struggle these words of encouragement are for you as well…
“This wilderness time is painful for you. After that unforgettable morning, our time in the Valley of Aloneness persisted for a while longer. As it did, my kind Papa God repeatedly assured me in my heart…
“I’m here, very close, even when you feel I’m far away, During this wilderness time, we died all over again to many of our cherished hopes and dreams, and even to God’s promises to us. Instead of these being the center of our thoughts, we could only seek Him who is our Pearl of Great Price. He is a costly Lord and Master to serve. There is a price to love Him with abandonment. But the harvest is great when we are passionately devoted to Him. And our closest Friend and our most intimate Companion is worth it all. Barry and I are not alone in these struggles. Multitudes of the Lord’s devoted sons and daughters are struggling in the wilderness. They are being buffeted, sometimes relentlessly, by the evil one through determined assaults on health, finances, children, hopes and dreams. All this battering is for this one purpose…
“The enemy of our soul and the determined adversary against But what spurs on these consecrated sons and daughters of the Holy One of Israel is a passion for Him that no hardship or suffering can crush out of them, even when there are times of tremendous discouragement and loss. Yes, the harvest is beyond our fondest hopes and most cherished dreams when we surrender all we are to the Father. But all this astounding impact is not just for the lost who don’t know Him. All across the nations of the earth revival fires are burning. That fire is the Father’s longing for the restoration of multitudes of His distant, hurting children back to closeness with Him. It is also the Lord setting in motion His plans to usher into places of favor and service, countless women and men He has been carefully preparing to use to fulfill His longing of the ages. The Lord of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel, is even now calling forth His Bride from the ends of earth and from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation" (Revelation 5:9 NASB). Yet, it isn’t the famous ones He is raising up at this time. Just like in the Book of Acts when the New Covenant began, it is the simple, ordinary people the Father is calling out from the hidden places. For His eyes that burn with revival fire are upon those who have been invisible and overlooked, but who have remained faithful to Him. These are the ones He is going to bring forth to do mighty and amazing exploits in this hour for the Kingdom of God. They are also not the fainthearted ones. They are the determined ones who have learned in the hard places to set their face like flint and tenaciously keep pressing onward, no matter what. They have surrendered with passionate abandonment to the purposes of the Father. They have died to self so that the living God may arise within them to reach out to the broken, the hurting, and the lost with His heart. To these humbled, hidden away people whom the Father has prepared for a lifetime to use for His glorious purposes, I hear Him in my heart declaring these words of compelling encouragement…
“I AM rising upon you (Isaiah 60:1-3 NASB). Whenever I look back on our season in the wilderness, I am amazed at how these words have been fulfilled in our own lives and calling. I am equally stunned by these specific areas of astounding breakthrough…
Even during the most difficult days and the longest of nights, He faithfully led us through the curtain of heaven into His inner
sanctuary. There in His Holy presence (Hebrews 6:19 NLT), we always found a merciful rest and a healing peace.
All of this astounded us. With this painful valley behind us, we once again resolutely stood in a place of extreme faith and trusted our Abba Father for the miraculous provision we needed to return to our beloved Africa. As we believed for this with all our hearts, this is the moment I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter when I saw that there was no boat to retreat to if we needed it. There was no alternative plan to resort to if our walk by faith failed. Out on that wide expanse of faith-challenging water, only the Father was there, still faithfully assuring us, just as He had done so often in the past…
“Just keep holding on to My hand. As I considered the never ending vista of water that stretched out before us with no land in sight, these promises from the Father surged through my spirit like a mighty, rushing river. The words affected me so powerfully that the impact reminded me of this verse…
“I will come like a rushing stream that is driven As the mighty River of God cascaded over our souls and the Wind and Breath of His Spirit blew across our lives, I heard these phenomenally amazing words that the Father spoke to my heart…
"My heart is that the ends of the earth will see the salvation of their God
(Isaiah 52:10 NLT). We returned to Africa in January 2006. 
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