FAITH RISING

Mike Dana Gerald Mike

Sugar & Sharla

FROM COAL MINES
TO
DIAMONDS

               ♫Lift Jesus Higher♫, the song returns into my heart nearly every morning at some time when I am visiting personally with my Lord.
               No wonder I love the name “Faith Rising”. God gave a young music group this name when He put them together to glorify Him with the gifts He has given them.
               One by one, God brought these young people into my life. Of course Sugar was the first. She is obviously my spiritual daughter. Years ago, God gave me His Supernatural love for her. God worked through me to have her receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit: a very growing experience in my life.
               It was during one of the hard places in my life when I was in a place of personal issues so dark, I felt I was in the depth of a coal mine. It turned out to be…not coal at all; but…diamonds.
               God opened the doors for me to receive a job working for a computer company, typing names. I was awed by the ability of the other women who could type so fast and get so many more names typed than I could. I was surprised that I could not keep up. But God had a plan. I was to work there for just a season. A season of darkness in other areas of my life, but a great Light would shine forth.
               Sugar and Amanda were the two young girls that God caused me to love so deeply. It had to be His Love because what I felt for them far exceeded human love.
               One night I invited them to my house to watch a movie. Jurassic Park, would you believe? The two girls had been best friends for years and now the enemy was bringing things against them to separate them. I hoped I could help save their friendship.
               And yes, in the back of my mind, I desired that they would receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
               God had used me in the past to win many people to Salvation,  praying with them to receive. So that had become fairly easy for me. But, I just couldn’t get a handle on how to help someone receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. I knew how this experience had changed my life and I could see how these girls really needed it because of the power and wisdom the Holy Spirit brings.
               After the movie, all I can remember is the two young women were each sitting on a counter top. They were about 18 and 19 years old, both beautiful girls in the physical, sweet as they could be, loved life in the natural but often being led down the wrong paths because they didn’t know how to let the Holy Spirit guide them. They were Christians but so under fed spiritually and lacking a desire for the Word.
               My downstairs kitchen had an island in the center with the sink on the opposite side of where Sugar was sitting. There was another counter on the left by the stove. I don’t know how the girls ended up perching themselves on the counter tops. I guess we were talking and they just did. Amanda on the left of me by the stove and Sugar on my right.
               That’s when I felt the Royal Nudge of the Holy Spirit to ask them if they would like to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I almost wished they would say “No.” because I didn’t know what to do next.
               Amanda, sitting cross legged, opened her yes wide and said, “Yes, I want to.”
               I no longer believe it is necessary to speak in tongues when you invite the Holy Spirit to be a part of your life…but at that time, that was all I knew. So we prayed; she and Sugar received the Holy Spirit. And then, before I knew what I was doing, I said to Amanda, “Would you like to receive your prayer language?”
               “Yes”, she said emphatically. 
               The Lord had brought us this far on my meager faith but full of love for the girls. The Holy Spirit was not only blessing the girls, but also teaching and training me.
               I had already shared how I had received, so now all I knew to do was to tell Amanda to raise her hands and give her mouth to Jesus. I told her to begin praising God in her heart and to just relax and trust Him; that He would give her words, no matter how strange they sounded or how few.
               I was shocked, as almost immediately words began to pour out of Amanda’s mouth. Talk about small faith on my part, but oh, I was so grateful.
               You would think my faith had been built up at this point, but God was not going to let me think for one minute that it was me producing this miracle. No matter how much I loved the girls.
               I had been standing between the two counter tops and the two girls. This meant that while I was facing Amanda, my back was turned to Sugar.
               “Oh, Oh.” I could feel Sugar’s eyes on me. I knew I couldn’t leave her out. My relationship with Sugar was even closer than my relationship with Amanda.
               “I guess you want your prayer language, too, Sugar. Is that right?”
               She has such big beautiful brown eyes. So trusting now, they seemed larger than ever.
               The answer I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear was filled with excitement and expectancy and faith. “Yes, Yes. I want my prayer language, too.”
               As I stood facing her now, I literally felt like I was in a box…so totally helpless to give this child what I so much wanted her to have.
               I sent up a quick prayer. “God, You’ve pushed me into a corner and You are going to have to do something. This is as far as I can go.”
               I didn’t have time for a long eloquent prayer. All I could pray was, “Help Lord. I’m counting on You.”
               When I looked back at Sugar, she had her hands up, and was praising God and mouthing little words over and over.
               It hit us all at the same time; that both girls had received their prayer language.
               Like a dream, I will never forget what happened next. Jumping and leaping and praising , the girls ran into the front yard and continued their jumping, swirling, dancing, leaping and praising God. For some reason as I view the scene in my vivid memory…I see sparkles, like diamonds all around them. No longer pieces of coal but bright shining diamonds, chosen to be lights in the Kingdom of God.
               That night I think God must have birthed two spiritual daughters for me. Never having natural daughters of my own, God supplied my need.
               One dear daughter, Amanda, I seldom see anymore. She moved out of town but God has kept Sugar close in my life and allowed me to watch her grow.
               I can’t go into detail here, but I know in my heart the many ways that Sugar is one of the strongest instruments in this new band created by God. She does not perform on a natural stage at this time, more like working back stage, supplying the team with props of
Faith-Love-Prayer-Excitement-Encouragement-Validity.
               Thanks Sugar, for all you mean to me.
               Thanks Lord, for giving me such a strong daughter and allowing me
To see her grow into Spiritual Womanhood…A TRUE DIAMOND.