Grace Spilling Over / True Stories of God's Tender Mercies

By Janet Chester Bly

Ever wonder if God is always good and can ever be really trusted? Many of the folks in these true stories did.
Here are people like you. They faced troubles. They got impatient for relief from heartbreaking problems. They often asked, “Why?” But through God’s delays, they eventually found all they needed in Him. These encouraging true anecdotes wrapped with prayer and Bible verses will help you enter His quiet and linger to listen.
No easy answers presented. No Band-Aids for gaping wounds. No flinching from looking cruelty squarely in the eye. Yet hope vibrates with life in these pages. Illuminating stories of humor and pathos provide steadfast confidence in God’s wisdom and goodness. You will see how God prepares us for what lies ahead.
When you truly believe that God is good, even when life is bad, you’ll clear the distortions in your thinking. You’ll experience deep and abiding comfort. You’ll find spiritual victory.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bly Books
• Release date: Jul 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005780548

Janet Chester Bly

Janet Chester Bly is the widow of award-winning western author Stephen Bly. She has authored and co-authored with Stephen 32 contemporary and historical fiction and inspirational and family-themed nonfiction books. He also published 100 books of his own.She and her three sons—Russell, Michael and Aaron--completed her late husband’s last novel, Stuart Brannon’s Final Shot. The story of that family project can be find on her website blog under the series topic “Finishing Dad’s Novel”: http://www.BlyBooks.com/blog/.

Book preview

Grace Spilling Over

True Stories

of God’s Tender Mercies

Janet Chester Bly

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Grace Spilling Over

Copyright © 2020 by Janet Chester Bly

Smashwords Edition

Cover Design:

Bly Books, Website: http://www.BlyBooks.com

Dedication:

To Steve ...

my perfect partner

in all ways

who encouraged me

when I needed help and hope

and provided me the surest sign

of God’s grace spilling over

Contents

Chapter 1: Lost and Found

Chapter 2: Jesus Loves the Ornery Children

Chapter 3: Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

Chapter 4: The Long Loneliness

Chapter 5: Cupped In His Hand

Chapter 6: The Yard Is Full

Chapter 7: The Greatest Miracle

Chapter 8: The Conflict of the Ages

Chapter 9: When It’s Winter In My Heart

Chapter 10: Close Encounters

Chapter 11: In The Waiting Room

Chapter 12: Foxhole Religion

Chapter 13: Pampered In His Grace

Chapter 14: To Heaven’s Gate

Chapter 15: His Hand In Every Homespun Story

Chapter 16: No Digging Allowed

Chapter 17: An Incredibly Foolish Decision

Chapter 18: Two By Two, Three By Three

Chapter 19: Hearts Pressed Together

Chapter 20: A Deep Sorrow

Chapter 21: Are You Listening, Lord?

Chapter 22: Hope Made Her Do It

Chapter 23: Still Fruitful

Chapter 24: At The Helm

Chapter 25: A Clear and Future Security

Chapter 26: Stooping From His Throne

Chapter 27: Karen’s Fears

Chapter 28: Boxed Wings, Taxi Boats & Harlem Scholarships

Chapter 29: Dead Sea Showdown

Chapter 30: Lilies Deck Our Walks

Chapter 31: Bells Over Boise

Chapter 32: The God of a Thousand Autumns

Chapter 33: Won By A Kiss

Chapter 34: Yes, Sir, It’s a Pretty World

Chapter 35: A Most Indiscriminate Give-Away

Chapter 36: Finding Thorns Before The Roses

Chapter 37: A Babylonian Uprising

Chapter 38: Under a General’s Orders

Chapter 39: Tender Mercies

Chapter 40: A Very Chosen Mother-in-Law

Chapter 41: The Rest of the Story

Chapter 42: A Billion Points of Light

Chapter 43: Joy Spilling Over

Chapter 44: Flames of Holy Wonder

Chapter 45: Carburetors and Orchids

Chapter 46: A Field of Swallowtails and Monarchs

Chapter 47: All Plans Subject To Change, Without Notice

Chapter 48: The Night of Two Miracles

Chapter 49: Tapping Straight Into His Goodness

Chapter 50: Alarm at the Crusade

Chapter 51: Trinkets and Nest Eggs

Chapter 52: Could Be Much Worse

Chapter 53: The Unthinkable

Chapter 54: The Grand Canyon of Virtues

Chapter 55: Spilled Out Grace

Chapter 56: I Didn’t Know I’d Do It

Chapter 57: Swing Our Lanterns Higher

Chapter 58: What the Ugly Turns Into

Chapter 59: Our Ode To Joy

Chapter 60: A Whale of a Close One

Chapter 61: A Knife In His Own Chest

About The Author

Other Books By Janet Chester Bly

Chapter 1

Lost And Found

"The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;

on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. "

Isaiah 9:2

"If we get the feeling that no one notices our sorrow,

it can drive us to despair. "

Joni Eareckson Tada

Teri finally pulled her life together. She endured years of a long series of deadens, painful losses, and tragedy. But that was in the past. Now she had it all: a loving husband, three wonderful children, and no major crises.

Until her husband planned a surprise. He found a way to search for the two other children she lost long ago.

I was twenty-one, Teri explains, an orphaned divorcee with only a basic education. My first husband had an intact, extended family, education, and financial resources. He got custody of our kids.

Eventually, because of circumstances beyond her control, Teri no longer knew where they were.

Her husband’s news delighted her. She would truly be complete now. She only lacked the full circle of her family. She’d renew the relationship with the children she had to give up. She could finally let them know how much she loved them.

Then came the fateful day.

I had in my hands a computer printout that told me about my firstborn son, Teri relates. He was tall, weighed 160 pounds with hazel eyes. His hair darkened to brown. He started driving on his sixteenth birthday, the year before. I also had the phone number to connect me to his voice and the address where I could see and hug him and his sister again.

Then Teri saw a word that chilled her: Deceased!

Why was that on the page? Deceased? That couldn’t be true. How could her son be dead?

A police report stated: suicide.

In that moment, Teri shut down.

My heart was completely dark. I felt God was out to get me, punishing me for my many wrong choices. It was like a cruel joke. My poor husband tried to do what he could, but basically I no longer existed. What he meant for a joy turned into trauma of the first degree. It was up to him to take care of our family. I had checked out. All I knew was my firstborn son was dead and later my firstborn daughter refused to meet with me. And who could blame her? I was sure I was the cause of her brother’s death. Me and God.

Teri struggled with depression before and learned how to pull herself out. But not this time. She didn’t want to. She feared what might happen next. If she stayed in these dark depths, she wouldn’t have to face the agony of guilt and despair. At least she knew what to expect in her cave: nothing. Nothing but pain and hopelessness.

Knowledge killed her hope.

What could kill yours?

Fear or rage will.

Guilt and doubt try to.

Sin does.

Death can.

When hope wanes, you can become mentally intoxicated—no reason, no moderation, no judgment. If you don’t gain your wits, hopelessness becomes all spur and no rein.

You lose your ability to believe good things happen. You believe you’ll never be happy again. This is the kind of rock-hard bottom Teri hit. So have others.

A wounded friend weeps, I prayed very hard my husband wouldn’t leave. Every day and night I prayed. But he left anyway.

The traumas of this world soil innocence, blind our view of a loving God. We’re like injured, brute beasts who strike out at the one who comes to the rescue.

You can’t live without hope. Yet some of our great thinkers have insinuated there’s none to be found.

George Bernard Shaw: The life of the human race is a brief discreditable episode in the history of the meanest of planets.

Jesus: I have come that [you] might have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10).

Jean-Paul Sartre: Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness and dies by chance.

Jesus: I am the way and the truth and the life (John 14:6).

Sir James Jeans: Life may be a disease which attacks planets in their decay.

Jesus: Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst ... [It] will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 4:14).

Which voice do you believe?

Hope didn’t just happen for Teri. Time by itself healed nothing for her. She needed time plus love. Hope appeared with hands and feet, mind and heart. Teri’s load lightened when someone sat beside her and listened. God worked through her family and a special friend to soften and redirect her exploding anger, gripping regrets, and gaping wounds.

God uses people to kindle hope.

F. B. Meyer reflected sometimes you are called to be as the sun, ripening souls by your genial love; at other times, you refresh them as rain watering the grass.

Teri’s daughter Sunnie began to attend events at a new church in town. She usually got a ride so Teri stayed home and suffered alone. Then Sunnie started going to Sunday school. She needed Teri to take her.

Teri decided not to sit in the church parking lot and wait. The reason: pure pride. I didn’t want to give anyone in town more to talk about. There was enough gossip—the lost children, the divorces, suicide. I was my own one-woman soap opera.

Teri ventured inside and crept into an adult class.

God was there waiting for me. I bought a Bible so I would fit in. I never intended to read it, much less study it. Yet, this place, and the messages I heard, seemed so right. I kept attending and met Myrn, an honest-to-goodness earthbound guardian angel. She became my first real and true human friend.

Slowly Myrn and Teri shared bits and pieces of their lives.

They discovered each experienced much pain and heartache, but with a big difference. Myrn was grateful for her life. Teri turned bitter and angry.

She marveled at her new friend. Myrn suffered as much and at times worse, yet she seemed content, even happy. Hope! She had hope, something I lost long ago. I had come to expect only the worst and gotten it.

Myrn claimed all her answers came from the Bible, like the one Teri carried with her. One day, Teri checked the concordance for the word hope. She found Psalm 16, which begins, Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust (KJV).

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it, to take that first step of faith into trust. Nope, it wasn’t in me, Teri confesses.

Then one Sunday morning Teri and Myrn walked into the church foyer. Through the window they watched Myrn’s teenage son, Andrew.

Andrew was the same age as my Patrick when he died. I was suddenly consumed with jealousy. I was angry at God that he could give such a gift, then snatch it away so uncaringly—not once, but twice. Poor Myrn, the concern on her face as she allowed me to carry on against the God she so dearly loved. Her tears fell as fast and furiously as mine as I tried to tell her she was so wrong about this God. ‘You just never know when He is going to zap you with something awful,’ I cried out. I summed up my gut feelings with this question, 'Was I really so bad and sinful that He had to kill my son to punish me?’

Oh, Teri! Myrn sobbed and held her with arms that felt like the hug of the Lord.

Through her tears, Myrn spoke the most important words Teri ever heard. "I am so sorry you believed such horrible lies about yourself and about our heavenly Father. He wants you back with Him even more than you want your son and daughter back with you . Do you honestly believe He would put this kind of pain and suffering into the lives of everyone who knew and loved Patrick, just to condemn you?

God is not the source of your pain, Myrn continued, but the source of your perfect comfort, if you will trust Him. He can give the peace you so desperately need. And when you’re ready, He will show you how to share that peace with someone else who needs it. Myrn held Teri tight.

Then she prayed for her. Right there on the spot for the whole world to see, Teri says, this chosen woman of God professed her love of me to her heavenly Father and prayed on my behalf. She prayed I would find a way to trust again.

Myrn and Teri continued to be close friends and prayer partners, and Teri has grown in her knowledge of the Bible and God. However, the broken mother-heart has not been completely healed. But then, I don’t want it to be, Teri admits. It took that break for the light of the Lord to get in.

Teri needed God with skin. She needed to see him through a loving human being. God knew that. That’s why he once came to earth in human form.

A pastor friend tells of a dying woman he visited in the hospital. He talked to her about God and His love, but she responded, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t form any picture or notion in my mind of God.

What do you think about when you imagine Jesus? the pastor said.

I think about a man, a good man, she said.

God reveals himself through Jesus. When you consider Jesus, you see God as He wants to be known.

Ah, she replied. That makes more sense.

~~~~

Dear Father, help me be a sign of hope to some hurting person you bring into my life. I need your hope too. Fill my heart with hope and my mouth with a word from you. Free me up to offer comfort. Give me practical advice how I can show compassion. In Jesus’ name, amen.

~~~~

Chapter 2

Jesus Loves the Ornery Children

"Jesus said, 'Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me;

for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

Matthew 19:14 KJV

"God can and does see the future.

He knows it all, He is all-powerful, and He is here."

Kay Arthur

Missionaries Wayne and Karen organized summer Vacation Bible Schools for small towns across the Pacific northwest. They contacted churches, scheduled dates, posted flyers, and packed their camper trailer to spend each week in a different community.

One Sunday afternoon, they pulled into Uniontown and were immediately informed they arrived a week too early, according to advance publicity. In spite of the mix-up, they stayed in Uniontown.

Many children participated. Not all proved easy to teach. In particular, three children from one family—a brother and two sisters—were hard to control. In the middle of the week, Karen asked the brother to stay inside during recreation because of his foul mouth. She told him, Jesus can help you not say those bad words, if you’ll ask him to be your Savior.

I already asked Jesus to be my Savior and I wish I hadn’t, he retorted.

Why? asked Karen.

Because it’s like a war going on inside of me.

Karen tried to explain in a child’s terms about the conflict of good and evil, between the old nature and the new one. The more you rely on Jesus to help you do good, the weaker the old nature will get and the easier it will be to do good things, she said.

She prayed with the boy and he behaved better the rest of the week. However, the sisters continued to hit each other, steal from the other kids, dance around on the tables, and cause general mayhem. Each day an exhausted Karen wondered what she was doing out there on the road with these hassles when she could enjoy peace at home.

By week’s end, Karen felt ill. But she told her flannel graph Bible story, and gave an invitation for the children to receive God’s love through Christ. Who wants a home in heaven? she asked.

The two sisters raised their hands.

Karen couldn’t help thinking, You’re too ornery to know what you’re doing. She ignored them and didn’t follow up with questions or instruction.

The Lord kept after me to talk to them, she said later, but I was busy and not feeling well. Before I knew it, the day’s activities were over and the children gone.

Karen prepared her lesson for the last day and kept feeling an urgency to talk to these girls. But during the Bible story they goofed around and didn’t pay attention. Wayne finally separated them. Meanwhile, Karen kept praying, Lord, give me one more chance. I feel so bad because of my attitude. I know you love them and Jesus died for them, same as He did for me.

Karen gave another invitation in the last moments of the Bible school. This time, six hands raised up, including the two sisters. Karen took them both aside and explained how to become God’s child. Right away, the sisters wanted us to come to their house so we could tell their big brother about Jesus. However, we had to pack up and get on to the next town.

The following Monday morning, one of Wayne and Karen’s helpers handed them a newspaper. What a shock to see on the front page pictures of the three children, along with their mother and father. Most of the family died in a car crash the night before. One of the survivors, the big brother Wayne and Karen didn’t have time to talk to.

Karen says, We have prayed since that time that God would send someone else to tell the older brother about God’s love for him. How thankful we were to have spiritual impact in the siblings’ lives. Were we there at the wrong time? Not for them. He was right on schedule.

In the real world, bad things can happen to the young. In the real world, God knows the beginning and the end and where you’ll fit into the story. When He nudges you to do something, do it. Learn to trust God through experiences like this.

Those kids didn’t experience a long, full life. They only had days left. The time for their salvation was now. In God’s mercy, he knew this and made provision for them. So the Lord sent Wayne and Karen a week early. Other sinners didn’t repent that day, but those three mattered. God valued them. Yes, they needed discipline. They also needed something much more crucial.

We could ask, If God knew that tragedy awaited them, why didn’t He work to prevent it? After all, with God nothing is impossible.

He often does, but not this time. We don’t know why. But he brought Wayne and Karen to present the choices for eternity to these children.

Without God’s help, our world is so lost. All we’ve got, as J. G. Philpot expressed, a bed too short and a covering too narrow.

So watch for the holy nudge to do your part. Learn all the truth you can and share it with everyone you can. Hang in there for the unruly, the irritating, the helpless ones. Even the ornery little children.

~~~~

Lord, you know what’s up ahead and I don’t. Help me hear your voice and follow your lead. Be there for those who don’t have much time left. Give me the strength and courage to trust you to know when to be there ... when I’m exhausted, when I’m sick, as well as when I’m strong.

In Jesus’ name, amen.

~~~~

Chapter 3

Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell

My hope is in you all day long.

Psalm 25:5

The web of our life is of a mingled jam, good and ill together.

William Shakespeare

You never know when you’re about to face a frightening moment of decision.

My friend and I blithely drove down an Idaho highway one winter’s day. A truck coming toward us passed and spewed snow and mud so thick on our windshield we were totally blinded, at fifty miles per hour. Should we slow down? Should we pull off on the side? Should we keep going and hope the snow blew off? During those moments of sheer panic, we expected to crash. Or be rear-ended.

After intense