Infallible 

Mary, you can trust this. 

You can trust God in this unexplainable moment. "For the word of God will never fail."  If He said it, He will do it. Gabriel knows. Gabriel has seen the impossible made possible many times over.

It was a sad discussion. How would we close down the Desert Rose project? It was the only girls' shelter of its kind in the country. Six girls were living inside the shelter, and none of them had a solid place to go if the shelter closed. The missionary who had founded Desert Rose was leaving the country, and she had no one whom she could pass the torch to. My husband Troy and I were established in missions by now. We had built our ministry, planted a church, and found our strength in the calling. God had used us despite our weakness, and it had built our confidence in what He could do. 

We had a close relationship with the founder of Desert Rose and had decided to try to help her solve the logistical problem of ending a ministry. None of us felt good about it. We wondered why God hadn't sent a replacement. The Desert Rose project was complicated. It was run differently than the other shelters in the country, and with it came the stresses of trailblazing. That night as we closed in prayer, God surprised me again. I felt Him speak to me, "You are going to take Desert Rose.” 

The feeling became so intense I had to share it with the group immediately as we closed the prayer time. "God is speaking to me to take Desert Rose," I said.


Even as I spoke it, doubt crept in. I looked around the room to find everyone as surprised as I was. 

"Are you sure?" Troy asked, realizing more than anyone else the risk of that endeavor. 

I knew to weigh the call with scripture, and it passed that test. "Yes, I am," I replied.


Six girls needed a home, and God was asking me to commit to providing for them. The details were daunting. There wasn't much money in the bank. There was a lot of need and few resources. I began to feel the weight of what I had just agreed to do. Troy had encouraged me as we crawled into bed that night, "Shari, if you're going to do this, you have to trust God. Don't worry about the money. If He said to do it, He will provide."


The following day when I woke up, I set my mind to trust that God was with me in this and never look back. Then the miracles began. Each step of faith brought more miracles. 

The week of Christmas, Desert Rose was flooded with volunteers from a church in Hong Kong. They brought gifts, games, and fast-food chicken dinner meals for each of our girls. Everyone was so excited. The volunteers dressed up in the Nativity costumes and performed the Christmas story in our Desert Rose Shelter living room. In our daily work, we were restricted on what we could share regarding the Gospel, so for many of our girls, this was the first time they had heard the Good News of Jesus. Afterward, the girls asked if they could perform for us what they had just seen. The team helped dress the girls in the costumes, and we all piled into the living room, turned off the lights, and used flashlights to illuminate our little nativity. In all my life, I'd never watched a more beautiful rendition of the Bethlehem story. I savored the moment with streams of tears flowing. The girls performed it as if they had soaked in every detail while they watched the first time. I took it all in. A room packed with people who biologically didn't belong in the story, and yet they were here fully involved as if these were their children, cameras out, faces beaming. 

And it dawned on me all I could have missed if I had not believed God's Word would never fail. He does what He says he will do. I’m living proof.