ROWING MY BOAT . . . GOD’S WAY (Vision)

Danna Shirley

Fountain of Praise

  Gautier, MS

I worked in the office at Vancleave United Methodist Church during the week but my heart and loyalty was at Fountain of Praise Church, where I was being spiritually fed. So why did I wake up one Sunday morning totally confused as to where I would attend church? It was like I had been rowing my boat toward Fountain of Praise for so long and now I was sitting dead in the water. All of a sudden I had a vision of my boat changing course and I started rowing toward Vancleave Methodist. Fountain of Praise was growing faint in the distance. What was God doing?

Vancleave United Methodist

    Vancleave, MS

Now I was in a Methodist Church, a denomination I hadn’t attended since childhood. The people were great and the sermons were scriptural but there was no “fire of the Spirit” that I was used to. I only attended for a short time when my husband was assigned to a position in Japan and we were to leave in a few months. I wondered why God would move me out of a church that I loved, with good preaching and wonderful people, just to move me again a few months later. Why didn’t He just leave me where I was?

Hario Chapel 

   Japan

            I thought I would be lost in Japan but we had access to the military base so I made Navy friends and attended the Hario Chapel just fifteen minutes from our home in Kawatana. I learned quickly that God is not limited by geography or denomination.

            I soon met a visiting evangelist, LaVonne Hira, who gave me insight as to why God moved me from one church to another back in MS. She explained that it was really His mercy that came into play because He knew how difficult it would be to leave Fountain of Praise to go to Japan but it wasn’t difficult at all to leave Vancleave Methodist to go to Japan.

            We stayed there five years and then I rowed my boat across the Pacific and back to MS.

Vancleave Assembly of God

   Vancleave, MS

Even though I had gotten saved in an Assembly of God, I did not immediately gravitate to the local A/G church. For several weeks I visited in Ocean Springs and Gautier. Strangely enough, it was a sermon in a Gautier church that sent me back to Vancleave A/G. When I walked in the middle of the pastor’s sermon, his message confirmed that I was home. My boat had docked.

Bartlett First Assembly of God

     Bartlett, TN

            The death of my husband in 2003 capsized my boat and I found myself in a huge tidal wave of confusion and uncertainty. I decided no move was the best move and so I stayed in still waters for eighteen months. Then God uprighted my life and moved me closer to my daughter and family in Bartlett, TN. I climbed back into the boat and my rowing commenced. I put into port a few different places until I docked at Bartlett First A/G. I was home and with a church family again.

            I don’t know how long I will be here for God makes waves and directs our course but for right now I’m . . . steady as she goes.

Napa Valley Baptist Church

     Napa, CA

            Steady as she goes lasted nine whole years before it took me to Napa, CA in 2013. I moved temporarily to help as caregiver to my mother, sister, and brother-in-law. I found a nice church just down from my mother’s house and was warmly welcomed into the fold. I don’t know how long I will remain in Napa because home is still Memphis and I will return there eventually. For now I’m happy to just cruise around the wine country.

  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS (Vision)

Danna Shirley

I was a semi-new Christian in 1988, just helping out in the church office and wherever I was needed. I couldn’t sing or play an instrument or pray lofty prayers but as a worker bee, I typed the bulletin and organized. So when an announcement was made to plan our Christmas activities that year, I attended the meeting.

Fountain of Praise had been newly renovated from a former automotive repair shop so it was a long, narrow building. The fellowship hall was also long and narrow and was petitioned off from the sanctuary. As we all sat around the tables facing each another, throwing out ideas for programs, I looked at the end of the fellowship hall and saw it open up into a huge living room with comfortable couches and chairs, a large area rug, coffee tables and lamps, a warm fireplace with a lovely decorated Christmas tree beside it filled with festively wrapped packages underneath.

When I explained my vision, everyone agreed that was what we would do . . . decorate the sanctuary like a living room at Christmastime and invite everyone to come to our “Christmas Party.” The church offices had plenty of furniture and what we didn’t have, people brought from their own homes. The invitation read “Bring Gifts for Baby Jesus” which would go into our nursery.

The night of the party came and everyone who had ever attended our church received an invitation. It was a delightful setting. The room was lit with candles and lamps, rugs and throw pillows—nice and comfy cozy. Gifts arrived and were put under the tree. Everyone made themselves at home eating snacks and drinking punch. We sang Christmas carols and the children opened the gifts for baby Jesus.

Then we invited everyone to say how they had come to visit Fountain of Praise or how God had ministered to them through our pastors, Bob and Anne Tolar. It was a wonderful evening of sharing and good memories.

           

GOD CRIES TOO (Vision)

--Danna Shirley

The worship leader at my church was praying at the end of our song service when God flashed a vision into my spirit. I saw a friend crying over her husband who had recently passed away. Her tears and God's tears--like rain--were falling together at the same time. Two or three days earlier after a nice rain that was desperately needed, there appeared a rainbow over the vineyard behind my sister's house in Napa, California.

I came home from church and wrote the vision as best as could be described. I pray it brings comfort to you as a word from God that He also grieves with us. 

"When we lose a loved one, God’s tears mingle with ours and fall like rain to water the earth. When our season of grieving is over, He brings forth the rainbow as a sign of His mercy moving us gently into a new season of comfort and well-being. Wait patiently on Him."