Turning burdens to lessons
Bethany Barr Phillips, Kay Arthur share about the power of the Word of God
Liberty students heard singer-songwriter Bethany Barr Phillips and Co-founder of Precept Ministries International and award-winning author Kay Arthur speak at Convocation Monday, Nov. 9 about how God has used difficult circumstances in their lives to bring them closer to the Lord.
Wisdom — Kay Arthur told the story of how the Lord freed her from sin. Photo credit: Michela Diddle
Between worship songs, Phillips shared her story of growing up in the church, getting married and becoming pregnant. However, during her first doctor’s appointment, Phillips and her husband were told she was not actually pregnant, but a rare form of cancer had formed in her womb.
“There was no longer a baby, but there was something that was trying to kill me,” Phillips said. “And it reminds me of that verse that says the enemy means to steal, kill, and destroy … I felt like a life had been taken.”
The artist from Tuscaloosa, Alabama described the next six months of chemotherapy and how she had lost all of her hair along with most of her hope. She said the Lord began to show her that his Word never became alive in her life, despite her serving in the church for most of her life. She said he planted Isaiah 54 on her heart.
“I have to be honest,” Phillips said. “I was angry, mad, frustrated. I didn’t understand (how even though) I served the Lord with my life and my vocation … bad things would happen. I was broken and desperate, and I had gotten to a place where all that I have done and all that I’ve accomplished on a platform in Sunday school didn’t matter anymore. And at that moment, the Lord began the freedom process in my own heart, and with that freedom, he began to heal me. I found out that two months later I was cancer free.”
After a round of applause and a smile on Phillips’ face, she went on to say that a year and a half later, she and her husband had a baby girl named Isaiah Joy.
Arthur took the stage next and said speaking to Liberty’s student body was the best birthday gift she could have asked for, as her 82nd birthday was just two days away. She began her message by saying how the student body responds to what she has to say will determine the future of America.
“In our America, the fear of the Lord is gone, and it has been replaced with the fear of man,” Arthur said. “You and I are living in a society that wants to bring us under fear so that we are not able to stand, so we are not able to freely proclaim the Word of God. We are ill-prepared for this time because there is a famine in the United States for the pure Word of God.”
She asked students what place God and his Word take in their lives. She reminded students that as Christians, God and his Word must be first priority in their lives. If not, they will not have the courage to stand firm in their beliefs throughout the world.
Next, Arthur described some of her story. She married a young, talented and rich baseball player who was offered contracts to pitch for the Yankees, Pirates and Indians. Although he was voted most likely to succeed and rated a genius, according to Arthur, she still ended up divorcing her husband.
“After I divorced him, he would call me and he would say, ‘I’m going to kill myself,’” Arthur said. “And I would say to him, ‘Do a good job, so I get your money.’ The Bible says … that life and death are in the tongue. And what I was telling him was your life doesn’t matter. The money that I’ll get from your life for me and the two boys will. I divorced him … and I went out to look for love in all the wrong places. … I did things that I thought I would never, ever, ever do.”
She described the affair she had with a married man for two years and how when she found out he was married, she did not care.
“Sin will take you farther than you ever wanted to go,” Arthur said. “It will keep you longer than you ever intended to stay, and it will cost you more than you ever thought you would pay. The Bible says whoever commits sin is a slave to sin. But the Son shall set us free.
You shall be free indeed.”
Arthur accepted Jesus into her life by her bedside July 16, 1963 at 29 years old. She described how, after getting saved, she told God she was willing to go back to her first husband and make it work. She planned on writing him a letter and put it off for many weeks.
Finally, she got a call from her husband’s parents. She thought God was bringing them back together. However, she found out that her husband had committed suicide.
“How do you live with all that? How do you press on? How do you go forward?” Arthur said. “You get to know your God. The people who know their God will be able to stand firm. But not just stand firm, they will be able to take action.”
RITTER is a news reporter.