Jesse was fascinated by the rugged adventurer who was home in southwest Iowa for a short visit. He was a Wagon Master who guided wagon trains overland from Kansas City across the plains, mountains and Indian territories to a new home in the West. Suddenly she ran up to him and he scooped her up where she sat on his lap then wistfully said, “I’ll marry you some day.”
He laughed and dismissed the child’s remarks. He lived a wild and dangerous life on the western frontier and thought little of it. After all he was twenty years older than her. Under the toughness was a man driven by a dream. For this dream, he was willing to risk his own life taking people across the plains and through Indian territories in order to buy a farm in Green Bay Bottom adjacent to the Mississippi River. When he was forty years old, he traded his buckskins for farmer’s clothes and married that little girl who was now a beauty. To this couple was born my grandfather, Lewis Edward Storms II.
This is the saga of how my great-grandmother of Crow Indian descent married Lewis E. Storms. She was remembered as a “shouting Methodist” who went from home-to-home healing and nursing the sick. She was on the cutting edge of the holiness revival that swept Iowa and the nation in the 1890’s. This holiness revival prepared the ground for the Azusa—Pentecostal Revival in 1906.
Personally, I believe my life to the nations is the result of the godly prayers of my great-grandmother, Jesse Storms. I believe she prayed for her offspring to take the flame of the gospel to the nations. God answered this prayer because my Aunt Grace was a missionary in Taiwan; my niece was a missionary in Mongolia; and I served as a missionary for sixteen years in the nations of Mexico, Zambia, Japan and London, UK. Later, I taught emerging leaders in college and seminary and at the same time led teams to many nations.
As I reflect on my own miraculous life of adventure, adversity, challenge and sometimes frustration, I am amazed! As a teenager I was rebellious, yet his arms of love and grace were there to protect and provide for me. My “yes” to him took me to more than forty nations and four continents. It gave me the courage to plant and pastor two churches. Often, I have asked myself, “How did this happen? How could an Iowa girl take up so many different challenges?”
My conclusion is every life begins in the heart of God. He designs each of us in a specific way and gives us the parents and circumstances to arrive at his dream because he watches over us every moment. Too often his dream is aborted or still born. Sometimes we try to rush it and it ends up as a “pre-mie.” For those who are willing to pay the price and say, “Not my way but yours, O Lord;” a glad day awaits when the earthly journey will end and we will be ushered into his Presence and hear him say, “Well, done, good and faithful servant.”
What about you? Have you ever thought about your life? Have you discerned your destiny and giftedness? Have you looked at your spiritual roots and discerned the way your life was framed and shaped? Are you grateful for your heritage, giftedness, and God-given destiny?