Sweet Gifts for a Grandmother's Faith
Running the Race

March On -- We Win!

Ann here! March on

I've got a little story today that may make me sound bonkers. But I'm laughing as I write, because sometimes you've just got to die to yourself and tell the story. I hope it gives you a smile.

In my spiritually mismatched marriage, there was a real season of tears that lasted a number of years. 

To everything there is a season and a purpose under heaven: (Eccl 3:1)

A time to weep and a time to laugh (v. 4, NKJV)  

It wasn't that I didn't love my husband, but the spiritual mismatch itself was just so upsetting, uncomfortable, and stretching that I cried most days about it.

One day I was home alone thinking about it as usual and, yep, crying. I happened to put a CD on, and as I sniffled away a song began to play that was catchy. Words floated out:

Don't cry. Open up your eyes and know there's someone else out there that feels this way.

I'm singing to you 'coz I know what you've been through and it's not so long ago I felt the same.

Like soldiers, march on. If we can make it through the night we'll see the sun. March on, march on.

I leapt to my feet. "I am a soldier of Jesus Christ" I thought, and began to march on the spot. Well, I marched, marched, marched, and marched some more, snot-crying with a big man-sized hankie, and listening to those words Like soldiers, march on. The song finished, I put it on again and continued to march.

Honestly, I must have spent about twenty minutes marching on the spot in my living room. Good job no one could see me. But, bonkers as it may have seemed, it turns out it was a prophetic act.

A couple of years later Lynn Donovan, our founder of this ministry, announced that her husband Mike had got baptized after 27 years of her waiting for it. She announced it to the room at a SUM conference, and told us how the Lord had taken her on a seven-year march around Jericho before he suddenly said yes to baptism. 

That seven year march involved Lynn learning something new and specific each year in order to get the Jericho walls of her husband's unbelief to crash to the ground. What's more, God was asking her now to write a book about those seven years and call it Marching Around Jericho. Lynn with MAJ

The talk Lynn gave about her seven-year march and Mike's baptism is here. She marched .. and then Mike got baptized in March. Just because God is fun. It's as if he was saying 'Let's just have a complete marching theme here!'

When Lynn finally finished the book and had it published in December 2019, the book ended with these words on its last page:

March on, Warrior! We WIN!

March On? Well, that was the very name of the song I marched to: March On by the band Good Charlotte.

That little march in my living room was a foreshadowing of that great book and all that it has meant for our community. That book lifted our spiritual skills so that we could break through those Jericho walls. It also had - and has -- the power to change a season.

Yes, here on the blog many are still marching through that season of tears. That's why we need this ministry. But, in the words of that song, if we can make it through the night we'll see the sun. March on. March on.

Even when there's no one there for you, march on.

Even when the days are hard for you, march on.

Like soldiers, march on.

I'm going to finish with the song itself and, hey, if you're game why not have a march in your living room? It's Friday and we can be a little bonkers ((laughing)).

Ann

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