Carolyn De Arteaga: Watching God Work
Carolyn begins with a time in her life when she did not know much of anything about God’s miracle power and she was in the throes of struggle and challenge. She shares some of the details of going through a divorce – a subject that many in Christian circles still find difficult to discuss. She describes the subsequent events leading up to and including her finally marrying Bill DeArteaga as a direct reflection of God’s guidance, flavored with a touch of the miraculous. Now that Carolyn has caught on to the working of God in her life, she takes the reader back through her life demonstrating how God has, in fact, had His hand on her life all the way. Many people, I believe, can relate to that revelation.
Carolyn reveals the next step of her spiritual journey which was instigated by her relationship with Bill DeArteaga. Bill brings an element of faith and spiritual freedom into her life that is both liberating and terrifying at the same time. He simply believes God: he believes His word and he believes in His miraculous power. She tells her story of the struggle between hanging on to her cessationist background and believing what she is seeing in Bill’s life and following that lead. Happily, she chose to follow. I might add here, Carolyn’s candid discussion of choosing to follow Bill’s spiritual lead and even choosing to marry him – in spite of the family pressures, cultural differences, and theological gulfs – is one of the highlights of the early portions of the book. The reader is left to decide whether she is a woman of great faith or perhaps just a little crazy. Upon reflection, perhaps this is the case with most people who walk in the miraculous. Maybe people of great faith are a little crazy with a twenty year track record.
Then the miracles start coming. One story after another, Carolyn begins to rehearse how God has lead her and Bill to minister to hurting people – primarily in the arena of healing. I love how she reveals her own doubts in some moments of crisis. But God worked anyway. I warn you – if you believe divine healing has ceased or have a problem with formulas, your theology will be shaken. Though Carolyn and Bill do have a method to their madness, she describes the adventure of learning to pray for and heal the sick with a refreshing child-like simplicity. They primarily learned to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. The other caveat she reveals is that of the boldness to just pray – in public, in front of unbelievers, wherever the need arises. Just Pray. They learned to pray for people, pets, circumstances, everything. She relates stories which are as diverse as God helping find lost items to the healing of cancer. A common thread which seemed to run through these stories was a growing dependence on prayer and trust in the God who is concerned over the smallest detail and yet powerful enough for the greatest challenge.
Category: Spirit, Spring 2014
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