Answered Prayer

Grandma Ada Stillions




I sing in a ladies' trio. We've sung together for nearly twenty years. It's been an interesting journey to see the places Jesus has taken us. We love to minister through testimony and song in rural country churches. The places where few singers go. This past Friday night we took a missionary journey to the village of Dunkerton, Iowa. From the minute we arrived I sensed HIM soooo close and wanted to encourage those who took the time to come hear three old ladies sing. :-) (You've heard of the Dixie Chicks??? Well, we are the Dixie Hens!!!) I shared about my great-grandmother (Ada Stillions) and her daughter's (my grandma that I write about so often) conversion. My grandmas were from a poor section of town called Oak Park. You must understand that we were singing over an hour away from our neck of the woods so Oak Park would be foreign to the people who came to hear us sing.

After the concert an elderly woman approached me. She told me that she had been a foster mother to a teenager who spoke often about her relatives in "Oak Park." Then she asked me if I would know any of this gal's kin folks....... She said, "Her last name was Stillions."

Words cannot express the waves of emotion that swept over me. This was some my great-grandma's relatives. I began to piece the mystery together, connected all the dots and began to see God's fingerprints all over this story.

If this "coincidence" wasn't enough, while I was standing there talking to this precious woman I had a blast from the past. I remembered being a young girl and hearing my great-grandma pray out loud and weep for this family. You see, Great-grandma had been delivered from alcoholism when she gave her heart to the Lord. She came back to tell all of her "people" what Jesus had done for her. Many of her family was in bondage to alcohol, too.

Great-grandma never saw her prayers answered, but here I was, decades later, hearing of answered prayer in the little village of Dunkerton,Iowa. I knew "the rest of the story."

There is no doubt in my mind that because of Great-grandma's prayers, God had placed this young lady in a Bible-believing home, where she learned about Jesus.

I wondered if Great-grandma ever got discouraged when she prayed and it looked like her prayers were not being answered.

I know I feel that way some days. It seems like God isn't listening, but He is. All the while He is working behind the scenes.

Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.