A Hundred Years of Grace: Celebrating Rose Marie Miller

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Welcome to Grace at the Fray, a podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His kingdom.

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0:00:22.5 Jim Lovelady: Hello beloved. Welcome to the season four finale of Grace at the Fray. Today’s episode reminds me of the book of 1st John. When you read this little book you have to remember that it was written by the man who leaned on the bosom of Jesus and called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. And at the time of his writing this book, John was very old, and you’re reading words written by a person who has spent a lifetime leaning on the bosom of Jesus. Every sentence just oozes the love of God. Whenever I finish reading the book of 1st John, I think, “I want to love Jesus and experience the love of Jesus the way John does.” This is the beautiful intimacy of the book of 1st John. John just goes from one topic to the next, completely enamored by the love of God. I love God. God loves you. You can love God. God loves everyone. It’s amazing. Today’s episode is like that. Last year, a week before her 99th birthday, I sat down with one of the most remarkable people I have ever had the honor of knowing. Rose Marie Miller, one of the founders of Serge, the missions agency, formerly known as World Harvest. She’s a longtime minister in the city of London, fervent prayer warrior, and much respected and dearly loved matriarch of our company. But most importantly, she’s the disciple whom Jesus loves, who has spent a lifetime leaning onto the bosom of Jesus, so that when you hear her speak, you’re hearing a humble child of God who’s deeply in love with her Savior. And this is how I want to be when I’m old. I filmed this episode a year ago, and now I’m releasing it shortly after Rose Marie’s 100th birthday. This remarkable woman recently returned from a trip to a far off country that I can’t mention for security reasons, to teach at a women’s retreat. Now she’s back in London to celebrate 100 years of stories. And we, at Serge, want to celebrate with her and once again, sit under her teaching and receive her wisdom. Happy birthday, Rose Marie. We love you. We love you so much. So you’re going to hear a lot of names that are familiar to the folks who have been a part of Serge for a long time, Rose Marie’s friends and family. You don’t need to know the history of Serge to appreciate Rose Marie’s story of how God led her around the world from one adventure to another. She mentions a couple of her books. The first is called 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮, and the second is called 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬, 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘢. And if you haven’t read these before, well please do yourself a favor. From Fear to Freedom is an autobiography and Come Back, Barbara is a great book about learning to trust God with the people who are closest to you, who aren’t following Jesus. So I’ll have a link for those in the show notes. When I look at someone who has been doing ministry as long as Rose Marie has, it causes me to ask this question, what does it mean to be successful in ministry? If you listen closely, Rose Marie is going to tell you. And I think the author of 1st John would totally agree with what she has to say.

0:03:50.7 Jim Lovelady: Hello.

0:03:51.1 Rose Marie Miller: Hello.

0:03:51.8 Jim Lovelady: Rose Marie, welcome. Thank you so much for hanging out, here we are in the home office. I didn’t realize how close… Well, when you’re in the States, how close your house is. The house that started it all, you know.

0:04:05.3 Rose Marie Miller: Yes.

0:04:05.7 Jim Lovelady: I was going to pick you up in my motorcycle.

0:04:07.5 Rose Marie Miller: [chuckle] You’re kidding.

0:04:09.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, I’m kidding. [laughter] But yeah, my wife was like, “You can’t pick her up in your motorcycle.” “Why not? It’s super close.” I didn’t realize how close it is. So you had mentioned wanting to share your faith journey, and I would love to hear all about it. And I’m thankful that you’re here in the States. Because normally you’re in England and I haven’t seen you for a year ’cause I was in London.

0:04:38.4 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:04:38.7 Jim Lovelady: And so it’s really wonderful to see you. So, yeah. So tell me everything.

0:04:42.3 Rose Marie Miller: Well, I want just to tell you where my first but I’d like to skip around some things.

0:04:50.5 Jim Lovelady: Sure.

0:04:51.0 Rose Marie Miller: Where my first mission encounter was, there was a woman that we knew who was working for, I think it was Campus Crusade for Christ. And she was working at the old Arcadia University. So she set up a time to take students up into the Poconos, it was winter time, to ski during the day with the skeptics. And then interact with them in the evening. So it was, of course, the setting was just absolutely gorgeous. And I love to ski, sort of an amateur on it. But anyway, we skied during the day and at night after the dishes were cleared, it was time for discussion and I left the room, went upstairs, pulled the covers over my head and read, Agatha Christie. I’ve had a lot of interesting experiences of failure or of even reluctance to even share the gospel. So time moves on and Jack is sought out by other churches to come and spend the week, and then he would write and say, “Well, my wife is going to come along and teach the women.” And I was horrified.

0:06:27.8 Jim Lovelady: Uh-huh.

0:06:31.4 Rose Marie Miller: Because, that wasn’t my plan. But the first time out was, I don’t remember where we went, but I quit in the middle of the week.

0:06:40.5 Jim Lovelady: Oh, you did? 

0:06:42.3 Rose Marie Miller: I said, “I couldn’t do it.” I mean, there I was, you know, repeating the skeptic weekend. So I quit. And we had a woman living with us at that time who was a true evangelist. She’s still alive now, but… And she just stepped in. But after that, it was kind of a wake up call. I thought, “Well, if this is going to have to be what I should be doing for the rest of my foreseeable future, I better start studying.” Getting prepared. So that was a moment of truth for me. So I just started studying the Book of Romans ’cause I knew it had such an impact on Jack’s life. And I simply did not understand the fullness of the gospel. I just did not. And God takes His time in teaching. One year God just moves in and teaches you, and then the next year is dull and not interesting in anyway. So, but the word righteousness just kept leaping out at me.

0:07:58.0 Jim Lovelady: Why was that word righteousness leaping out at you? 

0:08:01.0 Rose Marie Miller: I don’t know. It was just…

0:08:04.0 Jim Lovelady: It just intrigued you.

0:08:04.1 Rose Marie Miller: It was just the Spirit.

0:08:11.6 Jim Lovelady: Mmm.

0:08:14.6 Rose Marie Miller: But it just… Every time, every… Seemed like every page had… I mean, there were… Obviously the gospel is more than just righteousness, but…

0:08:18.1 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:08:20.7 Rose Marie Miller: So, I felt comfortable in teaching the women of the Bible, and I had studied them and loved them. And so I start… The first day out, the pastor’s wife invited me to her house and she said, before we even had a chance to eat, she says, “I hate everything in my life. I hate the dog. I hate the house. I hate… I hate everything. I hate what I’m doing.” Just all this bitterness. She said, “What do I do?” And I said, “The only thing I know is to submit to God’s righteousness.” And she did. She got down on her knees, sobbed out all her sins or failures, and received Christ. So that is why the Spirit wanted me to emphasize that. But I didn’t realize what was going to happen.

0:09:16.6 Jim Lovelady: You didn’t know yet.

0:09:19.2 Rose Marie Miller: But, she’s the kinda person that if it’s good news, she’ll tell everybody bad news too. But anyway. So, she told the women on her church, she said, “You should hear what Rose Marie said to you.” Well, that was all I said. It wasn’t a long explanation. And so, they invited me to lunch and then they did the same thing. And they said… When they poured out their hard life, they… Or their disjointed life, they said… Yeah. They said, “What do we do?” And I said the same thing. And in this very posh restaurant they bowed their heads. They cleared the table and bowed their heads and gave themselves to Christ.

[laughter]

0:10:09.9 Rose Marie Miller: Well…

0:10:10.2 Jim Lovelady: The Spirit was working.

0:10:13.0 Rose Marie Miller: Absolutely. The Spirit was working. Well then, you know, I have to say, Jim, that never happened to me like that again. So [laughter] and I was astonished. I was astonished as they were. [laughter] So, those are two times, well, I mean, there were plenty of other times, but those two stand out in my memory. And then time moves on, and we take… As I was telling you, out of Jack’s lectures in the seminary, he took people into our home that were very troubled. And at that time, Amin was a brutal persecuting.

0:10:58.1 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:11:01.7 Rose Marie Miller: Leader in Uganda. And so the… One of the pastors and his family, and a couple of others escaped for their lives and ended up at Westminster. So his name was Keffa Sempangi. And he loved Jack and he loved the lectures, and he joined New Life Church and got us to pray all night for Amin to be delivered from his…

0:11:31.9 Jim Lovelady: To be removed from power.

0:11:33.3 Rose Marie Miller: Yes, yes.

0:11:36.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:11:37.7 Rose Marie Miller: He said… We thought we were a praying church. And we were, we prayed all the time, but he said, you don’t pray enough. You need to pray all night. So, I’m not sure if… I never stayed up all night. I’m not sure whether Jack did or not. But anyway, then 1979 when Amin was driven out of the country, he implored Jack to come back. By that time so many families in Uganda were fractured. Parents were killed. Kids left homeless. If you’ve ever been to an African marketplace, the stalls were made up of the fruit or vegetables, and then they slept under the stalls. There was no place for them. So, he pled with Jack to come and he did. And he put us up in a hotel. The only hotel that was safe in Uganda at that time. It was a pretty precarious place. Even the State Department had warned us not to go.

0:12:44.1 Jim Lovelady: Don’t go there. Yeah.

0:12:45.2 Rose Marie Miller: No, don’t go there. Well, Bob was with us at the time and this was the first time we went in. And hell he didn’t care. Neither did Jack. They weren’t afraid of that. But it was a hard time. It really was a hard time. So we were…

0:13:05.0 Jim Lovelady: Were you reluctant to go, knowing that it was precarious? 

0:13:09.6 Rose Marie Miller: I went, but I was sure I was going to die there. And Jack was afraid he’d get sick there. So neither of us died and I’m just the one that got sick [laughter]

0:13:20.6 Jim Lovelady: Oh yeah.

0:13:21.1 Rose Marie Miller: Actually I got malaria there. Yes. So then we were in this hotel where expats were not only expats, but Indians from all over, from seeking help. I mean seeking safety because there was a pretty strict curfew still, 7-7. And if you were out before or after you’d be shot. I mean.

0:13:56.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, you… Big trouble.

0:13:58.4 Rose Marie Miller: Yes. Yes. Yes. So that was sort of the climate. And the hotel was the only safe place to stay in all of Kampala at that time. And so Jack started a Bible study.

0:14:13.3 Jim Lovelady: In the hotel.

0:14:14.4 Rose Marie Miller: In the hotel. Yeah. And we made friends with the Muslims. We made friends with the Indians, we made friends with the expats. And there were a lot of questions about that Bible study, but it just helped us to see. I think for the first time in my life I began to care. Because we were all together in the same place, displaced. Then we began to share meals with one another. They were very innovative. They had a balcony and they had a refrigerator and a stove out there so that they did most of their cooking ’cause the cooking in the hotel was awful. In the morning, all the good food was stolen.

0:15:12.3 Jim Lovelady: Oh wow.

0:15:12.9 Rose Marie Miller: And we were left with the leftovers. And so we had a lot of really… And I made friends with the women and I enjoyed them. And it was a big turn, a turnabout for me. So anyway, there were politicians there. I mean, everybody that is of any significance politically.

0:15:42.7 Jim Lovelady: Was there.

0:15:43.1 Rose Marie Miller: Socially was there. So that means…

0:15:43.7 Jim Lovelady: ‘Cause it’s the only safe place.

0:15:46.4 Rose Marie Miller: And the only safe place, yeah, that was true. You just weren’t safe any place else. So I remember Jack saying, “I want to go up into the mountains and preach the gospel there.” And they scoffed and ridiculed him. They said, “What do you know? Those are just Pygmies up there. And they’re so stupid, they’ll never learn anything.”

0:16:10.7 Jim Lovelady: Oh Interesting.

0:16:10.9 Rose Marie Miller: Now look at the history. Look at the history. I mean, I just love to see how God works.

0:16:20.0 Jim Lovelady: How unexpected that everyone.

0:16:22.6 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. Well, I mean, it took a while before we sent out, Dan Herron was one of the early missionaries out there, and then the Myhres. And then look what happened. And it’s still growing, not easy, it’s not… Any place in Africa to live is not easy. Same with India. So that kind of awakened my heart. And so I wrote a book 𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘰 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮 about my experiences in Mission Field. And Larry Crab, who is now passed, read it. And he said, “It’s a good thing that the counselors never got ahold of you.” ‘Cause I wanted to the name, the book, A Caterpillar in a Ring of Fire, because that’s how I felt a lot of my times with Jack and the world. And God. I felt like I had to be rescued again and again. And the way God rescued me was through His word. So I remember the first time now, during the time of Amin, no one was allowed… No church was allowed to give communion or meet or anything. It just had to go underground. And that’s one of the reasons Keffa wanted Jack to come and build up the church, which he did. When the elders would meet in our room and he would go over and over the budding leadership, and he gave him the gospel. He taught them theology. They saw a man that was willing to get down and do dirty stuff and yet teach also. But the church was formed. But anyway, the dominant church at that time in Uganda was the Anglican church.

0:18:41.0 Jim Lovelady: Okay.

0:18:41.0 Rose Marie Miller: So Jack was invited to speak at a communion service, the first communion service. So the whole village was involved in this. It was just that we met in a church that had been bombed. The windows had all been bombed out. So I remember sitting on the side of the building thinking, “Can I ever love these people? Could I ever love being here?” And then it was communion. And so we went up to take the bread and the wine. And God just washed me clean. And I told Jack afterwards, “I think we could stay here forever.” And Jack almost dropped his teeth out of his mouth, ’cause I’ve done nothing but complain about everything. And then the whole village was invited to eat and the women had stayed up all night cooking. And, so we had a wonderful afternoon. It was just when I felt so free. So, you know, when Jesus meet you… I mean, we are free intellectually, we know that, but we don’t always taste that freedom.

0:20:01.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:20:02.0 Rose Marie Miller: And time and time again, God rescued me, but it wasn’t because of something somebody… It was probably always at a time when I was a caterpillar in a ring of fire. So after that, the bishops led us to… We drove through a banana plantation. And at the end of that was a little hut, thatched roof hut, where a sweet little old lady lived and wanted communion. And her husband and all her sons had died under Amin.

0:20:49.6 Jim Lovelady: Under Amin.

0:20:49.7 Rose Marie Miller: And she served us passion fruit. And she was so humble. And it was such a sweet picture to me of what pleases God.

0:21:00.9 Jim Lovelady: I want to pause this conversation and invite you to join us in prayer for the Serge field workers that we at the headquarters here in Philadelphia are praying for each week. We meet on Tuesday and Friday mornings to pray. And this week we’re praying for our teams in the British Isles. Would you pray with me? Lord, we pray that you would bless these folks, give them joy in their work, in your kingdom, and the pleasure of your joy as they follow you. Give them wisdom and let your grace abound in their relationships with one another, with family members and children, and with the people they serve. Heal all sicknesses, liberate the enslaved, protect them from the powers and principalities of darkness, and restore to them the joy of your salvation. And let your kingdom come and your will be done in these places just as it is in heaven. We pray all this in your name. Amen. Now, back to the conversation.

0:22:00.9 Rose Marie Miller: This is another thing that’s important to me. In life the most important thing is the Word of God and the person of the Spirit. I can’t do life with either of them. So after Jack died, he had also suffered a heart attack in Uganda. He had suffered cancer, almost died both times, had a TIA and we still went up. We still went. Those things didn’t seem to deter him. So, but after Jack died, then I started doing Sonship with some of the men. I think, Josiah was one of them, Jeff Salason and I did this for a while, and then I knew that it was over. It’s just one of those things, if you’re a widow or God wants to move you, He will let you know.

0:23:05.4 Jim Lovelady: Say more about that.

0:23:07.7 Rose Marie Miller: So I was reading in Jeremiah where Jeremiah’s writing a letter to the exile saying, “Well, just do what you did before.”

0:23:18.3 Jim Lovelady: Oh, right.

0:23:20.8 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. And that’s what got me started in the Sonship with just meeting with him and traveling with him. That went on for about three years maybe. And then all of a sudden I knew, there wasn’t any audible voice. It was just, “This is it, Rose Marie, it’s over.” And then I was… Angelo was doing… Jack was of course now not a preacher. I mean, he’s not there anymore. So at New Life, they were considering who to take the place. And that morning, Angelo was speaking and I was sitting in the front row. Usually I just sat there and cried. But, he made this statement, I don’t know what he was preaching on, but he said, “Speaking is not enough.” And God used that to show me that Rose Marie, your speaking time is over.

0:24:29.5 Jim Lovelady: Oh, interesting.

0:24:31.5 Rose Marie Miller: So there are different ways that the Spirit has of pushing you out and leading you out, restraining you, teaching you. And, but in the meantime, Bob and Karen had already moved to London and we were planning to move to London also to stay with them, to start the church there. And, but Jack couldn’t do it. But I just knew then that that’s what I should do. But it couldn’t happen right away because I still have this big house that I still have care of my mother. And my sister. And then of course, Barbara and Angelo were living with us at the time. So it took a few years. And so now with a proper visa, I’ve been there about 10 years. But you know, pride has many ways of seeping into your…

0:25:31.1 Jim Lovelady: Sneaking in.

0:25:33.8 Rose Marie Miller: And Satan does too. And he knows you probably better than you know yourself. [laughter] So Bob was everywhere with the gospel. There was no church, no… Anglicans were not receiving Indians. We started a charity shop that had just Indian clothes in it. And that’s one way we got to know people. And then we were, Sam… God just provided families, like the Gina and Jenny list came, stayed for a couple years. The Spelman’s came. Those were big helps, you know. Same with Uganda. ‘Cause, Harvey Conn eventually came and helped Jack in Uganda. There were a lot of interesting…

0:26:25.4 Jim Lovelady: Oh I didn’t realize that.

0:26:26.2 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. Yeah. And then Henry Krabbendam from Covenant, I don’t know whether you know him or not, but.

0:26:37.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. I don’t know him.

0:26:37.9 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah, he’s… Yeah. And he and Jack had a great friendship and he invited Henry to come and they did garbage evangelism. They were just everywhere. So.

0:26:49.9 Jim Lovelady: Garbage evangelism.

0:26:51.0 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:26:51.2 Jim Lovelady: What’s that? 

0:26:51.9 Rose Marie Miller: Well, garbage was piled up all over the city. So high, 10 feet high. And there was concern and no one was picking it up. So Phil Gross was there with us and the… Tim de Moss, not Tim de Moss, Steve de Moss. And, Jack said, go take the government and ask if we, they would lend us their garbage trucks. So they went, the government was fine. They said, “We’re going to clean up the garbage.” And they were so high. It was like methane gases were still coming.

0:27:37.9 Jim Lovelady: Oh, wow.

0:27:38.2 Rose Marie Miller: It was pretty bad. Probably the rodents were living there too. So, they did that. Then Jack put a big sign on the side of the cross, you know, she… It was on the side of the truck, you know, I can’t remember. It’s something about Jesus. And then Harvey Conn, they got shovels and they went and cleaned up the garbage.

0:28:01.6 Jim Lovelady: How about that? 

0:28:02.5 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah, it was… There were all kinds of interesting things that they did. And it sort of set the seeds for World Harvest to the later Serge. Those were the strengths of those early days in Uganda.

0:28:19.5 Jim Lovelady: How long were you in Uganda? 

0:28:21.0 Rose Marie Miller: So, Jack’s still professor, so we could only go during.

0:28:26.9 Jim Lovelady: The summer breaks, the winter breaks.

0:28:28.4 Rose Marie Miller: During summer breaks, winter breaks, which he did that for about five or six years.

0:28:33.6 Jim Lovelady: Oh, okay.

0:28:34.2 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:28:35.4 Jim Lovelady: So like every year heading back? 

0:28:37.0 Rose Marie Miller: Oh, yeah.

0:28:37.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:28:38.3 Rose Marie Miller: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Until finally at the end I said to Jack, “This is it. I’m never coming back.”

[laughter]

0:28:45.3 Jim Lovelady: So it went from, I could stay here forever to, alright, we need to be done. I don’t want to go back. [laughter], 

0:28:54.8 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. Well, a lot had to happen in my life before that, but.

0:28:58.8 Jim Lovelady: The word reluctance comes to my mind as Jack drags you here and there all over the place. And you have this sense of reluctance and then the Spirit comes along and frees you of that. And there’s a new reluctance. And then the Spirit frees you. So what has it been like in your journey of faith for the Spirit to be liberating you over and over again? 

0:29:28.9 Rose Marie Miller: Well, I usually have to come to the end of myself. [chuckle] And you know, when a very prominent, outgoing man dies, you have to start all over. And so when I finally started to come to England and live with Bob and Karen, there was a group, they met together and they discussed the writings of their present day guru. So Bob set up a meeting with them and he said to me, bring your book along. because maybe you could read for them because that’s… They were invited to read something. So I had the book on my lap, and I had it open to the back. And this lady sitting next to me, I can’t remember what the back was. Are you tired of being an orphan or do you want something better in your life? That kind of statement. And she looked at that and she said, “Oh, I want that.” And so that’s kind of what God does, you know. So she invited me home for lunch. Not that day, but later she invited me and we struck up a friendship, a really really sweet friendship. And in retrospect, I’m not sure I ever clearly shared the gospel with her, but she wanted to know about my family. So I read her 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘉𝘢𝘤𝘬, 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘢, and she loved every part of it. And I just have to assume that maybe something in that. But, you know, I was… Why at one time the gospel so clear to me and another time just kind of stalled and I don’t know.

0:31:24.7 Jim Lovelady: Isn’t that interesting? 

0:31:25.7 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. Yeah.

0:31:27.0 Jim Lovelady: You know, and it’ll be a mystery until the consummation of all things where Jesus reveals how he was merciful in that.

0:31:37.7 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. So, I don’t consider myself a successful missionary. I’m just there because God has me there.

0:31:49.2 Jim Lovelady: What is a successful missionary?

0:31:50.8 Rose Marie Miller: I don’t know.

[chuckle]

0:31:55.1 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:31:55.4 Rose Marie Miller: Jack was, you know, but someone filled with the Spirit. And I’m not always filled with the Spirit every day. I would like to be, but I’m not, I’m just regular. I wake up now every morning so tired and so weary ’cause I don’t sleep well. And I have to accept that as part of life for me. But I’m still planning to return. You know, for the last five years, I have been in and out of the hospital. I died almost twice. And something mysterious happened in my soul, which I cannot explain except the gospel became very clear to me. I had a desire to share it with everyone I met. And I did. And I was remembering the hospital in London and I had a roommate. At this point I was just recovering from near death. And the roommate always had the curtains around her bed. So there never seemed to be a time that I could move over to her bed. But I just prayed and then took the walker and walked over to her bed and said, “I almost died and I know where I’m going, to heaven.” And that was it. That’s my introduction to the gospel. And it’s true. That freed me in a way that I hadn’t felt that kind of freedom for years.

0:33:45.6 Jim Lovelady: Is it like you’re no longer afraid to die? Is that what it is? What…

0:33:51.6 Rose Marie Miller: I, you know what…

0:33:51.6 Jim Lovelady: Freed from what fear? 

0:33:52.8 Rose Marie Miller: Jim, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t, Barb asked me the other day, she said, “Are you afraid to die?” And I said, “I’m not afraid of it. I’m looking forward to it.” And she says, “Well, you do get frayed when you get really sick.” “Well, that’s true.” The mystery of how the Spirit works, how He leads, and it all ends up to His glory. So what keeps me going? I’ll be 99 in the next week.

0:34:23.7 Jim Lovelady: Hey happy birthday.

0:34:24.5 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

[laughter]

0:34:26.4 Rose Marie Miller: Thank you. And I’ll probably live to be 100 this next year and I’ll be in London. What keeps me is that there’s just never been a time when God said, it’s time for you to leave.

0:34:41.1 Jim Lovelady: He really is just… The Spirit says, “Alright, it’s time to stop this and time to start this.”

0:34:47.3 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. Yeah.

0:34:48.0 Jim Lovelady: It’s time to wait, now it’s time to go. It’s time to slow down. It’s time to speed up. Just, so how do you grow in your sensitivity? You’ve said this a lot as we’ve been talking, that the Spirit said to stop or the Spirit said you’re done. So how do you remain in tune with the Spirit and one ingredient is the word of God. I’m sure you you said that too, but.

0:35:15.1 Rose Marie Miller: Well, I’m in a book club with Paul’s daughter, Courtney and Kimiko and Jillian in London. We meet every Saturday morning, and I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Renovare, the group that’s more… Approaches life devotionally.

0:35:34.3 Jim Lovelady: I’ll look that up.

0:35:35.6 Rose Marie Miller: I would encourage you to Google it. But anyway, we study the books that they tell us about. And this last book was on, called 𝘈 𝘋𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘞𝘢𝘺. And, he gave the illustration of a man who was in deep depression, just deep, deep depression, clinically. And then he said to the man, his friend said to him, “I just want you to take a book of the Bible and read it 25 times. And don’t expect it to change you. Just do it.” And in the middle of the, all of… However time he was reading it, he changed, he just changed. The depression just all lifted. That’s the power of the word. So I was telling this to Angelo and he said, after he became a believer, Jack said to him, “Angelo, I think you should read 1st Peter, 25 times.” Just do it. And, so he did. And I don’t remember how long it was into reading it, but somebody came up to him at work and said, “What? Something about you that’s different? What is it? Did you get a new haircut or something?” It was just, they just couldn’t understand. And then that happened three or four other times when different people from different parts.

0:37:15.9 Jim Lovelady: It was changing him.

0:37:17.0 Rose Marie Miller: He was changing, but he didn’t realize he was. So I thought, “Well, this is what I need. I need to take 1st Peter and I need to read it every day for 25 times.” So that keeps me rooted in the word and also it keeps me dependent on the Holy Spirit. And now I’m inviting women to share their reading with me. So we’re sharing little groups together, studying 1st Peter.

0:37:54.8 Jim Lovelady: So you’ve been reading 1st Peter over and over again? 

0:37:57.6 Rose Marie Miller: I started a little bit before the start of December. So what’s today? The 12th? 

0:38:06.2 Jim Lovelady: 13th.

0:38:07.4 Rose Marie Miller: Oh, 13th. So yeah, almost two weeks. I don’t feel any different. I wake up every… I have cramps at night. I feel tired every morning when I get up. And, I can’t always discern what wants to be done during the day. And life is different in London and I love being there. And I know I was called there. I keep thinking when I go through the slump times of my life that maybe God is saying, “It’s time to pack up and go,” but I never hear that.

0:38:49.5 Jim Lovelady: The Spirit never says that.

0:38:50.7 Rose Marie Miller: He never said that.

0:38:51.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:38:52.7 Rose Marie Miller: So I have to be careful of presumption and say… Yeah, I cannot say to God, “I can’t do this.”

0:39:02.7 Jim Lovelady: What…

0:39:02.9 Rose Marie Miller: ‘Cause He’s giving us the Spirit. He’s given us the blood of Jesus. He’s given us a mission. The growth of a Christian life is a mystery. And it has to be like 1st Peter said that we are called to the sanctifying work of the Spirit for obedience. So how am I going to obey? I mean, and I feel a lot of lack in my life. I’m learning maybe in a new way just to be conversational with God telling Him how I feel. Telling Him what I need.

0:39:47.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Father, I have cramps. Father, I’m tired. Father, I didn’t sleep well.

0:39:51.4 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Lord, I’m doing a podcast today. You gotta be with us, you know? 

0:40:00.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:40:01.8 Rose Marie Miller: And I didn’t know how this was going to go, and I know you and I hadn’t talked about it, and yet it just came.

0:40:08.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:40:10.4 Rose Marie Miller: It just flowed, so.

0:40:12.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. This is one of the things that I love about sitting down with someone. Especially the workers from Serge. And we just start talking, and then suddenly the Spirit guides us into the things that have been very real. The pain, the suffering, the hardship, the joy, all of these things just kinda come to the front of the conversation.

0:40:42.2 Rose Marie Miller: Well. And you read 1st Peter, after a while, you begin to see patterns. You begin to see the pattern of suffering. You begin… Yeah.

0:40:49.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Don’t be surprised when you encounter suffering. I love the pattern of Peters talking to exiles. People who aren’t home yet. People who are sojourning in estranged land. And it’s hard.

0:41:04.5 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:41:04.6 Jim Lovelady: And I’ve appreciated that ’cause I have a nomadic spirit. I feel like I’m a nomad, just always.

0:41:11.9 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:41:12.5 Jim Lovelady: Longing for home. And then Jesus, the promise of I go to prepare a place for you. Is a really good promise for a nomad. Where home is…

0:41:22.4 Rose Marie Miller: Home is not here.

0:41:26.6 Jim Lovelady: Home is coming. Yeah. But it’s coming.

0:41:32.5 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m well cared for here by my daughter, Barbara. I have a lovely flat, I eat with them and she does my wash and my ironing and my days are full. I can do almost… I have to rest in the afternoon. And then in the evening, I’m just usually with, Jillian Hayes. Anyway, I’m not 24/7, but neither… I don’t think anybody expects me to be.

0:42:03.3 Jim Lovelady: Right. Right.

0:42:04.5 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:42:05.4 Jim Lovelady: But you are 24/7 being with Jesus.

0:42:08.6 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. Well, that’s good.

0:42:10.1 Jim Lovelady: You know? 

0:42:10.6 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:42:10.7 Jim Lovelady: And that’s what Jesus says, abide with me. That’s what it is.

0:42:15.8 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:42:16.2 Jim Lovelady: You know. And so it’s convicting for me because I’m a busy guy. You know, and so to be… Just to be where, “Jesus, here I am. We’re… I’m with Rose Marie in a podcast, and then afterward I’m going to drive her home. Not on my motorcycle.” [laughter] And then I have other things, and, you know, so just to be present with Jesus, aware that Jesus is with me. Aware that he’s guiding me.

0:42:46.0 Rose Marie Miller: So for me, the journey of faith is to be open to what Jesus has for me to do up until 1 or 2 o’clock. And from then on, I need to rest. I need… But being in the word 1st Peter, it really slows me down. And I have the capacity for being moved by distractions. You know, it’s a dangerous thing to put the phone next to your Bible, [chuckle]

0:43:21.6 Jim Lovelady: Oh gosh. Yeah. Say that again.

0:43:23.6 Rose Marie Miller: [chuckle] Yeah.

0:43:24.4 Jim Lovelady: It’s a dangerous thing to put your phone by your Bible, [laughter]

0:43:30.6 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. ‘Cause we’re just drawn to whatever things happen in the, you know, just.

0:43:36.1 Jim Lovelady: Oh, I appreciate you saying that.

0:43:38.1 Rose Marie Miller: Well, this book that we’re reading talks about distractions, and Satan uses them, and he doesn’t want us to have a friendship with God. He doesn’t want us to listen to God. We’re so primed to do. We really are, you know, primed to do. And, but then the doing has to be under the control of the Spirit.

0:44:05.3 Jim Lovelady: Right.

0:44:06.5 Rose Marie Miller: And sometimes there’s days when He doesn’t want you to do.

0:44:13.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah. Just sit there. Just be.

0:44:17.4 Rose Marie Miller: Just be. I have a lot of friends in the area, a lot of family in the area, and a friend of mine that I pray with, said that God doesn’t feel safe. And, you know, sort of like 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘦, you know, that famous line. And I thought, “I need to understand the Trinity.” And so I couldn’t sleep one night, and I started with Genesis and went to John, I went to Hebrews, I went to Revelation. I got so excited about the Trinity and the awesome relationship that Jesus and God had together and what Jesus said in His prayer, John 17. “I want my people to see the glory that I had with you before I came to this earth.” And then I shared this with her and she didn’t hear it. I was crushed. I was crushed. And I was talking to Barbara about this, and I didn’t understand why. She said, “Well, mother, do you think that everything you say has to be received by everybody?”

0:45:47.9 Jim Lovelady: [laughter] What did you say to that? 

0:45:51.7 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah. So it hit the pride of my heart. You know, so God just provides those kinds of opportunities. Somebody will say something and it triggers something in your own heart to want to learn more about that.

0:46:06.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

0:46:07.8 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:46:08.4 Jim Lovelady: So you talked about being a caterpillar in a ring of fire, that your whole life has felt like being a caterpillar in a ring of fire. So, what does that feel like now? Do you still feel like a caterpillar in a ring of fire? 

0:46:21.9 Rose Marie Miller: No. No. I’ve been snatched out of that, but I still need to learn how to fly. [laughter] And that’s a daily, you know, the caterpillar does change into a beautiful butterfly.

0:46:38.4 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. That’s right.

0:46:41.9 Rose Marie Miller: I’m still, you know, just walking with the Holy One. Is that…

0:46:51.3 Jim Lovelady: It’s beautiful. I really appreciate you sharing how it looks to just be with God. You’ve been reading 1st Peter, but I’ve been reading 1st John and it reminds me of 1st John. Where John is just like, “Beloved. You are loved. God loves you. I love God. I love you. God loves you, you love God.” You know, it’s just this beautiful, just be with your God. Be in the presence of your God. And He’s… This conversation, we’ve just kinda rambled about God.

0:47:31.4 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah.

0:47:32.7 Jim Lovelady: And the journey of faith is just you’re just kind of rambling around wherever the Lord would take you. So I really appreciate you sharing some of your story.

0:47:46.2 Rose Marie Miller: Yeah, alright. Thank you. Well, there’s a lot more stories, but…

0:47:50.8 Jim Lovelady: So many stories.

0:47:51.9 Rose Marie Miller: So many stories.

0:48:00.4 Jim Lovelady: 100 years of stories, it’s remarkable. So what does it mean to be successful in ministry? Did you catch when Rose Marie said this? I don’t consider myself a successful missionary. I’m just there because God has me there and my goal is to be filled with His Spirit and then her generous follow up where she said this, “And I’m not always filled with the Spirit.” There it is. May that be our goal, to be filled with the Spirit and to comprehend the generosity of grace in the moments when we aren’t filled with the Spirit. Rose Marie is 100, and she has a sense that there is still more for her. Intimacy with Jesus has emboldened her to believe that there’s more. She’s exercised the muscles of faith, but she still relies on the Spirit to move in her. Has your experience of Jesus led you to believe that he has more for you and more for the folks around you? She has this expectation. She’s convinced that there is more grace. There is always something more of Jesus, that you can have, something more of His grace, His overwhelming never ending grace. Well, that thought is a spectacular way to end this season of Grace at the Fray, because it sets us up really well for what I’m going to… Well, what I’m hoping to do next season as we explore what faith in Jesus is going to look like as the Western culture becomes more and more secular. What is discipling people into the life of Christ’s Kingdom going to look like? What is the next generation’s participation in God’s renewal of all things going to look like? Follow me as I explore how this thing called grace is impacting the next generation of goers and senders. How the gospel of the Kingdom is moving in the younger generation, and how the baton for global missions is being passed to the ones who will run empowered by the victory of God and His grace in our life filled with the Spirit. So look for new episodes later in January where we will look at the state of global missions today. We’ll look at how Serge is uniquely equipped to participate in God’s Kingdom through continual “gospel renewal, leading to mission.” And as we close up shop for this season, I want to give a big shout out and thanks to the podcast production team, Rachel Risley, Ashlie Kodsy, Holly McAfee, Grace Chang, Anna Madsen, Hudson Marsh, Evan Mader, and Tim Cornwell. Y’all are so amazing. It’s an honor to work on this project with you. And from all of us at Serge and the Renewal team and the podcast production team, we want to thank you for listening. For following us as we explore the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Thank you for your support. I’ll see you soon and as we go, receive the blessing of God. May the Lord bless you and keep you. Make His face to smile down on you. May the Lord be gracious to you and turn His bright eyes to you and give you His peace. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God life everlasting. Amen.

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