Anna Faith Fuller: Hello, this is Anna Faith and welcome to episode 31 of Faith Talks.

And I’m very excited about this new theme for this year and the focus on the trying of our faith, working patience in our lives and on our journey of faith.

So today I met at our missions conference here at Falls, Mrs.

Rebecca Cook and her family actually was over at our house.

And I was actually not even there, but spent some time with my parents and they just said I should have you on our podcast.

So I’m excited about this.

So we’re going to just jump right into hearing just your journey of faith and how God has worked in your life.

And first of all, how about you just share a little bit about yourself and your background for our listeners just to get to know you a little bit.

Rebekah Cook: Oh, thank you so much.

It’s good to be here and good to be with you.

I counted a great privilege that I grew up in a Christian home.

And I hope that everyone that gets that privilege is thankful for it.

And so I heard the gospel at a young age and was saved at the age of four.

And I didn’t need to know all the theology.

I just needed to know that I was a sinner and that Jesus died for me.

And so I accepted his gift of salvation.

And then it was a little while, even through my teen years, that I didn’t fully surrender to the Lord.

Looking back, I gave him little parts and let him into certain rooms in my heart. but I didn’t say he could have all of it.

And it came to the point, my husband and I married in 2005.

I was looking towards being a mom.

I wasn’t, we weren’t expecting yet, but figured it would happen at some point.

And I just saw a lot of the choices that I had made in being selfish and holding on to parts of my heart, that there was just anger and bitterness growing in them.

I didn’t want to be that person.

I didn’t want to have that kind of marriage, and I didn’t want to be that kind of mom.

And it really struck me that I couldn’t change it, that I had tried and I thought I could do better than God could do, and how I didn’t let him have the control, and I was trying to do it on my own.

And I realized I was about to make a big mess of things if I didn’t give it to him. and that was a wake-up call to me so I knew all the things I need to do because I was raised in a Christian home again that’s such a privilege because I had the truth right there there was no reason why I didn’t other than pride and selfishness and I said okay Lord I I know what I need to do I need to be in my Bible I need to be learning to pray and I need um I need you to have all of me and it was through my Bible reading that Romans 12 1 and 2 just really struck my heart that I needed to be a living sacrifice for the Lord and do whatever he told told me to do and say yes Lord so that was the beginning really for me yes he saved me and he was faithful through all that time I did see the Lord working even in my teen years but he doesn’t take things from us he waits for us to offer them.

And that’s why he was waiting for, um, from me.

And he was so gracious to me, um, to bring me about to that point in a gentle way.

He really did spare me from a lot of things I could have hurt myself in.

And, um, he was good to, um, not let me do those things.

I’m, I’m so thankful.

Um, so it was probably 10 years after that time that we, through those many steps of faith after that and just saying yes Lord to that whatever that the Lord would ask us to do even in our hearts my husband I wouldn’t even necessarily discuss all the changes that he was doing in our lives because some of them were just personal in our hearts decisions we had to make but we could see it in each other and it came to the point about 10 years into our marriage that the Lord challenged us with missions but like I said it wasn’t until we had been challenged so many times with other steps of faith so it really just became a stepping stone is how I see it it wasn’t a big leap it was a stepping stone because there were a lot of hard decisions before then that we had to give over to the Lord and he always always always met us with grace with it and he always gave us joy in it that we didn’t ever regret giving it to him and that was an encouragement for the next step to say, well, if God did it before, he’ll do it again.

And that was really exciting to see that.

So that was about 10 years into our marriage.

It’s about when we surrendered to missions, and now we’ve been married 18 years.

So at that point, there was just a big turn in our life.

My husband finished his Bible degree while working full-time and did an additional aircraft maintenance school to be part of the airplane tool that we hope to use with us as we go to Australia.

And then we started deputation in January 2020.

Anna Faith Fuller: Wow, that’s exciting.

And it’s just neat to see how you were surrendering those steps to the Lord.

And as he led you, it wasn’t just a big, huge thing that happened, but you continued to follow him.

And now to see some of your faith become sight as you’re headed to Australia. um how about you just go ahead and share with us just the story and recent story of just another faith step as you’ve been on deputation and um just with the missions trip that you were sharing

Rebekah Cook: with me before yes so we started january 2020 uh deputation and we were living in a we had sold our house and we were living in a fifth wheel trailer and there’s uh at the time we had five children We now have six, but we had five children.

So there were seven of us living in a fifth wheel trailer, and that was what the Lord provided for us to start deputation in so that we could travel to the meetings we needed to go to.

And because of the amount of people we have, we were traveling in two vehicles.

My husband was towing the fifth wheel, and then I was driving our Suburban as well, and we were thankful that the Lord provided both of those things.

So we headed out to our first meeting.

It was in Indiana, and we’re from Oregon.

And we’re heading out.

We gave ourselves a lot of time, but we ended up having some mishaps along.

Well, I say mishaps, but they were of the Lord, and we learned things through that.

But we gave ourselves time.

It really took a good four days to get there, and the Lord got us there in time.

Missions conference went great, and we’re headed back towards Oregon.

And I begin to get sick.

So I’m driving, got four days of travel, and a couple of our kids get sick, thinking that it’s just a cold, but then a fever comes, and just struggling with it.

I don’t enjoy driving anyway, but to do it with a fever and kids and long days, they were very long travel days, I kept thinking, Lord, it’s not breaking, it’s not going away.

I don’t know what to do.

Should I go to the hospital?

Because now we’re coming up on four days of me having a fever and driving, and it’s taking everything out of me.

And then taking care of the kids too, just wondering if we were missing something.

Well, the way our schedule was, we were going back to Oregon right away because we had a missions trip coming up with our church to go to Mexico.

My daughter was going to be in it.

It was a teen’s missions trip, and this will be her first.

And it was actually my first mission trip outside of our survey trip that we took to Australia that I was going to go on.

But I get to go as an adult and help out with all the teens.

So we really needed to be back for that.

We weren’t going to have a whole lot of time to train together with the group.

But we were going to do the best we could.

And we had endeavored to do a little bit of training in our Spanish and things on our trip to our missions conference.

But being sick really took a few days out of that as well.

So I was wondering, Lord, I don’t know why we feel this way.

But he did give healing after four days with the fog began to break and we started to feel better.

So it was about a month later after that sickness hit, we were leaving for our missions trip.

And it’s now March of 2020.

And rumors of COVID are swirling around.

But we still went because there weren’t any restrictions at that point.

And they began to hit when we were in Mexico.

But the harder part for us, at least from my perspective, wasn’t so much the restrictions, although we were concerned about getting our teens back to the United States.

But as the mission trip progressed, we saw teen after teen become very sick.

And we were wondering what’s going on.

And with the rumors and things happening of people getting sick, we realized this was probably COVID that was hitting all of them.

And the way the situation was, the other lady that was helping out with the girls, they were about 7 or 18 girls, she got very sick as well.

So it was just me there to take care of these girls that it seemed to all hit them at once, except for my daughter who had already had it a month before along with me.

And then I didn’t get sick.

The Lord preserved me as well because I believe he had given it to me before.

It was amazing, though, to be able to give those girls encouragement because I’d been through it.

And they wanted to be done as fast as I was with the sickness.

They’re in a different country.

They’re away from their moms.

That’s not what they thought they were going to do.

They thought they were going to go and be able to give to someone else.

And yet they’re in bed just waiting to feel better.

And it’s not the most comfortable place to be.

And I would just come up and felt kind of like a nurse.

You know, I was rubbing their backs and giving them medicine, bringing them water, and able to tell them when the dawn would break for them. give them some hope because it was a, it was a hard time.

And I said, okay, you know, I know you’re feeling better right now, but I think the fever is going to come back this afternoon and, uh, it’ll, you’d probably have another day of it, you know, kind of give them this timeline that I wouldn’t have been able to give them before to kind of help bring them through it and know how they’re feeling.

I remember the body aches.

I remember how I felt.

And so I was able to minister to them in that way.

And I looked back on the trip because I did not feel like the most qualified person at the beginning to go.

I wasn’t fluent in Spanish or anything, but I also wasn’t able to be with them during all the time that they were preparing for the trip.

And so I, at the beginning, I thought, Lord, I’m, I’m more than willing to go and I’m excited to go.

I don’t know why you have me going because it seems like there’s a lot of other people more qualified to do this and for whatever reason the Lord had just now looking back I know why but he had really just made it very clear that it was me that he wanted to go and as I look back I realized he did prepare me even though I felt like I missed a lot of the the technical training of it that he prepared me to take care of those girls as well as we got to do some ministry and it was wonderful to see the Lord work in many ways.

But that particular thing really spoke to me because I saw how whatever God’s going to put me through, he’s going to prepare me for.

And I can’t let any of that go to waste.

And I really do need to let patients have a perfect work through the trial.

I need to realize he’s using it for a future thing as well to build something in me to use it for someone else in ministry and as uncomfortable as it is I need to submit to it and get through with the right

Anna Faith Fuller: attitude just curious did you all make it back okay and everything it was a little iffy part of

Rebekah Cook: the things that they had to sign was that they didn’t have a fever or a cough for over 24 hours and as we got up to that marker um we thought are they going to let us in and we cannot we kind of came up with a strategy of if a teen gets left behind who’s going to stay with them you know we will not leave our teens the lord brought us all home safely it was amazing and we were so thankful um just in how he preserved us through the sickness but i really don’t want to discount there was a lot of spiritual work done there in everyone’s hearts but also in ministry being able ministered to the people there as well.

And it was good for all of us to see it, even during that time.

Anna Faith Fuller: Has there ever been a time when you’ve been through a trial of faith and even maybe it’s still like a continuing trial and it’s been disappointing to you, which I know it’s a slightly trick question, but maybe just share your heart on that.

Sure.

I’m sure there has.

I’m trying to think of it

Rebekah Cook: Because often God comes back around, and in my own words, I guess, in my thoughts, I feel like he taps me on the shoulder and says, See, see, I was doing something there.

And so in that way, it kind of resolves itself.

So there’s no holes in what I’m remembering of how God has been working that he hasn’t always brought us through.

There was a time, there’s so much you go through on deputation, and God knows just the right trials to bring.

There was a time when I just felt like I didn’t handle it the way I should have.

And I always know that if I don’t handle it the way I’m supposed to, God’s going to let me go through something similar again.

It’s because I need to handle it the right way.

I need to build that characteristic that he’s trying to build in me.

And faith is always part of that additional characteristic.

And one of them was there was a horrible snowstorm and we got stuck in it.

And we were separated, actually.

We were in two vehicles.

My husband was stuck on the freeway for 13 hours in a snowstorm.

And I had to drive the back roads to get to this RV park where he was hoping to meet me if the freeway cleared up.

They were just trying to clear an accident.

And it took them 13 hours to clear the accident.

And so there was a lot of other people stuck there, too.

And I remember praying for them.

But as night began to fall, I had a couple of our kids with me in the suburban.

It’s COVID again.

There’s a lot of restrictions and like bathrooms are shut down, public bathrooms.

You know, it just it made everything feel very constrained, very strict.

And I remember thinking I’ve got, I think, three.

I had our two girls and our young son with us and my husband had our other two with him.

Food was not the problem necessarily. we could go to the store.

I was trying not to drive around a whole lot because I didn’t want to get in an accident just driving around town.

So I was waiting in the RV spot and night begins to fall and I just kind of began to wallow a little.

A lot.

I mean it turned into a lot but in a private way because I didn’t want my kids to hear that.

I didn’t want them to get discouraged so in a way I’d kind of put them to bed.

We had the lights and everything was off, but I had to keep turning the car on and off to keep it warm in there.

And I just thought, Lord, what’s going on?

You know, I don’t know what to do.

I felt kind of desperate.

I just remember crying and but I was praying, too.

And even in that faithless time, I look back at it because I wasn’t as confident in what God was doing.

I remember my husband called and he’s like, you know what, honey, I got you a hotel if you can make it there.

Just go to the hotel and we’ll figure everything out.

And I just remember thinking when my husband called like, Lauren, I should have just waited.

I should have just trusted you.

I know that you have it in control, but I felt like I didn’t know what was going on.

I didn’t know how long it was going to last and what are we going to do?

And it really wasn’t that desperate of a situation looking back.

But at the time, things just hit you.

So hopefully that, you know, can identify, someone else can identify with that when they get into something sometimes it’s the little things that really hit you too right right so the lord still proved his faithfulness in it yes and i think

Anna Faith Fuller: even just sometimes it can seem seem such a negative thing even those little things i feel like those little things sometimes just hit you the right spot where it’s very irritating and and you’re not even thinking about your walk with the lord even or you know and just how to respond in those moments with faith.

And I think it’s easy to look at hard things in a negative way.

But as you shared, just God’s allowed different things into your life.

It’s only built you in your journey of faith.

And even just this verse here in James made you more perfect and entire to the point where you don’t need or want anything.

And that’s what God wants to do in all of our lives.

So he’s kind of chiseling away at those little areas that he knows that we’re still in unbelief over, or we’re focused on ourselves and we’re not walking by faith, or maybe we’re in the complete darkness and not seeing him through those things.

So just in conclusion, would you mind just sharing just an application to our listeners and just concluding your thoughts?

Any other thoughts that you have that you know would be helpful to

Rebekah Cook: young girls or you know women in general definitely um i know that the lord wants to use us wherever we are at whatever age we are at and in ecclesiastes it says to give him our youth it’s better to serve him then because one we won’t have the regrets that we would have if we kept it to ourselves um but also he has so much more time to prepare us for things and and can walk us through things and use us more greatly and then give us that greater reward really of having more people know the Lord from our example.

And, um, from the time when, when I was sick and we were, um, on the missions trip and just that whole situation, I am so thankful that, um, through the trial that God prepared me.

And so I hope that the teen girls can apply that to their life, that whatever he’s bringing you through, whatever he has for you, this difficult thing, it’s a stepping stone to the next thing.

And it’s not wasted.

God doesn’t waste anything.

But he will prepare you.

And if you don’t meet that preparation, then you won’t be ready for the fight.

We think of David and how God did prepare him for Goliath.

He fought a lion and a bear first.

He came with not just faith, but experience.

And we see how those tie together with faith, hope, and experience in the Bible, how they all tie together.

And with that experience, it works the hope and the next trial of faith.

That we can have it at the beginning and not just look back at the end and say, Oh, now I see it, Lord.

Now I can trust you.

But at the beginning, know that we can trust him and he will do something good.

Psalm 37, I’m sorry, 27, 13 and 14 is, I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

And we must know that he’s doing something good.

He’s proven it over and over.

But he will find those points of unbelief, like you said.

And that’s exactly what it is because it’s a point that we have to make a decision.

Am I going to trust what God said or am I going to trust how I feel and what I see?

And so that’s the challenge.

And hopefully that they can take that and know from someone else’s experience that they can start building their own.

Anna Faith Fuller: Well, thank you so much for joining us here on our podcast today. and I was encouraged personally just with your story of faith and just the different points of how God has worked in your life.

And just to conclusion, I just encourage each one of you, if you are going through something hard, just trust God even just on the specific point that he’s preparing you.

And he wants to use you through this trial, just like you shared in getting sick and helping other people with sickness.

And in practical areas like that, even if you feel like maybe you don’t have a huge trial of faith, but you have today.

And there’s certain things today that are going to, you know, be hard for you.

And just asking God to give you that faith perspective that he is using this to prepare you and to perfect you so that you can be perfect and entire wanting nothing, absolutely nothing.

And so God is always so good to just work in those points in our life and grow our faith.

And so I just encourage you, if you’re in that moment of, God, what are you doing right now?

Just cry out to him and say, God, I believe you.

Because that is faith.

When you can’t see, just saying, God, I believe.

And I believe specifically that you’re preparing me and that you’re perfecting me so I can be perfect and entire wanting nothing.

And just cry out to God and say, God, I believe.

For whatever you’re going to put in my life, I believe.

And as you just go on that journey of faith, don’t just talk about it.

Remember, faith doesn’t just talk.

Faith walks.

Rebekah Cook: Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Thee Generation Podcast.

If you’ve been blessed or helped in any way by this episode or any other episodes, please consider sharing what God has done in your life.

Your testimony could be exactly what someone else needs to take their own step out of the boat.

To share your testimony, please visit thegeneration.org slash testimony.

That’s T-H-E-E generation.org slash testimony.