Anne's Story
In 1987, we had an intruder come into our house. I was away at the time doing conferences, and Peter was home with the three boys. The man knocked on our door at four o'clock in the morning and his intention was to murder my husband.
I was in Perth when they called me and told me what had happened. When I was travelling home, I did not know whether he'd be dead or alive.
Before I got on that plane, I'd just been in revival meetings where the presence and the power of God was amazing. In those kinds of situations, everything within you will worship and praise and magnify the Lord. What a contrast, when four or five hours later, you hit a situation like that.
I remember flying back on the plane, and I sure was standing up on the inside. I declared to the enemy, and I declared to my God, "Whatever I am flying home to, I want You to know, I will always worship You. I will always praise You. I will always thank You and declare that You are totally sovereign, and You are totally good."
So the intruder came at four o'clock in the morning, one of my sons answered the door, then went and got Peter. We were in a Bible college setting and we were also in a place where it was not unusual for people to bang on the door whatever the hour.
While John went to get his dad, the attacker brandished a machete and put on a balaclava. So the moment Peter came to the door, he began to slash him and the boys. If the boys had not been home, Peter would have died. Even though they were slashed and ended up in hospital as well, they were able to preserve and save their father's life.
The headlines in the press the next day said; 'Triple Murder Averted.' The attack was defining in our ministry.
I remember later in life as we went into the journey of Peter's Alzheimer's, we were very much asking, 'What does our future hold?' And of course it leaves you with questions.
How could God, a loving God, allow this to happen to us?
Sometimes there is no answer to some of those questions. For us, there was a huge disappointment in several areas. First of all, the disappointment of a total change in our perception of our future and what that was going to be. We were believing for a healing for this.
So there was the journey of faith, along with the parallel journey of the practicalities of what we were walking through. Peter was wondering, "Anne, what's going to happen to us?"
One night we were in a Rodney Howard meeting because we were believing for healing. Both Peter and I had fallen on the ground and it was like we were in a shadowy grave. Right in the darkness, in the back, I saw this light and gradually as it came closer, I realised it was the Lord. It was absolutely shimmering, I felt it was like Jesus was transfigured. As he came almost floating toward us, Peter and I rose together out of that grave and went to meet him.
I felt like the Lord was going to embrace us and just affirm us in His love regardless of the situation we were in. Instead, He reached out His arms when he got close to us and embraced us. He took us in His embrace and He took us into Himself.
When I looked at the vision again, I didn't see Peter and myself. I saw only Christ, that our lives were hidden with Christ in God. Then the Lord said, "Anne, this is your future, your lives. Whatever happens, you are hidden with Christ in God." That was an amazing experience for the next part of the journey.
In the midst of that kind of scenario, you say, "Oh God, only one touch from You, and this could have been so different." You have to handle that kind of disappointment when you don't get the breakthrough of the healing.
There are times when you wrestle in prayer, when you fight, because you believe it was a demonic thing. You wrestled against the fact, but God, You are more powerful than the enemy. Then you will come to a place where over all of those situations, I still declare, I will worship You. You are my God. And I trust You for whatever lies ahead.