As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD ….. Moses answered the people, “Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today” – Exodus 14: 10, 13 (NIV)
When we are facing a Red Sea Crisis!
None of us have ever experienced anything like what we are experiencing today with a worldwide Pandemic. Some of us might feel discouraged and others, just like the Israelites, might even have moments when we feel terrified. We have come to a place where we need a Red Sea Miracle. We need a deliverance from the evil that is threatening to destroy our life in the way we once knew it.
The reality is that many people are going through Red Sea moments all the time, we just don’t see them because our life may not be touched by it. What is unprecedented is that this is one of those times in the history of the world, where we all are going through the crisis together.
Is it possible that a Red Sea Crisis might become one of the most important and life changing experiences in our lives? What will we do with it?
My family’s Red Sea crisis came when I was young. My father Paul Mahoney was a decorated Korean War Veteran who survived the bloody engagement known as Pork Chop Hill. After the war, my father went to Bible college in Minneapolis, MN where he met my mother and they eventually would marry. My father went on to become a police officer and would later join the State Highway Patrol.
My mother, Ethel, was the twelfth of thirteen children. She was raised on a farm in rural Wisconsin. Her family was a loving family. My grandfather played the violin in the Salvation Army Band. And his children also learned to play many instruments as well as sing hymns, harmonizing together in the parlor of their large farm house. This influence led my mother to get her degree in music and I believe it was a gene that I fortunately inherited allowing me to learn to play many instruments as well as songwriting.
Unfortunately, my father had his demons that would cause violent fits of rage at the slightest incident. One night he threw me across the room and I slid down a wall. From that time on I never slept with the family upstairs. For my own safety, my mother put me in the sewing room off from the kitchen. It’s a moment that is very clear in my memory. My mother was kneeling next to me praying with me before I went to sleep. When she left the room, I felt a closeness to God that I needed to feel at that time.
My father’s random anger would eventually endanger our entire family which had grown to include two sisters and a brother. I was the oldest. I remember the day I came home from a friends house seeing my mother and uncle packing the car with suitcases and laundry baskets full of clothes to flee my father. That was January 29, 1968, the last day our family ever lived together.
Leadership in a Crisis
We stayed in hiding with relatives for a time and eventually we were able to find our own place to live. With small children at home my mother couldn’t work and by then my father decided to leave the state, so we grew up getting assistance from the county. My mother did an amazing job with little resources to keep us fed, clothed and a roof over our heads. We attended church whenever the doors were open and we found another family, the Sandbergs, that had a similar situation as our own. My mother would invite them over for Sunday dinner and Kirk Sandberg also played guitar. We became good good friends and even had a music group.
As my mother grew older she developed a form of Alzheimers that caused her to lose her short term memory. Now, I was the parent leading her in the prayers. I would read to her from the Bible and at times she would quote the verses right along with me. A few weeks ago her health started to fail. I got the call that her condition had changed significantly. Before I arrived, she passed away, with my two sisters and niece at her side. It was a Sunday, her favorite day of the week. As I stood there with tears in my eyes, I realized that I would never have been able to do the things I have done in making the Patterns of Evidence films if it hadn’t been for her example. So what did I learn from Mom?
Be Handy and Try
My mother was handy, maybe even handier than some of her six brothers. She had her own set of tools and out of necessity made a lot of repairs including carpentry and plumbing. She was a farm girl at heart and my grandmother had encouraged her, “If you think you can, maybe you can… you’ll never know if you don’t try.” That attitude was passed on to me and my siblings and it drove me to do things that many people would not have tried. What I have found out is it is easy to talk yourself out of doing something before you even begin to try. For example, in 2002 working with the Egyptian Embassy for a week trying to get everything worked out to film for 3 weeks in Egypt was totally out of my experience and comfort zone. “But if you think you can, maybe you can!” That trip became the foundational footage for Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus.
Be Consistent
Daily Bible Reading
My mother read to us from the Bible before we would go to bed very consistently. It wasn’t easy for her to get us all together and I know she was tired but she worked at it. I would also see her in the morning with a cup of coffee having her own time of devotion and Bible study. The Bible was present in our home.
Pray about Everything
We didn’t have very much money but my mother taught me that we did have the ability to pray. And no matter what it was… whether a decision or a physical need, she prayed with us in faith that God would provide. She combined prayer with garage sales. I remember the time I wanted a pair of Chukka boots, which were the fashion in the 1970’s. We prayed in the morning and when I got home from school that afternoon there were Chukka boots she found at a garage sale. That boosted my faith in prayer. They were a size 13 and I was a size 10 but she suggested I just put some tissues in the toes. Later, I did ask my mother if we could pray for the specific shoe size the next time we prayed for shoes.
Seeds Planted Do Grow
After the funeral my sister showed me a cedar chest that was my mothers. It was filled with important letters, photos and mementos that mom had saved throughout her life. Lying in the chest was the Egermeier’s Bible Story Book that she read as children. I hadn’t seen it in 50 years. This book was where the Bible came alive for me, read by a single parent, who felt the world had come to an end for her hopes and dreams.
Last year I showed The Moses Controversy in Houston and at intermission a woman came out with tears flowing down her face. She told me that she was so blessed to learn about my mother and her faith-filled parenting who raised me to make these biblical films. She said her husband had died in the spring and she felt so overwhelmed trying to raise her own son as a single parent. Now she had hope that God would provide.
Also in the midst of her cedar chest was a typed outline for a talk she had shared with other women. She revealed the feelings of failure in her marriage. Although she never regretted leaving for the safety of the family, she told of the fear she had of the future living with years of loneliness, heartache and responsibilities.
Be Bitter or Better?
Then I read. BITTER or BETTER… it’s up to us whether we are going to let a situation make us “bitter” or “better”! My mother then wrote of finding constructive ways to fill the emptiness – finding ministry and purpose in life. Using her musical training she became the church pianist as well as the church secretary and bookkeeper. Later my mother was hired by the county and became the Head of Payroll for almost 30 years and was able to do well for herself in retirement.
We are all living in a time of “hard places” where we don’t know what the future holds. At the close of my mother’s talk she wrote this, “I feel it was entrusted to me to be an encouragement to those who may be going through some of those “hard places”, even at this time. God wants to manifest His special love to you if you are hurting. I would not have known of those special times of God’s deliverance if I hadn’t been at the point of need.” Ethel Mahoney
The Biblical Perspective
We are just finishing the next film Patterns of Evidence: The Red Sea Miracle II with a release in mid May if everything goes as planned. In Part 2 we will follow the Israelites out of Egypt to the sea crossing locations of the Egyptian view near the border of Egypt and the Hebrew view at the Gulf of Aqaba. The Bible tells us the Israelites were led by God right into a Red Sea Crisis of faith. How was it that God would have led them into this death trap?
The Israelites said to Moses “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?” Moses answered the people, “Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today” – Exodus 14: 10, 13 (NIV)
Don’t Be Afraid
Patterns of Evidence: The Red Sea Miracle II will explore how the water was parted, what evidence remains of Pharaoh’s chariots, and find out if miracles still happen today. Each film I make I learn a truth that is very significant. What I have learned through the making of The Red Sea Miracle film is that I don’t want to stop asking God for a miracle. Even if I might not receive the answer I want. From my childhood to now my adulthood the Bible has given me and my family the encouragement and hope for the future. To me that is worth my life’s work to keep uncovering patterns of evidence in the Bible. KEEP THINKING!
TOP PHOTO: Scene from Patterns of Evidence: The Red Sea Miracle II (Credit: Patterns of Evidence LLC)
