About the Book
"God Is Able" by Priscilla Shirer is a book that encourages readers to trust in God's power and sovereignty in every aspect of their lives. Through personal stories and biblical examples, Shirer teaches that God is faithful and capable of handling any challenge or circumstance that comes our way. The book inspires readers to have faith, persevere, and believe that God is able to work miracles in their lives.
Darlene Deibler Rose
Darlene Diebler Rose: Unwavering Faith in Godâs Promises
âRemember one thing, dear: God said he would never leave us nor forsake us.â Those words were spoken on March 13, 1942, and were the last words Darlene Diebler would ever hear from her husband, Russell, as they were permanently separated in Japanese prison camps during World War II. She was a missionary in her early twenties. She did not even have a chance to say goodbye. Consider her own reflection on that heartbreaking day:
Everything had happened so fast and without the slightest warning. Russell had said, âHe will never leave us nor forsake us.â No? What about now, Lord? This was one of the times when I thought God had left me, that he had forsaken me. I was to discover, however, that when I took my eyes off the circumstances that were overwhelming me, over which I had no control, and looked up, my Lord was there, standing on the parapet of heaven looking down. Deep in my heart he whispered, âIâm here. Even when you donât see me, Iâm here. Never for a moment are you out of my sightâ (Evidence Not Seen, 46).
Obedience to Godâs Call in All Circumstances
Darlene Mae McIntosh was born on May 17, 1917. At age nine she put her trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as her light and salvation. One year later, during a revival service, she sensed Godâs calling to give her life to missions. On that night she promised Jesus, âLord, I will go anywhere with you, no matter what it costsâ (46). How could that little girl know what the Savior had planned for her in the not too distant future?
âThrough it all, Darlene was sustained by God, who never left her nor forsook her, just as he promised. He remained her light and salvation.â
Darlene married a pioneer missionary to Southeast Asia named Russell Deibler on August 18, 1937. She was only nineteen years old. He was twelve years her senior. The Deiblers eagerly returned to Russellâs pioneer missionary work in the interior of New Guinea. Darlene accompanied Russell into the jungle to establish a new mission station near a previously unevangelized, primitive tribe that had only been discovered just a few years earlier. Darlene, the first white woman any of them had ever seen, grew to deeply love the local people.
When World War II broke out in that part of the world, the Dieblers chose to stay. And when the Japanese soon took control of the area, the Deiblers were put under house arrest. Later, Japanese soldiers herded all foreigners into prisoner-of-war camps, separating the men from the women and children. During the next four years, Darlene endured separation from her husband and, eventually, widowhood.
The brutal conditions of a WWII Japanese internment camp included near-starvation, forced labor, inhumane conditions, false accusations of espionage, serious illnesses, solitary confinement, and torture. Through it all, Darlene was sustained by God, who never left her nor forsook her, just as he promised. He remained her light and salvation.
God Is Sufficient in All Circumstances
After receiving the news of her husbandâs death, Darlene was falsely accused of being a spy and taken to a maximum-security prison where she was kept in solitary confinement. Written over the door of her cell were the words in Indonesian, âThis person must die.â Frequently she was taken to an interrogation room and accused of spying. Upon her denial, her interrogators would strike her at the base of the neck or on her forehead above the nose.
There were times she thought they had broken her neck. She walked around often with two black eyes. âBloodied but unbowedâ (141), she never wept in front of her captors, but when she was back in her cell she would weep and pour out her heart to the Lord. When she finished, she would hear him whisper, âBut my child, my grace is sufficient for thee. Not was or shall be, but it is sufficientâ (141).
âWhen she finished, she would hear him whisper, âBut my child, my grace is sufficient for thee. Not was or shall be, but it is sufficient.ââ
Time and time again God showed himself to be powerful and faithful to Darlene. Once, within moments of being beheaded as a spy, she was unexpectedly taken from the maximum-security prison back to her original prison camp. The Lord again had heard her prayers, leading her to a level path against her enemies. Over and over again, Darlene could look back at her life and see how God had strengthened and sustained her
as a young bride at age nineteen.
when she headed to the jungles of New Guinea at twenty.
when placed under house arrest by the Japanese when she was twenty-five.
when she and her husband were separated into separate prison camps in 1942, never to see each other again in this life.
as she ate rats, tadpoles, dogs, runny oatmeal, and maggots, and other unimaginable foods.
through dengue fever, beriberi, malaria, cerebral malaria, dysentery, beatings, torture, attacks of rabid dogs, false charges of espionage, the promise of beheading, solitary confinement, Allied bombings, and many other inhumane abuses.
when told of the death of her beloved husband and his own tortures and sufferings.
when he brought her home to America but kept the fire of missions burning in her soul.
when he brought another missionary into her life, Gerald Rose, whom she married (1948) and returned with him to New Guinea in 1949.
as she labored on the mission field of Papua New Guinea and the Outback of Australia for over forty years, evangelizing, teaching, building landing strips, delivering babies, facing down headhunters, and loving them to Jesus.
On February 24, 2004, Darlene Diebler Rose quietly passed away and entered into the presence of the King she so deeply loved and faithfully served. She was eighty-seven years old. All throughout her life, when sharing her story, Darlene would say, âI would do it all again for my Savior.â No doubt many in New Guinea are grateful for her devotion. May we follow this great saint to the nations, for the sake of their souls and the glory of our great King Jesus.
do not fear to leave this world
Perhaps you will feel the same discomfort I felt overhearing saints of old speak of death. âHe who does not prepare for death is more than an ordinary fool. He is a madman,â began Charles Spurgeon. âAgreed,â said the good Doctor Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Men seem to ignore the plain fact that âthe moment you come into this world you are beginning to go out of it.â But this fact need not spell doom and gloom for the Christian, Spurgeon responded. âThe best moment of a Christianâs life is his last one, because it is the one that is nearest heaven.â âI concur fully,â Richard Sibbes chimed in. âDeath is not now the death of me, but death will be the death of my misery, the death of my sins; it will be the death of my corruptions. But death will be my birthday in regard of happiness.â âWhen Christ calls me home,â Adoniram Judson added, âI shall go with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school.â âMay I also interject?â asked Calvin. âWe may positively state that nobody has made any progress in the school of Christ, unless he cheerfully looks forward towards the day of his death, and towards the day of the final resurrection.â âThis strikes me as true,â said Thomas Brooks. âIt is no credit to your heavenly Father for you to be loath to go home.â âAnd why should we hesitate?â Samuel Bolton questioned. It is the âprivilege of saints, that they shall not die until the best time, not until when, if they were but rightly informed, they would desire to die.â âExactly.â For the child of God, âdeath is the funeral of all our sorrows,â reasoned Thomas Watson. âDeath will set a true saint out of the gunshot and free him from sin and trouble.â âIndeed,â John Bunyan added, âdeath is but a passage out of a prison into a palace.â As I listened, I overheard the most disquieting questions. âHas this world been so kind to you that you would leave it with regret?â C.S. Lewis posed. âIf we really believe that home is elsewhere and that this life is a âwandering to find home,â why should we not look forward to the arrival?â âHear! Hear!â exclaimed William Gurnall. âLet thy hope of heaven master thy fear of death. Why shouldest thou be afraid to die, who hopest to live by dying?â âI am packed, sealed, and waiting for the post,â cried John Newton. âWho would live always in such a world as this?â Even snippets of their prayers issued a subtle rebuke. I could not help but hear one George Whitefield plead, âLord, keep me from a sinful and too eager desire after death. I desire not to be impatient. I wish quietly to wait till my blessed change comes.â This proved the final blow. These men anticipated death, viewed an early departure as a âpromotion.â I lowered my gaze. I rarely think this way, rarely feel this way. Do I really believe in heaven? Do I really love my Lord? Snuggled in This Life My squeamishness, flipping through an anthology of Christian quotes, helped me realize that my discipleship has slanted too American, too shortsighted, too this-worldly. âAre you packed and ready to go?â Well, I was hoping to set sail several decades from now, so â âHas this world been so kind to you that you would leave it with regret?â Well, I wouldnât give it a ten-star rating, but it certainly hasnât been half that bad (yet). So yeah, maybe â âNobody has made any progress in the school of Christ, unless he cheerfully looks forward towards the day of his death, and towards the day of the final resurrection.â Well, thatâs intense. âIt is no credit to your heavenly Father for you to be loath to go home.â I see â worthy point. No credit to Jesus either, I imagine. âThese men daily lived awake to the truths I daily profess to believe.â These men daily lived awake to the truths I daily profess to believe; they inhabited them, longing to fly away and be with Christ. Although they loved families, enjoyed things of earth, and did good in this world, they nevertheless were unafraid to dive headfirst into those cold waters of death at the first moment their Master allowed. They believed, with Paul, that âto depart and be with Christ . . . is far betterâ (Philippians 1:23). I discovered then just how snuggled by the fireside I had become in this world. A place I too readily felt to be home . Epitaphs of Exiles My heart can live too much here , too little there . âMy life is hidden with Christ,â I must remind myself (Colossians 3:3). As this world seeks to entice my affections to linger in its marketplace, I desire to be more of a heavenly disciple. And if you love Jesus but think too little of the life to come, I know you will agree. Oh, that this might be a true inscription over our graves, and all the more since we live after the coming of Christ, and the down payment of the Spirit: These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. (Hebrews 11:13â16) Abraham, by faith, left his home in Mesopotamia, not even knowing where God was leading him (Hebrews 11:8). He lived in the promised land before he could call it home, dwelling there as a foreigner. Isaac and Jacob, heirs with Abraham of Godâs promise, lived in tents of temporality; their home was not yet  (Hebrews 11:9). âOnce God saved them, they refused to unpack their hopes again in this world.â Abrahamâs eyes were elsewhere. âHe was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is Godâ (Hebrews 11:10). And he and his sons bore the heavenly insignia in their speech: they acknowledged, to anyone who cared to know, that they would live and die on this earth as exiles  and sojourners  (Genesis 23:4; 47:9). Once God saved them, they refused to unpack their hopes again in this world. The land far-off â big as Godâs promise, sure as Godâs word â held their allegiance. They made it clear that they sought a homeland not built by human hands. As the world tried to tempt them back, the bait remained on the hook. Better to live in a tent in this world with a heavenly city before them than to dwell in the tottering kingdoms of men. They desired a better country, a heavenly one. And God is not ashamed to be called âthe God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacobâ (Exodus 3:6). He is not ashamed in the least to be the one they so hoped in, for he has prepared for them a city . Still at Sea So, is your mind mainly set on this world or the next? This world is not our home, precious saint. We are not yet in our element. We fling open the window and send our dove about this earth, finding that it returns to us having found no homeland within this watery grave. But this world will be drained soon enough. The swells of judgment shall intensify and then subside. The new heavens and new earth shall arrive, and our Mighty Dove shall descend with a sword in his mouth for his enemies and an olive branch for us. Until then, keep waiting, keep hoping, keep acknowledging, keep living in tents, longing for that moment when we can bound away from this world as the Father calls us home.
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