SharpTop Cove

SHARPTOP COVE — 1997

“‘For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?’” (Esther 4:14).

Like coffee percolating over a stove, sometimes God’s generous portions and plans take a while to not only percolate, but to be understood for what they were. In the 1940s Lavelle Beene was at Wheaton College and was tasked with being “the person who would wait up for Jim Rayburn when he would come in at midnight, or one, or two o’clock in the morning,” according to Dave Carlson. Rayburn, who was scheduled to speak the next morning, would arrive by train, come to Wheaton, “and when Lavelle would open the door, Jim would say, ‘What do you have to eat?’ And they’d go and rustle up some eggs and bacon down in the kitchen, and Lavelle and Jim would talk until it was time to go to the student meeting the next morning.” Now, fast-forward 50 years. It’s the late ’90s and Young Life is in search of yet another property on the Eastern Seaboard near a major city where Young Life is strong. Lavelle Beene is now the chairman of the board for the Burnt Mountain Assembly, a youth camp built by Cecil Day, founder of the Day’s Inn hotel chain, and now up for sale. “The doorkeeper for Rayburn would also prove to be the doorkeeper for the next Young Life camp, SharpTop Cove!” (MFT, p. 132.)

Jasper, Georgia

Do you think it was a coincidence that Lavelle Beene was chairman of the board for Burnt Mountain Assembly five decades after his time with Jim Rayburn? It’s awe-inspiring to consider the manner in which God positioned things for such a time as this. Are there things in your life you are waiting on God for? Does this story give you hope? Take some time to present your requests to God and, don’t forget that as much as He had a divine appointment for Lavelle Beene, He has appointments for you too!