Gold bracelet ‘treasure’ dug up by boys is ‘sign of God’s love for SA’

Last Thursday, as intercessory leader Candice Reardon was hanging out washing at her home in Hillcrest, Durban, her sons Ezra, 7 and Denver 4 came rushing over to her shouting excitedly that they had dug up treasure in the garden.

She saw that Ezra was clutching a dirty, soil-covered round object and she sensed God saying to her: “Pay attention — this is a sign.”

Well, the “treasure” the boys had unearthed about a metre below the ground in a hole they had been digging at on-and-off for several days turned out to be a 9 carat gold bracelet which a jeweller said had a replacement value of about R14 000.

During that time Candice, who is on the pastoral team at CityHill Church, “paid attention” as the Lord had prompted her to — and she discerned “the sign” of the treasure.

She said the timing of the bracelet find was notable — just before the start of a “supernaturally significant and destiny-defining weekend!” during which intercessors throughout SA were being called to pray for the nation in response to a plan to launch Ancestors Day on the Saturday.

Like many Christians who heeded the call to pray for SA on Saturday she said 35 people, including children, from the Hillcrest “Feet On The Street” worship and prayer group — which includes believers from various churches in the area — gathered on a rooftop parking area in central Hillcrest on Saturday.

“We worshipped, exalted the Lord, we repented in accordance with 2 Chronicles 7:14 and dedicated ourselves and our community to the Lord again as a pure offering, a living sacrifice. Thereafter, some of us went out to the significant spiritual and physical gates of our community to anoint those sites.”

She came to realise that the bracelet which had been unexpectedly and inexplicably found in her garden by her sons was one of several signs from the Lord “that bear witness to the fact that He has heard our prayers for our community Hillcrest and our nation, and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).”

For her, a key to understanding the mystery of the bracelet — which is effectively a large gold ring — was tied to a worship song that she had been paying close attention to through that week.

Candice wrote: “I’ve been worshipping to the song Ever Be by Bethel. Earlier in the week I had felt particularly drawn to look at the words in the song and meditate on them.

“The first paragraph of the song: “Your love is devoted like a RING OF SOLID GOLD, Like a VOW that is TESTED, like a COVENANT of old. Your love is enduring through the winter RAIN, And beyond the horizon with MERCY FOR TODAY.

“Wow! These words speak in a profound and uncanny way into the context of what’s going on in SA right now. We are definitely testing the Lord, as the song mentions, with regard to the ancestral worship that is being offered up.

“Nevertheless, I feel what the Lord wants to say through this sign of the gold bracelet is that, as the song says,
⁃ His love is devoted to this nation
⁃ He has a covenant with believers in this nation He is not walking away from (the significance of a ring is it is a perpetual shape, there’s no beginning and no end, just like the Lord)
⁃ His love is enduring even through the winter rain, that is the hardships of life (we’ve been having hail and thunder storms this evening!)
⁃ And He has mercy for us TODAY!”

The unseasonal weather in the Hillcrest area last weekend — including thunder, lightning, rain and hail — also stood out to Candice as a sign that “the Lord has heard our prayers, that our land is being cleansed and purified, and that righteousness and purity will be our foundation”.

She wrote: “Hail is also a sign that intercessors know well! The Lord has used hail before in SA as a sign to bear witness to the cleansing and purifying of the land He is accomplishing. In July 2020, Naomi Sheneberger prophesied that in that same month of July, the Lord was going to reveal Himself through a sign of snow/hail that was going to make the ground white as a sign of purification and righteousness. The Lord gave her Isaiah 1:16-18. — “Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as WHITE as SNOW; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”

“And within two weeks there were severe manifestations of hail in KZN, strong winds and rain in Cape Town that made the beachfront promenades ‘white’ with sea foam. These manifestations of creation took place over the weekend when intercessors around the country and continent united in fasting and prayer for The Trumpet Call, an online 3-day prayer gathering, to end the spirit of violence and bloodshed in SA.”

Asked what plans she has for the gold bracelet, Candice said, being a pragmatic person, after she learned how much it was worth she did think it would be nice to have that money. But as she reflected on the fact that it is a sign from the Lord she put aside all thoughts of selling it.

“I said to my husband, I would love to engrave the first paragraph of Ever Be on the bracelet. It would be terribly special — a way of honouring and preserving the memory.”