Spirit World

Paul said that our battle is against the rulers, authorities, powers of this dark world and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Wouldn't it be amazing if God would suddenly open our eyes to the unseen world? Amazing, yet I don't think we could handle it. It seems cool on this side of the seen, but I think we might cower if we saw it on that side.

Every once in a while, though. God rips just a little tear in the other dimension. Our eyes "play tricks" on us and we see the invisible. We see it in lights and shadows; in contorted expressions and radiant faces of peace; we see it in tormented anxiety and deep breaths. If we pay attention we are invited to "see" the unseen.

We are also invited to take up our shields and swords and fight along side our Creator. Sometimes He sees our helpless estate and He swoops in and fights the battle around us, for us. But other times, He hears us say words like, "You are able to do more than we ask or imagine, please do more now." and He rises up and says, "You missed a huge part. See I can do amazing things, more than you ask or imagine, but it is through you, through the power at work in you.

Gift of Confrontation

Recently, I have been complimented often as having the gift of confrontation. The High School version of myself shakes my head in incredulity. I mean really, I once broke out in hives because I had to tell someone to show up to meetings on time. I wept as I confronted a classmate on his crude joking, and almost threw up several times at having to tell someone when my feelings had been hurt.

So what has changed I wonder? I have realized lately, that life seems to be a game of constantly learning about myself. Here are some conclusions I have come to. I am direct. In high school, I was a shadow of who God wanted me to be, as the hurt I had gone through was left to increase and morph undisturbed in the caverns of my heart. Now, as God has taken me through severe healing, "I am becoming what I once was, a girl in the mirror of God's love." As I look in His mirror, I see myself as He sees me, or am beginning to at least. So I see that I am indeed direct, but I am also connecting dots as to how it works, which I will now share.

First, I have a strong wrong/right meter. If something taps onto the wrong side of that meter especially when I have any position of authority, I feel compelled almost obsessively to make it right. So at school, I confront things like disobedience and immodesty immediately. Confronting often though has to happen when I have been injured in some way, and it is very different. First, because I am a thinker vs. a feeler, it takes a lot for me to be hurt. When I am, I don't know what to do with the emotions that supersede my strong thinker mentality. So I clam up to digest them. Outwardly, I spend time alone, tersely responding to questions and initiating none, especially with the offending party. Inwardly though, my mind is in a race. I mull over the entire situation over and over again. I think of every way I have been wronged. I think of every way I have been in the wrong. I stir and stir and stir. It is all to get the feeling back into the thinking. Once it makes the jump back over I have a decision... to confront or not. Confrontation then must happen or I will like Mr. Darcy sever all contact. It is 

The Faith of...

Some friends of mine recently found out the worst news anyone could ever get: Doug, a forty-five year old, non-smoker, has stage four lung cancer.

Now, Doug and Michelle are a godly couple who have given their lives to loving and serving God and people. I have been an observer and witness to them struggle through this tragic news. A few days ago they stood before the whole Christian school where they serve and shared with the students from 6-12th grade and the teachers their journey and their belief statements that have followed this news. I would like to share with you what they said. I am going to share it in first person but know that it is their voice not mine.

1. I am thankful for every breath God gives me. Everyday is a gift.
2. Several years ago, I gave an assignment asking students what they would do if they found out they didn't have much longer to live. I gave that assignment not knowing that would soon be told to me. I am doing exactly what I would have said. Everyday that God gives me I am telling you guys about Jesus and showing you how to live for him. That is what I will do till God calls me home. 
3. How bad is it? We are not taking stock in what the doctors say. They are saying that it is serious. But we know that our life is in God's hands. He is the one who determines the number of our days. Cancer will not steal a single day and minute of Doug's life. Cancer has no power. Doug's life will be over when God says His purposes for Doug are finished. Nothing can steal life. God is the one in control.
4. How are you doing? We are full of peace, joy, and thanksgiving. We know that God will use this for his glory. We believe God has a purpose for this and we are grateful that He has counted us worthy to share in his purposes. 
5. God prepared us for this. Several months ago, God gave us a passage that has come up over and over again. In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were told to bow down to a statute of Nebuchadnezzar. When they wouldn't, Nebuchadnezzar said if they didn't they would be thrown into a fiery furnace. Their response was, "King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." We, like them, state that we know God is able to deliver us, and will deliver us, but even if he doesn't we will not serve other gods. We believe that the same thing that happened because of their faith will happen because of ours. Nebuchadnezzar made the fire four times hotter and threw them in bound. Nebuchadnezzar, then, saw four men walking around, unbound, and the fourth looks like the Son of God. He decreed praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. God has brought cancer into our lives. We believe he can and will deliver us. If he does, or if he doesn't and this ends in death, we know that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, will be praised and many will worship the one true God. 
6. We are worshipping God through this at every step. We are choosing to worship. We are battling with worship. We have been confronted with another passage where the enemy was coming against Judah. God sent a word to the king of Judah to send the worshippers out first. Not the archers, not the swordsmen, not the calvary... the worshippers. Because they obeyed and worshipped, God delivered them from the enemy. So we are worshipping first. 
7. I also have to say that this did not come at first. When I first heard, I wept. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. I laid in bed, and I doubted if God even existed. I wondered if I had been deluding myself all this time into believing all of this stuff. But I woke up. I chose to show up, to read my Bible, to cry out to God, to lean on him. I didn't feel him for days. But I continued to choose to cry out to him. It had to be a choice. I commanded my spirit to worship. If I had leaned on my feelings, I would have walked away from him. For days I didn't feel him. But then one day, after once again choosing to worship him and thank him, he clearly showed up and I was filled with his presence. I need to tell you, when things are rough you need to volitionally choose to lean on him and trust in him. Do not lean on feelings because they will lead you astray. 
8. Lastly, I need to share with you that God has been faithful to give us really beautiful moments through all of this. The night I found out that it was stage four is a prime example. My sister-in-law, who is a radiologist, called after she saw all the images. I knew as soon as I heard her voice that it was bad. I told my daughter to take the little ones to Chick-Fil-A. I cried and cried. When Doug came home after work, we sat on our porch where we had sat together a million times before. When I told him it was stage four, he answered in true Doug fashion, "Well, that is disappointing." We then sat there watching the sunset over the lake in our backyard. It was one of the most beautiful, peaceful sunsets. The two of us just sat there and together sang "Blessed be your name." It was something I thought I would never have to tell my husband, but God turned it into one of the most beautiful moments of our marriage. 
9. God is good. He has a plan. We will walk with him no matter what that plan entails. 

I sat there listening, with tears streaming down my face. I diligently pray several things. I pray that God will continue to decrease the cancer in his body till it is gone completely. I pray that God will give this amazing couple numerous conversations with doctors and nurses about the grace of God. I pray many will come to know Jesus through this journey. I pray that God will strike a revival in Norfolk Christian School and that he will use the Sandwell's faith to bring it about. I pray that Michelle's brothers will turn back to the Lord as they watch their sister faithfully suffer for the name of Christ. I pray that God will continue to lavish them with encouragement and supernatural joy. I pray he will rid them of all fear and doubt. 

I also pray that when trials come, God would give me a double portion of the faith of Doug and Michelle Sandwell. I pray that my spirit will learn from their example how to bring glory to the name of Jesus despite bad news, sickness, and the face of death. 

By Faith...

I am digesting a sermon I heard this morning.

Hebrews 11

This passage is all about men and women who did extraordinary things though they were ordinary, real, sinful people. Each one of them accomplished something that changed the world, yet each one of them was human and fallen.

Take Noah as an example. By faith he considered himself an ark builder. God told him to build an ark; God said he was an ark builder. Because Noah believed what God said about him, he did what God told him to do.

So often there are curses and sins in our lives that have passed down from one generation to another. The idols of our fathers become our idols. The voice of these idols deafens our ears to hear who God says that we are. So we dumb down God's image inside us. We dumb down his guidance. We dumb down his equipping of us. We believe and live out things contrary to what God says about us.

Faith though means we believe and count as true what God says about us. This belief gives us power to live out what God tells us to do, and it lessens the power of the loud voices that speak contrary to that divine self-view.

I have struggled, truly struggled all my life with overeating. This is a struggle that was present in my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents. The voice of this struggle has lead me to believe things about myself and behave in ways according to those beliefs. This struggle has affected how I eat, think, dream, dress, carry myself, act in groups, and act alone. In so many ways, this struggle has altered and predicted my whole life. I have believed about myself that I am an addict who is controlled by my addiction.

The pastor ended the sermon this morning that there is something God is calling us. He is naming me. He is speaking my worth. If God is pleased by faith, then it will be in my believing this thing that he is calling me and living that out that I will feel and enjoy his pleasure. I always thought God was displeased that I overeat. Today, I realized that God is displeased because I have believed something about myself that is contrary to what he has named me, and therefore I overeat. He is displeased at my lack of faith.

So then I am faced with the question: What is it about myself that God wants me to believe? What is he calling me? What belief statement does he want my actions to stem from?

This summer these questions were posed to me at Ruby's House of Prayer in Nicaragua. When I first received the word I was excited but fearful. As the summer progressed, I doubted these names God gave me as I am not sure how to live them out in my normal context. Today, God brought those things to mind. It is time to start believing them.

God has called me:

1. A prophetess: God has called me a woman who speaks his word, who brings healing to the sick and broken, who proclaims what is, what was and what will be with the authority of Jesus Christ. This calling means that He will give me power to speak without fear, to stand in the gap for others without fear. He will strengthen me where men will not go. He will speak through me in ways that it cannot be denied that it is from him.  
2. A mother: God will give me children. He will give me many children. He will give me children that are not of my womb. He will strengthen me to mother them, teaching them, training them, and growing them into spiritual giants who are in love with the Creator of the universe. 
3. A prayer warrior: God will strengthen me to pray intimately, fervently, intensely, powerfully. God has promised that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. God will give me many powerful and effective prayers. Through prayer I will cry God's tears and feel his heart. I will be allowed to lay hands on people and pray for them and see them be healed. 

I say these things not to be arrogant, but in faith. God has called me these things. I do not call myself these things, I simply believe and declare that he has called me these things. I also want to say that like the men in Hebrews 11, I might not see these things come to be. My faith will not falter. I will continue to believe these things. No longer will I hide behind my weight and my baggy clothes. No longer will I excuse not living in these things because I am an addict. I choose to believe them. I choose to live them out. 

TV Tears

I am watching a TV show with tears running down my face. It is a mindless drama, yet it hit me hard today. The storyline: a cabby strapped for cash gets killed, the investigation leads the cops to the knowledge that he had built a radioactive bomb. All the cops are instructed to keep the information to themselves, and yet they are all trying to convince their families to leave town. It is at this point that I found my heart stricken. What if it were my town with a missing bomb? What if I knew, and I couldn't tell my husband? I would find a reason for him to go to his parents house in PA. I would want him to be safe. The tears came as I realized that I would be devastated if anything happened to my husband.

What a gift God gives us. He gives us the ability to love another, to spend everyday with them. He gives us the opportunity to know and be known. To love someone, means great happiness and fulfillment. However, it also means there is the greatest opportunity to experience pain. Today, I experienced pain at the mere thought of losing my husband. Thank God it was just a thought and not a reality.

I realize this is the love of God for his people. He experiences great joy and fulfillment when his people call on him and love him in return. But oh the pain he must feel all the time! He experiences great pain when he looses his people, when they experience pain and death. His pain then is exacerbated when they also reject him, walk away from him, hate him and speak against him.

4 milestones of a dating relationship

So many people stare at me in disbelief when I tell them that my husband and I only dated for five and half weeks before we got engaged. Recently, a teenage girl asked me how I knew so quickly he is "the one." I started telling her my story and out of it came four milestones Dave and I were able to climb in a very short time. It hit me that these four milestones are necessary for any dating relationship to progress to the point of a good and healthy engagement/ marriage. Now, I do not readily recommend jumping over all four in five weeks; I would say this process usually takes at least a year. For us, God was the One to accelerate our timing, which is why it worked.

So the milestones:
1. You have to realize that you meet each other's lists. For my single friends, I encourage you to think through the things you really want in a partner. Prioritize them. Pray about them.
My list consisted of:
a. A passion for Jesus, one where I wouldn't have to awkwardly ask: "so where are you at in your relationship with God?" because it was self-evident in how he talked and behaved
b. Love for children, since I know that my primary ministry will always involve children
c. A good name and reputation
d. A beard
e. An openness to the movement of the Holy Spirit even if that means picking up and moving to Africa on a week's notice
Dave met all of these, and I was able to notice that soon after we met. I was hooked.

A friend of mine was talking to a group of high schooler girls about boys. She said there must be an attraction in body, soul, and spirit. The body part is obvious. The spirit is a spiritual connectivity. You both must speak the same spiritual language. The soul is the personality side of life. Both people must have commonalities in activities, in humor, in fun, in energy, in adventure. If all three connections aren't there, there will be struggle and second guessing. I had all three and knew it early on.

2. Get approval from people who you respect. It was so cool for us. See, we met online, which can be a scary unknown. However, shortly after we made it Facebook official we were dating, we had people coming out of the woodwork, mutual acquaintances that were speaking of both of our character. I would like to name just a few so you get the idea: his pastor I used to work with, my landlord went to college with him, his boss was a good friend of my dad's, some friends of mine from high school went to his church. It was amazing that every single one of these mutual acquaintances spoke of what an amazing man he is and how good we would be for each other. This was continued when he met my family. Approval all around. Same when I met his family. I do recognize that I am blessed to have a wonderfully friendly and accepting family. Some people might not have that privilege. But there should be people you respect who are giving green lights and speaking of your individual worth and the rightness of the couple. In fact, it is Biblical. In Song of Solomon, a love song between a man and woman in love, the friends look on them and say, "We rejoice and delight in you; we will praise your love more than wine."

3. Openness about the past. We all have things hidden in closets and dark corners of our lives that we want to keep hidden. A healthy relationship demands that those things hidden be brought to the surface. In order for a relationship to move from casual dating to serious relationship, closet doors have to be opened. That means you have to talk about past sins, past relationships, past hurts, past decisions, past heart breaks. If those things remain in the dark, they become destructive when there is so much more on the line. Scarily, they become relational crossroads. It is possible that they will become the stone that shatters a fragile relationship. But they also could be huge bridges of grace. They could be moments where Jesus asks you to take on his heart, love this person, despite their past and what that can mean for your future. Dave was courageous to initiate these talks. He bared his soul. I don't know how he trusted me enough to do it after only dating me for a few weeks, but he did. He shared; I shared. We both chose to continue on the road, to forgive, and to choose love. 

4. Commitment. This last stage can take a long time for many couples. Both people in the relationship have to come to a place where they decide they are all in. Dave made this really easy for me as after only a week of knowing each other he put his cards on the table. He said he didn't want to play any games. He wanted to see if this would lead to marriage, and if we felt like that was not the direction, we would end it right away. It made it so that when the question came to my mind, "Could I spend the rest of my life with him?" I could easily answer that I did. 

In God's wonderful plan for me, he allowed Dave and I to hurdle over these milestones with great ease and little time. I know for many that is not the case. I do strongly believe though that if these four are not crossed in a relationship, there will be struggle, disappoint, and a constant questioning if your are doing the right thing or if this is the right person. Everyone must find the person in a relationship with to  meet the list, be approved of by respected people, be open about the past, and at some point choose to commit to the other person. 

Journals

Every once in a while, an all-consuming urge fills me to clean, organize or purge some part of my home. Yesterday the target of this urge was my bookshelf. It has been the target two or three times in the last year of my married life. So the only thing left to clean, organize, or purge  is the shelf of journals: every journal since freshmen year of college. The goal was to put them in chronological order.

God spoke to me as I looked through these journals, which was unexpected as I was merely looking for a date to put in order. There were some years represented by three or four different journals. Even the covers of some of the journals brought  back feelings of nostalgia and a fragrance of sweet memories. Inside them were notes of encouragement from others and for others. There were pictures of visions or dreams I had had. There were printed out emails. There were dried flowers from Egypt and a song book from a church I had visited. Most importantly though, there were conversations with God. My heart was on the pages of those journals. His heart for me was on the pages of those journals.

I was struck with a sadness as I realized that the last year and half only took up one journal, and it was more filled with sermon notes than an ongoing conversation with my Creator. The vibrancy I once had has changed and settled into an everyday kind of pace. I want it back. I want to know His heart for me and speak it back to him on the lined pages of a journal once more. So I finished my organizing, cleaning, purging endeavor, not by purging anything, but by adding this last years journal to the end of the row. I went out and bought a new one, for in faith, I believe a new season is also coming.