It's Ok to be me

Recently I was involved in an activity where I was front and center - sort of leading the thing. I sorta knew it would be that way but I never did really stop and take the time to really prepare myself.

And so...I did a bad job of it.

My performance issues and some other things kicked in later in the day - when all the activity and hubub had settled and of course, I cried.

I would so love to be perfect and do all things well and be very impressive.

I'm not.

And I know it.

I like myself anyway. I can always go back to the place of liking myself as I am because of Father. It's OK with him if I'm not perfect. It's OK with him if I'm not impressive in the eyes of the world around me - even those who see me up close.

He told me a few years ago that he wasn't trying to fix me. I am who I am. Had I grown up differently I might actually be more impressive but now that I am 50+ I'm probably going to continue to be who I am.

I'm not always OK with me but I'm always OK with him.

A few years ago I was actively involved in ministering to people. I worried about this a lot back then. He made me to understand that when HE is doing something he may ask for/require our participation but he doesn't require or even ask for perfection on our part.

What freedom there is in Him to just be human.

So I cried through my journey back to that place in him where I could hear him say to me that it's not about me. It's about Him and He did what He wanted to do.

Mary and Martha

Was Mary Mary because she sat at Jesus feet? Was Martha not Mary because she was doing stuff?

Not in my opinion.

Many years ago I studied this out. But until this morning it was still a struggle for me. I am not a sitter. Some people are created for motion and for doing. I'm one of those.

When I studied this - 199o or 91 - the word that caught my attention was the word part. Jesus said that Mary had chosen the better PART. I checked that word in the Strong's and the meaning was partake. Mary partook of Jesus as she sat with him. She partook of his very self and nature.

Still have I have struggled because I am not a sitter and in recent years the trend was to put emphasis on sitting - various forms of it. But I move and do. My meditations take place as I move and do. Whether sitting or moving I must look into his face in order to be changed - transformed - into his likeness. I see his face in my life. I see his face in the circumstances of my life as I move and do. When I can't I tend to despair but as soon as the veil of my own incorrect seeing, my own incorrect reasoning is pulled back and I can see him and receive him then I can do what this heart in this busy body wants to do. I receive him and partake of his nature and I am changed.

I've been working on another layer of an old old...old problem. I've been on the verge of tears for a few days now. My emotions ready to spill over.

Today I woke up early and I guess Father wanted to talk about this issue. So we talked but there seemed to be no resolution. Even as I was finishing up my preps for getting on with my day - telling him I had to quit crying because I had to go to work - the answer came. In a moment in a twinkling of an eye - change....transformation? Change - yes, right now a changed mind..... transformation that is happening - an ongoing phenomenon.

In the midst of my busyness as I prepared for the day I partook of Jesus and now I understand something I didn't understand before and I know that what my mind was declaring out of years of hurt is not true. It wasn't a new revelation. It was a building upon the word he spoke to me in Kansas City that got to the root of my inability to trust him.

Eyes in the wrong place.

Incorrect thinking.

Jesus is the truth and the truth sets me free but it must get past my mind and touch the lie that lives in my inner being. That is partaking of him and giving him the freedom to transform me into his likeness. I can do this sitting or moving.

My interpretation of Mary and Martha is that those two women are types of our heart. Some hearts are facing Jesus and partaking of him no matter what's going on. Some hearts are too busy to take the time to allow him to transform them.

I don't know - other hearts are not mine to judge. But I am confident this morning that my heart is facing HIM and that I am being transformed and that the life and vitality of my whole self is coming from him.

Keeping my mouth shut

It's really interesting how many things don't go in a blog. So many things are happening all around me - things that touch me - affect me. Things that bring about those tweakings and adjustments in my own understanding. But I can't really talk about such things and my perceptions of them. I can say this though...I see God in all those situations. He is very present. Some things are being built and some things are being torn down. Some things are feel good things and some are very painful. Some are both. The good and the bad are happening at the same time in this life of ours.

We keep our eyes on him and don't allow ourselves to be defined by either.

A new prayer project

Last night I began a new prayer project. Or maybe I began a new prayer journey. I don't know which to call it at this point but I am sure that if I begin to pray as God has shown me how to pray that this project will be a journey.

God has many times given me strategies to deal with the tough things in my life. Such as when I needed to get my mind free from the death wish and he inspired a prayer for me to pray at least once a day like taking a spiritual vitamin. Some days I prayed it more than once and many times through clinched teeth and tears.

This one also involves what I would call a prophetic act. By that word prophetic I mean an act or action which takes that which is spirit and brings it into the natural world. Probably one of the strangest things I have ever done but HEY, why should Jeremiah have all the (?)fun.

Another journey within the larger journey of my life. Another journey to be walked out even as I walk out the other journeys I'm already on. And I suspect that this is going to be a long one. Maybe not, but I'm prepared for it to be.

No details of course. This is too personal. But I wanted to record this moment.

Thank you father for making your wisdom so available to us.

I heard a preacher

I heard a preacher this morning and was reminded why I don't listen to very many of them any more. Hmmmm I don't think I listen to any of them anymore. No I'm sure I don't.

Arrogant! Rebellious! Unwilling to submit to authority!


No, I'm not. But I am unwilling to submit to someone's idea of what God might be doing in my life as though they had all the answers.

The man was Charles Stanley - a good man, no doubt. A "successful" preacher and church leader, no doubt. And, it would seem, an accomplished photographer. He ended his sermon with an illustration with one of his pictures of a shipwrecked boat. (Looked like a Julie shot : ) but in color). He then began to talk about how that boat - which represents the children of God - once moved along with the current which he likened to God's will. Then the boat somehow got out of the current/God's will and there was shipwreck because of whatever went wrong.

As one who has walked and does still walk in some "shipwreck" experiences, I'm just saying that the times of shipwreck we experience can be the most effective and amazing times of growth and revelation and blessing that we can experience in our walk with God. It's true that sometimes people don't recover and the damage becomes permanent. It doesn't look good on the outside. But we cannot judge from outward appearances. And we cannot say that because a person appears and acts shipwrecked that there is no blessing of God in their life.


And "shipwreck" is not necessarily a permanent condition. That boat may have been and may still be salvageable if someone is willing to pay the price for it as Christ paid the price for us.

Every thing he said sounded like this: If you stay in the will of God your life will be blessed, if you don't you won't. I find that to be way too narrow. Paul, in the will of God, was literally shipwrecked and suffered so many things and did not seem, as near as I can tell, to have those things that constitute a "blessed" life. His life looked nothing like Charles Stanley and many of the "successful preachers we see here in America. But he was greatly blessed and we are the recipients of that blessing that he walked in.

But then you must have someway to control the masses and if you can get them convinced that there is a certain behavior or habit or lifestyle that is more conducive to "being blessed" and that you are the person that can help/instruct/cover them in that lifestyle - well it really works for you then doesn't it. And the people never learn that they can go up on that mountain for themselves and hear God's voice and life the way HE leads you.

Any way - I didn't like what I heard and that's why I don't listen to them nor do I consider such men and women good for the body. Hmmm maybe they are good for that man-made institution we call the church. They keep us believing that the success that they have can be ours too. Or something. But they have very little to offer those who will go up the mountain and will live lives that appear in so many ways to be "not blessed".

So if you are one who feels like you are in a shipwreck experience, please don't listen to the fatalism in that message. Listen to the voice of your Shepherd in your heart and walk that lonely path and embrace the pain of it and experience those places in God that you would never get to otherwise. He will transform you and form his own nature within you and you don't need someone telling you that the place you're in is a "wrong" place.


You are where you are and God is with you.

In the Land of Calm

Life goes on the land of calm.

Daily things being done. Going to work. Cleaning house. Taking pictures. Spending time with friends. Keeping up with Facebook :D.

And through the tapestry of a daily life God weaves himself. Speaking through this one and that one - this situation and that event. Going forward and taking us with him into a new place. Giving revelation and understanding of situations and events and things he wants to do in this earth - within the small sphere that is our life. Things that can be very important to the coming days. He brings his word and starts conversation by bringing to our attention things we had not thought about on our own.

How lovely to meet him here.

The new normal

"Look up" He said, and amazingly enough, I did.












I think one reason that I don't feel the need to write more is that my life is calm. The storms that raged in my inner landscape have abated and there is calm there. So the tendency is to think that nothing is happening and it seems there is nothing to say. There are no emotional upheavals forcing words out the way lava is forced out of a volcano. (that's a very good analogy)

Maybe that's true. Why talk when there is nothing to say.

It's bothered me a little because it seems as if my passion for God left with the problems. Not true. Actually much of what seemed to be passion for God was, I think, that pursuit of the wholeness I feel now.

I finally got it and now I have to learn to be it and allow that new expression of my love for God find its way out.

What a problem to have.

Life and death

This weekend was quite a weekend. It began, as so many weekends do, with events and circumstances from the weeks, months and years that came before it.

Last Thursday Larry got a call from his dad with three pieces of bad news. Two of those items concerned the heath of his dad's brothers, both of whom are better today than they were that day but still not cleared for good health. We may yet get calls concerning them someday soon. Larry's daddy, fortunately, is in pretty good health for an 80 year old guy.

The third item was the bomb. The daughter of friends had taken her own life. Shellie. A young woman of 32. We were - and still are - broken hearted over this. Our two families were close and spent a lot of time together during the years that the kids were ranging in ages from about 16-17 to young Matt, however old he was at the time. Our paths had veered in different directions for the last several years so we didn't know much of the current happenings. So we were totally unprepared for this one.

We stopped our workdays on Friday and off to West Monroe we went. Sad as it all was, God's presence brought life. I am always fascinated to watch God as I see him in those who believe and are willing to allow him to be GOD. Shellie believed but struggled with her pain and the ability to believe in the goodness of God.

We left WM about 2:30 on Saturday, having taken time to buy some flowers to put on the graves of my parents and his mother. They're buried next to each other in the same cemetery that Shellie was buried in.

We'd been invited to the house of some friends in Dallas to meet some friends of theirs and so we made good time and got to their house at about 6:30. That evening was all about life as Father met a couple in the place of their own pain and desolation and brought life to them through the ministry of those in the room.

As soon as we had arrived at the home of these friends we heard more sad - but this time not unexpected - news that a friend in a near city had finally died of a brain tumor. The next evening we drove an hour and a half to at least see him that last time and to see his family as we knew we would not be able to go to the funeral.

In the midst of what seems to be the saddest of times those who believe in God are lifed by the understanding that death is passage. Dusty struggled with some with/through his pain but that was as short lived as the growing time of the tumor. His faith in the goodness of God was as solid as his 59 years of life. His wife and children had smiles for all who came.

But every where we looked we saw faces of peace - the faces of people who live in the presence of and the knowledge of the grace and mercy of God.

His purposes are eternal - ours temporal. Our purposes include those we love but... so do his.

Life and death happen in this world all at the same time. Happiness and sorrow. Rejoicing and pain. We need eyes to see, Lord. We need to see the way you see. Give us that grace and the grace to know you beyond what we see in the current circumstances.

We thank you Jesus that your life is our life and vitality and strength.

Last night and the night before Larry and I watched a video by Dr. Paul Hegstrom about the brain and how it works and how it renews and what happens when we make a decision to start a new thing or to change a habit, etc.

Amazing how God made us and how involved our physical bodies are in the transformation process. And it helps to explain why it's not easy. It takes three years for a new axon to be fully formed in the brain. And the old axon containing data about the old way will even try to absorb the new one. So we're trying to change and our very brain matter is fighting against it.

In a previous post I said that I felt as though I'd been asleep for 50 years and am just now waking up. Maybe another way to put that feeling is that I feel like I've gone back to being a child. And I believe this has been God's setup. When I turned 50 I knew that I knew that there was more going on than more wrinkles and gray hair. In God's economy 50 is the year of Jubilee - the year of starting over. I've started over and I feel it as I walk through my land and I'm going through a stage - yes a stage - of childhood. How strange. Last night's conversation - prompted by the video - was about taking another look at the homes we grew up in - our parents - events - those vague things you remember and have heard about that time down through the years.

Pieces of a puzzle being brought to their places. The fragmented soul being called back to itself.

As I said, I willingly embrace this journey. I can trust my Father now.

It begins again

The healing journey that is.

Wow.

Wow. Wow.

I knew when God touched that deep place in me that prevented me from trusting him that it was not the last thing to be dealt with. It's just that I had to go there in order to go where I'm going now.

So many thoughts and feelings are running through me. These days since moving into the apartment have become very strange as new and different sensations have moved through me. I didn't know what to think of some of them. I have said and done things out of some hidden places within myself that leave me once again not feeling too great about myself. Tears come anytime of the day. The old triggers are still active.

At this point I just can't do details or explanations.

I feel so tired right now.

I want to blog about this. I haven't been able to pull thoughts together to write. I don't want to retreat inside myself. I acknowledge that blogging is a way to keep my door open and still keep myself in a safe place. I still need that.

God, once again, in his amazing wisdom and timing has brought information that speaks to this place and time of my transformation journey. He's really good that way. And there is so much that can help us to understand.

I'm so thankful for such people as John and Paula Sanford, Arthur Burk and now Paul Hegstrom who have shared the understanding of our spirit, soul and body that God has given them with all who wish to listen.

It seems we begin with the question - What's going on with me. And there is confusion and a host of emotions that seem to have no explanation. In my past this would be a point of no return - a spiral into the black hole of despair.

But not today. Today I'm thankful for the teaching Larry and I just listened to about our brain, and memories and reactions and responses and triggers and the actual physical renewing of the mind; the death of the old man as the new one emerges.

I willing take this walk with my Father. I know things will be better at the end of this path. And now I'm not afraid.

Epiphany moments

A nod to my brother just older than me for his contribution to my journey.

Thanks Neil.

As I was conversing with him about my blog and some of these experiences that I'm having in what seems like rapid succession sometimes he said "epiphany". I know that word and my initial reaction was that it was not the word but it continued to work in my mind so I thought I better look it up. You know - just in case I didn't know something that I thought I did. It happens.

Here is definition #3 from the Merriam Webster Online dictionary:
3 a (1): a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2): an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3): an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b: a revealing scene or moment

That's what's happening as I walk along this transformatin journey. Epiphany moments. Sometimes I feel as though I've been asleep for 50 years and am just now waking up and seeing and really seeing and experiencing the world I live in. It's wonderful.

It's also a little scary sometimes. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be a child trying to negotiate the world. I'm making mistakes that a 50+ year old woman ought not be making. It's not really comfortable and this morning I was thinking about maybe even just shutting down this blogging until I grow up some but then what is the point of blogging about your journey if you are going to leave out chunks of it.

This is not comfortable right now.

Larry got this description of progression from somewhere -

We are unconsciously incompetent
We are consciously incompetent
We are consciously competent
We are unconsciously competent

I feel like I am in stage #2. I am conscious of my incompetence as a person.

I am conscious of my need for a Father who will help me grow up. For about 30 years I have been unconscious of this need and so I did not let him help me grow. I did not work with him but rather like a petulant child I worked against him.

It's a good thing I'm living to be 100 (my plan- I don't have a word from the Lord on that).
Hopefully I will have a few years as an adult before I'm done.

Micro self examination

A strange a funny place this is.

I'm sure there is a reason for it.

It seems my pendulum has swung from one side all the way to the other.

What I mean is - when I was growing up I was truly oblivious to the world around me and to myself also. I never really stopped to think about things much. I didn't question things. Now I do. I think about a lot of things and I think sometimes I come across like the absent minded professor but the deal is that I may not be paying attention to what others are because I'm thinking about something or noticing something.

I like this micro self examination right now in spite of any pitfalls. Maybe in time I will increase in my ability to do mental multi-tasking.

Three things come to mind right now from this weekend that are that sort of me looking at me thing.

** Saturday afternoon we took the grand girls down to the pool. (Unbelievable that Xandra is turning 12 and Schigh will be 14 in a few months!!!!!) As I was talking with a couple of ladies that I met just then we noticed a young guy with his guitar just outside the pool area. I was told that he had lived in the apartments for a while and often came down to the pool are to play his guitar. He came in later and I watched him walk. I couldn't imagine doing my "growing" where people could actually watch me. He was home, among people he knew - people who had been watching him grow up and learn the guitar. People who had shared some of his growing up years.

Suddenly I was very aware of how hidden my life had been and how - by comparison - much of it was on display now and I was living in closer contact with people than ever before. To go to the pool in a complex like this is not the same as having one in my back yard and this would be my preference just because I'm me. Even to walk around with my camera is to do so knowing that people see me. Somehow a yard with it's legal boundaries gave me a sense of privacy and aloneness. I've thought of this as I would go down to the car for something and I'm not dressed nice and don't have my makeup on and I'm hoping no one sees me. It's easier to do that when you have a yard and a drive way but in these apartments I can't hide my self so easily. I don't want to be on company manners and appearances all the time so I'm working on this.

I've started wearing my hair in a ponytail a lot. Something I've always done when alone but I would take it down to answer the door just because I that not the way I wanted to be seen. LOL

I had a feeling - when Larry and I ended up in an apartment - that God was going to immerse us in community in a different way. I've expected this to be a different experience and I'm keeping my heart open to receive both the lessons and the people themselves in the way that needs to be. I'm walking slowly as I get to know my neighbors and trying not to make any assumptions.

So I'm very aware of this process and that's why I'm calling it micro examination. Me examining me as I think others might see me. Me examining my surroundings whether people or events.

**The second incidence had to do with a response that came out of me to someone else. I'm not going to tell the story but just say that it was a moment (afternoon actually) as I processed a response that I didn't feel very good about. But I was very aware of living "closer" to this someone than before and the push/pull of a growing organism called a relationship. Being more involved in the actual "life" of a couple of people who already have a relational history with each other. I'm welcome there but I have to learn how to let some past things go and function in the actuality of what it is now.

**The third thing is cooking. I'm sort of a hit and miss cook. You can get a good meal or a bad meal or anything in between at my house but I like to do it, I guess, because my love language is acts of service and I find in me this desire to cook for people and feed them. So I've started doing that and it's turned out OK but not top job. Not like what I have in my heart to do. So this is a place that fits in to my learning/growing in community dynamic. I see and feel that as I do it. I think I'll grow in my abilities and I'll find that thing that is my expression in this area. But I'll know in my heart that serving up a meal is more than the sum of what you see on the table.

This self examination of my self is not new as I've been doing this since the beginning of my healing journey which began in the mid 90's. But it is different. I believe the focus now is not so much on how God heals a person but how he transforms a person.

Also....

I believe there is a focus on how he is transforming people into communities and communities into his body. I'm actually fascinated as I observe this process. I cannot define any of it but it's like various cells in the body are are becoming bones, muscle, sinew, etc. which are coming together to form arms, legs, etc. which will then find their places with others and come together to form this one living, breathing, earth touching, being. And I'm sure there are more phases than that. He has shown me this big picture more than once over the years in different ways. I just happen to be the organism that is under the microscope during this phase of the evolutionary process of understanding. I happen to be the one that I can look at most closely.

So if I seem to be too navel gazing for comfort - well - I probably am. But I'm not going to stop this process and being this way. I believe it is God's expression in my life. It is a way that He talks to me and reveals himself to me.

I've had friends down through the years who were always looking to other people or other places for the "move of God" that they wanted to get into. For many years I have felt that the greatest move of God that I could be in was the one happening in my own life. I felt that I didn't have to go anywhere else for this. I guess maybe I've missed out on seeing God in other ways in the earth because of this but I'd still rather know that my own life is where I find him most intensely.

Yeah - I'm definitely OK with this even with it's weirdness.

A Commentary on the State of the Nation

as I see it through the recent election of Kris Allen as the new American Idol.

I didn't watch the season. I think there has only been one season where I was actually really into it and that was the year that my brother Tim was living with us in KC. Me, Larry, Shan and Tim - together we had a blast with that season. Tim is a rocker dude and Shan is I think all over the map with music and that added a different dimension.

Anyway. That was then.

As it is now - by the time I get home from work I only have so many hours in the evening and I really don't want to spend it in front of the TV so I'm winding down to only a couple of shows that I'm watching and sometimes I watch them later on computer or just not. AI doesn't rank with me at all now.

So I'm not in to AI and not really in to reality shows and contests generally but when some of my Facebook friends were so very excited about the election of Kris I thought I better check it out.

He's good, in my opinion - not crazy good but good. I'm not a big fan of that style of singing no matter who's doing it.

I really thought Adam was better. I watched several videos of both guys and in fact I thought Adam was amazing in his versatility and stage presence. I'm sure that was quite a season with those two vying for the top spot. I think he'll have an amazing career regardless.

I looked at the back story to see what the buzz was.

Oh - they say he's openly gay. Interesting. Very interesting. I assume this is the truth.

So THEY say that America is not READY to vote for someone openly gay.

I say posh to that.

I say BRAVO America. My OPINION is that America made a very strong statement here about TRADITIONAL VALUES that are still in place - the very values that made this a strong nation a generation ago. It may forever be considered a REJECTION of Adam personally as a gay man and those who are gay generally but I SAY that it was not so much a CONTENDING AGAINST something as it was a CONTENDING FOR something.

I wish America had understood the stakes a little better during this last POLITICAL election. I wish the Body of Christ had been able to see further in the future. I wonder would they have voted for a man - of any color (and I was as happy as the rest of the world that we could finally put a person "of color" in the White House) - who is so very socialist in his worldview and is quite determined to make the rest of us be also whether we want to or not.

I pray that the real America finds her voice and that WE learn to use it in those places where it really counts.

New Life in the Garden

Last week a conversation. Us and our daughter. Language Barriers interfered with the making of plans. We said.... She heard.... and there was missed opportunity and there was hurt.

Last night a conversation. Me and my daughter. Language Barriers began to be overcome. Understanding came. Can't undo what is - that gets consigned to opportunities missed.

Last night beauty came from the dying of old thought patterns - old behavior patterns. New life for the future.

Newness springs from the detritus of the old and grows in the fractal/garden of our life.

Death and Loss and Beauty

These pictures were taken in Kansas City, during that period of time when the weather was thinking about spring but all around was the signs of death from the winter. I had gone out that day because the temperature was bearable and I had cabin fever. I went to a favorite park to what I could see.

Among many other beautiful or interesting things I saw these leaves - these brown curls holding strong to their limbs - not yet ousted by the new.

last years leaves making one last statement about their own beauty

So is death beautiful?

OR

Can anything beautiful be found in that place?

We all experience death.

Sometimes our people die. People we love. My parents did and even though sometimes I wish they were still here - there was much beauty to be found in that place before the new had even begun to spring forth.

Two of the most amazing experiences of my life.
























There are other deaths that we deal with also. The death of a dream or a plan or a hope.

Not to mention that for some hope is lost entirely. I don't know that there is any beauty to be found there because to lose hope entirely is to give up on God and every other possibility.

It does happen.
























But the death of dreams is a common one, I believe, in the world of humans. We live for dreams. We are told to dream and never stop dreaming and, you know, "it's never too late".

I have found that there is beauty to be found at such times. If those dreams are not founded on reality - if they are houses built on sand and not on the Rock then they need to die.

I have found it hard to let some dreams die. Especially the ones having to do with family. But sometimes you must let the dreams go just like you let the people go when they die. I am experiencing this type of death in my natural fractal/garden even as I am experiencing new life in a spiritual fractal/garden.





















The beauty I see in this death is that it releases life that needs to come forth.

Here is where trusting God and his ways is most important - and where the great struggle of so many years of my life has been.....there is a period of time in which no life can be seen. If beauty is going to be found at all it must be found in the moment - even the moment of death.

Father told me in 2004 that I would learn to live in the present moment. So I must live in the place where I see only the dried up remains of what was.

I need to open my eyes to see what a nice color the brown is. I need to look close enough to really see the curls. I need to stop long enough to appreciate the unique shape of each leaf - each group of leaves.

There is a verse that speaks of us seeing the face of God without a veil over our face. Looking fully into his face and being transformed in that moment. I heard this scripture quoted the most during the days of the soaking meetings where we would get together and sit in the presence of God and worship. Those were good times.

But I found that being able to see the face of God in the types of things that would be symbolized by the dead leaves are the transforming times of my life.

So I live in this present moment, acknowledging my grief until God's touch can completely heal it, but no longer fighting for my dream.

Time to let go - even where I love.

Reacting to this world

I don't usually do more than one post at a time but I think I might start because sometimes I have thoughts that follow thoughts. Yeah - I probably should just go with it, especially when I know I have the time, like now.

I know that there are some people who struggle more in this life than others. I've talked some about choosing and my thoughts about choosing continue because I know that for some to choose it's harder than for others. And there are some who think they are choosing but really they are just responding to the driving forces within themselves. To choose is an action, not a reaction.

Anyway - I want to share this idea from Elijah House Ministries. When I heard it as part of one of their teaching sets I thought it was a completely radical idea but I had no problem accepting it. I know they are not the only ones to whom God has revealed the beginning of each person's life this way. See Gene Edwards also for one.

They speak of the spirits (us) who are with God in the place where he dwells before being born of woman into earth. Gene Edwards in his book The Divine Romance speaks of the spirits in the Hall of Destiny waiting to see what will be theirs. A friend I had in the late "80s was telling me the story of her and she said that after becoming a Christian she asked God about the life that she had lived and he said to her (don't remember the exact words) that she had agreed with him about her life before being born. My son is another one. Probably 10 years ago he said he felt compelled to live his life. (I had a hard time with that. I think I'm finally catching up.)

So then the Sanford's (Elijah House founders) describe what the journey from heaven to earth must be like......

Imagine being in the pristine atmosphere of Heaven, in the presence of this splendid Creator/Sustainor/All Powerful/Beyond our earthly comprehension Good God. We are spirit living in the environment that we were created for having sprung from God's very essence and being. For reasons that we only barely comprehend now (if at all) but no doubt understood then, God has created EARTH and TIME and this completely different atmosphere. He has asked us spirits to come here and dwell within bodies made of dirt; to live here in a polluted atmosphere and to live..... A LIFE. It is a life we agreed to before we came. But O the journey of getting here. Nine months in the womb of flesh, absorbing WHAT? The stuff of your parents lives including the generations from which they came. Some are born into homes that are prepared and waiting, some not. Some are born to people who seem to have a grasp on how to grow into being a parent, some not. Some are born into homes not fit for anything. Even in the best case though, if you think about it, the difference between heaven's atmosphere and earth's atmosphere has to be indescribable. No matter how good our intentions as we agree to come here to live it would seem that some of us absolutely reject it once we get here. We never reconcile to being here. We can't seem to breath this air without choking. We look around us and wonder why we have to be here. The reactions run the gamut, I'm sure, from those that embrace life and are OK to those who simply cannot and leave on their own terms.

I wonder sometimes what life would have been like for me had I not come to know my God through the Savior. The seeds of depression were there from the beginning of me and began to manifest before I became a believer. My long journey to sanity and wholeness has been about becoming as reconciled to God as he is to me. Whatever the spiritual realities are that required the coming of a Sacrifice/Savior, the accomplishing of that act completely and utterly reconciled God to me and in his own heart, me to him. The reconciliation of me to him is my journey and my choice. It is the work of my lifetime. This is the work he has for us all - that we believe.

Being reconciled to God is not a mental exercise but we often treat it as one, giving lip service to it just as we do so many "Christian" ideals. It is a reality of a spiritual kingdom. As I become more reconciled to him I find it easier to accept the unacceptable because I am increasing able to accept that His plan for Earth/Time is larger than anything I could have ever conceived. I am part of his expression on the earth. Is the gang banger? the murderer? the terrorist? the hindu? muslim? buddhist? MY answers to those questions are not as pat as they once were. There is, I believe, more here than is meeting our eyes.

When Larry and I left the organized church the walls of religious thinking began to crumble. They had to just for us to be able to walk out the door. But over the years we have said many times - You can walk out of the structure in a day but it will take years for it to be gotten out of you. Well, after all these years I think more of that structure is crumbling within me.

As we were leaving a church situation once (on our journey out) there was a situation that I was asking God about and I asked something like this... God, the church has been doing this "thing" this way for hundreds of years. Can the church have been wrong for all this time? His answer was a quiet yes.

Any carpenter knows that if you get off by 1/8 inch in the beginning of a project by the time you are done you will be off by much more than than that if you do correct it somewhere. Just because we -Christianity- does things or believes things a certain way and has for many years that doesn't mean it didn't get off somewhere hundreds of years ago. Our relationship must be with the living Word within us and we must trust that the work he began he can finish. It just might not look like what we thought it would when HE is finished with HIS work.

Well, I've done some writing today but I sure feel better. Very cathartic. If you've read this far - both posts - I'm quite impressed.

After the moment

Monday morning. My last post was written on Friday. I'm amazed still at how cathartic writing can be. It's a way to organize your thoughts. It helps you win in the battleground of your mind. After I published my post I very quickly began to feel better, once again above and not below these circumstances. Part of that I know comes from stopping to actually look at what's happening. Over the years I've found that as long as my enemy stays hidden he retains a power over me. Recognition is an important part of the process of getting free.

Smart me to stop and examine what was happening. Smart me to listen to the promptings of my spirit. I just didn't like doing that knowing that people would be reading it - at least not that time. I re-read my post this morning and even though it doesn't sound so bad - certainly no worse than others I've written - it felt worse because I was in the moment. I do still try to remember to be lifegiving with whatever I write. In times past my rants and tirades were anything but lifegiving.

I'm very thankful at this moment for all that Holy Spirit has taught me over the last 15 (?) years. It started with spiritual warfare intercession and then went to deliverance then inner healing. I have ministered some of this to others but I will forever maintain that it's purpose was really because the God who created me wanted to set ME free and transform ME. What I can do for others I will but I'm not looking to be the "doctor" for what is happening in someone else's life. I'd rather be teacher - the one who teaches them how to fish as it were - so that they can then LIVE this reality. Actually that's not correct either. Holy Spirit is our Teacher, Counselor, Guide and works in us with the Strength he worked in Jesus to raise him from the dead to raise us from death to life. If anything I would be His assistant. Freely I have received - freely I would give.

See, I never take my mental and emotional wholeness for granted. I am what I am. He didn't fix me. He has taught me how to LIVE above. The principles of the kingdom are not for ooooing and aaahhhing over at the latest conference or for having someone else DO them so you can be the receiver. They are for us to learn, live and become something other than earthly beings.

Father has fathered me and he knew that I needed to be called to account in many areas so that I would grow - become more mature and take responsibility where appropriate and rightly divide the responsibility so that I could then reject false responsibility. We are in fact still working on these things. I know there is more to come. I know that there is still within me some inappropriate grief over the issues of my life. Here is an incident of understanding what is appropriate and what is not. Nothing wrong with grief and God does sometimes require that one live with pain - think Jacob and Paul and Joseph and Abraham and, and, and. But there is a grief that is not from him and I think some of that still rules over me where my life is concerned. Any yet I may have lived exactly the life that God chose for me. My son lives a life very different that what I would have planned for him. And yet he may be living what God would have notwithstanding some things that could be tweaked. But who am I to decide what would need to be tweaked and what would not? God said to me once concerning him that "he would walk in unusual places". So he may be walking where God wants him to walk. He is a grown man in this world. Surely God's not going to check with me on every thing he does. There are things that I was so sure of for so many years and I feel a chipping away at these things. Old statuary in the Garden. Did I build that or did You, Father?

Give me the grace to always be able to question me and to determine what is me trying to accomplish temporal purposes. Your's are eternal and your thoughts are higher than mine. Having said that I know that you are so willing to share your heart and mind with the yielded human heart and mind. Make me yielded so I can hear and see.

In the moment

I wonder if I can write this post.

Work is mostly done for the month so I sit here in the quiet of my little corner space where I am all alone. Sometimes I wish I were more a part of the life of this place but then I think maybe this was one of those little orchestrations of God to put me in a place where I - at least for a few days as month - have time and space and am locked down in a sense to a single spot so that my A D D self has to focus.

My thoughts are heavy today - it's been building up - this thought pool. I have felt it as negative thoughts have flitting across my mind - negative feelings wanting to find expression. I shoo them away but sooner or later I have to stop and think them and try to know why I'm thinking them and why my feelings are doing what they're doing and in this process to figure out if Father is trying to speak something to me or am I in intercession or both.

The garden of my little family is drawing my attention right now. That ever changing fractal.

Garden = Battleground.

War among the roses.

The fragrance of life mingles with the fragrance of death.

I'm not afraid of this feeling. In times past I would have been because of not trusting God to really care but now I know he does. But I wonder at God's orchestrations sometimes. Larry and I have been at times, in the lives of people younger than ourselves, what I would love for us to be to our own children. But then, at least in some cases, their parents aren't being what they need. God has provided for our daughter that one who can help her uproot some things and rearrange her personal garden. This is a person for her whereas for me it was a variety of teachers through books and tapes and videos and only the occasional human involvement. I can only hope that our son now has or at some point will have someone to help him with the work in his garden.

God sets the lonely in families doesn't he. And could it be that families - according to him - are actually made up differently than what we see in the natural. This is something I've pondered for years. We define family by these earthly boundaries but I wonder, and no doubt, they are real and to be observed but I do wonder if God is really seeing the same thing I'm seeing. Look anywhere in the Bible and you see that God is not necessarily functioning by the rules of family as he moves in the lives of people and places them where he wills as he works out his eternal purposes through natural avenues. It is difficult for my mother's heart to deal with this. That doesn't mean that I actually lose them but it means I don't get to be the ALL otherwise known as the mama. My goodness - my kids are in their 30s. You'd think I'd be over some of this by now. But I'm not. Ok, I'm over some of it. I'm definitely better. I'm sure this is just another layer being taken off.

This brings me to the real focal point of my thought pool. The big drip hitting the middle and sending the ripples out to the edges. (Boy I wish I had a picture for this!)

It's that saying - It's never too late. I call BS on that statement. Sometimes it is too late.

I cannot go back and be and do what I would have been and done had I known what to be and do. No parent can and for me nothing replaces that. My children will never be my babies again. I will never again have the chance to make THAT difference that the years of childhood are given for. If everything fell into place today and suddenly my family life became idyllic according to my definition of that, it would still not give me the memories I would like to have or the sense of accomplishment in this arena of life. It would not erase consequences of choices and decisions made that might have been made differently. My children would still have endured what to my mind is unnecessary pain. But is it unnecessary? I know from God's dealings with me and from my observing of those people in the Bible that suffering has great value in the kingdom. Suffering equates to precious jewels there. I accept that for me but I have trouble accepting for them.

Having said that I know that it's never to late to be as life giving to my children now as I'm able. The thing is - do they really want what I have to offer? Sometimes they do but sometimes they don't. And sometimes we have language barriers and other things that are very hard to overcome.

Sigh. By now I am fighting the battle with tears.

Ok - more processing. Take this thing apart and find the pattern.

The statements I just made are about ME. My LOSS in all this.

The pattern as I have observed it over the years is something like this...

• My spirit gets stirred as intercession for unseen/unknown issues begins. All I know is that my daughter has recently had some breakthroughs and communication with our son is at a standstill.
• My soul begins to FEEL the intercession. That intercession is very uncomfortable so my soul jumps in with it's crap because it can't stand to not be the center of attention.
• My mind gets distracted with thoughts that echo the feelings and I begin to focus on the things that are still issues with me like what I just said about it being too late, etc. In times past, when depression reigned supreme with all it's fears and lack of trust, this is the point at which I would begin to spiral down into the black hole of anger and despair.
• BUT TODAY - At this point I chuckled and that has forever been a sign of release within my spirit. It almost always happens at the point where I recognize the enemy in my soul. He only works effectively in the dark. When he is revealed then I can reject him and he looses.

Now, dear reader, please know that this is one post that I did not want to write. I did not want the door to be open. I did not want to let you in. I felt and still feel somewhat exposed in a way that I don't like. I have that feeling as though I have been in a great battle. I feel kind of tired. That is the effect of my own efforts for myself. I know that I will continue to carry this intercession for my children as long as Holy Spirit is redoing some things in the Garden.


It's one of the few times that I felt compelled to write and that the writing was more than just me working out my own issues. So let Holy Spirit be your teacher and counselor and take from this what matters to your life.

Here is hope. This is one of the good things I bring from my journey. Understanding that the new harvest begins in the detritus of the old season.

Homage to the rescuers

My daughter, Shannon, is a dog rescuer. She and a group of friends at work and elsewhere have pretty much formed their own organization and they go to great lengths and sometimes expense to rescue dogs.

It's been a very interesting journey of understanding to have been touched by this since I lived with her for a year.

I am not a dog rescuer myself. At least not at the level of some. My contribution tends to be forwarding emails and being a part of the communication network. Larry has a cat named Honey and I know myself well enough to know that at this time in my life I don't want the responsibility of taking care of an animal. Maybe at a later time but I will know for sure that I want to do the work required. Better for the animal that way. Would that more of us thought it through before trying to take on the responsibility of another life, be it animal or human.

It's encouraging to see how many people are interested in rescuing animals. At the apartments where I now live several people, when introducing their dogs, have mentioned that they were rescue dogs.

Animal rescue makes the news even with whales, dolphins, wild animals of all sorts coming to the notice of someone and eventually to the notice of the larger world.

Today I forwarded an email about a local shelter preparing to "put down" several animals. Sad and I felt the overwhelming need of this world for being rescued.

How sad that they need rescuing at all. But as long as there is broken, wounded humanity there will be some part of this creation groaning. What a picture that is forming in my mind as I think of that scripture which speaks of the earth groaning under the weight of sin. Every animal, especially the domesticated ones which are SOO dependent upon humans to care for them, that is abused or neglected is a spotlight on the brokenness of God's greatest creation - the human being.

How we need him.

I thank you Father, for ALL THOSE in this world who will give their resources of time, emotions, money, space to rescue the animals and humans in this world who desperately need SOMEONE to care. These are the people through whom your redemptive heart shines. Your light shines in the darkness even though the darkness does not comprehend it. We cannot all do all things. We cannot all care for the same group but if we are all caring about someone/some animal/some issue somewhere then the world will continue to hear your voice and feel your warmth. Thank you that your expression is not confined to times and places and rituals. This is you revealing yourself in your diversity and finding places in the darkness to shine.

The world will not stop groaning til God in his timing sends the Son to release, redeem and restore it.

Till then I pray all these intercessors will be energized with the VITALITY and LIFE FORCE that is CHRIST WITHIN US to be lifegiving where you can to whatever degree that you can.

Community = love = community

Conversation this past weekend with friends about community. The word kept coming up - It's about love.

About Love.

And what do we really know about love anyway? As I pondered this thought that finally got past my mind into some deeper places, it occurred to me that we are going to find out how much we DON'T know about love.

God's kind of love.

He has given us the gift of each other. Not just for fellowship and feel good but to challenge our notions of righteousness.