Cake, Field Surgeons, and Prophecy

I had to give a prophetic word last night. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t glamorous. In fact, it was rather painful, and I felt rather sick the whole time I was speaking.

In our Christian culture, the gift of prophecy is highly coveted. It’s like the icing on the Christian cake for most people. After all, who wouldn’t want the prestige that comes with being the person in the know?

The answer is the person who is really in the know. The one who sees past the facades and understands the prophecy isn’t about giving people the warm fuzzies, making empty promises of health, wealth, and prosperity, or even the promise that all things work together for good in your life, so hang in there. Now, I know that somewhere along the way you were told that the gift of prophecy was given for encouragement and exhortation, that negative or judgmental words have no place in a New Testament church, and if it isn’t building you up then the prophetic word given is invalid.

The thing is, I read all through my Bible, and I can’t find that anywhere. And if I take Paul’s word about all Scripture being profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16), and keep in mind that Paul had to be speaking of the Hebrew Scriptures because the Christian Bible did not yet exist, I am faced with the very real responsibility to measure the prophetic in accordance to the examples within what we call the Old Testament. I am also forced to take Paul’s own words into account – teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Not uplifting, not positive, not motivational, and certainly nothing about warm fuzzies.

Is this carte blanche permission for people who operate in the prophetic be jerks? Of course not, but you have to admit that the majority of the prophetic words recorded – even the prophetic words of Jesus - aren’t all sunshine and glitter. They were designed to confront sin, and they were designed to jar us from our complacency and passive justification of sinful actions in our own lives. Is there hope and promise to be found within prophetic words? Yes, but only after repentance, only after obedience, and only after we bow our hearts to the Lordship and authority of our God.

And what happens when you confront sin in someone’s life? They go stupid on you. Well, most of the time anyways. They deny that you have a right to speak, they condemn you for judging, and they hate you for your lack of compassion. At this point, all sorts of wonderful and amazing things can transpire for the one operating in a prophetic role, they can lose friends, they can family, they can be physically or verbally attacked by the ones they love, and they can be ostracized from the community that once valued their presence. Don’t believe me, look it up. Read the story of Joseph whose brothers sold him to slavery because he dared speak the prophetic vision God gave him. Read the accounts of Jeremiah who feared for his life and was left to rot in a cistern. Read about Elijah who hid in fear from the rage of queen.

None of this happened because they were promising warm fuzzies and financial success to the ones that God commanded them to go to. It happened because they dared to speak an uncomfortable truth. Truth that struck at the core of the listeners’ sense of self and security. Truth that would no longer allow the listener to walk in ignorance and forced them to move forward either in brokenness for their sin or in willful rebellion against God. No one wants to face that, I don’t even like facing that, and I hold no illusion about how painful it is to have to stand before another stripped bare of your own hypocrisy. It hurts, and it is humiliating in the beginning. I know, I’ve been on the receiving end more than once and every bit of selfish pride rose up in protest at being called out on my own sin.

What is hard for us to understand is that when someone is operating in an authentic gifting of the prophetic, there is no sense of superiority in it. There is only brokenness and pain on behalf the one to whom we speak. We are moved forward not because we wish to wound. We do so because we feel the outright misery of the broken relationship they have with Father, and everything within us yearns for their restoration. We move with compassion that must sometimes be brutal in order to be heard and so that message is not watered down or compromised. In my mind, it something akin to being a field surgeon, knowing that the procedure needed to save the patient inflicts more pain than the original wound, but must be done if they are to survive. So you close your ears to the screams and you pack that bloody wound with truth until the flow is staunched. Because mercy that brings death to another, physically or spiritually, is not mercy to anyone but yourself.  

For me that is the hardest part, knowing that my words will hurt and knowing that once the truth has been revealed I have relinquished all perceived and delusional ideas of control in the situation. From there it is up to the one to whom I sent to respond, to reject or to receive, to act or to deny. For me that is often the darkest time, because I know that they are now responsible for a truth that can no longer be rejected out of ignorance. I have to fight my tendency to worry that my words were too harsh or too heavy, and it is why I often hesitate when I should have been quick to obedience. And why I can point to list of moments when I was the broken one or they were further injured because I allowed fear of consequence for myself and others to keep me silent.

No, operating in the prophetic is not sweet or pretty. It never was, and I don’t believe it ever will be. Certainly, there are moments when you are allowed to participate in breakthrough and revelation that will change a person’s life, but those are rare and easily forgotten. For one who truly walks in the prophetic perceives the effects of sin as few others do, and their hearts break for the world around them. Yes, we hear from God but when you have been confronted by the light of holiness, the darkness that surrounds us only deepens. And when you have tasted the perfection of his presence, the brokenness of the world is only more tragic.

Deep Theological Ponderings Or How to Avoid Embarrassing Situations at the Coffeehouse

Recently, I wrote about the the cost of dreaming big. The response to that post was overwhelming. Friends from literally all over the world checked in on me, others wrote to tell me what a relief it was to discover that they are not alone, and a few just sat down in the ashes a lamented life with me. In the midst of all the love and support, one question kept emerging – how do you trust God when it seems like everything in this world is out to get you?

Now this is the type of question that inspires two distinct reactions:

1: Maniacal laughter that will not only get you strange looks, but asked to leave the coffee shop by some fearful eyed teenager clutching a cell phone which I am pretty sure had 911 already cued up. (If you encounter this situation, do not, I repeat, DO NOT giggle and say, “It’s alright. I just forgot to take my meds.” Just leave and save everyone some awkward moments.)

2. Deep theological ponderings.

Either reaction can occur independently, in succession, or concurrently depending on a number of factors not excluding barometric pressure and the strength of the US dollar.

And since I cannot take all of you to the coffee shop for a demonstration of the first reaction, I shall resign myself to sharing some of those deep theological ponderings. You can decide what they are worth.

Like most questions, I believe the answer is in the question, and it is quite simple. The world is out to get you.

But did you catch that? The WORLD is out to get you. Don’t get me wrong, I am not advocating paranoia or launching a counter attack. I am just stating fact as I see it, but first we have to define what do we mean by the word “world”? Obviously, I am not referring to the planet earth, and I am not talking about millions of people in China actively plotting your demise. Heck, I am not even talking about that idiot who cut you off in traffic this morning. Don’t kid yourself, he wasn’t thinking about you and he couldn’t have cared less about who you are. His concern was his life and his life alone, you just happened to be in his way.

So what do I mean by the world?

Not to get too deep, but I mean the powers that rule this world. You don’t have to go very far into the Bible to figure out that when Adam and Eve decided to have a little snack, they also relinquished dominion over this realm to the one who served up that tasty little morsel. (John 12:31, John 14:30, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2, and 1 John 5:19). And if you haven’t been paying attention to the news, it might come as a bit of a shock that people do not like outsiders living in their land. In fact, folks can get down hostile towards immigrants and foreigners particularly if they have any level of success in a region where natural born citizens are struggling to survive. So guess where that puts our popularity levels as Christians?

But there is another factor at play here, and one we tend to forget until it smacks us in the face – spiritual forces are manifest through physical beings.

Oh, sure, we get this concept when it is the guy on TV ripping into our faith, we understand it when we are attacked by a stranger on social media, and we are not surprised when our crazy uncle starts going on about religion being the opiate of the masses at Sunday dinner. We expect it, these people don’t share our faith, and it’s a pretty hard thing to wrap your brain around unless you have experienced the awe of it. So you let it go, or maybe you make a comment, but in the end you just accept it as a part of the world we live in and go on because it’s not personal.

But then there are times when things do get personal, when the people you love and depend go stupid and you begin to question the legitimacy of their faith. Evil is no longer an impersonal force, and you know this because you are living with it! The rebellious teen, the thoughtless spouse, the overbearing parent, or the unreliable roommate – any one of them at any time can become a pawn of Satan hell-bent on ruining your life. To make it worse, these were the same people you considered to be conduits of God’s love to you, and somehow our twisted little human brains begin to interpret this as God must have forgotten his obligation to demonstrating his love for you by smiting these sinners.

Now this is the part of being a Christian that can really suck. (Yeah, I said it.) The reason being is that requires somethings called self-discipline, self-awareness, and that other thing that always trips me up, self-control. No one likes to do these things, no one is born naturally good at these things, and no one ever gave another human being an award for practicing these things – matter how hard you had to work it. Even worse? The better you get at doing these things the less people realize how much effort you put into them.

As if that wasn’t enough, there is  only one way you really get to practice the skills need to become proficient at being self-disciplined, self-aware, and self-controlled, and it is having people do everything  in their power to knock you over – mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and yeah, sometimes even physically. It’s called training. It’s learning how to differentiate between the person you love and the behavior that hurt you. Its learning how distinguish between a violation of your preference and principle. It’s realizing that you aren’t the center of the world and the people are often dealing with their own demons, demons that don’t mind taking you out too.

So you have choice, to stop loving, to stop being open, to stop caring enough about others to give the power to hurt you, or to believe that God is bigger than anyone or anything that comes against you. You get to choose to walk in grace and mercy trusting that God can and will bring you through, or to hide your heart and all that you have been given behind the defenses that keep you safe. The thing is if you chose to hide, you are never going to be able to share the love that has been so freely given to you and you will never be able to help anyone walk in freedom while keeping your own heart imprisoned by your fear.

Running From Demons, or The Fine of Art of Hurting Yourself

I have spent a large portion of my life running, mostly from and occasionally to this thing I could not or did not want to define. I have always been afraid that if I truly embraced all that I know to be true I would only alienate those around me, after all when you spend your childhood knowing things that you should not know, being chastised for having an over active imagination, and doing your best just to fit in, you learn that there are parts of who you are that frighten the adults – you know, the rational folks who rule your world. Things didn’t get better when I supposedly joined the ranks of adults even though I was doing my best to follow the rules of proper behavior and belief.

I got married my final year of junior college, mostly because if you are good Christian girl in Oklahoma that’s what you do. He looked good on paper, ticked off all the little boxes on my checklist of things I wanted in husband that youth directors encourage us to make so that we can be objective in our decisions on who we are to marry. What I wasn’t prepared for was the battlefield being married to him would become, and I am not talking about our epic fights that often left me with bruises or the screaming matches that ended with threats to end one or both our lives, I am talking about the sheer presence of evil in our home.

For most people, evil is an abstract concept. It is something that you define and then you simply do not do that particular thing. It is something that exists but only as a principle or violation of principle, but for me it was real. And this is where I will lose a large part of you who will be convinced that I have lost my ever-lovin mind. When I say evil is real, I am talking about every stupid ploy used on horror movies multiplied by nine and then subdued by the lack of a soundtrack. Pots and pans flying about in your kitchen? Yup. Windows opening and closing on their own? Yup. Footsteps up and down the hallway? Been there done that. How about the radio, TV, and other electronics turning on and off, flipping stations, and emitting garbled noises when they aren’t even plugged in? Seen it. Fireplaces billowing with smoke when they haven’t held a fire in decades? Sure, it happened. The darks shadowy voids would prance about the edges of the room, like a person who moves just out of the corner of your eye, daring you to look at them. That was an everyday event.

My favorite? When they wake you up from a dead sleep to tell you something. My least favorite? When they contort the face of someone you love until they are no longer recognizable, and the spit curses at you in a voice that you have never heard before.

Even in the midst of all this, I was told I was the one losing my mind. I was told that my particular denomination did not have to deal with demons because we didn’t pay them any attention. You know that sounds all well and good, but I have to tell you, it is awful hard not to pay attention to them when they keep jerking the covers off your bed.

Over the years, I have developed a few theories. How right or wrong they are I am still willing to question, but overall they have held up. The first is that any demon that is desperate enough to use direct manifestation as its way to control a person isn’t much of a demon. In fact, I look at them in much the same way I look at mice. Now, ask yourself, how many people have you known who have been hurt by a killer attack mouse? Yeah, me neither. On the other hand, I have met a ton of people who have hurt themselves trying to get away from those fearsome beasts, and that is how most folks seem to get themselves hurt by demons – running away from them.

This is not to say that you don’t do anything. That is stupid. After all, if there is a mouse in your house you set traps, buy poison, call an exterminator because we all know that with mice there is filth and disease, and they will ruin everything they can by chewing it up or defecating on it. It is the same thing with demons, you get them out of your house before they destroy it.

Now most of us have been taught how to pray and how to stand on our authority as believers. We have the right to demand that they leave by the authority given to us in the name of Jesus. The Bible declares this, and quite frankly, most of us haven’t been using it. And I hear from so many who did that things just got worse, so they end up just hoping they will go away – hahahahahaha!!!

Not a chance. These things hide in walls, under furniture, and in your underwear drawer. Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they are not there. You have to take a step further.

All of nature abhors a vacuum, and before we started defining nature as this physical realm, nature was strictly spiritual. So it abides by many of same principles. I would go so far as to say that most of things you see in nature are reflection of how the spiritual realm works. This means that you have to fill the void left by their departure or they will just grab seven of their buddies and come back. This is where most people get stumped because they have never learned how to fill that void.

The good news is like all things of our faith, enacting the solution is easy – so easy that you might miss it. You fill that void with God. And where is God enthroned? On the praise of his people. You have to invite him, create a throne in your home, in your heart, and in your life. Too many of us are claiming to be his subjects but have never bothered to create a place in our lives from which he can rule. It is not enough to do lip service and never put this knowledge in action because when we fail to do so we are leaving a giant void in our lives just crying out to be filled and since demons, unlike God, don’t wait for invitation, guess who is going to rush right in?

This is by no means a comprehensive battle plan. It is just a taste of some of things I am learning not to run away from in my life, and I doing a lesson review for myself as much as for you. To learn more, I strongly recommend Victory Over the Darkness by Neil Anderson and I also recommend that you surround yourself with people who seeking God more than they are worried about what is slipping around in the darkness. Because there is an inherent risk when we focus on these thing too long and too closely, we can become mesmerized by their power and the mystery of it all. We can be overwhelmed by the sheer force of evil that we now realizes surrounds us and become fearful and defeated. But God wants us to know that he is bigger, greater, more powerful, and more awe inspiring than any of the petty displays the demonic enacts on this earth. He wants our hearts to comforted and emboldened to not only seek him but to demonstrate the world the glory of his love in our lives, and we cannot do that if we have been seduced or terrified by beings who have already been defeated at the cross.

So we learn to walk with knowledge and discernment. We seek our Lord so that we may know truth. We strive for balance, somewhere between ignorance and obsession, so that we are properly equipped to face our enemy while never being distracted from our King.

Let There Be Light

Picture from  Phys.org
The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and wave

As an artist, light has always been a fascinating subject. Light is the cornerstone of visual arts. Whether working in pen and ink or oils, I am trying to capture the interaction of light upon an object. In other words, I am not painting an object. I am actually painting the play of light upon the object by capturing highlights and shadows with my pen or brush. 

We all know that without light sight as we know it is impossible, but rarely do we think about how much we rely on light for our very existence. As one simplified example put it: Plants convert light into stored energy. When we eat plants we are in fact eating light. When we eat meat, we are eating the light they have metabolized through the eating of the plants that stored light. Without light all life would cease to exist, including our own. It is in the creation of light that the earth, formerly void and empty (Genesis 1:2), becomes capable of sustaining life. 

Despite the importance of light for our existence, the precise nature of light has long been a topic of much debate, centering on one question – is light made up of waves or particles? The correct answer is yes, sorta. Light is an electromagnetic wave that sometimes decides to act as a particle. Now, this is where things get tricky because when we think of particles we tend to think of mass, or matter. Basically something that takes up space in this universe and has substance. The typical definition of mass does not apply to light. Light has what is called relativistic mass which means that it has energy and momentum that allow it be effected by and to effect its environment. In other words, while you may feel the warmth of sunlight on your skin, you will never have to shovel piles of sunlight off your sidewalk because it has no resting mass. While all of this was pretty much nailed down by Einstein and his cohorts, until very recently science has only been able to observe light behaving as either a wave or a particle, but never both at the same time.

I know, you are all beginning to wonder if you stumbled onto the wrong blog, but bear with me, I am going somewhere. 

Light came into being because God said, “Let there be light.” There are two words to pay attention to here: said and light. When someone speaks they are creating sound waves, and waves transfer energy. They do not move matter, but rather they use matter as a conduit to for their energy. Now, I want you to think about God for a moment, you know the omnipotent creator God? What type of energy do you think he was transferring through his sound waves? Once your brain stops sizzling, keep reading. 

Before we go any further, let’s reframe this: God’s voice took on new properties. In the act of creation, the sound wave takes on new properties. It became more than a wave and more than particle, while remaining true to the behavioral characteristics of both. A new manifestation for the wave is given, but the original state as a wave is never surrendered. 

Let’s skip ahead about one and half millennia, and listen another fascinating statement:

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12

There is a reason that Jesus chose light as way to explain himself to the world. In him we can see all the observable elements of light in play. His life, death, and resurrection is the transformative act of creation, we call it redemption, but how much more transformative do you want? (And I am working on a theme here.) He rules over all creation just as God created the sun, moon, and stars to rule over day and night, (Ephesians 1:20, Genesis 1:14-19). He is the first born of creation, all things were created for him, through him, and by him in his sustaining power, (Colossians 1:15, 16). 

In him we see the story of light, and in light we see his story as no other created substance could convey, but what the writer of Genesis could not know, what Jesus could not know if had not been more than a man, was how the dual nature of light expresses the greatest mystery known to all of humanity – how can a holy God become fully human without surrendering his original state? In other words, how does a wave become a particle? How does spirit become flesh? How do we explain an omnipotent God whose presence is only measured by the effect he has on our lives while never overwhelming us with his infinite greatness? 

To realize that this great truth was embedded into creation from the beginning is mind blowing. To me it speaks of a God who playful and profound, hiding but wanting to be seen, waiting upon our willingness to chase after him and unravel the mysteries that reveal his love and greatness for his creation. And as I find these little nuggets within this ancient book, I am overwhelmed that we have been given such a great in his Word faithfully preserved for us to this day.

Obviously, the illustration breaks down as all comparisons of Jesus to any created thing as Jesus was not created but the created. However, the use of metaphor is employed by Jesus himself as a means to help us understand his person, nature, and position within creation. The beauty of this metaphor is that it encompassed current scientific knowledge of light over 3,000 years before the dual nature of light was known. By choosing to identify with light, Jesus places himself in the center of creation and time by embodying all ancient understandings of light and concepts embedded within the science that will shape our future. 

The Desire That Leads To Destruction

But if we have food and clothing, with these things we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. I Timothy 6:8- 10

Did you catch that? Verse eight, did you see it? I don’t ever think a verse ever hurt me as much as that one did this morning.

“But if we have food and clothing, with these things we will be content.” It still stings.

You see my list was little longer. Okay, a lot longer, and I thought I was being all holy with how short I was keeping it. I mean, I don’t want anything too outrageous, a house with a big porch and bathtub, a new car to replace the gas guzzling truck I drive, a laptop that wasn’t a Toshiba, a piece of land with a creek and lots of hills and trees, a few new clothes, maybe a hot tub to soak away some of these knots in my shoulders, one of those fancy oil diffusers that can cure cancer and give me super powers, and a bunch of books. Alright, a whole bunch of books, so many books that even I knew I was boarding on intellectual gluttony, but I wanted them for the right reasons so it had to be okay, right?

But that’s not what my Bible says I need to be content. Just food and clothing, both of which I have and so much more besides.  No amount of self-righteous justification can negate what God has told us, and as much as my stubborn heart wants to cling to my supposed right to have more and wallow in the unjustness of being denied, I have been faced with the choice of obedience or rebellion with my attitude. Now any move I make from this point forward is deliberate faith in or denial of his word. Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

It is easy to justify the desire to be rich. Do you know what I could accomplish with a million or so dollars? The good I could do with that amount of money? I do. I have played out the scenario a million times in my head, and I think of how please God would be with my generosity and vision.

But somewhere along the way, I fell into the trap of thinking that he needed me to be rich in order accomplish all this great and wonderful stuff. Slowly, my heart was turned away from his amazing ability to act despite circumstance or perceived resources and I began to think that success relied upon my financial status. My view of God became small, and my sense of self became far too great.

You see, the snare isn’t the money. It’s the desire that entraps us, for I know of no desire that is ever satisfied with what is before it, with what it has had. Desire always craves more – more money, more power, more significance, and everything else promised by our ideas of wealth. So we are tempted to lie, to cheat, to steal, to break promises, and even to betray those we love. Because in our twisted sense of reality it will be okay if we just have more, we can buy back the love we might lose, we can buy back the reputation we destroy, and we can buy back the relationships we have betrayed once we have more. But that is not how it works, not in truth, not in reality. For there will never be enough, we will always be found lacking in our own eyes, certain that our failure to have more is the same as the failure to be more.

Once we have crossed that line, we are rejecting the truth that God’s love for us is based in who we are and not what we have, then desperation is all that remains. Senseless and harmful choices will follow in close succession as we continue in a cycle that will consume all that we had and all that we are in the futile attempt to appease a desire that will never be satisfied. Destruction and ruin are all that will be left to us, not because God has forgotten or neglected us, but because this is the reality we chose when we wandered from the faith that once sustained us. The pangs we will endure, we inflict on ourselves, and there is none to blame but the one who chose to nurture the desire that God warned would bring our destruction.

But if we have food and clothing, with these things we will be content, secure in the knowledge that we are children of Father who declares us priceless and of unspeakable value. For that is riches that no power on earth can take away.

Facing My Hypocrisy

There is nothing like getting slapped upside the head with your own hypocrisy. In the rankings of unpleasant things it is somewhere above having your leg rotting away with methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), and just slightly below being eaten alive by rats. However, while I strongly advise avoiding those two scenarios, honesty requires that I acknowledge not only the benefits but the necessity of having our hypocrisy exposed even when it hurts.

It is the temptation and joy of every believer to indulge in complacency about our faith. We like thinking that we have figured out. The rules are simple, the requirement light, and our lives fall into a pattern of convenient obedience. If you are like me, you build a world where blatant sin is hard to come by. Things like killing, stealing, adultery, even gossip, if you are good enough at the game, become more troublesome than being good. Outward obedience becomes easy, and in fact, outward obedience becomes so important that you recoil at the thought of doing anything that would threaten your image of being the good Christian.

But it’s a trap.

Over the past five years, I have spent a lot of time building a social network designed to give me a platform from which to speak. I have been careful with what I post, with what I say, and with what I reveal. People see my work and they say, “Oh, you are edgy!”, “You are so brave to say that!”, and “Wow, I cannot believe how honest you are about these issues!” I have got to be honest with you, I love hearing all that. I love being able to shake people up by talking about things that intimidate so many others. The affirmation is wildly addictive.

But I haven’t been completely honest in my work, at least not as honest as I should be. For a long time now, I have been resisting the prompting to go deeper. If anything resisting is too mild of a word, more like kicking and screaming my protests as I am trying to claw my way free of God’s grasp on my life, and I have been pretty good at justifying it to myself. So many of you know so much about my life already, about things I have experienced that most women keep covered up, and yet, I am the one who will stand in the middle of room full of strangers and tell you the story of how my life was destroyed by violence and deceit. I will tell you have the hard years of being the divorced woman in church, and I will admit to the times of destitution while trying to raise my daughters. I will recount those moments when I defied God, daring him to show himself to be real in the wreckage of my life, and how he met there.

I could do that because I locked down all the emotions. I cut them off and buried them deep so I could tell my tale without flinching. I “set my face as flint” because I did not want to feel the humiliating sting of pity. I would do lip service to my part in the story.  I could admit the pride – the sheer hubris that led me into those places. I could be so stinking spiritual about it all that I would even say that I was thankful for that time, and laugh about how it took something that severe to get through to someone as hard headed as I am. I could confess how I had been a fool and share with you what I had learned, but I never let the enormity impact me, not really, not deep down where counted. It was an intellectual assent to what I knew to be right and good, but there was no heart behind it.

You see, I knew all the answers. I knew which verses to quote and how to phrase things to that you would hear how dazzling my intellect was and never notice what was behind the curtain. After a while, I forgot that there even was a curtain, let alone that there was something behind it. I convinced myself that this was me, all there was to me, and no one needed to know that there was more, not even myself.

The thing is when you lock down your heart that tight, it can’t beat. There is no room left for it to function, and you slowly begin to die. I kept the pain at bay, and if you don’t feel any pain you don’t react. Emergencies and crises become your forte, because you they don’t rattle you at all. How could they? At that point you are nothing more than a robot who is carrying out the programming, a program I did and still do believe is right, but one I could never implement completely because the primary code is love. And acts of love can be performed, but if the emotion is not there then you are offering nothing but pretty lie.

The other problem is if you never feel the pain of a wound inflicted, you will never be able to forgive. You may be able to respond with the appropriate gesture or kind word, but the hurt is still there just lurking behind the curtain. The apathy that was once a shield will harden into bitterness, and the sense of satisfaction for your self-control becomes wall of pride and disdain for those who allow emotion to rule their hearts.

Love for God and reliance upon him erodes, as your ability to cope becomes the new god to whom you have erected your altars. Relationship becomes ritual, not because you derive any enjoyment from his presence, but simply because it is the proper thing to do and your delight is in your ability to do the ritual well. Prayers become perfunctory and empty repetition, as you are left to wonder if he hears you at all, but since when was God ever servant to the decrees of the mind? And how is he to respond to the cries of a heart you have strangled in a futile attempt at self-preservation?

Then comes the day when he places the choice before you, the one you have worked so hard to avoid, do you love him or do you love the life you have created? Do you trust him to heal the wounds you have denied? Do you want him or the walls of protection you have built around yourself?

The answer should be easy. For my mind knows the correct response, but my heart is still clutching at the curtain afraid to step into the light. I was hurt the last time I let down my guard. I still have the scars to prove it. The select few I allowed to peek in used their privilege as the means to hurt me further. I still bleed from those cuts, but I caught breath of fresh air and felt the surge of blood coursing through my veins once more. I remembered what it felt like to be alive once again, and something within me is crying out that this is what I desire more than the false security I have relied upon. The next step is not safe, but even as I accept that peace floods over me because I know that only when my heart is revealed that he becomes its true defender and king.  

A Request

Lately, I have been finding it hard to write. I have no way to describe the craziness that was released into my world since the first of the year, or the massive amounts of craziness that still loom on the horizon. As the events that have rocked my world involve so many others, out of respect for them I am not comfortable sharing the specifics at this time. However, always the writer, I do find solace in the knowledge that I have gained enough material for no less than eight new books if life will ever permit me the time and mental space to work.

As most of my writings are based on what is happening in my world, issues brought to my attention by things I am experiencing, or studies prompted by my needs in that moment, you can see where all of this causes me to be wary of the keyboard lest I needlessly expose another to shame. I am left with a bit of a quandary, wondering how to maintain the transparency that I strive for in all my works while still being faithful in the obligations to the covenant of love that I have with each of these people.

Nor do I wish to forego the support and love that so many of you have expressed to me since starting this blog. Because now more than ever, I do need your support. I do need your love and encouragement in my life. I am faced with many difficult, almost impossible decisions, and I covet your prayers for wisdom and guidance I move forward. Perhaps that is selfish of me, but rarely in my life have faced such a difficult and demanding situation.

I am also asking for your prayers for time and energy. I have a book that is currently being edited, lacking just a bit of polish and the cover art before it is ready to meet the world. I have been working on it for almost ten years, and I believe that it is a significant work. While such a thought never crossed my mind in the initial writing phase, that has been the opinion of several who have been kind enough to read it in its roughest form, and as I have been met with resistance with every step of its competition, I am beginning to think that they might be right.

To record the number of straight up catastrophes that have occurred each time I believe the end is in sight would require the writing of entirely different book. The short version includes: illness, my own and of loved ones; financial straits, prohibiting me from covering the various cost associated with self-publication; various scenarios with Ty’s job that have stolen time and energy from the project; malfunctioning technology; the loss of friends and allies in ways that have broken my heart; and now I have been blindsided by another event completely out of my control that has left me without the myriad of resources required to finish this work. And I strongly believe that this recent event is just one more attempt to keep this book from finding its way into your hands.

If this sounds like whining, please extend a little grace, for whining is not my intent. I am simply in a situation where the only resolution I can see is divine intervention, and all I know to do is to ask that my brothers and sisters pray that God provide ways and means that I even my over-active imagination has yet to conjure up. I am profoundly grateful for the friendships that have been extended to me since the release of Scandalous and the starting of this blog. You have all been an encouragement and strength to me as I try to share the little that I know, and it is among my deepest desires to continue exploring this thing called faith together.

So I am imposing our friendship now to ask that you keep me in your prayers, that resolution will come to this circumstance and that I will have the resources necessary to continue with my writing – peace, clarity of thought, time, energy, creative solutions to tangible obstacles before me, and of course, abundant inspiration. I will be praying the same for you no matter what your endeavors may be, for who among us could not use more of these precious gifts from our King?