I remember hearing, sometimes as a child, to say ‘when’. It usually related to pouring being done for me. It was my power to say when the cup was full enough. I think of that today. Saying ‘when’.

Recently the Lord asked me write down all the things I want.
Whew! I have a list.
I want so and so healed.
I want this breach of relationship fixed.
I want such and such for my daughters.
I want….
so much.
He has begun talking to me about my list.
Is it his list? Have I formed ideas about him based on my list?
When did it become about what I wanted?
Am I praying the right way?

Do I pray like a victim, just interceding as needed in the way I think things should go? How very arrogant! I repent.
I am looking at the Lord telling Moses that the Israelites are to camp by the sea. The wicked ones that pursue them will think they are foolish. And when God pulls out the miracle, and they get set free, an the wicked will honor the Lord.
When was the last time I prayed for someone to get into an impossible situation?
Not like a witchcraft prayer, so they would be punished or return to their senses, but so that, when God rescues them miraculously, the wicked, that pursued them, will honor God?
I look at God giving the wisdom to Moses, when three days out the water was bitter. The tree, into the water. My Jesus, his cross, into the water, making the bitter sweet. What a picture for me today.
How extravagant are His ways! How large is His understanding!

It does not seem coincidence to me that with the understanding of the power encounters in Exodus, we are in the place of difficulties that surface our hearts. It feels like the order of the Lord. The timing of Father.
I look at the next crisis. Food. God knew they needed to eat. And God knew they still thought like slaves. They did not trust Him. And hunger allowed it to surface. In this time of fasting, there have been things surfacing in my heart. About this person, or about that situation, or my attempt to put things together in my mind when I don’t know the whole story. How merciful is our King, that he would allow these things in my soul to raise their voice, so that I can become larger than my soul!

I am getting ready to do the outreach in the desert. How perfect of Him to place me in His word when wilderness is the scenario.
The humility it allows, and the submission it encourages, bring me into a deeper flavor of awe.
There is no God like our God. He is the Lord, and there is no other. Selah.

Today I heard the instruction- to study the tests in the wilderness next. To Exodus I go. Psalm 78 gripped me today. The sudden angle of God, that he knew they would be thirsty, he knew they could last three days, and he did not provide is highlighted. Why? My sense is that if he had provided they never would have seen the place in their heart that did not yet trust. Psalm 78 says God was upset before the quail…he had heard their doubt and unbelief- that makes me wonder- about life before the fall –and the absence of unbelief. Before doubt crept in. God is reconciling us back to that relationship. It is always on his mind.

I heard a man named Steve Carter say today, that wilderness is, about going into the unknown, alone, with Father. Truly my wilderness is that.

As I experience what is going on with my family, and with my friends, I am so aware of the different shapes the wilderness takes for each of us. My own has been to face what I did not have the courage to face- dying to myself and allowing Father to show me what is not reconcilable in my heart- so that I may know a different level of reconciliation with him. Intense. Deep. Hard to articulate and sometimes best expressed by tears. I am so grateful for friends who companion me through this desert. I am so grateful for Father choosing to lead me here.

I heard today that in the day of Moses, striking a staff was symbolic of entering a court room. I think of yesterday, the staffs in the room, and the corporate intercession that opened a heavenly appeal for us. I think of the soldier running the stick into the body of Jesus, and I know that resembled the appeal that Jesus’ life became on my behalf. Surely nothing is too hard for my God! My hope rests, and finds life, that he will do what he knows is best for me. It may not seem like he is answering my perceived need, but only if there is a reason- such as- my heart needing to be revealed and my lack of trust needing to be acknowledged.

All of his ways are good. And under his wing I rest. As the wilderness I explore. And become who he died for me to be able to be. Selah.

It has been a while since I wrote. So much has happened. So much has changed.
Yesterday my mom would have been 91, had she lived.
I traveled to Batavia to facilitate a heavenly appeal for an extraordinary violinist.
On the way I called my Friday morning friend to bless him.
What is usually a time where I bless his spirit for 20 minutes…turned into a time of AHS evictions. I think Mom would be able to respond from heaven in a way she was not able to respond from the earth. I long to hear the different response.
Father gave me a prophetic word through a friend after the appeal. And on the way home he overshadowed me to help me receive the word at a deeper level. I have gotten this word from him three times over the past few weeks, from different people. He is so proud of me. He is proud of my prep for the desert, and how I am handling different relational difficulties right now. He is proud of me. I weep.
I had to cross the Fox river last night to get to my destination. Since the fourth, and the time on the boat in that river, something between that river and me has changed.
The year has been about growth, especially in the area of connecting to God through creation.
I host an amazing group of people that take turns leading and it has been great fun and incredibly life giving for me. The Lord knew I would need the life giving stuff in the face of the chaos.
Five years ago, my husband’s dad died. The year after it was his mom. Then a dear friend traversed the brutality of ALS and passed away. After that a dear friend I had worked with who had found wholeness died as a martyr, from cancer. Last year my mom transitioned into eternity. Currently my aunt by marriage and my step dad are both in hospice care. And my husband’s best friend has methosalemioa. He has lived beyond the date they gave, and is on what he calls borrowed time. So much death,
and then there is the work I do for others, where spirits that have been stuck need help transitioning and I facilitate that. It has been busy, and challenging, and new.
In continuing my own healing journey, I am struck by how much the Lord has done. I pause, I reflect, and I thank him. It is all about him.
A couple of friends called up a few weeks ago. They wanted to give me my birthday present early. Okay….the Lord worked it out that half our group was delayed so our meeting did not start. They game and they handed me…a bag. Inside the bag was…a stone. They said it was a living stone. Sometimes living stones grow as you look at them. And it fell…from heaven. There had been a meeting in Palbook, a little Korean church up the road. And the gemstones had fallen. And they had scooped one up for me, for my birthday, and I am undone. I had asked, and asked, and asked for a stone from heaven. It never manifested for me. Because Father’s plan was to give one to others, and through men I would receive my request. I marvel at the hand of God. I marvel at his ways. And I marvel that he is proud of me. Who am I, that God should even notice me? And yet his love, sacrificed life for me. Wrecked. Surely he makes everything beautiful in its time. Surely his plans are for a future and a hope. I rest.