I dreamed this morning. In my dream I was in Black Rock desert, at the festival known as Burning Man. I was in the temple, observing a day gone passed. I saw a man walk in. He was seeking God. He sought the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He thought he would discern any other voice. Ha laid himself down in the pit, where the rhythmic chanting creates the bubble of environment. He immediately went into a trance, and had the most amazing spiritual experience he had ever had. He felt invigorated, refreshed, touched. He felt seen. It was heady. He got up out of the pit, declaring to himself, if that wasn’t God, I don’t know what was! Over my left shoulder, a crow cawed. And I awoke.

I do not know whether his awakening will mean death to self, death to his body, or death to his spirit. I only know my spirit is troubled, for he was deceived by one of the gods that occupies that bubble. The gate that was open in him for the deception was he was consumed with the need for now.

We are called to live in the now. But we are not of the now. We are of the ‘then’. Any experience that diminishes that truth in us will lead us away from that truth. Living in the now was designed to be an experience in constant tension, so that we would make choice after choice after choice that would eventually up-end the weight of the now. Hence, when our body stops, the weight (only weight is not the right word) of our choices propels into the ‘then’ of eternity beyond, upward we go and off time.

It does not mean we cannot enjoy the now. But when the enjoyment of now exceeds our long term plan for then, it is the soul reigning in the place created for spirit.

There are choices every day. Choices which, by exercising my will, make declarations that will stand as a witness on the earth. The now, or the then. Am I consuming, or stewarding? Am I acting as though this time is the only time I get to satisfy my bodily senses? Or am I in gratitude, experiencing life while allowing for an experience to come that is higher, and wider, and longer and deeper than anything here?

I have had many spiritual experiences. I have been awed, and undone. I have been wordless for days, following some. I am familiar with the headiness of these. I am familiar with the longing for more, especially in the place of desperate need. I grieve for the man, who was seeking the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His determination to have a spiritual experience, present with his demand for the now filling, created a space in him ready to be deceived by gods pretending to be God.

I know the power of second heaven to convince- indeed, was convinced its power was greater than any other for years. I have no doubt it is compelling. But his outlook on living for ‘then’ has become subdued. His ‘then’ thoughts have diminished and his zeal is for the now stream of consciousness.

I opened an appeal today, in his name. I based his case on his honest desire for the Ancient of Days. I am trusting that the examination of his heart will yield more evidence for the court. For I perceive the enemy has taken advantage of that desire, and deceived him. More testimony will be added soon. Selah.

Recently I was working with a client. This client has multiple issues with health. They have many places internally that are divided as well, from childhood traumas. Part of the work we have done has made it safe for some of those parts to come forward and begin the process of reconciliation. We do other work too, with her spirit and with removal of things that are not her. This particular day followed a season of removal. I had a question for a specific part we have discovered previously. The client looked at me blankly. It was very hard for her to make the connection. And I realized, once again, she had discarded relationship with her insides.

I was crushed.
I am known as an advocate for the insides.
I understand them and use my voice to defend them before they regain theirs.
I admire them, an affirm them, and value them.
For this person to retreat into denial and build a new wall against them was very discouraging for me.

But Jesus does not get discouraged. So we connected with him. And he highlighted that some of the parts she was discarding were important keys to her physical healing. Immediately she was on board with it. When it comes to physical healing she is desperate.

I was left with cynicism. So she cares if their healing affects her physical body, but she doesn’t care when they are left in trauma while she goes on an does life, even though during the trauma she fled and they could not? That didn’t seem fair. I was disgruntled.

I processed this with the Lord on the way home from this client’s house.
And He opened up His word, His life to me. I saw Luke 5, starting at verse 12. There was the leper. Coming to Jesus and saying, if you will it, I will be healed. Jesus saying I will. The healing. And I get a glimpse into Jesus’ heart. There were so many people that came, not because they wanted to get to know him. Not because they wanted the salvation or reconciliation he came to offer. But because they wanted the physical healing. They were defined by their natural world and he represented a solution, rather than a man whose love would change their lives. I felt his heartbreak over this. I heard him say to the leper- tell no one. Go to the priest. Do what the law requires. He knew it was not good for people to see him that way, they would get locked into the desire of their soul an miss the bigger picture of the eternal. But people did find out, about that leper. And they came anyways. For their personal healing, even though his model was never to use his power for himself. I was gripped by his pain over this. And then I saw…me. I was in that crowd, only modern day. I was ‘praying’. Basically I was presenting him with a list of needs for him to fill. How am I any different?

Father forgive me.
As I step into repenting for the places I missed him, relationship, reconciliation, his beauty and wisdom, the flow of his shed blood extends beyond me to the client. As I receive his forgiveness for me, I am able to let go of the judgments my heart was holding against her.

Who am I, to say? he still chose to lay down his life, so she could live, knowing her heart, knowing what I had just discovered about her priorities.

And he also laid down his life for me, knowing the times I would seek what his hand could do for me, instead of seeking him.

As I align with his truth today, instead of what I perceive, I find rest. I am amazed again at the power of the cross. It surely makes a level playing field for us all.

In April, at a special event, the Lord had asked me to walk in the cool of the day with him. We spoke about Job as the sun set. He asked me how it would be, if I learned that He had pointed me out as well, to the enemy. Have you considered my servant Tanya? I did not know what to say.

This Sunday, he told me to read John 7 and 8. I noticed how the scribes and Pharisees treated him. He reminded me of a church trial I had three years ago. My friends had been banned. I was not banned but a statement was read in the community recommending my friends and I were not to be trusted. I did not return. As the Lord brought this up, he asked me why I did not go back. I said that leaders instructing people not to trust me would prohibit me from community. He said oh. Then I got it. Scribes and Pharisees were telling people not to trust him. He still continued to go. I realized I had missed it. He said Man cannot legislate trust. I asked why I could not hear him during that season, instructing me to go. He said I could not have heard him, so he did not say it. I wept.

Then yesterday, I woke up with such energy. The Lord had been missing the songs I sing while doing stuff around the house, and I sang and sang. Order was in place to get a bunch of stuff done. The flow was so life giving. The Lord knew I was seeing my counselor that day and he asked if I would be willing to look at a memory involving my Dad. For the friends that get confused and think he was the satanist, I call him my step dad. But he met my mom when I was six weeks, married her when I was four, adopted me when I was six and remained her husband till she passed last November. He had been struggling physically in California. At 96 the list of things gone wrong was big. Yes, Lord. I trust. My history with him in healing has restored that. trust.

Then I got the call. He had passed. All the local family had seen him yesterday. He waited until everyone was gone. And the Lord called him home.

I realized all the energy came because the burden was gone. I went out to check my garden. My cucumbers were great. My dad love cukes. My tomato plants were being destroyed by ladybugs. I sighed. And I heard my dad. Maybe next year, he said. Just like he was there, sharing my disappointment.

That was when I knew my day was going to be very strange.

Recently the Lord had me look at the toughest thing I had ever seen.
With the viewing came questions that I am yet pondering.
In the midst of the time, his mercy was to show me something that would stay with me and remind me of eternity.
It was a book. It is a book. It is also life. It belongs to the lamb.
In it are written all the names of those He created
When someone prays for another person it strengthens their name being embedded in the book. It is like going over something that is already written. Making is more visible.
Each person has permission, through their life, to choose their name to be in that book or to remove it.
The book is also the Lord. Being written into the book, in varying degrees, parallels my experience of being ‘in Him”.
The authority on the earth of the good to keep the name in the book is always stronger than the authority of evil to remove it.
Each person gets to choose. Their choice has more influence over their name remaining in the book than anything else. Things that are done to us, curses that are laid on us, bloodline issues, ownership rights, blessings, affirmations, prayers…everything that affects us affects the name in the book. Our full names are written. The name itself breathes the essence of the person it is associated with.
It seems like all the enemys plans were to take my name out of that book.
But what the enemy intended for evil, God turned for good.
I see the book and its change through the ages. As people are added and as people choose to be removed.
The book is the lamb. The book is the Bride. The book is the church. The book is life.
Choose today who you will serve.
This day I choose, life.
selah.

I am not sure how many children need to be trained the way I was.
Perhaps those who hurt me were concerned that I would give them away by being an emotional basket case.
I am sure that along the way I have had friends who perceived me as coldhearted because of it.
The area of my heart that would have developed the capacity to miss people was seared early on.
People were there then they were not. To miss them in any way was cause for severe punishment. There was training done as well, to test.
If I missed someone or had any emotional reaction to their departure, I failed the test.
As I see the Lord healing my heart in this area during the last season, I am realizing the reasons he did not heal it before.
I didn’t want him to.
To miss people is painful.
The pain takes away my breath and I gasp, unable to form a coherent thought while the wave engulfs me.
I weep.
There is no obvious good to be gained.
I weep again.
Nothing changes and I still miss.
Today was a breakthrough day for me.
I must have been ready to hear him and not reject what he said.
I was in the car, driving.
And seemingly out of nowhere, he said…
the reason I am restoring your ability to miss is because
I want you to share my heart in how I long for, and miss, my Bride.
He steals my breath in a different way than the pain.
I receive that what is hard is yet good.
I weep, but not without hope.
Every essence that has been transformed by love will remain, in part, through eternity.
There are times ahead when my heart will not miss anymore.
And I guess, while I am here, when I miss, I will share
the fellowship of the sufferings
that perfect me.

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.

Something borrowed, something blue, something old, something new…

Thoughts emerge about getting the Bride ready.

The way we do church has got to change.,

We are not the Johnny Carson show. Meetings were not intended to revolve around one sheep bigger than the rest while the other sheep come and eat. And come and eat. And atrophy.

There is a longing in me for us to prove that together we are stronger than being alone.

So yes, I am starting a group. maybe more than one.

But I am not going to lead it all the time. Each of us has stuff to bring. A lifetime of seeing God. How do we rotate through and become the sum of more than just one? How do we make the risk acceptable so people feel safe to fall forward?

We are on the something new phase of getting ready for a wedding.

More beautiful than Miss America, more loyal than the armed forces, more sensitive than any new ager, and more anticipatory than any bridegroom, the Bride is emerging. I feel her gather…together we are her.

I had sent him a birthday card and written a note on the inside. I had told him how important Jesus was and that I hoped he knew him.

So he came. One day when I got home with the two kids, he was there. In the house.
Oh no.
He had decided to teach me a lesson. That is what Dads do for their daughters.
He had brought two friends. They were old men like him. men who grinned at others being hurt. Men who were so dead inside that they had to hurt and hurt and hurt others to get any kind of sensual sensation.
Oh no.
There was a younger man there, who took one of my kids and went with him to his bedroom. Grinning.
Oh no.
Me and the child that remained were ushered into the garage.
They had set up a workbench there.
Covered in plastic.
My child was placed on the workbench. They had blindfolded me while they stripped her and tied her down. She was crying.
oh no.
I cry.
One of the other men spat at me.
Renounce him. It was a growl.
Renounce him or else. Jesus.
I couldn’t.
And his knife came down. Into her body. Slashing and dicing and shredding her little body. Into ribbons and blood. Killing her. I could not think. It could not be. Oh my God. She was dead. I stood, numb. No. No. No.
They told me I was a bad girl.
I had to stand in the corner.
Renounce him. A different growl, same request.
Renounce him and we will bring her back from the dead.
That is what they wanted. My faith that they had that power.
Renounce him. Words for a life. Possible sin I could never absolve. But a life. Her life.
So I did. And with my back turned I renounced that I believed in his name and his love, and his power.
They turned me around.
And there she was. Pink and breathing. Her eyes were closed. But she was alive.
It is hard to recall all the emotions in the tears.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
And now that she was back, they knew they could do anything. And I would agree.
They had a container. It contained…the essence of a man. His spirit. Recently killed.
And they had a cat. A black cat, that was tied in a burlap bag.
And their motives are always to keep as many as possible from ever knowing the freeing love of Christ.
The child they had killed, that I thought was my girl, the child’s spirit had not yet left for heaven. So they killed the cat to connect them. The child and the cat. They put the cat on a spit. At his other end, the human spirit of the man chose to be attached for wicked purpose. They burned the cat so he could attach. Strange fires, human and animals.
I remember they burned the cat so long he dripped. I got burned by one drop, as I reached under him.
The men and their eyes grew glazed. The energy of entities in the room made it cold. There were chants, whispers, promises.
And then.
Somehow.
The spirit of the man was in me.
Hating God.
And the spirit of the child was in my child. Captive, unable to ascend.
The Lord saw. And He knew. And he waited.
Years for me. For him, no time.
And today he came.
He shined his light.
He applied his power.
He came and conquered. He came and saved. He made wrong things right.
And He brought the child home. And he compensated the earth. And he ushered the wicked one to the place his choices preferred.
He makes everything beautiful in its time.
Because that is who he is and that is what he does.

I am sill absorbing the freedom I feel tonight. And the joy that is pushing out the sorrow. That night is over. My morning has come. Surely he does all things well, and right on time. Awe leaves me without words. Who is like our God? And who can give him this glory except one who has seen his power here? And if these present sufferings are not worthy to be compared, then the glory that is coming…must be very great indeed.