I used to be owned by the thoughts I had at night, as I would unwind and get ready for rest.

All the stuff that didn’t get done, all the stuff I needed to remember for tomorrow, all the concerns I had about the what-ifs involving people when they were a part of my tasks/assignments. I used to rehearse conversations in my head, and imagine what I would say if they said…

From there my thoughts would race to loved ones. I would worry that the worst possible things would happen to them. I would forecast disasters and illnesses and falling away, and relationship breach…

My body would be tight by that time. My breathing was shallow. My heart raced to try and prepare for all these terrible things, just in case they happened.

As you can imagine, this did not result in restful sleep. it left me prone to anxious dreams and invited the enemy to amplify it all even more.

These days there are a couple of tools I use.

One is, that I set my heart towards memorizing a passage of Scripture. Psalm 23 is a good place to start. And each time one of those thoughts came, I would use it as a prompt to see if I could rehearse my passage. This was a great way to still my anxious thoughts, as well as a great way to write God’s promises on my heart.

Another tool I use is to recognize the thought as something I get to entertain, enlarge, or refuse, shrink. I would let myself experiment with focusing on blessings to see how big I could get them to become. Then I would analyze the anxious thought and see how far away I needed to turn my mind before it collapsed altogether.

And if I am feeling particularly introspective, I can examine the thought and ask myself- what am I really afraid of, and why? As soon as I get to the root seed that allowed that thought to birth, I can cast it away as the vain imagination it is.

That’s what I do with some thoughts at night, these days.

What does it mean to take thoughts captive? And why is it in the passage about the weapons of our warfare? (2 Cor 3-6)

When I was younger I spoke like a child and thought like a child. And in my youth I heard a lot of voices in my head. I heard demons. I heard the Lord. I heard the voices of my parts. I heard the entities through the frequencies I had been attached to. I heard light. I heard creation. And I was confused. My brain had a low grade fear running in the background all the time. My brain knew no rest.

It wasn’t until my thirties that the Lord brought the tools I would need for my recovery. I remember the portion of verse he spoke in kindness to me one day, shortly after I had started recovering blocked memories from my childhood. He promised that when it was something he was saying, he would follow it with that portion of verse. I was not to say it out loud, lest the enemy try and steal the peace of that promise. It was just between him and me. This brought a foreign idea of safety in being able to recognize the voice of the Lord. A short time later, he gave me a butterfly net. He encouraged me to capture my thoughts. He told me to capture them with the net, and hold them up high. He would examine them. if they were eternal they would remain. If they were not, they would burn into ash and blow away. it was mercy for me to learn to parse thought. If I had tried to sort my thoughts by what felt familiar or even ‘right’, I would have been using a database that had been trained by darkness for darkness. There was much defilement and corruption in my heart and soul and flesh. Even my spiritual gifts had mixture. I ended up laying those on an alter before him once I met him as love. I had no desire, and a lot of fear, that I would use my gifts in unclean ways, and I would rather not have them than do that. He held them for several years, then returned them to convince me that the gifts themselves were good. And that using them, the right ways, brought him pleasure and glory.

Recently I have begun thinking of those days, and am comparing those ways with how I capture my thoughts these days. I think it will be fun to explore over the next set of blogs. Maybe it will inspire you to find your own language.

What is vain imagination? What do I do with thoughts that circle but don’t solve? How do I follow the trail to rest? I think we all need to know. I am interested to hear how it works for you, too!

More, on a different day.

Blessings

Sometimes, while going through loss, the ability to process gets stuck.

There are a lot of different tools to address this. But only if the time is right. Sometimes getting stuck is the acknowledgement of how impossible this is, or feels. If time passes, and the ability to process has not changed, there are some ways to explore it.

Dr. Karl Lehman believes there are five parts that must be successfully navigated to process pain. 1. maintain organized attachment. 2. Stay connected. 3. Stay relational. 4. Navigate situation in a satisfying way. 5. Correctly interpret the meaning.

For some brains, this works.

Some people need to check to see if their emotional faucet is able to come on. As in a bathroom faucet, negative and positive emotions flow through the same outlet. When it is scary to feel, the faucet gets turned off and the person stops being able to feel.

An exercise to discover clues on why things are stuck is to ask internal binary questions. Is it my soul or my spirit that is struggling? Is it with the Lord or with man that I am upset? Is my body in agreement with my spirit or my soul?

We can also scan truths that we hold as eternal or constant in our life. If any of those no longer feel true, that is a clue on where the pain got stuck.

How about the understandings we have of God. Is he still good? Does he still heal? Do I still feel his faithfulness? Has anything changed?

If we know the voice of our body, we can ask, where in the body is this being held? Is it my shoulders, or my digestive tract, or my heart?

Are there any previous situations that are coming to mind regularly, that don’t seem to connect to this one?

In other words, are there any trees that are birthing seeds/thoughts in the heart that are obscuring the path forward? These would be circular thoughts I can’t stop thinking.

How is hope? Can I describe what it looks like? Are my emotions involved in hope at all?

Do I need more cognitive answers, do I feel a need to solve a problem that can’t be solved?

Drawing a map of where I experience things inside of me is another tool to locate where movement has stopped. Where do I feel joy? Where do I connect with God? Where does anger go on my map?

I also ask my spirit if there are any spiritual hindrances involved, in addition to my humanity and current imperfection.

When I have enough clues, I float strategies. There’s no altogether right way for everyone. Part of the process is having permission to buy in to the strategy that is right for me. And there is no way that will always work, for every time I experience loss.

The pain the brain knows, when I can’t be with the one I love, attachment pain, is some of the worst pain the brain can know. It must not be minimized.

When it is able to be processed, it also opens up levels of intimacy with the Lord that are exquisite and transformational.

I bless each reader with the gift of finding their pathway and the peace it yields.

I think if all the grief, of humanity combined, over the construct of time, were compiled….

It might measure something close to the ache Father felt, in the garden, at the fall.

My friend, that called me a daughter,

we talked about heavenly courts, he understood

we talked about John Paul, he got it

we talked about the Lord, he loved him

we talked about the glory, he knew it

we talked about deliverance,

his heart was that all would be free, and that all would know what it is, to be fathered well

When my Father calls a father home…

in the spirit he gave me a silver ring one time that kept unclean forces (previous leaders) from seeing me

I rejoice

and I ache

sharing the ache with others today

Loss

Leaves a heart wandering, unfocused, longing

Grief is what overtakes the path

In unexpected places and waves

It comes in waves and crashes

Only to retreat to come again

It’s birth in its own way

To different life that that no longer contains

The one lost

Words

Lose meaning

Tears

Fall unnoticed 

All retreats

Behind a focus that can’t focus

And a pain that swallows

Face to face

With impossible 

And expected to navigate normal

Weeping tonight

For some friends that remain

My mom was a character.

She grew up on a farm in Ohio. One of five. They never starved during the depression. But everything else was scarce. One of 5, the first time she used an actual toilet was at 16, after her dad dropped over dead one day and they had to move into town. The first time she heard a radio, she was 19, visiting her boyfriend at Great Lakes. The radio in the room she rented was on. She ran screaming from the room, thinking there was a real man in there.

Her first employer got her pregnant and she was on a train headed toward her dead dad’s family (that she had never met) when she met her first husband. Larry was shell shocked, coming home from the war. He drank. It was an abusive relationship, fraught with making money and losing it all to drink, while mom cared for her first four kids.

She got free from that relationship only to meet my biological dad. She was impressed by his ability to seduce, and by his intellect. She married again. They had a girl, but by the time my mom was pregnant with me, she realized that her husband was dangerous. her five, plus the five he had brought into the relationship, were regularly beaten, punished and tested. She went to see a lawyer about options. And shortly after, he left, taking their baby and his five, in the middle of the night. I had been in her womb 7 months.

My mom was not regulated emotionally. Her own mom had boasted, in hospice, she had never apologized to anyone in her life. Neither did she forgive. My mom lacked the circuitry to process pain. There were also early issues with bonding, and my mom suffered from narcissistic personality disorder. She needed the room to revolve around her. She was not intellectually smart, but socially she was a savvy shark. It was tough growing up, learning what was required for bonding.

When I was 6 weeks old, she met her third and final husband. They married. He adopted me when I was six. The marriage lasted until her death at 90.

Throughout the years my oldest sister and myself met the Lord. We had both ‘led’ our mom to the Lord. She said the prayer she was supposed to say. We never saw any change, but we hoped. And when she finished her time, we were not entirely sure, but we hoped.

One day after her passing, I dared to ask the Lord if I would see her again. There was a lot of stuff she hadn’t been sorry for. I am remembering, this mother’s day, what he showed me back then.

I saw the Lord unroll time from around her. With each circling she became younger. I saw my mom as a little girl. She was dressed in a skirt and was twirling. She felt pretty. The Lord entered her space and said- did you know that I was the one who made you pretty? (She giggled.) And when I made you pretty I was looking forward to us sharing together the joy of your prettiness.

Then he looked at me and spoke.

“depending on how she responds to that truth, that is the metric I will use when judging her heart.”

If all we have are lies, and the way we develop is by building on them, he will have mercy.

It is how our hearts respond when our hearts have the truth that he measures.

That is what determines our eternity.

I have hope now, that I will see my mom in heaven when I get there. And what a beautiful day that will be.

Selah.

Sometimes, we get a model, that provokes a desire is us.

Last year I had the privilege of watching someone transition from this life into eternity.

She was an incredible general in God’s army. She had firepower when she spoke. Stuff broke. She would ask the Lord for more in a room, and Holy Spirit came in power. She demonstrated God’s victory wherever she went. She was a bulldog in the spirit. If God told her to do something it got done. She persevered past emotion and intellect. Her will was more commonly in alignment with God than not. It was all balanced by authenticity. She stayed real and moved in deep compassion as a testimony of her intimacy. She could gentle herself in a moment to engage in Father’s heart. She could find peace in the imponderables. She was comfortable with silence. God was God, and she did not try to usurp that.

When the illness hit, she fought. She fought hard. I could hear her dialogue with God. “I will not give in to the enemy’s plan! I will not receive what does not come from Your hand!” He was silent. The words changed. “There are so many people who do not yet know you! They have not tasted who you are! Without your fire they are dying in churches across the world!  Without your mercy their hearts are becoming like stone! There are places that need this fire you have given me! There are groups who have called upon me to release what you have given. I am not done! I will not give up!” I could feel his presence towards her. He moved when she cried out. Yet he did not speak. “Remember the promises, God!” was the next exchange between them. “Remember those you have promised, and remember those promises that are yet unfulfilled in my life! You are good, and you do not lie! I know who you are and I will contend past this because I know You!”

Hours passed. The words continued. Each time she touched a different aspect of Him that she knew. She was looking for the words that would align her with him in that moment and produce a release of heaven’s perfection here on earth.

He did not reply. I knew his eyes were on her. I could feel His heart moving, every word she uttered caused a response in his heart. He breathed her name.

There was a shift.

I felt a sigh. It was like a collective sigh. It is what precedes certain change in heaven, I think.

I saw her garment.

It was the most beautiful blue I have ever seen. It was adorned with diadems. It captured light, reflected light, it was light. It was alive and had pulse. I knew it was her calling, her destiny. She wore it as a bride wears her gown. She knew who she was and whom she served. And she let the excellence of His gifts and call on her life be released. She knew the beauty, and it showed in her garment.

To wear this, one had to walk into the space where the garment was and it became them.

As I watched she took two steps back. This action efficiently removed her from her garment. She looked at it with affection. She would fight to the death for its ownership if he told her to. And yet…

She paused. Her whole being focused on him. Her next words took the verbally one sided (but spiritually two sided) conversation to a new level.

“ I’ll leave it, for you, if you want me to. This is not who I am. This is what you have called me to. This is your plan for my life. I love doing these things.  But this is not who I am. This is not my essence. I am your daughter. That is more important to me than anything. I’ll give this up if you want me to.”

She stood there, without her garment. She stood before him.

And he showed her himself.

Some time passed.  I heard her again. She had begun the change, her voice reflected the difference. She was less earth-focused.  “He is so beautiful! Can you see how lovely he is? I knew, but I didn’t know. I saw, but I didn’t see. He’s so beautiful” I could feel warmth in her joy.

In the natural this experience looked a little different. She became ill. It was violent. She fought for a time. And according to the medical community it was a fight she lost.

She lived well. She died better. Perhaps I needed that model, for my own life’s journey. I will never forget it.  “I had not believed to look on the goodness of Jehovah In the land of the living!” (Psalm 27:13)

Seeing her transition into death showed me more about the goodness of the Lord, while I am still in the land of the living. Surely he works all things together for good.

At an event I attended in April, the Lord had asked me, how I felt, if it turned out that he had said something similar to the enemy about me, that he said about Job. What if I found out that the Lord said to Satan, have you seen my servant Tanya?

This past Sunday he woke me with instruction: 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 Wednesday, 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. Yes he sexually abused me;-everyone did. But he did have remorse, and a lot of guilt. I remember when he stopped sleeping in the same room as my mom. He was devout catholic. I believe he had told a priest what he had done, and his penance was abstinence. Dad had been struggling physically for about six month (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. Next I got the call. Dad 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 a bit confusing. He did not seem like cloud of witnesses. He sounded like pre-eternal state. He seemed relieved to be out of his body. There was a lightness that told me his guilt no longer chained him. I was happy about that, and pondering why he was there. I asked who Jesus was to him. He responded with the truth that Jesus is the Son of God, come in the flesh. So I figured maybe the Lord was answering questions for him about me. My healing involved a decade away from the family.

Although reconciliation began five years ago, perhaps the Lord was catching him up on my life. I was a little miffed that there was no repentance, no apology, but. God is God. So, I planned my day. It seemed there was grace to do errands before my counselor. I went to the post office in Huntley. In our mail there was something from some nuns addressed to my husband’s dad, who passed away two years ago. I opened and tossed it. And heard my Dad say, see, Catholics are not all that bad. That comment sent me straight to the Lord. Does he Know, God? Does he know about the priests at St. Martins, and does he know about my path? The Lord’s response was -if I transition him without him knowing, if he does not need to know to be perfected, is that ok with you? At this point I am thinking it must be my week for hard sayings. And however the Lord transitions him is perfect and good. Settled.

My next stop was to go the half price book store. My freshman daughter needs a book. And I feel a nudge to go into the Christian book store next to it first. I have time. So I do. There is a way the God meets me as I view the art in that store. The verse brings the memory of him, and as my brain matches what my eye sees with how I remember God in that verse, the air around me opens up and he comes. I am viewing the art, and God comes. And I perceive that my dad, who is watching, is being introduced to facets of the Lord he had not known. With each progressive piece of art, he is beginning to weep. As he sees the Lord through my lens.

He starts saying things like I’m sorry. I didn’t know. And he is saying it to God. He is being humbled by the majesty. And I am standing there weeping. And the Lord says again, would you be willing to look at a memory involving him today, and I realize my Dad might be there for that, and I weep even more. And I ask, do I need to forgive him then? And the Lord says any one that you would allow to meet me through you, you have already forgiven. So this memory I get to go into knowing the forgiveness is done. How very strange. And I say ok. Because of who he is. And if he has decided this is good, my limited vision should not prohibit my alignment. Ok.

Sitting with Maggie shortly after, sharing how the morning had looked and what the Lord had asked,

Maggie asks if my Dad can see Jesus. Yes, they are both there. And Jesus is garbed as a catholic priest. Forgiving catholic priests has been part of my journey. 🙂 Knowing he is coming in the way my Dad can receive him, I marvel at my role in this. But then, Jesus stands up, goes to the back of the room, comes back and he has a book. And I know the book is a book of my life, things that happened and my heart’s movements. And I realize he is going to show my dad the book and I am horrified. I remember a time when I was eight or nine, and my dad tried to hug me. I pushed him away and refused. He was so upset with me. He complained to mom about it. He withheld affection from me for days. And I realized my concern was that if he saw it all he would look at me with pity and I would be ashamed. He would never look at me the same way because he would not be able to think that somehow I had done something wrong. The Lord addressed my reservations. The book was opened. My dad saw. He wept.

And he was aghast. His time here was over. He could no longer repent. There was no absolution available in his eyes. No reconciliation model back to God. I saw his horror. And the Lord spoke. He asked me how Jobs friends were reconciled. He asked me if I would pray.

I never realized what that process of praying for his friends was like for Job. Because to pray I had to recognize everything his behavior had cost me in my life. By choosing to not see, by being locked in his own sickness, every relationship I have ever had has been affected. I had to go through all the costs, and then pray for him. And then, just like that he was gone.

The session ended with me repenting to the Lord of the unbelief and doubt that had hindered me.  He did not ask me to pray a hail mary, but just sprinkled me with his blood and it was done. This past weekend my sister let me know that the priest from St Martins that was requested to do my Dad’s funeral was on sabbatical. So they are waiting, until Oct 1. My afternoon in San Diego, pre-arranged months before, will be at the Catholic Church where I went to school as a child. With a priest who likely knew me then. And my whole family is invited. I have to laugh at the ways of God.

Transitions from darkness to light are not easy. Some take longer than others. But as in the birthing process, if one can lean in and ride the waves of the change, one is better served than to try and fight against what becomes inevitable.

Change.

A sadder story comes from the year that our camp was kiddycorner with a camp called comfort and joy.

A guy visiting that camp climbed a ladder in their center. Everyone thought he was doing art up there. It wasn’t for a while that they realized he had hung himself. The rangers came. I think we all felt the sadness. The brush with an irretrievable decision.

Then, in the spirit, I felt him. The young man. He kept trying to bump himself back into his body. But his body had closed to him. In its ceasing, the hole he once fit through in life was closed to him now in death. He did not understand. He was not READY! He needed to get back in. He kept trying. I was distressed. I felt the nudge of God. He needed light. I entered his gray space enough to shout, ‘look for the light! Head for the light!’ He was confused. He turned dully towards me. My words did not make sense to him. What the f… for? To him light was unimportant. He wanted his body back. I tried more. As loudly and as long as I could, to impress upon him the importance of light. He had not cared for light in life. So it was also for him in death. In the end, I obeyed the prompt to take my drum to the dome and to play a funeral song for him there.

Looking back, I wonder. Was I the last contact he had with humanity? I hope not. It is entirely possible for someone to become tuned for eternity in those last moments. Witness a different transition from a similar life response to light.

She was in her eighties. Her life had lots of emptiness that had been filled with religion. Every day she went to mass. Until she couldn’t. Her marriage had left her childless but wealthy. She learned she could get away with being mean when you were rich. But you can’t stop disease no matter how many dollars you have. Parkinson’s worked its way into and through her. At the end she lived a miserable existence. Retreated. Pained. Unable to influence with gaze or speech her existence. Penance? Perhaps.

The last day, on my way to see her, I heard- what you agree with in life you will agree with in death. Oh no! The jeopardy of her soul was at hand. I entered her interior world. I saw Jesus there but he was super small compared to all else. Relying on the history I had built with previous visits and stories of heaven, I explained she needed to go closer to Jesus. Yes, he was small now, but as she got nearer he would get bigger. He was the way. She heard. I think she listened. And I think, I will see her in eternity.

To God belongs the sovereignty of all these things.

Which brings me, somehow, to the accident on roller coaster road.

My experience came before that knowledge. I was in my living room, on my couch when a young Middle Eastern man appeared before me and I clearly heard the Lord say, he needs to be saved. I explained to this young man the gospel. I explained how Jesus was the messiah. I explained how he took our place with his death, to reconcile us back to God. I explained how he was the Son of God, how he died and was resurrected, and how he can live in our hearts. They young man repented for his unbelief. He received Christ and became a believer.

Within two hours, I heard about the accident, which had happened the night before and claimed three lives- three young Middle Eastern men had died on roller coaster road. I knew the young man I had witnessed to in the spirit was one of these.

Was our experience before or after the crash that took his life? God alone knows such things. I can only report the small part I see and interpret through my flawed humanity.

I remember Reuben.

It was my first year as a part of the burning man team. I had been invited to go with a group that did readings, cleansing, interpretations, heart tranforms, etc. At first I thought it would not be fun. Creator did not listen but saw what was best for me, in his parenting way, he got me onboard.

When I was little, I was instructed by my family. In addition to being the keeper of secrets, I was to grow up, be a trainer of the way, then lay down my life so that my blood could further the line in power and anointing.

Yeah, it was a bad childhood.

There in the desert, I learned there was an altar at a structure they call the temple. The temple is where people go to leave what they can no longer carry. It burns at the end of the week. Cathartic, for a year. So when Creator said to me, I want you to go to the altar, and I want you to lie upon it, you can imagine my response. Initially, anyway. Creator fathered me through to more grace.

Wednesday of the week I woke up, knowing it was the day.

We worked in the tent until the sun finished. Then we were on our own. I took a buddy with me out to the deep playa where the temple stood. On our approach, I intuitively knew what to do at each boundary line. One was for lineage, if you do not know who you are there is permission for stuff once you cross the border that you may or may not like.

I know who I am. At least my spirit does and I noted how the recitation was in a different language.

The second perimeter line is the one where you state who you are with. If your leaders are recognized by the inner community there is an allowance for you to be there that does not exist if your group is unknown. More test is required with the latter.

There was the temple. And before it, the altar. The altar this year had stairs of ascension behind it. The area surrounding the altar had wood roundtables dedicated to faiths. I headed for the main event to get this act of lying upon the altar done. And stopped. I saw a man that I knew to be a Satanist. I do not know how I knew. But I knew, and he waited, sitting upon the altar. He saw me. I watched him listen to his guides as I frantically tried to connect with God’s Spirit.

‘I would be happy to do this Lord. Move him and I will go.’

Thinking I had prayed the right prayer, I moseyed over to examine the round wood tables more closely. My friend was busy looking at other things on the other side of the structure.

After a decent interval, with my friend still not visible, I headed back towards the altar. He was gone. I got closer. Oh no! He had climbed. He was sitting on the third step, the highest step on the ascension steps behind the altar.

Lord?

“I never do anything without a witness. Go quickly and do what you must do now.”

I felt his grace and power. I climbed awkwardly on top of the altar. Once there, I lay on my back. And the sobs began. And I realized I was there to repent, for the acts of atrocity. That I am so intimately familiar with, I cried out for mercy to those who sinned such.  The sobs wracked my body. What I uttered surely came from heaven and was expressed back to heaven through me.

And all the while, the man watched. As a witness.

The Lord spoke as the sobs lessened. When you were a child, you spoke as a child, you understood as a child, you thought as a child; compared to me, little one, Satanism is a childish thing.

What seemed like a long time passed. I got up. He was gone. And around the corner came my friend. I was done. We explored a little more, and then headed back to camp. I explained to a leader in brief words, what God had asked of me, and how I responded. It felt within protocol, but submitting to leaders is wise. He was fine with it.

I felt like the altar had been my divine appointment, the most important I would have that year.

But the next day in the tent, Reuben came.

Our leader had met Reuben in center camp. He was doing readings there. Our leader had invited him to come check us out. And he came. The leader came up to me as my team got ready for another encounter. He said, I got one for you, in my ear. He went back up to the front, got Reuben and brought him to sit with us. Reuben sat. I saw him peering into me. He was using his gift. He smiled and said, what do you have for me? I knew we were being tested. I looked beyond his eyes. I saw little lights with little question marks behind every one. I knew what I saw. The lights were the things he had explored. The question marks were the things that were unanswered by the exploration. I shared with him that I saw a big question in his center. I asked if I could invite White Light to come and answer that question. He said yes, and the fun began. The more he yielded the more he received from God. God came in power for Reuben.  He shaked, he shuddered, he quaked, he bent, he moaned. He cried. He gasped. He changed. The leader came over at one point to tell things unclean to go. He dodged as they left with violent force. It was a conversion as in the days of old. The power of God went as deep as Reuben wanted and he had wanted for so long. The moment came when Reuben needed better language, and our leader explained he was experiencing King Jesus. I remember as Reuben left that day, transformed, that he declared he was going to go to the temple and tell everyone what King Jesus had done for him! It was straight out of the book of Acts. The leader looked at me then, and said, this was why you got on the altar. And I knew. God’s ways, impossible to predict and as impossible to deny. Reuben spent a lot of that week with us.