When it comes to capturing our thoughts and exercising our free will to choose what we entertain (or don’t) in our head and heart, there is an aspect of our relationship with the Lord that would be good to consider.

We are invited to be in him. We also invite him to be in us. The intimacy of this relationship is what grants us success in our endeavor. If it was just us, fixing us, we would be limited to our humanity. Because of the unique oneness the Lord invites us into, divinity is on our side. The more he is in us, the more we are in him, the better our discernment is in regarding earthly things. Our certainty of the higher things prompts us to lay aside those things which, in the past, have easily entangled us. The closer we become in friendship with him, the more hungry we become for more.

Does this thought lead me into his mystery? Does it remove me from fixing my mind on eternal things? What happens to me as I let this thought continue and expand? How do I feel after shifting from this thought into a different topic?

If you are not used to self inventory, a great way to start is to begin with external influences in your life. Noticing your interior after social media, or during it, can help you catch a lot of little foxes in your heart. Did I look at someone’s post with something other than the love? Did I judge? was I trying to justify myself? Did I gloat, or rejoice in another’s trouble? Using programs you listen to, or watch, can also be an aid as you learn the permission to navigate the nuances of your heart.

Immersing yourself in thoughts of praise, or good things, can increase your awareness of what feels ‘right’ and grows authentic positivity in you.

It is Jesus’ desire for you to be one with him as he is one with the Father. You are free from condemnation when you are in Christ. It is in him that we find the unity of the brethren. It is in him that we have peace. We ask and receive when in him. Living, moving, having our being is from that sacred space of in him.

What does that mean to you? For you? How can that be grown? Can you picture him in you? You in him? We are told in Scripture the righteous run in and are safe.

Maybe a better question is- how can intimacy be grown without this understanding?

I’ll pause here, but in pausing, I am extending the invitation-to taste and see that he is good- is the path to the victory he made available to us 2000 years ago, at the cross.

For thoughts I desire to tame, that come during my day, I have a couple of different strategies I use. I remember seeing a cartoon strip one time. A person had a runaway thought that grew in her mind. By the time it got voiced, she had convinced herself of its truth. I have learned that if I want to be in charge of my thoughts I need to be able to interrupt and evaluate them before they take on a life of their own. Like snowballs, thoughts get bigger with the movement of my focus. I learned that an electron will spin the way I think it will spin, if I am observing. And water will change at the molecular level by the energy I emit in its presence. So for me, recognizing when a thought is capturing me, instead of being a navigation where I am able to remain my best self, is a start to taking captive thoughts. The more I practice the easier it is. And times when my need to take captive my thoughts is more important (because of stress, or peace) are the training grounds where I grow the most fruit.

A simple barometer to start with is to decide if the thoughts are temporal or eternal. That activates my free will to choose, or not choose them. Not all temporal thoughts are bad, but the activity of evaluating them grants me more control over them.

Another fun tool is to stop and breathe. Noting how the thoughts change when I return to thinking about them can also help me evaluate them.

I have found social media to be a great tool for teaching me and testing me. Evaluating my start point, against my exit point, of any social media stream, yields loads of clues about thoughts in me that have hardened, or decided, or grown tender, or stolen peace, or judged, or where light has been added. It can also be useful for examining my motives. Sometimes the why -why did I spend so much time there, or why did I look at those pictures that left me feeling yukky thoughts – matters.

For some thoughts I have learned to just say no. I turn them away. They are not allowed to steal my thought space.

For others I use a strategy a friend taught me. Every time I think that thought, I use it as a trigger to remind me to pray about/for someone specific in my life. If there is any negative energy trying to torment me with that thought, this tactic sees more immediate change. My enemy does not like it when I pray.

Thoughts are constructs. Seeing them that way helps me be mindful of what I am building. Asking the Lord, at the end of my day, where he got honor and glory, helps establish me in the peace found in Philippians 4. When I struggling with judging someone, I ask the Lord to shine light on my heart and the places I fail. When I am struggling to love, I ask him to refresh me with his love for me. When I am struggling with someone’s immaturity, I ask him to show me how I look compared to him in that regard. I have not become perfect at this, but these are some tools I have found that help, and I am growing as I practice them.

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.