Sometimes growth is as simple as defining what I am really mad at.
I know a teenager who is refusing to forgive someone right now.
They are of accountability age.
And they refuse, knowing they cannot be made to do so.
It is an internal work of the heart that involves mandatory participation of the will.
No, they say. I am not ready.
And it makes me SO mad!
How can a tree turn from the sun? How can water refuse its movement? How can air resist the wind?
I realize I perceive the infraction as small. Therefore I do not legitimize the need for a grudge to be held.
I have had to forgive far larger, and what the teen refuses to forgive seems petty to me.
But surely it is not petty to them.
And I realize the demand in my heart-
if I have to forgive what is impossible to forgive, then everyone around me should do the same!
Because if I have to forgive and everyone else does not, that doesn’t seem fair.
And lo, I have just stepped into judgment of another, the very thing I hoped to avoid by doing my own forgiveness.
Is my forgiveness then unconditional?
If others around me do not forgive, if they consciously choose to not forgive, will I still?
And I realize, this is the question of a laid down life.
This is the question my savior faced on a larger scale.
I am in awe again, of the work of the cross.
I am in awe again of his mercy.

I am having random thoughts this morning about letters, and the life of them.
I have been reading some stories that imagine the book of Acts in the Bible. As I read the stories I find myself interacting within the tale.
I realize I do this often when reading. And listening, and interpreting and…well, really all of my life.
I consider the Bible. How Jesus IS the word, made flesh and dwelt among us.
How in His words, and in His letters, I feel Him.
I think about how I can interpret the dream and feel the dreamer on the other side of it.
Or how, in giving a prophetic word, I sometimes pull from the future that is beyond the person.
I consider the unity of the brethren.
I ponder how the underground church in China operates, how there is non verbal communication about the time and location of a meeting, and how everyone knows and goes.
I am exploring today, how the grass withers, and the flowers fade, but the word of God stands forever.
Without the constraint of time, how does that all change?
Most of the times I have experienced heaven, there has not been verbal need. Thought is understood without speech.
And He is the word. And the word dwelled, and became flesh among us.
And somehow as I look at what is here and not there, I am left with bones.
Bones remain the longest of any part of our earthly bodies. The structure of our frame.
The way my spirit moves sometimes in heaven does not feel bone constrained.
And I wonder, if bones that are married with letters, are part of becoming one.
I think of John and his record- that we would be one with Jesus as He is one with the Father.
What if every word we ever think or speak forms the structure of who we are in heaven? And then how true we are to our faith becomes the level by which we are recognized in heaven.
Words.
I am speaking less of them these days.
But not as few as I used to.
Selah

I was in a group yesterday listening to some dialogue. One side of the dialogue presented the truth of heavenly stones come to earth. There was a need to defend this part of God’s manifestation on the earth, and almost a need to protect the reputation of the move. On the other side of the dialogue there was belief that other things in God are more important than the gems. There was also a lack of experience to color the dialogue.

I feel each side cannot hear the other in this. Having experienced the manifestation, I revel in the intensely personal nature of God who provides for me an actual piece of heaven. And I recognize the value in things he brings that I do not understand. It demolishes my idolatry of my intellect. There are moments when a gem is exactly what will be a part of my perfecting- there are other times when a gem might actually get in the way and cause me to turn towards the gem rather than the gem giver.

I walk with a group of people who dialogue and process through hard things together. For me it has immeasurable value. The new one who came needed to defend the gems because to him they were as important as what I consider immeasurable value. There has to be room for this. We all are made by God. All that we hold immeasurably value, together, makes us one.

This morning I was struck as I was driving, by a picture of the Bride.

She was overhead.
I always weep when he shows her to me this way.
Her arms were outstretched.
Her heart beat with a vibrancy.
I saw that I was close to her heart. That is, indeed, why some of my testimony is redeemed because of the Father’s heart it allows me to grasp.
I saw the young man- he was near her fingertips. In this season he is designed to be a part of the Bride manifesting on the earth which does include signs and wonders.
It is okay for us to each be where we are.
It is, in fact, necessary.
The important thing seems more that we respect each other as works in progress of Most High God.

I love that God used a gem to assure me I was in the right spot at the right time. I also love that he allows me to be in long term relationship with folks who are mature an suffer well.
In the words of Paul, in the book of Phillipians- 10-11 I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.

Permission is granted to be the part of the bride you were created to be.

I remember the day. I was going into a memory from my past. The person facilitating for me was not well known yet. I watched her as I allowed the content of the memory to emerge. To make sure she would not fall apart. To make sure I would not have to rescue her. To make sure it was safe to let go.

And then I found.
Fear.
This was not a memory I could go to.
They would know.
He would know.
He would feel me accessing it.
He would use it as a doorway to find me.
And the final punishment, that I was born and bred for, would fall.
I was sure of this.

So I shared, with my facilitator, that I could not go because he would know.
She asked if it would be okay for us to ask Jesus about this.
Would I be willing to listen?

Yes.
And I heard a sound. A roaring sound. A rushing roaring wild loud sound. Crashing around me. Water. His voice as many waters. His answer to my fear. He said, in the midst of this loud crazy sound, that if Ray wanted to reach me, he would have to go through the sound of the Lord to get near. And I knew he would be unable. No power could get through this sound. This was the Lord. Uncreated God. The power stunned me.
In most of my healing he came as gentle. This sound of his power convinced my heart.

So I chose to look. And of course it was awful. And of course it involved Ray. But the fear of him touching me through my looking at the memory was gone. The sound surrounded me, the voice as many waters was my shield.

And when it was done, I chose to forgive. From the place of pain. Counting what it had cost me. All of it. I released my forgiveness. And then the Lord challenged me. Out of Matthew, chapter 5. Being perfect, as he is perfect. A step beyond forgiveness. A step into love. A step that was willing, in the place of being healed, of being healed so completely, of being able to say- when his book is examined, Lord, and you are judging him for his choices, let the actions he perpetrated against me be removed from his book. Because you have healed me. And his sin no longer matters or has influence in my life, other than to increase the justice and mercy I know from you. Let it not be counted against him, what he did to me. I choose love. To love my enemy. To not need to see him punished for what he did. To trust you that you will judge by the whole state of his heart, instead of the portion I saw expressed to me in violence and hatred and abuse.

And there was greatness there. Not greatness in me, but greatness the Lord had put in me of himself. It was me discovering his greatness. And it was greatness. Higher than my ways, or thoughts.

To be perfect, as my Father is perfect.

And the following week, during our preplanned family vacation, we visited Niagara Falls. And the sound of those waters…for me…was an echo of him. He knew. He knows. And He is knowing. Selah.

An angel showed up in my dining room a few days ago.
He was not intimidating.
He offered me a ring.
I asked who Jesus was to him.
His gaze went upward, his light changed and he began to proclaim that Jesus was the Christ, the one who is who was and who ever shall be.
I looked at the ring.
He looked at me.
This ring is an understanding of eternity that you shall need. I am giving it to you because of all the death that has been around you.
If it goes into your arms it will become strength to do.
If it goes into your thighs it will become faith.
If it goes into your heart it becomes hope.
If it goes into your belly it becomes joy.
If it goes into your back it becomes understanding.
If it goes into your feet it becomes mercy.
If it goes into your knees it becomes humility.

I asked where it might go to become love. He answered that love is already structured into me and that is why this ring works.

Where would you have chosen? I chose the belly. I miss the joy before so much death.

I heard a sermon after that. The sermon was being preached out of John. It talked about how John came to prepare the way. The valley will be filled. The mountains brought low. The crooked ways will be made straight and the rough places will be made smooth.

And it came to me, that the earth is round. And that if all these landscape changes took place, the earth would look a lot like that smooth ring. And I wonder if all of our paths were put together, and mapped out as terrain, if the terrain of the earth over time might be a reflection. I pause. I ponder.

It is the glory of the Lord to conceal a matter. It is the glory of the king to search it out.

The end of the day was a beautiful thought- what if everyone fought to do the dishes because they knew that he who served gains authority to bless, and that the joy of blessing the legacy that has entered the bloodline in one generation is exceedingly good?

The dishes were a joy this year.

The meal was rich and plentiful. Making the meal with others makes it more so.

There is something that has shifted and does shift each year when I put the bird into the oven. God notes the time. He orders the day around it. There is something significant between him and me when that part of the meal, which stays the same, yet always changes, is done. He speaks and sings and prepares, and adds and He becomes…life…in us and around us. He is always joy as we recall together the years it was not possible for me to remove the neck and gizzards myself. He is always hope as we put the bird in and expect the finished product to look and taste delicious. He is always love as he reminds me that the bird gave his life. While for the bird it was not a voluntary choice being made, yet it reminds him of his choice, that day. The full yes.

He gives me grace for the moments each year where all is not love. He longs with me for the time beyond, when all shall be so. He views Thanksgiving differently than most people I know. He was thankful before the Pilgrims. He is the tradition, not man.

He is with me each year as the meal becomes ready, in the moments where not everything is the same temperature and not everything turned out as planned; he reminds me of how my brain has changed, my capacity has changed, and within all that and above all that I am being made new. And I am a new creation, old things are passed away. And we share a moment, in awe of Him, and His ways, and His amazing grace.

I worked out in the morning. As soon as I got on the road the spontaneous thanks began. Thank you God for my breath, for this breath. For overwhelming my heart with your love. For the blood pumping from my heart, for keeping my heart’s emotions alive. Thank you for the brain you have given me. For taking me through the ups and the downs and the roller coaster moments an always circling me back into you. Thank you that you are YOU. We spend some wordless appreciation and tears there.

Thank you for my husband. What a perfect man you chose to perfect me, to sharpen me, to bump me into new levels of yourself. And each child comes next. The tears are streaming as the gratitude flows. My friends are listed and rehearsed and blessed. Every mentor. And each client. And our pets. And then those who have gone on, remembering an thankful for their touches and the the changes they have brought. Then the stuff. I find that when I let it flow through me spontaneously without filter, it is also a super good tool to see that balance remains, and order is in alignment with the ways of Him.

How great is our God! When he brought me out of captivity, we were like those who dreamed. Then our mouths were filled with laughter, and we began to sing. And they said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for us! Yes the Lord has done great things! And we are glad! Those who sow in tears, shall reap in joy. (I borrowed that last paragraph from David.)

Surely he makes everything beautiful in its time. (I borrowed that from David’s son.)

There are seasons more intense than others.
This has been a deep time for me. While my communion has enlarged, I am often left without words to express- the hard awful stuff has brought some completion and changes and I can feel the way I evaluate life changing. One thing the Lord has me doing is reading Scripture aloud to him. I am in the Gospel of John and am struck by how the changes in me have changed the way I read, the pace, the interpretation, the pondering.
Today I was in John 5. I had just heard Dr. Suuquina teach the Hebrew of the Pentateuch so the number 5 being highlighted as the number of porticos at the pool of Bethesda stopped me. How rich when the structure of a life points to God and His ways. Savoring. And I see how the man gets healed and the rulers are so bound by religion they cannot appreciate the miracle. Surely religion always needs to protect its laws lest it be threatened. I sigh. And then I stumble into Jesus response. I am struck that the Father judges no one, for he has given all authority to judge to the Son. And because the Son is now a man, the Father has given the Son the authority to judge the sins of all mankind. But he did not come to condemn. He came to seek and save that which was lost. And as I look at judging in that light, I see, he needed to judge my sin so that he could accurately divide between spirit and soul and die for what separated me from God. He judged my sin so he could assume the debt into his crucifixion.
What would it be like if we judged each other by that standard. If I looked at you and the places I saw your sin would only bring the awareness in me of how much you get to understand his life, his suffering, his death, and his resurrection. What if I did not condemn you for your deficits but it only brought the awe of what the completed picture of you might entail?
What a different picture than what we often do. Assess, judge, decide, opine.
It is funny that in the same passage Jesus notes it is not him that will incriminate me, but Moses. If I look to the law for my resurrection, the law has the power to proclaim my guilt before God.
I am undone by the truth that he looked at me, he saw me, he judged my sin so that he could assume my debt before God. I rest on that precipice today. All else seems smaller in comparison.

Yesterday, I looked at the hardest thing I have ever faced. In the greatest detail. With full emotional connection throughout.

I saw him as he chose to put every heart he was dying for, on the altar at the top of God’s mountain. I could not have doe it without being connected to God and being plugged into my timeline.

The way he came yesterday for me was unusual.
I thought I would write about that today.

I had been listening to a song by Will Regan and United Pursuit. I lean not on my own understanding…my life is in the hands of the maker of heaven. And then it changes into- I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open – I know that I can trust you.

When I began to connect with him in the time set aside for healing yesterday, he came as God. He came as a mountain. I was on his/its side. It was steep. And I was asked to just focus on the next step and to let my hands remain open.

He was in the mountain. He was the mountain. He touched me through it.

At one point I saw Jesus, off to the side. He was on the cross. And I saw a new component. In addition to taking on all sin, rebellion, iniquity, curses and covenants, in addition to taking all trauma, all disease, all infirmity, all sickness, in addition to the identificational thing he did there for each one of us, he also sacrificed.

He looked at every heart that he was dying for. He saw them, knew them, loved them. And he offered them up, as a sacrifice, to his father, on the top of the mountain, so that they would retain their free will. Through his suffering, he learned obedience. This was a part of that, I think. Loving so much that I would die for someone, yet still being willing to not demand any love or loyalty in return. Suffering in the truth that some will go their own way and find a destruction they were never intended for, and choose it, time after time after time, until choice is yielded to the substance of decision.

At one point, during my climb yesterday, I was asked to make my own sacrifice. The hearts that are dear to me, would I be willing, to identify with Abraham, to identify with Jesus, in my small way, and yield my rights to the role that I had perceived was mine as a christian? Would I be willing to stop interceding out of fear that if I stopped they would go astray? The indirect strength that came from Jesus as he made his sacrifice came to me through the mountain of God and aided me.

And if obedience is defined as alignment, it is greater in me today. And if suffering means choosing that which is right no matter how hard, I have suffered. I feel changed today. And I have much to ponder. I cling to the truth that he makes everything beautiful in its time. The fulness has not yet come.

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.