Pt.3 : I could finally feel it.

9 Mar

Night after night I sat in that big room on those blue chairs thinking and praying, but mostly… striving. I thought maybe if I got up and paced or walked around that I could work up some encounter, some interaction with God. I went to all my classes, did all my homework, studied and tried to put forth my best effort, but my heart was still dettached to all that was happening around me.
I was still depressed, still without joy, and still unable to enjoy life and this new opportunity and place God led me to.

I recall one particular night I was talking to the Lord and was very simple and straightforward with what I was praying. I think it went something like this:

“ I feel empty with nothing left to give you. So I can be here another few months and go through the motions and that’s fine with me, ill do it. But I’d like to be changed. Id love to be healed. Id love to be free and delivered from this state I’ve brought myself to.”

I never heard an audible voice and I never felt a warm embrace…
I didn’t have one sole encounter that changed everything in a mere instant.
But after praying that honest and raw prayer, I opened my bible to Psalms 18:19 and I read something that finally broke the ice. It felt like this verse was written for me, right in that moment where I was found in Kansas city, in that big room sitting on that blue chair, desperately needing an answer, needing… something. I read these words::

“He brought me out into a spacious place; he delivered me because he delighted in me.”

That one sentence felt like a hammer. Like those few words actually had the power to chip away the calloused places within. I read that verse and realized i had no other choice but to belive it. I had to swallow those words down and let them sink deep. I had to believe that there was a God that knew me full well, exactly where I was – In the midst of all my brokenness and imperfections. And this God was going to gladly and willingly, take delight and pleasure in delivering me. The confused, hurt, and broken ME. I had to believe it.

I didn’t fully change in that moment, but it was the start of something. The start of my walls coming down and my heart finding life and hope again.

I realized He was present and tangible that night.
He was accessible and not afar off.
He wasn’t in space looking down in disappointment, but He was kind and tender.
He was willing to meet me in the thick of my fog, in the dark and deep trenches I dug myself into, just so He could look me in the eyes with His steady and loving gaze and remind me of His affections again:

“I will deliver you because I delight in you.”

He was ever-present and I never recognized it. He was near all along and I never knew it. He was for me and I could finally feel it.

… and it was that night, that these words of Truth became my anchor of hope.

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Pt.2: I arrived in Kansas City.

6 Mar

I arrived in Kansas City with a closed off mind and a wounded heart. Feeling pretty jaded by life’s sudden turn of events that landed me in this strange Midwestern town. IHOP was (and still is) surrounded by questionable gas stations and liquor stores and weird Chinese restaurant that you can tell used to be pizza huts. Located right off the main highway where the ministry has bought out an entire strip mall and continued to expand over the years up the run-down pothole filled road.

It was a place id wanted to be for years, a ministry with a message and heart that I had clung to in my early teens… and here I finally stood. Yet I never pictured that id finally make it to this place, better yet, I never thought that id make it there with my guard up, depressed and frail from a little appetite, and an attitude that was anything but positive and excited about my future ahead. For a place id dreamt of being, I was finally there and I didn’t want to be.

I was placed in an apartment right next to the base, where all the interns where housed and was set to live in close quarters with 5 other girls from various backgrounds, ages and races. I thought surely we were the oddest room they put together and couldn’t help but wonder “how the hell are we supposed to live together and survive this internship that had us on an insane schedule?”

You see, I signed up for an internship called “Fire in the Night!” Sounds extra spiritual right?! I fell in love with this internship the second I heard about it years ago, because it wasn’t for the faint at heart, it was for the intense, for the hardcore kind… or at least that’s what my preconceived idea was.

We were placed on a schedule of waking up around 3 or 4pm and then going to bed around 8 or 9am. It was essentially a vampire’s schedule. We’d have classes and services, and service hours in-between, but the meat of our time was spent in the prayer room. From midnight to 6am we were stuck in this big room. No windows to the outside world, just rows and rows of not so comfortable blue chairs. I was in this room with other interns who signed up for this weird schedule and the staff of the Night Watch – the men and women who have given their life to worship and agree with God in the night.

Teams of musicians would rotate every two hours, starting at Midnight with an “intercession” set, where we’d worship, then pray for the community, worship some more and pray for the president or whatever topic the prayer leader felt we needed to cover. and of course you could pray for whatever you wanted, or you can join in with the prayer leader if you’d run out of things to pray for… and trust me, 3 months of 6hrs a night in the prayer room, you definitely run out of things to pray about.
It was all strategically interwoven:: songs of worship and praise and prayer and our aim was to agree with what God was doing. It was something id never experienced before.

Then 2am hits, and another team would rotate on stage and between 2-4am was the “worship with the word’ set, and that was exactly what everyone did. It was a devotional time where the team would typically sing worship songs and create a more devotional and contemplative atmosphere. They would sing worship songs and interweave sections of singing passages of scripture. They would SING the word. Not just songs with little chunks of the Word, but they would really sing, word for word, the scriptures. Then after one would sing a scripture, another person would chime in with another scripture and they weave in and out all these passages set with the same theme and heart. It was different… but the really good kind of different.
From 4-6am we’d have another Intercession set and while ALLLLLLL this was happening, we were supposed to STILL be awake and alert with hearts and minds engaged in what God was doing…
YEAH RIGHT!

I was far from wanting to be engaged and incredibly far from wanting to participate 6hrs a night to this stuff. I wanted to sleep and sulk and worry about how my life was panning out and how disappointed in God and myself I had become. I didn’t want to pray for other people, cause hell, I was the one that needed the prayer. I needed the healing, the restoration, the encounter. It was me who needed this God to move on my behalf and in those first few weeks i couldn’t have felt more distant from Him. In a room full of men and women that seemed so close and so familiar with God, I felt like I was back at square one. I felt like i had nothing to offer this 6hr prayer meeting, nothing to give of any worth or value, but hurt and hopelessness.

What I didn’t realize then, that I see now, was the Lords tender and diligent pursuit of my heart. He knew right where I was, like only a Good Shepherd would. Right there in the thick of my clouded and divided heart, in the middle of my pain and insecurity, I was kindly led to Kansas City by a God that knew exactly what my heart needed. And it was there, in one of those uncomfortable blue chairs as I sat attempting to stay awake through the night, that God, in all of His loving kindness would willingly stoop down to my lowly state and meet me where I was.

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I don’t apologize for the many details of this post, because I want you to have the full spectrum of understanding as to where I was and how it looked and felt, so you yourself would comprehend the amazing depths and lengths God will go, to meet us where we are. He’s SO Good!

Please, if you haven’t already, do me a favor and subscribe to my blog (up at the top) so you can continue to follow along with me and my story. Thanks for reading!

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Pt.1: an unexpected journey

5 Mar

This past Thursday I flew to Kansas City, MO to stay with a really good friend of mine. I was there to spend time with her, visit others, and to see a very special place that is truly near and dear to my heart. A place where I was found. A place where I finally felt discovered… and I don’t mean by man’s recognition and eyes. In this place i was seen and known by a tender God who encountered me in subtle and real ways at typically 3am. As I sat in a chair, in a room, found in a building that was wedged within in a long strip mall in Grandview KC – it was there, in the unlikeliest of places, that I was found.

Almost 4 years ago, was the ending of my first (and only - surprise!) relationship. I was devastated. I thought I was going to marry this guy, and my happily ever after was on its way. My story was unfolding like I had wanted, like I had always pictured it would. Not to get into that relationship too much, but let’s just say it didn’t end so happily after all.

I was heartbroken and slowly began sinking into a very depressed state of being. I dropped to a measly 107lbs, with a face shrunken in and that flicker of life in my eyes slowly fading out…

My parents presented to me the option of moving away to Kansas City for a few months to Intern at the International House of Prayer (IHOP), a ministry that I had always loved and wanted to be a part of since my early teen years. Oddly enough, I didn’t want to go. Had they asked me a few years earlier, I would have had my bags packed in 10min. But this time, I didn’t want to leave. Of course I was the typical girl who thought my relationship would piece itself back together somehow, someway… surely I wasn’t wrong all along.

I finally came to grips with the mess I was and ended up agreeing to move to KC.
I quickly applied and was approved to the internship, I packed up my things, and just a few short weeks later my dad was driving me to the Midwest, to a very ghetto-ish place where id spend the majority of my time in one big room.

…and that was the start of a very unexpected journey I was about to begin.

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I promise the goal of this story isn’t about the relational healing I found, although that happened. And it’s not about me promoting an internship, although it was amazing. I want to tell you my story of how I was found in the midst of brokenness, and slowly reassembled by a very kind, patient and loving God in the dark hours of the night. How I discovered what prayer was, and what it was not. What I’d thought all along about this seemingly sacred act, that became real. Tangible. Personal. And Enjoyable.
I want to spend my next few posts continuing this story. I hope you trek along with me.

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death is an opportunity.

28 Feb

death can swallow you whole If you let it
leaving no space and time
a foe that makes no friends
unless you invite him in

the funny thing about death is
if you let it, it will make room
pushing open wide the curtains
letting light and beauty in, the filling and consuming kind

tender truth illuminates the deepest cracks of darkest pain
with the ashes of what once was now seen
the space for what can be becomes beautifully exposed
death is an opportunity if seen with bright eyes

a chance for new life
a new hope understood
a rescuing love now embraced
where the end seamlessly becomes the beginning

redemption awaits.

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PAIN: a necessary thing.

13 Feb

“Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” –C.S. Lewis

There’s a terrible disease we’ve all heard of, but perhaps don’t truly know about. It’s a bacterial disease of the nervous system. A disease known as Leprosy.

The first thought that comes to my mind, is this flesh-rotting kind of imagery, but the reality is quite the contrary. In fact, a lepers flesh is just as healthy as yours or mine, the only difference is that they lack the ability to feel pain. Leprosy breaks down the nervous system within the body, deadening their nerve endings, and ultimately their ability to sense danger or harm to their bodies. Leprous people live a virtually pain-free existence.
That doesn’t sound so bad, huh?! I think many of us would do anything to live a pain-free life. Yet for the leper, the absence of pain is his greatest enemy when he can’t feel the piercing of its arrival.

We live in a crazy world that has an unbelievable gift at doing or using whatever it takes to shut down pain in our lives. Did you know that people in North America consume over thirty thousand TONS of aspirin a year? While we make up 5% of the world’s population, we are the ones consuming over 50% of all the manufactured drugs, one-third of which work on the central nervous system alone. We are the most advanced society in the world, at suppressing our pain –numbing what hurts, so we can feel no longer. The danger is, when we refuse to listen to our bodies, we ultimately risk destroying them.

I realize most of this content is speaking of physical pain, but let your mind move from that place alone, to the emotional and spiritual side.

In the same manner as one would suppress pain in the physical, we do so emotionally… All. The. Time.
and I understand why… Who likes being hurt, and feeling weak and vulnerable?! It’s probably not on the top of your to-do list.
But here’s the problem with that… Here’s the great danger in pain suppression::

Just as lepers lack the ability to listen to their body and to feel pain, they experiences the great danger of harming themselves and never knowing it,
WE as a people, suppressing pain with all our might – greatly risk an internal breakdown of the heart and spirit, and will never know it. We spend all of our energy, resources and time on trying to do all we can to numb and silence the greatest indicator that tells us that something within, greatly needs our attention.

C.S. Lewis said with such truth; “Pain insist upon being attended to” and without our attention to it, we risk living a life without warning.

Pain is necessary thing, because without it, we wouldn’t realize what we needed most.
Without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need for peace when the waves of circumstance come crashing in on us from every side.
Without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need to be found when all feels lost and unseen.
Without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need for hope when the odds stack so highly against us that nothing seems possible anymore.
Without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need for love, the unconditional kind that knows no limits, or boundaries, and has no desire to keep records of wrong doing.
Namely, without pains warning, we wouldn’t know our need for a savior, our need for His nearness and our desperate need for His daily activity in our lives and hearts.

What I’m realizing is that pain is not an enemy to be suppressed; rather, pain is a weapon against a numb existence and if seen with the right perspective, can be a valuable tool in identifying the places we need restoration and healing, as opposed to a crippling blow that paralyzes.

I think our society has things backwards. We seem to believe that the people in pain are the ones that need help. Surely they need some form of pain-killer to suppress and numb out the bad. But now… now I’m beginning to realize that the ones who don’t feel pain, are in fact the ones that need the most help.

Pain is a necessary thing, because it reminds us that we’re weak, human, and in great need – every single day – of a gracious and loving God who desires to carry every weight, heal aching hurt, and redeem our hearts to Him.

So instead of running from pain and suppressing it with whatever seems fitting, let’s look at it square in the face and ask why it’s present, why “this” is painful, and listen for its response. Listen to its warning that shouts of the places we need to attend to. Listen to why it’s taken up residence in our heart and mind, so we can identify that place of pain and turn into our place of need. Our great and continual need of a rescuing God.

Matthew 5:3
“Blessed are those who know their need of God, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

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alive with His life.

8 Feb

The Universal Presence is a fact. God is here. The whole universe is alive with His life. And He is no strange or foreign God, but the familiar Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whose love has for these thousands of years enfolded the sinful race of men. And always He is trying to get our attention, to reveal Himself to us, to communicate with us. We have within us the ability to know Him if we will but respond to His overtures. (And this we call pursuing God!) We will know Him in increasing degree as our receptivity becomes more perfect by faith and love and practice.

-A.W. Tozer – The Pursuit of God

 

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the non-negotiables.

27 Jan

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
- Aristotle

This quote has become a favorite of mine, because it brings me back to the reality, that the few key life-giving sources that fuel my health and growth in life, must, without a doubt, become non-negotiables.

Because truthfully, time is a very hard thing for me to steward and balance. Between getting up at 5:45am to start my day and not returning home from work till 5:45pm – the little time I have thereafter, has always been a challenge for me to juggle.
Family, friends, writing, entertainment, rehearsals, eating out, socializing with actual humans… They’re all time suckers, and can contribute in both negative and positive ways on the human heart.

Why does life have to be so involved, so busy, so… consuming?!
With so much to draw from, so much to entice.
Yet we willingly invest in things, with full knowledge that we wont receive anything in return. No payback for our valuable time spent. 

And here’s the tough pill to swallow::  health and growth doesn’t just happen. It’s something you earnestly pursue, once you’ve settled your mind and heart on their worth and value.

(i’m really horrible at this) BUT I’m slowly learning, that there are some things in life that must be non-negotiable, in order to create healthy habits that maintain a healthy mind, heart, and life.

Define what those life-giving and contributing factors are in your life, so you can invest in the things that will profit you. And lets do our best to make them non-negotiables.

Ephesians 5:15-17
Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility, not as men who do not know the meaning and purpose of life but as those who do. Make the best use of your time, despite all the difficulties of these days.

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