Love transforms the spirit.

Saturday morning, I got up and a pesky little thought kept running through my mind: if the result of your love isn’t unity and community then it’s broken. I must admit that I don’t love everybody, and I don’t love all the time. In fact, I often find myself wanting to smack some of you but most importantly, some of the people I do love… unity and community is not the always outcome.

I thought about the different reasons for the different outcomes within my relationships. From my perspective, some are my fault, some are their fault and others the fault of circumstance. For instance, I used to love my ex-husband. I loved him even after our divorce. I loved him even after he remarried. I mean this is the father of my kids we are talking about it, after all, but the year our son graduated from high school, our daughter got married. Their father decided not to attend our son’s graduation dinner party and not pay for any portion of our daughter’s wedding. When I tried to appeal to him because both of his children were hurting, I was told to butt out as both of our children were now adults and he did not need my help communicating with either one of them. He has never been a man able to maintain putting our children’s needs above his own and I will admit that after he bullied our daughter because she would not allow him the honor of walking her down the aisle though he was contributing nothing to the wedding, I lost respect and lost love.

I have two sisters and I am sure they would both agree that I do not love them all the time. In fact, I have been mostly estranged from one of them for quite some time now.  We were closest when we were younger but as we grew into adulthood, something broke. Not sure how the fracture began but it grew into a fissure and then a hard break. I believe she would tell you that I do not love her which is not the case, I do very much. I know at this point, only God can provide the healing we need. The other has desired a closer relationship, but we have been unable to realize that goal. We are very different and yet come from a shared upbringing. We look very much alike, often being mistaken for twins but we don’t share much common ground. I also love her very much, but to like her, I had to learn to appreciate our differences, understanding God made her purposely. I have not always loved them like I should, when I should. We tend to overuse our relationships with family, believing them to be our relationships most capable of standing the test of time and taking the abuse… the whole blood is thicker than water mentality.

I have at times left a trail of tears in the wake of my love.

So how does my broken love get mended and molded into something that is bringing unity and creating community? Brings us straight back to asking the question what is love? I John 4 verses 8 and 16 tell us God is love and as discussed before the more in-depth description of how Love / God acts in in I Corinthians 13:4-8a: Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. 5 Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. 6 Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. 7 Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. 8 Love never stops loving.

Verse 8 concludes with: Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten…which means to me at the end of everything, there is love. It was here before us and it will be here after you and I are gone. It is greater than us. It is bigger than us. Perfect love is beyond what we are in and of ourselves are capable of. It is something that needs to be practiced because it does not often come naturally.

In Aramaic, the first verse: love is patient can be translated into love transforms the spirit. What else on earth can transform us like love does? What we first must come to truly understand is that we are not capable of the kind of love that Christ is calling us to, the type that brings unity and builds community, without Him. The more I try to love the way that He loves, the better my love gets because it’s no longer just my love but rather mine transformed by His.

It allows me to love someone who has hurt me without requiring apology. It allows me to love someone who isn’t mature and regularly making mistakes. It allows me to find the best in every person. It helps me find hope in every situation. Nothing and no one are lost to His love. Not me. Not you. Not anyone. Unless of course, you are choosing to hide yourself from Him like Adam and Eve in the garden. Hiding is only an illusion though because He saw them, and He sees you. He is the Shepherd that leaves the ninety-nine for the one (Matthew 18:12). We can read the words and understand them but to comprehend we must first be loved (I John 4:19).

I know a man. He is a good man. He tries to be kind and helpful to everyone around him. His life has not been easy: given away as a baby, never adopted, raised in group homes. What he has endured would break many and yet he survived. He is good, but he doesn’t know how to accept love. He doesn’t know how to give love. He equates it only with a sexual, romantic type relationship. God chases him. Praying for him one evening, God showed me this man walking in the dark, then God shined His light down on this man so that he could see but the man stood, still in the darkness, refusing to open his eyes. He said, “I don’t know where to You want me to go?” God replied, you need only open your eyes as your path is illuminated” but he stood there, eyes shut, hands out trying to feel his way what was now only a perceived darkness.  I shared this with him. He believes he is looking for a woman when in fact, he is looking for the healing love that ONLY God can provide. It hurts me to watch him not allow himself to be truly loved but aren’t we all just a bit like that: eyes closed, afraid of opening them to the light of His love? We are more afraid of who He might ask us to love in return for the light than we are the darkness.

I love some well. Some better than others. When I analyze those relationships I am better at, it doesn’t simply come down to liking someone or understanding them but rather it is those that began from a place He created within me where my own judgments and opinions were not allowed to develop before His love for them was rooted in me. My prayer is that eventually my older relationships that are broken will eventually be renewed as I learn to more deliberate in how I love.

I told a friend who had asked me: how do I love without getting hurt all time; that I have found the key is to love through Him. I can love anyone He asked me to love because the love I am exuding is His and immeasurable. It is not so touchy and doesn’t mind being vulnerable. In fact, it sees vulnerability as strength. I am more particular with my own love; the love that is mine to give away. That love takes time to develop because it relies on trust and honesty and loyalty…plus a myriad of other things important to me for maintain a loving relationship but HIS LOVE is not reliant on ANYTHING BUT HIM. His love instantaneous, never fails and is everlasting, so I can give it away like candy…and so can you!

My love is broken. I drink tequila. I have tattoos.  I still use cuss words. I need to lose a few. My office is a messy. I want to smack the bumpers of people driving slower than me in the left-hand lane. I am in NO way perfect but grace brings me thankfully into a beautiful place where His perfect love can flow through me and be what He needs me to be for whomever is in need of His love regardless of color, gender, sexual preference, hairstyle, body-type, whether they drive on two wheels or four, etc. because LOVE TRANSFORMS THE SPIRIT and the first spirit it transforms in me.

Can you let God be God and worship Him still…?

All our lives are filled with ups and downs. Each of us has burdens to bear and paths to walk…some harder than others. I have a dear friend who was diagnosed with stage four cancer almost five years ago: lung, brain, liver and bone. She has attacked this cancer diagnosis with a ferocity that is uniquely her through faith, food, medicine, supplements and yoga.

We went to high school together. She was friends first with my youngest sister but as we grew up, our lives followed a similar path, single mother. She lost her mother to breast cancer shortly after she graduated high school. Her father moved away and married again. Her aunt, executor of her mother’s will, misappropriated the money her mother had left behind to help her children attend college and begin “adult” lives. She never became bitter. She just worked harder.

She worked her way into a good job, making good money. She worked her way into a happy relationship with a ring on her finger. She worked her way into a nice house filled with a healthy, vibrant son. She worked her way into a good life, filled with good people whom she loved. American dream and all that.

When her son was nine, she took a trip down to the coast of Texas to spend the day with her fiancé, some friends and her son. She had managed to maintain a friendship with the father of her child. He was there too and they all enjoyed a day in the boat on the salt water. The father decided to leave early and left his son behind to finish enjoying the day with his mother and their friends not knowing that when it came time for boat to be pulled out of the water, to be loaded onto the trailer and hauled a short few blocks home, their son would fall and boat on the trailer would unknowingly run over him causing a lung to collapse and his skull to be cracked and his brain to be injured.

He was airlifted to a Corpus Christi hospital and to be honest, I can no longer remember how long he was in intensive care, but that hospital became her home for the next year. She watched her son fight for his right to breathe and live and she watched as the little boy she had given life to become a very different child. Friends rallied at first but as time wore on, she found very few could endure. She and the father were both understandably, angry. Though I walked with her through this time, I still cannot fathom the pain, hurt and anger at the situation…the hand she was dealt.

She is a very strong, very intelligent, very persistent woman and she tackled the issues facing her son head on… in a very HER way. When we were young, she was THAT friend that was so loyal she was ready at all times to do battle on your behalf. If someone looked at you wrong, she was the girl shouting: “hey bubba; wanna take this outside where I can teach you some manners?” She was always the available shoulder to cry on that would give you comfort food, then smack your ass and say okay, not let’s get back out there.

During this time, she did not just lose who her son had been before the accident. She lost her finance, her job, her house, her friendship with the father, many friends and her freedom but she never let that stop her. She continued to fight and provide for her son. She never just took a diagnosis as gospel. She researched and taught herself all there was to know about the challenges he faces. In fact, she’s become such an expert, she has been asked on many occasions to advocate for other children. Doctors and nurses not up to snuff, fear and respect her. She has always been fierce but now she is a force to be reckoned with as the fight within her fueled her to always push every boundary for the betterment of her son.

When she was diagnosed herself, I feared the anger that had subsided would again, rear its head but instead, she changed. Always a believer, she was now in a position of no longer be capable of handling all this on her own. I watched as every shackle began to fall away, and she began to rely fully on Him. Now, I need you to understand, her faith was already stronger than most people you and I know. God had been making a way and her ends meet since her son’s accident. But a heart that had been filled with struggle was being transformed to a heart filled with love. Some might disagree with me because as I said before, she is strong willed and fierce, always willing to go toe to toe with anyone bringing negativity into her world but as she came to the end of herself, she found a strength that is only Him.

Everyday isn’t perfect. She loses her temper with certain situations. She struggles to trust people. I am not claiming she is angelic or without fault or flaw but what I am saying is that none of this…NONE of it, has kept her from believing in both her son’s healing and her own. None of it has stopped her from trying to help others less fortunate around her. None of it has robbed her of her the fight or faith within her. Instead all of it has molded her into a warrior that searched every nook and cranny of both the physical and spiritual world for His answers for her life. She has not been broken. She hasn’t been defeated. She hasn’t given up. She has been bolstered by an unwavering truth that God is God and she will worship Him still.

Whatever you are facing today…whatever attack you are under…are you able let God be God and worship Him still? Can you be like Job: “Look, He may well kill me, but I will hope in Him. Still I will be ready to argue my case before His very face. In fact, this will become my salvation, for the godless wouldn’t even dare to approach Him (Job 13:15-16).” In your darkest hour, can you put your pride down, your doubt, fear, anxiety, issues of worth, your disappointment and worry…can you lay those at His feet and say, “I will praise God for as long as I live. I will sing praises to my God as long as breath fills my lungs and blood flows through my veins. (Psalm 146:2)”?

Nothing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39) but praise and worship can separate us from what ails us. He inhabits the praises of His people (Psalm 22:3). Hence when we worship, we are in His presence and in His presence is the fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). God is love (I John 4:8) and perfect love which He is, cast out fear (I John 4:18). My friend has no fear. She doesn’t want you thinking or saying or believing God can’t do His work in and through her. In fact, she will remove herself from anyone that doesn’t believe this along side her.  I thank her for the example of hope she is to me and others around her, running life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us (Hebrews 12:1).

She’s always reminded me of Winston Churchill. Here are a few of his quotes to inspire both me and you:

•  If you’re going through hell, keep going.
• You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.
• To improve is to change, so to be perfect is to have changed often.
• Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
•  Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.
• Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

I never did mind about the little things...

It always sort of weirds me out when what is swimming around in my mind, manifests itself out of one of my pastors’ mouths.  God often used this tactic to confirm streams of thought to me … or rather its direction.  My mind is one that likes to muddle through what I see going on in and around my life to try to decipher a pattern or a path because once I can see choices, I can discern outcomes.

This spiritual gift is why God often choose to leave me in the dark when it comes to my own shit. It frustrates me. Leaves me feeling lost, alone and forgotten … that is until I realize that it is a self-inflicted loneliness and I shake it off, understanding once again that He is asking me to walk by faith not by sight: for we live by faith, not by what we see with our eyes (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Last night at Bible study, Jacob Diaz was speaking to us about submission. Often when pondering what it truly means to submit to the will of God, I find myself singing Keith Green’s: To Obey is Better than Sacrifice. Heavy words…to obey is better than sacrifice. I want more than Sunday and Wednesday nights…cause if you can't come to Me every day then don't bother coming at all. To obey is better than sacrifice, I want hearts of fire not your prayers of ice and I'm coming quickly to give back to you according to what you have done.

I have found that it is in submitting the small things that He really begins to lead my life. It is much easier to say yes to being obedient the big things because we see those things as a calling; than it is to tell the person who is pissing you off, I love you anyway. BUT it is our submission in these little things that show Him we are willing to be obedient and capable of being trusted.

Surrendering our will for His, has for me been the hardest struggle throughout my walk of faith. I really like empirical evidence. I like knowing where I am going and what the outcome will be. I enjoy those relationships most where the other person says I love you too or lets me know I am needed and wanted. Sometimes, I feel like I had better faith when I was younger but in truth, I only lack real faith in one area and it is in this area that He requires me to walk by faith the most… OF FREAKING COURSE. I know when I stay surrender in my attitude and keep my heart vulnerable, I am happiest. When I begin to think too much about semantics, I get bogged down and when I get bogged down, I get unhappy and when I get unhappy, doubt sets in and then I feel alone. I feel alone because I took my eyes off Him. Our relationship, with Him, is the ONLY relationship we have where it is ABSOLUTELY okay to lose ourselves. Doing this is our worldly relationship causes codependency and heartache.

I suck at sitting still. Hence, He makes me sit still. He puts me in situations where it is necessary and others, where it needs to be my witness to help another. If I am not obedient, I cannot help. If I cannot help, then someone else might not get the exact help they need. PARADOX! The more mature my faith becomes, the less I want to rebel and say no to Him and the more aware I become of what that no might cost myself and others. I don’t always have the best attitude. Many times, my yes is more of a fine accompanied by rolling eyes and maybe a firm turn in His direction, but I go and willingly because I know His ways are higher. I don’t just read it in the Bible in Isaiah 55:8-9: My intentions are not always yours, and I do not go about things as you do. My thoughts and My ways are above and beyond you, just as heaven is far from your reach here on earth. I KNOW IT because time and time again when I push the outcome ranges from not so good to horrific BUT when I wait on Him, when I am still and KNOW He is God, things seem to just work themselves out in ways that I would have never imagine and generally if not always, for my benefit.

Give peace a chance...

I was married to an addict who would come in late and incoherent, sometimes passing out in our son’s bedroom. This frightened me because my ex-husband often would black out and my son was small being only 3-years old. I, of course, never shared this with my son or my daughter for that matter. They were much too young to carry the burden of their parents.

One afternoon, I was home alone with my son.  We were on the couch watching Nickelodeon…Blue’s Clues, Little Bear, etc. when he turned to me and grabbed my face. He kissed me and said, “Mama, you don’t have to worry about me. There is a giant lion outside my window. He keeps me safe.” I laughed, and we spoke about it a bit. I asked him if the lion was a girl or a boy and what color; about his roar. Then we slipped back into watching cartoons. I honestly, did not give it too much thought as children are often wildly creative when making up stories.

Soon after, my ex-husband and I decided it was time to part ways (a story for another time). My sister and her family lived across the street, so our children would often play together. About a week after my ex-husband’s departure, my nephew was over playing with my son. After snack time, he crawled up into my lap and asked me if I had ever seen the giant lion that was outside Keller’s window. He proceeded to tell me how big the lion was and that it was there to keep Keller safe.  He could see it from his bedroom window and would often hear him roar when Keller’s daddy would come home late at night. In that moment, it occurred to me that the lion would roar to keep my ex-husband from passing out on Keller’s bed; instead directing him to the other twin bed in the room.

Just because you don’t see Him protecting you, doesn’t mean He isn’t there.

Be strong and brave, and don’t tremble in fear of them, because the Eternal your God is going with you. He’ll never fail you or abandon you! Deuteronomy 31:6

But let them all be glad, those who turn aside to hide themselves in you. May they keep shouting for joy forever! Overshadow them in your presence as they sing and rejoice. Then every lover of your name will burst forth with endless joy. Psalm 5:11

What is the value of your soul to God? Could your worth be defined by an amount of money? God doesn’t abandon or forget even the small sparrow he has made. How then could he forget or abandon you? What about the seemingly minor issues of your life? Do they matter to God? Of course they do! So you never need to worry, for you are more valuable to God than anything else in this world. Luke 12:7

If your Spidy senses can’t detect His presence, don’t presume you are alone.  I wasn’t alone lying on the abortion table. I wasn’t alone in a loveless marriage. I wasn’t alone when my daughter left for college and never called her mother (wink, wink, tisk, tisk). I wasn’t alone when my mother had a quadruple bypass. I wasn’t alone when I ran out of gas and had no money to fill my tank. I wasn’t alone when I laid in the dark and screamed at Him for my life not being what I thought it would be at 45-years old, still single and struggling.

Who could ever separate us from the endless love of God’s Anointed One? Absolutely no one! For nothing in the universe has the power to diminish his love toward us. Troubles, pressures, and problems are unable to come between us and heaven’s love. What about persecutions, deprivations, dangers, and death threats? No, for they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love, even though it is written: All day long we face death threats for your sake, God. We are considered to be nothing more than sheep to be slaughtered! Yet even in the midst of all these things, we triumph over them all, for God has made us to be more than conquerors, and his demonstrated love is our glorious victory over everything! So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. I’m convinced that his love will triumph over death, life’s troubles, fallen angels, or dark rulers in the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken his love. There is no power above us or beneath us—no power that could ever be found in the universe that can distance us from God’s passionate love, which is lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One! Romans 8:35-39

We MUST learn to have faith if we are going to walk in it. Maturity in Christ requires us to quit relying on empirical evidence such as what our eyes can see or normative evidence, what our hearts feel but instead knowing who God is and what He has promised. He gives us things from the moment we accept Him as Savior: peace, love, forgiveness, mercy, grace but it is our responsibility to accept those gifts and apply them to our daily lives. It is a choice to love. It is a choice to be loved.  It is a choice to be at peace.

I am choosing peace though what my eyes see frightens me, though what my heart feels saddens me because He told me in John 14:27 that He left behind His peace for me…here on this earth.  His peace is perfect, as are all His gifts and with His peace, I don’t have to yield to fear or allow my heart to be troubled or anxious but instead I can be courageous…because I have a giant lion outside my window, protecting me as do you.

Pain... I still don't like it.

I injured my back when I was 19-years old working on the ski slopes of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. A man over 7-feet tall lunged for me and caught me, bringing me down with him. I had stopped the lift for him to get off. It was the bunny slope. Being a brand, new skier, he was afraid. Instead of just removing his skis or pushing himself slowly with his poles, he decided he needed a hand. Same fear, I suspect that makes a drowning person drag down their savior. Anyway, I was where I was supposed to be but the proper space between us did not protect me from his exceptional size. I was taken down off the beginners’ slope by ski patrol, sent to the hospital and went through weeks and weeks of physical therapy.

Ever since, one wrong move can create pain.  It can be something totally innocuous like picking something light off the ground or sleeping wrong. It is also true that generally, I get a hint beforehand. A little tweak that doesn’t stick but still alerts me something wicked this way comes. Yesterday, getting in my vehicle, I heard something, twisted to look and bam! Just like that, my hips lock up, my lower back is aching, and a pulling feeling shoots down my thighs. I should have expected it, as last week, it was bothering me a bit, but I stretched and rolled on the foam roller. Bingo! Pain gone.

It got me thinking about two things:

1.       Why do we not do what we know we should do?

2.       Paul’s “thorn of the flesh” and what it means to live in pain.

The question of why we don’t do what we should do has, to me, seemingly two easy answers: can’t, won’t …  which are truly the root of all the rest. I knew I needed to go to the chiropractor, but I didn’t because I chose to use my time in other ways PLUS, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to spend the money on it. We make believe our answers to this question are complicated and follow them up with anecdote: if you walked a mile in my shoes or you don’t know what it is like to be me but boil it down: I can’t, I won’t. I clearly chose I won’t until I must and now I am paying the price.

Which lead me to thinking about Paul and the thorn in his flesh:  To keep me grounded and stop me from becoming too high and mighty due to the extraordinary character of these revelations, I was given a thorn in the flesh—a nagging nuisance of Satan, a messenger to plague me! I begged the Lord three times to liberate me from its anguish; and finally He said to me, “My grace is enough to cover and sustain you. My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9a). We don’t know if Paul’s pain was physical, emotional or spiritual, but I don’t think that matters because what God wants us to pull from His allowing us to live in a bit of pain remains the same no matter where yours comes from…it brings us to greater understanding of His grace.

Most of the pain we live in is self-inflicted. Some pain is good like the kind we endure when working to get our bodies healthy. But it is the pain we don’t chose that bothers us most. CS Lewis wrote in the Problem with Pain: “Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say; my tooth is aching than to say my heart is broken.

Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9: “We are cracked and chipped from our afflictions on all sides, but we are not crushed by them. We are bewildered at times, but we do not give in to despair. We are persecuted, but we have not been abandoned. We have been knocked down, but we are not destroyed.” He finishes up in verse 12: “So death is constantly at work in us, but life is working in you.” We have all heard it said that from the moment we are born we are working towards our death. It is inevitable.

So how do you deal with your pain? Do you try to bury or ignore it? Take it out on those around you? Face it head on? Do you ask for help or go it alone? Do you fuss about it all the time? Do you smile through it? We have many options but only one brings relief: giving it away. “Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Then come to me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with mine. Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in me. For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear” (Matthew 11:28-30).

I am not God… a collective sigh of relief, I know. I cannot say why Paul needed a continual thorn in flesh to remain humble. Seems extreme to me.  I can only speculate he was a choleric or sanguine personality type. I can however attest that when God has allowed my pain to continue there has ALWAYS been a something I needed to learn or remember, most centrally: rely on Me. We forget often. We think we can do it ourselves, especially in the good times. We also sometimes forget to be reverent, thinking we know when we do not. We put other things and people first. We ignore Him. We answer His questions of us: I can’t, or I won’t and so He puts us in a place until we surrender to: I will.

My will for His will…that trade off in my thinking was one of the hardest places I have ever been in my life and He did in fact, allow me to live in pain. Post surrender, bad crap still happens. I still hurt sometimes but I am never in pain like I was before. I have peace when I shouldn’t. Joy when I should be crying. Love … all the time! I think the purpose of pain is to teach, to grow and to morph us into something better than we would be without it. ALL that being said, I still don’t like it (wink, wink).

Take chances, make mistakes. That's how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave. -Mary Tyler Moore

Most people want to avoid pain, and discipline is usually painful. -John C. Maxwell

To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it! -Charlie Chaplin

My scars are the shadow of my destiny...

Monday, I got a new tattoo.  It is on the inside of my right wrist.  It is a bee.  A honey bee to be exact. It is a tangible acknowledgement of the calling spoken over my life by God and reaffirmed through people and prayer to be like Deborah.

So, who is Deborah? She is found in the Book of Judges. Judges were leaders who ruled in Israel during a time of no centralized government. She, along with fifteen others, served Israel in the time before kings. The Passion Translation says, she served as judge, sitting under a palm tree and settling disputes; which has a much different connotation than ruling.

Moses is the first person I remember hearing being assigned this position during his time of leading the Israelites out of slavery and into promise. In fact, the same word in Hebrew is used to describe both Moses and the judges: shofet. To me this job seems akin to administrator: a person responsible for running a business, organization, etc. per Webster’s dictionary. Deborah was judge, prophetess, warrior, writer, wife and “Mother of Israel” (Judges 5:7). Can you feel my trepidation as this pronouncement over my life?

She was such a powerful warrior (in spirit and prayer of course as women did not go physically to battle during this time) that Barak, the general, would not go to war without her. She prophesizes over him that because of his lack of faith that God will use a woman to ultimately defeat their enemy and he will see no personal glory from their victory. She wasn’t referring to herself, by the way. When the Israelites put the beat down on the Canaanites, their general, Sisera, ran, and he ran right into Jael. Sisera’s king was at peace with Jael’s husband so he thought he was safe but when he laid down to rest, Jael put a tent peg through his temple, killing him.

Deborah wrote a song of victory that day that is regarded as one of the oldest passages in the Bible. Her lyrics confess: “My heart is warmed by those in Israel called to command them, who offered themselves willingly to the people. Praise the Eternal One!” (Judges 5:9). She was excited about her purpose and the work God called her to do no matter the level of difficulty.

You know how some days, God just reaches out from His word and says the exact thing you need to hear. Hear to be affirmed or corrected or loved. He did that for me yesterday: Let everyone be devoted to fulfill the work God has given them to do with excellence, and their joy will be in doing what’s right and being themselves, and not in being affirmed by others. Every believer is ultimately responsible for his or her own conscience (Galatians 6:4-5; Passion Translation). The Voice says… Each person has his or her own burden to bear and story to write (v5). It got me thinking about Deborah’s exclamation and my own attitude towards my calling to be more like her.

It’s come in phases. First spoken over me in September of 2007 that I would be given the gifts of prophecy, healing and discernment. “Your scars are the shadow of your destiny”. At the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of all that. I did not feel “saved” or “spiritual” enough for such things to be attributed to me. Plus… hello? SCARY! Nobody likes a prophet.

My father was very excited about all of this, of course being the man of God that he is but I recognized immediately that the healing part wasn’t a physical healing but instead a spiritual and emotional one.  As the teacher continued to speak over me that day, he said I would transfer my healing to others and that people crushed by emotional scars would be comforted and released. He said, I would hear God as a still, soft voice and I would pray for the broken and wounded. Within a few days my sister, Tara, approached me and asked me yes or no. I said yes or no what and she said just answer according to the prompting of the Spirit. I said yes, and she whipped out a bottle of anointing oil, swiped it across my forehead and said that I would be a problem solver and was blessed to be a blessing, a threefold blessing. At this point, I am feeling like … dude, God maybe a little bit slower? Let me adjust to what you are telling me. Maybe try to figure it out a bit. Get some grounding. Take a breath.

God doesn’t want you to take a breath unless it is His breath because what I decided to do in that breath was slow down His course of action. Just a stupid side note here: every time I try to type action, it initially comes out auction. HA!

Anyway, I waited a month before I took a single step towards understanding a threefold blessing. Ecclesiastes 4:12 speaks to a threefold chord cannot be easily broken. Our God is, if you allow me the leap as I am no scholar, threefold. Numbers 6:24-26 is considered a threefold blessing: The Eternal One bless and keep you. May He make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Eternal lift up His countenance to look upon you and give you peace. There are so many theories and examples that I asked the Holy Spirit to intervene and describe for me it’s meaning as applicable specifically to me. He was clear… a salvation: body, soul, spirit. Being as I am not Jesus by any means and hence no savior let alone THE Savior, I asked what salvation means within this context and the Spirit took me straight to the dictionary: preservation or deliverance from harm, ruin, or loss.

I slowed down again and not until 2010 did I start revaluating His calling on my life. I started seeking him. Asking questions and getting answers like:

·         Don’t obey emotions just because you have them.

·         Find the level of maturity the Holy Spirit expects of you.

·         Not knowing your place creates anxiety.

·         Operate in wisdom.

·         Quit trying to explain motives and intentions and just behave.

·         Don’t let anything: no fault, no shortcoming or offense go by unforgiven.

He gave me James 1:4 as a touchstone, “Don’t run from tests and hardships. As difficult as they are, you will ultimately find joy in them; if you embrace them, your faith will blossom under pressure and teach you true patience as you endure. And true patience brought on by endurance will equip you to complete the long journey and cross the finish line—mature, complete, and wanting nothing.” Another stupid side note, if you know me well…some of those answers are flat out hilarious.

I began reading everything I could find on love.  I wanted to understand His love and how to operate in it. It became my desire. Eventually, He lead me to my Pastor and my sweet church and He began to proof and refine that love He was filling me with and before I understood it, it poured out of me. Then in January of last year, someone praying over me said, “you have the spirit of Deborah”. Just when I was feeling good (aka comfortable) about life and what I thought my calling might be, BAM! I knew just enough about Deborah to get me into trouble in my head. I did not want to be at war.  I did not want to be a judge or a prophet.

Satan wants you to reject what God calls out as truth upon your heart, your mind and your life. Rejection of that truth cripples His power within you and hence your power over satan. I did for a bit but then I began to study. I mean if I am a Deborah, I’d better figure out what the means. Laugh was on me because though she was successful at war, she was also success at peace bringing it to Israel for 40 years until the time of her death. He is calling me to battle in a war that is already won, and I should feel no anxiety or stress because I already know the outcome just like she did. Operate in faith.

She was a writer. This was no issue for me. I was already writing after a long discussion with Him about who’s going read this and why me, I finally gave up and started typing. She was a prophetess. Still a bit shaky on this one but I will say I have accepted discernment and I know God helps me see the outcome when He needs me to which is usually in the form of advising others.  She was a judge but as I said above, it’s more like administration and that is a gift I have been operating in effectively for quite some time, like since birth because I am a first born. We’ve already covered my mothering in previous blogs and then here comes the choke up for me: she was a wife. I was a wife, but I am not a wife. I would like to be a wife, but I have not had much luck with men and in fact, I would say most don’t see me at all. I have come to accept this as a protection provided by Him but just being 100% transparent…this is an area in my life that is a great struggle for me. I have had to take a hands-off approach because I need God to be fully in charge in this area and I have had to surrender what I once believed to be promises, trading them for happiness and contentment right where I am at which is not a wife…just in case you missed that SNORT.

On January 15, 2015, I wrote in my journal:

I don’t understand my path. You are testing me, but I am so tired and feeling very unloved. I want released so badly and I cannot understand why You are keeping me tied. Have I disappointed you?  He answered with 2 Corinthians 12:9, “and finally He said to me, “My grace is enough to cover and sustain you. My power is made perfect in weakness.” So ask me about my thorn, inquire about my weaknesses, and I will gladly go on and on—I would rather stake my claim in these and have the power of the Anointed One at home within me”. Followed by, “it is not for you to know why but rather to stay your course and obey. I hear and understand the desires of your heart. I know you are hurting. Your pain is my path. Endurance…run your race, Tiffany and allow me to do a good work in you”. Can you hear the echo in that of: “Your scars are the shadow of your destiny”?

I have quit fighting His call upon my life now…mostly. Human and so I will always have to fight off my flesh from time to time, but I try to keep my heart and attitude surrendered. When I don’t know what to do, which direction He wants me to go, I search deeper within the truth He has given me: I am a daughter, a sister, a mother, a friend, a writer… a Deborah. I am called to love and like a honey bee, fight for my hive; giving my life, if necessary. Oh! and maybe now we would a good time to mention, Deborah means bee in Hebrew.

If God is love…why aren’t you?

My friend Jen shared a message by Jentezen Franklin with me Monday. It was a sermon he had preached once before but now after writing a book, Love Like You’ve Never Been Hurt, it had a new, deeper meaning to him. It was a beautiful message in which he said these very profound words: “Christians aren’t supposed to be mean”. Jen and I ended up having a conversation about the message in which I told her a story I had just recounted to her daughter after she told me how she had been treated post giving her honest testimony to some fellow Christians.

I have a cousin who is gay. He has a sweet, tender heart. He struggles with his faith, in my opinion in part because it is popular within the Christian culture to say you cannot be both a believer and gay. I disagree. I know plenty of people who willingly sin and sit in church next to you on Sunday. Neither of you question his faith because his sin is acceptable to you, but God says clearly in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death and I don’t remember reading a list of which sins lead to death following that statement, do you?

I went to visit him once while he was living in Los Angeles. We went out to a bar to have a drink and meet some of his friends, one of which I ended up having a conversation about faith. He asked how I reconciled loving my cousin when the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. I explained to him that I wasn’t his judge and I did not want him to be mine. He said yeah but… and I interrupted him describing a teenage girl who had two abortions and grew up to marry an addict and alcoholic who hurt both her and their children. I told him that I didn’t want him judging my sin of “thou shalt not kill” anymore that I wanted to judge his sin of “a man should not lie with another man as he lies with a female”. I need grace. You need grace. We all need grace. God is love and if I am striving to be like Him then I need to be loving. It is my job to love you not to judge you. Love brings you closer to Him. Judgement does not. He wrapped his arms around me with tears in his eyes, put his head on my chest (why do gay men love boobs) and said, “I wish we all could just love each other like that”. This man was out of touch with his Christian family because they did not approve of his lifestyle choices. They had not spoken to him in over three years.

Jen’s brother is the associate pastor at our church. Jake recently asked us why we give more grace to backsliding Christians than we do the unsaved. Powerful question. The Christian should know better while the sinner has yet to learn.

Luke 12:47-48 states: “Every servant who knows full well what pleases his master, yet who does not make himself ready and refuses to put his master’s will to action, will be punished with many blows. But the servant who does not know his master’s will and unwittingly does what is wrong will be punished less severely. For those who have received a greater revelation from their master are required a greater obedience. And those who have been entrusted with great responsibility will be held more responsible to their master.”

As a believer, I wear a much greater responsibility to do what is His will. It is not my job to rank sin and decided who gets grace and who doesn’t.  It is my job to love according to the love I have been given.

“Those who are loved by God, let his love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of him. The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love. The light of God’s love shined within us when he sent his matchless Son into the world so that we might live through him. This is love: He loved us long before we loved him. It was his love, not ours. He proved it by sending his Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life!” 1 John 4:7-11 (emphasis mine).

If you were raised in the South, then you at some point have heard someone somewhere tell you: you attract more bees with honey than vinegar … this holds true for us as believers. I don’t know a single person, including myself, who wants to go into a church knowing they will receive nothing but judgment, criticism and hatred. Until we grasp that love is at the root of the great commission, we will fail as the church.

Last time I referred to story about my church and the love that can be found there. Kneeling at our tiny i.e. VERY short altar, realizing what God was asking of me… I might have… not knowing anyone was near because my hair covers a multitude of sin as well as my face and saying it very softly, so it wasn’t truly or, so I thought inaudible… said shit.

YES! Literally, as God revealed His truth to me, crying and almost prostrate at the altar, I said, “shit”. Unbeknownst to me, my pastor, Warren, was right above me and without missing a beat, reached down, touched my shoulder and said, “Lord, in the name of Jesus, I pray the shit out of Tiffany. Amen!”. He laughed and told me to text him what that was all about later. He didn’t judge me for cussing at the altar.  He loved me right where I was at and it is love like that that changes the world. It is unconditional and all encompassing. It makes you feel like you can move a mountain with a mustard seed of faith. It gives you the knowledge that no matter how you feel, you know you are never truly alone. It teaches you to give grace and mercy, throwing judgement out the window, leaving it to God alone to handle. It helps you understand that being vulnerable is a strength not a weakness which in turn allows you to throw your arms again and again around the neck of someone that feels like they don’t deserve it. It brings you back to a church filled with it because inside there is no fear of condemnation just the soothing hug of acceptance.

LOVE IS THE REMEDY!

Remedy by Zac Brown... because he picked up on a universal truth like no other, I suggest we sing along:

I’ve been looking for a sound
That makes my heart sing
Been looking for a melody
That makes the church bells ring
Not looking for the fame
Or the fortune it might bring
In love, in music, in life

Jesus preached the golden rule
Buddha taught it too
Gandhi said eye for an eye
Makes the whole world go blind
With a little understanding
We can break these chains
That we've been handed
I've got the medication
Love is the remedy

Pray to be stronger and wiser
Know you get what you give
Love one another
Amen (amen), amen

I’ve been thinking about the mark
That I’ll be leaving
Been looking for a truth
I can believe in
I got everything I need
Let this heart be my guide
In love, in music, in life

I’m not saying I’m a wise man
Heaven knows there’s much that I’m still finding
Making my way down this winding road
Holding on to what I love
Yeah, and leaving the rest behind
For love, for music, for life

Pray to be stronger and wiser
Know you get what you give
Love one another

(Love is the remedy)
We’re all in this world together
Life’s a gift that we have to treasure
Happiness, now that is the measure
Love is the remedy
(Love is the remedy)

Everyone can be forgiven
One love and one religion
Open up your heart and listen
Love is the remedy

Pray to be stronger and wiser
And know you get what you give
God is love one another
Amen (amen), amen, amen (amen)