Time together

So I went to lunch with a coworker a couple of days ago and was telling her about the night before and how I got mad with my husband. I explained that Evan and Bri were at the house and the three of them were sitting in the living room watching TV. I was in the bedroom doing stuff and had the TV on. I told her that there are times that I just want to be with John alone...not even with my children around. I told her that I wanted to be able to talk to him in private even though I really had nothing to say. I told her that I asked him twice to come and spend time with me in the bedroom and twice he told me he wasn't ready. Not ready to leave the living room, not ready to come into the bedroom, not ready to be alone with me, not ready for what. I explained to my friend that I did not want anything from him except his company. Her comment to me was, I am needy and I stated perhaps I am with him. I love him and wanted to be with him.
When I got in the car and I thought about our conversation. I was asking myself if I am needy with John and the answer is no. Its not unreasonable to want to spend time with the one you love. The Lord spoke to me. He told me, I feel like you do when I have arranged time together and you tell me you're not ready. My heart was hurt. I understood. I did not want anything from John except his company. The Lord does not want anything of me except my company..private and alone, where I can be real and myself because that is what He loves.

The Law and Grace is as far as the east is from the west.

One afternoon in bible study, the teacher/leader and my friend Renee brought in what she called a "mud puppy".  She did not tell anyone what it was. It looked like a big Georgia clay mud ball about the size of a BIG soccer ball. She sat it down and everyone touched it. It was dry, hard, dirty, and crusty. Renee got out a hammer and started chipping away carefully at the mud puppy.  It didn't take long to get to expose the center of the mud puppy. It was a ball jar with clear water in it. Renee started to explain the concept of Grace and the Law. When she got down to the jar, she opened the sealed jar of water. She had small cups and poured everyone a small amount of water and told us to drink. The water was not contaminated, discolored, or spoiled. It was clean and clear, good enough to drink and we did. Renee explained that when we were saved we were the jar (vessel). God cleaned us out and poured HIS HOLY SPIRIT in our clean vessel. He then sealed us with his Holy Spirit (Eph 1:13). (Sealed according to scripture indicates possession and security). Some of us choose to keep our outside vessel looking trendy, good, clean, and acceptable. Some of us don't. Some choose to slip back into the world after we've been cleaned up by the hand God and get dirty, and wet, and roll in the mud, and dirty, and repeat the process..until we look like a "mud puppy". Yet our inside is still clean and pure because God himself sealed us with a heavenly seal..The Holy Spirit.
 I started this blog by saying that God is good to show me spiritual concept with worldly examples. My sister would can vegetables in the summer. But in the winter when she wanted to cook the canned vegetables the jars would be dusty and dirty when she took them off the shelf. She would rince the jar before she opened the jar. She would then open the jar and cook the vegetable inside and not think twice about how dirty the jar was on the outside. She would then use the veggie for what ever recipe she needed it for. (Side bar) God can pour us out and use us for whatever He desires.

Why do we think that we have the ability to make ourselves clean and worthy or unclean and not useable? What kind of God do we have if we have the ability to make what was made pure.. unpure? Was His sacrifice not good enough? (Heb 10:10-14) What God has made clean nothing or no one can make dirty. What God has deemed worthy nothing can make unworthy. What God has birthed, nothing can unbirth it. Nothing.., church, scripture reading bible studies, retreats, etc..will or can make or keep you clean, worthy or saved only the Spirit of God and only He can keep you saved, clean, and worthy of your salvation.
Its NOT JESUS + anything I do...Its JESUS and what He did.

The concept of Grace changed my life. It was very difficult in the beginning because scripture says God lives through me/my life. I can do nothing apart from God..not save myself nor lose my salvation.

Recommended tried and true teacher of Grace are Bob George, Joseph Prince, and Bill and Anabelle Gillem and of course Galations.

walking through this world

In the evenings when I get home, most of the time all I can think about is getting in the bathtub. Until I get in the tub, I continue to feel stressed and I can't relax. I feel weighed down. It feels like my neck and shoulders cannot relax. But after a bath, I feel better, renewed, relaxed. If I have had a bath earlier in the evening I will still stick my feet in the tub and rinse them off before I get in the bed.
Tonight I was in the tub and I asked the Lord why I am like this.  The Lord spoke to me and said remember the disciples in the upper room with Jesus during the last supper. Jesus just told the disciples that he was going to wash the world off their feet. He told them that there was no need to bath again and again..it was just your feet that was getting dirty as they walked through the world; they were clean...just their feet (Jn 13:4-15).  Then the scripture said Jesus reclined again after He washed their feet. Jesus probably knew the only way the disciples could relax and converse with Jesus was after the sin of the world was washed from them. Then in the scripture it says that Jesus told them to wash each other's feet. Practically speaking, how do we wash each others feet...get in the presence of the Word. Jesus is the Word and the disciples were in the presence of the Word of God. The Word will wash away the world from your feet. Relax and recline at His breast.

parables---in real life.

God started to explain to me about the spiritual things of God by giving me worldly examples. God does this in scripture by using parables to explain a concept.
Well sort of along the same lines... God gave me a spiritual concept by using .....things of sexual nature.

I started sensing that my relationship with God was changing from a father/child relationship to more of a husband/wife relationship. He started explaining that the husband/wife relationship trumps all other relationships because of the intimacy factor. This is what He showed me one afternoon. My older son Wes had answered the phone. As he was talking I glanced his way and looked at him..nothing was on my mind. God spoke to me very clearly and said...."You will never know him in the same way his wife will know him; If you did it would not be a healthy relationship but an incestuous relationship. His wife will know all of him and you will respect her position in his life". God spoke that in a matter of about 2 seconds yet time stood still for several mins. I stood there trying to process what God had just shown me and had tears running down my face. (Wes had no idea what was going on). Thoughts went through my mind like: I was going to be a horrible mother in law if God would not have shown me this or I did not really understood the progression of my relationship with God from a child to an adult woman.
From this point on,  I view God as more of my husband than my father, which at time I guess is appropriate. But honestly, I don't want to go back to the child/father relationship..its not fulfilling. You see the example? God intends for us to grow up and enter into an adult relationship with Him which includes intimacy. There is no other relationship we have on this earth other than the husband/wife relationship that includes intimacy. Husband and wife become One ...ie.. intercourse. God wants to become one with us through his Holy Spirit in which we know each other intimately. God showed me that a child's healthy goal while growing up to be an adult is to become independent of his/her parent. IN the husband/wife relationship the goal is to become closer/more dependent of each other. Do you see the ultimate goal of each relationship is polar opposite of each other. So... how can we continue to be in a father/child relationship and expect to grow in intimacy with God. The relationship must change. How does the relationship change..growth in our relationship with God where we realized that God want there to be a reciprocal exchange of love which is deeper than being told what to do and obeying commandments. It is developing the intimate exchange of love, worship, exposing yourself/weaknesses and being vulnerable and unashamed in front of the one who loves you with all His heart (which was expressed through His son, Jesus).

Tell me what you want.

July 9, 2006

Tell Me What You Want

The Holy Spirit spoke to me this morning about passiveness and assertiveness.  Some people believe that to be assertive is to be aggressive but it doesn’t mean that at all.  To be assertive is to express what you want, or what you believe in a controlled manner.  God wants me (us), His Bride, to be assertive not just to each other but especially to Him.  I am pretty good at responding quickly to the voice of God as I am with my husband John but I also take a passive position towards God and my husband in the area of intimacy.  God wants me to—express myself to Him, approach Him, to want Him intimately.  He (and perhaps my husband), desires me to initiate intimacy in our love relationship. 

What makes a healthy relationship is the equal and consistent interaction between two people which includes things of a sexual nature.  In the intimacy of mine and God’s relationship, God wants me to tell Him what I want.  To head off my response to this, He reminded me He has made promises to me—(to us), He will not reject me (us) at my (our) most vulnerable state, He has promises me (us) that He will not judge me (us) in the middle of my (our) feelings, such as fear or passion.  He has told me (us) that I (we) am completely acceptable to Him, worth more than gold and silver and I (we) am loved with an everlasting love.  He is safe to approach, He is a safe place to land and He is safe to completely allow unlimited access to my physical, spiritual, emotional and mental being. 

Now...10/2010

As you can see the date on this writing was 2006 and God is still teaching me about coming to him in truth and honesty and telling him what I want. I've also had to start telling John how I feel and what I want from him. God has spoken to me and reassured me that I am free to tell Him what I want, no matter how nonspiritual it may sound

I was meeting Renee at a Women Aglow meeting and the Holy Spirit spoke to me in the car and asked me to tell Him what I wanted. I did not respond. At the meeting when the speak was finished speaking she asked if anyone wanted prayer. Renee and I discussed who would go up first. AS the lady was "reading her mail" and telling her what God wanted to her know...which we both knew that the lady had heard from God, I was giggling because I knew and she knew the lady had heard from God. 

It was my turn and I went up to the lady who told me that she does not hear this very often from the Holy Spirit....she said to me; God wants to know; What do you want? I could not even answer. She prayed a prayer yet we both knew that I had not revealed what I really wanted.

Later that day....I got totally honest with God. He reminded me that He already knows my heart but He needed me to say it to Him.  I told God I needed to be free of the curse that has been past down in my family and I was tired of living in fear all the time!! I expressed I am tired and don't want to live this way anymore! I asked for Him to either change my situation, increase my faith, remove the fear but do something!

I am relieved to say that I am experiencing more and more freedom everyday from fear. I have been given an increase of faith and an assurance that God wants me to express to him what is on my mind and heart.

I sense that God is laying beside me and wants to have pillow talk with me about my desires and fears. Its the kind of things that only a bride and her groom discuss alone in the dark.

Changed the name..more fitting

My husband will do this ridiculous thing sometimes..get up at 4ish AM and bang around in the kitchen which is right outside my bedroom door. So needless to say, I'M UP AT 4:30 ish AM thinking about this Blog and how uncomfortable I am with the name and the look..etc, its just not me.
So the new name and design..still basic in the eyes of these big girl bloggers, yet it feels more like me. Not quite sure how this is going to work out but so far so good.
I appreciate the encouragement from my family..they are the best-Love ya'll so much.

Forgive and/or forget or remember?

So I have a Facebook friend who asked the question is it possible to really forget when you choose to forgive. There were several post on the subject which were very good. Like every Christian who is has made the decision to "do life with God everyday" I was also confronted with this. My boys who are now 20 and 22 yrs old, where about 5 and 7 yrs old. They were in school and I was making their beds after everyone left for the day. I was about a  2 yr old in the Lord when He spoke to me very clearly. He told me that today was today that He wanted me to forgive my father. You see, my father committed suicide when I was 17 yrs old and left his wife of 36 yrs, my mother, behind to pick up the pieces. 

This was the conversation the Lord and I had that morning:
Lord: You need to forgive your father today.
Me: I don't want to forgive him Lord
Lord: You will not be able to continue to walk with me if you don't
Me: I don't feel like doing Lord
Lord: It doesn't matter..I will give the feelings to go along with the declaration later.
Me: Its not fair
Lord: You will not be able to continue to walk with me if you don't.

I realized that the Lord was offering me healing. I realized that I did not know how to live my life without my anger on a low steady boil. Whenever I needed it (anger) I could tap into that anger and get things done..such as intimidation, manipulation, bullying etc. How would I be motivated to get things my way or to make things happen? I didn't know know how to live my adult life without anger/rage.

So I agreed with God that morning and decided that as an act of my will..I would forgive my father. Then the Lord told me to say it out loud. I said it out loud. Then the Lord told me to scream it and I asked why do I have to do that. He told me that I would be putting the enemy on notice...

To the enemy: HEAR ME AND HEAR ME GOOD..I FORGIVE MY FATHER. SATAN WILL NOT ABUSE ME WITH THIS ANY MORE. SATAN WILL NOT USE ME TO ABUSE OTHERS ANYMORE.
I did not hear anything else from the Lord that day but I knew I was in the middle of His will and he was pleased with me and I was in the shadow of his wings and I knew it!

A Year Later:
There was a family reunion on my dad's side. As I walked up there was a picture of my dad and his siblings in a frame on the table where you checked in. When I saw my dad's picture...I remembered what I had forgotten..how much I loved him and how much he loved me.  Before I forgave him I did not remember anything good only bad and after I forgave him I could remember the good and not so much the bad.

So perhaps we've put God in a box..the box of our own understanding. Perhaps he wants us to remember what has been forgotten before the forgiveness and forget the stuff that held us in bondage before the forgiveness. Just my thoughts.