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I was in no way prepared for what God set before me today. I keep my focus on Him and I know that He will use it all…but right now I am feeling like I am in way over my head and wondering why I was chosen to see. Something is happening and suddenly all around me are the poor and I have grown kind of used to them coming to where I am but when the tables are turned it brings a fresh and very hard reality to my life. I know that even these feelings are a part of His purposes. I have never felt more dependent and insignificant and just kind of….(can’t describe). What good can I do? I mean really? I can do nothing in and of myself. I have never felt more like crawling into bed and just crying but…I know I have to keep my focus on Him. The Sara Groves song, “I Saw What I Saw” comes to mind and cuts at my heart tonight.

What a great day at the Food Pantry. Such a great day so why do I feel so totally …almost lost or sick or something.

Someone testified that they have a job interview and asked for prayer for that but then mostly wanted to pray for me. Someone that came in two weeks ago in the depths of depression came back today with the joy of the Lord and the peace of God radiating from her. Answered prayer. Someone that needed food only had a prayer request for saved souls. That really touched my heart. Someone that had preached the Gospel and pastored all her life came there for food-now blind, close to her own death and yet she took the time to pray for blessings for me. The food had to be multiplied today. We served so many and we started with so little. It had to be. God is so very good and there was even leftovers.

It was a great day and yet I left and came home only wanting to cry. What is wrong with me? I feel almost desperate. Like I have caught a virus and there is no cure. I can’t explain the depths of my love for people that I barely know and that I once would have stepped over and ignored on my way to almost anywhere. I am so truly thankful that God changed that and gave me this new heart. Now, I can’t explain how much I want each of them to experience breakthrough and victory. I can’t explain what it does to me when someone says they do not want prayer and walks away and I can see the bondage. I know it is their choice but still I can’t explain my anger at the enemy for his lies and his schemes to keep people in chains. But I also can’t explain what it does to my heart to recognize that some of them are so courageous. Living in faith- moment to moment. Some living with incredible physical pain because they can’t afford medications or doctors or just are so new at this they don’t now how to navigate this thing called poverty. What kind of love is this that I feel? What kind of compassion feels so much anger? What kind of joy allows this many tears?

Yeah,it is like a virus and there is no immunization to protect my heart from what it is feels when I look into their eyes. I am so blessed and honored to hear each story. I did nothing to deserve what has been given me and in truth I need their hugs and their love so much more than they probably need mine.

You’d think I’d be used to all of this by now.

On 9/11/2006 the supernatural met the natural and God performed a miracle in my life. His Glory filled my room and He healed and delivered me and changed me forever. I repented of my sins, forgave all who I had been unwilling to forgive and I accepted His salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ. On that day, I made Him Lord of my life. He promised to restore my life and His promises are always true! While I have learned never to look back, except as He directs and for His own purposes, over the last 4 years I try to remind myself each day of His sacrifice and His love that brought me out of the place of death and into this place of eternal life. And as part of His Bride, I try each day to find a some way to declare my love and say afresh by word or deed my vows -for better or for worse. (taken from vows of the Endtime Handmaidens. I have made them my own)

Lord, I give myself to You;

I give my life to You.

I want to be your servant.

I feel Your call;

I believe I was sent

To do the will of my Father.

I will take orders from You.

I will submit to You.

I will let You break my will.

I will not seek for comfort

Nor for high position,

Nor to do what I want to do.

Mine is the humblest task,

Or the most dangerous task;

By the grace of God, I will do it.

I will go where You want me to go;

I will do what You give me to do.

If in this walk I seem to have nothing,

I will not complain.

At times when I find myself in a kind of prison, I will rejoice

And I will praise You

Because You’ve been to prison for me.

I love You, Jesus;

I thank You for calling me,

And that You want me,

And that You can use me;

I thank You that You are there to guide every step

As I do my part to ready

Your bride for Your return.

And I say today with my whole heart,

“Send the Fire and burn up the sacrifice.

Fill me again and again with Thy Holy Spirit

And give me a double portion of Thine anointing.”

” I want to talk to you about an unusual gift,” said the Chinese father to his beautiful, black-haired daughter. She smiled with anticipation. She loved it when her wise father shared special lessons about God. He loved Christ, and everyone who knew him was touched with his kindness and compassion.

He opened a worn Bible and began, “This gift is found in Philippians 1:29. It says, ‘For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.’ Something that is given to us is a ‘gift.’ The two gifts in the verse are belief and suffering. Suffering that results from our belief in God is a precious gift, the value of which will be fully realized only in heaven.”

The daughter smiled. “Thank you, Papa,” she said as she reached up to hug him. “I understand.”

The young girl grew up to be the wife of Pastor Li Dexian, who has been arrested over ten times and nearly beaten to death for his faith. She carries on the work with him, persevering because she learned at a young age that godly suffering is a gift. Pastor Li and his wife have won countless souls to Christ in Communist China, and they continue to work under a constant threat of arrest.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I would give anything for a real father/daughter conversation. I think it just happened. Not in an expected way but I accept the guidance of a dad through any means God uses. And I know that it is a gift and with a heart of joy and thankfulness I accept that gift and the lessons He wishes for me to learn.

Today He reminds me of His Son and the separation from Father that His own Son had to endure…and He reminds me that He did it for me. He reminds me that the gifts of belief and suffering are a packaged deal. Not only are they impossible to separate, each gift also strengthens the other. If I have been given the gift of belief in Christ, I will follow Christ. Following Christ means taking risks, going against what is popular, being misunderstood, and sometimes even enduring physical and/or emotional pain. Belief often leads to suffering. As I experience the same kinds of suffering that Jesus lived, I come to know him in a richer and deeper way. The cycle begins again because suffering strengthens belief. I can’t expect to be able to filter suffering out of this earthly life without reducing my belief in Christ.

Thank you, Abba. I understand.

(I said I would give anything for this conversation. Anything….and yet, this came without strings – a free gift. But how could I not give back my life and all of my love to such a wonderful Father as I have that loves me so.)

Just stand; and having done all – STAND!

– despite warfare

– despite resistance

– despite hassles

– despite weariness

– despite distresses

– despite temptations

– despite personal failure

– despite collapse

– despite grief

– despite loneliness

– despite chains

Just stand; and having done all – STAND!

– stand because of the cross

– stand because of the Lamb

– stand because of His affections

– stand because of His acceptance

– stand because of His mighty power within

– stand because of fountains of living water flowing

– stand because of His surpassing greatness

– stand because of His eternal purposes

– stand because of His beauty

– stand because of His everlasting mercies

– stand because of Love

Just stand; and having done all – STAND!

I want to be one that finds God even in the middle of complete darkness and so carries His glory, the darkness around me bows before His light.

The Lord is my Shepherd and I am learning His voice more and more each day. God said several clear and interesting Words to me in these last weeks. Maybe personal but I have an overwhelming feeling that at least part is corporate and all are connected to each other. I pray that even as I learn to hear and listen that I will also learn to follow with complete trust and to do so quickly. His Words to me were:

– “Study the life of Paul.”

– “I am not after a ministry from you. I am after a minister out of you.”

– “If you go after the ones that nobody wants, then I will give you the ones that everyone is after.”

The sheep that are My own hear and are listening to My voice; and I know them, and they follow Me. John 10:27 (Amp

As elections approach, it would probably do us some good to look at the story of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago. It would do us some good to remember that it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. And, it would do us some good to remember the price some of these paid for this freedom.

November 15, 1917 – NIGHT OF TERROR

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

Lucy Burns
And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’ They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

Dora Lewis
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.

Alice Paul
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

Woodrow Wilson and his cronies tried to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. The doctor refused. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy. The doctor admonished the men: “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.”

Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? Our kids have soccer or dance? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining? If for no other reason, vote out of respect for ANY of those who have suffered for our rights to do so.

( -opinions my own, factual information desseminated courtesy of Virginia League of Women Voters)

Honestly some days I would give up anything or even many of my worldly possessions to have ONE real father/daughter conversation; to get one hour of guidance from a dad. Believe me, if I could adopt me a dad I would but it really doesn’t seem to work that way. Oh well, it is what it is…and I’ll get over it.

So this is what I am hearing these last few days:

I am not after a ministry from you. I am after a minister out of you.

If you go after the ones that nobody wants; I’ll give you the ones that everybody wants.

In prayer I heard the word “prison” and when I asked God about it I felt He said to study the life of Paul.

God has also used the darkest moment of my life to date (my witness of my dad’s death and his shed blood and my feelings of betrayal and abandonment of my earthly father) and He has given me more revelation and knowledge of the Lamb through it. I have felt this revelation in my spirit so heavily that I can hardly contain myself…with excitement. Now that will create a doublebind for some but you will have to trust what God is doing in our lives and hear me out. I will write more of that in the next couple of days. As of now entitled “BEHOLD THE LAMB!!!”

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