Booked: This day could have ended a lot differently.

Let me get real for just a second. For the past two days I have been sick. I have one child recovering from the guck brought on by pollen, while the second child went to the doctor today because of the same guck that seems to be attacking everyone in central Arkansas right now. My husband is nursing an injured knee, my dad is still staying with us, and I am thankful that the Bible app is so readily available on my phone because I have felt the need to sanctify folks in scripture and anointed oils so that these demons would flee in Jesus' name. Clearly, I am not one of those "salt and light" people when I am sick.I am still trying, Lord knows I am trying.

Father, empty me of myself so I can be filled with you. Keep sending the hurting to me, because I will lift them up in Your Name. Don't let me pass up one single gift that you are showing me because I am too busy with life.  And please, don't let me lose my witness because of less than perfect life circumstances. 

Paul and Silas praised you from prison; Job praised you after every single thing (including his family) was taken from him: Sarah will praise you in spite of  sick kids, an injured husband, and an un-diagnosed sinus infection.

Today I  had to get out of my normal classroom routine so that I could report to my home office in Plumerville and sign my contract for next year. Praise God, I can help support my family for another year. On my way back, I was about three blocks away from the school when the unexpected happened. I headed into the middle of a busy intersection (Dave Ward and Donaghey for you locals) with the green arrow leading me on when a distracted driver who thought she could defy the laws of physics came face to face with me, her car no match for my mid-sized SUV. I literally had a "Jesus take the wheel" moment when I realized that there wasn't anything else I could do but just hold both of my feet pressed to the brake, close my eyes, and brace for impact.

But the impact never came.

The lady was driving a car comparable to a smart car (size wise) and before I closed my eyes and  I uttered the name "Jesus" I had a vision of this lady laying on the hood of my car. When I opened my eyes, she and I locked eyes and the tears welled up in her eyes fast as my mouth formed the words "Are you ok?" to her. We both reversed our cars at the same time and I kept waiting for that moment to come when the two vehicles that had impacted would suddenly unlock from one another, but that moment never came. Pedestrians on  the left and right were frozen solid until we eventually left the scene of the would-be accident.

I arrived back in the classroom with a cold sweat slowly forming in the back of my hair and within a couple of minutes was whisked outside for recess time. Still trying to regain composure and not having told a soul about what had just happened, the sweet sound of an unknown child's voice approached; she was from a different classroom but shares a playground with us sometimes during one of our recesses.

She reached up and pointed at my necklace and said, "I know what that is; it means that Jesus was with you."

The tears filled my eyes as I realized that I was receiving a message from my Abba Father, the one who had delivered me from the potential wreckage that could have changed how this day ended, for me or the other driver.Jesus was there and He was using this sweet angel to let me know it.  I thank God for His intercession and  that even on the days that I allow life circumstances to affect my outward projection of anything other than love, He extends grace and somehow lets me know that I am His, grumpy or not.

Through His eyes

One of the things that I ask God for pretty regularly is to let me see things as if I were seeing them through His eyes. When He does, it is almost as if you can never look through the same lenses that you previously used because it is almost as if a shift occurs and your eyes have been opened. One of the things that burdens me is when people have seen something traumatic happen in their lives and it has distanced them from God. As someone who has seen God take the broken pieces of a life and make it beautiful again, times of struggle are never what we want but knowing that victory awaits on the other side because of who HE is enough to shout "Glory!" even when the world as seen through our own eyes can be terrifying; seeing through the lenses of a Savior can bring certainty during the unknown, peace through the tumult, even love amidst hate.

But what if you don't know? The concept of understanding that God is good and all who believe in Him is hard for someone to understand if they feel abandoned by Him, or if they believed God actually allowed that bad thing to happen to them. Or worst of all,believing God made that bad thing happen because of something bad they did. 

If this is something that you struggle with, let me be very clear here: God has not left you and the pain that you are feeling or have carried with you has not gone unnoticed by the Almighty. He is able to bring restoration to your story.

In the last week, God has sent divine appointments my way. I have always believed that God will meet you where you are, and sometimes that means sending people your way. I was able to speak with a sweet friend about her early diagnosis of cancer during childhood and how that experience has brought an appreciation to each day that she is healthy. She battled cancer in such a way that even now, over twenty years later, to recall the story brings tears to her father's eyes. Because the type of cancer that she was diagnosed with is more common in adults in their twenties, every time she is sick for an extended amount of time of senses something different with her body, she goes in for an MRI. Her smile is beautiful and contagious, and as she watches her little boy grow up, I can't imagine what joy it must bring her to be given the gift of another day to see what the next day will bring. 

Last night I sat down with a friend whom I have prayed for and that God would break the chains of  an alcohol addiction for her so that she could experience the life that Jesus has for her. The prayers that I spoke were manifested last night as she wept at my kitchen table and told me about an encounter she had with God in which He told her that Her chains were not too strong for Him to break. As we sat together tonight and opened up the Living Word of God, the addictions fully came to light as she pulled the (un-prescribed) pain pills from her purse and we claimed that ALL chains would be broken in the powerful name of Jesus. Please be in prayer for my friend as she is precious to me, but moreso to Christ. 

Beloved friends, feeling as though we have somehow been left behind or forgotten about by the Almighty Father who beautifully created us in His Image is lucifer's trademark move  and when we truly understand our own identity in Christ, we understand how we are a masterpiece that He didn't put together for our own glory, but for His. Realizing that your story, your life, has a purpose, is one of the greatest gifts that we can claim because it gives us the assurance that we are never alone but being sought out by the Shepherd that wants nothing more that to have an intimate relationship with us.

Father God, 

Thank you for divine appointments. I pray that you would simply keep them coming. I lift up my precious friends to you, as well as others that I didn't mention that find themselves struggling and wondering where you are. Reveal yourself in their lives as you have revealed yourself to me. 

I love you.

Not my testimony

In 2006, a testimony was born out of a broken life that happened to be mine. This was the year that my life became less about me, but more about a newborn baby that had been given to me. My life before the conception of this child resembled a roller coaster of events, complete with many life-altering decisions that I had made because I was convinced that my life was my own. After being given the gift of a son, the focus became less about me and more about my new role as a mother. 

During this time, the former life that I had created slowly started to become more of a distant memory as I embraced the future that I had and it was during that time that I was able to give a testimony about how bad I had messed things up in my own life but how God had still  given me a second chance and although I was not proud of the choices that I had made, I took delight in feeling the angels rejoice because of how capable God was to take a life like mine and bring restoration to it. 

Hands shaking, heart pumping, stomach flipping, knees knocking, breathing irregularly, I gave a testimony that spoke of God's redemptive powers and how it wasn't our job to straighten up our lives in order to have a relationship with Him, because He works best in our weakness. That testimony was hard to give because I realized that there was a  level of embarrassment not just for me, but also my family, and once the bandage was ripped from the wound I felt like the beautiful part was all that was left to see because that part had become God's power in his weakest daughter. 

Then 2009 happened,and my definition of family was unraveling right in front of me.

 Our church at the time hosted a yearly prayer conference and in preparation to see lives change, chains break, marriages be restored, physical miracles occur, truly supernatural things happen, a team of us got together once a week just to pray for what God was going to do during the prayer conference. Just an intimate group of us, we would gather together and truly have inhibited, face on the ground and weeping prayer services. No expectations, no agenda; simply just to wait, listen, and ask the God of the universe to be moving in people's lives so that they could encounter the greatness that was I AM specifically during the conference.

 The spirit was heavy and petition for the living God to move was all we wanted, and yet I sat alone in a dark corner with the spirit of anger growing in me. Sitting on a pew isolated from everyone else, I started to conjure up lies to tell people as to why I wasn't being seen at church much anymore. The light that I had experienced was growing dim because I was alone, or atleast I felt alone. My family, whom I thought was my foundation, was fading from existence and I sat alone crying, angry at God. By the time I was ready to rejoin the group, I wiped the tears away and went to sit in another part of the sanctuary and it was then that I heard the voice of God. 

Every word that had been spoken to God out of anger was  replied to. The lies were being confronted, the hurt was addressed, the sense of abandonment was replaced by the One who was with me all along. Because of a friend whom had no idea that the prayers that he was saying were a direct reply from the Keeper of my heart to me, I was heard and told by God or  El Roi, the One who sees you, (Genesis 16:13) that my foundation was not maintained by my own efforts but  rather by the one who calmed the storms that my life had become. 

The prayer conference was wonderful and I often relish in the stories of victory that God produces as a result of total brokenness from people's lives that God takes and gives a beautiful meaning to, but of all the conferences I have been to, that year my favorite story was my own. It turns out that the prayers I was saying on behalf of others were noticed by an Almighty God that knew what I needed before I had even reached the edge of the shore and He was there waiting to part the waters for me. 

"Jesus got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, 'Quiet! Be still!' Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, 'Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?'" Mark 4:39-40