INTRODUCTION:
I've just had my 48th birthday. Yet, it's my first year as
a kingdom child living the abundant life Jesus promises
each of us in His Word. My heart is so full of freedom in Christ's
loving Presence and overflowing adoration of Him. Dancing before my
Lord is my daily pleasure. Every time I think this earthly frame
cannot contain one more revelation of His love, He again opens Himself
to me. My heart nearly explodes with joy in worshipping Him.
"But," you say, "you don't know how bad it is for
me! How can I find and explore the riches of His love? How can
I be really free when I feel so alone and rejected?" How
well I understand! Please, if you think you will never find such
energizing life and joy in Christ, let me encourage you. It's our
inheritance as His children. The path through which we enter into His
rest and joy often introduces us to suffering. I love reading 1 Peter
in The Message. Let me share some verses from 1 Peter:
What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this
Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead,
we've been given a brand-new life in heaven--and the future starts
now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is
coming when you'll have it all--life healed and whole....
Pure gold put in the fire comes
out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes
out proved genuine. When Jesus wraps this all up, it's your faith, not
your gold, that God will have on display as evidence of his victory.
You never saw him, yet you love
him. You still don't see him, yet you trust him--with laughter and
singing. Because you kept on believing, you'll get what you're looking
forward to: total salvation. Peter
reminds of the prophets knew the key: that the Messiah would
experience suffering, followed by glory. The angels watch with
intrigue. God exposes all our defenses that keep Him away or let us
run from Him. Yet Peter tells us to do just the opposite: As
obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped
by God's life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said,
"I am holy; you be holy."
You call out to God for help and
he helps--he's a good Father that way. But don't forget he's also a
responsible Father, and won't let you get by with sloppy living.
Your life is a journey you must
travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you
out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with
Christ's sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished,
sacrificial lamb.... God always knew he was going to do this for you.
It's because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the
dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a
future in God.
Now that you've cleaned up your
lives by following the truth, love one another as if your lives
depended on it.... What
counts is that you put up with (suffering) for God's sake when you're
treated badly for no good reason. There's no particular virtue in
accepting punishment that you well deserve. But if you're treated
badly for good behavior and continue in spite of it to be a good
servant, that is what counts with God.
This is the kind of life you've
been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered
everything that came His way so you would know that it could be done,
and also know how to do it, step by step. "He never did one thing
wrong, Not once said anything amiss." They called Him every name
in the book and He said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content
to let God set things right. He used His servant body to carry our
sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right
way. His wounds became your healing. ...
Friends, when life gets really
difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job.
Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ
experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just
around the corner.
TESTIMONY:
I've known suffering for 47 years. After surviving 3 abortion attempts
by my mother, I was born dead, strangled by the very cord of life.
After resuscitation, I was left stone deaf. But my mother's mother
hounded heaven for my hearing. When I was 9 months old, my
praying grandmother called my mother to check my ears; God told
her they were healed. I've had perfect hearing ever since. What a life
God saved me from once again! My young parents consequently
believed in Jesus and redemption started in my generation.
But -- the lingering curses of sexual abuse, satanic loyalties,
rituals and incest came down through the generations on my father's
side and assaulted my soul from birth to 18 years old. My
paternal grandparents secretly schooled me in satanism
since I was one year old. My tiny heart was unable to
contain the pain; I began to dissociate over and over, in order to
survive. I ran away from home by the age of
4--and got a mile away when I was 6. After an unsuccessful
suicide attempt at 14, Jesus reached out to me, offering His gift of
unconditional love and salvation. I understood my sin and my need for
His forgiveness and salvation--but not His Lordship.
Shortly
after, when I was confronted with my grandfather's sexual desire, I
spoke from the heart of a child: "Jesus lives in my heart now.
You can't do this anymore." He never touched me again. (I
thought he was such a powerful man -- but it only took that one
"no" from a child to keep his hands off of me.) But the
sibling incest continued until each of us girls left home.
My second year of Bible College, I was diagnosed with an inoperable
brain tumor. While the hospital struggled with getting me home
alive, God once again answered prayer and I woke from my slumber
fully healed and completed my studies.
I
spent 3 years in Europe with a missionary team smuggling Bibles,
clothes, etc., into communist European churches persecuted for their
faith. But unresolved childhood conflicts and the insatiable need to
be held and loved made me easy prey for the enemy. In the throes of
moral failure, God's blinding light Presence convicted me while
driving and I immediately repented. But when I confessed my
unknown sin to the leadership, I learned men can be much more
unforgiving than God. I was tricked into a trip home and fired.
My personhood was destroyed and they wanted years of punishment. My
dreams were ripped from me. I was Stateside once again and I
longed for death.
Through
this season, I discovered the Lordship of Christ. A little late -
but better late than never! After a year of rest and growth in
Christ, I met my husband to be. We married a year later. Our wedding
night crushed all dreams of finding the intimacy I craved. He didn't
want me. He lied to me about knowing Christ's Lordship. In the early
years, I anguished daily in our marriage and heartbreak. God
met my sorrows time after time until I let a root of bitterness in.
In our 5th year, I was working late one night and contemplated the
similarity between my love/hate relationship with my siblings
and his similar relationships with his best friends. I called
one of them and discovered my husband was homosexual. I
called my pastor for prayer, then I confronted my husband. The
leadership said if I would love, risk and forgive more, he
would change. Wrong!! The only one I can change is me. I stayed 6
additional years because I was committed to my covenant of
marriage. In the latter years, my self-esteem came from long
hours and recognition working at a defense company. But, like
in childhood through school, I was once again a "dead-empty,
functioning machine." After 11 years, out of sheer survival
instinct, I filed for divorce. Most of my family disowned me.
Through God's grace, I relocated to the South and found God just
waiting for me. The next two years were full of the best of God's
ministries, revival services -- and work that accommodated my lack
of trust in relationships. Then, tragedy struck. I plopped down on
the sofa after voting on 9/8/94. CNN was reporting a major
aviation disaster in Pittsburgh, PA. All 132 passengers on board
were dead. I watched intensely. Instinctively I knew my oldest
brother was on that plane. The confirming phone call came at 3:30
a.m. Experiencing the carnage of that crash (which the world
understands more easily after 9/11) broke me completely. I
ceased to function. It flew into the ground much like Flight 93,
obliterating everything. My survival skills in the aftermath were
over. I retreated under my blankets day after day. I was facing
eviction if I couldn't function.
Then, finally, God, a godly therapist, my local church family and
I embarked on the difficult journey of looking my lifelong suffering
in the face and removing the lie that "life was
fine--it just sucked". One day with my therapist, I cried
out in a child's voice that my brother died in pieces like I
was supposed to if I ever told my Grandfather's secrets ~ but I
hadn't yet told.!! Through revival services, therapy sessions,
coursework available within our healing community and
God-encounters, I acknowledged my soul being split apart as a child
through constant childhood sexual abuse and ritualistic trauma
at the hands of my grandfather and associates.
How
could God put the broken pieces together and make me whole? I
didn't know. But I spoke David's prayer continually as he asked for
an undivided heart that he could worship God. Over the past 8 years,
God has been faithfully mending my shattered heart and making me
whole. Yet my confusion over communion, the importance of Christ's
death and resurrection, my security and identity in Him, spiritual
warfare, and genuine, unconditional love eluded me. Depression still
raged with chronic suicide attempts.
Recently, God allowed me to be confined and exposed to desperate
efforts by satanists to make me forsake Christ and return
to satanism. After a very long 8 day assault, with no one to help
me, God Himself intervened on my behalf. He interacted
with me night after night in the midst of the such ravaging. I
was radically changed as I learned to take every thought captive,
praying and worshipping Him to drown out the noise. I warred
against the enemy from without while his very assault caused me to retake
hidden ground that he had been holding within me. I consecrated
my mind as our tabernacle and took every thought captive to Christ.
When I could no longer fight, I heard Jesus tell me
"having done all--stand." I confessed my unending love for
Him and suddenly He whisked me away under the shadow of His wings. I
could hear a spiritual battle taking place but He'd hidden me right
in the enemy's camp and gave me rest. Night after night, as I
prepared for war, God was incredibly and creatively faithful. My
fragmented soul was finally free to be united in wholeness and
safety. What the enemy meant for my destruction, God
transformed with His glory.
Once
the Creator of Life holds you safely within His heart, the nagging
insatiable need to be held vanishes. Once God begins touching the
human heart with His, the enemy not only loses his grip but is
exposed for the weak, rebellious, pesky, bitter being that he is. God
arises with healing in His wings as our suffering drives us deep
into Christ. I've been dancing in worship in my home every day. In
corporate worship, I nearly explode with pure love and adoration for
my Risen Savior and Gentle but Powerful Shepherd. I've danced with
my prayer shawl before the Lord in His sanctuary which
I've dreamed of for years. To worship Him with absolute abandon was
my passion.
Every
trace of depression is gone. How can depression coexist with such
freedom, joy and love? When I open God's Word, new truths continue
to enlarge my love for Jesus and such a Daddy God that planned such
a wonderful redemption as ours. I'm a child for the first time. I
love life and, most importantly, I love the Giver of Life. Joy
springs from deep within with every thought of how good God is. As I
worship Him, He again and again touches my heart with His. I choose
to live under the umbrella of His mercy and grace, while I intercede
against the enemy's pursuit for our heart's treasure. I've been
transported out of Isaiah 55-59 and into Isaiah 60-61.
How
could I have known that intense suffering could lead to so much
healing? As we let suffering do it's perfect work, God heals
and restores the damage the enemy has sown. He thinks through
through ravaging a child's soul and spirit that he destroys the
connectors to receiving God's pure love for us. Once God
touches us with His sweet heart in intimacy, we are forever changed
and the enemy is defeated for good. I invite you into the grace of
knowing Christ, entering into His suffering with patient endurance
and ultimately being ushered with Him into His resurrection
power! His resurrection life awaits you. I invite you to join me as
I dance with my beloved Bridegroom who delights in us and invites us
continually into His chambers.
Jesus
does bind up the brokenhearted, He does
proclaim freedom for the captives, He does restore all that's been
devoured and makes us joyful, mighty warriors for His Kingdom. The
beauty is that His everlasting, unconditional love produces a heart
of adoring love responding to His revelations of
ever-increasing dimensions. Come, join the dance of love. I'm a
vibrant, living demonstration of Jesus Christ's lavish love
transforming suicide, depression and despair into a dance of
rejoicing in His Arms of love.
Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from
my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as
my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me
is insignificant--dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that
I could embrace Christ and be embraced by Him. I didn't want some
petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a
list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from
trusting Christ--God's righteousness.
I gave up all that inferior
stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience His resurrection
power, be a partner in His suffering, and go all the way with Him to
death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection
from the dead, I wanted to do it.
I'm not saying that I have this
all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching
out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends,
don't get me wrong; By no means do I count myself an expert in all
of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us
onward--to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.
So let's keep focused on that
goal, those of us who want everything God has for us.
(Philippians 3).
Note: If you would like to respond or ask her
questions contact us.
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