Monk Days

If you have never seen the show Monk, it's about a ex-homicide detective who is, how should I say this, well let's just say he has a lot of issues. He would clinically be described as severe obsessive-compulsive disorder with multiple phobias. I know it sounds really bad right? It's actually one of the most hilarious shows you will ever watch. Actually if you need to feel normal, you should watch this show and you won't think what you are going through is quite so bad. His wife was murdered, he was fired from the police force because he regressed so bad and is now contracted with them to help solve cases. Of course, being a tv show, he is put in the craziest of situations that don't ever coincide with his condition, there you go, good comedy! His character produces a lot of compassion in you!

Last night Chad and I were watching a couple of episodes and in one of them, Monk gets acid of some kind thrown in his eyes so he goes blind for the entirety of the episode and he proceeds to go through all the stages of grief. He is totally depressed, hopeless, doesn't want to do anything and then totally flips to this "out of sight, out of mind" thinking so he feels liberated by the blindness and starts doing his job again. But in the midst of his self-pity, I mean self-pity at it's highest lol, he says something to his assistant aka nurse after a report from the eye doc. His assistant tells him to not give up hope. And I can barely type this sentence without wanting to completely crack up. Monk says (in a growling, angry, self-pity voice), " I hate hopes guts."

Hahahahahahahaha!!!! I know this sounds awful! But it just made me laugh so hard because, even though I have never worded it that way, I have certainly felt that way at times! And don't judge me, so have you if you are walking through any kind of situation that has completely made you feel hopeless. When people tell you, don't give up hope, and you are like are you going through what I am going through, I don't think so!

I say all this to say, that I am not hopeless...I am hopeful! Since we last spoke, I am in week 2 of weaning off a very strong medication. I am feeling some things, and not feeling some things. I am in a completely surrendered, at the hand of God time right now. Just hanging on and trusting.

Proverbs 13:12, " Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life." So good thing I am not hopeless right?! We only lose hope when we lose sight of God and allow our minds to be hostile towards God and His Word.


Romans 8: 6-8, " The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace, THE SINFUL MIND IS HOSTILE TO GOD. It does not SUBMIT to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God."  This scripture stuck out to me for the first time while reading through Romans 8 and I thought to myself, wow, my mind, if not submitted to God, is sinful, therefore hostile to Him. I can't please Him this way. As I have been intentionally, daily submitting myself to the Holy Spirit, He is opening my eyes to even more things that He is stripping me of. Submitting to the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus left to be our Helper on a daily basis is changing my life, my mind, my soul and my spirit. He is re-creating me, a little scary, yes, but way more exciting than scary!

I dare you to submit wholly and completely to the Holy Spirit and see what happens. We are here for His good pleasure, but He is so good that He gives us the choice as to whether we want to please Him...go figure...that is a loving and good God. But we have got to be willing to conform to the real image of Jesus if we are going to advance His Kingdom on the earth.

There are a few other truths that are on my heart but alas they will have to wait until tomorrow, so see you then ;-)

I can do this! Wait, maybe, what if I forget how?

Oh the doubt...oh the fear! Constantly trying to take me down with them! Yesterday after I posted, I got a call from my doctors to discuss a few things that we need to move forward with at this point. First thing, they have put me on a wean plan for the benzo drug that I have been on (the type that can land you in rehab if you stay on it to long) for upper body spasms etc. It's been time to do this for a while and a lot of what I am going through may be attributed to me being on it for too long already. Second thing, instead of another heavy drug, they want me taking some over the counter stuff for the vertigo issues that I can't seem to shake.

I am so encouraged on one hand to be moving forward and to be free from some of this worldly stuff that doesn't need to be in my system. But on the other hand, I am nervous about what may happen in the midst of the wean and what this medication has been covering up to this point. You know what I'm saying? I know, it's a little double minded.

While I know that God is in control and has always been in control of my life, even in the times when it seemed I had at least a little control, the reality of Him holding me and being completely at the mercy of His hands hit me. You might be asking me, " Why is this a bad thing?". Well, obviously, it's not. As I was talking with Chad after speaking with the doctor, I was crying and told him, " I don't know why I'm afraid that the reality that I am completely at God's mercy scares me." Chad, being the wise man that he is ;-), said, " Well I do." He began to lay out some of the situations that we have walked through where we have seen people at the mercy of God and it hasn't always ended the way that we thought was the best. Again, our definition of good compared to God's definition of good. Anyway, that made since to me. I had my moment and then got back to being dead to myself and just re-submitted myself to Him and His hands of mercy, whatever the outcome.

I was talking to one of my sisters and she had some Holy Spirit led stuff to say to me. I told her that I felt bad that I was nervous about this new transition and she said it's like a soldier who has been trained for battle, but the minute they are called to action, even though they have all the training they need to win the battle, their heart still flutters, their adrenaline still starts pumping and they get a little nervous before the actual fight. I thought this was such a word to me! God has been equipping me and preparing me to trust Him all this time, but now it's really being put to the test and I had my moment of nervousness and fear, but now it's time to use my training.

I know Him, so I can trust Him. I have to use the Words that I have been hiding in my heart and just trust that they are living and active in my life to an even greater degree and not worry about the outcome of this battle. God knows the outcome and that should be good enough for me. I have died to myself and taken up His agenda. I know I can do this! I know that I can overcome the fear and doubt! I have all the weapons and am equipped for battle! God is worthy of our trust.

Psalm 56:3+4, " When I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid."

So, yes, I can do this! I will not forget God's Word and all that He has promised. I will continue to believe that my desires are becoming one with His and that the outcome is good. I can't compare my situation to others. I have to believe that God can heal...period...no matter what that healing looks like. 

I've given up

Starting over the weekend, really after my last post, I have given up! Before you go and call someone to admit me to rehab for the insane, let me explain. The Holy Spirit and I have really been getting to know one another a lot better. I have been giving up everything in me and laying it before Him. I have completely submitted myself to Him by laying down my past, my present and my future. All my desires and dreams...and I have asked Him to replace it all with what He wants. I have asked Him to wipe my slate clean and just allow me to sit before Him until He is ready to replace everything in me.

I know this is part of the dying process for me and I am okay with this. He finally has broken me enough where I really don't want anything else but what He wants. Isn't that what His Word really says? Psalm 37:4, " Delight yourself in the Lord and HE WILL GIVE you the desires of your heart."  This has always been one of my favorite scriptures because, throughout my life, as I have submitted to God in areas, He always gives me the desires of my heart. In other words, because I am submitted to Him, we become one and my desires are no different from His.

The hard part about this is just submitting to that. Our desires don't look like His sometimes. In my journey right now, that's the case. I don't know what He has planned. But I am determined to become completely one with Him so that I can move forward with His plan and not mine. I have been charged by Him to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10). I am not to commit to anything but Him. Do you know how hard that's been in the past for me? Now, I don't even have the energy to fight it!

I am so desperate for the Holy Spirit to be alive and active in my life that I am willing to die to it all. Not my will but His right? His good pleasure, not mine? Jesus asked for that cup to removed but God had a bigger purpose. Paul asked for the thorn in his flesh to be removed but God had a bigger purpose. His purpose. Honestly, I hope that I don't sound depressed by this. I really don't have any emotion in this, just trusting Him to keep leading me into His purpose and plans to a greater degree than I ever have. Just as Jesus prayed, " On earth as it is in Heaven...". I want on earth as it is in Heaven and I can't have that unless the Holy Spirit overtakes everything in my life. It's good...He's good.

You Really Should Read...

More of the Word that is! It's really awesome at dividing the soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12) and bringing great definition and clarity to our obscured thinking. Yesterday was an interesting, yet eye opening day for me. We found out some news that someone that we had been praying for went to be with Jesus. That she is with Jesus is an amazing thing, it's just hard for the ones who are left here on earth to process the whys and grief. Anyways, this spurred on the investigation of a question that had already been weighing on my heart per my last post. Is my perspective of good the same as God's perspective of good?

Out of obedience to the Holy Spirit, whom we will be discussing here shortly, I put off all distraction yesterday, the whole day until I went to our worship night at church and just started to search God's Word. I looked up every scripture that had the word good in it! I wanted to see what God defined as good and I found the answer to my question. My perspective of good is not the same as His. I know that's hard to hear, but God's Word is truth, not what I've been taught second hand or what I have caused myself to believe.

Out of the 36 scriptures that I read, there was a common theme and no where in there did it say healing my body, keeping me from adversity, while I still believe His Word says that we can have healing, it doesn't necessarily go hand in hand with His definition of goodness. No where in those scriptures did it talk about my comfort. The common theme is written commandments from Him. Things that we should be doing or being for Him. Selflessness, laying down our agenda for Him is what His definition of good is. Dying to ourselves is His definition of good.

I had a chance to talk with my spiritual father yesterday, totally by chance ( I think not;-), a  man that has helped raise me in the ways of God for about 25 years and he had a lot of insight for me. The gift on his life, like mine, is perspective and exhortation so he can really get through this thick skull of mine! He said something to me that really hit home and was hard to hear, so brace yourselves :-). He said, " I am starting to believe that God is not as interested in our comfort as He is in our conforming." Good word! All of the scriptures that I read were not about bringing me comfort, they were about conforming to what God has said. What He commands. Now here's where the problem starts for us.

The enemy is so subtle and so sly that over the years of us walking with God and being exposed to a certain religion, a certain way of teaching, a certain way of viewing God, he has helped us create a false image of God. Here's how I know this, because if we are in the Word and it contradicts and confuses that which we have been taught then we are wrong! The Word of God is the only thing in front of us that it is true and if what is in us doesn't line up with that, well, you get the point.

We have got to reteach ourselves what the real image of  God is so that we can become like Him and line up with His definition of good! And the only way we are going to be able to do this is by accessing the Holy Spirit, the Helper, that Jesus, when He left this earth, left us to help us.

John 14:25 + 26, " (Jesus talking)All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, WILL TEACH YOU ALL THINGS and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

See, here's the issue, Jesus has already come, did what He was supposed to do and now is seated at the right hand of the Father. The Holy Spirit is who He left to "teach us all things". The Holy Spirit is where we can access the signs and wonders, the miracles that we all need so desperately to see. The apostles, Jesus' disciples, were seeing these things after Jesus was gone, because they accessed the Holy Spirit. I can't type fast enough because there is so much more to this, but that's enough for today. I am still digesting all of it myself.

God is a good God and He has blessed us with many good things. But when we find ourselves in a storm, we have to truly understand what Romans 8:28 is saying to us or we will not ever break through the adversity and see what God is really trying to do. He is working in us for HIS GOOD PLEASURE...not ours (Philippians 2:13). I really believe we will conform to His idea of goodness if we submit to His process and really see the true image of Him.

So much more to come...

On The Move

So I finished my book and there's so much weighing on my spirit these days. It's like all of the sudden, I don't matter as much as the other people around me who are suffering. Those of you who know me well, know that I care for people, but to be completely honest, because of the positions of leadership God has put me in, I have really had to work hard at this. I don't believe myself to be an on purpose selfish person, or self-centered person but instead of this learned habit of loving and caring for those around me, God is replacing it with a true change in my heart towards people. Bottom line...I care. What?!?! Even for people that aren't in my so called "circle". You know what I'm saying.Another break through for me in this journey. Gonna need this for what's on the other side for sure.

Let me explain, in all of the spiritual gift tests that I have taken, I rank about a 2% in the category of mercy. I know, that sounds awful right? I just have a lot of fight and my number 1 spiritual gift is perception. So God has been teaching me how to balance the perspective He gives me with the mercy that has to go with it for many people to receive what He is saying through me. My number 2 spiritual gift is exhortation aka encouragement. Having perception and exhortation go hand in hand but man, I have had to learn not to plow right through people and balance it with mercy, grace and time.

To get to my point...pretty much my whole family is in the process of actually moving. One of my sisters just moved into a new house, my parents just moved and are still in the process of moving, my other sister is on her way to possibly moving and my brother just got approved for his first house. Whew! I know, that's a lot of stress, for them anyway, lol! I haven't been able to help at all, what a shame (totally kidding :-) . Anyway, Chad and I are the only ones who are not physically moving, BUT, we are spiritually moving and it's just as hard as physically moving, in my opinion anyway ;-). Moving forward, moving upward...just moving requires energy and muscle. The statistic out there is that moving is ranked number 5 in a list of stressful life events. Number 5, that's pretty close to the top of the list if you ask me.

You all have been with us in the process. You have seen how God has been moving us and not just moving us, but unpacking every box in our lives. Completely emptying us so that we can be complete and ready for what He has next.

Let me tell, just like in a physical move, there are a lot more boxes to be unpacked in me than I realized. You pretty much all know the feeling...you get to that point where you are so exhausted from unpacking that you start shoving boxes in closets and you say, " I'll get to that later". LOL...anybody who has moved, I don't care how determined you are, you run out of steam! Only this time, instead of running out of steam spiritually, I am producing more steam, by way of tears. I have never cried so much in my life! It's because God is moving me and saying to me, " Let's get this box unpacked. You can do it, let's keep moving." And I am just too tired to fight Him and so we keep moving, we keep unpacking, even though it hurts and it's okay, it's right where I want to be and where I believe He has been trying to get me to through this whole process. He is working all things for His glory and my good. His ultimate goal, that we are made into the image of Him, that we look like Him...that's what brings Him glory and results in our good.


Romans 8:28, " And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose."

I will leave you with this thought, because it's what God is working with me on now. Is God's perspective of good, the same as our perspective of good? Hmmm...,more to come.

Ingesting and Digesting

I haven't been writing everyday lately because I have been doing a lot of reading and studying. God is giving me a lot to chew on and I am trying my best to ingest and digest everything that He is so gracious to show me.

I have been reading a great book called " Trusting God Even When Life Hurts". It talks about the sovereignty of God and many other things that I am not yet completely confident to talk about, but regardless, it's really speaking to me and God is revealing a lot to me through it.

Secondly we just started a series at our church on the book of Acts. This last weeks message was amazing, as they usually are no matter what the subject. I took about 4 pages of notes. I guess the subject that is deeply swirling in my heart right now is the subject of the Holy Spirit. How He works, how we access Him and how that applies to our adversities.

One of the things that really spoke to me and that I could really relate to and shout amen to was something our pastor said regarding Acts 2. It talks about how "the people were cut to the heart". This was after the whole Upper Room experience where God demonstrated Himself in an amazing way. That's a whole other blog. What stirred me is that only the Holy Spirit, the one that Jesus gave us as our Helper when He left this earth, only the Holy Spirit can cut people to the heart. Being cut to the heart, as my pastor put it, "is a place where no one else can get to, the inner man". The deepest part of us. And that, my friend, is where real change and transformation happens. Amen to that.

With the risk of sounding a bit prideful, I have seen myself going through this journey and as I have accessed the Holy Spirit to help me through it, He is really cutting me to the heart. If you've ever been cut physically you know, it hurts. It's the same thing in the spirit. But my medicine for that cut is the Word of God and it heals and protects. I have desires and am maturing in things that I never knew were even inside of me, only the Holy Spirit can pull this up out of me.

For instance, every time we hear of someone who is ill or dealing with some physical trial, I can't do anything else until I stop and access the Holy Spirit on their behalf. The Holy Spirit won't let me do anything else. Before this whole process, I would most certainly pray for people, but I am talking about pacing the room, resisting the devil, warring in the spirit for people. A whole different level for me. I have a new passion in me to see people delivered from sickness and disease. It's apart of my journey and ministry to get a burden for this and see people healed and delivered.

We just found out that some friends of ours who have a house full of kids one of those being pretty much a new born baby, the dad has just been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. They are a young family. Talk about devastation. But not in God's eyes. Last night Chad and I accessed the Holy Spirit and prayed when we put our boys to bed because we couldn't do anything else until we had done that. We were so burdened for them and I know that is the Holy Spirit speaking to us.

The revelation that came to me was that, in my situation, I would want people to pace the room for me. I would want people to access the Holy Spirit and set aside all else until God released them from praying for me. I would want someone to really pray, if they tell me that they will. I am so sensitive to other people's needs more than I have ever have been before. THAT is the Holy Spirit cutting me to the heart.

My challenge to you today is to get in the Word and read about the Holy Spirit and His function in our lives. It is vital. We will never fully see the miraculous unless we learn to access Him. That's why Jesus left Him as our Helper, to Help us. So let Him help you, whatever that may mean to you right now. Let Him help you be a better person, let Him help you be sensitive to others, let Him help you see the miraculous happen in your life. We need Him, the church needs Him and the world needs Him.