Dining with Yesterday

Have you ever found yourself staring into the face of who you used to be in the person of someone else? Recently, I found myself sitting and supping with who I used to be. It is a slap in the face for sure. I thought,"God, are you sure I was that arrogant? That condeming?" Oh yeah. I have learned something in the pathway of brokeness. When you think you are sole authority on something or you always think you have a better way, God will burst your self righteous bubble. He. It is something that must never leave our lips. He is. I find myself thanking Him that I am not. I am also, by His grace, not who I was. Props to Brandon Heath for putting that into song so I can praise God for His workmanship. It also serves as a healthy reminder as we think we are gaining no ground. The enemy seeks to tell us lie after lie. We start buying into to his idea of us. That is when, if we are paying attention, God will sit us down with our yesterday and remind us that He brought us up out of that pit. Then He demands that we worship and glorify Him.

.

Why is it that we so often remain in recovery and never arrive recovered? We have the faith that God can deliver us from point A, but we don't believe Him to be able to get us to point B. Then if we arrive there by some miracle we keep questioning Him about His decision making process. YOU. You're it. The godly. The called. He doesn't care what the enemy told you over breakfast. He doesn't care who you ran into from your past to remind you of your yesterday. He delivered you to this place to show others the way out. Show them. Journal His faithfulness along the way. Maybe your yesterday is someone in your family, a co-worker, or someone that moved in next door. Keep your spiritual eyes open. God will lead you to feed, clothe, love, and pursue your yesterday. He will use you to grant the impossible one wholeness. Such were some of us. In order to do this, you have to believe what God says about you today.

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Colossians 3:12

.

*Brokeness is something I believe we are to embrace. Over and over you see it in the life of Paul. Nothing else could have cultivated that relentless submission. Perhaps we have the wrong idea of what it is. Sometimes we are broken by circumstance and other times we yield ourselves to be broken for God's glory. One is unavoidable. One is a choice for His glory.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Brokenness. Surrender. Holiness.

This blog is normally updated each Tuesday.

Have a blessed Thanksgiving.

The air is somber at my house this week. God is breaking me. The enemy is trying to squash me. I find myself quite tired. I keep hearing this voice asking,"are you sure you're ready for this?" My mind takes me through a series of pictures of people God uses in a public way. There are many Christian people who are in the public eye and it doesn't effect them like this. It really is glamorous. Their ministry is much more self-help than holiness. Then there is this remnant, a sub-culture, that is face down and knee deep in intercession all of the time.

Brokenness. Surrender. Holiness.

Brokenness. Surrender. Holiness.

.

It is an unending process of yielding your life for God's glory. These people are largely tired. I am not sure they sleep much. They are generally empty and have absolutely nothing to bring to the table. "But God..." I love verses that start that way. He makes the impossible possible. He makes the dark light. He speaks. He leads. He acts. He. He. He. I take a deep breath and I know that nothing could prepare me for where I am about to go. I have no idea where He is leading. I have no idea what I will look like, feel like, act like, sound like at the end of all of this . . . but I have to go. I need to go. I crave surrender and authenticity. I have to let go. No more shallow breaths or shallow life on this road. There is no intercession boot camp or "how to live broken, surrendered lives" seminar that could get someone geared up for this. I cannot do this. I am incapable and without words. My small, tiny voice has no power here. "Am I sure that I am ready for this?" Absolutely not. "But God..."

I find myself in my flesh wanting someone, anyone to say good job or thanks for working so hard. In my spirit, I want to hear,"well done, baby." Why does it hurt when you hear either one? The healing words of God are beyond comparison. When He speaks good things old lies in us are broken and it hurts because we have held onto those lies for so long that they seem a part of us. Why me?

.
"I know that the Lord set apart the godly for Himself;

The Lord will hear when I call to Him."

Psalm 4:3

Me? I think I tend to look more like a neat "sweater set" kind of Christian than a wild locust eating John the Baptist kind of Christian. I have a feeling that God is about to rock my world. I mean shake and disjoint. Like Anne says,"It's about to get Acts 4 Pentecostal up in here." I hear,"sell your house." It's not sell your house and then... just sell it. Freedom.

I took this with my camera phone.

Beautiful Rest

This Blog is updated each Tuesday. I sit here writing to you from the banks of the Lake Livingston. I feel as though I am writing a letter to a dear friend. The winds sweeping across the water make me feel transported to another time or place. I am sure that place is very Pride and Prejudice. I fully keep expecting Anne of Green Gables to walk up at any minute and give me some godly wisdom. She is not coming and I find myslef waiting on God Himself. I need to be alone with Him.

(This all makes me think of Genesis 1:2.

The Spirit of God moved over the surface of the waters)

.

This past week of prayer and counsel did me in. It full on brought me to the end of myself. I know this will sound odd, but I am happy to be here. There is a whole lot less of me here than there was last week and I find that quite agreeable. I enjoy less of me no matter how tired I am.

.

As we all know, God knows what we need. Here I sit on the bank of a river, at the edge of a lake and here I shall remain until Friday. Denbigh is leading worship at Carolina Creek this week. The rest of the Cherry family is along for the ride. I am hoping to get to see baby Kyle this week. I stole this photo off their blog. It moved me. Please continue to pray for that sweet baby boy. http://www.prayforkyle.com/ Do you ever feel like you are about to be stretched and changed into something you have never imagined being? I feel like many of the people around me (myself included) are on the cusp of something all together life altering. My prayer, dear friend, is that we are never the same.

.

Isaiah 58:10 (Amplified Bible)
"And if you pour out that with which you sustain your own life for the hungry and satisfy the need of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in darkness, and your obscurity and gloom become like the noonday."

I thought I should close this letter with a wax seal.

(I dedicate this wax seal to Tiffany) Random ps: Denbigh, my beloved husband, once asked me if chain smoking was when people got together and smoked. He always keeps me laughing histerically. The other day I got bonus gift with some make-up I bought. It came with blue eye shadow. I caked this stuff on my eyes and waited for him to notice. He tells me I am really pretty and it is neat to have something different. I informed him that I would no longer be trusting his judgement and reminded him of the chick tip in my book. "Never wear blue eyeshadow."

Happy Birthday, Denbigh!

You Rock My World, Jesus!

This Blog is updated each Tuesday.

My husband is tucking in our little girl after a long night. Denbigh is an amazing man. As I speak, teach, lead, organize, or whatever it is God tells me to do..there he is coming alongside. I laughed and told him tonight that he does more serving for women's ministry than most women do. Thank you, lovely husband.

Monday night the Holy Spirit fell on us at our first women's worship service, Shiloh. It was phenomenal. It seemed otherworldly at times. The voices were angelic. Angela delivered a powerful word to us. I believe with all my heart freedom came to us in that place. Marla, Janet, and Marj were anointed as they led worship. Thank You, Jesus, for Your presence. Thank You.

My word from God I keep hearing of late is Surrender. He has told me to let go of something and I am being pushed to the limit on this one. Relentlessly throughout the past few months God keeps showing me that when you let go of something that He will restore it like He did for Job (twice as much was returned to him). Cars, computers, & even can openers (Thanks Sharee!). This is the biggest thing yet. I am praying for wild obedience on this.
Let me be found faithful, Lord.

So, you are wondering what happened at "the Cup" this week. Well, I am sad to say I did not go. We were leading worship at Carolina Creek Christian Camp. I decided instead to share with you the first time I went to "the Cup." It all starts with Denbigh having a crick in his neck. He led worship that morning and then we were going to lunch with some friends. He was in quite a bit of pain and so our friend offered to give him a "mild muscle relaxer." My husband hardly takes Tylenol so you can imagine where this is going. We decide to go to "the cup" and check it out. We are all having somewhat normal conversations and Denbigh starts giggling uncontrollably. Then I get up to go get a cup of coffee and I look over from the line and there is my husband hanging off the chair he was sitting in and his head is resting in a Yucca tree. He passed out. It's been fun times ever since. Denbigh is also never allowed to take medication again. (Side note: Denbigh asked if it would make him tired and was assured it would not. If you want to know who it is, come ask me.)

Random: Next Shiloh is December 4th. Someone I have been praying for a year to get pregnant is pregnant! Praise Jesus! Please Keep praying for Kyle Sherrill. I am adding the link to their blog in my links on the left. http://www.prayforkyle.com/