Knowing where to start can stop me in my steps, solid as concrete and smother the words inside my heart until they begin to die.  Is it out of fear or is it out of appearances sake? The answer is unclear, but this, today, I know in the depths of my being to be true.

Authenticity is screaming from the masses and clawing its way out of the crevices in my soul to find light and to find water.  Sustenance of survival is at stake.my eternity is even more at a crossroads.  if my attempts to be raw and real are stripped then my heart may as well cease to beat blood into a dead being because that is what I will become.

Let me preface this with explaining my heart.  I come from years and years of what the church will call brokenness, but that I define myself as someone who was searching, turning in circles, running down paths with crooked steps in an attempt to find what my heart truly desired and that was to be loved. Loved not for what I could be or what I could or had done.  But loved authentically for who I am.  The church had labeled me and slammed doors in my face with condemning outstretched fingers ordering my repentance with no offer to just be with me or to simply extend a loving hand of grace.

I do not wander why the church is becoming less relevant to the generation that is rising up, nor do I seek to justify where the church is because I have experienced it.  What I do intend is to extend the love that Jesus met me with because it is not for me to hold on to.  I experienced it and daily I still do in all of my faltering’s and the extensive questions that sometimes barrel out of my heart in a scream that are still met with unconditional love.  He knows my heart and he also knows the will that I was created with that is a little too adventurous, a little too fearless and a little too raw for some people.

The good news is that God created me that way!  Just as he created you with all of the qualities that may sometimes scare you or make others apprehensive if they knew the real you that screams inside to come out of hiding.  This week I met some incredible women at a conference called The Pearl Event in Chattanooga, Tn.  I watched one by one as they got up to speak, some for the first time, and others not, but all came with a humility to just be real.  It was refreshing. It was unexpected.  I almost did not go because I am awkward at best among a room full of women especially at a “Christian” conference.  And here comes my judgmental-ness, I cannot handle fake and I was afraid even driving to it that morning that I was going to run smack into the face of it.  If it had not been for one of the speakers whom I personally know and I know her heart as well as her knowing mine my foot would have never landed on the gas pedal that morning.

But God! He knew what I needed that morning and with her encouraging words the night before to just be me, I awoke anticipating and praying for realness.  There will be no sugar coating on what I experienced because did I see faces who were still striving for perfection, yes, did I stand at the outskirts taking it all in searching for my own place in the room, absolutely. Did I hear voices that made my stomach churn at the superficial-ness of the conversations, uh huh, and did I look myself in the bathroom mirror and think about running, yes and amen I did.  I thought I was in the wrong place and had made the wrong decision.

But then two things happened. First my friend Sarah greeted me with open arms and that smile that tells you instantaneously that she is happy to see you and she introduced me to a wonderful woman named June who I sat next to for the day.  This was no accident.  The night before at a community bible study that my husband and I attend weekly I had brought up a question about Jesus’ return to Jerusalem and an article I had read that stated something to the affect of prior to His coming and the word being spread to every nation that it would even have to be spread to those in Israel in belief that the Messiah was indeed coming for the second time.  Miss June wore a beautiful star of David around her neck and she began talking to me about her recent trip to Israel to visit her family and began talking about just what I explained.  It was a moment where I knew God was answering something that noone knew of.  Then secondly the beautiful, gifted worship team began and the very song I had been singing and praying over the conference on my drive down Highway 58 was their opening song. Come Out of Hiding-a Father’s song.  Confirmation, yes!  I was there to stay.

Still attempting to anchor my butt to the chair for a day with women, I became awed as each person dutifully and obediently began to share from the depths of their soul exposing themselves without any masks.  Speaking of pregnancies out of wedlock only to have God restore, failed relationships, depression, fertility and adoption heart aches, detailed stories of rape and an abortion that broke my heart for this country and for His daughters who carry the grief or feel no way out.  I listened to feelings of un-worth exposed un-loved daughters in childhood, losses in childbirth and facing cancer.

All of them. Each of them. Invited me and everyone else in the room into their hearts for a glimpse of the imperfection.  For a glimpse of how God met them.  For a glimpse of Love!  And that my friends is what Jesus wants. love.truth.grace.mercy.  He gives it to us so freely and yet we extend it so half heartedly if we even do it all and it makes me sick to my very being.  The devil received a swift punch in the face from those women by them “Coming out of Hiding.”  And I just wanted to shout into Hell and say “See that….What do you think about that!!!  There is more coming…and yeah it may cost something, but you are not going to win!  These are God’s precious daughters, His Pearls and He is not going to allow you to take them out and the oysters be opened before the harvest is ready!!”

Sometimes in conversations I feel that I make people uncomfortable because I don’t do well at talking about the weather.  The cool thing is that most of the time I have nowhere to start, but God does. One thing that was drilled into me that day was this- When Your passion Meets Your Brokenness, there lies your calling- I love to write and I love to speak and share my testimony because God has brought me through some pretty intense things in my life.  But more than writing and speaking what I absolutely cannot get enough of is seeing freedom come out of the crevices of someone’s heart and a light of realization that there is and always will be hope with Jesus Christ.  He never leaves us nor forsakes us, but more than that is the truth that He Fights for us!! I love it and I am addicted to the rawness of the truth that comes from knowing my fight is already won and so is yours!!

Sarah

For weeks now I have been stuck.  Such a strange word…stuck…but thus it is true. Stuck.  Adam and I attend a weekly bible study with a group of friends in a home environment and have been for the past couple of years.  It is refreshing because all of our study comes directly from the bible with reading a chapter and then discussion by everyone.  The depth of perception has increased for me regarding scripture as we take our time and sometimes spend multiple weeks on just one chapter and I have learned that the brevity with which I have viewed some scripture is much deeper when time is taken and others share what they understand from a certain passage.  And here in lies why I am stuck.  We began studying the book of Matthew the beginning of this year and we are currently on chapter 24.

Ahhhh yes, Matthew 24….some of you may say….one of the most controversial in the bible when discussing the end of the age…. However, this is not why the stuckness.  We read the verses and there are some in our group that can get a little hyped up about end times and as there was lively discussion beginning the very first week regarding the coming of Jesus and the details, I quietly announced “I am sorry to interrupt, but can we start back at verse one, I am stuck there.”  And it has not changed over the past three weeks I remain stuck, right there on Matthew 24:1.

“Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings.”

The morning dew wakes me, urging me to the sea where I take in a vibrant sight of diamonds sparkling on emerald waters.  Snow capped waves rustling in lazily as if to  beckon my feet closer to be caressed.  My soul seems to glide easily among the ebb and flow, imagining if I were one of the graceful morning birds dancing with the oceans tide.  To be one of God’s creatures that gently brushes their feet on the tips of salty goodness and with one slow push of the wings the flight continues with ease.  We all have that ability, yes?  Not as birds, but to dip into the salty waters, to glide just above that which sustains and feeds us so that we may continue our journey with ease, even if the waters rage or if they drift along lazily.  My soul is already on the water being restored as a write this and now my feet will join the salty waters for a morning barefoot run.  Good Day My Friends…….Good Day…..

December 2011 began the journey of what testimony means and more importantly what sharing a testimony means.  This verse comes to the forefront, Mark 5:19  “Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.” The Lord unequivocally has had much, much mercy on me throughout my life.  More than I feel that I deserve, yet he picks me up time and time again and says come, my daughter, take a walk with me.  We walk down roads uncomfortable for me, yet he walks beside me with a quiet, gentle grace, cloaked in protection and supreme comfort.
On December 28, 2011 this is what he spoke to my heart:
Your testimony is the beginning.  Come closer and see what comes.  Your testimony is truth.  It is where it all began and where it will also continue.  Sharing will be perfume to the nostrils of your father.  Rejoicing over the loss of your soul to your foe, but more importantly leading more sheep that are lost and wandering in the forest of destruction or drowning in the river of despair along the pilgrims road to a path pointed at the cross, to the father.  There alone will they find comfort.  You may capture their heart but for a moment, remember to keep walking. Show love, pure, innocent love and grace abounding to those in need. Start there and the message will come bounding upon your heart.
This was the beginning of a journey that has led to sharing vulnerability and truth not for my sake, not for my soul, not for me at all.  But for my Jesus who saved me, restored me, and who continues to walk me to the cross daily.

This very quiet, slow moving morning I sit.  Sipping my coffee, hearing the sounds of a lulling rain outside, Gracie, my dog, on my lap, beside my husband, my best friend, my God chosen companion, as we both read our bibles and quietly talk with our Father who art in Heaven.  Peaceful.Quiet.Contemplation
I open my bible to Psalm 45 and begin reflecting on this past year.  A week ago, one year ago, God called me to some time in prayer at ChattHOP where He showed me a vision in prayer time.  I was being dressed in very fine robes by many maidens surrounding me, they were fussing about me, tending to every last detail of my physical presentation, and when satisfied everything was in place they began escorting me into the throne room where they presented me to my father, seated on the throne.   He asked me to come sit beside him in a majestic chair to his right, and as I hesitated, he reached for me.  The throne room was full of people for as far as I could see with heavenly hosts surrounding the throne, harps and musicians occupying the backside of the throne.  At once He quiets the room and tells me to speak.  As I look pensively at him, he, with a slight of hand, invites me to speak once again with no fear.  I begin talking softly and before me a new wine skin is forming from the floor up.  The more that is spoken, the more full it becomes.  More confident, the words urge from my soul until the velvet ropes of the top appear and wine is overflowing.  Still speaking, my being is completely transformed as the wineskin envelopes me and I am standing before my father once again transformed with new skin.
This vision has been the culmination of what God has done in my life this year and the work he is continuing to do.  Each year for the past three, in December, he has called me to specific prayer.  And each time he has given me a vision or picture for what is to come.  They do not make sense in present context, but as each year progresses it manifests to completion….not my completion….but His!
This year He has surrounded me with maidens….Relationships with women of God.  Some I have known for a short time, others I have known for years and he induced a reconnection with these significant relationships.  He has revealed to me how each one has impacted and dressed my very being.  How they have influenced me and wrapped me in their prayers and taken me before the King when I did not feel worthy to be anywhere near the courts of my Heavenly Father!!  But they, throughout the years and throughout new relationships, have presented me no matter where I was in life!!!  He surrounded me with a gender that I have had a hard time making relationships with throughout my life, but he tarried on….they tarried on….in my behalf.  Never forsaking me.  He does the same for you!!!  He knows what you need and who you need in your life.
With the prayers and support and the ushering into the throne room, I have felt this year Him calling me into feeling worthy.  Worthy enough to sit at his right in a seat reserved my brother Jesus.  Can you imagine what this does to my heart????  What does it do to yours?  You have  a seat there too!  It is for all of us.  Jesus came to this earth that we may each have a seat beside our father in heaven…..a request to sit with him and to talk with him and to do whatever he may ask of you.  It just so happens he asked me to speak….He asked me to share my heart and my testimony and this has manifested this year to several groups.  And as I spoke His word the new wineskin was formed…it is forming….it will continue to form!  He is transforming my life with each word spoken….each word spoken from my heart, in his truth with grace never ending! It does not go without notice that the first two places spoken were before congregations that I grew up in….places where he was surrounding me with prayerful maidens….places where he was protecting the heart of a young girl who had been violated from the truth until his timing allowed the truth to be revealed.  His protection is Mighty and His grace even mightier!
I ask you today…..Has He called you to prayer to seek for the coming year? If He has, will you take the time to spend with your Father that He may begin to reveal to your heart, in whatever way He speaks to you, that which he wishes to share?  It will change your life and your relationship with Him!  I promise you that!