Essentially Me!

I am not sure what is happening, but I have a fresh grace on my life to do things that I haven't done in a long time, like write. So I decided I would change up my blog to reflect this new season. There are actually quite a few changes going on in my heart and I think this is the place that I will write about them. Part of the name of this blog comes from my growing obsession with Essential Oils. Young Living Essential Oils to be exact. I know there are other brands out there, but YL has worked for me. I've been using them for three years. I recently did a Zyto scan and it revealed that my Gallbladder, Adrenal Glands and Heart are seriously compromised. My whole digestive track is pretty significantly off balance. I blame that on my hysterectomy 3 years ago. So I've begun using a lot of oils to rid myself of multiple viruses and a couple of parasites hoping to bring things back into balance. I am not real sure how I know these will work, but something in me says the science behind this stuff is telling the truth. So I am excited to see where this journey takes me.

As of today I am 38 years old. I weigh approximately 275 lbs. I am 5'2". I've already had cancer once and my dad just had a heart attack about 6 months ago. I don't want to join him in that adventure.

My daily regimine with oils looks like this:

I am trying to work up to 2x a day, but for now once a day I drink 5 drops of lavendar, peppermint and lemon oil. I put 2-3 drops of nutmeg on my lower back (adrenal glands are above the kidneys). I put Exodus II or Thieves on my feet. I put Grapefruit and Forgiveness on my belly. I put Endoflex on my feet, neck and throat. I am also doing the Raindrop Technique on my feet 4-5 times a week. I am doing daily detox baths and trying to drink Salt Tea daily. Who knew drinking butter would be so difficult?

I am trying to drink water each day as well. I'm up to 32 oz of water a day which is a big deal. Therein lies my health problems I'm sure. I'm also trying to do a smoothie once a day so I can get veggies into my system.

The hardest part about all of this is the headaches that I get because of the detoxing. I've been able so far to keep the pain at bay by using the Morphine Bomb (Copaiba, Frankincense, and Balsam Fir) in a veggie capsule. I'm also using Deep Relief topically around my head and neck. I can't tell if the headaches are from the oils or from barometric pressure, as the weather in Lubbock has been and is always super crazy in the Spring.

Today for lunch I ate 1 piece of lasagna, 2 small pieces of garlic bread, a generous portion of steamed veggies in real butter with pink salt. I drank a bottle of water. For dessert I had 5 blackberries.

I am doing all of this for health reasons but also for spiritual reasons. I am tired of letting the past control my present and future. I know that I was born to be a world changer and have a ton of destiny inside me, but I keep allowing things to hold me back. I'm ready for the breakthrough. I want to do the things that God has called me to do without allowing fear and insecurity and other junk hold me back.

There's also a boy. It's hard to find men in their young 40's who are single, never been married, no kids and are really passionate about loving Jesus. But there is one in the West Texas area. I don't know if I have a chance with him or not, but I want to do everything I can to clear out any obstacles that would keep us from connecting if that's what God wants. I want to clear out the cobwebs in my heart, mind and body. He's a good ole boy too. Down to earth. Even as I type this I find it hard to believe that someone would love me, and an entire list of things that I think should discredit me arise to the surface. I am choosing to move past those thoughts and embrace the truth that is Essentially Me.

An Open Letter to Phil Robertson, Patriarch of the Duck Dynasty

After all the media attention you received in December because of your comments in the GQ magazine, I hope and pray that you will read just one more. Maybe it will help if I tell you that I am a huge fan. While only watching my first episode of Duck Dynasty just a week before the controversy broke, I still love everything about the show. I even bought my dad one of your DVD’s for Christmas. I love that you stand for Jesus to the best of your ability. So while I write this letter to you because it directly deals with comments you made, this is honestly a letter to the American people, and I guess even more specifically the American Church that I honestly never expected to write. Let me explain.

Today is January 17^th. It’s 9 am, and just a while ago I was awakened from my sleep. The date is significant because we are weeks away from the controversy, so it’s not like I had media bytes rolling around in my subconscious. I honestly believe that the Lord woke me up with a startling phrase. I believe the Lord woke me up and told me, “Jill, you are much more than a vagina.” Obviously, groggy and confused as to why we were having this kind of discussion in the middle of the night, I told the Lord, “I’m sorry….WHAT?”  Then as if I was hearing dictation, I began to hear the Lord walk me through this letter that I am sending you now. So here goes:

Phil, I am more than a vagina. As a woman, I am more than a vagina and boobs. I missed it when the controversy first broke, but you did more than offend the LGBT community, you offended women as well. In your overly simplistic statement, you relegated the act of sexual intercourse to a choice between vagina’s and anuses. Not only I am more than a vagina, but so is Miss Kay. When you have made love to your wife, you look into her eyes, you engage with her heart and soul. She is a person. She is not just a vagina. You see, we live in an overtly sexualized world, which has relegated sex to a consumerist mentality. In a recent blog post, Benjamin Nolot, director of Exodus Cry and producer of the documentary Nefarious: Merchant of Souls states, “Girls internalize this message as they grow up and over time it becomes woven into the core of their identity. By the time most reach adolescence they have become fully amalgamated into the culture’s narrative – To be powerful, accepted, celebrated, appreciated, and adored – to be VISIBLE, you must be SEXUAL. The alternative is to be rendered completely and entirely irrelevant – to be made INVISIBLE.” Billboards, TV shows, movies, magazines all amplify the motto “Sex Sales.” America is the top consumer and producer of pornography. We live in a world where women and children are abducted regularly and then sold into prostitution and human trafficking rings. Humanity as a whole is guilty for devaluing human life in a myriad of ways. That is basically what you did in your statement. You devalued not only your own wife, but women in general when you said that sex was a choice between a vagina and an anus. It simply cannot be that simple. You chose to make a vow of commitment to one woman, Miss Kay, for the rest of your life. You see, this is why if your covenant with Miss Kay was just about her vagina, then it would not be so sacred. The covenant of marriage (an expression of the relationship between Jesus and the church) is chiefly revealed in the act of physical intimacy: the breaking of a hymen (a blood covenant), the transferring of the seed of life from a man and implanting it into a woman (the gift of the Holy Spirit). Nevertheless, the mystery that happens in sexual intercourse is the joining of two souls. The oneness that happens in sex is a mystery and is so much more than vaginas and anuses. 

Not only has our culture devalued human life but we have devalued marriage, and I don’t mean by states allowing gay marriage. Marriage was devalued when uncontested divorce was initially made legal, and the prolific amount of divorces that have happened since are proof. Divorce is rampant in the world as well as the church. The very thing that Paul signifies as the guidepost of the relationship that Jesus bought for us has been treated casually. For this and so many more reasons, it’s no wonder that the message of salvation in Christ is lost on the world today. 

Having said all of this, I want to tell you that I understand or rather hope you didn’t “mean” all of that when you said it. Unfortunately, words mean things. There are implied as well as inherent meanings in every word we use. The glory of communication is the subtle nuances that mean things. The cultural background that imbues every word with a thousand definitions, are incredibly important. Having grown up in the South, I am all too aware of the ignorance that is tolerated as the cultural norm. Bigotry against races and gender is commonplace. In the movie The Help, the character Abileene, makes a statement about raising children as a black maid that I found very poignant. She makes the statement that as a maid she is loved and adored by children until they turn 18, and then all of the sudden she is relegated as trash. I thought it was significant because in many ways, I feel the same way as a woman. In the American church, by and large I am qualified because of my gender to teach children about God as long as they are a minor. Mysteriously, when they cross the threshold into adulthood, I am no longer qualified to teach them about Jesus publically. My point is that while I understand that your comments were made from a lifetime of cultural worldviews, there is something higher that you should aspire to confessing. When you accepted Jesus as your personal savior, you became an inhabitant of a different Kingdom, a different culture. The value systems of your former life are supposed to take the back seat to the new value systems of the Kingdom of God. Sanctification, the process all Christians go through of becoming more Christ like, is slow and tedious, requiring much repentance and submission. In 2 Cor. 10:5 (MSG) Paul says, “But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity.” In talking about spiritual warfare, Paul says that our job is to demolish our massively corrupt culture, warped philosophies, and to tear down barriers erected against the truth of God. Spiritual warfare is the opposing of the culture of this world and enforcing the culture of the Kingdom. The culture of this world is one that devalues humanity, sexuality, marriage by promoting pornography, promiscuity, divorce, abortion, human trafficking and a thousand other atrocities. We as believers must guard ourselves from the seemingly innocuous and casual regard of things God calls holy. Lou Engle once said, “If you treat the prophetic casually it will cause casualties.” I will take that statement one step further. If we treat anything that God calls holy, casually it causes casualties.  The casualness and simplicity that you use in referring to sex as simple body parts is causing casualties of epic proportion. It kills the sacredness of marriage, the mystery and beauty of joining two souls together in sex; it significantly devalues and thereby kills the core of femininity and relegates women to sex objects.

I have one last thing to say in regards to this issue. While I agree with you that homosexuality is a sin, I think the overemphasis of it that the church is making in this hour is the greater problem. In 1 Cor. 13 (NIV), we learn how God defines love. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.” There are two phrases from this passage that jump out at me: 1) it keeps no record of wrongs and 2) it always protects. I don’t know about you but I am pretty well aware of all the mistakes I make. I think most humans are. Whether the LGBT community agrees with us that homosexuality is a sin is not really the issue. God makes it pretty clear that it is his job to change hearts. We, as Christians, are called to love. In fact we are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. 

I sincerely don’t know how to deal with all of the intricate nuances about this issue. I have analyzed this argument from every angle. I have good friends who are gay (both Christian and non-Christian alike) so this issue is extremely important to me. I want to love them well. I believe in accountability and all of that stuff, but I also know that the times of greatest change in my own testimony have come not through someone holding a measuring stick to my life, but extending me grace and mercy. That is in and of itself the audacity of the Cross, that we (any of us) would be given mercy. I don’t believe the statements you made exemplified love. You were keeping a record of their wrongs. You held up a banner and said that because they participate in XYZ sin they are devalued and somehow not deserving of God’s love and mercy. Again, you may not have “meant” it, but that’s what you said. You also didn’t protect the LGBT community. You didn’t protect them from being exploited, from the lies of the enemy which would tell them they don’t deserve God’s love, from unwanted rejection, etc. Rather you chose to make comments that treated the LGBT community much like David treated Bathsheba’s husband. You sent them to the front lines to be slaughtered. All I know is that there is not one Christian who does not struggle with some kind of sin on a daily basis. Be it sins of pride, lying, adultery, pornography, lust, stealing, etc we all “have fallen short.” I think the Church is guilty of focusing way too much on sin and not nearly enough on the mercy found at the cross of Christ. It is a delicate balance, one which I have not perfected.Phil, I don’t have all the answers. As I said in the beginning, this really is a letter to the Church and American public as much as it is to you. I pray that if anything good can come of the controversy you found yourself in the midst of in December, that it will cause the church to look at issues like gender equality, homosexuality, marriage, and our treatment of holy things casually more seriously. 

I pray that God blesses your family. As Paul says in Philippians 1:9-11, “This is my prayer: that your love might become even more and more rich with knowledge and all kinds of insight.  I pray this so that you will be able to decide what really matters and so you will be sincere and blameless on the day of Christ.  I pray that you will then be filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes from Jesus Christ, in order to give glory and praise to God.”

Sincerely,

Jill Hurley

Strange fire vs Hell's fire: What is the bigger crisis?

There is a whole lot of discussion right now about how to tell if Christians are in fact Christians. The alternative is I guess that they would be people who profess Christ, but are deceived. If you've read my posts before, then you know I have a pretty simplistic view of things. My first premise is that the basis of real, authentic, blood bought Christianity must be true across the board from Baptists to Methodists to Catholics to Church of Christ to Non-denominationalists to Pentecostals and everywhere in between. The definition of Christianity isn't changed by which flavor you prefer. If you, as a human being, accept that you are in absolute 100% need of a savior, a pure and holy sacrifice who CAN and DID pay for your sins so that you can have access to the Father then as scripture states you are a Christian. Being a Christian is not about having the right doctrine, worship style, or bank account. It is simply about the audacious work that Jesus did on the cross to cover my sins giving me access and authority to call myself a co-heir with Christ. So what then is the problem? Certain groups do baptisms one way, others do communion this way, some worship with instruments, others don't. Some say women can preach, some say women have to wear head coverings. Some have blue carpet while others believe that red carpet is the only way to go. It's a bit ridiculous the things we fight over. So instead of fighting, walk with me on a journey for a minute.

Have you ever grown a garden? Do you plant corn only? Do you think it's an abomination to plant tomatoes and peppers in the same vicinity? There are some people who even plant flowers such as marigolds in the middle of their vegetables because they believe it keeps out bugs. Are they heretics to the garden community? Even if you have a Rose garden, do you limit it only to yellow roses or do you let in as many varieties of roses that space will allow? You see there is beauty in diversity. I believe that the Creator of the universe really gets and really appreciates diversity. He made people with a variety of hues in skin, hair and eye color. When you mix and match those people, you get some of the most beautiful people in the world. Why, when God personally created so many varieties of flowers, foods, trees, landscapes, humans, animals, etc do we think that he is freaked out about differences in worship styles? 

John MacArthur recently said that all Charismatics are not Christians and are walking a thin line of being demonized. I just don't understand. In 2000 years collectively Christians have done such a horrible job of distorting the beauty and majesty of Jesus. We have sponsored the Crusades, bombed abortion clinics, carried signs that says 'God hates fags' and we are freaking out about whether Johnny twitches or laughs in the middle of worship? At least he's worshipping Jesus! By and large Christians did nothing to help Jews during the holocaust and we are more concerned (at least in America) with lining our pockets than with taking care of widows and orphans, which is how  Jesus describes pure and undefiled religion. If we hold true to our faith then we must believe that there are millions of people dying each day who really and truly are not Christians. The enemy has done such a great job of getting us bickering with each other that we are ineffective at doing the two things He said to do: Love Me and Love Them.

Call me crazy, but the Bible says the world will know we are Christians by our love. I can hear you now saying, "But Jill, love isn't a free pass to do whatever you want. We can't abuse grace." Absolutely, I agree. But I can also say with 100% confidence that if you have ever really encountered the love of God and tasted of his grace then you have a deep understanding of Paul's admonition, where sin abounds grace abounds all the more. The reality is that most of the church doesn't really understand the audacious, radical, absurd, and even offensive nature of the cross. His grace is so much bigger than we can comprehend. 

So what about the Strange Fire and weird manifestations that happen in some charismatic circles? Is it demonic? Is it fleshly? Is it sinful? Yes. No. Maybe. It's not necessarily my job to judge that. You see scripture says that men judge outward appearances but God judges the heart. Certainly we can judge the fruit of people's lives, but that fruit is defined as: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and self control. Ephesians 5:8-9 says "for you were once darkness, but now the light in The Lord. Live as children of light (for fruit of light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases The Lord." If any Christ professing person does not exhibit or manifest the above fruit then you can certainly begin to question whether they are actually engaged in a viable relationship with Jesus or whether they have just been participating in the throws of religion. Will every Christian be walking in 100% perfect fruitfulness? No. Much of that has to do with maturity. You have to wait for plants and fruits to bear fruit and sometimes they have to be pruned to bear more fruit. Humans can resist the pruning process and become dormant. But don't we have to test the spirits and doesn't the Bible say that the elect can be deceived? Yes it does. Fear is not of God. What Mr. MacArthur and others are selling is fear based religion that does not lead to liberty. "It is for freedom that you have been set free!" I just tested the spirits. As for the elect being deceived, I believe there will be a showdown someday, somehow between the ways of the world, the anti-Christ mentalities, systems or persons and the ways of God. I believe there will come a very definitive day where I will have to choose who/what/where I will place my allegiance and my trust/faith/hope. I believe in that day many Christ professing people will choose what seems like a road of comfort and peace, but will actually be nothing of the sort. I believe some of the elect will be deceived but I do not think that the enemy is going to deceive them by different styles of worship. If he is going to deceive someone it will be to place their trust in a system that is reliant on something or someone other than God.

I guess what I want you to take away more than anything is that all this nonsense is distracting the Bride from her real destiny to love God and love people. We are so consumed with inner bickering that we are missing the millions that are dying and going to hell daily. Beloved, you should have the fear of God over that reality because this is what each one of us will have to give an account for to Jesus himself. Did you help him receive the reward for his suffering? He's not going to ask you if you sang hymns or did fire tunnels. He's a bit more concerned with the billions of his kids whom he dearly loves and will spend eternity without ever knowing his name. What a tragedy. Yes there is a deception running rampant, but it is not at all the way you presume it to be.

SOCR-YWAM denver

What a crazy week it's been. We ended the last week of prayer for the summer, last week. I have been praying for and hoping for some sort of training this last part of the summer. I had heard of a school that was combining YWAM and IHOP and The Call called the School of the Circuit Riders or SOCR for short. Well today I was officially accepted to go to the one in Denver starting next week.  What a faith journey. I can't believe I am going back to YWAM.  18 years later.  I am blown over by your goodness.  I am gun shy. I am nervous. I am afraid. But I am also hopeful. I want more of the Lord's goodness in my life.  So we will see what comes!

what's the big idea?

I believe most of you know what Tech 24-7 does on a monthly basis, but I am not sure you understand the significance of it. There is a saying, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."  My prayer is really similar, that as we remember, we will repeat history.  Graham Cooke, says,  "We become what we behold."  While ultimately beholding Jesus, it is my hope that as we re-visit these stories of old, they will fuel a fire in all of us to pursue a 21st century revival among college students. 

So join me, as I take us on an extremely brief history of revivals in America and their connection to college students praying.  It's my prayer that as you read these stories, the weightiness of what we are doing at Tech 24-7 will be revealed to you.  I also pray that you realize that you have a part to play in this journey.  Birthing a revival among students at Texas Tech requires adults, family members, professors, employers, college pastors, friends, loved ones, and intercessors to pray, give, serve, invest and believe that God can and will do this again. 

Ten years ago Pete Greig, one of the founders of 24-7 Prayer, sat in the first prayer room at 3am and scribbled a poem that would help define the 24-7 movement. 'The Vision Poem', as it became known, spread like wildfire. I honestly, deeply, full heartedly believe that God wants to loose a prayer movement here at Texas Tech, which will in turn change the lives of thousands if not millions.  You can be a part of bringing that into being.  Join with us.  For more information on how you can connect with us, visit our website.

In the 18th Century, a group of young men began gathering on the campus of Oxford University in England. This group consisted of a small group of young men who called themselves the Holy Club. This club gathered together regularly for the purpose of prayer, confession, exhortation, and Bible study in order to challenge one another in their holiness and pursuit of God.

The Lord began to breathe upon two men in this group in particular, George Whitefield and John Wesley. Through the ministry of these two men, the Lord began to revive hearts throughout both England and America, as well as cause the word of the Lord to prevail in entire geographic regions as many would be convicted by the power of the gospel and repent unto salvation. It was also through John Wesley that the Methodist Church was started. In the early days of America's history, the Methodist Church served as one of the most fervent vehicles of missions activity and church planting, the fruits of which would dramatically affect the early history of America.

All the universities in America at this time had been founded through the Church and therefore were expected to supply the next generation of evangelical leaders. The American churches viewed these student communities as the coming future of their congregations, culture, and society. They believed that the direction of their churches and that of the whole nation would soon follow the spiritual bent and character of America's college students - As the students go, so goes the nation. It was this kind of farseeing perspective about students that made the American Church quick to answer the call to a national day of prayer for colleges.In 1806, Samuel J. Mills and five other students at Williams College began to pray for the Lord to visit their university. This prayer meeting is affectionately known as the 'Haystack Prayer Meeting' because the weather forced them to pray underneath a haystack the first time they gathered to pray. Many historians and students of church movements trace the Second Great Awakening of America to this prayer meeting.

Through the 1800s the Lord began to move on college campuses. At a time where Deism prevailed in the educational institutions of the nation, all across America the Lord began to save souls. It is said that in the course of a year's time, half of Yale's and a third of Princeton's student population were saved. In the universities, these believers began to come together in societies, which began to take on more and more of a missionary focus as the years went on.

By 1886, some of these students from such societies began to possess such zeal for the task of world evangelization, they formed what is called the 'Student Volunteer Movement'. Over the next fifty years, the Student Volunteer Movement sent 20,000 college students into the foreign mission field under the watchword of 'the evangelization of the world in this generation'. It is also commonly estimated that the movement mobilized nearly 100,000 college students in these fifty years in prayer for the Lord's purpose in the nations of the earth.

In the year 1823, the last Thursday of February in each year was agreed upon as the day for special supplication that God would pour from on high His Spirit upon our Colleges and Seminaries. And what have been some of the results? In the years 1824 and 1825 revivals were experienced in five different Colleges; in 1826 in six Colleges; in 1831 in nineteen...In one of the Colleges it is stated that a revival started on the very day of the concert of prayer. In 1835, not less than eighteen revivals were reported by different colleges." By the end of the nineteenth century, these repeated student awakenings had radically transformed the culture and moral climate of many of our largest universities. As a result many of America's ministers at this time were encouraging their congregations to send their children to college, if they wanted to see them safe and soundly converted.

 

the heart of repentance

It's been a while since I've written.  I think it's been a long time since I had words to describe what the Lord is doing in my heart.  I'll be honest, that I'm not sure that I know exactly what's going on now, but I see glimpses. 

For the last 6 months, I have been working with students at Texas Tech, helping to create spaces and places for them to encounter the presence of God. While I have been predominately dormant for the last several years, spiritually speaking, this has been such an exhilarating time in my life.  A time for new opportunities to trust the Lord in ways I haven't dreamed of in 15 or more years. It's not difficult for me to believe that God will show up and transform the hearts of people in Lubbock or the students.  I have seen him do it in my own life and I know He will do it again.  Even if I hadn't seen Him do it in my life, it's what He does.  He encounters and transforms people.  Historically, Biblically, personally...it's what Jesus loves to do.  He loves to reveal himself to people.  So praying that God will change the hearts of the student body at Tech is not hard for me to believe.  It may take time for there to be a tangible culture shift at Tech, and it may seem incredibly challenging given that we've got approximately 4 years to reach a student body before there's a whole new crowd to deal with, I still am a believer in his transforming power.  Prayer changes things!  In the midst of this though, there is a really painful reality thought that there are hidden places where doubt and unbelief have taken root.  A history of having a heart that is moved by compassion, creates multiple opportunities for me to want to go on xyz mission trip and unfortunately not see money come in. 

But even as I say that, it's not God's fault.  There are multiple things going on here.  I grew up in a poor family so there's a spirit of poverty that is still trying to work in my life.  Then there's the whole issue of sewing and reaping.  Unfortunately, I have stolen several times in my life, never fully trusting God's ability to provide. I have sewn a lot of crap into my life. I've stolen from people, from non-profits, from businesses and more.  I've stolen pens and I've stolen hundreds of dollars.  I've written hot checks on multiple occasions, I've flat out taken hard cold cash and lied about it.  What God has called Holy, I have treated incredibly casually and participated with the enemy in bringing about devastation in other peoples lives.  So here I am working a non-profit, asking people to give me money and I'm getting very little in.  I've cried, complained, and forgive my french "bitched and moaned" all to no avail.  The one thing I haven't done is repent.  Why you ask?  I don't know how to.  I know that may sound crazy, but it's true.  My go-to response to situations like this is to do penance, trusting in my own works instead of choosing repentance, thereby receiving grace through the cross of Christ.  This is the pivotal point of my walk with Christ.  When it all boils down, I rarely want to depend on the Cross and more often than not, wish I could save myself.  I don't like depending on someone else to be my savior.  Every-time I am confronted with my inability to save myself, I fall into a deep depression because that is the soul's response to the realization that it cannot save itself,  and be glorified.  It takes me a while to work myself up to the point of repentance and receiving mercy and grace.  It is painful, bittersweet to be sure.  The thought of someone else paying for my selfishness hurts.  Hopefully it hurts enough to keep me from being selfish again next time.

So as I pursue revival on Tech's campus, I am likewise pursuing revival in my own heart.  New life for this heart that is dead and broken.  I am pursuing grace, which is so desperately needed, but not cheap grace.  I am pursuing a grace that is hard to receive, beautifully refreshing, and  a true work of transformation.  Kris Valliton says that you can't separate revival and generosity.  I hope that's true because I'm pursuing revival.  May my repentant heart be a fertile ground for people to sew into, that bears much fruit.  May the Fear of the Lord keep me close to Him recognizing him as my true provider.  I so easily could end up being the next "preacher" who falls into sexual sin, embezzlement, or any other hidden thing.  My friend Chad Wheeler posted on his facebook yesterday a really great essay that speaks to this issue.  "Compassion grows with the inner recognition that your neighbor shares your humanity with you. This partnership cuts through walls which might have kept you separate. Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end. With this compassion you can say, 'In the face of the oppressed I recognize my own face and in the hands of the oppressor I recognize my own hand. Their flesh is my flesh, their blood is my blood, their pain is my pain, their smile is my smile. Their ability to torture is in me, too; their capacity to forgive I find also in myself. There is nothing in me that does not belong to them too; nothing in them that does not belong to me. In my heart, I know their yearning for love, and down to my entrails I can feel their cruelty. In anothers' eyes I see my plea for forgiveness, and in a hardened frown I see my refusal. When someone murders, I know that I too could have done that, and when someone gives birth, I know that I am capable of that as well. In the depths of my being, I meet my fellow humans with whom I share love and have life and death." - Henri Nouwen, With Open Hands

Jilll in Wonderland

My days are going by so fast. I am living a dream life.  I am floored by God's grace and provision.  I absolutely love my days.  They are full, usually 10 hour days, combined with praying with and for students, meeting with them in discipleship, and meeting with board members.  I scramble as fast as I can to get work done in between meetings.  I am trying to live with the mentality that I am a daughter and not an orphan, and therefore I have access to unlimited resources for God's financial provision for this ministry.  Please keep me in your prayers.  I just wanted to get something down in writing, that I am grateful.