Achey breaky heart

I don't know what it is but there is a groan inside of me. Started last night in worship and haven't been able to shake it. It's a longing for intimacy for sure, but it's more that that. I find the temptation to day dream is getting harder to fight. I want Calgon to sweep me away. In another life I know what would fix this problem, but that life is past and no longer bears any viable options. I think it's the ache of barrenness. The longing for husband and family. 

A guy friend called out of the blue. We haven't spoken in months. Maybe 3 times in the last two years. I loved him once. And as he calls out of the blue, we pick up right where we left off. At one point he says he can see through me, he knows me...and yet he still doesn't choose me. There is nothing more wounding than being fully seen and not chosen. I cannot afford to be your ego boost any longer. 

It's a place of radical discontentment. I would rather have any life other than this one. Teach me to be grateful for the here and now. One day I will miss this time. I don't want to be Israel who wants a king just to be like everyone else. That was so very destructive. 

Maybe I just need sleep. 

I choose Life!

Prosperity After Turning to the Lord

Deut. 30 says, When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, ² and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, ³ then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. ⁴ Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. ⁵ He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. ⁶ The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. ⁷ The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. ⁸ You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today. ⁹ Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors, ¹⁰ if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The Offer of Life or Death

¹¹ Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. ¹² It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” ¹³ Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” ¹⁴ No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
¹⁵ See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. ¹⁶ For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
¹⁷ But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, ¹⁸ I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
¹⁹ This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live ²⁰ and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Seemingly all night last night I dreamed about this passage. I woke up specifically with verses 19-20 in my heart. I am not sure exactly what the Lord is saying, but these are the thoughts I've been thinking about.

As we live life day in and day out, how do we choose Life? In verse 19, it gives 3 principles that describe what choosing life looks like: Love the Lord your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to him. In verse 15, it says Love the Lord your God, walk in obedience to him, keep his commands, decrees and laws and then you will live in increase. 

Heb. 3:7-11 says, "So, as the Holy Spirit says:“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

I guess that's the key for me, is not hardening my heart. You see, God likes to do things that I don't always like to do. He likes to take me to places and make me say things that are just down right uncomfortable. He likes to wake me up in the middle of the night or worse yet, make me wake up at some crazy hour to spend time with him. I hate it all.  So how do I not harden my heart, how do I not choose rebellion or worshiping other Gods (namely myself, comfort, convenience, fear of man, etc) but instead choose him? Verse 11 in Deuteronomy is encouraging. It is not too difficult or out of reach. Sometimes it just comes down to believing Jesus is who He says He is. 

I've been meditating on James 1 for a while as well. The issue of unbelief and how it paralyzes us in fear and keeps us from moving forward in the plans God has for us. Eph. 4:14 says, "so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes." In James we are tossed to and fro because of unbelief. In Ephesians we are tossed because we are immature are cannot resist false doctrines. 

And then there is the verse: "Therefore thus says the Lord: You have not listened to Me and obeyed Me in proclaiming liberty each one to his brother and neighbor." The punishment for not proclaiming liberty is to be tossed to and fro. 

And finally going back to Deuteronomy in Ch 28:25 it says, "The Lord shall cause you to be struck down before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them, and you shall be tossed to and fro and be a terror among all the kingdoms of the earth." Why is God going too do that? Verse 14 says, "But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command you this day, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you." 

The ampliphied version says that the verse in Deut 28 was fulfilled in 2 Chronicles 29:6-8. "For our fathers have trespassed and have done what was evil in the sight of the Lord our God, and they have forsaken Him and have turned away their faces from the dwelling place of the Lord and have turned their backs. Also they have closed the doors of the porch and put out the lamps, and they have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the place holy to the God of Israel. [II Kings 16:10-16.] Therefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He has delivered them to be a terror and a cause of trembling, to be an astonishment, and a hissing, as you see with your own eyes. 

What's even more interesting is Deut. 28:24, "The Lord shall make the rain of your land powdered soil and dust; from the heavens it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed."

All this meditation on to and fro began when I heard people calling Lubbock weather bi polar. Being tossed to and fro is the physical manifestation of being bi polar. If Deut 28:24 doesn't describe Lubbock weather I don't know what does.

So what now? It's a time of repentance. It's time to come back to The Lord. It's time to choose life that we may live. As for me and my house, I choose life! 

How to appropriately celebrate St. Patrick

Much discussion has been going around about the fallacies regarding the way America celebrates St.

Patrick's day. Since I am taking a class on Church history, I just happen to have recently written a

short piece on St. Patrick. Here's what I wrote:

One thing that was surprising to learn is that St. Patrick was born in Scotland and then sold into slavery in Ireland. He lived for 106 years. It was during his time as a slave sheepherder, that he penned the words “His fear increased in me more and more, and the faith grew in me, and the spirit was roused, so that, in a single day, I have said as many as a hundred prayers, and in the night nearly the same, so that whilst in the woods and on the mountain, even before the dawn, I was roused to prayer and felt no hurt from it, whether there was snow or ice or rain; nor was there any slothfulness in me, such as I see now, because the spirit was then fervent within me.“ (St. Patrick, 1911) As was common with many mystics during this time period, St. Patrick’s life was rich in the workings of signs and wonders. Wherever he went, “the fame of Patrick's marvelous power of miracles preceded him.” (St. Patrick, 1911) Some of his most significant miracles were performed on Easter Day in 433 AD, when Patrick took on a brood of Druids much like Elijah and the Prophets of Baal. “Patrick's ministry lasted 29 years. He baptized over 120,000 Irishmen and planted 300 churches.” (Kithcart, 2014) Patrick’s story is an epic reminder of the cost associated with being a true disciple of Christ. Surrendering to the life of missions is not an easy choice and often comes with much tribulation. “Rev. Earnes concurs, ‘I honestly feel that what Patrick taught Ireland was that there is a cost to discipleship, but it's a cost worth paying.” (Kithcart, 2014)

Did you also know that St. Patrick raised people from the Dead? Quoting Tyler Johnson's Facebook post, "A few resurrection stories about St. Patrick: Once, the two children of king Alphinus died; a daughter named Dublinia and a son named Eochadh. Alphinus told St. Patrick that if he raised his children back to life he would give himself and his kingdom to God. So, Patrick raised them both back to life. The king was baptized shortly after and the people turned from Druid worship to God. To remember what God had done, the king named his biggest city after his daughter, which is why that city is now called Dublin. -Church history records St. Patrick to have raised 33 men from the dead...."some dead many years." Just go ahead and think about that for a moment."  

So how do you really celebrate a man who died this day many years ago? Getting drunk on whiskey and Green Beer seems wildly inappropriate. I guess for me today is much more of a challenge to live my faith out-loud. Today is a day that if I see someone who is sick and hurting, I want to pray for them to be healed and to give a lending hand. Granted that should be my everyday, but since it's not, I will start today. I don't think I'm up for walking into the morgue and praying for the dead to be raised. I wish I was that brave. My friend Kyle and I prayed for a friends step dad several years ago who was dying because he tried to kill himself. I really believed we were going to raise him up then. But nurses and red tape got in the way.  I think watching a movie called "DeadRaiser" would be a great way to honor St. Patrick's legacy. Anything you can do to stir your faith to believe God for more. 

I don't know about you but I too often limit God by my small imagination. I have not because I ask not. My friend Corrie reminded me last night about George Mueller's life. He did amazing work in England and never asked anyone other than God for the things he needed. He believed that God would provide 100%. I run a prayer ministry on campus and I am not convinced of God's faithfulness, like George was. I can prove it because every time I ask God for something and he does it, I am shocked. My faith is very small. 

So today, I will stretch my faith and believe God for something that only he could provide. I will pray for people to be healed and if I come across someone dying or dead I will pray for them to be raised back to life. Today, I will live not like a 21st century American in my faith but like those long ago who actually believed and saw God do amazing things.

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.