recipe to finding your spirit

I was on a road trip recently to Holland..........Holland, Michigan. What started off as a weekend to reconnect with a friend turned in to reconnecting with my spirit. I drove Toms big truck there-scared me to death but I did it and it helped that I had the best navigator and friend in the world who not only told me what direction to go next but was a willing ear for a 5 in a half hour drive. I didn't know I needed to talk to someone but God always knows and being stuck together in a truck for that long lends to the perfect therapy "session". The drive was great in fact we made it in great time-mostly due to the wonderful drivers ahead of me who were speeding which allowed me to tag along. I couldn't wait to get there because I thought it would be great to not have any agenda and to talk some situations through on my faith journey. Our friend in Holland has a spirit that somehow understands mine and that is a great relief because not everyone does. When I met her four years ago I knew instantly that my journey with God wasn't a lonely one anymore because the craziness that I felt all that JESUS FREAK she understood without my trying to explain it. She is now the pastor of a wonderful church in Holland and when we listened to her preach that weekend you could just sense she was such at home there in front of all those people loving God the way she does and letting the Holy Spirit speak through her. I love that. I think about times like that and I always imagine God smiling the way a proud parent does.
         When we arrived at her house I exhaled in comfort and ease even before we stepped in. Her front porch was so inviting and her home screamed "welcome". I could tell you how beautiful the space was but it had nothing to do with any fancy furniture or decor but a warmth and calm and spirit of peace. SO many places to sit and be still. To dive into scripture or prayer. To talk and laugh. To play and stretch. To take of the earth and create and enjoy. Green tea with honey, cats who enjoyed my slippers as much as I did, long games of snakes and ladders, learning to make guacamole,meeting great people, helping to create other great meals that nourished in stead of filled up, listening to music being played by my navigator and friend who didn't know I could hear it, reading and thinking and walking and being. Oh did I need this weekend and oh do I want to bring Tom here too. I feel like this was one of those God-planned stops on this JESUS FREAK journey of mine that had all the ingredients needed to find my spirit there-the parts that had been muffled by work and t.v and the enemy and most of all myself. When we left on Monday I wasn't sad although I do miss her instead I felt like her home was so much of what I needed but never wanted me to love it more than where I came from just simply wanted to make me better for returning.  selfless place that nurtures your spirit but wants you to be free to continue your journey with God or in my case my JESUS FREAK journey. A space and a place and a spirit that wants you better not to keep you to itself but to equip you to be better for the sake of the KINGDOM. I was excited to reconnect with Tom and my family wanting to share this great experience. My navigator(and friend) and I left being better for the experiences there. I asked her what 3 things did she learn or experience on our weekend and it lent to a great discussion on our long ride home which included some great music and singing too. I learned 3 things too. A recipe for my spirit I would like to share with you:

1. Gods story never gets old. One night our friend opened her home to 6 more people that were strangers to me. She asked me to tell the story of the mission and God in my life and although fear told me to be careful how much you tell so you don't bore these people-my spirit reminded me how great a work He has done in me and where I have come from. I needed to hear it again. I needed to have a flood of emotion overcome me with the awesomeness of God and how there is nothing He cant do. My spirit needed to hear it and I needed to share it. It lit a flame in me.it reminded me that whatever overwhelms me I needed to give it to Him because He always knows whats best for me. I loved reminding the others in the room about His awesomeness too, sometimes we all forget.
2. Focusing on God will never be time lost. Spending the time reading, napping, praying being still for God was wonderful. I needed to see that it is not a waste of time or that time is not always to be filled DOING something. Sometimes just being in the stillness with Him is the when you hear Him the loudest and when all the things He was trying to say before can make it through now because there is no, t.v, meetings, e-mails,phone calls,laundry, cleaning, appointments,etc etc etc. I learned that I can do that here too and I should because I am better because of it.
3. learn to cook. I always tell people I cannot cook and that is partially true but more so I didn't ever take the time to really try and I was afraid of failing when i did . When we took the good things of the earth created by God and chopped, grated, stirred, laughed, HELPED,prayed, created, took chances and from all of that nourished our bodies with goodness and not gluttony (something I struggled with) my spirit was alive with hope and community and faith. Try something new with Gods creations on the earth and if you already do that invite someone to create with you its an incredible experience.

Have you lost a little bit of your spirit? GO and find it. Tell Gods story in your life to someone so you can hear it out loud, take some time to be still with Him and go create with all the goodness He has given us and ask someone to join you. I woke up today and bought some ingredients to make soup and to make dinner for tonight. The soup was delicious and I shared it with Hannah and I cant wait to make dinner later with her and ignite my spirit again. Thank you my friends for this weekend and thank you to all the friends I got to meet and thank-you for my husband Tom for  giving me to space to go but most of all thanks be to God for all He has for us in this world, A world that has all the ingredients to help us create goodness and love and community and grace and to get our JESUS FREAK on!

Stepping out of the boat and into the FREAK

When we arrived at the mission on Sunday i found myself feeling much the same as I did that March day in 2005 when we first opened the HHSM storefront . Excited for the opportunity to serve God despite the fact that we had no idea what we were doing. It was amazing! No clue what was about to happen and yet totally open to whatever God wanted. Sunday was like that. Something that had been stirring in our hearts for sometime now was now about to happen and again we had no clue what the plan was only that we were willing to step out even at the risk of being wrong,
      "aren't you doing church already? Haven't you been doing church for the last 10 years? So what are you waiting for?" Oh what a relief it was to hear that from someone else out loud the voice I have been hearing for some time in my heart. So we decided that Sunday was going to be it-we were going to have church down at the mission with our friends if they will come. If they didn't  We would still do it-remember willing to be wrong, crazy, rebellious all of that but simply willing. I have to admit we had avoided it fo r so long for many reasons; we aren't pastors, what would our church community say, would we risk looking like anti-traditional church people , would people understand. Notice that all of these questions and concerns had everything to do with the "world" and nothing to do with God. How did we get here? As a part of my Jesus FREAK journey I was worried this very thing would happen, my hesitation to God out of fear for what people would say. When 10 years ago we(my Jesus friend and I) first stepped out to meet people on the street to hand out clothes and talk about Jesus MANY people though we were crazy-including Tom but I went anyway. When Tom joined the team and I felt God sending us to have a storefront in the Barton st community and we signed a lease with no money to back it up people said we were irresponsible, crazy and selfish but we did it anyway. When I tried to manage a full time job and be at the mission too and had to make a decision between the two because there want enough time for both and I choose the mission with no pay no pension no benefits \MANY people thought I was crazy, irresponsible,selfish, rebellious but I did it anyway. Crazy, FREAKY Jesus FREAKY.
                     Through each of those decisions I focused on one thing only-Gods voice. I am glad I didn't take the advice of anyone else because as crazy and difficult as this journey has been and continues to be I am exactly where He needs me to be and my life has never been more blessed. We never had a business/mission or church plan just a crazy notion that God would never leave us even if we were wrong,He would pick us back up and give us the grace to continue.
            Starting church at the mission was no different. No plan, but we did print out some words to a few worship songs we liked and asked our friend John to come and talk to our friends about God. We made coffee and brought donuts and sat together with 5 of our friends in a circle with 2 more stopping to listen grab a coffee and flee and listened together from God word. Question's were asked in the comfort of friends and requests were made and advice was given. Church. Simple and wonderful. Why had it taken so long? Perhaps it had to. Perhaps God was waiting for us to grow a little more or perhaps our fear prolonged it. Whatever the reason it is here now-church on Sunday at the mission,Simple and wonderful. Not sure whats going to happen next Sunday but we do know we will be there to make coffee and listen to the Word and be with our friends. This I think was the FREAK I had been searching for.The funny thing was it was right here all along-God was just waiting for me to trust Him again like all those other times before.
Thanks for following on this crazy messy journey with me.

Removing the noise to hear from my God

That's my "resolution " this year- to remove more of the noise to hear from my God. Yes I need to loose some weight, exercise, eat better, get more organized, be nicer to people, learn to cook, learn to put on foundation(crazy i know but something I have never learned so one day...) remember birthdays, and the list could go on and on. The reality is that none of these will really matter in the long run if they all become more noise and a barrier to God.
      All of these things (okay maybe not the foundation part) can help me to become a better person to the world at large. I also believe they can also become incorporated into my life on a spiritual level that actually enhances my journey with God in fact in the past I tried to lie about my motives going into the new year with that logic. "I am going to loose weight not just by dieting but by praying while I do it or following a "christian diet program" lol! "I will live a healthier lifestyle because I will read scripture that talks about what God expects of us when it comes to body image and this temple He gave us" " I will be more organized and remember things like birthdays and be more aware of the people in my life whom i tend to forget about in my day to day routine by  listening to sermons about relationships." There is a central theme here, yet year after year I miss the obvious of what the real issue is that will bring together all of these "resolutions" and save me from the inevitable of week 9 when I realize I am defeated in all these areas and just do not have the will power to succeed, so stop it all. The theme is the Word of God.
       Why do I think that a diet that is based on scripture will work any differently than any of the other diets I have been on my whole life if scripture reading isn't a part of my daily worship to God? Why do I think that I will be more organized and have better relationships by simply focusing on sermons that talk about only those themes when again I don't devote the time daily to connect with my God in prayer to get to know Him better? I am offered advice from people who talk about living a balanced lifestyle but are we really supposed to have a balanced lifestyle or is it really supposed to be unbalanced in favor of relationship with God? If I start removing all the noise like turning on the T.V before opening my bible, or spending as much time in prayer as I do on Facebook  internet or phone wont the imbalance actually reveal itself to be the best balance my life has ever had? Would being in a deeper relationship with God be exactly what I have needed all along and eliminate this need to set up resolutions year after year that if I am honest were never spiritual goals in the first place but goals that would make it more comfortable for me to be in the world.
        I know God wants me to be healthy in my body but not because I need to be a certain size or have a tight butt, its because a healthy body helps with a healthy mind and this temple he gave me is something I need to look after. God would never want me to put my family through my dieting days that caused misery for all of us and strife in our home or that I was so focused on that exercise routine but I had n time left with my husband or family. There was never anything good or godly about my behaviors trust me. I cant help but think that getting my JESUS FREAK back  and connecting more with God would eliminate alot of the reasons why I might turn to food or overindulge in the first place, because I can remove myself from the equation and fill the space with God instead. God wants me to be organized and remember the things that help me have better relationships with people but not because I am punishing myself for not doing it perfectly or running around like a crazy person trying to be everything to everyone. I have to believe that a deeper relationship with God will effect all my relationships including discerning which ones may be unhealthy for my life or the life of my family. It can only enrich the ones that are good and even if I don't remember a birthday the relationship would still be okay because my heart would be open for people to really see Jesus within me and the importance of cards may not really seem important at all ( I wonder how many birthday cards Jesus wrote to his friends) . I am not saying that they are unimportant I just think if I am the most amazing card giver in the world but have a crappy relationship with God who cares?
      My resolution is to remove more of the noise to hear from more of my God so that I can become a better person even if I am "fluffier" than the world says I should be or even when I am not so organized and a birthday goes by and even if I never learn to wear that foundation stuff. My prayer is that the only foundation I will be worried about is the one I have in Him so that all the expectations the world has of me will be nothing but a part of my testimony I can laugh about later. Please help keep me accountable on this journey and thanks for following.

Seeing a reflection of myself

At work today I was visited by two woman that I haven't seen in about 2 years. I was happy to see they were both well-despite the fact that one suffered a heart attack a year ago and the other has suffered the loss of a few family members and friends since I saw her last. In fact they both looked better than the last time i saw them and i was grateful for that-its always nice when it seems like people are on the right track-at least for today. I asked them about a friend they had brought with them the last time they were at the mission 2 years ago and they both looked down at the floor. "You didn't know she died?" they said. " she passed away a year ago in January alone in her apartment but we don't think she did it on purpose but she was sick and sad. Her family didn't want anything to do with her, even her kids. She really was a great person with a big heart but sometimes we get swallowed up in our mess we drown." I took a breath and said " Did she ever tell you how we knew each other?" I asked. "Yes she did Helen but we don't care about that we don't judge anyone, we saw you in the paper last year when it told your story about who you were and how this got started and we are really proud of you and she was too. She didn't read it but she was happy about you helping other people"
 I took another breath and stepped into the basement to look for a coat for one of the women and paused in reflection of two young moms in a teen mom program who were trying to make it through to get their high school diploma while someone watched their kids for free. Two young moms who socialized with all the wrong people and who placed their children in situations that were not safe for anyone. Two young moms who believed in better things for other people but who gave up on themselves before anyone else could say they did. Two young moms who didn't  know anything about love or the cost of trying to figure it out so young. Whose kids were moved from apartment to apartment because the rent wasn't paid or too much trouble was caused or just the hope that the new place would bring something better.Moms who didn't think twice about partying, drinking or drugs and would have been perfect case files for children s aid.  I thought alot about these moms and where their life led them from a similar starting point to a very different end. I thought alot about her and I today. About why she is dead before she turns 40 and I am writing this blog reflecting on my journey with Jesus on my way to turning 40.
 When I saw her 2 years ago after 18 years I didn't recognize her until she told me her name and I then recognized her eyes. Her eyes behind a face that told of years of pain and anger. Years that were spent in jail ,fighting to see her kids and fighting to find herself. Years that I very well could have spent instead of her or beside her. I was never in jail but not because I never broke the law. I never had to fight for my kids but not because I never did anything worthy of them being taken, because I certain did. and here I am fighting to find myself on this journey with Jesus but the only difference was being able to fall into Him. The crossroads of my life on Aug 29 2003 was the moment I met Him and my life that was headed in the very direction she was in. In that moment of the cross stabbing me in the heart was the only thing that separated her and I in our journey that lay ahead. God showed me a reflection of myself that day she came into the mission 2 years ago- I didn't see a messed up old friend but I saw me a reflection of where I was also headed, where he rescued me from.
 You know what I never told her about Jesus when I saw her that last time in the mission and I regret that now. What if that was her moment to know about Jesus and it was my job to tell her. I have been thinking about this all day since I heard of her passing and I cant shake it. I cant do anything about it now but it has really forced me to think about all the people in my life who I don't share the news of Jesus with. I have been praying that someone else stepped into her life and told her about Him and her salvation in Him and I pray she is being comforted by Him now. Our lives were so parallel for a long time- how do I have the right to live a good life with children who love me enough to still speak to me and have me apart of their lives, free from the system of social welfare, living in house with windows(we both lived in an apartment with no windows once) and working at a place that I love? I have asked God why but I know I wont get an answer. I reflect on this JESUS FREAK journey I am on and realize that in the midst of all of this stuff about me, my responsibility is also to others and I don't want to ever let that moment pass again when \i step out and say I am here because of Jesus and ask if they know him too. I was reminded at church this weekend that I need to see everyone in the image of God. I guess that's like the reflection we are supposed to see in others-where we see ourselves in their faces because there but by the grace of God go I.

confessions of a spiritual adulteress.........

confession......
        I started writing this blog 2 weeks ago and then had to stop and erase and start again I wasn't going to come back to writing it for a while but was stopped after church yesterday by a very stylish but more importantly wonderful woman who encouraged me in my blogging and in fact loved how raw it was-so its her fault \i am back and there was something I was really pissed off about..or at least I was two weeks ago. amazing how time does something to the way we see something. Well time does that but so does God he patiently waits for us to see how He has done something magical in a moment of our life that seems so wrong and God STOMPS on the head of the enemy and shows His awesome power. I don't usually wait for the time it takes to see things differently. This time I am glad I did.
 Tom and I have been on a roller coaster of spiritual battleground for the last 6 weeks and sometimes we couldn't even see straight. There is not enough space on this computer to even tell you everything but lets just simplify it this way: MAJOR spiritual battles at mission, looking for advice and finding two very different opinions on what we were going through. Advice #1 we are missionaries in an inner city mission and we will be coming across lots of this so pray  pray pray and be aware of bondage that you may be holding on to from the past and pray pray pray. Advice #2  you are having all these attacks because your wife Helen is having a spiritual affair with Jesus and has been out of  Gods Will. She should have never opened her families door to Jesus when she asked him in to her heart but stayed quiet until her husband led the family in the relationship with God in their home. The attacks will stop when she stops speaking at churches and conferences and gives up leadership at HHSM and also starts worshiping Jesus through her husband.     I will give you time to take all that in..................

                              I know its alot to take in. Could you imagine how hard it was for me to hear that. When Tom came home with that news lets just say I didn't take it very well. God wasn't really pleased with me. This advice messed with my husband and I  for a while as he wrestled with the fact that this person backed it up with scripture and at a very vulnerable time for my husband he was open to being messed with. Let me just qualify this with Tom DOES NOT believe this advice he was only thrown off course for a while. I was pissed for lots of reasons that my previous blog was going to go on and on about but I realized after church on Sunday when our pastor talked about the detours God takes you on I tried to look at this situation differently . Tom and I have been going through more scripture together than we ever have before and really taking the time to study it together-score one for God. The enemy does what ever he can and uses whomever he can to derail you but God takes that derailment and makes it a detour to the original destination HE was sending you on. We have also learned alot about spiritual warfare something people don t talk alot about here but that some of our friends from Africa and Europe are more open to discussing it and we have really benefited from those conversations so much so I want to tell you something incredible that happened that the enemy didn't see coming but God just blew him out of the water with.....

                           In the middle of these 6 weeks of crazy at our home my mum came for tea, that's not new she has come for tea before but this time was different. My mum and I get along but I think she would agree that most of the time we have had more surface conversations and nothing too deep. I have always felt like there has been an invisible barrier between us-nothing hard or harsh but like a strange fog almost that has kept us from connecting deeper. There could be many reasons for this but for my mum and I it has alot to do with alot of guilt and other garbage that we both carried around with and for each other. there was no doubt we loved each other but it wasn't something easily said by my mum because I know I did not create the space for her to freely say it to  me-not her fault. Mine. We sometimes think someone isn't giving us what we need when all along we never gave them environment to even enter in and give it. This tea date turned in to a discussion with my mum about what I had been going through with the spiritual warfare (that's insane)-God opened the door with a situation my mum was telling me about and it was as if God said "share it with her" so I did, I thought she was going to just say "wow that's crazy" but she was taken in by what I was telling her( I kept out the stuff about advice #2  because my mum would have gone through the roof-she would be so ticked in an awesome loving way) I talked about what we learned about spiritual bondage and the things we can carry from generation to generation and I spoke to her about the baggage we could both be carrying. I asked my mum if I could pray for her-YES I DID- it was scary but I did it and I held my mum and prayed for forgiveness and release of guilt and shame and anger and prayed that God would free us both to live in the peace and freedom He planned for us to have-it was incredible and moving and crazy and so GOD! My mum and I hugged after tighter than I have ever remembered and she told me how much she loved me and I to her. I felt like years of baggage fell off and disappeared, i realized in that moment that all the crap the enemy wanted to use for evil God was now turning it around for His goodness and then i had this image of God stepping on the enemies head and squishing it like a watermelon. You see the enemy has tried everything my whole life to stop Gods plan for me, for my mum for our family but WE have the power when we take the detours that God brings us to to go back on track to fulfilling the plans God has for us all along.
                   I was pissed up to   a few days ago and I didnt know how to tell this major part of my journey and I was trying to be careful about how to say it but thanks to the encouraging whispers of a very stylish and wonderful friend at church  I just wrote it, raw and real and her encouragement mixed with a message about detour helped make me see a little clearer what was really going on . Listen to the encouraging whispers and our amazing powerful God and know that all the other stuff is just noise. Focus on His plan for your life and when the enemy tries to derail you soak in the word and get closer to those around you. God has already won-remember that.   P.S I have no plans for keeping quiet, quitting the mission or stopping my relationship with Jesus in fact I feel like we are getting FREAKIER all the time. ;)  Love you Lord love you Tom love you Mum.

Pond Scum

I have had many experiences in my life with collections agencies calling my house looking for payments-they have never been good. It wasn't always because I had some nasty person in the other end of the line sometimes that person was me besides the reality is that i wouldn't have been receiving those calls if I had paid my bills. I have heard a popular Christian Financial leader call the people who work for collection agencies "pond scum" and I have dealt with some over the top people that perhaps that title may be true but I was recently humbled by God in a way that made me grow so much the pain felt like those terrible leg cramps I got when I was a young girl.
                                         Tom and I have been living in our house for 15 years and it is only by the grace of God that we still have it. We have been through many different jobs and with our decision for me to leave my  job completely over 4 years ago to be at HHSM our finances have never been described as "stable". Last year we realized it was time to get windows since the draft coming in through them was crazy and our heating bills seemed to be getting bigger and bigger. The truth is we needed windows but the bigger truth was we didn't have the money to put new ones in -but we did. We made the decision to finance the windows in the hopes that our heat bills would go down and we could make the difference up to make the window payment. We did need the windows, and they have been great and we do in fact save money on our utilities but the reality still is that payment every month is a killer. We signed up for direct withdrawal which worked out the first few times but with Toms on again off again work it didn't always and we ended up paying an additional $50 in bank fees for the money not being there. So the phone calls would come.Sometimes the people did sound pretty nasty but the bigger reality is that Tom and I were just as bad-you see pride is more painful than any other emotion. Throughout this process we remortgaged the house and were able to put a chunk of money on those windows and thought we would be good for a few months but were informed that the money we put on it would only be used at the end of our contract and there in case we couldn't make a payment, we were really ticked. I am sure those "pond scum" never guessed they were talking to "Christians " on the other end of the line.
                                  About six months ago the phone rang and a new person from our financial collections called. Her name was Maria. She began the conversation by telling me she was new and then began to let me know our payment didnt go through AGAIN. She began to lecture me on the importance of making the payments and although everything she told me was true \i simply said "Please do not lecture me I don't need a lecture from you" After a back and forth heated discussion I finally stopped her and said " look. This payment is probably going to keep bouncing, we never know when money is coming with my husbands work and \i am tired of paying all these fees. Can I please just drive you a cash payment every month- she got permission for me to do this-not company policy-and I drove my first payment down, a 20 minute drive but less cost than those bank fees every month. Our first meeting was better than expected. She saw that my job said  I worked at HHSM which made me so embarrassed because of the way \i had treated her on the phone, certainly not with the LOVE AND RESPECT that my card said.She asked for information so I gave her my card. I left our payment and I felt a sense of relief that \i knew the phone wouldn't be ringing from them this month. Next time I went she asked about our large payment and wondered why it wasn't put towards the principle? She said that was ridiculous so she placed that on our principle payment so now we are a little closer. I thanked her for that, she said no problem, and the "pond scum" persona began to fade. Each month that I visit her with our cash payment we talk a little more and come to find out we are both pretty nice people in spite of what I am sure we both assumed months ago on the end of the telephone.
                                          Last week as I was driving up to give Maria my payment \i was stopped at the train tracks which seemed like forever. As i sat there I felt God say to me ,PRAY FOR HER. I looked around at the other cars around me but there was only men inside them so I figured I was just going crazy. I heard it again and again and finally said out loud "you don't mean \maria the collections lady right?!" yes as I talked to God in my car the men beside me looked with concern because my conversations grew to moments of trying to convince God he was wrong that I didn't need to pray for Maria. It would not go away and with God asking me over and over to pray for her i heard him say, pray for her burdens that she carries. The barriers went up and we were free to drive again but I couldn't shake this from my heart but parked at the office and said one more time God I do not know this lady enough to tell her \i want to pray for her please Lord what if she throws me out of the office and tells me \i cannot come with my cash payment anymore? Just do it He said. SO  with the boldness that only God can give I stepped into the elevator praying Maria was on a break. She wasnt. I waited in the waiting area for her to come and gave her the money. We exchanged pleasant conversation and she shook my hand while giving me the receipt for my payment and \i said " Pleased do not think I am crazy but God just asked me to pray for you. He said you have some pretty big burdens right now and I wondered if I could pray for you?" She looked at me like I was crazy and stepped back from me. I thought for sure I was about to be escorted from the building. She said " Are you one of those psychics you know people who do readings?" I said "Oh no no no that's not who I am NO! I just wanted to pray for you because God asked me to " She sat down in one of the chairs and took a deep breath and for 20 minutes told me all about her parents who were now in a nursing home and that her mother is in early stages of dementia and that she feels guilty about putting them there and she went on and on....
                 Her burdens were heavy and God knew that. I told her that God understands and he wants to give her rest. She hugged me and thanked me for listening. I felt another more serious nudged from God when told me to apologize for MY behavior on the phone. OUCH. I said sorry to her and prayed that God would soften the lips and tongues of the people that she would have to call today, she started to tear up. We hugged again. I stepped in to the elevator and looked in the mirror and smiled. I wasn't proud of myself I was smiling at God. Our God who always know what we need and how to teach us lessons in a way we will never forget. I am looking forward to next month when that payment is due now because I will be able to go see Maria and find out how she is doing and if there are any other things she would like prayer for. God reveals the humanity in His people when people like me forget their humanity and only see "pond scum"
Thank-you for following my Journey. Go be BOLD God will be with you.

Love rescues me everytime

He has rescued me from many things in my life, that incredible God of ours, but its usually me that I need rescuing from. My thoughts my desires my assumptions and mostly my control. Its not always as exciting as one of those amazing rescues you see on the news-I have yet to be rescued from a burning building- but it is no less serious in fact some of the subtleties that He rescues me from are the shifts I needed to make the next big move. Ultimately a move that removes more of me to be filled by Him.
                             A couple of Sundays ago though I did need a serious rescue from God in a not so subtle way. I had been asked to come back to visit some family at a church this particular Sunday morning with the intention to update them on HHSM. Although I am by nature a disorganized person this time I had e-mailed a few days a head to keep myself on track because I have been blessed with more and more speaking engagements I have learned to go over details so I don't go to a seniors group and talk about how youth can be involved with change or show up at a church to talk about the sex trade only to realize that this particular church may have a hard time with the word sex-let alone talking  about it as an occupation. Anyway i say all of that to tell you its not good to mix up your speaking engagement details. But this time I still managed to. I had done very little-okay NO prep-for this "talk" because I really did believe I was simply updating this church with mission details about needs,programs etc. Well when Tom and I arrived we were in for a big surprise.....
                        As we walk into the church they start to mic me up you know Brittney Spears style and I say as always " no need to mic me I am probably loud enough" my attempt at humor or perhaps a subtle jab to my spirit, I tend to do that right before in a strange way to tear myself down just a little, I really need to stop that. Anyway I glance over at their bulletin for the service and I notice it has plastered on the front "GUEST SPEAKER HELEN NORRIS" I look very carefully to find some clue to what the pastor may be preaching about but I cant. I suddenly realize that I may have misunderstood my reason for being there that morning. I politely ask how much time I have to update the congregation and the person miking me giggles and says you have 35 minutes or however much time you need to deliver your message. MESSAGE ?? Oh my goodness I am doomed! I've got nothing- not even a scribbled piece of another message in my car that I can somehow try to rekindle -after I try to figure out what the message was   under the coffee stain and foot print marks (yeah my car isn't the most organized either) but I didn't even have that. Tom says to me "what are you going to do?" "Go to the van and get my bible" I said.
                    The worship music had started and I prayed like I have never prayed before" God you know I have nothing prepared for this, I have no back up nothing,please rescue me Lord you are all I have."  The music ended and i was called to the front to preach to a congregation the word of God and I had nothing. Until God spoke to me. He said "use my words" I wish I could tell you that I saw that as some divine revelation but I was really thinking" is that it? I got 35 minutes remember?!" but of course He was right-isn't HE always. I opened up my bible to the page that is almost worn out and read Isaiah 61 with the first marking I ever wrote in a bible that stated in ink"Gods call on my life", that was the gate that God needed to speak that day about His call on not just my life but all of us and how He so beautifully weaved the stories from the mission through that was incredible. It was one of those moments where I was speaking and as I was listening to what God was revealing through me I was blown away by His message. I knew it was God because I was so removed from it that I was able to be a receiver of His word at the same time as the congregation. Something would come out of my mouth and I would be thinking "wow that's amazing!" Totally God and the freedom I felt from allowing Gods spirit to fill me so full that there was no room for me in those 40 minutes was so incredible.
 As I am witness again to God amazing grace to me and the filling of His spirit He asks Tom to step forward and share about men's group at the mission and the powerful God moments happening there as well. And there we stood. Tom and I in this moment taken over by God and the spirit taking over us both speaking to a church about Gods power and glory and grace and beauty. It felt like I was finally realizing a new step in His plan for us. A plan to work together in a grace-filled way to speak with God to not just this church but I believe to the nation. As we prayed together with our arms around each other that Sunday morning I felt a jump in my spirit-something FREAKY YEA JESUS FREAKY. This journey wasn't ever supposed to be solo but in partnership with Tom. To realize the power of God in not just my testimony or Toms but in the testimony of our lives together. God rescued me that Sunday morning from many things but mostly myself. To let go of ownership of HHSM and its story and to allow God to work His awesome plan out the way He intended to . Not just through me but my wonderful husband too.
                                     Finding my JESUS FREAK hasn't been easy so far. But it has been so amazing up to now that I cant wait to see where God is leading us next.
Thank-you for following me on His incredible journey.