No one begged her to stay. She didn’t really expect them too. Besides, she had already made up her mind. She chose defiance in the face of her struggles and no one would convince her she was making a wrong move. A girl has to watch out for herself after all, and that’s just what Hagar had decided to do. She’d been thinking about it for weeks. It had become harder and harder to live with Sarai. In fact, it had become unbearable and she decided she would be better off somewhere else, anywhere else but under the harsh hand of Sarai. So on the morning that it all fell apart, the morning she was pushed past her limit, she grabbed the provisions she’d been hiding and threw them into her bag and fled out of the tent into the unknown. Anger and frustration carried her for the first couple of days. It was almost easy to keep moving, to keep placing one foot in front of the other, as long as she pictured the face of her angry mistress in front of her. She’d never asked for any of this. It was all Sarai’s idea. She’d come to Hagar, pleading, begging that she consider being a wife to Abram. She spoke of some promised child and how she was obviously not going to be the one to deliver this child into the world. Then it had dawned on Sarai that right before her eyes God must be providing the solution. It made perfect sense. Hagar was young and healthy and the perfect candidate. The thought seemed to make Sarai so happy and Hagar liked to see her mistress pleased, so she said yes. When she first told Sarai that she was pregnant, Sarai seemed exuberant! She made sure that special meals were prepared and brought to Hagar’s tent. She shared her fragrant bath oils with Hagar. When Hagar’s belly grew and the baby began to move, Sarai would laugh with joy as she kept her hand on Hagar’s stomach. She’d felt joy herself. After all, this God of Abram’s had seen fit to bless her and she was delivering the Promised Child. She actually began to pity Sarai; the old woman who wasn’t fit to be used by her God it seemed. Now SHE was the chosen vessel, SHE was the surrogate to the Promise and yet Sarai still demanded that she do work as if she was still the handmaiden. It began to infuriate Hagar. How dare she? How dare she not acknowledge her new status? How dare she not realize as wife to Abram, she was just as important as Sarai. She could barely stand to be around mopey Sarai. She was just pitiful. The more Sarai yelled at her, the more Hagar determined to ignore her. She found herself mocking her to the other Egyptian handmaidens. That’s the morning it all fell apart. She had gone to see what the handmaidens were doing, after all, they were her people, her true friends. As they gathered around her, she began to mock Sarai. “Hagar, I need you to take my clothes to the river to wash them.” “Hagar, why aren’t you doing as I say?” “Hagar, listen to me!” “Hagar, I’ve gone to Abram about you and I will go again!” They were all laughing until they saw Sarai. She can still see her hateful eyes as she screamed in anger. She knew then that it was time to leave. It was never going to get better. She’d never be forgiven for what she’d done. Obviously neither she nor her child mattered, so why not leave? Now, as the sun beat mercilessly down on her, she was not so sure she’d made the right decision. She had finally outrun her anger and now she was in the middle of regret. She was hungry and thirsty and her feet felt heavy as if weighted down by all the months of abuse she’d suffered at the hands of Sarai. Then she heard it, the undeniable sound of running water. She stood still and closed her eyes. What direction was it coming from? There! She heard it again! It was to the left, behind her a bit. She retraced her angry steps and began to cut through the trees. The sound grew stronger and stronger and she almost wept for joy when she saw the water! She threw off her pack and unhindered she drank deeply from the stream. It was the best water she’d ever tasted! Her tears began to mingle with the ripples of water as she saw her reflection. She was almost unrecognizable. Her hair had fallen down in tangles and her face was swollen and red from days in the hot sun. How had she gotten here? What was going to happen to her? Then the next question came to her almost as if a voice was talking. “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where have you come from and where are you going?” She’d never heard a voice like it before. It seemed to be truly concerned. And it seemed to call for a response. She found herself replying out loud, “I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress, Sarai.” Then the tears came again. She thought of the good days, when she had enjoyed being the handmaiden to Sarai. The conversations they had together as she brought the vegetables in from the garden. The times Sarai had told her the stories of the God they served and how He had delivered them and called them a chosen people. She’d sometimes imagined what it would be like to belong to this God. Was this the God speaking to her now? The voice was speaking again. “Return to your mistress and submit yourself under her hand.” Surely if this was the voice of Sarai’s God, He would not be leading her into more danger. Maybe she should consider what she’s saying. Her mind was racing yet her heart felt a strange sense of calm. The voice went on to promise that her descendants would be multiplied, that she would have a son and that she should call him Ishmael. It was so much information to take in and she fell on her face before this voice. She felt an overwhelming sense of love and peace come over her. She didn't want to move. All was quiet again except for the sound of the water being carried over rocks, but everything was different in her heart. She laid down on her back and turned her face to the sky. This time as the sun beat down on her, she felt only gratitude. Had He really seen her? Had the God of Abram found her in this wilderness place? Everything in her soul screamed YES! She sat up! YES! She was sure of it! Hadn’t he called her by name? Then in amazement she found herself saying, “You are the God Who Sees! Have I also seen Him who sees me?” And if He sees me today, she thought, He’ll see me tomorrow and the next day and the next! So if He’s told me to go back, then He will see me and protect me. I don’t have to be afraid. Hagar went to the stream once more to wash her face. As she gazed at her reflection again, she saw something new. It was a smile. She noticed the sun sparkling on the water around her face and it was as if she was surrounded by a thousand lights, or maybe a thousand angels? She picked up her bag and set her face towards home.
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You could hear their voices outside; Esther, Charlie and Sam playing in their yard. We lived next door and my girls loved to play with them. We spent many hours with jump ropes, sidewalk chalk and wagons and tricycles. Sometimes all it took was a glance out the door and I would hear my girls saying, “Our friends are outside, can we go too?” It’s always more fun to join in with others than to be by yourself. These last eight days I’ve been learning that lesson too. We’ve been studying “Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby, Richard Blackaby and Claude King. On page 15 they quoted this scripture: “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too, am working.” Revolutionary. Not that fact that God is working, I’ve always known that…..but just as Jesus came to the earth to be a part of what God had ALREADY planned, God is asking me to JOIN Him in what He’s already doing, not pick up his work and carry on myself. Can you imagine a child joining a game of catch with someone else and then taking the ball when it’s thrown to him and taking it home? Or joining a game of jump rope and saying “hey thanks for letting me play, I’m gonna take the rope now cause got I’ve some great ideas for it”. Oh my. I fear I’ve done that. On several occasions. So I’ve been looking back at my life. Where has God been working and asking me to join? When did I join in and when have I taken the toys for myself and made new plans? There have been some “aha” moments as I’ve thought about it. God created music from the beginning. He ordained the rocks, hills and mountains to sing his praise. He allowed us to join the earth in singing His praises. Music has soothed the soul of many in the scriptures. It was used as victory cry and as a lullaby. The gift of music stirred up in me from my earliest days. In fact, some of my earliest memories are of singing as a four year old in church. It has always made my heart happy to worship God through music. Yep, a four year old can worship….don’t doubt that! I remember learning to play piano, not because I had any aspirations to be a great pianist, but because God had placed music in me and was calling me to more and the piano bench seemed to be where He was asking me to join him. When I was a teenager on the North Florida District, I received a call that a youth group was about to go on their summer tour and they were suddenly short a pianist….could I help? I learned the music over the weekend and went on tour with the North Florida District Impact Team. I loved ministering through music…..and that experience would lead me to eventually auditioning and being a part of TNU’s New Direction PR group while I was in college. God works through music. It’s one of his best “playgrounds”. All of His kids love to join Him there and worship Him, adore Him, draw close to Him, learn about Him and be moved to action because of their time there. I have always loved music, but not just the music…..W O R D S. If I can’t understand the words of a song, it drives me crazy! The STORY the song tells through the words speak to my deepest need. God put that love for lyrics in me. And one day, when I was hurting the most, God called me into His playground of songwriting. Words and music poured out of me. And over these last 17 years I have experienced some of the most amazing moments of my life singing the music He gave me. Did I ever IMAGINE He would give me words to sing to 12 women locked in a jail cell? No. That wasn’t my PLAN, but God was working there already. God loves the women in jail and prison. We may have written them off, their families have given up on them, but I am a living witness that every Sunday God is there to tell them He loves them and has not forgotten them. I love joining Him there. And before I could even catch up to all He was doing in the jail, I heard His call for the need for restoration for these women. A place where God wants to walk women through freedom from addiction to freedom in His Spirit. He smiled through the eyes of a special young woman who was already joining God in that project. “Will you join me” she asked and I could hear the sounds of God on the playground again. But this time, I let fear begin to creep in. This work is more than I am familiar with. So I researched on my own and investigated and did a lot of foot work. And I felt a bit overwhelmed. “God,” I ask, “Are you sure you have the right person? Maybe you meant to call another?” And now it hits me between the eyes. God didn’t call me to open a transition house, God called me to JOIN Him in opening the house He has ordained. In other words, “Donna, give me the ball back”. And you know what? It’s a lot more fun on the playground when God is already there. “So you are real?!!” I turned around in the aisle of the Doller Tree to see a little blonde girl, pregnant, and pushing a buggy with a little boy in it. She continued in a hurry as if I might walk away without hearing her out.
“You may not remember me, but I was in a jail a few months ago and as you can see, I’m doing better” she said as she caressed the cheek of her little boy. She was right, I could not place her face. Obviously she would look different than when in jail. She had a cute, short haircut, makeup on and dressed in jeans and tshirt---nothing like she would have been in jail. The women are dressed in grey jumpsuits and often go days without showering and they can look pretty rough. They aren’t worried about anything except when they might get out of jail and go home. I reached out and hugged her and told her how glad I was that she was out and doing good. She said, “You would come in the jail, you and that other lady, and sing to us and we would talk about you and wonder if you were real…..what would you be like on the outside. And here you are!” Paige was with me, so I introduced her to my daughter. Her sweet little boy in the buggy must have needed some attention too, because he started throwing his toy on the floor. Paige stooped to pick it up and he seemed to like that game and kept tossing it out of the buggy. His mom went on to tell me how awful her four months in jail were. She had no idea how miserable the conditions were. “Sundays were the only bearable day”, she said, “because that’s when you guys would come in.” We stood and chatted for a while about her plans and what was next for her. She talked about how she would be moving to Texas and she was looking forward to a new life. But she just wanted to thank me again for coming to the jail. We hugged again and I told her to look me up on facebook and keep in touch. She turned her buggy down the aisle to finish shopping and I did the same, but my mind was in another place. I was following an officer down the large hallway of the jail and waiting to stop at a Cellblock to go in and share the gospel. The gospel is Good News. I learned that when I was a child. But every Sunday we see it, ladies that have never really heard the Good News. That first visit to the jail was Father’s Day 2015. You know, now that I think about it, how cool that it was on Father’s Day. First of all, my earthly Father has devoted his life to sharing the Good News. My dad started pastoring over 50 years ago. He wasn’t raised being taken to church, but a cousin of his invited him to attend VBS with her because she was trying to win a Bible. My dad figured, why not? So he went and that night there was a Magician who shared the gospel as he performed his magic tricks. Dad was hooked. But there was more than magic that was touching my Dad’s heart, it was the Holy Spirit. Pretty soon my dad surrendered his life to Christ and felt the call to be a preacher. He decided there was no time to waste and so he made plans to attend Trevecca Nazarene College. And when I say plans, I mean he set out walking to Nashville with no money and no idea how he was going to pay for college. Back in those days, hitchhiking was still a safe mode of travel, so that’s what my dad did. And guess who picked my dad up? A man who worked in the financial aid office of Trevecca. Magic. Not the kind a magician does, the kind of “magic” God does. I hope that doesn’t offend you. But sometimes I like to refer to the miracles of God as BIG MAGIC. Because when I see or hear of those miracles, my mouth just drops open….just like watching a magic show when the Magician pulls off the BIG trick! My Dad became an ordained Pastor and growing up, these two things stood out to me---my Dad was an anointed preacher and my Dad never showed partiality to anyone. There was no one too rich or too poor to receive Christ. It didn’t matter what kind of house you lived in or what car you drove. Everyone needed Jesus. That’s how he still lives his life today. With a passion to share the Good News. And on Father’s Day at the jail, I was honoring the legacy of my earthly Father and working in the service of my Heavenly Father. I’m nothing special because I go in the jail. I’m only being obedient to what I’ve been called too. Once I heard the call, I had to go. And when you see the “magic” God does, you can’t NOT want to see it every Sunday! My sweet little friend who said “Oh, so you’re real!” blessed me beyond measure this week. She just doesn’t know. Because real to me means I’m not living a lie anymore. I did that for a while. Real means that I’m not following my own aspirations. I did that for a while too. Real means I’m listening to the Maker of my Soul. I’m listening to the higher calling on my life. Real means a song we used to sing a long time ago, “I’ll go where you want me to go, dear Lord. I’ll do what you want me to do. I’ll say what you want me to say dear Lord. I’ll be what you want me to be.” For me, that’s where the joy is. Funny, the surrendering part seems so hard. I guess it’s the enemy’s plan to make us struggle over letting go. Telling us how much we’ll be missing out on if we let go of our plans. He knows the BIG MAGIC that’s about to happen if we surrender. Why wait? If you’re reading this and God has his hand on your shoulder, whispering “surrender that to me”, then do it! Lay that thing down. Lay that situation down. Lay that “too hard” thing down! PEACE and JOY are waiting to flood your life. For REAL!!! It was a brief storm but the lightening was vicious and when we heard a loud pop in the back yard I ended up with a 75 pound Australian shepherd in my lap and a tv, air conditioning unit, phone line, cable line and internet all zapped. I can’t ever remember a lightning strike hitting us before. There have been plenty of times we’ve had bad storms and it sounded like lightening was as close as our back door…but fortunately we always escaped any damage. In the grand scheme of things, losing our phone line, internet, cable and air conditioning were minor inconveniences. After all, just a few months ago the South Georgia area endured some storms and tornadoes that blew some houses down and took lives, so who am I to complain about losing my cable for a week? Still, why do our own problems loom large? They just do. They can grab ahold of us as if we’re a piece of laundry and just wring us dry. Maybe it was the timing that was of personal frustration to me. It had been a rough few weeks since I’d resigned my job. I haven’t blogged through these weeks because I’ve still been processing everything that happened. I was still asking myself questions. “Did I do the right thing?” “Does God have something out there for me?” “Are we going to be able to pay the bills?” I had been praying that God would increase my faith during this time. I prayed that I would trust God and lean on God for direction and that I would not fear the future…..God would provide. When the lightning struck and we realized what happened, my first thought was, “really? How much is all this going cost?” And my next thought was “why now?” Is there ever a good time for a storm? Do we ever wake up and say “Morning Lord! Feel free to shoot a rain cloud my way, I’m feeling like a good thunderstorm!” Not me either. So I started making the phone calls to repairmen and tried to not think about what the cost was going to be and how I was going to be able to sleep that night without our a/c. But guess what? A cold front came through Valdosta that night and the next day was a breezy, cool, sunny 68 degrees. The kind of perfect day for opening all the windows and letting the house breathe. And although it would take two days for the phone man to come and another 5 days for the cable guy to show up, the A/C men showed up that same day. Turns out the A/C unit motor and fan were fine….the lightening just freaked our thermostat out. So off it came and a new one was installed. Did I mention it was covered by the maintenance plan and so there was no charge? And we actually have a digital thermostat now. The old was old. So old that the knobs were missing and in order to bump the thermostat up or down we had an old pencil (broken in half) sitting on top of the thermostat that we kept there just to be able to change the temp. Almost 10 years and that pencil never went missing. Now we have fancy new push buttons. Who’duv thunk? (that’s lingo for can you believe it?...just in case I threw you off for a sec) The phone guys were scheduled to show up on Friday. The very nice voice recording ( "she writes sarcastically") asked me to leave a number where I could be reached so they could call me to let me know when they were about to come out. I knew my daughter had an outpatient surgery scheduled for that day but figured I could run home and let them in the house when they called. We were desperate for our wifi to be up and running again which is bundled through our phone service. I never heard my phone ring and so as soon as we got back to the house I was surprised when Ben discovered a note on the door saying that AT&T had come by and “sorry we missed you and you’ll need to reschedule” just as I was discovering the missed call on my phone. SOAPBOX MOMENT**** If AT&T says we’ll call before we come, shouldn’t that mean…”and if you DON’T answer, we won’t come and we’ll try calling you again?” UGGG. It was Friday and recording said the next available service date would be the following Tuesday. There was no choice but to wait. As I listened to the voicemail on my phone from the service man, I realized he’d left the phone number of his manager. So I decided it couldn’t hurt to at least register my complaint. I called the number and it went straight to voice mail. Of course. I imagined he would never even check it. But I guess he did, cause Sunday morning at 8 am while I was at the jail, the AT&T guy called again to come out. This time it was the manager. Of course it went to my voice mail and since I can’t take my phone into the jail my first thought was “not again”. But in just a few minutes Ben text me that he was still at the house and was shocked when AT&T was knocking on the door at 8 am. Wifi fixed. All we need now is to buy a new phone. The cable guy finally showed up late yesterday afternoon. In less than an hour we had cable restored. Of course, our TV doesn’t work so we’ll be shopping. I’m not sure, but I think our TV is about 20 years old. Who knows? We may even get a flat screen, smart tv. Welcome to 2017. All in all we’ve survived the storm and I’ve learned some lessons: 1. When lightning strikes, I need to jump in God’s lap. 2. Sometimes answers show up the next day, sometimes it takes longer. 3. A storm might just help you fix some things that have needed fixing for a long time. I was called into the Principal’s office, but this time it wasn’t because I was I trouble. I was in 2nd grade at Red Bug Elementary and my constant talking had gotten me into trouble before. I don’t know why it was so hard for me to obey the whole “boys and girls, please keep quiet” thing. The harder I tried to remain quiet the more it felt like a huge hot air balloon of words was filling up inside me and no matter what I was going to do, that balloon was about to lift off. I was a talking machine. I couldn’t even read a book silently. It had to be read out loud and I would create a different character’s voice for each character. And it really didn’t matter if you wanted to talk to me or not, I was still going to berate you with lots of chatter; the quieter you were, the better. I just felt that was an invitation to go on and on. I know ---annoying! I’m sure my poor teacher was at her wits end wondering what to do with this excited little talker in her class. The one day, whollah….the answer came in the form of a little Spanish transfer student. My teacher and the Principal explained to me that Sophia* had recently moved to our area and did not speak much English at all. Sophia spoke Spanish. They told me that they hoped that if Sophia and I hung out during the day, that Sophia might pick up a few English words. I don’t know what my little seven year old face looked like, but I can only imagine it was lit up with pure JOY! I was practically being given a FREE PASS to talk! AND….it was going to help someone else. Two of my favorite things….then and now. And really, I had no idea that I’d ever be speaking in front of hundreds of women. I had no idea that all that love of talking would help me when I had to lead a Women’s Retreat. I had no idea that one day I’d be going around to churches and Civic Organizations to talk to them about the need for transitional housing for women in South Georgia. Talking, talking, talking. God did though. I’m glad I never quit talking. I’m glad I wasn't silenced by all the people who glared at me when I wouldn’t shut up. Yes, I had more “run-in’s” because of my excessive talking, but I consider all that to be my training grounds! And I’m glad I didn’t quit when I saw people with way better gifts than my own. Why is it so easy to compare you gift with others and then want to crawl in a hole with yours when their gift seems so much shinier and brighter? Do women struggle more with this comparison thing than men? One minute I’m thinking, “OK God, maybe you have given me something I can do to help this world”, and then I see someone out there doing something REALLY AMAZING and I’m all like “God, you sure you need me? My little gift of talking? Really? Cause I think you could find someone a lot better at this than me.” I’m sure Jesus just wants to ring my neck sometimes! Here He is, lovingly creating each of us IN HIS IMAGE to do HIS WORK with our UNIQUE GIVEN ABILITIES and we’re wondering why we don’t have someone else’s gifting! Several years ago I was sitting at the church piano playing the morning prelude before the service began. I was in the middle of a hymn when a sweet lady came up and sat beside me on the piano bench. She and her husband were military transplants and fairly new to our church. We were in the same Sunday school class and had hung out at some of our class parties. The folks in the congregation were still walking around the sanctuary chatting with each other as we used to do in those days, so I thought she just wanted to greet me. She leaned over to be sure I heard her and then said “I need to apologize. I’ve been jealous of you.” You can imagine this took me completely by surprise. I had no idea what she was going to say next. She said, “Since we’ve been coming, I have been jealous of the fact that you get to be up front every Sunday and I just want to apologize for my bad attitude. I hope you’ll forgive me.” Of course I immediately told her all was forgiven and she put an arm around me as I played and hugged me all while I continued to play something like “He Abides” or “Sunshine, sunshine in my soul today”. All I could think of that day was I HAD NO IDEA. WHY would someone be jealous of me on the platform? And I kind of wish she’d been able to work that out herself and never revealed that to me. But as I think about it, I understand it. We kind of have a way in the church of valuing the “seen” gifts over the “unseen” gifts. The preaching, the teaching, the singing, the playing of instruments---all those things that happen “up front.” And to be truthful, not just UP front, but those IN front of people things. Heading up a program, organizing an event, running that committee---all things done in front of folks. Anything that puts the spotlight on you can sometimes cause someone behind the light to feel “less than”. Preachers will often talk about the gifts given to the church and may list some of the obvious gifts like teaching and music but have you noticed they are quick to add prayer warriors, helpers, nursery workers, etc. Maybe if we listed those first when we talked about gifts, it wouldn’t seem “less than”. Because we do know, right? We do know that there isn’t a BEST gift. There isn’t anything more important than what you’re doing right now for The Kingdom. And we should be CHEERING each other on! Do you know how to pray? Well thank you Jesus that we have folks who still know how to spend time before God! That we have people who will wrestle in prayer no matter how long it takes to break through the fog and into the clarity of praying that anointed prayer. You’re needed! Are you compassionate? Well thank you Jesus that we have people who NOTICE other people’s pain! Who not only see it, but let Jesus show them how to reach out and maybe even help relieve that pain in the only way compassion can. You’re needed! Do you like to cook? Well thank you Jesus that people still cook and take warm cookies to a hurting Pastor or to a neighbor who might need to know the taste of love. You’re needed! Do you like to help out? Well thank you Jesus that people still have the ability to look at a situation and know EXACTLY how they can step in and help and speed up a process. Or make something successful out of what was potentially a big mess. You’re needed! Are you a talker? Well thank you Jesus, cause someone somewhere needs a friend to chat with. You don’t have to want to talk up front, you can greet at a church door or chat in a home on visitation night. You’re needed! I could go on and on. The body of Christ needs you. You’re gift. You’re talent. That thing in life you like to do. There’s a place for it in service to the King. Why do you think He gave it to you? Please don’t look around at what someone else is doing. Please don’t be jealous or wish for their gift. Please know this……you’re enough. What God has given you wasn’t meant to be compared to anything else. There is no best gift. There’s only your gift and my gift. And I’ll cheer when you open yours and you can cheer when I open mine. Cause after all, if you don’t use it, it’s just the gift that wasn’t. Flying through the air on a skinny metal cable wasn’t the scary part, it was trying to decide when to put my gloved hand on the cable behind the pulley to start slowing myself down so I wouldn’t crash into the nice people standing on the platform waiting for me to come in with a soft landing. I totally panicked and did what they told me NOT to do in Zip Lining 101---never put your hand in FRONT of the pulley on the cable or you might just crush your fingers. Thankfully, it was the first zip line of the day and it wasn’t structured to cover that much distance or to go too fast, so even though I “braked” incorrectly, I did slow down and come into the landing pad fairly easy and I didn’t crush my fingers! And of course, it helped that my bestie and “partner in crime”, Kris, was there to cheer me on. If you’re going to do something terrifyingly scary, make sure you do it with a friend. It always heightens the fun when you can both scream together!! The five minute training that morning started with the nice Guides showing us the correct way to plug and unplug the ropes around our body with a convenient hook-thing that you were supposed to attach to the continuous metal cable that was going to take you around trees and over bridges through the zip line course. It all looked pretty sturdy to me. A safety harness around my waist, a lightweight but durable hardhat on my head and gloves to help me hold the pulley and guide it on the cable. This was going to be a breeze. And then we had to go across the parking lot on this crazy swinging bridge to get to the first zip line and I thought I was going to quit then and there. It was a breezy morning and as the bridge started swinging I thought I was going to lose every bit of my morning energy “breakfast for champions” right then and there. “If I can’t even walk across this bridge, what makes me think I can zip line for a half mile through the trees?” My brain began to yell all kinds of crazy things! “Get out of here!” “What are you doing? You don’t even like looking down a flight of steps!” “Your bike at the gym doesn’t leave the room and you think you’re gonna fly over water?” All the while my friend Kris is smiling from beneath her big white helmet and saying “Isn’t this AWESOME?” It had been her idea that we needed to something adventurous to celebrate our birthdays and of course I was going to go along cause I’m so brave and all. But now there was this young guy who looked a little like he would be the kind to jump out of a hotel window into a hotel pool three floors below if given the chance….telling me to just be sure and keep my hand on the pulley and to fold my feet underneath me and if I felt myself starting to spin while in flight, I could just “go with it” and do a 360 up in the air. Right. Not happening. Not in this lifetime. Before I knew it, I was indeed flying through the air and holding tightly to my pulley and turning it to the right and back to the left, whatever would keep me facing FORWARD, and saying “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!” when I felt myself trying to spin. Then my feet would touch the blessed solid earth and the guide would say “good landing” and I would believe him and think that I must have missed my calling for surely I was made to be a professional zip liner person. Slowly and surely throughout the day, the zip lines got higher and higher. We faced more swinging bridges and walked across really thin pieces of wood, and once in a while the Guides would think it was really funny to make the bridges swing if the wind didn’t seem to be doing the trick. I think they noticed my particular fear of that cause it always seemed to happen right when I was in the middle of crossing the bridge. Let me stop and ask, can you even call it a bridge when you’re walking on what appears to be a very long handle of a broom strung 500 feet apart between two trees? Anyway, I showed them. I just stopped walking. That’s right, if you guys want to get to your lunch break you better stop messing with this lady. After every course, Kris and I would congratulate each other on how well we were doing. Neither of us had actually puked up our breakfast. We hadn’t chickened out and had to call for the four wheeler of shame to come and get us. We were actually DOING this zip lining thing! And you know what? I believed I could do it cause my friend believed I could. She didn’t doubt me for a second. And she knew that if I did get a little queasy at the thought of stepping off a nice safe platform into thin air with nothing under my feet a warm afternoon breeze, she would be right there to cheer me on. Just like I did for her when she decided to do something I couldn’t bring myself to do….the FREE FALL jump. This was the last part of the day. A chance to just free fall from a tower. You’d be wearing a nice safe harness that would slow you down at just the right time before you CRASHED INTO SMITHEREENS at the bottom. Um, no thank you. But Kris wanted to do it. So I was gonna cheer that girl on! It took her a few tries. She walked to the edge and looked down and I said “you can do it” as I held onto the railing. She backed away from the edge and was unsure. “Come on friend, the first step is always the hardest.” Of course the first step is all you get and then you fall. She walked away again and said “I don’t know.” I told her I KNEW she could do it. She came all this way to finish this course and she just HAD to do it. And that’s just what she did. She went to the edge and jumped. I have the video to prove it. It still makes me sick to my stomach. But she did it and I like to think I helped her a little. We all need friends like that. They push us to the edge. They help us jump. They show us we can really fly when we want too. Kris and I are on a venture of another kind right now, along with some other friends. We had this crazy idea that I know God put in our hearts. This idea of opening a home for women who have suffered from addictions and want to be free—want to be whole again---want to go back to their families they’ve distanced themselves from---want to be able to live the life God has called them too. And we’re all in. And you have to surround yourself with those believing friends. The ones who dream big; who love adventure. The ones who aren’t busy counting the cost, they just want to live BIG for God. After all, when God puts the safety harness on you and steers you in the direction of the trees, you just have to go. Standing in front of our Sunday school class, Jay shared a moment that changed his life. A stranger in the park, a little girl in a wheelchair, would be the catalyst to shake him out years of anger and frustration. If Jay Platt’s story were up on the big screen, and you went to see it, you’d be sitting in the theatre watching the events unfold and probably get angry right along with him. Jay knew early on what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to be a United States Marine. And at 17 years of age, that’s exactly what he did. He enlisted in the Marine Corps. He did everything with excellence. It was the way Jay was wired. Every task at hand was a task to be performed to the best of his ability and more. It wasn’t enough to give 100%; the goal was at least 110%!! During his career he trained recruits as a Drill Instructor, led Marines as a Platoon Sergeant, taught survival skills as a Marine Combat Instructor of Water Survival, and developed Marine leaders as a Marine Corps University Instructor and Advisor. He taught recruits how to be a Marine. He taught people how to be winners. He believed you could overcome any obstacle that was thrown into your path. There wasn’t a challenge that would ever come his way that Jay wouldn’t conquer. There would be a challenge that would end his Marine career too early though. Cancer. Jay was diagnosed with a cancer syndrome called von Hippel Lindau (VHL). Early on, it would cause him to lose his left eye. Over the years of battling VHL, he would go on to survive four brain tumors and kidney cancer on both kidneys. Jay told our Sunday school class that he just couldn’t imagine not serving as a Marine. Everything he loved was being taken from him. What was left if he couldn’t do what he’d dreamed of doing since he was 10? Jay recalled the surgery to remove his eye. He said he had heard all the stories of people going in the hospital to have a leg or arm amputated and waking up to discover they’d taken off the wrong limb. What if that happened to him? What if they took his right eye, which was the “right” one to keep? He would be blind! He said when talking to the doctors he always said be sure and take the “correct” eye!! Three weeks later he was staring in the mirror, trying to work up the courage to remove the bandages from his face. This brave man who pledged to serve his Nation, defending it against any foe, willing to sacrifice his life to do it, was now facing one of the biggest enemies of his life. I’ll just stop here and say what we’re all thinking…..Cancer sucks! I was reading “The Broken Way” by Ann Voskamp and she wrote about a discussion she had with a cancer patient who’d told her that her doctor had once said that “the cells that only benefit themselves, are cancer cells”. That makes sense. Of course cancer cells are totally selfish! They bombard the body only to try and destroy it. Jay was not going to let it beat him but he had some huge battles to fight and one of them was with himself as he looked at his new reflection in the mirror, a face with a big, empty black hole where his eye used to be. “Monster” was one of the first words that came to mind. He felt totally disfigured. Can you imagine? So much of who we are is wrapped up in our image. For better or worse we are constantly looking in the mirror and judging ourselves by what we see. Some days we might feel pretty good about the face looking back, other days might not be so great. But what do you do when someone cuts part of your face away? Maybe it was natural to grieve. But Jay said he just grew angrier and more withdrawn. He shut people out. He cut himself off from relationships. He was depressed and lost and unsure of who he was. One day a thought occurred to him……”go to the park.” He said he wasn’t sure why, he just felt impressed to do it. You know those kind of thoughts when they come. “I wonder what so and so is doing? I should call her.” “I wonder if so and so ever got that Bible. I should pick one up.” “I wonder if so and so has been out for lunch lately? I should text her.” Maybe you do. Maybe you don’t. I think you’ll find you learn a lot from following that still small voice you’re hearing. Jay went to the park. Grumpy. Still mad at God. Still angry. Still lost. He saw them out of the corner of his eye; a woman pushing a little girl in a wheelchair. Her hands were all twisted up from some cruel disease. He began to pity the little girl for a moment when he saw her lift her head and say, “oh Mom, LISTEN, LISTEN TO THE BIRDS!” There was such rapture, such joy, such pure delight in her voice, just from hearing the birds sing. He told us, with tears in his eyes, “I couldn’t remember the last time I had listened to the birds sing.” You could have heard a pin drop in our class. Everyone was right there with him in that moment, many with tears in their own eyes now. Jay realized he had been so intent on his own anger that he let is shade his whole world. His world was one of complete darkness, even though he had one good eye. And in that moment in the park, when God allowed him to see pure joy, he knew that he wanted nothing less for his life. He was tired of spinning in the circle of self-pity, it was time to move forward. He left the park that day a different man. The circumstances hadn’t changed. He still had VHL syndrome. He was still without an eye. He was still a retired Marine. But hearing the song of the birds reminded him that in this world of cares and strife there can always be a song. Not just a song we sing in church or in our car, but the song we live out with our lives. And someone is waiting to hear it. Maybe someone on a path who feels all alone. Someone who wonders if God even knows or cares if they are alive. Someone who wonders if they’ll ever be able to sing again. Maybe, just maybe, if they hear your song, they’ll join in. Jay would tell you it’s not been easy. Jay has continued to face some battles as a result of VHL. But as Jay stood in front of our Sunday school class, the Spirit of the Lord was so present. Jay brought his private battle song of victory to us that day. Part of the verses may have included some chords of sadness and despair, but when he got to the chorus it SOARED and was JOYOUS. I’m so thankful Jay went to the park that day. And for the little girl who listened to birds. It’s been 20 months. I’ve known it could happen. I’ve thought about what it would be like when it did. It exceeded my expectations. There, sitting in the pew next to me, where two beautiful ladies recently released from jail. One had been out for four months, the other for only a few days. It was a Wednesday night, the last night of our Crusade. There had been powerful preaching going on already for four services and I knew the last night was bound to be awesome. It was even more awesome to have my sweet sisters in Christ sitting with me in the service, Bibles in their laps, nodding and saying “Amen”! It had been that very day that I’d received a call from Shavonne*. We had talked previously on Sunday afternoon. I had been to the jail that afternoon and the girls were telling me she’d been released. I was so happy for and wondered if I’d hear from her. Over the last year and a half, I’d met and corresponded with several ladies who said they would let me know when they got released, but then never did. So I was so thrilled when my phone rang and it was my friend, Shavonne. She told me she was doing good and glad to be getting her life back together; that this time it was going to include God! I told her about the Crusade going on and invited her to come. She said she’d let me know which night would work best for her and promised to be in touch. A couple of days passed and finally, on Wednesday afternoon, she called me and told me she’d like to come. I promised to come and pick up her up along with her two precious kids in time for supper at church! Then just a few minutes later I was listening to a voice mail I’d gotten and it was from Tecorra*. She’d been out of jail for four months and hearing her happy voice on the phone just filled me with joy. I knew from our correspondence that she had a job and was staying busy. I found out she’s recently moved into her own place and silently I was lifting Praise to God for seeing how His hand of faithfulness has been with Tecorra. I invited her to come to Crusade with me and she immediately said yes! I have seen these women at their lowest. I have held their hand in the cell block as we prayed together. I have seen them surrender their lives and be baptized in a horse trough filled with ice cold water. I have waved at them from the hallway as i had to pass by their cell to go minister in another one. I have penned letters to them, hoping that they would be encouraged to keep fighting the fight even in the midst of such gloomy surroundings. Gloomy is defined as: dark or poorly lit, especially so as to appear depressing or frightening. That pretty much describes the jail. I know. It’s not supposed to be cheerful. I know. It’s not supposed to be a place they want to come back to. I know. But would it hurt to have some encouraging words painted on the wall at least? What if all someone needed was a little spark of hope to encourage them to change? You could paint the words way up high on the dank, grey wall, so that no one would could mess with it. It would just be there. Like a little tiny light shining down a dark hole. Ok, I’ll get off my soap box now. I was looking at two women who had survived; who had beat the odds. Two women who found Jesus in the Jail and they weren’t letting go! I just could have bust with joy sitting next to them. They just looked like beautiful angels to me. All I’d ever seen of them clothed in before was a jumpsuit issued to them at the jail. Now please understand, that’s not all I SEE when we’re at the jail. God allows me to see much more than what they are wearing. In fact, one of my goals in going to the jail is to help those beautiful ladies see themselves as God sees them…..redeemed by His love. I can SEE the potential in their lives. I can SEE what God wants to do through their lives if they’ll simply trust. The thrill was that now I was SEEING that reality sitting beside me. The two women as I pictured them, radiant and serving Christ with the second chance He’d given them. That night the evangelist preached on Jonah. I think his sermon title was something like “Going Down the Wrong Road.” We all nodded our heads at that. Seen that messy road. Been there, done that. The Word was so applicable that night. God sent a whale to swallow Jonah so he would stop running and get on the path ordained by God. God giving Jonah a second chance. God allowed my friends to be swallowed up by some disasters in their lives, and then provided a jail as a way to stop their progress in the wrong direction. He ordained Patti and I to go in and share the gospel with them. We never take that moment for granted. When women raise their hand if they want to pray and receive Jesus. When they sign a list if they want to be baptized. We pray with them. We baptize them. We leave Bibles and devotional books. We encourage as best we can. We know the odds may be against us. It’s just a “jailhouse conversion” some people say. “It won’t last.” “They’ll be back to their old ways as soon as they’re released.” Maybe that’s why I had tears in my eyes that night at Crusade. I saw evidence that we serve a God who keeps what we’ve committed to Him as the word says in 1 Timothy 1:12 “for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until the day of his return.” And by the way, that was Paul writing from jail! *names used with permission “Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Your name.” Psalm 142:7 David sure had a way with words. 1 Samuel 16:18 “Then one of the servants answered and said, “Look, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a mighty man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a handsome person; and the Lord is with him.” “Prudent in speech” means He was wise with his choice of words and there was much thought and wisdom in what he said. We have evidence of that over and over in the Psalms. This morning I was reading through Psalm 142. The caption in my Bible says “A Prayer when he was in the cave.” I’ve never been in a real cave before but I’ve seen plenty of them in movies. Dark and damp are two words that immediately come to mind. Bats, crawly things, hard rocks for a pillow and dirt for a bed. Nothing I would willingly walk into. Unless I’m in hiding. And even then, you can bet I would have been fussing about it. “What am I doing here? Really? What has it come to that I ended in a cave? God, don’t’ you care about me?” Verse 2 tells us that David poured out his complaint before God and declared His trouble. It wasn’t so much a “where are you God?” but more of a “ok, here I am God. I know you know, but it does my heart good to say it.” Because in the very next verse, it says when His spirit was overwhelmed within him he says “Then You knew my path, in the way in which I walk.” David poured out his cry and was immediately assured that God was aware of his path. When we become overwhelmed in our “cave” and we cry out to God, the Comforter always comes and reminds us that God does indeed know where we are. He’s aware of our every step. That makes all the difference to me. If I’m hiding in a cave, I just want to know that God sees me. Cause it can get awful cold and dark in a cave. David must have suffered some discouragement there because we come to one of the most vulnerable statements he makes: “Bring my soul out of prison.” That really stopped me in my tracks when I read that. It so perfectly describes how desperate life can be sometimes. Our soul can literally feel as if it’s locked up. Every Sunday I see women who have been picked up and put in jail for one reason or another. They never meant to end up there. They could never imagine that the things they were doing would get them locked up. They are in shock and trying to figure out the next steps. It’s kind of like that when our soul is locked up. I know It was like that for me when my soul was locked up. I never thought through where my small steps of disobedience would take me. After all, it was just a small step. I know what you’re thinking…one small step leads to another and then another, right? The thing is, when you’re the one taking the small steps in the wrong direction, it becomes amazingly easy to justify what you’re doing. And anyone who says something is just being too critical and self-righteous. So I kept on taking those small steps. The Holy Spirit was faithful to talk to me, but I was more and more determined to ignore Him. After all, I was a church girl. I wasn’t one of those “heathens”. I was raised doing it all right. Surely I had enough sense of direction to take care of myself by now. WRONG! How dumb could I be? You might as well have just handed me the key so I could lock myself up cause I was building my own steel bars of disobedience that would make for a nice big cell. It wasn’t David’s disobedience that had his soul locked up (although disobedience would come later), but he was crying out for the Lord to restore and lift him up so that “I may praise your name”. He’d been brought low because of his enemies. Sometimes you can be your own worst enemy. I have been. I listened to my own reasoning, I made my own decisions based on that faulty reasoning, and I lived with an unhappy soul…..a soul that was locked up. I could still smile at church though and no one would have a clue. I’m so aware of that now as I sing to “Christian” audiences…..you may look good, adorned in the appropriate church clothing with your Bible in tow, but you could be as locked up as the inmate on 120 Prison Farm Road. Psalm 142:1 is for all of us, “I cry out to the Lord with my voice.” He does hear us. He’s always listening for the call of His child. The call of repentance. The sound of the prideful heart crashing to the floor of the cave. Being broken saved me….kind of like the Sri Lankan frogmouth. Frog what you ask? The Sri Lankan frogmouth. Lest you think I’m an avid bird expert, I’ll tell you right now I’d never ever heard of one before last week. I was reading some blog (I can’t remember which one….i read a bunch!) and that’s how I discovered the little cutie. They are quite interesting little creatures; nocturnal, they prefer to keep to themselves. They have their own unique song they sing in the morning and then again in the evening. They aren’t dressed as glamorously as say the Painted bunting or Scarlet macaw, they are rather plain looking. In fact, they mostly resemble a tree branch with their brown feathers and grey whispy patches on their breast that resembles moss. They use this coloring to their advantage. I guess when God created them, He knew they would need a defensive device to ward off predators and so He whispered in their ear and told them what to do. Whenever they feel alerted to danger, they will stretch out their bodies and point their beak upward and to a predator (and to you and me), they can easily be mistaken for a jagged, broken branch. The predator, noticing nothing unusual, moves on. Being a “broken branch” is what saves them. Broken equals life. Now that’s not your typical equation, but God isn’t in the business of typical. He’s in the miracle making business. And He seems to like to work with broken things. A man on the run who is a broken and disheartened herder of sheep until he sees a burning bush. A weeping King crying “Restore to me the joy of my salvation”. A man in chains with a fresh haircut and a simple prayer from his lips, “one more time Lord.” A disillusioned man who had once pledged his faith with boldness but now cursed and denied it repeatedly, three times to be exact. Growing up in the church, I heard the stories of these men over and over, and countless other stories of brokenness. My father, a preacher of the gospel, could deliver a sermon about these men in a way that had you standing on holy ground right next to Moses. So close you could feel the heat coming off your Bible as if the bush had been lit right before you. I was enthralled with the stories. God speaking out of a bush on fire? God telling Noah to pick up a hammer? God revealing to Rahab that it might indeed be wise to hide two spies? God calling Peter “The Rock on which I’ll build my church”? But as I look back, I realize I was always just waiting for the happy ending. Moses would cross the Red Sea with the Israelites. Noah would survive a flood and build an altar. Rahab would be saved along with her family. Peter would indeed go on to be a Holy Ghost Preacher. Those were the parts I couldn’t wait to get too! We all like a happy ending, yes? I am such a believer in happy endings that I used to always read the last line of a book before I purchased it. If the last line had anything sad sounding at all in it like…tears, she was alone, and then he died, etc…..I would close that book up and keep looking. I know that’s crazy! I mean what if “she was alone” WAS a happy ending? Who can know when you haven’t even read the story? I think I was just afraid of drudging through the hard stuff that leads to the happy ending, you know? I guess that’s why I wasn’t ready for my broken. My wilderness. My mess. I thought I could skip all that to the happy ending. I mean, can we just get on with this God? Can’t you make me patient without making me wait? Can’t you develop perseverance without giving me a trial? Can’t you give me humility and compassion without crushing my proud spirit? Turns out the answer to all that was a loving, but firm, no. But here’s the thing I’ve learned. God knew a predator was after me. God knew what things He still had for me to do. And He knew the one way to save me was to allow me to be broken. It wasn’t easy. There were hard years. Very hard years. But God was faithful and brought me through. There’s a bird somewhere in Sri Lanka that still sits on branch and sings his song at the sunrise and sunset of each day because he looks like a jagged, broken branch. I still have a song to sing. I look a lot like a jagged, broken branch too. And at the sunrise and sunset of each day, I will faithfully sing to my Maker. |
AuthorHi! I am Donna and I'm traveling. It's a journey to discover who I am in Christ every day....no looking back, face to the Son! Come join me! Archives
October 2017
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