I did the hoeing in the family garden. And I hoed in Okinawa, too. (Warning: Humor inside.)

I was raised on a small family farm -- with a big garden. As a little girl, I did the hoeing. We have a family joke that I was the hoe-r. Hoer. I would hoe in the garden. Nice.

I fought the weeds. I had to learn the difference between a new plant coming up that we wanted to keep and the weeds that needed to go.

Some wild flowers would grow in the garden, too. I would pick the flowers and give them to my Mom. I would hoe the weeds with my ...hoe.
 

This task was hard work. I'm pretty sure the handle on the hoe was longer than I was tall. I dutifully worked the garden and with all this time alone, I learned to make up songs to God and there is where my heart met Him.

In the midst of the controlled garden area, there was a wild strawberry patch that I loved. The last day I remember hoeing was the day I found a snake. 

As my niece would say, "I don't like 'nakes."

At first I thought it was only a discarded a snake skin (I had heard of them but had never seen one). Then when the tongue darted out towards the strawberry I wanted to pick---I knew it was a live snake. With a wiggly, rattling tail. The devil! The devil in the garden!

(About this photo below... I don't understand people who make stuff like this. Don't ever make one and bring it to my house. It would not go well....)

I was so afraid, I couldn't make a sound. But I knew how to run and I ran to our house like my feet were on fire. Mom said I was pale as a ghost and thought I was going to pass out. The performance won me a reclining afternoon on the couch with a cool washcloth on my forehead.

I'm sure it was a 12' diamond-back rattlesnake.
                               (Don't mock me. You weren't there!!)

In January - February 1991, I spent 8 weeks in Okinawa working in the brothel red-light district. I went with a group of missionaries after completing training in Hawaii. Being a skilled hoer (y'all better be laughing), I went in there looking for flowers, pulling out weeds and helping God's tender plants to grow and find life.

I saw wayyy more 'nakes and darkness than I ever knew existed. I saw women reaching out of rooms towards people in alleys... rooms that had bars on the windows. I touched them. Prayed for them. (Pried myself loose a couple of times.) And experienced how light overcomes darkness.

The Gulf War began while I was there. There was a flood of American Marines 'visiting' the district where I was living. They were brave. They were afraid. They were busted.

We talked and prayed every night with Marines and women--and rested during the day. It was intense but the harvest was ready.

One Marine in particular comes to mind. Being approached by an American missionary in a brothel alley, there was no need to beat around the bush about why he was there--and time was short. I asked him, "Do you know God?" He began to cry and tell me that he gave his life to serve in ministry when he was in high school and was not right with God. We prayed together and he hustled back to base. Another Marine was outside one of the buildings waiting on one of his buddies. Same story. He ditched that post and went on his way.

On the TV each day, we could see the bombing on newscasts but it seemed nothing like what we were fighting. I was strawberry picking and hoeing in Okinawa--fighting 'nakes and picking flowers; especially looking for flowers that others had mistaken for a weed.

I talked to my Mom when the war started. Man, she wanted me to come home. I could have. I could have gone home with a pale face and had the cool-washcloth-couch treatment. But I was ready for this. I told her the safest place for me to be is in the center of God's will.

A hoer has to go where the weeds are.
                   Because there are tender plants out there. ;)

And flowers.

(By the way. I prefer the word 'gardener'.
                                But apparently, it's just not as funny. :)

Love,
Marcie Elliott-Smith

"My Name is Roma!" ("Menya zavoot Roma!")

Years ago, I was a missionary in Siberia. In my heart, I still am. :)

At one point, some ministers from the USA came to visit and preach in the church that was founded after some of their earlier crusades. One afternoon, I went with them in the church van to have lunch at a nearby restaurant.

When we were leaving the restaurant, we noticed one of the tires on the van had been slashed with a knife. Looking around to see who could have done such a thing... I saw a little band of street kids hiding behind bushes. Part of the adventure of slashing the tire must have been waiting to see the reaction of the owners! 

Against the warnings of the people with me, I rushed over to the kids. The others with me said, "Don't go over there! They will jump you and cut you! Stop!" Some of the children had scattered to wait a little further away, but one of them was bold enough to stand and face me. He was a tiny little guy. Not wearing a shirt, I could count all his ribs. There were tons of kids who lived on the streets of Siberia. They lived daily lives of mischief, survival and petty crimes. They managed to stay just outside the reaches of the police to avoid being assigned to one of the many orphanages.

Typical group of street kids...

So here I was facing this little dude with his knife. I knew enough of the Russian language to begin a simple conversation. He was shocked. This day had taken a turn he didn't expect...

Kids were always smoking... usually cigarette butts found on the street.

The others in his gang came out of hiding and stood with him--their curiosity to meet me was greater than their fear that kept them hiding.

I asked him, "Do you want a clean heart?" "What??" he asked. "Do you want a clean heart? God can give you a clean heart and He wants to be your friend. Invite Him to live in you, give you a clean heart and He will build a house in heaven for you!" He had a knife to make his point. So did I.

"Yes!" they all said. My goodness, they were so dirty. There was no indication they had had a bath -- ever.

I prayed with them and they traded dirty hearts for new, clean hearts.

I invited them to church the next day and they said they would be there. I was hoping my language was accurate enough to tell them when and where. Some with me said they were cons and liars. (Yeah, well, don't try to kid a kidder.)

Walking back to join my group, I hear the leader screaming, "MY NAME IS ROMA!"

I looked back at him. His bony chest pushed up to the sky...determination on his face...fists for hands.

"MY NAME IS ROMA!"

What bravery and strength! The touch of God changed a heart from a petty tire slasher who hid in the bushes to a young man who screams his name for all to hear.

"MY NAME IS ROMA!" I think his name is all he owned.

"MY NAME IS MARCIE!" Oh, how he smiled. We just gave each other something.

The next day, guess who was in church...clothed...and with all his rat pack friends?  ROMA.

They sat on a row of chairs behind me; well-behaved and grinning when I looked at them. (I have no idea how many times I turned around and beamed a smile at my new little brothers! I couldn't help myself!)

At the end of the service, Roma had a gift for me. He had fashioned a heart from an aluminum paper clip. It is my treasured possession.

           I love to think about that day when God screamed in the Siberian streets,
                               "MY NAME IS JESUS!"

"MY NAME IS JESUS!"

He keeps on pulling souls out of hiding, gives them identity and makes them known. 

I love you, Roma.  And that was the birth of the children's ministry in that church... A bunch of scallywag knee-huggers. God, I love them.

 

Mother's Day for All Kinds of Mothers

Mother's Day.

Confession:  I never have enjoyed going to church on Mother's Day.

Year after year, Mothers are asked to stand to be honored. New mothers. Mothers of many. The oldest mother. The mother with the most children in attendance with her. Grandmothers. All so sweetly stand; and they should. Motherhood is an honor. A calling. A sacrificial life. More than a role, it is a divine assignment.

It simply never was in my life journey. Not through childbirth, anyway.

I know all the scriptural promises for the barren woman and how her children will be numerous. I've prayed those scriptures many times.

But when this Hallmark day comes around each year, I know what it means: Mothers of children---natural born and adopted.

It always gives my heart a 'ping'.

This Mother's Day, I miss my Mom who went to be with Jesus 11 years ago. I miss her greatly but even that wasn't the reason I didn't want to go to church.

Mother's Day Roses from My Dudley :)

I have two lovely step-children whom I call my own and they are truly mine. Not substitute kids. Not second-best. But truly mine in this life--even though I obviously share them with their natural mother and always defer to her. Believe me--this post is not to minimize how much I love my (step)children!!! :)

But again---this day is not about step-mothers.

(...and I will cut you if you mess with my SKids.)

 So even over the last 7 years of being a step-mother, when mothers are asked to stand in church on Mother's Day, I sometimes stand but there is something of an 'imposter' feeling that comes over me.

This 'ping' is the most annoying thing in the world.

I have been at peace with not having born-to-me-children. Truly. But because of judgments and painful words, I allowed myself to feel 'less'.

Man, I am so DONE with that!

So, today I went to church. On Mother's Day. Again.

During worship, I was pressing into God's Presence...asking Him to pull me into the river of His love. The fact that it was Mother's Day was no longer on my mind. My mind was on Him.

Then, He overwhelmed me.

His presence was so powerful, I immediately felt weak.

And then He said, 

         "I am changing your name from 'barrenness' to 'Baroness'."

Whoa.

I was ambushed with love.

I began to weep uncontrollably. No, 'weep' isn't a strong enough word. Bawl is more like it--and loudly. Thankfully the worship music was powerfully moving at that time in a volume that drowned my crying. The innermost, deepest part of me was shaking -- literally racked with sobbing.

"Baroness?"

In that moment, I wasn't sure I knew all that means and I am still asking Him to teach me. I imagine it will unfold over time.

I kept saying in amazement, "Change my name? That changes who I AM! How does someone just do that?--change someone's name!!??"

A scripture followed:

Ephesians 4: 14-16  "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being."

Uh, Yep...the Father who has named all families just changed my name.

Annnnnnd that bit about the 'power through His Spirit in my inner being'... yeah, that would be the part of me that is violently shaking, crying and feeling weak right now!! :)

I have to say my favorite Baroness is Margaret Thatcher:

("Hmmmmmm. That would definitely involve hats, gloves and brooches. I'm OK with that.)

Of course I had to look it up in Google:  "A Baroness is the female equivalent to a Baron. So one can become a Baroness by either being married to a Baron or by having that title bestowed upon herself. Baron is a specific title of nobility ..taken itself from Frankish baro meaning "freeman, warrior".

Free(man); Warrior. I'll take it!!

I am still soaking it in. What does it all mean?

I know this: I sure like the name 'Baroness' better than 'barrenness'!

Isaiah 41: 18  "I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs."

And, as I have all month long, I keep praying,
               "Fill all my waste places. Fill all my waste places. Fill all my waste places."

Even the ones that I thought were already 'ok'. :)

Proverbs 20: 27  "The spirit of a man is the lamp of the Lord that sheds light on one's inmost being."

Shine on, Lord...and keep on filling me.

Best. Mother's. Day. Ever.

And for those of you who can relate, this is for you:

Resurrection of Dreams!

Yesterday, I read a an encouraging word that Joy Parrott received from the Lord. This entire blog post is her message. God is using it to breathe life into many areas of my life. I pray it does the same for you!

I am sharing her message in its entirety---including her web information and bio at the end---to fully credit her.

Joy Parrott:

Resurrection of Dreams!

My Dreams Were Dead

Recently the Lord has been speaking to me about the resurrection of dreams! I don't know if you're finding yourself in this place where the pain, disappointments and struggles over the past season have caused your dreams to die, but I have been there. So much so that even my natural dreaming in the night seasons seemed to have dissipated.

Today, I want to encourage you to allow God to bring resurrection life to your dreams. You may have seen and walked in some of what God has for you, but it isn't over! Don't settle for the little, but allow yourself to dream again and to dream big!

I like to call myself "Joy-seph" because I can relate so much to his story! Not only did God give me many dreams, but He also gifted me with the interpretation of dreams which produced the book, Parables in the Night Seasons: Understanding Your Dreams.

I, like Joseph, was a dreamer and I, like Joseph, shared my dreams. I've gone from the betrayal of the brethren to being used in the house of Pharaoh. And in the recent season I had found myself in the dark place of the prison or dungeon! At the beginning of this season I could still find myself being used by God, but, as the season continued, my hopes and dreams of being released once again to those dreams began to die within me. The pain and disappointments of the season were digging a grave for me and my very life seemed to be dead! My desires were dead! My dreams were dead! And my passion was dead!

Called Back to Life...

But then! I want you to know there is a "but then!"

But then, I felt the rumblings of the earth shaking beneath the grave of those dead dreams. These rumblings began to launch fear within me. I found myself bantering with a myriad of self-talk that went something like, "I am afraid to dream. What has dreaming done for me? These dreams I once had have brought me pain and disappointments! There is no life in me any longer! It is not in me to dream again! I don't even know what that would look like. I am so far removed from that person I used to be."

But then, God spoke to me and said, "Joy, you have forgotten that there is more to Joseph's story."
At that moment, I felt the Spirit speak to me and say, "Go back and read how Joseph felt when his dream was about to be called back to life."

I turned to the pages of his story; this time looking for what Joseph may have felt just before his dreams were resurrected.

"It Is Not In Me"  

Genesis 41:14-16 says, Then Pharaoh sent and called Joseph, and they brought him quickly out of the dungeon; and he shaved, changed his clothing, and came to Pharaoh. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "I have had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that you can understand a dream, to interpret it." So Joseph answered Pharaoh saying "It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace."

There it was!  Joseph felt just like me! His response was, "IT IS NOT IN ME!" He may as well have been saying, "I am afraid to dream. What has dreaming done for me? These dreams I once had have brought me pain and disappointments! There is no life in me any longer! It is not in me to dream again! I don't even know what that would look like. I am so far removed from that person I used to be!"

He goes on to say, "God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace." Now I imagine what he was really saying was, "Don't look at me because I can't help you. God will give you what you need, but I don't have it!"  

When I read the words, "It is not in me," tears flooded as I realized those were my very feelings! At one time, I may have been willing to offer my services but now it was like, please don't ask because there is nothing in me to give you! Sobbing at this realization, I could feel God bringing healing to me. Just becoming aware that I was not alone in how I felt – that was healing in itself. Then God took me further into Genesis, chapter 41, and showed me this was just a season that I had encountered, and He wanted to bring resurrection life once again to me.

Genesis 41:29-31 says, "Indeed seven years of great plenty will come throughout all the land of Egypt; but after them seven years of famine will arise, and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine will deplete the land. So the plenty will not be known in the land because of the famine following, for it will be very severe."

What Joseph was interpreting was the moving from plenty to famine. He goes on to say that the plenty will not be known [any longer] because the famine following it will be very severe. This past season has been really severe for many of us. As a result, we have forgotten the days of plenty. The days of plenty represent the days of our promise, of our dreams, of our passion, and of our gifts. That is why we may say, "It is not in me." The severe famine has depleted us and left us for dead. In the days of plenty we had dreams, visions, experiences in God with fun and exciting days to awake to. Now the famine has left us with loss of life, interest, joy, passion, drive, dreams and the like.

Dream Again!

When I read this I had understanding in ways I didn't have before! The most exciting part was that this was just a season!

We are at the end of that season and signs of life are beginning to emerge! 

Even as we see the budding of spring around us, new life for a new season is upon us! How appropriate is this!

The beginning of our new season comes just at the time that we will be celebrating Resurrection Day! Will you let God bring resurrection to your dreams? It is time to dream again!

And just as Jesus stood at the tomb of Lazarus and cried with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth!" I stand at the tomb of your dead dreams and cry with a loud voice, "Dreams come forth!" in Jesus name! Amen!

Joy Parrott
Joy Parrot Ministries
Email: joyparrott@hotmail.com
Website: joyparrott.com

Joy Parrott is a dynamic conference speaker, minister, and encourager. She is the author of the best-selling books, Parables in the Night Season: Understanding Your Dreams and Watchman, Watchman, What of the Night? She has been called a modern day "Joy-seph" and has an anointing to impart dreams and interpretations. She is also gifted in healing, words of knowledge and prophecy. Joy has traveled both nationally and internationally, releasing the healing power and manifested presence of God. Her heart's cry is, "Show Me Your Glory." She has a passion to see every person rise up into their true calling and royal destiny in the Kingdom of God.

Joy is an ordained minister, the founder of Joy Parrott Ministries, Glory Publications, and Crown of Glory Training Center. She has recently returned from a two-year health sabbatical after being diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer and is now cancer free.

"Fill All My Waste Places"

Recently, in prayer, I found myself praying over and over, 

"Fill all my waste places. Fill all my waste places..."

 

The longer I stayed with this request, the more I cried.

I could see a picture of dry, cracked-open land that had long given up on any hope of water.

"Fill all my waste places."

“For your waste and desolate places and your destroyed land— Surely now you will be too cramped for the inhabitants, And those who swallowed you will be far away." Isaiah 49: 18

I received the gift of a conversation with someone in my past, and now, with that healing act, that experience can go far away. It can take its proportionate place in my life history and not be an intruder threatening to swallow my 'now'.

"Come like the rain..."

"Fill all my waste places."

 

"Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness He will make like Eden, And her desert like the garden of the Lord; Joy and gladness will be found in her, Thanksgiving and sound of a melody." Isaiah 51: 3

Oh, yes, of course. The waste places needed comfort! 
                                   Growth comes out of comforted places.

"Fill all my waste places."

"Break forth, shout joyfully together, You waste places of Jerusalem; For the Lord has comforted His people, He has redeemed Jerusalem." Isaiah 52: 9

"Thus says the Lord God, “On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places will be rebuilt." Ezekiel 36: 33

"Fill all my waste places."

 
Zechariah 9: 11
"As for you, because of the blood of My covenant with you,
I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Return to your fortress, you Prisoners of Hope;
Even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you."


Love,
Marcie Elliott-Smith

Camelot and The New Jerusalem

I am a sucker for a movie with bravery, beauty and virtue.

Add in royal pageantry, loyalty and a noble cause--I'm a goner. Oh, and fabulous costumes are a great touch!

I recently watched the movie First Knight. I've seen it many times before but one particular scene struck me to tears.

When Lady Gwenevere first stands on the hill and sees Camelot at a distance, she is deeply moved. The King is by her side and they soon begin the journey into the beautiful city by horseback.

Why was I crying??

My heart rose to the day when I'll see the New Jerusalem. I will finally be able to kiss the hand of my King and walk into a life of unbelievable glory.

I raised my hands to God and blessed that day. I bless that day when faith has become sight and all the unseen wonders are revealed and joy is made complete!

I bless that day.

I love my life--but I love my unending life.

                     Hollywood -- You sneaky, story-spinning machine!

But I see a higher city that really does glimmer with gold. With the true riches.

The New Jerusalem.

This is a poem that blessed me after my Mom went to be with Jesus:

This isn't death--it's glory!
It is not dark--it's light!
It isn't stumbling, groping,
Or even faith--it's sight!

This isn't grief--it's having
My last tear wiped away;
It's sunrise--it's the morning
Of my eternal day!

This isn't even praying--
It's speaking face-to-face;
Listening and glimpsing
The wonders of His grace!

How did I bear the earth-life
Before I knew this rapture
Of meeting face-to-face
The One who sought Me, saved me!
And kept me by His grace!


(Poet, unknown)