I don't blog often. But when I do...

...it is an intentional step into the light.

The light of being known.

I met with a lady yesterday who has been ministering to hurting people for a long, long time. She said, "The fear of being known is a big, big deal with so many people."

In one sense, people have never been so 'known'.

I think what most people are truly afraid of is being judged. Judgment has condemnation and we all know what an awful feeling THAT is! Safer to just not be 'known'.

Many people have hundreds of facebook friends.

MySpace started the revolution of "I". 

TONS of people are on YouTube.

Twitter is a running narrative of our culture's thoughts, reactions and opinions.

It is a cultural outcry of "SEE ME!!" 

                                   I am not invisible.
                                                         I have a voice.

Fascinating, isn't it?  

Yet loneliness is epidemic. Sure, we all would say that social media is not intimate friendship---but just recreation.

Right?

((Right??))


It is no secret to those who know me that I love facebook. For me, it is an efficient way to have at-a-glance updates on a lot of people I wouldn't otherwise see very often---much less be able to talk to every day!

But it is no substitute for getting together with your closest friends and talking about life. Laughing. Discussing important things. And being deeply known.

We are called to deeper relationships. We are made in the image of our Father--and He is interested in being fully known, filling our deepest needs, and seeing us connected together in unity.

That takes time and effort.



And stepping out into LIFE.

Make the time. Don't be too busy. Push past the shyness. The fear. The voice of past disappointments with friends.

Get to know someone and let them know you.

Learn to trust again.

We need each other.

The Evening of Life

I watched a movie that featured an elderly lady who was in her last hours—she asked her nurse, “Can you tell me… Where did my life go?”

There she was – having lived a very long life – she asks the question many have asked in that hour.

“Where did my life go?”

The nurse asked her to reflect on her life.  “What do you see?”   The older lady, from her bed, answered, “Waste.  Failure.”

The nurse tried to prompt her to self-soothe.  “Try to think of something pleasant in your past-- an ordinary moment in an ordinary day.” 

Finally she began to talk about a true love she had in her life. It’s like her face lost the wrinkles when she talked. Love. That eternal renewing power.

At last—she settled her mind on the one thing that mattered the most!

Of course not all love is romantic love. Love is when you give of yourself – all through this life. 

Have we loved?

When my earth life is ending, I hope I am with people I love and I hope I am able to talk for hours about all the love I have had in my life.  I hope I prattle on and on about things people didn’t even know about-- to the degree that they wonder if I am crazy or still even connected to this world!  After all, love sounds like nonsense sometimes to those who look on.

In fact, I don’t want to wait until the end of life to be filled with love words and love reflections!

I don’t want to miss any occasion to love. 

What else is there?

 

“I thought there would be so many chances,” the old lady said...

 

 

Get.It.Together.

In my hurry to survive different stages in life, I’ve left parts of myself behind.

In my journey for wholeness, I have discovered parts of myself –stuck in seasons of pain—that are wounded and waiting for attention. This is an interesting discovery, to say the least.

For instance, in a ministry appointment not long ago, a very wounded “Little Marcie” was tended to.

She is the youngest part of me who was wounded at a very young age and thought it is safer to be hidden than to be known. For that part of me, being known is dangerous and could end in punishment.

In careful prayer, I had to submit the pain that the young part of me held onto. No doubt, it served for survival at some point but the downside is that because it was STILL not taken care of, I could very easily be triggered into “hiding” to protect---even at the slightest hint of “danger” or even a reasonable challenge!  

Even healthy challenges would feel like a threat because they would require for me to be ‘known’ and THAT was frightening!

I was able to get in touch with the pain and humiliation of the season of time ‘she’ represented and let healing come in there. Now, that tactic of “hiding” is greatly losing its grip as I break agreement with the idea that it is still necessary and valid for coping with my ‘now’ life.

Another part of my life that was encapsulated in pain was the tragic ending of my first marriage. Not only that, but the inability to have children and all the pain and stigma that added to my life and its contribution to the divorce.  Because I slammed straight into the brick wall of yet another season of trauma when my husband and I separated, I was not able to slow down and heal in “real time”.  I dissociated at that point and survived in another way. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to safely access this part that had to wait and was holding so much pain. I saw it as ‘Desolate Wife’ and – wow—there was a lot of denied grief pent up in her (me) as well as the wrong belief that God had forgotten me in that time.

 
Letting down the walls and letting God love me and speak His truth to that place of pain has brought a great deal of relief.   

Without that healing experience, the oddest things could trigger that pocket of pain and I would be catapulted into a series of extreme, seemingly irrational, disproportionate reactions that even I could not explain! 

There may very well be other segments of my life that are time-locked in pain because I had to hurry through them in order to keep my life moving and ‘survive’.  Slowly, as it is safe to do so, these things are being revisited, the toxicity and trauma is removed and peace comes.

I am convinced there are parts of our lives that have not been brought to resolution. 

They will resurface when the wound is threatened and the message comes out, once again, with a loud and clear “BACK OFF”.  It takes sensitivity and the Presence of God to safely visit these places of pain, bring the truth that God really was there and did not forsake us, and let Him bring comfort and peace.

Time to UNPACK!

We MUST slow down and heal as we go.  If we don’t, we ‘stuff’ the pain and a part of our self and, in some degree, dissociate.  While built-in survival techniques are in themselves a God-send—a God-design…we really can live a life that is higher than just ‘survival mode’.

Call it what you want—we all have ‘stuffed stuff’ we haven’t slowed down and dealt with.  

As I said, I am on a journey of wholeness. 

Peace by piece.

 

"Please. Be Quiet."

"But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you, so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need."  I Thess 4: 10-12

Be ambitious to be quiet? Sounds like 'striving for peace'!

Some translations say "study to be quiet".  I know something about that.  I have been in a long, quiet season---working along the way, tending to my own business and not needing recognition. 

It has been one of the most beneficial soul exercises I have ever done.

I needed to die to the need of recognition that religion can train us to expect.  I love encouragement, but I don’t need praise.  I want to share the testimonies of God, but I don’t need any particular reputation.  I love this quiet place.  God and I have secrets.  I don’t tell everything He does in me and through me. There is a time for testimony and there is a time for intimacy and trust in another way.

Now I find that when the Lord nudges me to ‘step out over here...’ my answer has been, ‘But I really like this hidden place!’

Being quiet is so much more than 'not talking'. 

For me, it started with talking less but ended up being much, much more.  For instance, I could be in a situation where my mind would spin off several things I could say—and I would CHOOSE to ‘hold my peace’—praying, instead.  Sure, sometimes I would share—but NOTHING like I had done before.

Little by little, I noticed my heart was not striving and was actually content to be…quiet.

I had been driven by the need to be known. The need to be understood. The need to be right? (yuk)  Lots of yukky undercurrents there that were only to be curbed by being radically shut down.

By practicing quietness, I learned I had been doing a LOT of talking.  What my soul REALLY craved was quiet—but I didn’t know it until I was there. 

There. Where He leads beside still waters.  And restores our soul.  There.  The Shepherd took me there.

It feels so good to be able to REST.  For the past several months, I have not needed a sleep aid to rest during the night—for the first time in 16 years!!

Is God leading you to a journey of rest for your soul?

           
                Life is the survival of the RESTED.

1 Chronicles 4: 40  “They found rich, good pasture, and the land was spacious, peaceful and quiet.”

Job 6: 24 “Teach me, and I will be quiet; show me where I have been wrong.”

Psalm 23: 2  “He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters; He restores my soul.”

Psalm 131: 2  “But I have calmed and quieted myself; I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child, I am content."

Isaiah 32: 17  “The fruit of that righteousness will be peace; its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.”

Lamentation 3: 26  “It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

 

The Bread of His Presence

I love finding something beautiful in God's Word. Easy to do, I know, because it is all beautiful. But you know those times when something particularly 'stands out'?

I was reading about being consecrated. I looked up the scriptures containing that word and began to read about these things being consecrated (set apart as holy for the Lord's use):

1 Kings 9:3

The Lord said to him: “I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there."

The new testament says our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Don't love you love that He says "My eyes and My heart will always be there" ??

                And His Name. 

OH. And then I read about the Bread of His Presence.

1 Samuel 21:6

So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the Lord and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.

That led me to a little research.

The Table (carrier of the Bread of Presence)

The Mishnah (writing of Jewish traditions) also suggests that the Table could be dismantled into small portions, so that if any part of it ever became ritually impure, it could be regain its ritual purity by washing the parts in a Mikvah.(1)

^{I LOVE THIS!! Remember when Jesus was washing the disciples' feet and Peter told the Lord that he could not let him wash his feet?}

^{John 13: 6} He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
⁷ Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
⁸ “No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
⁹ “Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
¹⁰ Jesus answered, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean."

Sometimes I can feel like I have completely disappointed God. When I come to Him, He washes me. He doesn't require that I be completely 'saved' again.
 

I've had the 'bath'. He only washes the part that needs to be clean.

We, like the table, carry the Bread of His Presence. We can go to him to be restored in whatever part of our lives that has been defiled. Then, we are bearers once again of the sweetness of His Presence.

Another thing about this table...

The Mishnah states that there were 28 ventilation tubes, 14 for each pile, each of which was open at one end only. The view exists that the supports and tubes formed a complex receptacle for the loaves, similar to a grate, with the lowest loaf in each pile resting directly on the table, but the with the next loaf resting on the two lowest of the tubes, and so forth up the pile. There were 12 loaves.

^{The bread was set within a support of ventilation tubes and topped with golden bowls filled with incense mixed with salt.}

^Wow.

^{There was AIR moving around the bread. I love the way the Holy Spirit breathes on His Word and makes His Presence known.}

 

^{The smell of the bread was prominent in this Holy Place. The bread was kneaded outside the temple, but baked INside so the aroma would fill the place. The bread was replaced with fresh bread every 7 days. The priests were allowed to eat the bread--so it was consumed.}

^{The word for this bread is literally 'love feast'. It is a picture of the bread of our communion with The Lord.} 

^{Thousands of years ago, this was done as a picture of what was to come through Jesus.}

 

^{I have a lot to meditate on here. Carrying His Presence, His fragrance, being consecrated.}

 

^{I've only begun to learn.} 

 

^{Footnote 1: (Mikvah is a place of immersion for purity. Worshippers would be totally immersed in a Mikvah to be purified. Some purifications required being immersed in 'living water' found in a natural spring or a stream.)}

^{(This photo shows a less elaborate system of tubes between the loaves:)}

  

Not Delilah. Again.

Over the last month or so, it keeps resonating in my spirit that the record of Samson's fall is a lot like the journey of a person in denial about some habitual sin.

Samson was a man of incredible strength and that strength was given to him because of his faithfulness to the Nazarite vow. His un-cut hair was one of the terms of his calling.  (Judges 14-16)

I've always been curious about Samson. He has a calling before birth--as the angel of the Lord visited his parents and told them about the son they would have. God used him to do amazing acts of power even though he had a temper and a weakness for women. Twice, it is recorded that a woman (first, his Philistine wife and then Delilah) begged, nagged and pleaded with him until he was 'sick to death of it'.  In each instance, he allowed himself to be wheedled down to give away something of his personal power and dignity. Each time it resulted in a horrible outcome.

Like a person who would manipulate, beg, nag and wear you down---a habitual sin will hang around; attempting to wear you out to the point of agreement. 

It will try to cause you to give away something of your power and dignity---causing you to compromise in faith.

Samson played this like a sport. Every time Delilah would emotionally manipulate him, he would give her a false answer. She wanted to know, "Wherein lies your strength?" She asked the same question each time.

Each time, she would take the answer he gave her and call for his enemies to attack him. Three times, he would rise against the attack and win, because he was withholding his true secret; still seemingly winning at 'the game'.

Surely after the third time, he would learn that she meant evil for him.  With the third attempt, he went dangerously close to the truth by mentioning his hair in his answer, “If you weave the seven braids of my head into the fabric on the loom and tighten it with the pin, I’ll become as weak as any other man.” And once again she said the same thing as the other times, "Samson! The Philistines are upon you!" 

He KNEW he was dealing with a liaison with his enemy but he kept on walking on the razor's edge.

Why?

The next verse tells us.  Delilah said again, "Samson! The Philistines are upon you!"

"He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.”

We've all toyed with things in our lives and thought we could still walk away.

“I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.”

But what if you couldn't? What if you were so worn down in your soul that you betrayed even your most sacred inner vows? But you had beaten the odds so many times, you actually began to think you are in control. What are we THINKING???

We KNOW we are making deals in our soul.

“I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.”

God can still rescue us from that bondage. But with that much self-delusion, we'll need to humble ourselves to others, confess and ask for help.

We tend to think we can 'shake ourselves free'. 

Regarding the temptation to compromise, the Spirit of the Lord told me not long ago,
 

           "Don't negotiate with terrorists."

You know that nagging, manipulative voice that pulls you into defeat is a representative of the enemy in the same way as Delilah with the Philistines--and we've negotiated too many times.

The next time we are tested and feel we are being pushed the wrong direction--we can know the enemy is mocking us with, 

"Wherein is your strength?"

Consider these plans of action:

Godly friends:
I Samuel 23: 16 "And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God."

Time in His Presence:
2 Samuel 22: 33 "It is God who arms me with strength and keeps my way secure."
I Chronicles 16: 11 "Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always."

Look how Jesus prayed for Simon---and remember, He intercedes for us now. 
Here is how He prays:
Luke 22: 32 "But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

 

Let's trust in His strength and not our own, as Samson did.

(Kinda cute, right?) :)

 

Love,

Marcie