I was reading in Psalm 42 today and realized some things. I need time to poke around in my heart and see what’s really there. It says “Why are you cast down, O MY soul?…” So its my soul, my job, my responsibility not anyone else’s to look at and deal with. I am the steward over my own soul, the gatekeeper, I decide what goes in and what comes out. I have too often expected others to find what’s wrong with me and fix it. Or even wanting God to just fix me, but I don’t want to do the leg work of finding out what’s really going on and talk to him about it. And then next week I still feel down cast about the same thing. A new chorus I have been singing..”let’s talk about my heart, let’s talk about the hard things, let’s talk about the fears inside of me.” In other words, hey soul lets get to work so we can get free from the fear. I often talk a lot but not about what is really going on. Then it all builds and builds and builds and whoa… explosion!! Not good! I can’t pour my heart out to the Lord for real if I haven’t given my heart/soul a good thorough looking at? What if I don’t even know what is wrong, I have to be intentional with Michelle, she’s worth the time and talk!! Its a different way to look at quiet times or processing. I have to let the word have its way with me right! But I have to do my part!
what’s hard
being real, holidays away from “home”, friendships, schedules, discipline, loving people, boundaries, patience, forgiveness, singing from my heart, honesty, MONEY, trusting God, emotions, getting hurt, being vulnerable, losing my mom and thinking about christmas, being still, believing what he says about me, avoiding this blog because i don’t wanna talk about what is hard…
his love is what is really hard for me to understand, i squirm when I lean into the thought that he really loves me and sees me as pure and blameless. its true. “As the Father has loved me, so He loves you, abide in this love.” or chew on this, camp out in this, believe this is true, trust me its hard but its true. what if i believed he loved me this way, what if I abided in it, stood on it, trusted in his word. how would that change my relationships, my emotions, my attitudes, my belief that i am burden to people, my orphan spirit, my rejection, my grief, my downs and my ups.
i think of david, he was intensely emotional and he went after the one thing his smooshy heart wanted and that was the Lord. He was called the “man after God’s own heart.” and yet he was not the most stable person in the world. he messed up, but he knew forgiveness, he knew repentance, he knew getting back up and the unchanging nature of God’s heart. he knew how to worship, gut level praise that stirs emotion and love in God’s heart, he took the names of God and made them real to his heart. more than that he was a son. and he knew it. that knowledge of the love of God, of our sonship is what really can change us. until i understand something i am not on board with it, but once i do understand, i am your girl!!
so i want to stop pretending i get it and admit, man i still don’t understand that he loves me, he has a plan for me, his thoughts for me are more than the sand on the seashore, he is healing my heart, he loves the sound of my voice, and he is on a journey in my heart. fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom, here we go! intimacy is wisdom, it is the smartest thing we can do, to give him time, to listen to his voice, to believe what he says, to soak in the word and chew on his repetition, even when its hard, and i don’t want to stay and work out the kinks, i have a yes, i have a yes, i had a no for a while, and now i have a yes again, i keep working on that yes, and being real, thats my promise, to just keep saying it like it is, ahhh its hard, i have always been such a people pleaser, being who i thought people wanted me to be, i can’t do it anymore, i am tired, “finally” right!!! so exciting, so scary, anyways here i go, did i tell you about the song i wrote called “for me”… probably… anyways the chorus goes
“My life is like a trail of your thoughts..” I think I am just going to jump on that path and start walking!!
silly little giggle
Have you ever wondered what Jesus’ laugh sounded like? There was a freedom on tonight’s intercession that I have not felt since I joined Zadok House of Prayer! We sang “I am free!” and sang prophetically over people!! I don’t even know how to explain what happens when God shows up and I can just sing freely! I sang like I didn’t care what people think! I really got a deeper level of freedom from fear of man!! I started singing “I got the joy, joy, joy, joy; down in my heart” song. Then I got this line in my head and sang it out “I got His silly little giggle, down in my heart!” Wish you could have been there, it was so much fun!! Maybe I will get the recording and put it on my music myspace?!!
Do you believe you are beautiful??? I don’t YET, but I am getting closer! Before the intercession set again I began my Friday night doing a devotional set, just singing out my heart to Jesus. I feel like I am finally running out of things to say! Its His turn to talk, and all He is talking about is how beautiful I am. Song of Solomon 4:7 says “YOU ARE ALTOGETHER BEAUTIFUL, MY LOVE; THERE IS NO FLAW IN YOU.” So He won’t stop singing over me how that is true of me. How when He looks at me He sees no flaw, no blemish, no stain, He holds no record of wrongs over my head, no scars! I am completely beautiful to him. This is how he brings the reality of what Jesus did on the cross to my heart! So it has been really good to just spend these times of just singing, it always gets me out of any funk! I used to think and still can think all kinds of not good stuff about myself. Its getting harder and harder to think those negative thoughts! Yahoo!!
Can you tell I am excited, well if your confused… I am really excited!!! I am on a journey with him. I see how God has totally set me up! Thanks for praying for me!!! Keep it up, its working!!
I’m hooked
Here I am again!! yay… tonight was awesome, I got to play and sing a devotional set with my guitar. First the good sound guy was there and set my voice like “wow!!” And then I just started worshipping, kept going almost the whole time on and on about the love of God and his thoughts about me. I have this song called “For me” and its out of Psalm 139. Here’s the chorus line.
“My life is like a trail of your thoughts, precious, too many to count for me.”
So this devo is pretty much this incredible set where I just get to love on God and he loves on me!! Totally awesome and it sounded like the shizammm!! Then I started getting more intense and wanting to really understand his love and I broke a string for the first time in a long time. So I got on the piano (YES i played the piano and sang:) for about ten minutes. I have an hour long set tommorrow night and I am planning on playing the piano, I just started playing again last week. For the first time in like six years or really ever in public!!
Then I turned right around and got on an intercession set where I just get to sing. We started singing some stuff out of revelation for a while. I got stuck on “blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him alone!” I could have sang that for hours!! Then towards the end we decided to sing over people. To wait on God for what he wanted to say over those in the room. One of the girls we sang over really got touched and I was crying with her as I sang over her. “He’s right by your side!!” I just sang it over and over, and then I went and hugged her, I couldn’t take it!! God really moved mightily through our singing over people, it was awesome!! Personally my voice was stronger, more powerful, and more free than it has been since I started singing at ZHOP! So that an answer to prayer!! Which is funny because I sang for four hours!! So that my story and I am stickin to it!!
wise guy
Tonight i have been studying the wisest guy in the world to have ever lived, Solomon. I did a character study on him and I am just scratching the surface of understanding this man. I am mostly studying him to understand the Song of Solomon. I really never knew about this book until about five years ago when I felt to read it. God used it in a HUGE way to show his love to me. It worked. During my School of Worship outreach in Australia in 2003 I felt waves of God’s love on a daily basis. He basically wooed my heart with this incredible yet mysterious book! So this past few weeks I have felt the urgency to go back to the book and become a student of it. Rather than just experiencing the initial joy of experiencing God’s love, to go deeper in it and really DIG!
Its hard, I know there is so much in my heart that resists really believing that I AM LOVED. That I am “altogether beautiful and there is no spot in me.” These past few weeks I have spent time singing through some of the verses but almost reluctantly, I have been through a lot since that initial time on that outreach. But He set a foundation for me to stand on and now I feel its time to start again. But its not starting over, its just different. I spend most of my time in the house of prayer singing, but tonight studying added to it makes my heart alive!! I love the WORD OF GOD!!! It truely is a light unto my path and a lamp unto my feet!!
WAITING, Repeating
The older you get the longer you are waiting for things promised that haven’t happened yet. So I think waiting for a couple of years is agony. I can’t imagine how Abraham felt. Waiting has a lot to do with hope and trust. I am not so sure I understand any of these words but I really want to. As I have been sitting in the house of prayer I have realized a few things. I have no idea how to sit and just “be still and know that I am God” and the other thing is that is exactly what I needed to realize. We think we know it all, we really think we know everything! Its amazing, you graduate junior high and your like, “check, i got it,” then high school, then college, then you do missions and you become the EXPERT at whatever. I am a teacher (bossy) by sheer personality so i just unload information on whoever will listen. but its not true!! We don’t know everything and its takes so much pressure off yourself to just admit it right off the bat! Humble yourself… not like “duh i don’t know nothin” but just being willing to admit in even an area of your own expertize that you really aren’t the expert. It sets you up to be teachable. Everyone will admit that someone who is teachable is so much nicer to be around than someone who is blind to their need to be teachable (look up Jeremiah 9:23-24). This verse has been haunting me for years. In the end of it, it says ” let he who boasts boast in this, that he knows and understands me that i am the Lord…” YAY permission to know stuff and brag about it! I love it! the only thing in life i have permission to brag about it HIM!!
Another thing: the voice of God. Not everyone I talk to agrees with me that we can hear the voice of God. But I believe and I do hear it. But I realized something about his voice this week through a teaching I heard on meditation. Some people have heard that meditating is like a cow regurgitating its grass from one stomach to the next. (nice picture) And it is from our part of it, we just keep repeating the word and it gets in us. The teaching I heard says “read it, sing it, say it, pray it” and thats how you get the word in you! Well the reason is not only for you but for God! He loves repetition, thats his language, thats how he talks. Just like if you were my friend trying to make sense of this blog, you would want to know my language and how I communicate or you might be offended or confused. I want to know God’s language and understanding that he repeats things not to make me feel stupid or rebellious, but thats just how he communicates makes more sense. this is a new revelation for me. When people have prayed for me to be healed from grief often they used the same verses over and over. It wasn’t encouraging after a while. But God was just talking to me. He has thoughts for us, to many to count, precious thoughts. So I have set my heart to listen. And now I want to listen, just like I would want to listen to a friend tell me what they think about me… ahhh…i hope this makes sense. Oh well. Its my blog right! hee hee!! I am still in process of this one!
ANyways…I am enjoying my time in the Zadok House of Prayer! Its a good hard feeling, pressing for my heart to be alive in God again. I can remember what it feels like! Comin back to the Heart of Worship. Oh and I am singing!!! yesterday I got to sing for four hours!! It was awesome!! Its a massive part of me getting healing!! Singing through the Storm! I even wrote a song about it. I wonder if you can put songs on this blog? anyways!! blessings
New Thang
Writing blogs is kind of like the first time I rode a bike, I kept putting out my legs to catch myself. So sometimes I will probably sound like I am being real and other times like I am writing a college paper. Bare with me, as I practice it should get better. To me “blogging” is permission to ramble so if thats not true then someone let me know. Because I am about to cut lose. Not used to journaling where ALL can see but here I am doing at least a once a week update on Michelle’s life. Read at own risk!!
I am beginning to understand life a bit! Its not so much what I can do but its what I am willing to give up. I love the poem/song “I don’t know about tomorrow but I know who holds my hand.” I totally butchered that but the idea is, I know that GOD is holding my hand and he directs the steps of the righteous so therefore, like the Bible says tomorrow will take care of itself. I trust him, he’s got tomorrow!! I am in that place right now!
After over two years of searching, grieving, crying, figuring out things, fear of man, randomness, hope deffered and a cold heart I am here! Actually I didn’t even leave the Charlotte area. I woke up last Sunday in a funk, prayin up a storm. What am I supposed to be doing. I have been prayin that pray since I left YWAM Perth. Since my mom died. “Someone please tell me” and I did just that, going from one person to the next. Please someone just tell me what in the world i am supposed to do with my life, with this pain in my heart, with my giftings, ahhhhh.
This time it was different, no striving, I finally just GAVE UP! Not necessarily in a bad way. I moved in with my friends, rested, and prayed. One month later my coffee shop closed. Now I am ministry-less and job-less! Not even my fault thats awesome!
So then it came to my attention that the very thing I have wanted to do and been praying about doing for three years is exactly the door that stood before me!! So I walked on through! And here I am in Charlotte, NC spending my days in the Zadok House of Prayer!
How is it going? Well I’ve only done a week, my heart is becoming alive again! And I know its only the beginning. LIke any job there will be days where I will wonder why I am here but I am trusting that I will learn alot, sing alot, love alot, pray and play ALOT! And love God more deep on the insides of me than ever before!! Thanks for reading…
SING
I really just want to sing. To pour out my heart to God in a song or ten!! I am done doing all the other things that it seems like i am equipped to do! I am really done chasing after ministry, position, and fulfillment. I am sick of trying to be someone I am not!! No more wondering, I am just going to do it! Making a CD does not equal success to me but it would definitely make a statement that I am walking toward this! No more second guessing myself or my calling!
Besides wanting to hold babies in Africa, teaching and singing is all I can ever remember wanting to do! Here I go!
Try Again
I’ve been learning how to get back on my horse! God’s love is not based on my ability or on my failures. Knowing this information should help me right!! I should just automatically let go of offense or give myself grace when I screw up. But for some reason it doesn’t work that way in my head! I want it to!
In order to believe in myself I have to be able to let go!! Anyways, I worked today at the coffee shop and I am tired, couldn’t sleep last night! Tried to take a nap after work and it didn’t work! My new year’s resolution to exercise starts on Monday! Let’s see what happens!! I believe I can do it! I want to and have to according to me! Seriously I have changed my diet, cut out dairy, sugar and all the bad stuff and its only when I am exercising that I look good and feel good about me! So those people that write all those books on dieting need to put in convincing bold letters that EXERCISE is the key ingredient! Especially to keeping your weight off!!!
I really do not like exercise, so its hard for me to imagine that this is the only answer but God finally convinced me, so did my body these last few exercise-less months!
I work with a ministry called TheCause USA (www.thecauseusa.com) and we are putting on this 30-day field event called Under Open Skies!! We just finished today a 21-day focus preparing for the 30 days! So what a summer full of prayer, worship, and lots of work!! I am learning how to lean on the Lord to teach me how to take care of myself during this season! Also I need to focus somehow on my music! I have written a few new songs.. i have to figure out how to post them on this blog! I get to lead worship on Tuesday nights, this week I am trying a new team (me, Amber, Micah, and Page). It should be fun!! I am so excited to release the sounds and the things the Lord has put inside of me!
One of my new songs is called INSIDE OUT! The words are “I’m gonna worship you from the inside out, pour me like a pitcher, pour me right out!” Its pretty much a song of surrender and longing just to have a heart that is free to worship. Not bound by fear of man or hardness or anything!! An unhindered heart of worship! Like the woman with the alabaster box! She just poured out her heart and tears before Jesus!
Anyways! So much is in my heart right now! We are on the edge of a breakthrough, thats why I feel so much tension in my heart! But I know with all of the prayers we have been praying for America, the breakthrough will not just be in my heart, but in many people’s. Specifically the prodigals!!
Its a New Day!!
I wrote a song in 2005 called “trust in you.” It was very needed at the time, but now I see how much it was for this moment in my life right now!
“Its a new day, its gonna be alright!
I got Joy in my step and your in my sight!
I’m gonna trust in, I’m gonna trust in you!
You are faithful and so true
Sometimes I doubt but I am runnin’ back to you!
I’m gonna trust in, I’m gonna trust in you!
I’m gonna trust in you, oh God, I’m gonna trust in you O Lord!”
Its really completely not based on my ability if I can do this new season. Its not up to me and my own thinking. Its all about faith and trust! Do I trust that what I know to be true is actually true! Thats my thoughts for the moment! It really is a balance of trust and obey!!
Its time for a new day!!