Spring Will Prove

I went out this evening and sat for a few minutes in the quiet of the van, stuffing the shopping bags back into their little pouches and folding the ones that didn't stuff so they'd all fit into one bag. It was warm, and the quiet felt velvety in my ears.

Looking out over the yard, I watched the white pines sway in the breeze, gratefully soaked in the residual heat collected by the dark green metal during the brief sunshine today, and yet felt overwhelmed. There's so much to do, so much to do to finish the house in time to finalize the mortgage on schedule, in addition to the heavy load I carry as a wife, mother, homemaker and homeschooler, and the tears came back. I thought of the house, upstairs, of the clutter partying on every flat surface and the dust and dog hair that collects in the corners faster than I've ever seen, anywhere, in my entire life.  My gaze fell on my little Japanese maple, and I remembered planting iris rhizomes from my mother-in-law last spring. 

And God whispered to me, "Go look at it."

I left the soft warmth of the van and walked through the crisp breeze toward my tree. When I drew close, I could see them . . . the tiny beginnings of this year's iris that might (just might) bloom this year. Not all of them survived the transplanting, but there are quite a few new shoots coming up around the base of the tree.

While I stood, looking, I found a few roots that had been pulled up by deer, or cats, or frost heave. Most were mushy and empty, but one felt heavy when I touched it. Picking it up, I found it wasn't completely soft--one end was firm and smooth, with two tiny sprouts starting from it: one root-colored, and one leaf-colored.

I began pulling at the soil with my fingers, and made a shallow trench. Setting it in place, I thought to myself that while the odds weren't all that great, it now had a chance. Irises are tough critters.

I stood and looked at the ground under the tree, and saw the brambles and weeds that were beginning to take over the area we'd carefully cleared, and felt the immensity of the work before me begin to descend once again. I turned away, back towards the house, the discouragement pulling at every step.

Once again, my eyes fell on another gift: a hydrangea that Vern & the children gave me last Mother's Day. It has looked pretty sad all winter, and we wondered if it had made it. God said, "Go look at it."

I walked up to the wire enclosure we put around it to keep the chickens off, and looked down at the uninspiring rags of last year's growth, wondering what I'd see. 

And then, I saw.

Just barely, as they weren't that visible from the top. Little buds, pushing up from the base of the hydrangea amongst the old branches.

And then, looking closer, I saw that those old branches weren't all dead after all . . . some of them were showing green underneath the papery bark, for as the branches swelled and grew inside of it, the dried and brittle covering split. God whispered, "I will make it grow." And I knew it would be beautiful again . . . gloriously so.

As I looked at the rest of the plant, wondering how much had survived, God whispered again, this time in a complete thought without words, that we would need to let the plant grow and bud and leaf out a little, to see what was yet quick, and what was dead. We needed to let that new life prove itself by its growth.

And then would come the pruning.

I stood there, seeing the ravages of winter, and the damage the new growth had done to the protective but unyielding sheathing on what had survived. I saw the upper branches, gnarled and straw-like that would most likely fall under the shears in a few weeks, and God whispered that I was seeing myself.

I've been through a hard wintry season in  my life. A season of trying, and testing. A season that has threatened everything I have ever believed, ever trusted, everything I thought I knew. And now that Spring is returning, one lovely moment and one Spring rainstorm at a time, I'm seeing new growth budding from the parts of me proven through my circumstances . . . the very innermost heart where God lives.

Through that wintry season, He was the Master Gardener. And now, as Spring returns and His plans are coming to life in me, the pruning will come . . . once the dead and dying wreckage can clearly be distinguished from the vital, new, living creature in Christ that He has made me.

It's alternately nerve-wracking and exhilarating. Sometimes I'm pretty sure I know what is good, and what has survived . . . but I'm not always right.

When I came back with my camera, to better share this with you, He showed me the branches of my little Japanese maple, showing the same symbolic pattern as the hydrangea.

Sometimes it's proving to be the larger, more impressive branches that have died back, while the smaller, more tender branches survived.

It's kind of a tangle, really. But this I know: my God isn't just the Good Shepherd, He is the Master Gardener, and He knows a true branch when He sees one. I can trust Him, for even though He will ask for things I have long loved, or in which I have found temporary comfort, He will not ask me to relinquish anything that I truly need to make it back to Him. 

And in that, I rejoice. 

Wandering thoughts on healing . . .

I was in a meeting at a local spirit-filled church last year. A woman was there, who had a broken wrist. I had met her several weeks before, and I knew her wrist was broken. She may have told me how it was hurt--I don't remember now. But I knew it was a real injury. As the pastor up front talked about grace and God's generosity, he pointed to her and said, "What's wrong with your wrist?"

"It's broken," she answered, lifting her wrist with its black brace that I had noticed every time I had seen her, whether out and about or during a drop-in visit where she was staying.

"No it's not" the pastor responded.

"It's not?" she said back, clearly confused.

"Nope. It's not," he said.

I watched her take her brace off, a look of wonder on her face, and flex her wrist. The most amazed look grew on her countenance, and she held her hand up and shook it hard and fast, like you would if you were trying to shake off a big hairy spider.

"It's not!" she said, laughing.

She ran up and down the aisle, so amazed, shaking that hand, smiling and crying. I'll never forget that. The pastor had never met her before. She was visiting family in the area, and is the sister-in-law to one of my best friends. It was real--and such a huge blessing for her, so penitent and broken in her life right then. Healing can happen simply because the Spirit of God is in a place, in power, and a disciple is ready to receive.

Remember people who were healed just because Peter's shadow fell upon them? I don't know if they were waiting for him to come by, or if they happened to just be on the street. I've actually been thinking a lot about healing lately, and about the story in Mark 2 of Jesus healing the man let down through the roof, when he said "But that ye may know that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy), I say unto you, "Arise. Take up thy bed, and walk."

Healing and forgiveness of sins is the same. There's a positioning of the heart that has to happen that would allow both to occur. Maybe it's the same attitude, whether you're thinking of physical healing or spiritual healing . . . that's what I've been feeling like is the case lately. In that case, whether or not the person is seeking healing by asking, I think that nearly everyone who is sick or injured really does want to be healed. The question is whether or not their heart is penitent enough to receive it.

Remember the story of Paul, shipwrecked, who gathered fuel for the fire the sailors had built, and a venomous snake driven out by the heat of the blaze bit him? He shook the snake off from his hand into the fire, and went about his business, utterly unharmed. The sailors were astounded. Paul didn't think anything of it. He was full of the Holy Spirit, and nothing could harm him. I think of an elderly man I once saw in church in the hallway right after having some kind of health crisis, and know he would love to be healed . . . his wobbly voice and the tissue pressed to his eyes spoke volumes. This once tall, strong man, reduced to hunched pain and embarrassment on a metal folding chair, a knot of people around him, helpful, but helpless. I don't know if his faith was such that he could receive it or not . . . so little faith is actually taught, whether in word through action, that it may have been only that no one there even thought to reach out and declare, in the mercy and power of Jesus Christ, healing over him.

I've seen healings take effect at varying speeds, from immediately to a number of weeks. But it happens. Sometimes it's a matter of supplying missing virtue. Sometimes (for me) it's a matter of getting my heart in the right place, so I won't just go off and do something that the Lord really doesn't want me doing. (In those cases, the illness/injury has been a result of my own choices.)

If someone is following the Spirit of God, I think healing will always come to those who are ready to receive it, whether they ask out loud or not. I have a dream of someday, sometime, being sufficiently refined, having covenanted through sacrifice sufficient that I can carry the spiritual gift of healing. Wherever I go, I will hear the Holy Spirit tell me who to heal, and I can walk up to them, look them in the eye, and when I see the recognition in their eyes of the calling from God I carry, say to them my heart and face full of joy, "Be healed, in Jesus' name!"

Someday . . . someday.

And it's going to rock. Because my God rocks.

And He IS Good. :oD

Forgiveness and Healing

I've been told I'm a pretty forgiving person. I honestly harbor no desire to hurt anyone, just to love the way God loves me.  I knocked myself out for my entire life, working so dang hard.  I wasn't really sure of the details of my promised reward, except that it was eternal glory in the world to come, and some measure of peace here.  Joy really had very little to do with it. I followed the five-step repentance process carefully and fully. And even then, I operated with so many wounds, so much fear. After decades, God gently brought me to a place where I could realize those hurts were still there . . . treatment I'd received long ago, hounding and bullying, humiliation and ridicule. He had to expose the pain and make utterly unprotected places that were still weak and raw. It was a fairly gradual process for me, one spread over weeks.  At first, I owned that those experiences had injured me, and spent quite a bit of time feeling second-class, honestly asking my Father "Why me? Why? That really hurt, God, and it still does!" I indulged in old-fashioned self-pity, feeling like most of the rest of humanity didn't have to go through my own particular hellish junk, and it wasn't very fair.  (I know, I know. But that's how I felt, so I'm owning that, too.)

My own mortal patching of those wounds was to protect them with fear, layer upon hardened layer, calcified and chafing. It had become a pain I was used to, my spiritual and emotional operations distorted by this well-known background noise in the same way a limp distorts and hinders a free stride. Words can't quite capture the vulnerability, the utter nakedness that uncovering brings. Then, I had the opportunity to offer them to Him.  He showed me someone who was in the same place I was . . . a young woman, utterly vulnerable in the complete exposure of her pain and her past before God.  I knew her heart, knew her pain, and finally saw my own in its fullness.  And I was undone.

It was only then that He clothed me in His healing, His righteousness, through the intercessory prayer of a woman sent to me by God Himself; one who knew what to do, how to pray, for the place where I was.

And I was made whole.

To you it shall be for meat.

And I, God, said unto man, Behold, I have given you every herb, bearing seed, which is upon the face 
of all the earth; and every tree in the which shall be the fruit of a tree, yielding seed; to you it shall be for  meat.  And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein I grant life, there shall be given every clean herb for meat; and it was so, even as I spake. And I, God, saw everything that I had made, and behold, all things which I had made were very good. Gen 1:31-33 IV

I have often read over these verses, and marveled over how God told man to be vegan. With the fall came predation and eating flesh, (which really, written that way, sounds awful), but I have always loved that, if it were up to God, really, we would all be vegan.

The time I spent as a raw vegan was the best health of my life. I had so much more energy, my body was cleansing and releasing toxins and shrinking to the tune of 2-3 pounds a week. (I wasn't doing any strength training then.) I had prayed and prayed and prayed to be able to be really and truly healthy, to have a deep vitality and strength, and I really felt like that was my answer.  Then, morning sickness hit, and I ate almost nothing. A couple of tangerines a day, and some water.  Sometimes some nuts or a little other fruit. I was just so nauseated all the time that nothing but tangerines even appealed to me.  Finally, one day Vern found me in the kitchen on the verge of tears, and folded me into his arms. And I cried. And as I cried, I realized I was so, so hungry. And thirsty. All I wanted was food and drink. And I didn't feel like I could get any of it down.

It was shortly after that that I went back to cooked foods, albeit gluten-free.  GF seemed to allay most of my hypoglycemia and thyroid issues, and I had such a good time in the kitchen, figuring out how to cook with GF flours and coconut milk, still nearly all vegetarian, but loving pancakes and muffins, brown rice and crackers (and cheese). I still think Henry was built mostly on rice crackers, cheese and vitamins. (And, I should be embarrassed to say, gf cookies and dark chocolate.)

Ever since returning to cooked foods, I have struggled with my health and weight.  I gained twenty pounds in that first month of eating cooked food. And another fifty with the pregnancy. I've only come down about fifteen pounds from my immediate post-partum weight of more than three years ago. I'm much stronger (a fair bit of that shift has been recompositioning as I've spent time in the gym), but I still have so far to go. I've felt, over and over, that I really should go back to mostly or all raw, and I think the time is coming for it.  It's time to see what God's way of eating can do for me for longer than three months.  The last time we went raw, we started just before Thanksgiving. By mid-February, when I returned to cooked foods, I was just under 160 lbs, within five pounds of my all-time adult low, and one pants size away from my beloved size 12 corduroys. And I felt so, so good. It's time to get healthy again . . . whatever the scale ends up saying as I get back to getting healthy, and adding strength, too.

Father, I'm ready for change. I'm ready to do this . . . we designed our kitchen for a raw vegan life, and I'm ready to use it that way. Show me how much to do, how far to go, what you would have me feed my family, and how to get started again. Show me what to clear out of my house, whether physical stuff or spiritual. Renew our minds continually, so we have the knowledge to fulfill Your desires for us. My children need this healing, too; they have health needs that exercise alone won't cure. Show me what they need to be fed, how they need to be fed, so they can thrive, growing into the powerful and humble servants You are calling them to be. And thank you so much for showing me that breaking free and beginning change doesn't mean I won't have to deal with the consequences of my old life for quite a while, and for letting me know that You will walk with me, talk with me, and show me how to handle each resurgence in the best way, in a healthy way. I love you, God of mine, and I can't wait to know You better, and to feel like myself again. In Jesus' name, amen!

Change: it looks like God's love.

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger.

They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”

“No, Lord,” she said.

And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” (John 8:1-11 NLT)

You judge me by human standards, but I do not judge anyone. And if I did, my judgment would be correct in every respect because I am not alone. The Father who sent me is with me. (John 8:15, 16 NLT)

**************************

Christ allowed the Pharisees' own consciences to condemn them. He didn't condemn.

He did not condemn the woman: she stood accused by a horde of those who were SURE they were the righteous ones. But Christ, the truly righteous One, didn't condemn.

It was the "faithful", the "righteous", the law-of-Moses-abiding leaders who accused. Christians today are quick to point out the Pharisees and all they did wrong, but how often do we stop and think: Whose pattern does my behavior match: Jesus', or the Pharisees'?

The only ones Christ spoke harshly to were those who held themselves up as an example. The only ones He ever treated with anything but kindness were those who were robbing the poor in the temple by selling animals for sacrifice at double and triple the cost. In both cases, He was dealing with those who had a hand in actively hindering those seeking God.

I know from sad experience that as soon as I begin to constrain, condemn, or accuse, the Spirit of God is grieved, and flees. But when I take a deep breath and speak ONLY in love the words God gives me to say--no condemnation, no pointing out what seems to me to be sin--then the Holy Spirit can work in the hearts of my loved ones, and they always know exactly what it is that would make God, who loves them so much, the happiest. When I carry the love of God in my heart, good things happen. When I operate out of fear or the idea that I'm on a moral high ground, I'm only serving the enemy.

Gentleness. Meekness. Love unfeigned. Entreaty. Long-suffering. Patience.

If we, as believers, EVER want ANYTHING to change in the LGBT communities, it's gotta happen one understanding, one friendship, one outpouring of God's love at a time. He will speak to them whatever it is that He wants heard. (And heaven forbid I should ever say what that might be.)

I know . . . from unconscionably long, painful, personal experience . . . that the only way for God to come in is for US to get our damning opinions, the precepts and philosophies of our fathers, out of the way. For us to be a conduit for Him, instead of taking His law unto ourselves.  Like to a shell dishabited, only there then can there be place for Him to dwell. I finally met Jesus because I prayed for friends, true friends, and over the course of about two years, God dumped a bunch of radically-obedient believers in my lap. One by one, the love of God they radiated, the reality of Jesus to them in their lives, changed mine.  A couple decades of well-intentioned and pleasant instruction in heart-warming stories and powerful emotionalism couldn't do it.  Only Jesus.

I'm so glad that it's not my place to do anything but love ALL others, to treat them as I would wish to be treated, and leave everything else up to Him.

Neither Jew or Gentile

Who can stand apart from Your presence

Once we have tasted the goodness of Your love?

Who can change a heart? Only You can.

We're restless and thirsty for healing from above.

You break the heavens open,

and I'm trying to swallow the ocean.

I'm coming alive with You.

I'm coming undone with You.

I'm coming away with You.

With the faith of a child I come.

With my hands lifted high I come.

I'm coming alive with You.

Who can know Your thoughts and Your purpose?

I want to join in, to listen and obey.

Who can do the things that You can?

If its impossible, Lord You know the way.

You break the heavens open,

and I'm trying to swallow the ocean.

You make all things new.

~Newsong, "Swallow the Ocean".

The Bible and Book of Mormon are rife with people overcome by the Spirit. Fainting away, both men and women becoming as though they were dead, later awakening and proclaiming their salvation, prophesying, and proclaiming visions given to them while overcome. I used to wonder why it was that those ancient people got to do that, when I'd never seen anything even remotely like it . . . I had felt the Holy Ghost, sometimes amazingly, life-changingly.  But not anything like that.  It was a warmth inside, a powerful motivator that made my hands cold and my heart race during testimony meetings when there was something God had for me to say. And during a Girl's Camp testimony meeting high in the Sierra Nevadas, lit by firelight and hemmed by the astounding, earnest love of a hundred and fifty girls and their leaders, felt the presence and love of God so powerfully that I felt like a new person.  It changed me, and was the first tectonic event in my new creation in Christ.  I walked around for days, then weeks, in a glow, thinking "So this is what a testimony feels like."  I didn't understand, didn't know what to do with that first amazing taste of the transformative power of His love.  And, in desperate ignorance, I took the final step in abandoning that change a little over a decade later, after the ravages of depression and more loneliness had taken their toll.

It took another twelve years before the chance came again, and this time I had just enough knowledge from more careful reading of the word between times, and the close friendship of some who knew more than I did in my spiritually infantile, socially isolated early teens. And oh, what a difference. What a difference.  This time, I know a little more what I'm about, and am intent on not letting this change slip away.  That's what Alma's talking about in Alma 5. Alma wasn't talking to a bunch of spiritual neonates, encouraging them to seek a remission of their sins. He was chastising and straitening a crowd of adults who had already been baptised with fire and the Holy Ghost, and who had let that slip away. They knew what he was talking about, because they had all experienced it.  They had felt that mighty change, and thought they'd never be the same.

The Holy Ghost works the same now as it has for all of scripture. As part of the Godhead, the operation of the Spirit is unchanging in principle and practice. It can (and will!) descend on you in power, straight from heaven, when you earnestly seek the Lord God Almighty. And if you have never felt this, if you've contented yourself with the idea that it's just not meant for you in this life . . . don't settle.  Don't content yourself with the idea that you're "just not spiritually advanced enough" or "not meant" for a certain blessing.  Don't settle! Don't swallow the lie of the enemy, the trickster, the one who stands eternally opposed to the happiness and salvation of the Children of God. Our Father God doesn't care who you are, or where you've been. Are you as Saul, who became Paul? Alma the Younger and the sons of Helaman? They had on their heads the lives (whether physical or spiritual) of many saints. And yet God spoke to them all, and they turned to Him and were saved. Not only saved, but now remembered among the most notable of missionaries and disciples. Are your hearts blacker than theirs? Your sins more scarlet? You aren't an exception to the love of God. It simply is not possible to stand outside of the word that says He doesn't care about the color of your skin, the combination of X and Y chromosomes you have, or your religious history.

Believing you somehow don't count, aren't eligible to the highest blessings in this life, WILL damn you. Maybe not eternally, but it can make life a living hell, putting you in bondage simply because you don't take the invitation offered you in the way only Jesus can offer: so utterly, without reservation or limit. It offers your heart to the enemy's jailing, holds your wounds outside of the absolute healing Jesus offers.

Just stop it. Stop it, and seek Him.

If the idea of "coming undone" before God sounds embarrassing or undignified, if the intimate language in the Bible and Book of Mormon sounds strange, let go of your ideas of what it takes to be close to Jesus, of the destructive and limiting concept of stoic faith.  Romans forcibly injected that stoicism into surrounding culture to the point that it is held up as the ideal: utter self-control to conquer every weakness of the flesh. Only trouble is, that's the arm of flesh. Yes, we should have self-control. Godly self-control, which is born of the Holy Spirit, a gift of the same, is an ability from Christ, and Christ alone. Godly self-control evaporates the desire to injure another.

We are not called to bottle up our humanity and soldier on.  We are to pour out our sorrows at His feet, and to take His yoke upon us.  And best of all, He calls us to worship, to rejoice, and to praise when things go His way.  He suffered for every last stinkin' one of us, regardless of our "odds", track record, or "qualities".  I don't care who you are, where you've come from, or where you think you're going. God doesn't care if you've been in prison, sold others into slavery, broken every one of His commandments and every law of man. If you don't know Him, He wants you to. He wants to be real to you. Real, like the floor under your feet feels.  Real, like seeing the smile on the face of the person you love best of all. Real, like hearing the voice of your best friend. And more real than anything you've ever known. The sacrifice is already made, perfect and whole. His blood was already spilt, His life already offered up, His triumphant resurrection complete. Please, don't just think you need to plant yourself in the middle of the mainstream, figure your work is done, all is well in Zion, and now just have to plug away placidly, filling the expectations of mortals. And don't waste another minute of your life looking for something else to fill the chasm inside. There's nothing on earth that's big enough to fill it.  You've got to turn to Him--turn to Him and let Him fill that aching emptiness.

It's not easy.  It takes the abandonment of your life's self-protective work, and often the rejection of the religious philosophies and scriptural interpretations of men you may have built your life upon.  True doctrine will come through beautifully--but odds are you have traditions long-held and cherished to cut loose. Which can be scary. The familiar spirits assigned to you, that are comfortable with where you are, with who you are, and the limited influence you hold due to your own contentment with where you are, don't want you to grow. They don't want you to know God better, and will pull out all the stops (including scaring you thoroughly) to keep you away from further light and truth.

God doesn't use fear to control.  He loves and entreats. If a doctrine scares you, it's probably time to examine it more closely, and pray about it again, and harder.

There's no thirst so sweet as the thirst for another thorough dousing in Jesus' oceanic love. No safety like the surrounding of His love. And no power like the faith that comes when you finally "get it" . . . finally begin understand, as much as a novice's mind can grasp, the true nature of the God you thought you knew all of these years.

He makes ALL things new.

He has, He does, and He will.  Yesterday, today, and forevermore. Infinitely. Repeatedly. Always.

For you.

Praise God. :o)



(This was first posted a week or so ago, and I'm sorry to say that the writing was highly unrepresentative of the spirit in which it was offered.  I've gone over it carefully now, and hope that the edits I've made help to convey the true state of my heart.  God bless.)

Show Me the Miracles!

Scripture: Matthew 9:33-38 NLT

So Jesus cast out the demon, and then the man began to speak. The crowds were amazed. “Nothing like this has ever happened in Israel!” they exclaimed. But the Pharisees said, “He can cast out demons because he is empowered by the prince of demons.” Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” 

Observation: Jesus healed so generously. So frequently. So completely. And He said His disciples would do greater works than He did.

Application: Where are they? Where are the miracles? I have seen so many more in the last six months than I have in my entire life before . . . but Christianity at large lives in such a state of near-stupefaction when it comes to the Holy Spirit.  Something Annie Dillard wrote comes to mind:

On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake some day and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.
  ~Annie Dillard

Moroni had a little something to say about miracles in Mormon 9:

19 And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles.

 20 And the reason why he ceaseth to do miracles among the children of men is because that they dwindle in unbelief, and depart from the right way, and know not the God in whom they should trust.

 21 Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.

 22 For behold, thus said Jesus Christ, the Son of God, unto his disciples who should tarry, yea, and also to all his disciples, in the hearing of the multitude: Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature;

 23 And he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned;

 24 And these signs shall follow them that believe—in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover;

 25 And whosoever shall believe in my name, doubting nothing, unto him will I confirm all my words, even unto the ends of the earth.

 26 And now, behold, who can stand against the works of the Lord? Who can deny his sayings? Who will rise up against the almighty power of the Lord? Who will despise the works of the Lord? Who will despise the children of Christ? Behold, all ye who are despisers of the works of the Lord, for ye shall wonder and perish.

 27 O then despise not, and wonder not, but hearken unto the words of the Lord, and ask the Father in the name of Jesus for what things soever ye shall stand in need. Doubt not, but be believing, and begin as in times of old, and come unto the Lord with all your heart, and work out your own salvation with fear and trembling before him.

 28 Be wise in the days of your probation; strip yourselves of all uncleanness; ask not, that ye may consume it on your lusts, but ask with a firmness unshaken, that ye will yield to no temptation, but that ye will serve the true and living God.

Verse 26 really stood out to me today: when we despise the works of the Lord, we find ourselves in the conditions of stand against His works, deny His sayings, rise up against the almighty power of the Lord, and despise the children of Christ.

I think our state is much more dire than most comfortable Christians (LDS included) would like to believe. We are comfortable, pleasant, and well-intentioned.

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. ~Revelation 3:15-16

Prayer: Lord, I praise You for Your grace and your mercy, and the overwhelming love which has changed my life from night to day.  Equip me with Your Spirit. Pour into me strength to do Your will, to follow You, and take You at Your word. I want to walk in Your ways, to see with Your eyes, to hear with Your ears, to serve with Your heart. I know something of loneliness, of illness, of condemnation, of sin. And I just want to set the captive free.  Oh, please.  Just let me help You. Whenever, however, whatever.  In Jesus' grace-filled and glorious Name, so be it.

Faith to be Healed

Recently, as I've been corresponding about trials and God's will for our lives, I received this sentence in an email:

Part of the faith is accepting what the Lord chooses to have us go through.

And it just didn't set right. Something about it got me all twitchy. So I marked the email as read, and ruminated for a day.

And then I got it:

The Lord doesn't choose to have us go through anything.

WE choose it.

Every last tiny bit of it.

He has a marvelous, wonderful, amazing and bounteous life planned for us . . . already created in the spirit . . . and it is up to us to choose to listen to and follow His will (as revealed to us directly through scripture and the Holy Ghost) to realize that plan in this world. Or, alternately, we can choose something that's not part of His amazing plan for us, and walk a path that's far beneath our privileges. In order to realize the good things God has in store, we have to turn towards Him, continually forsaking the things that aren't in alignment with His goodness and glory (a.k.a. repentance). We have to do as Romans 12:2 says:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

. . . and allow the Holy Ghost to renew our minds (teach us His ways, character, and truth, removing veils of unbelief and incorrect thinking) so we can be transformed/transfigured into something more virtuous and glorified, one breakthrough at a time.

The trials and illnesses of this life are a consequence of the fall . . . and while that was necessary for the whole plan of happiness, that wasn't God's choice. It was Adam's & Eve's. And it's through the tutelage of the spirit, the revealing of personal revelation, that we learn what to do in order to allow us to walk in His best path for us.

We turn towards Jesus in humility. He comes and searches us out in our distress, in our wildernesses. And He walks with us, carries us, strengthens and cheers us on, whispering encouragingly in our ear or laughing joyously at the sky as we make our way back to the even greater blessings that await.

We do not stand in a position of helplessness, waiting only upon God to deliver us from trials and the conditions of sin and death in this world. Christ came, and won the victory. :o) He is all-sufficient, and mighty to save! (Oh, how I want to shout that from the rooftops!) The only thing I've been able to see, in scripture, that we must endure without certain hope of deliverance, is persecution from other people who don't know Him, for we do not have dominion over others. But in all other things, Christ won. He overcame sin and death. We all know the proverb about death and taxes . . . and yet, we know prophets were translated. They didn't taste of death. When we submit to God, and do what He really and truly wants us to do, we're on the path to become like Him to the point where He will take us up unto Himself, as well.

He is no respecter of persons. None. I stand in the very same position of opportunity and potential blessing as ANY other son or daughter of God who has ever been born on this earth, or who ever will be. The work I am called to do might be different--more ordinary, less impressive-looking--but I stand to inherit the same kind of glory they did, if I submit to and honor my God to the same completeness in the fulfillment of it. The only questions I need to answer are "How much do I desire to know my God? How much does my heart yearn for the things of His heart? For His will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven?"

I realize I just talked about submitting, after saying we don't have to submit. But hear me out. We are to submit in all things to the will of God . . . . but to nothing and no one else. If there is a person in a position of leadership that follows the will of Jesus Christ, then we will be in agreement, and participate together in the realization of God's will on earth. (How cool is that????) That's unity. It's not having the same political opinions, or philosophical perspectives, or anything else. It's about treasuring your direct line to God, listening to it earnestly, and following what we receive faithfully. Nothing else really matters, because we can trust Him. Utterly.

Jesus healed people of their infirmities right and left--and in Bountiful, he healed every one who came to Him. One by one, they came. And he healed them all. All who would come unto Him. I can imagine that there may have been a few that didn't approach Him, for whatever reason, that day. But I don't believe Christ wants anyone to be sick, or depressed, or hurt.

Ever.

Healing takes faith--and as a teenager and young adult struggling with depression, I'm not sure I had faith. I didn't know the nature and character of God well enough to have that kind of confidence in Him. I trusted Him a great deal, but I didn't really expect Him to heal me. (See what I mean? I didn't KNOW Him. I had a concept of Him, but it was seriously skewed, despite my near-perfection in the performances of my faith.) I thought I was supposed to take my herbs and eat right, and then I would be healed through the things I did. But I didn't know enough about the principles of diet and depression to make a dent. And I didn't believe God would heal me without me doing all of the work on the physical side. So I continued in depression. And I saw no miracle, because I placed my own efforts on par with God's matchless power.

What made the difference this time--what continues to make the difference now--is that I am totally and completely willing to lay everything down for Jesus Christ. Everything. I know Him. He has made Himself known to me in ways that I cannot deny, and are so, so precious to me. He has shown me how vitally living, how exuberantly loving, how joyous and sunny His disposition is. He cares nothing for my imperfections and shortcomings, for I am clothed in His righteousness through His grace. Christ's driving desire is to be able to place His righteousness over me--to bring me out from under condemnation. I offered him my tattered beggar's clothes, held together only by virtue of near-constant darning, and in return He clothed me in royal robes of glory and peace and strength. So long as I walk in repentance, retaining a remission of my sins, I can continue in that newness of life, that continually refreshed newness of mind, a new creature in Him, inhabiting a completely new world--the Kingdom of Jesus Christ on earth.

And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee."

But there was certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, "Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?"

And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, "Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,)

I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house."

And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion. (Mark 2:1-12)

I have learned that, first and foremost, if I want to be healed, (and stay healed), I need to be in such a state of heart and mind that I am ready to receive remission of my sins, or be in a state of retaining a remission of my sins. (That doesn't mean perfect, folks. It means making steady progress toward God, and relinquishing our hold on sin and falsehood when we realize we're still attached to it.)  When that happens, you become a new creature in Christ, and you inhabit a new world. You are no longer subject to sin and death, and can follow Christ anywhere. The tricky, miraculous, amazing, and wondrous part for me right now is aligning my belief with His Truth as I go from grace to grace, learning line upon line, and growing in wisdom and spiritual stature before the Lord.