For His Glory

Ever have those days, to where you’re on top of the mountain and then it’s like slip, tumble, thump and out of nowhere you find yourself back at the bottom of the valley?

Yesterday, was one of those days for me. I was up late until 2:30ish listening to secular music that I normally do not listen to. I found myself in this state of mind that I often work my bottom off to stay out of. I found myself with this inner critic / inner defender state of mind. Just soaking it up and it felt good.

Somewhere along the line, I pushed Eli over, took off my headphones and forced myself to say my prayers and go to sleep.

Then came this morning, I was awoken by Jesus and my busy kidneys, that’s when it hit me the valley I felt before going to la la land was real.

God where are you? Why is nothing changing? I am overloaded down here. How can I keep up with school, work, and keep the house cleaned all in one. Why aren’t Danny and I that close? Why is everyone around me happy, sappy in love, and I’m over here drowning, wishing for closeness, and help maintaining a home while I push to be a better me. — Did I really just exalt myself and boast on my current doings? Hmmm. made me think.

As I got in the tub, it occurred to me that the person Jesus was working on was me, and it was me that he was wanting to change. Complain less, spend less, be satisfied more, and love my family closer. Big deal if the house isn’t spotless. Am I placing my effort towards complaining or am I placing 100% of my efforts towards helping. Am I focusing my energy on being the me Christ has called me to be or am I just becoming this arrogant transformed drug addict, turned CNA/ future RN?

That was a tough pill to swallow.

All I want to be is the Child of God that I am called to be, even if that means swallowing my pride, getting less sleep, and pushing towards helping my family more. No glitches, just 100% real and faithful to Jesus, even if it means me realizing I’m the one he’s working on.

Imagine having surgery while you’re wide awake. Imagine being cut open, and bleeding out pain, emotions, and impurities or imperfections. Imagine having your body mended back together, and then sewn up all while you’re awake. You see the coming undone hurts, the fixing hurts, and the fixing back hurts too, especially if we’re the ones being worked on.

This funk sucks! It stinks. Just like Lazarus was dead for 4 days and he began to stink, then Jesus called out to him and said Lazarus come forth, I feel like I’m in a state of dying, I stink at times (attitude wise, outlook wise, pardon my honesty, it’s never my intentions to give you this image of my perfect little life.) My demeanor towards people in general can at times be that of a menopausal woman (no offence to anyone, only an example, I am hateful and full of love at the same time, I want to be held and I do not want to be touched also, I long to hold others, and yet, I want nothing to do with others, I am wishy washy, and I am unpleasant, I am out going, and I am calm, I am a tornado in a hurricane, but yet, soft and gentle. I am in chaos and at the same time I am in stillness.) And, yet I hear Jesus saying, “Come forth my child.” I feel like I should be dead, and the on lookers have witnessed things that should have left me for dead.

This morning I forced myself to go to church. The best decision I made. I made myself worship, when I didn’t want to even be present.

Today has continued, and I’m still blah, for how much longer I have no idea. The hem of his garment is near, and I am holding to it.

Tonight, I heard from the oldest of my pride and pain, my Syrus.

Syrus was placed in a behavioral health facility for young teens / adolescence about three weeks ago for attempting to kill himself. I praise God for the sound of his voice. Syrus is no longer my baby, he’s my young man. (Yep, I’m nearing 40.) I was informed by my pain that meth had also been a part of his agenda in the weeks prior to his episode. I’m lost by it. I know I was a drug addict for so long, and I too smoked meth once or twice years back, but to hear my 15-year-old tell me, he had been using it carelessly struck another nerve.

I wanted to cry, and I wanted to scream, and I still want to cry and scream, but my Jesus! Jesus steps down and again and reminds me of an incident when I younger. I recall an old friend coming to stay the night with me at my house when I was just a preteen. This girl was different, she was raised in the city with freedom from her parents that I wasn’t given from my own parents. At the time, I was pretty and considered “that fresh little jailbait that was off limits to the rest of the holler”, the only reason this girl had access to being around me was because we were the same age, and she was of course the same gender as I was. In that house with so many rules I just wanted to escape. The telephone was my go-to, I’d call my older neighbor all the time, although there wasn’t much of a difference in our age, still he was over age and in his sewing wild oats stage, and well, there I was, innocent and looking for rottenness, and there she was, rotten and looking to get me into some meanness. The subject of acid came up, purple microdots, or paper blueish / red strips (this was the middle 90’s before the oxy train ever existed). I was game, under my tongue it went. The walls in my mom’s house looked white (mind you, they were blue). I was tripping. My mom had no idea, to her knowledge I had just been up all night catching up with a friend. That’s when my house phone rang. It was my daddy calling from Florida. I remember my dad telling me, “Christie, you sound high.” My reply was “You, never know I could be.”– This conversation took place as I was backing myself into a corner that I could not get into, it was like the wall kept moving with me, and I kept backing up.

Daddy must have gone to praying and talking to Jesus. I wonder if he felt like I feel today. I wonder if what I am feeling is a reflection of what my own dad felt for me, when he first found out that I was stepping into a realm of life, that he longed to keep me out of.

It’s like I’m mentally zoned / phased out of it. I cannot explain it or put it into words, almost like a haze. And I know God is here with me. I’m just, blah to the fullest.

I want to say this. The devil is dumb. I say that boldly because he knows it’s one thing to mess with me, but to mess with my baby, you got to be kidding right! I will pray, and pray, and pray and speak boldly over my boy, because it’s my responsibility to do so.

I am Holy Ghost filled, and you don’t back me into a corner, because I’ll run to the one who made me, loves me, died for me, and stands beside me in all my fires. I will fight the fire of hell with the angels of heaven. I will fight the fire of hell with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, I will fight every demon, and everyone that tries to stand between the power of my God upon my family’s life. What sometimes feels like a curse is a blessing, because if I’m that bridge between my loved ones and the enemy, I say walk on family, I know who fights my battles, and I’ll stand in the gap! I say Lord, here am I send me! I’ll go, I’ll go I say, I’ll fight til it’s my very last breath, I will not let you die lost, I will not let you go a day without knowing Jesus loves you, I will not let you go without knowing there is power in the blood, I will not let you go!!!

Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You. In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me? Psalm 56:3-4

 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin– Hebrews 4:15

 Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is my hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinketh, because there is no water, and dieth for thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.  The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned.  The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.– Isaiah 50:2-5

After talking to my Syrus, I opened up God’s word and there I found myself in Isaiah, reading the last passage I posted above.

I know God’s going to do something. I know God is about to shake the heavens in my favor, but not just my favor, in all of his children’s favor.

For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. In prosperity I said, “I will never be shaken.”…Psalm 30:5-6

 Are you past the point of weary? Is your burden weighin’ heavy? Is it all too much to carry? Let me tell you ’bout my Jesus Do you feel that empty feeling? ‘Cause shame’s done all its stealin’ And you’re desperate for some healin’
Let me tell you ’bout my Jesus … He makes a way where there ain’t no way
Rises up from an empty grave Ain’t no sinner that He can’t save Let me tell you ’bout my Jesus His love is strong and His grace is free And the good news is I know that He Can do for you what He’s done for me And let my Jesus change your life, … Who can wipe away the tears From broken dreams and wasted years And tell the past to disappear?And all the wrong turns that you would Go and undo if you could Who can work it all for your good Let me tell you about my Jesus — Anne Wilson

I just want to tell you, I love you and Jesus loves you most!

It’s my prayer that whoever reads these blogs, that you know that Jesus loves you without measure, meaning his love cannot be contained to a box, and its limitless, it doesn’t matter what you have done, or the mistakes that you hold over your own head. It’s not time to play the blame game on yourself or on others, it’s time to come out and be a separated person, set upon a hill, filled full of the light of the Lord. We cannot shine light, if we continuously allow ourselves to be broken. — When a part of me breaks, he mends it, and might I say, I’ve been broken and I am broken, but I am not continuously broken, I am continuously his, and I will continuously reach out to him even at times like this when I cannot breathe, or see the sun, I will hold to him.

It’s my prayer that you let Jesus love you, and that you rise up, the storm is almost over.

It’s my prayer, that you see Jesus in me.

I love you all ❤

Christie ❤

email me christie7373@halfwayhomeministries.com