“Spirit of the Living God”

I can’t sleep.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve become accustomed to little sleep over the last 4 weeks or if it’s something else.

I grab my headphones and turn on some worship music as I lie in the dark.  Surely I’ll fade into rest soon enough.

But I don’t.

There hasn’t been a “meltdown” as of yet.  I’ve been told to expect it but I’ve only had a few minutes of crying while driving alone here and there.  It feels good- like a valve opening up to release hundreds of pent up feelings. For a woman who is intimately familiar with all kinds of emotions, it seems strange that I can’t even put a name to this.  It’s just the overflow of so much.

So much fear. So much loneliness. So much exhaustion. So much uncertainty. So much waiting. So much helplessness….

But not only that.  There’s something else that seems to overshadow all of it.

So much gratitude.  So much hope that I won’t be the same.  That none of us will forget what we’ve seen.  So much expectation of what the Spirit can do, can speak, can teach, can show, can change…I’ve changed.  So many of us have changed.

We’ve seen God walk into a “room”.  We’ve seen Him move.  It’s changed what I want.  What I want to seek. What I want to see in this world.  What I want to see in the lives of those around me.  It’s made me fall on my knees-literally and figuratively.

At this very moment, it’s left me in tears.  Tears that flow from a hundred different places but that seem to cleanse my soul. Not sobbing tears.  Not uncontrollable “let’s confront what we just lived through” tears.  Those may come, but these are tears of submission to my God and to whatever He needs to do in my heart.  Tears of love.  Tears of joy at the miracle I’ve seen.  Tears of expectation and desire to see more of who He is. Tears of certainty that He has gone before me into an uncertain future.  His timing is perfect.  His plan is waiting and He will walk through it all with me.  Heck, He will carry me if need be.

So I’m sharing this song.  It’s followed me for weeks (as have so many others).  Tonight, I’m returning to bed, playing it on repeat and falling asleep with the prayer that I’ll live the rest of my life wanting nothing more than to hear His voice, to obey it and to see Him do the things that only He can do.

To be a part of that…priceless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogGOlGswStA

“Prophesy”

The last three weeks have been crazy! They’ve not only been the darkest and loneliest weeks of my life but also the most powerful, impacting and supported time of my life.  I know that’s contradictory.  The whole journey has been a picture of contradiction.  Death and life.  Faith and fear. Solitude and support. Waiting and fighting.  I don’t know how to explain it and I’m not sure I will be able to organize it all into anything understandable but I’d love to… simply for selfish reasons. I process through writing and I haven’t even begun to process what we’ve been through.

I just can’t seem to find a place to start.  What I can say is that worship got me through every moment of this trial. When I had no faith, no more tears, no answer, nothing I could do…God deserved my worship and it gave me a focus that was larger than Steve and I. When I couldn’t pray anymore or didn’t know what to pray, certain songs became the cry of my heart in a way that words, alone, weren’t able to do.  I’d make a pretty heavy bet that I’ll never hear certain songs again without having a powerful memory of where I was and what I was praying while listening to it. The color of the bedspread in the hotel room.  The smell of the soup sitting on the table that the hotel staff brought me because I wasn’t eating. The sound of the rain at 3 am outside my window as I paced the floor praying and crying and worshiping. God started preparing these songs for me back in February.  I’d originally started the playlist, “I Have To Believe”, as an encouragement to myself as I walked through a difficult time but they suddenly, and very clearly, became anthems of strength, faith and hope directly pointed towards this trial that I could never have imagined we would walk through.  God not only used them to focus my heart on Him in worship, He spoke promises and truth to me, challenged the depth of my faith and breathed hope into my soul through them.  And honestly…I think they flowed from my hotel room, into Steve’s hospital room and brought God’s presence into that place.  Not that the songs are miraculous but the prayers of God’s people are. So many were agreeing with the truths in these songs and I believe we entered Steve’s room through the spiritual realm and lifted him up to our daddy. I don’t mean to sound “weird” but I know that God knew how hard it was not to see my husband for 5 days as they told me he was dying.  I believe he is big enough to somehow allow so many of us to enter that room, place our hands on his body, plead for God’s healing and intercede more passionately than many of us ever have.  These songs transported me to that place.  They allowed me to find the warrior in my trembling heart and to fight.  Fiercely! From miles away. They changed me.  This journey has changed me.  And I hope I’ll never be the same.

I’m home now.  I just ran for the first time in almost a month and it was cathartic.  This song,  “Prophesy” , came on at about the 1-mile mark and I was back in a Russian hotel room praying for life with all that was in me. Trying desperately to believe the word spoken over Steve that “He shall not die but he shall live and declare what God has done.” My chest tightened and I lost my breath.  But I quickly found myself thanking God and lifting my hands in gratitude and worship as I walked home on this beautiful road of ours.  I believe my God, the King of the Universe, literally breathed life back into us.  Not only Steve’s body but into so many of us as we’ve come alive to the power of prayer and the closeness and concern of our loving Father.  Into His people as we have discovered the power of His church as a unified and focused army.   I hope we will continue to seek Him desperatly and that His breath will fill our lives because, then, we will breath life into the world around us.

I am forever grateful that I could lay on Steve’s chest last night and feel his arm around me. I’m giddy that we can celebrate his birthday tomorrow with chocolate  pudding and cake in the hospital.  But, I am also acutely aware that God just as miraculously breathed life back into this heart of mine in a way that I’ve never known and could never have imagined.

You truly are a good, good Father, God.  Thank you – and may our lives bring you glory and praise until our very last breath.

 

When Life Stands Still

As I walked back to the hotel tonight, I passed the workers setting up for the Sunday market and suddenly realized we have been in Paris more than a week.  Last Sunday we bought some bread, cheese and veggies and had a solemn picnic in the park before going to see how Steve was doing on life support. A week before that I was rushing him to a Russian hospital in a van (that pretended to be an ambulance) at 2 am in the morning.  They told me to remember him as he was and they didn’t seem to have much hope.  That was 2 weeks ago. 14 days!  It seems that life stood still and time kept moving. One thing I’ve learned is that we don’t appreciate how quickly it all can change.  I’m writing this as my heart is rejoicing over the fact that Steve kissed me back when I told him goodnight tonight.  Albeit weak, it was the best kiss ever.  How far we have come from multiple organ failure to hearing him say a few words to the girls as they told him they had to leave tomorrow! Thank you Jesus for that gift.

But, I’m also very aware that there are many tonight who aren’t rejoicing.  I know because we’ve heard from them.  Many of them.  One sweet woman lost her mom this week.  Someone else lost their marriage.  Another is struggling as her husband is not doing well with cancer and another is watching her dad decline in ICU.  My heart aches for them.  My soul cries out for the Holy Spirit to comfort them and to wrap them in that unexplainable protection of his love that we have experienced in the last 14 days. Meg and I have talked a lot about how to trust God when things don’t turn out like we’d like them to.  I have no answers to that but I hope and pray we would. He has shown himself to be so trustworthy and good to us in the past so how could I not trust him when things get hard?  I’ve begun to think that the secret to our peace is found in our focus.  Are my eyes more focused on, and invested in, this world or in eternity?   Unfortunately, I think I live most of my life forgetting that the truest reality and the most “real” life will be experienced after death. This is just a dress rehearsal for eternity with God. Many may not agree with me but that’s okay.  I hope they’ll come to know the peace, forgiveness and intimacy of being known and loved by an almighty God.  It changes things. It changes life.  And, ironically, taking our focus off of this world and placing it on heaven actually gives this life much more beauty, depth, meaning and purpose.  I can’t explain it –  but I’ve lived it.  Every gift of love, every breath, every friendship, every kindness…it’s all a gift from God and it becomes sweeter and more precious when I realize just how fragile and how precarious it is. As I enjoy these gifts, I want to do it with gratitude and thanksgiving with a focus on pointing people to Jesus and how to experience real life with Him. This life is precious and every good thing in it is a gift from the Father, but REAL life – eternal life – life that we can’t even comprehend starts when we step over that line of the physical into the spiritual and we see Jesus face to face.

I hope this post isn’t insensitive. I realize that my nightmare hasn’t ended like so many others’ and my burdens aren’t as heavy as most around the world. I won’t assume to know how those hurting hearts feel.  But I do think God gave me a glimpse into the desire he has for his children to keep their eyes firmly set on the author and perfector of their faith. To rediscover the deep truth and reality of heaven being our home.  To ponder whether we really see ourselves as citizens of heaven or of this world.  After all, doesn’t Scripture say this is not our home?

Our Father breathed this truth into me on May 30, 2018.

 

That’s the day Steve took his first breath off of the ventilator.

 

That’s the day his sweet mom, our precious Mia, took her first breath in eternity 9 years ago.

The day she truly started to live a life that I can only imagine.

 

And the day God clearly said to my heart, “One day you will all experience the life she now knows, but this isn’t that time. I’m giving him back to you for a little while because  I’m not finished with him yet. I’m doing a new work, can you not see it?  Walk in it with passion, purpose and praise and know that death is not the end.  It’s just the beginning.”

Thank you, Jesus.