The Fruit Just Happens

Oct11

I have been very disheartened lately by the new TV show Preachers of LA. I haven’t watched it. I probably won’t, so if the previews are misleading and the show is actually a positive thing for Christianity, someone be sure to let me know. I saw a preview, and this was more than enough to keep me away, in which one of them was driving a fancy car and another had a baby out of wedlock. I heard a quote saying “it’s ok to be saved, sanctified, and sexual” (the pastor saying it is a single man). Yikes. Lord have mercy on the Christians of California! I have many atheist/agnostic friends and this show seems like such a misrepresentation of who Christ is and what Christianity means. I keep thinking how difficult it is to witness to my friends, and how this is just reinforcing every negative idea they had about the church. And in their case, salvation is absolutely at stake….this show literally has the power to trade salvation for its own bottom line. Souls for money. Heartbreaking. Humanity has stooped to a new low.

So I have been bummed out about that, and also suffering a major case of writers’ blog, when my hope was officially renewed by this one clip. I was listening to this (Heidi Baker giving a word) today, and it really resonated with me. It doesn’t matter what happens to us and what suffering we go through (in her case, malaria and being shot at – yikes!); there is joy, pure joy, in his presence. Moving in our own strength is exhausting. Moving in Him is beautiful intimacy. Intimacy is the goal. Falling in love with Him all over again, falling deeper and deeper, is the goal. And the fruit just happens. In Him, in His holy and infinite presence, love bears fruit. So today my prayer is simply this: Lord, draw me in.

Fully Satisfied

Oct8

“You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek You; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, In a dry and parched land where there is no water.” ~Psalm 63:1

I was reading Psalm 63 the other day (read it here in KJV or here in NIV) and was just really struck by David’s faith. I mean, here the guy is stuck in a desert. There’s no water. I don’t know about you, but if I were stuck in a desert with no water in sight, I’d be thirsty. Even if I’d brought water with me, knowing there was no more nearby would make me thirsty by default. avid was thirsty too, but not for water. His first thirst, looking around him and seeing nothing around that could sustain or nourish him, was for God. Looking around and seeing nothing, his being then longed for his Creator. That is faith. Big faith. I have faith, and yet my whole being would be longing for food and drink opportunities. David is on a whole other level.

He goes on to say that he’s seen God’s power and glory, and His love is better than life. Now, there are many of us who will pray when things go wrong; we will certainly lean on God when things go badly, and He is our ultimate Provider. But David isn’t leaning. David is praising. David is stuck in the desert thinking, “who cares if I starve to death or die of thirst? Who cares if I lose my life out here? God’s love is better than my life, and so I’ll get my praise on”. He doesn’t really seem concerned at all about his physical circumstances or surroundings. He’s just interested in celebrating – in the middle of the dessert he is celebrating. Why? Because God is God, and that’s worth celebrating.

He even goes so far as to say that he will be satisfied as with the richest of foods. Without any food at all. I don’t know about you but that’s amazing to me. I am fasting sugar right now – I’m not going hungry, I’m just going healthy. I’m not going thirsty. And yet I have to convince myself to feel satisfied. My body is missing the carbs. David, though, his body could be missing everything, and yet he is ‘fully satisfied as with the richest of foods’. Incredible.

Only after this celebrating does he starting clinging to God. And even when he is clinging, he’s not too concerned. He knows God’s faithfulness too well to worry about much of anything – he knows God’s got him covered no matter what. He mentions being taken care of in the face of his enemies, and says “the king will rejoice in God”. Basically, no matter what his circumstances, this guy is rejoicing. Because God is God, and His very presence is enough to keep David fully satisfied.

What would our lives look like if we had a heart like that? If we were fully satisfied at all times, sometimes despite pretty bad stuff, simply because of God’s presence?

I am praying for that heart today, the heart to be satisfied as with the richest of foods, simply because I know God is there. The heart that celebrates God for being not just enough, but my everything. We should all be praying for this heart today.

God bless!

~Rebekah A

Igniting the Passion

Oct5

I’ve been noticing lately just how much we do to interact with other people. When it comes to our loved ones, we make time to call or we put things aside to take their calls. We stay in touch via text or Facebook. We send each other stories, memories, pictures that remind us of that person. When we don’t hear from them or haven’t in awhile, we miss them.

And it got me thinking – what would the church look like if we treated God the same way? How would we as individuals look? How would our lives look?

Because honestly, how often do we think like that? How often do you go out of your way to make time to talk to Him? Go out of your way to take His call? Go through your day and see little things throughout that remind you of God or that you want to tell Him about later? If you haven’t talked to Him all day, do you miss Him? Does talking to Him put a smile on your face, or is it just something we do? Do you get giddy with Him the way you would with, say, a crush? Do we talk to Him because we need Him, or because we love Him?

God doesn’t want to be kept at a distance. He doesn’t want to be an afterthought, a crutch, or an obligation. He wants to be everything. He loves us, even to the most minute details of our lives, He loves us passionately and wants our passionate love in return. Passionate. Love. He is the lover of our souls and as such desires our company and our time – He delights in it. Do we delight in Him?

I challenge you to work on closing that gap. See how many areas of your life you can include Him on. Not because you have a problem you need to pray about, but because you love Him and want Him around. It’s time to ignite your passion for Him (or grow it, as the case may be). He will meet you every step of the way!

God bless!

~Rebekah A

Two Sisters

Sep28

In Ezekiel 23 (read it here for NIV or here for KJV), the chapter talks about 2 sisters – Oholah and Oholibah. Oholah is, metaphorically, Samaria, while Oholibah is Jerusalem. Getting deep already, aren’t we?

To summarize the chapter: They weren’t the most well-behaved ladies, and this chapter refers to them repeatedly as harlots. They ‘played the harlot’ in Egypt, getting fondled and caressed even as young girls. They became children of God eventually, but didn’t stay faithful to Him. Instead, they lusted after and gave themselves to all kinds of other men from all different lands. The younger sister is worse than the older, not only lusting after the men who crossed her path but also the ones she saw drawn on the wall. In fact she went out of her way to send for them, based on these pictures, so she could give herself to them too. Naughty, naughty. Eventually, the things and people they lust after turn against them, expose them for the bad girls that they are, and destroy them. Painfully, I might add.

Admittedly, this isn’t the most uplifting chapter, but God spoke out to me about a couple of things. First, these girls started doing sexual things at a young age. The bible mentions them being young girls, and the men of Egypt ‘fondling’ ‘their virginal breasts’. On the one hand, this certainly isn’t demure behavior. On the other, how much control over their environment do young girls have? They may well have been forced to do this. Or perhaps, if they did indeed enjoy it, they enjoyed it only because it was all they knew. But then things changed. They went from living in the darkness to being children of God. Daughters of God. Knowing God, they now knew better. Yet, they didn’t change. They had a chance at redemption and forgiveness, and had they taken that chance this might be a very different chapter. The Bible, after all, is full of redemption stories. But they didn’t. The older sister, Oholah, upon becoming God’s, lusted after new men. The other, Oholibah, lusted after both new men and her past in Egypt.

The message is clear: once you know God, you know better. Yesterday’s events, however traumatic or beyond your control, do not justify today’s sin. Your environment is not and will never be an excuse – not once your environment also includes God (which it already does, thanks to a little something inside of us called the Holy Spirit). Have you made any excuses lately? Justified something to yourself? Said ‘that’s just how I am’ or “that’s how I was raised”?

Then there is all the men they lusted after: idols. False idols. You know the list – money, attention, notoriety, material things. Maybe you lust after them too. And Oholibah lusting after her past life – the life before God entered it. With God is great freedom, but also great responsibility to uphold His standards and righteousness. There is joy in Him, greater than any joy that this earth can provide, but to the casual observer it looks like a lot of rules. To someone who hasn’t experienced Him for themselves, the list of standards is long and the payoff is short. To someone who doesn’t know God, Oholibah’s life before Him probably looks a lot more fun. And that was her line of thinking too. The things of her past that were sinful, were fun for her. And she missed them.

This is why Christianity goes so far beyond saying the words. We can’t just pay lip service to the idea of belonging to God. We need to actually abide with Him – to desire His heart as our own. When a person lives completely led by the Holy Spirit, they can do anything they want. Why? Because their genuine and deep desires line up with the pure and righteous desires God has for us. If you desire things outside of Him, you need to seek Him out a bit more and let Him draw you closer. Oholah and Oholibah clearly failed to do this, ,and so their lusting continued. They remained spiritually immature. They never grew. Growing in God means realizing this: there is a cost to walking with Him and belonging to Him. The cost is great – but so worth paying. And as soon as you pay it, you realize just how “worth it” it is. That IS partly why we call it faith, no?

But Oholah and Oholibah missed the boat entirely when it came to actually growing in God, and so they floundered. Without seeing the Glory and Majesty that were right in front of them, they chased after other things. And random calamity doesn’t befall them. Lightning doesn’t strike them down. What happens is that the things they were chasing turned against them. The men weren’t who they seemed to be at first. They looked better from a distance. Up close they didn’t make the girls any happier or more satisfied than they were before. In fact, they caused a lot of pain and torment for these ladies. Again, the message is clear: these other things just aren’t worth the chase. Where God is eternal, these things don’t stand the test of time. Where God is more beautiful and more miraculous and more faithful and just better the more you get to know Him, these other things don’t even stand up to close scrutiny. Where God is constant and dependable, these other things are fickle and untrustworthy. They just aren’t worth much in comparison to God.

Our walk with God is not meant to ever be stagnant, and so today I ask you to take a deep look at your journey with Him. Where do you stand today? Have you made any spiritual excuses lately? Justified something to yourself? Said ‘that’s just how I am’ or “that’s how I was raised”? Desire anything lately that went beyond God? More money, a better job, a big promotion? A bigger house? Missed your ‘old life’ when you were ‘allowed’ to do other things? Once we’re His we’re always His; sinning and desiring these other things is essentially cheating on Him. So ask Him today – are there areas where you’re cheating? Areas you hold back from Him?

Maybe you do have some of these issues and maybe you don’t. Either way, Ezekiel 23 clearly shows us it’s not worth it. So let Him in today, to examine your heart and show you all the little ways you can deepen your relationship with Him even more. It’s worth any price, and God is just – He’ll never ask more of you than you can pay. So take the plunge!

God bless!

~Rebekah A

A Certain Day

Sep25

“God again set a certain day, calling it ‘Today’. This He did when a long time later He spoke through David, as in the passage already quoted: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”

When it comes to certain things, I am an opportunist. If I hear of someone hiring, I fill out an application. If a friend is in town, I move things around to see them. If i want to go visit someone else, I take steps to make it happen. If there is an opening to something I want, I take it. Most of us do. We seize the opportunity and think nothing of it.

Yet when it comes to seizing the opportunity for Jesus Christ, we balk. We don’t assert ourselves. When I was first developing a relationship with Jesus, and I had questions, I would ask Christian friends. You know the kind: “why do bad things happen to good people?” “How can Jesus be man and God at the same time?” And so on. You would not believe how vague the answers were. Across the board. I even asked pastors at times (I bounced around to different churches trying to answer this stuff), and the most answer I got was “look in the Bible.”. Well, today that would be helpful to me. But back then? Do you have any idea how many pages are in that Book? Or how small the type is? Or how many chapters and books and verses there are? If you have never picked it up in your life, do you have any idea how hard it is to start? I mean…..they could’ve named a verse to start with, at least. This was across the board, and it was when I was coming to them with direct questions. It was so disheartening and frustrating – God is not supposed to be hard to find! I later found out that they weren’t sure how I’d take the answers – in short, I was too ‘new’ to answer. I love my friends, and we freely talk about all things Christian now….but something tells me when it comes to reaching out to people, spreading the Gospel and simply sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ and salvation, God had a slightly more proactive approach in mind.

Yet, I’m not sure I’m much different. I talk about Jesus freely among my Christian friends. I stop to give coffee or change to the homeless. I stop to make casual conversation with them. But I don’t evangelize with them much. I want to. It’s on my heart. But I wait for God to open the door….wider. And TO A POINT, this is good. You don’t want to evangelize and witness outside of God’s will. I’m not advocating AT ALL.

It’s just that I don’t search for the opportunity to talk about Jesus the way I search for opportunities with other things. And it’s not just me; I’ve noticed this trend in people in general. We will try to squeeze through an opening the size of a keyhole for a person we miss or a new potential relationship. But when it comes to being a simple witness, to love on others in a deeper way, we wait to get hit with a Holy Spirit 2-by-4 before we jump in. And that’s a bad ratio. When the world needs a keyhole to entice us (even when the world involves Christian friends and Christian relationships), but Jesus Himself needs a 2-by-4…..it’s just a bad ratio.

And so I implore you today: don’t wait for the 2-by-4. Sure, sure. We don’t want to impose. It’s uncomfortable. The person you’re talking to isn’t a believer. We don’t want to force our beliefs on someone else. It’s not our place. There will ALWAYS be an excuse not to go deeper. But at its core and essence, God is love. You don’t have to preach (unless God puts it on your heart to do so). You just have to love on someone, beyond the usual superficial way. It’s time, as a body, to look for the spiritual keyhole too, check in with God, and try to squeeze through.

I was listening to an interview with Heidi Baker (she runs Iris Ministries with her husband), and they have started a movement called Stop for the One (you can find the site here). It involves stopping for the One who is the One…..and then stopping for the one He puts in front of you. Their challenge is to every believer out there: to stop for one person per day. Help the elderly woman across the street. Help somebody in a parking lot. Stop for a homeless person. Stop and actually love them, with the deep love that God has for them. When you walk away from them, they should feel loved in a deeper way than they did before. Because God loves them in a deeper way than they felt before.

And today I issue the same challenge to you. Be an opportunist for Christ. Stop for somebody every day. Go out of your way to love. Today. God set a certain day, and He called it today.

If you want to see the interview, here it is:

Stop For The One

Make a point to stop today, and be blessed!

~Rebekah A

Sandcastles

Sep14

As I grew up, I grew more and more reluctant to build sandcastles. “I’ll get sandy”, “they won’t last anyway”, “I’ll have ridiculously uneven tan lines”, “They take so long”……but in the end, despite my adolescent logic saying I ‘knew better’, my childish desire would win out and off I’d go. It’s no surprise – as a child I used to build major castles in the morning, and go to show people later in the day only to have them say “what castle? Where? I don’t see what you’re talking about.”

I’d start out with just a lump. I was reluctant, remember? Then the lump would take shape into an actual rectangle (the main castle), perhaps because I got on a creative roll, or perhaps just because I was way too old for just a lump to be acceptable and my friends were with me. I’d add a tower or two, maybe some designs on the walls or battlements on the top. I’d try to make my towers end in a point and I’d find a piece of seaweed or driftwood to stick in as a shell. Of course I’d build a moat – as deep as possible. And then the inevitable would happen – no matter how elaborate or large I’d built my castle, no matter how deep the moat, the tide would still rise and I’d watch my creation be swept away without a trace.

When I think of sin, I think of these sandcastles. We may start out reluctant, but in the end the desire wins out. Then we get swept along, either by peer pressure or just by ourselves. Our basic sin expands, gets fancy, gets more elaborate. Soon it’s part of our lifestyle – we’re fully embracing it and sticking a flag in the turret to claim it as ours.

We’ve all had these sandcastles within us. Maybe we still do. They are our imperfections, the things we harbor that God doesn’t like, the parts of ourselves that we hold on to, that we haven’t submitted to God yet and we don’t necessarily want to. Sandcastles can be pretty, after all. Granted, they can also be ugly and misshapen, but they’re still ours – cultivated and created by us. Maybe we fear His judgement, maybe our flag is staked in so deep we no longer know who we are without it. Maybe we just know that refinement often hurts. And our first instinct is to protect it. To protect ourselves. “Nothing to see here, Jesus!” We change the spiritual subject to more comfortable ground (“I read my Bible today, Jesus!” = “look at the whole rest of the pristine beach, Jesus!”) and meanwhile build our moats as deep as we can; we thicken the walls. We hunker down.

Maybe we realize that enough is enough, or maybe God tells us. But either way we have a moment where we’re done. We want out. And then our very human panic sets in as follows: But look how much we’ve built. Look how elaborate it is. Look how deep the moat around it is. Look how thick the walls are. We made an effort to protect it, even though we knew better. How can something that big just disappear? We’ll be living under the shadow of that thing for the rest of our natural lives and God will never look at us the same way again and we probably just forfeit our treasure in heaven and now our souls are going to be living in a spiritual cardboard box for all eternity.

Here’s the thing – the amazing, merciful thing about Jesus. He gives us grace. When we repent, and give our sin to Him, when we turn our hearts from that part of ourselves and our lives and give it to Him for His will to be done, that act of repentance lets the tide come in. And if you think for one second that sand can stand up to the power of the living water of Jesus Christ, get yourself to the nearest beach before high tide and give it a try yourself. No chance. While you’re there, you’ll also note how wood, rock and glass get broken down and smoothed over in time. So…sand? I repeat: no chance.

When you repent, you invite the waves that break down those fragile walls. Sure, it can hurt. Yes we have to leave the castle, to get displaced and sent to a new home Jesus has for us. Yes, a part of us has to stay behind in the castle to face destruction.

But you know what? When it’s done, it’s done. Every grain gets washed away, the moat gets filled back in. The very flags that marked it as yours disappear. You will look back, from your new house on the rock, and see pristine beach. With no trace of your self-made castle. Maybe you’ll tell Jesus about it someday, in hindsight or in fear of going back there. And Jesus will look out at the beach and say “what? Where? I don’t see what you’re talking about.”

Jesus took the hit for our sins already. He bled for them and suffered for them already. The wrath was poured out. Forgiveness was earned. The only reason the sins still exist is because we are engaging in them. So when we repent, when we turn from it in our heart of hearts, it leaves. Stricken from the books. When you let God take it away, it goes away. And all that’s left is the beautiful, pristine, pure beach.

So today I ask you readers to talk to God about your personal sandcastles. Let Him point them out to you, let Him guide you to a place of submission and repentance. Give them to Him, and let that tide wash over your heart. Cry the tears, delve deeply into the reasons behind it, whatever it takes. Then, go ahead enjoy your beach.

If any of you need prayer today, or just want to say hi, feel free to email me at being.rebekah.a@gmail.com.

God bless!

~Rebekah A

Learning to Trust

Sep11

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” ~ Isaiah 41:10

Any followers of this blog will have probably read by now that I’m in a pretty bad place financially. I’ve been living in NYC for two years now and have yet to find steady employment. And yes, I’ve been looking. First it was the house falling apart, so I lived off of savings while we sorted it out. Then it was part of my contract as roommate to a man named Jimmy with muscular dystrophy – part of the deal was to be around on Mondays and Tuesdays (the two days of the week when he’s not at work). As it turned out, the work I was qualified to do takes place in schools or hospitals, and most definitely involves Mondays and Tuesdays.

So about the time I was looking for different work, Jimmy’s full-time aide got hit by a NYC bus. He’s been recovering slowly and painfully and still has a long road ahead of him. In the meantime, we’ve had a revolving door of aids while looking for a replacement and through it all I have been the one go-to backup. I’ve been permanently on call for the better part of a year. None of these situations are conducive to steady employment but I’m trying. Unsuccessfully, so far, but I do have a few potential prospects so be praying that one of them comes through!

Anyway, things have come to a head with some of my student loans this week. I basically ran out of deferment time and have to come up with a lot of money now. Which I of course don’t have. Whenever it came up with Jimmy, he made it clear that he didn’t have it either. As for my family….well, if they had it, I’d have it. And we all very much don’t. I don’t even many possessions to sell – most of my clothes are wearing out and I sold my car awhile ago.

So here I was. Needing more than I had. Owing more than I could give. With no crutch, no options, no man-made solutions left. I have to say it was a new situation for me. I have been in places where I’ve needed God….but never in a situation where literally my only hope for getting through it was to count on a miracle. Until now. And I wasn’t happy about it. There were a few days (and a few phone calls) where all I could do was break down and cry.

So I told myself that God knew best, maybe it was for the best. He does all things for our good, right? If I am floundering, maybe I need to redefine what it means to thrive. And that’s true. I do need to do that. Eventually. But what I need to do most of all, right this second, is stop trying to define anything. Stop trying to scramble and come up with crazy solutions and then pray that God shows me favor when I try to make them happen. No. That’s not trust. That’s self-reliance and looking to God to be my sidekick. That’s what I’ve always done. I’ve always landed on my feet, figured it out for myself, and just prayed to God for backup support. Sure I give Him credit. I thank Him for the blessing. But that’s not true trust. Trust is letting God do the defining, letting God do the planning and providing. I thought I trusted God. But this experience so far has shown me that I’ve never fully depended on Him. I’ve never fully, with everything in me, trusted His full provision. I’ve trusted Him for favor in my provisions for myself, but I’ve never given Him full and complete control. Until I had no choice.

So I told myself that I was going to trust this time. I was going to ride this ride, and let God stretch the boundaries of my heart. Let Him push the barriers of my control. That I would praise Him through every painful moment, and on the other side I’d come out like gold. That I would trust Him to turn this trial into a testimony.

And wouldn’t you know, even with nothing left the temptation to take the reigns was still there. In email correspondence about a potential job, I was thinking through how to word things and what would best work in my favor. I started to pray, but as I opened my mouth I realized I was about to pray for favor in my efforts. I wanted SO BADLY to ask Him for that. But I curbed the impulse and instead asked for His will to be done. For Him to give me the words to use to help His will be done. That I was trusting Him as my provider to do what was best for me. Typed the email. Hit send. And then I praised Him and worshiped Him with everything I had.

I haven’t gotten a reply to that email yet. But sure enough, our faithful God delivered anyway. Where yesterday there were no options, today there are. I mean it. My school actually bought my biggest loan and is giving me more payment options. When does that happen? With nothing to offer, no escape route, and nothing to save myself with, I am leaning on Jesus. And He is upholding me and seeing me through.

I am learning to go lower, to give up more control and lean on God harder. The more I do, the more I’m finding Him. When that’s the result, I can only be grateful for the hardship. He’s well worth the cost and He’s showing me that more and more every minute! I think of it like leaning on a wall. You can lean to different degrees, right? You can be standing just about upright and barely making contact with the wall. If the wall disappeared you’d stay standing. Or you could be doing one of those workout moves like a wall squat or pushups or something. If the wall disappeared then, you’d be in trouble. I’ve leaned on God before, but it’s not fully leaning if I’m still supporting my own weight. Up to now, were He to step away, I might startle or miss a step, but I wouldn’t necessarily fall. This time around, I’d faceplant and probably concuss myself. And yet it’s working out better than it usually does. My relinquishing that last bit of control is letting God hold up this whole situation, and it turns out He’s much stronger than me. It kind of makes me wonder what I’ve been missing this whole time!

With that thought in mind, I leave you with a song that’s been on my heart today:

God bless!

~ Rebekah A

Well-Intentioned

Aug28

Ever have one of those moments where someone gives you something and you scramble to find something to give to them and return the favor?

We just had such a thing happen here at the house. My roommate, who works at a tv studio and occasionally gets tickets to sporting events, etc, got a friend some tickets. Maybe to the Giants, maybe to the Yankees, I don’t remember. I just know it was tickets to some New York team (which in my book is completely unacceptable).

The friend appreciated the gift and strove to return the favor. What did he come up with to give to JImmy? A porn video. Yes you read that right. A porn video. What in the……??? I mean, what happened to just writing a quick thank-you note?!? It wasn’t even a joke either – you know the friend who always gets the gag gifts? This wasn’t like that. This was a legitimate present.

I am trying not to overreact, because I’m sure he meant well. But I am definitely uncomfortable with this. Even Jimmy was uncomfortable with this. Those of you who follow this blog know that I have been praying hard for spiritual breatkthrough for Jimmy in this area. The house is full of old porn videos, sexy calendars, etc. Some he’s been moved to get rid of since I’ve been here. It’s been a lot of work and a lot of prayer and I am trying not to view this latest present as a setback. We will see!!

God bless!

~Rebekah A

A Day of Thanksgiving

Aug17

“For great is Your love, higher than the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.” ~Psalm 108-4

If you are a regular reader of this blog you have probably heard of my ongoing saga to find a personal care aide for my roommate Jimmy, confined to a wheelchair due to SMA (spinal muscular atrophy). We used to have an aide – a great one in fact. This past February, he was hit by a New York City bus and has been engrossed in a slow, painful (and currently stalled) recovery.

This man, as a side note, was raised by a Muslim mother and a Hindu father. As he put it, “I was raised with so many religions, I figured I may as well celebrate the Christian holidays too.”. While this sounded promising, it didn’t exactly speak to a heart transformation. And so, after the accident, I prayed for him profusely. For a physical healing, yes, but mostly for a life-changing revelation of who Jesus is, for Jesus to rock his heart and his life and that he would experience the pure love and peace that comes from His arms. That he would know who he was celebrating.

I prayed…..and Jesus answered.

Today I went to what I thought was the Guyanese equivalent of Thanksgiving. I had no idea what was going on or what to expect. It turned out to be his and his wife’s personal day of Thanksgiving, of opening up their home to their entire church (via many, many chairs set up in the backyard) and giving thanks to the Lord for all they have.

Today I witnessed our former aide speak to his church. His face was contorted into a grimace of pain and he struggled to stand, leaning so hard on a cane that his arms were shaking. I knew he was using all his muscles to balance himself because he has yet to regain full feeling in one of his legs. But not a bit of that came into his testimony. Instead, the words out of his mouth were of such passionate gratitude that he started to tear up.

And so I have my turn to give thanks. I am so, so thankful that I serve a God who is so present in our lives that he can perform miracles – not just in the physical world around us, but inside of us. That we can know Him, walk with Him, live with Him, open ourselves up to His unceasing love and attention. Our God is not at an altar; we don’t have to go anywhere special to find Him. He’s not in incense, He’s not in fire, He’s not in flowers. He’s in us, with us and surrounding us, active in both the biggest moments of our lives and the minutia. He listens to the cries of our hearts – and He answers.

God bless!

~Rebekah A

Life as We Know It

Jun27

Photo credit: tkobosz of stock.xchng.

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen. ~ Matthew 28:20 KJV

So my life has been a whirlwind. I essentially have been going just about every day for over a month now and I don’t know when it will let up. I’m underslept and even breaking out with a cold sore from it all. In everything though God has shown Himself SO faithful! There was an exam yesterday to be certified in emergencies while delivering babies and in the drill where two people tested me on my hands on knowledge (a fake scenario), I received 99/100 points! THAT was Jesus. Because of all of my stress, I actually have had an incredibly hard time studying and ended up cooking most of the last few nights like a crazy woman to help me cope with it. Praise God for His faithfulness! Praise God for blessing me with being able to have a good sense of what would be tested. Praise God for helping me in my time of trouble. For truly being with me always because I do my best (even though I do fail at times!) to observe what He has commanded me.

Thank You Jesus for helping me and for being with me in this life as I know it.

Rebekah M.