being helpless

so...i had a baby.  he's pretty much the coolest thing i have ever experienced.  labor and delivery were an utter nightmare and i would prefer not to write that whole story today.  so i won't.  but i do want to express a profound thing the Lord has shown me through my sweet, little Noah Fox.

mark got a job, so i have been home alone, running errands alone, and unfortunately Noah does not enjoy car rides - alone.  he is fine right up until i close his door and get in the driver's seat where he can no longer see my face.  he cries and cries no matter how much i try and soothe him with my voice.  eventually he cries himself into a frenzy of sorts and then if i'm lucky....falls asleep.  it tears me to pieces not being able to calm him....even if it's just a 10 minute drive to the grocery store.  once we arrive at our destination and he sees my face again, he's totally fine.

i realized that i am not so different from Noah in this situation.  the Lord puts me in the back seat and i am strapped down to a chair, for my "safety".  i can hear His voice occasionally, but still i cry and scream because i feel as though i've been abandoned.   since i can't see Him or feel Him holding me, i instantly lose trust in Him.  i no longer believe that i am being taken care of.  and by the time He does come to me in an intimate way, i have spit up all over myself and am usually sitting in my own poo.  He cleans me up, holds me and reassures me that He was always there.  He never really left.  

all the while it was breaking His heart not being able to calm me with just His words.  all He wants is for me to trust that He has not left me, and trust that He is taking me to my next destination.  that He is in control of my future. that i am strapped to a chair for my own good, so the transition doesn't kill me.  He knows best, and is always looking out for my well-being.  jeremiah 29:11

aren't we all a mess?  i believe we are so much more helpless than we even realize.  my sweet Noah is showing me so much about myself.  may He learn early on to not only trust me, but also to trust the Lord.  

the hope of glory

having no good of myself and knowing that the only thing that separates me from anyone else is GRACE, the Lord says that Christ in ME is the hope of glory.  i feel the urge to remind myself of this scripture today and maybe for each day this week.  it is nothing that i do or don't do, it is simply Christ in me.  what a crazy concept.  it's surrender and trust and just believing these words everyday that can make things much less complex.  we are all looking for hope....

currently i house not only the King of Kings, but also my wee baby growing in my womb.  these both are the hope of glory.  oh to be a vessel.  i am so honored and so humbled by this experience.  i remind myself today that Christ in me is the hope of glory......may i begin to grasp it's meaning.

depths and lengths

there are times when i am so aware of the love of the Lord that it completely overwhelms me.  last night we stopped into one of the ongoing Morningstar break-out meetings, and as i took in the elements of the natural and supernatural, i was suddenly overwhelmed with the love of God for each person there.  we are all so hungry and so lost and so desperate....and Father loves each of us with a deep, intimate, sweetness that could only come from Him.  

Heidi Baker says if you're hungry enough you will do anything.  the Lord will meet us.  it is His good pleasure to give us the desires of our hearts.  i am thankful for the revelation He gave me last night.  it sits well on my heart today, and has given me new eyes to see each person as His; messes, scabs, wounds, walls and all.  Oh how He loves us.  the depths and lenths of it we will never truly know.

wounds

Since we have moved into our new house, the Spirit of Adoption has come upon us......well, maybe just me. We have already been through four porch kittens, with only one who remains. Stephan named him Machete because of his piercing eyes and because we all felt he needed a good, strong name in order to survive; and survived he has. (Tinsley and Spiderman: the first two kittens abandoned by their mother on Mother's day were cat-napped right off our front porch. Emperor Meowums had a wrangle with a car and went to be with Jesus.) 

For being a wild, little kitten Machete is wonderfully affectionate, and demands your lap when you sit on the acre of front porch we have. Pretty early on in our adoption of Machete, he incurred a series of injuries, leaving his meower broken, and on his back was a huge, gaping, crusty wound. Try as we may to attend to this wound, he always seemed to re-injur it. We decided that if it didn't begin healing by a certain point we'd take him to the vet and just pray it wouldn't be too expensive. The wound was what one might expect any wild animal to have: gross, bloody, stinky, oozing and crusty. (Just to describe it a little). 

One particular morning I was sitting on the porch steps drinking my coffee, taking in the morning and thanking the Lord for all His many blessings. From across the street, Machete spots me sitting on the steps and comes galloping across the road, with what appears to be a smile on his face. Immediately I grab my mug of coffee, and shuffle in my pj's and slippers off the steps to sit in a chair where he can't reach my lap. The only thought running through my head was "Ewwww, I don't want him to touch me. He's so dirty, yucky." (thinking about the gaping, oozing wound on his back). I make an attempt to get back into my little hang out with the Lord session and realize that i can't get back into it. Machete was patiently sitting at my feet staring up at me trying to meow. Suddenly I hear the Lord...

"He is not his injury"

-gulp-

Machete silently meows again

"He is NOT his injury"

Machete stares a hole in my head

I say nothing

"His identity does not lie in his wound"

"Do not withhold your love from someone because they have a dirty wound"

I begin weeping. What have I done? I can't believe I have been so selfish. What a monumental lesson this precious little kitten had taught me! I scooped him into my ams and squeezed him apologizing for all the times I withheld my love from him because of his wound. I realized that this was not just about loving orphan kittens with scrapes on their backs, this was much bigger, and that if I didn't learn it with a dirty little porch cat, I would never be effective with people who walked around with gaping wounds needing love......needing Jesus.

There is much to be learned from Machete. At least I learned a lot. If we are really willing to love......to REALLY love we have to be willing to embrace the messy ones, the dirty ones, the people with large, crusty, oozing, bloody wounds that need attention, that need love, that need Jesus. We need to love the ones who no matter how many times they've been helped with their wound, they still go back and do the same things to re-injur the same spot over and over. There are hundreds of thousands of people walking the earth with gaping wounds: divorce, post-abortion issues, drug addiction, homelessness, poverty, abuse, alcohol addiction, pornography addiction, broken hearts, depression, prostitution, and so much more. How do we view them? Do we get up and sit in a chair where they can't reach us? Where they won't inconvenience our lives? 

I have withheld love too many times because I identified a person by the wound they have incurred. The Lord called me out that day. People do not gain their identity by the pain that has been inflicted upon them. They gain their identity from the love of the Lord, and by it He calls us Sons and Daughters. He calls us righteous by the blood of the Lamb, and has given us callings and gifts. 

this is what Jesus came to do.....it is also what I hope to become:


...because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. 

       He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,

  to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, 
       to comfort all who mourn,

  and provide for those who grieve in Zion— 
       to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, 
       the oil of gladness instead of mourning, 
      and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. 
       They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

  They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations. 

isaiah 61


thanks for the lesson Machete, we love you.

note: Machete's wound healed up shortly after this life lesson was taught to me. He is alive and well roaming the streets of Rock Hill, coming by for foods and ministry on our giant front porch.

to fight

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2007

nothing worth having comes without some kind of a fight. we are fighting. life is worth fighting for. friendship is worth fighting for. justice. truth. hope. love is worth fighting for. a treasure is only a treasure because it's hard to find. we are on a journey to fight for the hearts and minds of the depressed and lonely young people of this country. a journey to fight for the church and the embarrassingly sad state that it is in now. a journey to fight for justice and righteousness to become precedent in this country. a journey to see the end of abortion; a legal procedure that is killing off the next generation. 

i am witness to the redeemed life of one norma mcorvey. she may be more well known as jane roe from roe vs. wade 1973....the case that gave legal permission to medical experts to remove live babies from their mother's wombs in the united states of america. jane roe (or norma mcorvey) has been saved by the blood of Jesus and her redeemed life is now spent fighting to overturn that decision. i met her. she hugged and kissed me and told me i was cute. she called me a survivor because i was born in 1981, when abortion was legal; is still legal now. i have at least 3 friends who really are survivors...their mother's were visited by the Lord or an angel while they were on the table at an abortion clinic. survivors. i am proud that this is a fight we get to participate in. to save lives. is it controversial? is it risky? do pro-lifers have a chance? yes. yes. yes. we put our hope in the Lord, not in man. only the Lord can overturn an injustice such as this. not politics. not the church. not boisterous and emotional protests. i stood outside George Tiller's abortion clinic labeled "Women's Health Services" and cried. 65,000 babies. i have no protest. i don't believe in yelling about it. i don't agree with the giant posters of dead babies. i just cry. the lonely chimney loomed atop the clinic, black with the ashes of 65,000 lives. i cried. my brothers and sisters. most were 7 and 8 months old in their mother's wombs. i cry. Lord help us. you are our only hope. resurrect my heart. save my nation. save my brothers and sisters. our minds, our marriages, our families, our friendships, our churches, our health, our rv generators, our youth, our babies. nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight. 

family

family is the center of a pinwheel. it can be blown in one of two directions, with a series of repercussions for each. one direction is that of destruction....the rise and fall of the family in America accounts for the majority of all crime, social and behavior issues, school drop outs, run-aways, drug and alcohol abuse, child and spousal abuse, and poverty. it all starts in the family unit.

the other direction this pinwheel is blown is one that is an excruciating fight. a fight for peace, a fight for real love. a fight for seeing and believeing that your family can and chooses to be advocates of each other. that they really and truely long to have peace and strength as a family unit. that no matter what, they choose to give each other the benefit of the doubt. choose to forgive. choose to lay down their pride when they've hurt another. choose to put their family ahead of themselves. that they would choose to fight......every waking moment of their life for this thing, this unit, this pinwheel we call family. established and rooted and founded by God.

"i love my family. so you can imagine my surprise. when i found out this world isn't made for families". -mark mathis

it's true. families....real, honest, fighting for truth and peace families are not welcome here. and they do not have an easy road on this planet. they are constantly stricken with fear, doubt, abuse, unforgiveness, bitterness, lies, manipulation and a passion for control and power over one another.......over their very own blood. i am grieved with family. i am grieved with a sense that no matter how hard one fights for victory and truth and love to triumph in ones family, that the battle just gets harder with every small, new victory. i believe that fighting for family is sometimes harder than being called to help refugees or fight in a war or go hungry. because no matter what happens: good or bad. those same people will always still be your family. no matter how far away you travel, or how many years pass between conversations......they will always still be your family.

i may sound discouraged.....which i'd be lying if i said i wasn't right now. but i do want to encourage people to fight for family. it's hard as hell. it's not a task for the weak-hearted. you have to be willing to sacrifice anything, everything to see the truth and have it be known in your family. i believe in family. i believe we are called to tend to our families. to love them. to give them everything we have, and more. not out of obligation, but out of a heart of love and humility. 

in a place where i feel defeated and hopeless right now (i swear my family is trying to give me a heart attack today), i claim the Lord's victory over my family. i acknowledge and confess our weaknesses and short-comings. our back-stabbings and manipulative ways. and i say that these are all just mechanisms to try and pull us apart, sent by the enemy himself. i refuse to believe that after all we have been through and seen the Lord redeem and rebuild in our family that it was all for nothing. i choose to believe that we love each other, value each other, and make one another a priority over anything else in this life. and above all i choose to love my family. i give up my feelings, my hurt, my theories, myself. if i have truely been wronged, may Jesus be my advocate. may Jesus stand and be my justice. i deserve nothing, apart from who He is in me. 

Lord, bless the families of this nation. the corrupt, distant, separated, crooked families in the church and in the streets. remind us of what you want family to look like. ignite your fire in our hearts to want to fight for our families. i ask for grace to be poured upon the families you have placed in my life. and give us hope. show us that because of who You are, that things will change. they have to. how else will the world know Your love, if christian families don't even love each other? 

i don't want my children to not know their grandparents, because we couldn't work things out. because we wouldn't humble ourselves. or we wouldn't forgive. or we just refused to be wrong. pride is a killer. let it die so that others don't have to suffer because of it. there is nothing in my opinion, no belief, no opinion, no action, no event, no hurt that is big enough to take the place of love and forgiveness in a family. it's just not worth it to me. life is just too short. and your family will never stop being your family. 

yeah, i grieve but i also believe in breakthrough.....come....

mysteriously romanced

i sit here in amazement of what actually just has happened to me.  we know not the ways of the Lord.  He is constantly surprising me and completely blowing my mind.  this moment....right now being the latest and most personally profound.

i just arrived home from a long teacher workday involving report cards and parent-teacher conferences.  8:30-5:00  it was especially difficult due to one conference which turned out to be Rocky part IV.  after it all, and having explained to my friend monika that we both just needed to go home, take hot baths and say words like "damn", i left the building.

home was dark but warm.  i let the dog out and unpacked my lap-top.  i was getting ready to draw my bath and read my book "Captivating", when i decided to check the mail. 

junk....junk.....junk.....bills....missing children.....wrong address......bills......long, brown tube.......addressed to me....my full name.....jessica marie mathis.  no return address.  weird.  sent from Fort Collins, CO on November 5th, 2005.     $0.60 postage.  i shake it.  no sound.  weird.  the ends were taped with masking tape.  i began un-taping one end.  then pulled out a ball of white tissue paper at the open end.  i looked in.  darkness.......i didn't see anything.  i turned it upside down.  nothing came out.  so weird.  i placed my hand in and felt something soft.  i grasped it between my fingers and pulled gently.  to my amazement out came a long, slender, shimmery blue feather.  what a mystery.  but wait......more!  i slid my fingers back into the brown tube and retrieved another!  this one long, thicker, brown and white.  again i pulled out another!  six long, beautiful feathers 4 blue, 2 brown and white lay on my table.  with the last pull of the last feather..............a note.  a small, yellow sticky note.

God Knows!

that was it.  what ensued thereafter is as follows:  weeping, laughing, weeping, staring at the mysterious brown tube, laughing, praising, weeping, so much laughing.....and now sharing this story.  my Jesus is so personal and so real and so in love.....with me!  if you know me.....then you are aware of the impact this event is having on me.  and for the record.  i don't know anyone in Fort Collins, CO. 

if this confuses/amazes/dumbfounds you, please do the following: 1. ask me about why this is so incredibly amazing.....2. check out psalm 91