Remembering what it means to be a Daughter of the King of Kings- my response to ISIS

It all started this morning when I read an email from a friend of mine who had passed on a prayer request that had originally come from a missionary in Iraq whose city had just been taken over by ISIS. This missionary is only separated by 5 people from me. My heart is breaking for the Middle East and I was convicted of my lack of gumption toward this crisis. Here I am a believer who is not doing anything to support my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. I have prayed a few times as I have seen terrible image after terrible image come across the media but I have not been moved by boldness to stand up and be the powerful daughter of the King that I am- until now. I had a quiet morning with no one at my house and spent time remembering who I am and the passion that God placed inside of me for his people and for the Middle East. I remembered who He is and how powerful He is and how these are His children, His body, His inheritance.

I am not moved by the fear that the media has been putting out. I am moved by the power of the Holy Spirit and testimonies I was reminded of in the Bible and in my life. I was reminded of the incredible stories that I love in the bible where things happen that go beyond our natural scientific laws and the power of God moves in the natural realm and creates change. I have been to the Middle East and prayed with people who had been having dreams of Jesus, who encountered him without even knowing who he was until a Christian came and talked to them. I have seen demons cast out. I have seen the sick healed from diseases that man doesn’t understand yet. I have watched the Lord radically transform lives and yet I had forgotten the power that dwells inside of me to bring the same change into this world. I had a temporary lapse of my true identity.

This morning I dared to dream about the word détente which is defined as “the easing of hostility or strained relations, especially between countries.” In 2011 I had been praying this over all people, but especially Christians, and Muslims. I dared to dream then that there would be a restoration of Abraham’s family. You see I am a follower of the God who restores things, the one who lives outside of time. I believe that there is the possibility of peace and restoration because with God all things are possible.

Granted, I tend to think outside the box - I always have. I have been a dreamer and see things for the bigger picture. I know that until there is a restoration on the inside of the people who are harming other people there will not be true peace. There might be temporary peace, or a stand-off but true wholeness can only occur where there is freedom from the lies and torment that have held us in bondage. 

I believe in the power of agreement and I want to see what will happen if we can spread the message of hope not just for our fellow Christians who are being persecuted but hope also for those who have been trapped in the deceit of the enemy and surrendered their hearts to evil and are now persecuting their fellow human beings. I am filled with compassion for the ones who have been so broken on the inside that they are able to behead children and slaughter families. What kind of horrible actions had to happen to them for them to be able to reproduce such brokenness in the world around them? My heart is to see them healed, set free from hatred and consumed by love and beauty.  

I know this a lot to read and I am grateful for your time in reading my words. If you are willing I would like for you to come into agreement with these dreams in my heart for the world around us.

1. Starting now, that every day ALL Muslims will have dreams and visions and encounters with Jesus- the true, living Son of God who died on the cross, rose from the grave and is sitting at the right hand of Father God interceding for us now. That Muslims and especially the army of ISIS would have encounters like Saul’s conversion in Acts 9 because Jesus draws ALL people to Himself according to John 12:32.
2. That the Kingdom of God would manifest in supernatural ways- that what is already occurring will be multiplied exponentially. Radical things like the beheaded children getting raised from the dead to preach the Gospel of Kingdom of Heaven and Christ crucified to their persecutors so that the army of ISIS converts to the truth and beauty of Jesus’ way. If God can bring an army of dry bones back to life with the words of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37), raising beheaded children is not too hard for him.
3. That the heritage of the servants of the Lord will be made manifest. It says in Isaiah 54:17 that NO weapon formed against you shall prosper. My prayer is that the weapons will melt like wax before they can be used against the body of Christ. Like in Psalm 97 if mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, then the weapons can melt like wax in the presence of His people who have His Spirit dwelling inside of them.
4. That the believers in harm’s way would walk through the crowds of people trying to harm them unnoticed like Jesus did in Luke 4:30, or that they would be caught up by the Spirit of God to another place like Philip in Acts 8:39.
5. That the global Church, the entire body of Christ, would have peace and be edified, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit and that the Church would be multiplied like the words of Acts 9:31
6. Jesus already fought the battle and won, so it is time for us to speak that truth into the world and over this situation, region and the people who are deceived. He disarmed principalities and powers, making a public spectacle of his enemies by triumphing over them (Colossians 2:15.) Let’s get in agreement with what He has done for us.
7. That the corporate body of Christ will begin living, every day, the life that Jesus died for them to live. That they will be empowered to walk in their own freedom, bring freedom to others and live out Luke 4:18. That the signs that Jesus said would follow those that believe in him in Mark 16:15-18 would manifest in our day to day lives. That we as a body of believers will dare to dream that ALL things are possible through Christ who strengthens us. That we will be filled with Love for each other and for those around us because when we truly love each other the world will believe. That the words of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 will be seen in our day to day lives.

This is my list of dreams and declarations today. Please stand in agreement with me.

Here are some additional bible verses that stood out to me today J

Matthew 18:19-20 “To repeat, I tell you that if two of you here on earth agree about anything people ask, it will be for them from my Father in heaven. For wherever two or three are assembled in my name, I am there with them.”

Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

Luke 1:37 “For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Romans 12:12 “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”

John 3:16-17 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Matthew 5:44 “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”

Luke 10:19 “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.”

A Revelation on Love

In response to the lie, “I’ll run out of love, if I give a piece of my heart to another and they break my heart then I won’t have anything left to give,” or some variation of that particular lie and fear.

TRUTH: It is impossible to run out of love if you are connected to LOVE. He is a source that never runs out. There is more love in the universe than space. Space is filled with love but it does not confine love nor can it hold all of love; for love is a person who created what we know as space and therefore can not be contained by a creation of his own. It is possible to be so connected to Love that with every breath you breathe in more love and out more love so you are ever being filled and spreading love.

The way I see it is that the Potter, the creator, the source of love himself, is the one forming us and each and every time we choose to love someone we choose to be like the one we were designed and created after. Sometimes we get hurt, but love chose to be beaten, bruised, and crucified on the cross for us. Sometimes we feel like part of our heart is being carved away, but the most beautiful detailing to me is the fine filigree, a carving out that leaves the most beautiful of designs without weakening the structure it was enhancing. I know that it hurts sometimes to love, and that we might not see the beauty that Lord is carving from our pain, but know that when the vase is being made by the Master Artist it will be life giving for all who see it. You are a reflection of Him. I like to think of it like this, we are a vase, or a pot for Him to fill, but the intricate carvings are the way we leak Him out of us, out of our beauty, our pain, and our scars. Every part of us will be used for His glory and He is continually filling us so that we never run dry. It is a matter of us learning that we are in Him and thus never apart from Him. We are one with Him. It was finished on the cross. So even when we feel we cannot find Him, we need look no further than the mirror to see Him. We are after all made in His image and likeness. We can see Him in us if we know to look. We are as He is in the world, filled with Love, walking in His fruits, eating of them because we are the temple that hosts His Spirit. Holy dwells in us always. That is why with every breath we can be filled with love and exhaling love. The wind, breath, spirit is all the same word in Hebrew, Ruach. It is to remind us that we are never farther than a breath away from His Spirit, to know that when the wind kisses your skin, it is the very Spirit of God kissing you to life in that moment.

College Park Arts Festival Sept 24, 2011

I did my first arts festival last weekend and was only five dollars short of breaking even with my booth rental cost! I feel like I had a very successful day, gathering feedback and processing through what would be better to focus on for another show. I really enjoyed talking to people about my work and even had a my picture taken by a guys who does an article in a newspaper on emerging artists :) I was invited to be a part of two other arts festivals though they are both on the same day so we'll see what happens :)
I think for me the most significant part of the day was to watch people come into the booth and stare at my paintings, and I know that the Lord was doing things in their hearts while they looked at them. It was beautiful to watch. Those moments alone made the whole day of sitting there completely worth it. Sometimes I forget that my art is not just for me and the Lord to create together, but it is to be seen, that is what it is for, to transform lives by beauty and love and hope and joy. It was a great day :)

Some random thoughts for today

Man oh man where to start… here are some ramblings that are taking place in my mind and in my heart today…

It feels great to play the piano, no music notes to follow, just the emotions inside delving out onto the keys, notes of pure emotion reveling out into the open air and not for anyone else to hear or judge, just simply to be expressed. Like a cup of coffee forgotten about, but still good, the music flows out of my soul into the air, breathing, moving, rhythm being produced, belted, exposed, expressed, exaggerated and free flowing. To breathe, to move, to create, to educate, to teach, to expose, to free, to live abundantly. What more can one ask for? So much more, yet nothing more all together. To be completely satisfied and still completely hungry for what could be, what might be, what will be, it is a strange juxtaposition and completely relevant to life as I know it. To be any less is simply apathetic, and that is a cup of coffee long forgotten about and now growing mold, festering in its own bacteria of lonesomeness, disappointment, and injustice.

What is life but moving, and yet fear tries to contain and still the movement but it can not stop it. Even the illusion of stillness is still movement, it is just entrapment in the movement of your fear, which unconfronted grows like a disease until it gradually consumes the healthy cells of love and laughter and freedom and adventure and joy and hope. Only by the grace of God, whose very words can make mountains be flat, will this cycle be broken, only by His love that came in the presence of a man who died so that we could chose to be free, only in the singular act of His forgiveness for all the sins of the world for all time could we break free from this bondage that so entangles our souls. It is in the freedom of His love that we can finally breathe, such a simple thing that we forget about until we find we cannot do it, then it becomes such a precious dear gift, to breathe in and out, in and out, what glorious joy.

One breath can tell you how another feels, tired, frustrated, angry, at peace, in love, dreaming of a beautiful day, pr lost in the abyss they fell into, ups and downs on the rollercoaster of life. What does it mean to breathe in the good and out the bad, a simple meditation tool, to focus on breathing in life, hope, peace, serenity, strength, releasing everything else that combats that in your breath out. How is it that a composition of musical notes can express the emotions of the inner man, the moving of highs and lows, glory and failure, love and pain, deep in the hearts of everyone the battles rage on, the fight for freedom and fulfillment, the fight for life and love. I simply refuse to allow my life to have only one half of the equation any longer. I need it all, I need every emotion, every feeling, every beat, every note, every movement to be free, I need every expression to be expressed, every touch to be felt, every song to be heard, every painting to be seen, and not just by men but to know that if no other human ever came in contact with me or my life’s work, that the God of Creation would know that I spent my life creating with Him, creating and expressing life with Him, and that must be enough. It must be enough for me, whether I receive the acknowledgment of men’s praises or the acknowledgment of Heaven’s hosts, my heart should only find strength and fulfillment in the God who gave His life to spend it with me.

This is not to say that my creations will not be seen or heard or felt by man, because I very much feel that what the Heart of the Father God is saying will be expressed through my work, it will change the face of the earth as we know it and people will be caught up into ecstasy’s with Him by experiencing my work. My only thing is that their reaction cannot be what fuels me or it simply will fizzle out and life will not be worth creating for. It leads to the fear of man where I must find them pleased with my creation and then fear that what I create will not be received and then I have put chains of bondage on myself and on my creation, allowing it only to grow into a very small and uncomfortable box that it was never meant to be in, and that creates a breading ground for apathy, and then nothing matters because fear has taken hold of life itself and until Love demolishes that demonic oppression, art fails to be what it was designed to be, what it’s full potential is, the means to travel into the spirit realm, into the Father’s heart, into His arms, into His love, His peace, His healing touch.

Art as an expression is just not enough, it begins there, but it must go somewhere, it must lead us to the one who is bigger than all of the emotions that so easily guide our lives if we are not careful. As a creative, I am well aware of the fact that we are moved easily, touched by beauty and pain easily and we respond in a variety of ways, we then often express what we encountered and stop there, but we must move beyond, move through, move past the wall that we have built and run hard, run fast into the freedom that Christ died for, the freedom that is founded on the absolute acceptance of a Father who loves you and is proud of you and died to spend His life with you so that you could be free and move and breathe and create and express and wonder and live abundantly.

Romantic Ideas

Romantic Ideas blog posts… for the curious minded… because it is just how I think all the time :) I'll keep adding to this post randomly :)

1. Plan a picnic complete with blanket, basket, a simple yet elegant flower and a meal that shows you know your lover. Create a memory, set up the blanket and food and surprise them with a game that has a mystery to be solved but each piece comes separately one per date or every other date, or one in the mail in a hand written letter. Maybe even puzzle pieces that create a picture of a place to visit or a question to ask or a message of what it is about them that you fell in love with, or the first thing about them that caught your eye… something unique to you as a couple.

2. At a concert when that slow love song comes on, walk up to your love and in a swave motion, sweep them into your arms and into a slow dance, complete with spins and a dip and maybe sweet nothings whispered into their ear.

3. Find something they love, a simple thing, and randomly buy it and place it in their car or on their car when they least expect it with a short sweet note.

4. Hide little notes in their coat pocket or slip it into the bag so that they randomly find a note telling them how much they are loved and treasured, what made you fall for them, or a favorite memory you share.

5-25-11 Some thoughts for today :)

Today I let myself have some guilty pleasures, a little bit of Destiny’s Child, and Eminem rocked my early afternoon. I also thought to myself, I ought to start a romantic thought for the day blog, just because I have a new romantic thought most every day and for some reason I thought it would be fun to share them. So we’ll see how often I actually post them but I thought I’ll make a running romantic thought list for those who might not be so romantically inclined as myself :) hehe
Other than that I have had the honor of traveling to Chicago with Blake and April Healy, John Pitzer, Rebekah Sanderson and Deborah VanHaelst. While we were there I felt like I totally stepped into being myself and I actually saw what was inside of me come out while we were ministering. I had the opportunity to walk some beautiful people through some inner healing and deliverance and watch the Lord love them into freedom they had never known. I watched as they the body of Christ honored and blessed one another and was blown away by the generosity of this beautiful city and its people. Our last day there I actually got to speak in front of a congregation and I preached for a few minutes which is such a testimony of the Grace of God in my life. It was only a few years ago that I broke down before giving a ten minute group presentation on the love of God in front of a class of my peers, and this past month I stood confidently in front of an entire church and talked about the lover of my life and His passionate pursuit of my heart and it felt amazing. I watched the love that He has been pouring into me pour out of me and it filled me with delight at how far His love has freed me from the bondage of fear.
Other fantastic things are that I have graduated from the second year program of Bethel Atlanta School of Supernatural Ministry and from the Bethel Atlanta School of Supernatural Arts, both of which brought me to see the beauty inside of me, and helped me to let it out.
These past two months I have been simply baffled at the changes I see in myself, things I never would have had the audacity to dream about are desires that I know I will see come to fruition in my life. I never would have thought that God would want to take me to the nations and I never wanted to use missions as a way to see the world but now I can not think of a more satisfying life than to travel the world loving people with Jesus, to see His beautiful bride shinning elegantly before Her King. My desire to be seen has been put in its rightful place, knowing that the God of creation sees and loves me all the time. I know that He accepts and loves me for who I am not for what I can or cannot do and His love will shatter every chain of bondage and break every attack of the enemy off of me. I know that I will walk victoriously through life with Him by my side and we will see the bride stand up and know her worth and beauty.
I have so many thoughts running through my mind, what will I do now that school is out, for the summer for the next year, for the rest of my life?! There are so many things to do I am left trying to discover just which one is right for the season I am in now! And thus the many hours I spend lost in thought, searching my heart and discovering what my passion really is and how I am going to walk in it.
I have discovered that the desires and interests I had as a child have never gone away, inside of me I still want to be a singer, a musician, a dancer, a painter, a mom, and a world traveler, I want to teach people about the love of God, and share in the process of them experiencing freedom beyond what they ever hoped or dreamed. I want to dream and read and play the piano and drums, I want to sit by the campfire and sing melodies to the rhythm of guitars playing in the night. I want to write books and take photographs of beautiful things people forget to notice, the color of trees before it rains, the drop of rain that ripples the puddle, the blossom of a long since forgotten garden, the crawl of a caterpillar as it makes its journey across the wood looking for it’s next meal before its great transition toward flight. I want to write children’s stories that open their eyes to wonder at the great vastness of the glory of God and that make the adults dream again like a small child unhindered by the world’s worries. I want to walk down the streets of the inner city shining the love of God brilliantly until the neighborhoods are filled with hope and life and love. I want to see the homeless acknowledged by the people passing them on the street, and not just acknowledged but their presence to be valued as beautiful people who deserve to be loved just the same as everyone else.
I want the Kingdom of God to reign in this world as it does in Heaven and I want to see the injustice of the enemy brought to its knees before the Almighty God, maker of Heaven and Earth, the one filled with Love and justice and compassion and mercy and grace and power and glory. The one who knew the great devastation mankind would create and chose to love us before we were ever created. The one who decided we were worth the pain and suffering it would cause Him because love must be poured out of Him and love endures all things and hopes all things and never keeps a record of wrong. I want to see LOVE demonstrated in my life and in the lives of everyone who claims to know and walk with my Lord, my love, my Jesus. I want to see us, as His bride, grasp what it means to be transformed by His love and to see us love like He does. I want to see the bride rise up and be the victorious joyful church known by her love and actions towards those who need love the most.
I wish that every breath we take would be breathing in the love of God and breathing out the love of God, and I know that we live in a world full of sin, but if we could make that our goal, our desire, to be the breath of love, the breath of life to the world then what might we see in our lifetime? What changes would come if everyone breathed in perfect love that casts out fear and breathed out perfect love that conquers all? Breathed in peace that surpasses all understanding and breathed out compassion for the lost, abused, and broken? Breathed in grace and breathed out joy that strengthened those around us? I dare say that the world would be a different place if we the church breathed in love and breathed out the judgment that all might be saved, and that none have gone too far to be swallowed up by the love of the Father who never fails, or forsakes us.
It is a beautiful thought and a challenge and one that needs to be thought of and hoped for and set as the marker, for we are all called to be the body of Christ, loving one another as He loved us, so we need to first discover the depth and width and height of His love so that we can know how to be loved and then out of being loved love others.
This is my thought for today, my day dream for the world…

A Day of Excitement!

Today my dear friends is the first day of Bethel School of Supernatural Arts and I am going to be a student there! Words cannot describe the excitement and joy and anticipation I feel at this moment knowing that in just a few hours my life is going to turn and greatness is going to be encountered! Thoughts fill my mind like "I'm happy as a Lark" "I feel like a cherry blossom right before it burst into full bloom!" "Today is the first day of the rest of my life" "Happiness is a well that runs deep and a fountain that flows high" :)
I am going into this school with these expectations, that I will walk in freedom as an artist fully expressing the glory God put in me. I will make and keep covenant relationships with people who will be significant in my life from here on out. Doors will be opened and direction set at my feet of where I am to go and wisdom of how to do so. My skills will be developed as I surround myself with a community of artists whose heart is to grow in their relationship with God, as a person, in relationship with others, and as an artist. Freedom will be abundant in our conversations and work as well dwell in the Holy Spirit, as He dwells in us. Joy will blossom where wounds used to be, and fear will be replaced by love and acceptance. Lives will never be the same, because the glory of the Lord will dwell among His people and we will encounter His goodness and grace! :D This is a BEAUTIFUL DAY!!!!!!!!!!