health update

I had of my liver done in august. The radiologist saw a spot. Because of its shape, he and my doctors are not sure if it was contrast fluid that hadn’t spread out or the spreading of what was in my pancreas. My parents were nervous to tell me. But the contrast of who the Lord has made me compared to who I was when I got similar news in the summer of 2013 is so amazing. It is such a testament to the sovereignty and faithfulness of the Rock of my salvation. It was as if my mother was telling me the weather for the coming weekend. It didn’t shake me. Because I cannot be shaken. Not because I am mighty. But because my God is. After the phone call, I began worshiping the Lord (Kristene Dimarco’s new album=YES). As I declared the excellencies of him who called me out of the darkness into his marvelous light, I was overwhelmed with the image of my body being like the prison in which Paul and Silas stood as they sang praises to the Lord in their midnight hour. It often feels like I’m a prisoner to my dying body, the chemicals that need to be balanced by three medications daily, cancer. But, oh, awake, my soul, to praise the Lord. Inwardly, I am being renewed day by day. No bondage of this world could ever keep me from worshipping the Lord God Almighty.

As some believers laid hands on me to pray, I began to weep. Not because I was scared, or nervous, or doubting. But because, as I gazed upon the face of Jesus, I knew if was okay to be weak. Whether it is just contrast fluid or more cancer, I never walk alone. My brothers and sisters are here to lift my arms as the battle wages on in the valley. If the road I am to walk involves more pain, then amen. Let the glory of the Lord shine forth from my wounds. When I am weak, he is strong. Let his name be famous on the earth, for he is a good God. A mighty one who will save.

Suffering-Submission

I've been thinking about the glamour of the far and near sides of suffering-submission, but what about the middle of it?

I remember the first late nights after being told there was cancer in my body driving around listening to 90s rap (I was 18) getting pumped up to fight for my life, fight for Jesus. But the glitter faded at 4am on a hospital bed when my arms were bleeding or when I rejected my feeding tube and wretched and wretched.

At the altar we say yes to go to the ends of the earth, but what happens when you get rejected from the missions school now you’re working a part time job? What happens?

We say Jesus.

We scream it, cry it, whisper it. We lift up the name of Jesus because it is for this purpose we have been called.

He said, "Come." + some pictures

The wind trilled; the sea mist rose. Not to harm me, but to prove me. He reached out his hand and touched my forehead. An anointing of perfect peace. I stepped further into the storm, but it was no longer a storm to me.

"He said, 'Come.' So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus." Matthew 14:29

p.s. here are some pics from a little sunset hiking trip!



Doesn't look that cool in this picture, but this is a giant, frozen waterfall. A GIANT, FROZEN WATERFALL



The snow helped me out a little, and I got to take a few short-cuts on the way down :-)

Crack-Seal Mechanisms

I went to a time of soaking prayer, last night, and, for the brief period that the Celtic soundscapes did not elicit in me sweeping visions of horseback and gallantry, I sat contending for a way. I saw a vision of a rock through which a vein of water was slowly and powerfully moving. Later brushing up on my knowledge of natural hydraulic fractures, I reveled in the wonder of a substance like water cleaving its way through a force like rock. “When the confining pressure is too great, or when brittle-ductile rheological conditions predominate, vein formation occurs via crack-seal mechanisms.” I felt the pressure of the Living Water all around me, carrying me as it proceeded through the sheer rock bed. “I will make a way for you.”

Whatever impossible way you need made, exete pistin theou! Have the faith of God because that glorious Spirit lives in you.

Lampstands

I was crying desperate tears to grasp the lampstand. Its opulence shone gold but that was not the reason I held it. Neither was it the reason the formless perversion of light made insipid yet persisting attempts at its absorption.

I was running through the Iraqi foothills. A night had fallen, but it was only an allusion that had set. My feet were bare but for the Gospel of peace that carried them. I bore a candle as I ran… its luminance tore through the darkness… no longer night but bright as the day.  

I have been weeping tears of the Spirit for the babes of the Levant. The Father’s heart longs to hold them in his arms no longer orphans battered by the brokenness of a dying world but beloved children of the light. He is the hope of the nations, the rising sun. In him is life, and the life is the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

Below is a link to blog with opportunities to respond God's comission and #lightacandle

Operation: Light a Candle