Dee

Today, has been weary and long and full of the magnamity of my own inadequacies and helplessness... not because I have done any great wrong, but because I walk in things I do not understand, that I cannot explain or stay strong through. My heart is laden with things heavier than I have ever carried, my mind is lost in the selection or the ability to find the right things to say... what do I feel? What do I say? How do I pray?

On my knees or with my head in my hands I have sat in the desire to know so much more about God, about His Word, about how to pray, about how to stay in God's strength... this is how I have spent so much of today. I have prayed for healing and comfort and peace and understanding. I have poured out everything I know... everything I know how to give...

I wish I could fly on wings with blinding speed to Alabama and just wrap my arms around brother Jaron and Papa Manyama. But I can't. And not knowing why is part of the struggle. Not knowing what exactly they need or want is part of my confusion. So I will keep reading and praying. I will keep asking and hoping.

The last scripture on my mind tonight, we heard in Church yesterday... "And the victory that conquers the world is faith." (1John 5)

So I will go off to bed with all the faith in God I can muster... His ways are not my ways, I must remember. As far as Heaven is above Earth, that is how high His ways are above mine...

Thy will be done, oh God, on Earth, as it is in Heaven... Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord, God Almighty! I put my trust in You, my Jesus, Almighty Healer, All-knowing Savior, All-powerful God! Give us all peace... comfort... understanding. I pray for Dee. I pray for Jaron. I pray for Pastor and Malima and Elijah. Let us listen in, that all might be revealed to us.

Good night Love. Thank you for being God. Help me to embrace that more... and show me how to walk in Your ways and Your will.

Day 47: EASTER SUNDAY!!!

CHRIST IS RISEN!!!

Day 46: New Life: Easter Vigil Saturday

I woke early! I was due at church for Confirmation practice at 10 am so I had set my alarm for 9:30. But when I woke, it wasn't to my alarm. Something else had woken me, and my mind was already running when I went from asleep to full conciousness. I thought, "oh God, let me just sleep a few more minutes. Just until my alarm goes off."

And He said, "oh, Ashley, get up and look at the time!"

I sighed and sat up to locate my phone which was buried somewhere in my covers. I found it, flipped it over and hit a button to make the light come on. 7:20.

"WHAT?!" I shot up out of bed. "Well, what is it? You must have me up for a reason if it's this early!"

My sleepiness had me too hazy to realize that God wanted me up... and now! So I jumped up, grabbed my Bible and "Disciplines of the Inner Life" and went into Di's peaceful, unoccupied office. I knelt on the floor facing the window and asked God what He wanted to talk about. I didn't hear anything for a minute, so I looked out the window... looking for Him. What I saw was a beautiful blooming bush with tiny white flowers. Hundreds of flowers adorned each branch in a bunch at the end. Like a bride's boquet. "Oh, there You are," I said, "I can see you in your beautiful creation. I will always think of Confirmation when I see those flowers now, Papa."

I started talking and praying about Confirmation, getting excited and just going through all my hopes for the day, and I could feel the Holy Spirit just dancing and laughing around the room. Eventually the presence of God was so powerful that I finally just laid down, flat on my face and praised God! His glory was that strong! Finally I heard Him say, "Get up."

So I sat up on my knees again and looked out at His beauty. And He said, "this is not only your Confirmation, my beloved. This is your Coronation. Around your neck you will wear a garland of peace. Atop your head a crown of love. And a robe of light will trail behind you." It was so AWESOME! It felt like I was being Knighted or something... I didn't know what a Coronation was, but it was the most special thing in the world to me! I had heard the word before, but had no clue what it meant. It was THE best morning of my entire life! Ever... ever... wait... EVER!

Later I asked Di what a Coronation was, because I hoped to gain some understanding about what God was really doing. "Its when somebody is crowned."

I cried.

She went on. "We used to do Coronation services at camp. We would crown the girls! And you couldn't convince them that those were not real crowns. It comes from Psalm 45."

Tears.

"We had a Coronation service once. At a women's retreat. Beauty for Ashes we called it. The women brought their ashes to God and exchanged them for beauty. It was powerful!"

And I realized, in place of the sins and burdens I brought to Christ at the Cross on Good Friday, God was crowning me with Love. I was exchanging my ashes for beauty. Princess Ashley Elizabeth.

Confirmation was everything I hoped it would be... and more... and even more than I can fathom. And I knew it. I could feel it was beyond my scope. I cannot fully describe the magnitude of this night. Most of it lies beyond the realm of explaination. But I can say that I am full! That my heart, my soul, my life... all are full! Full of the Spirit of God and the gift of the body and blood of Christ.

I thought of the woman at the well. I thought of what Jesus told her about "living water"... and I thought, I shall neither hunger nor thirst again! I thought of new life... God fills us with LIFE. Life's purpose is to live for Christ! The inevitable outcome of life is... LIFE! I thought of God's love... and how blessed I am, because He loves me so much. He has drawn me to Him. He has allowed me to walk with Him on the road of LIFE! He is GOOD! All the time! And all the time! He is Good!

OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, LORD!!!

Day 45: Good Friday

Today was not a mass. There is never a mass on Good Friday because the Host is not in the church... but it is one of the most intense and powerful services I have ever been to.

When we first came in, and the host was gone and the church was cold and hollow and filled with solemn absence, there was a moment of realization. Christ did die for us. Christ did leave this Earth, His body went into the ground, and He endured the ultimate sacrifice. And there are some whose "temples" (the Word says our bodies are our temples) are still without the Host. How long did my own temple lay cold and bare like that.

And I sat, for the first time tonight, at the foot of the crucified Christ, while He suffered and died in utter agony of love for us... and I thought, "what have I done? What have I done to my Lord?" I wept at the feet of the One I had condemned. He died for me, because I would sin, and seperate myself from my Father, and from Him. Over and over I must rely on the grace and mercy of His sacrifice.

And Christ knew me! He knew I would sin against God. He knew I would condemn Him. And He still died. And I realized how many times with my anger, my pride, my indifference, my arrogance, my fear... that I have stood in the crowd and yelled, "crucify Him!"

And here I am tonight, in the mud of my own contradiction, under His dying outstreched form, weeping for His suffering... wishing there were some way I could undo it. Wishing I could bring something that would ease the weight of the "cup" He had to bear. And realizing that, as Di said tonight, there is nothing I can bring Him but my sin... and my grieved, repentent heart.

Tonight was the LAST night that I won't be able to take communion and celebrate the Eucharist with everyone... and tomorrow I will eat of the bread, Christ's body, and drink of the cup, the blood He poured out for me.

I am speechless. I am humbled. I am so unworthy of such a love as Your's, oh Christ... and You still have let me follow You. You have drawn me near! I love You... I love You... I love You...

Day 44: Holy Thursday & Washing Feet

Tonight, I am writing this blog from within the St. Rose walls. For creative and cognitive inspiration I have the four most intensely filled and lovely walls in the whole world! I sit in the throne room itself tonight and get to fathom the WONDERS and the mystries of my FAVORITE person: my KING, my GOD, my LORD, my SAVIOR - JESUS CHRIST!

An immeasurable amount of experiences and memories of the day run joyfully and exuberantly through my silent, reverent mind. I am EXACTLY where I am supposed to be tonight! For the first time in my life, there is absoluetely NO DOUBT that I am walking the path that is intended for me and its new, and its strange and its unmapped, but I am not alone and I am NOT AFRAID! I am... grateful... I am full of awe... and I cannot help but exclaim in my heart and on this paper... THANK YOU, OH MY JESUS! ALL GLORY AND HONOR AND POWER TO YOU, OH GOD, FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER!

I have cursed You, I have denied Your power and care, I have doubted You, I have withheld my love and my prayers, I have been angry at You... I have drivin the nails in deeper so many times... and still you wash my feet. Still You stop to clean my heart and catch my tears, still You allow me to sit with You and still You love me... Still You broke Your body for me and poured out Your blood, spread Your sinless, clean hands wide over the cross and DIED for me. For everyone!

Oh, my Jesus... can I just sit at Your feet forever? Can I just dwell in Your love and presence forever? Can I wash your feet tonight with the tears of my broken heart... may my words be like sweet, expensive perfume... and my worship and desire dry your feet?

You have called me here... I will obey! With ALL of me! I withold nothing, my Jesus! I want to follow you everywhere, and live only to love You. Like John. Let me simply serve You Jesus, so that I may always be humbly near and follow You wherever You go!

Day 43: My CPU

I learned about the mind even MORE today! I love when the Lord keeps blossoming one concept over time for me! He has such devotion for my growth, and a patience beyond any I've ever experienced!

Today, while eating a dinner out with Heather and Brother Dominic, the topic of the mind came up during conversation and Brother said something so great. He said that the modern day computer is a sort of mirror of the human mind. It is our mind that worked as the blueprint and format for how our personal computers work today. The cache memory is the here and now; it is what we are currently working on and what we are presently processing. Then there is the desktop. The desktop is our priorities, or most used files and programs. Its the plate that we are working off of... our work and life load. Then, there is the hard drive. Here we have our memories. SO MANY memories. Each file is in there, some harder to locate than others, our files as organized and manageable as we choose to keep them.

And I know, if pondered long enough, there would be sooooo many more great comparisons...

But what struck me was that our minds have so many parts, and folders and files and programs and software, and... and we have to seek every part of this elaborate system and systematically give it to God. We have ot be willing to wipe our hard drives clean if He asks and only allow God's data and programs to be stored there. There are parts of our thoughts and memories and past that are permanent... that even a wiped hard drive won't clear away. This is usually because these things are necessary to life. If we clear them, the computer dies.

But we can take Jesus there! I read a powerful book last year that changed my life and the way I deal with my inerasable files. It was called "Captivating", and one thing that it led me to do was take Jesus to those immovable memories that will always be there and allow Him to transform them! To allow Christ to heal those moments with His love and His presence and change them from hindering to useful and powerful testimonies in my life! Our minds are absolutely and completely penetrable!

I continue to love You with ALL my mind, Lord my God!

Sleep sweet! Well, since you neither "slumber nor sleep", may I sleep sweet and may You find a place to rest in me! Night Daddy!

Day 42: Addressing God?

When we address God, how should this look? What do we say? How do we introduce ourselves?

I wonder how Jesus addressed God. He often took time to just step away and be with God. He took time, amidst all the things He had to do to just be with His Father. He also found rest in it, and would go to the Father for peace!

Phillipians 2 said that Jesus, though He was made of the same stuff as God, His Father, still humbled Himself before God and would not look for equality or acknowledge His equality with God.

That's powerful for so many reasons.
One, because He WAS equal with God, but choose to put Himself below Him, so great was His love and devotion to His Father. The Message Bible says, "He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of Himself that He had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. "

Two, He knew He would eventually have to die if He continued on His humble path, and could have avoided it if He would have accepted and completely lived in His true power. In the Words of the Message Bible: "When the time came, He set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, He stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead He lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death - the worst kind of death at that - a crucifixion." WOW.

Three, He was to become the model! His life would be the ultimate standard and the ultimate teaching plan of what God wanted from us! His experiences, His actions and the way He addressed God would set the bar... The Message again, "Think of yourselfs the way Christ Jesus thought of himself."

Wow... So, two things come to mind. I have a lllooonnnggg way to go, and one AWESOME SAVIOR! So, my journey into the mind of the Word continues. If I want to know How to address God I need only to look to Jesus!

I'm lookin'!