Pentecost

Pentecost Sunday morning I felt God say the words to me, "you should be dead". They were not threatening words, but words that held immense and great awe for me. It is true. I should be dead. I "was" dead. On many levels these words are true; and yet I am not dead... and yet I am alive and I am becoming more and more alive and it is terrible and it is good.

Because of Christ, God can touch me and it brings life, not death. I have to allow the touch... but it is now possible... to me. A regular human being... I do not have to be a prophet or a recognised saint... and I am brought more and more into life.

I truly used to be quite dead. I could not feel... literally... I could not feel. My heart was paralyzed, numb, stone. For many years God has had me in a pressure cooker to transform my heart and make me sensitive and responsive to Him... and others. This has not been all fun. It is extremely painful. The best analogy I have heard about it was told by Dan Allender who said it is like healing from frostbite. You have to warm up slowly, and as you do you will feel extreme pain... to the point of wanting desperately to numb yourself again by diving into the snow... but if you do, you will never heal... and you may actually lose your limb altogether.

When the pain, sin, anger, sorrow that was/is locked in my heart comes up... oh, man. I want to dive right back into the numbness... anything to not feel it. But I have found ways, to allow the pain, or whatever it is at the moment, to come up... for me to look at it, name it, hold it with Christ... forgive the people involved, ask for forgiveness... whatever is needed... and then to give it to Him, because He paid for it, not me.

So those words "you should be dead" are glorious to me. Glorious. Yes. I should be dead and I would love to shout it from the rooftops! "I should be dead!! But I am not!!" I am not. I am alive. I can feel my children, and more importantly... my husband!! Things are worse than ever and so heartbreakingly better than ever... my joy was paid for with a price. Yes, Christ paid it, but so did I. My joy is not fluff. It is not the froth on a cappuccino... it is espresso... it is Turkish coffee... and I don't even know how to handle it yet.

You Have Redeemed My Soul
by Don Chaffer

You have redeemed my soul
From the pit of emptiness
You have redeemed my soul
From death

I was a hungry child
A dried up river
I was a burned out forest
And no one could do anything for me

But you put food in my body
Water in my dry bed
And to my blackened branches you brought the Springtime rain of new life
And nothing is impossible for you