journalings

Jesus.  The sweeet sweet person that is my everything.  I met Him awhile back.  It was moments when the pain was too much that he would come and hold me awhile and whisper “it’s going to to be alright Mel.”  Those moments when my whole world was caving in and I didn’t know how I was going to live- those were the times when I first met him.  He came to me then as friend.  He was the only person who understood the agony and trauma of my life.  He would tell me I could smile and believe in the light.  He would come and even cry with me time and time again.  I knew I never had to be alone in the pain even though I didn’t know what to do.  I wanted it to end, yet my world continued to be shattered.  I asked Him so many questions and sometimes He would answer, but more often He would tell me to just to trust Him. I would look into His eyes and all questions would be erased.  This kind man with eyes made of pure love became my solace. Time and time again He would come to me.  I let His strength be my strength- His peace be my peace.  I knew I didn’t have enough strength to fight.  The wounds were deep.  And for a time I tried to just push them down, away and out of sight.  But they were so painful, I knew I would die unless they were healed.  And I didn’t have time for years of counseling.  I was dieing.  I needed new life at that very moment.  He was there again.  He told me He could heal me.  So I opened up my heart to Him, and He started to show me something called redemption.  That though I was dieing, He had given His own life, to be mine- to actually be inside of me.  He told me that no wound could go deeper than the redemption He had already purchased for me.  He told me that death had been overcome- that all pain, all fear, and all darkness were all gone and done away with because the LIFE that He had put within me was eternal and abundant beyond measure.  That it would not only bring healing, but would bring NEW LIFE, abundant life that never ends.  Time and time again I have leaned up against the strong tower HE is, and have let my weakness, my brokenness, my powerlessness, be replaced with His life- It never ends or fails.  No matter what we we are facing or going through His REDEMPTION is bigger.  He invites us to just lean into all He is and take all we need… and let Him live in us and transform our weakness by His power.  He is working to bring us back- completely restored, remade beings, who have traded everything.  He is SOO good and is so longing to restore and make all things new.  I still look into His eyes for strength to go on, for Him to tell me it’ll be alright.  We live in a world at war where the arrows can come when we don’t expect them, and they can go deep.  But He’s always there- and waits to heal and restore and rise up within us as the victorious one.  He tells me to partake of Him.  He calls me to a place of rest, where He does all the fighting.  He calls me to sit at His feet and learn from Him.  His words always bring life to my heart.  There is always plenty of grace- which not only forgives and gives another chance, but also empowers and lifts up and cleanses.  He tells me to abide and stay with Him, that it is safe there, and that He will feed my soul with good things, make my righteousness shine like the dawn, and make my life a like a well-watered garden- an oasis in a world of pain and strife.  I delight my heart in Him.  He is so sweet. So good. So imcomparably everything. 

If you happen to read this, I pray that you will let Him in to those places of your heart that you don’t understand, that are too painful for words.  I pray that you will meet Him, and find in Him the same love and LIFE that I have found.  I tell you, until you do nothing else will satisfy :)

That He may live HERE among us.  Who is willing to consecrate fully to Him? He is looking for a people for a temple.  A people who are willing to go ALL THE WAY.  Not just a small bit.  Not just a beginning only to give themselves back over to religion or the world.  He cannot inhabit that kind of people- who have mixed desires and intentions… who listen to other spirits over the Holy Spirit… who turn back because of fear, because of persecution.  Where is a people who will go all the way????

Here Lord.  I’m here.  I give all I have.  To go all the way with You.  You are my sweet treasure.  To lose You would be to lose everything. 

And in this consecration there’s complete safety.  For He says “You are mine” and is jealous over us.  So jealous- that those warring spirits have no voice, no place, no ownership, because HE has it all.  Consecration is so beautiful.  A most freeing and life giving act- a binding over of everything to Him.  Not in a morbid self-denying waythat doesn’t bring joy or life, but as a most joyful thing as when a man and woman are joined together- completely given over to each other.  It is love that asks for this consecration and love that gives it.  It is the sweet intimate act of love. 

DESTINY ahhahahahaaa such a destiny i have been given- !!! whoa.  HIS BRIDE.  HIS BELOVED.  TO BURN. TO PIONEER.  TO BREAK OFF SHACKLES.  TO DANCE. TO WAR OVER INJUSTICE.  TO LOVE! to loooovvveee!!!! TO GO DEEPER IN TRANSFORMATION.  TO BRING HEAVEN TO EARTH.  TO AWAKEN AND CALL OUT A GENERATION.  Now is NOT the time for hesitation, settling, fear, or unbelief.  It’s so much bigger than i am… ahhahaaaa I hardly understand what I am apart of- this army I have been enlisted into- that I have been a part of from my very birth- that I have been answering the call of my whole life. Sometimes the call is stronger, other times more distant, but all i know is that every time i answer I come more alive- like a part of me was found every time- and i am still uncovering peices of myself every time I answer the call.  SO i find I just want to answer all the way- to say YES to the extreme and be made FULLY alive, because it’s only ever goodness and joy- yes there’s persecution and suffering, but that’s just the shedding of the old skin. Just the pain of new life breaking through the cracked dry earth- spring forth o life within me!! ARISE! SHINE!

So I’ve begun this incredible journey.  I’ve found love. And it’s this love that rocks me to the core daily.  This love -once experienced and known- will leave you completely unsatisfied with anything else.  I want to live from the place of intimate encounter 24/7.  I want to never settle for lesser measures.  Lesser things.  The treasures of His heart beckon.  The look in His eyes and the urgency in His voice, call me deeper. I am not of a generation who turns back, but am of the generation who overcomes.  We lose ourselves in this Love that leaves us so very undone.  So very overwhelmed with desire for MORE.  We answer the call, and lose all to follow, because HERE we have found our ALL. Here our lies and darkness and pain and sin is all stripped away, to greater and greater degrees.  Here we encounter a kind of JOY and ecstasy that doesn’t even exist in this world.  Here we see and know the gaze of pure dazzling Beauty, peircing Light.  And are so very changed.  It’s a continual process of being changed- this is sanctification- this falling in love.  And thus I journey.  Stepping ever on, into this great expanse of GRACE.

So lately I’ve realized that I’ve been scared to believe truth.  Mostly because it seems too crazy, and too wild, and too good (and also quite heretical!!).  Maybe I was scared that I would find out it was all wrong afterall and I didn’t want to bank my life on it and then end up dissapointed and dissilusioned.  But deep down I know.  And this refusal to believe the truths that you know deep down, is the very thing that keeps you from growing.  Unbelief = bondage.  It’s His light which can seem quite blinding to our eyes which have been so very accostomed to darkness.  It’s a continual yeilding to Him— this walk into the LIGHT.  One truth leads to the next and another and another and so on.  At any point where it seems to be getting a bit too far, and we shake our heads at the truth, or let the darkness be more true than the light, that is where we stop growing. I have determinedly decided never to settle. I can’t. I won’t.  It would be death.  Persecution will come.  Misunderstanding will come.  The cost is EVERYTHING.  But I can’t have anything less.  It won’t do.  He’s gotten in my blood, He infiltrates every thought, He is everywhere I go and in everything I see.  I want for Him to have the entirety of me.  And the crazy wonder of it is that I actually can put before Him my darkness, my weakness, my failure, etc. and let it burn on His altar, where His fire comes and He replaces it all.  Fuel for the fire= yeilding all your darkness to be burned up with His light - such a marvelous exchange!

Love.  It’s the thing that makes us rash, and radical.  It consumes us.  It moves us. When you’re in love you will do anything for the Beloved.  LOVE.  It’s what i’m discovering has so totally got ahold of my heart.  And has reshaped my world.  It has driven me to desperation for more of my Beloved.  It drives my every desire and action.  It burns within me- an unquenchable fire.  I’m so in love! Married to Jesus—*sigh… could it get any better? He’s the Kingdom within me- It’s Him I seek first. It means being faithful, being pure, being wholly HIS.  It’s just what LOVE drives you to… there’s no other explaination.  No one can seek first the kingdom if they’re not in love. 

The good thing is that it’s not up to us what happens.  If it were, it would a Gospel of our own creation and our own choosing.  Instead it is HIM who wills and works in us! He wills our salvation, transformation, restoration… And His will is soo strong. So passionate.  So unrelenting.  It is THIS Will of His that He places in us. There is so much rest in this because though we may see the truth and the narrow way and want to walk it, we are powerless.  Every step of the way is HIS doings.  His workings.  His undertakings.  What He reveals to us, He will work in Us.  The Way He shows us, HE will take us there.  He does not forsake His own.  From the very beginning to the very end (of which there is none) it is a GLORIOUS existence of DEPENDENCE…  No need to figure out all the parts we don’t understand, but just living in simple faith and adoration and trust.  This Gospel, This Christ in US, This Incarnation- is not of Man’s doings, nor does it follow man’s reasonings.  To try and reason it into existence is to kill it.  For it is by faith- believing and depending on HIM to work it out in us, down to the very last detail.  And it is this simple trust and dependence that unlocks the GREAT Goodness of God- unleashes His Will- and then watch out! - for you will find yourself being made into something else, which you can’t quite comprehend, but you can know that it is GOOD because it is that which is fashioned in the heart of your Lover- that vision of you as a wholly remade being, made in HIS LIKENESS- It is that which He WILLS and will do. 

In a church that is living under layers of deception and unbelief, the truth gets lost, twisted, attacked, and distorted.  But none of this negates the truth.  It stands free and  unaffected.  It IS.  It WAS. And ever shall be.  And all things shall come into agreement with it. Confusion comes when truth and lies try to plant themselves simultaneously into a heart.  Confusion is the product of believing two different things… and not knowing which is the right way.  Confusion is a tactic of the enemy to hold the Bride captive; to keep her from rising up in full wonder of the truth and to full maturity. Confusion opens the door for doubt, because if a lie is believed as a truth, the truth will be looked at with questions and unbelief.  How does the Bride rise out of this? The church of today would hold her captive within false teaching and empty philosopy of men.  It wants to squelch the truth, because the truth would bring the church to its end… would end all theology, programs, and performance Christianity, which are all based in lies.  The Bride has ONE CHOICE : listen to the voice of her Bridegroom alone and believe every word He says and every Word He is, holding fast to His Truth, and dispelling the lies.  To flirt with the lies, letting them hold Her back from full maturity, is to commit adultery and dishonor the marriage covenant between herself and Christ.  For He is truth and no lie can enter into agreement with His being.  As we are made ONE with Him in supernatural union, the lies must GO.  He is the Promised Land— to which confusion and doubt will keep the children of Promise out of… In a church that has been malnourished, decieved and confused, there is JESUS- calling out to “come, follow Me.”