Sunday, August 11, 2013

Come bear witness

To say the last couple of days have been interesting is an understatement.  I have come to know things that I never thought possible.  I have not written in my journal, because for some reason, I felt like I should be reflecting on what was happening in my life, rather than sharing it.  If you follow me, you may have noticed a pattern in the timing of my writing over the last few posts.  I was writing in the early morning hours each day I felt compelled to write.  I was actually being woken up each night at the same time.  The last night I woke up like this, I had been reading some of the Bible on my app on my phone, the night before.  I had been reading Revelations, when I last looked at my phone, before getting the kids finally to sleep.  When I woke at the same time again that morning, I wasn't sure how to process that it was the exact same time.  I wondered if God was waking me up for a reason at 4:38.  I searched online for a way to decipher what was going on, as if God has some sort of handbook posted for us to google when we aren't sure.  I wasn't sure what I was looking for, or why I thought I would find it there.  I did find someone immediately who was waking up like me and she had gone through her Bible and written every verse that went with her time.  Bingo, that was it!  I would do that.  I opened my handy Bible app and rather than being on Revelations as I had left it, it was on the book of John.  I paid no mind to that and thought, I'll start at the beginning.  I went to Genesis, no 4:38, Exodus, Leviticus, no 4:38.  Numbers was the first to have a 4:38, but it made no sense to me what so ever.  I had a thought, why didn't I look at John, since my app was open to John and I had not left it there.  I am learning Lord, to be more open to You.  It reads, "I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors."  I decided to read the full chapter from the beginning and it reads of a story of Christ's encounter with a woman and how His knowledge of all her thoughts, words and actions and through the power of His word, He has made her believe.  I pulled up a commentary online to give me more perspective on it and it is as I thought.  I sit for a while, pondering the thought that, while I strongly believe at this point, I never thought I would be getting a direct message.  That made what was going to happen on Sunday all the more nerve wracking.  When speaking to my prayer minister at the new church the other day, she offered me a prophetic ministry session to perhaps hear the Word of God through those ordained to do so.  I immediately accepted on the phone, but as the time drew near, was becoming more nervous about it.  I knew nothing of this growing up.  I had no idea that the Methodist church offered such a thing, but I really felt I needed something, some sort of guidance and I guess a final proof that He is speaking to me directly, even if it's out of the mouth of someone else.  It would be the final punch to my years of disbelief.  After all that has happened, it was as though I had no other choice but to believe.  It was now fact, that these things were happening to me.  I was always a fact or truth seeker.  And now, it was a fact that I had experienced all of the amazing things I had, without provocation.  No one was coaxing me into religion, begging me to go to their church or trying to convert me.  He was converting me.  I just had to open up my heart to the fullest extent and believe and trust in Him.  I was learning.  As the nights moved on, I began to think of the day again and play in my mind what my nurse had written me in my email.  I was content to hear what she had said and I didn't feel the urge to dig deeper as she had suggested.  I actually trusted God that He would lead me to the answers I sought.  I felt deep in my heart that I was at the right place and felt that He was truly guiding me.  It was no longer an obsession to wonder about what happened.  I was being given the answers as they came to me, little by little.  My mom came over and brought a journal that she had written in years ago.  I was about what had happened during that time and how it had changed her soul.  She would never be the same.  She wanted me to read it and she told me, that while looking for things unrelated to this, she came across it.  She is doubting her doubts she said, because of all that is happening to me.  I believe that for a moment, I have read her mind and reached into her soul for my answers.  He was letting me feel her pain and understand it.  She told me it's as though He was telling me exactly what had happened those days, but she thought He had waited until I could handle it.  That she thought He had seen that I handled the situation with Ben with faith and He was ready to tell me what happened.  These words, coming from the most doubtful person I knew.  How was this possible?  She told me she didn't understand it all, and I said, that she didn't have to, because it was real.  It was really so very real.  I didn't sleep much that night or the next and only felt compelled to read different books in the Bible.  I have never been so eager to fill my head with knowledge.  I wanted to know everything I could in a short period of time.  I literally stayed up all night last night reading.  I had this vision of what I thought happened that day when I gave birth to my girls.  As I was unconcious for the procedure, I had no idea what happened and if anyone in my family had asked, they had not told me.  I knew that everyone trusted my doctor as I did and we would never question him, so I just couldn't see that happening.  He would come out of the operating room and tell them that I was very sick and struggling, but there would be no mention of the girls, as they all knew what had happened to them.  No one felt the need to ask the details or even had the desire to know the details, they were all concerned with my life.  I would have been the same way.  The details were that I had lost them and that was all.  It was not only something that has haunted me, but my mother as well, but she didn't have the courage to ask after so much time had passed.  I never spoke of it to anyone because it was so upsetting, so I felt as though I was alone in the whole grieving process.  I felt like I knew what had happened that day and it wasn't the gory details I had become so used to invisioning.  Those images haunted me always.  I felt the pain in my nurses email, that she knew I was searching for these things and that, by going to my doctor, I would finally get the truth.  I felt as though He was guiding me to that conclusion.  He lead me through the day and told me He knew when I had lost Audrey, just as I did.  He was there with her as they watched me struggle with the decisions I was having to make.  And He told me that Danielle was born alive and as she passed, He was holding her in His arms, cradling her and making sure she knew I was her mother.  She was not left to die alone.  He was always with us.  I could almost picture Him holding her up to me as I laid on the operating table, saying to me how beautiful she was, just as a proud father would have.  I felt comfort.  And most of all He let me know there was no more pain.  There never was any pain.  They were wrapped in His love and mine and there was no pain.  As I'm writing this out, I know it is so hard to read.  It is the hardest thing I have ever written in my entire life.  But it is necessary.  It is necessary to my healing, to my faith, to my Lord that I tell you all what He has done for me.  As hard as this is for some of you to read and for some of you to believe that I could actually feel this way, it is most important for you to know.  It is for you and I that I do this.  It is for your faith restoration too.  He wants me to tell you that He is real and He is true and He is good.  You should believe that, whether He speaks directly to you or not.  Open up your heart to Him and see what He will heal for you.

I woke everyone this morning, excited to go to church, but still anxious about the prophetic ministry.  Again, the ministers sermon was great and J and I enjoyed it.  I left the service and signed up for the ministry.  They invited me into an open prayer room with alters and spaces dedicated to different struggles.  I took my seat and looked up and I was directly in front of the space dedicated to the unborn.  I wept and prayed, but not uncontrollably, like I always had before.  I thanked God for doing this for me.  For allowing me to see it all.  I was taken back to the office where I sat with three women who were there to pray over me.  There were three of us to be ministered to and I was last.  They gave the other two women their prayers and thoughts and explanations of what God is telling them.  They came to me and could only give me scripture.  The first woman said she had no explanation for me, but she was compelled to give me these three verses.  She wrote them on my index cards.  Then the second woman told me I was beautiful and that she felt another verse and finally the same thing from the last woman.  Just a verse and I should go and look into it further myself.  That's what they all were being told.  No explanations.  I must admit, I left feeling a little down, because I hadn't been given an actual "plan".  Why I thought they would tell me what I was supposed to do, I do not know, but I did.  We went on about our day and when I got home I pulled out the cards they gave me to look up the scriptures.  The first card was written as such, 2. Jer 33:3, tell you what you don't know and 3. Rev 8:4 Your prayers go from angels hands to God and 1. Isa 58:8b & 9 Here I am.  The woman was very specific that I read them in the order she numbered them, not that she wrote them on the card.  "Here I am, to tell you what you don't know, your prayers go from angels hands to God."  I can't even type that out without my hands shaking.  I called my mom to tell her and I looked up the verses as I was on the phone with her.  I read them out loud and we sat in silence.  I moved on to the next card that said to read Psalm 42, My soul thirsts for the living God.  I read it, "Where is your God?" it reads, "why have you forgotten me?"  Again, I am in silence, then to the last card which says to read Jer. 29:10-14.  It reads "After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place.  For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.  Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me and I will listen to you.  And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.  I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive."

Just think on those words.  I know I have and I have prayed about them before I wrote this.  I cannot pretend that I was/am a person I am not.  I have sinned as all of us have.  I have been given a life with struggle as we all have.  In my absolute darkest hour, the hour I thought He was going to take my son from me, I went to Him.  It was truly the darkest hour I had ever experienced and I trusted Him.  He has given me my life back.  Praise God.

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