Day 88

Why do I love Jesus?

Because He first loved me.

There's this thing that I struggle with. I was particularly burdened by it last night. Driving home I realized just how much my choices affect others. I was disappointed in myself. I felt like dirt.

I was listening to music (one if my new IHOP[rayer] favorites). The line of the song that hit me was, "I am Your beloved and You are mine. I've ravished Your heart and You've ravished mine." My first thought was no, how can that be true! I am undeserving of the God of the universe being RAVISHED by me. The song kept repeating that line over and over. I broke down. No! Look at me! Dirty, irresponsible, stupid. It can't be true that You love me this way. The song kept saying it.

So I gave up. And accepted that love which allows me to love Him better.

Romans 8:37
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us

Day 78

This weekend I went to a conference called One Thing. It is put on by International House of Prayer in Kansas City MO. IHOP-KC (prayer, not pancakes!) is a group of people who are praying night and day. They have had a contintual meeting with people coming in and out of the prayer room since September of 1999. They just recently had their 10 year anniversary. I have some issues with their theology, but I have issues with my own church's theology and I pretty much have issues with anyone's theology. But I can also filter what I believe is truth because I have a *personal* relationship with Jesus. Anyway, this One Thing conference is based on Psalm 27:4 that says "The one thing I ask of the LORD-- the thing I seek most-- is to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, delighting in the LORD's perfections and meditating in his Temple."

During tonight's session I had another one of those experiences I can't explain. I am a changed woman. I don't even know what has changed yet. The Holy Spirit came to me in a power I haven't felt in my life. It was like He walked in the room, came up to me and shocked me with some crazy electricity. Every few seconds I jerked, shaking my head or bending over, unable to stand up straight.

And that's where people say, "Good to know Nikki's crazy." Yeah, probably. So this explanation is for the people who have not experienced that. It's like taking a dirty rug and shaking the dust off. Jesus wants me so badly and He was just waiting for me to say, "Take away what is holding me back from You." So He did. Again, I don't even know at this point what was taken away. But that's the amazing part. When someone tells you to stop thinking about a pink elephant, you're gonna think of a pink elephant. If someone sneaks that pink elephant out of the room without you knowing it, it's gonna take you a while to realize it's gone if you're focused on your best friend.

So that takes me to issues about allowing emotions and experiences to lead you. Bad idea. But so many times we focus on that radical experience rather than the Being who brought you the experience. If you walk out of an experience like that and you go back to the same old crap, nothing really happened. You just fell over, shook a bunch, looked like a fool and for nothing. If you are radically changed then you just fell over, shook a bunch and looked like a fool for Jesus. He has the power to change His people. All people. He has the power to take a closed mind and blow it wide open. He has the power to transform a hurt deep down inside that no one knows. He has the power to heal eyesight and disease and destruction.

If you just read that and something tightened inside you, GOOD! That's Him, Jesus, lover of your soul, working inside of you, the part no one can ever see with their eyes. I want to pray for you if that's you. Message me. Please. No one who experiences the power of the Holy Spirit can walk away unchanged.

Day 70

DREADS

7:07 I'm doing them. It's official. I have one done so far! And stabbed myself with a crochet hook. Awesome. I'm gonna have wounds from this! Rad sauce =)

8:30 I have 3 finished. I took a break to call my friend and let her know what was going on. I have continued to stab myself but not as bad as the first time. I bled a lot on the first time! I'm gonna take a little break to explain why I'm doing this. I have been through a lot in the last year. Mostly all on the inside. In January I went through massive change and growth, again on the inside, and it's continuing so much. I love it! But I wanted to have something on the outside to represent the change. Hence, dreadlocks. It will be a lot of hard work but this is gonna be a long term deal.

8:42 I have the first 5 done, aka the bottom row. I think I'm done for tonight. I feel like I have the start of the flu, so I want to make sure I get a lot of sleep tonight, especially since I work at 6am tomorrow! So, I'll just pin them all up, and start back up around 3:30, when my 'helper' gets here =)

Day 69

Trust.
A concept I have thought about a lot in the last couple months. I realized I tend to withhold trust in some situations when I should be generous with it. So I've done some soul searching. Here goes.

I was angry with someone for something I thought they did. So I confronted them. They apologized and said that wouldn't happen again (short story). Experience with human nature dictates that I should question that and not trust. But, I prayed that God would only allow truth to be present in this meeting and I believe God give me everything I ask for if it is according to His will. I had a decision to make. Do I trust this person or do I assume this person is lying? I decided to trust. Trust or lack thereof is a "me" issue. If trust is betrayed then you can choose to forgive or not but it is still a decision that I make, regardless of the other person's actions.

So then I think about trust within a marriage. "Without trust there is no love" (thank you Moulin Rouge). I think this is a part of my lack of significant other problem. I trust Jesus with everything I am but humans, really? Men, really? I know a few I would trust my life with but they are nowhere near a romantic level. One step at a time I guess. I'll make the choice to trust, that is my conclusion. A life lesson I have learned the easy way.

Day 65

He just used a room of strangers to speak very personal things to me. My favorite of tonight (if you care to hear all of them, ask me or maybe I'll write it later) was when one of them (this one I knew and was the one who invited me) said to me he saw me as a momma bear, very protective of my little ones. The momma bear he pictured was the one in the Charmin commercials. Love it!

Day 60

60 days! I can't believe these 60 days have gone by so fast. We have already arrived in March. It has been a whirlwind adventure. Partly physical, partly spiritual. Actually, mostly spiritual! I have grown leaps and bounds in the way I live, the way I act, the way I see the world. Jesus is truly changing me from the inside out. I am experiencing it all on the inside first. This is difficult for sure. I know I'm different, I feel it so much on the inside. However, other people aren't seeing it yet. I feel like I'm this completely different person but many people still see me as the way I was 3 months ago. It's hard to restore a reputation that was on its way downhill. I built myself in people's perceptions as depressed, angry, biting, cold and unforgiving. From the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. Now, I am in the process of detoxing my body as I detox my mind and spirit as well. It is such a cool experience to be able to see perfectly what is happening in the physical and know that it is a picture of what is happening in the spiritual.

Luke 6:38 "Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure -- pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measure to you in return."

I am giving out. I am not holding anything back. I'm getting rid of the junk and allowing Christ to fill me up. I am giving and Jesus promises to give back pressed down, shaken together, and running over. This reminds me of when I was a child and I helped my dad clean up all the yard waste. We would put as much as could fit in the waste bin. Then, my dad would help me up on top of the yard waste and I would stomp on it and jump on it til it sunk down halfway. Then we would fill it up. A whole yard of leaves and sticks and brush would end up in the waste bin. God is doing that for me. I am giving up what is mine. I am measuring it in a generous manner. He is taking all of that and will return it with more and compact and POWERFUL!

The next step of this journey: pursue a friendship God has told me to pursue and begin a 10 day fast/detox the day after Easter.