Use me like the dandelion seeds,

Arms spread wide to catch

The slightest breeze,

Moving without hesitation wherever the wind blows.

Here I am bearing your seeds of promise,

Heart opened wide to catch

Your slightest whisper,

Moving without hesitation wherever your Spirit leads.

Dandelion Seeds

Use me like the dandelion seeds,

Arms spread wide to catch

The slightest breeze,

Moving without hesitation wherever the wind blows.

Here I am bearing your seeds of promise,

Heart opened wide to catch

Your slightest whisper,

Moving without hesitation wherever your Spirit leads.

You Carry the Fragrance

As I walked this morning, I smelled a fresh fragrance.  It reminded me of fabric softener, or dryer sheets, so I figured it was coming from a dryer vent in some house along my route whose occupant was doing early morning laundry.  But when I continued to catch whiffs of the same fragrance several blocks away, I realized that the smell was probably coming from my hat.  I keep my “walking hat” in a cabinet in the laundry room where it most likely absorbed the fragrance of the fabric softener stored there.

Holy Spirit spoke to me just then, “You carry the fragrance”.

I go lots of places, some warm and fragrant like the House of Prayer, some sad and dark like the concentration camp we visited on the Italy Prayer Journey in early June, 2015.  But I cannot rely on the fragrance of the atmosphere I am entering – I have to bring the fragrance of the Holy Spirit with me.

When you walk into a room,

You bring the light;

You carry my presence;

You bring the fragrance of me.

Know in your heart

You have changed forever

Each place you have entered

With my lingering fragrance. 

HUG is for the Hug U God: my extremely non-theological thoughts on the Holy Spirit!

We have been learning in Bethel Sozo Training that people usually relate to Father God like they do their earthly fathers, to Jesus as they do their siblings and/or peers, and they view the Holy Spirit the way they do their mothers.

Growing up in my family with four siblings and an absentee dad, my warmest memories are of my soft, gentle mom.  I grew up under the wings of her unconditional love.  Even so, I find myself talking rarely to the Holy Spirit when I pray.  Most often, it’s Daddy.  So I've been asking God to teach me about the Holy Spirit since I am obviously lacking.

Karen Johnson asked us last week in Destiny Healing Rooms training class, “what is the Holy Spirit?”  When I think of “spirit” I think of a presence.  So God’s presence is the Holy Spirit.  Can you talk to a presence?  But Karen taught us that the Holy Spirit is a person.  Ah, that puts it more clearly now – I can talk to and with a person.

So, if the Holy Spirit is that motherly, warm and nurturing part of who God is, then I think he (or she?) is the Hug of God.  

Holy Spirit is the one you smell when you enter the House of Prayer and look around for candles burning where there are none, because the fragrance is so thick and warm. 

Holy Spirit is the joy that bubbles up on the inside and makes you laugh like Sue Colucci, or cry and smile at the same time.

Holy Spirit give you that “I’m home” feeling as you come through the side doors into the church after a rough day at work. 

Like my mom, Holy Spirit knows the secret longings of my heart, and he sends treasures my way just when I need them in the forms of gifts, hugs, words and people – just what and when I needed.  Holy Spirit tells me I am known, and loved.  He wraps himself around me like a handmade quilt (He is, after all, the Comforter!), and I breathe him in and relax in the safe refuge of his caress.

Then, after receiving healing and comfort from my wounds and disappointments, I get to pass on that Hug of God to you!

He’s the Hug U God.  He’s the Holy Spirit.

My Prayer Today....

Daddy, I want to be your resting place, my heart a place where you are comfortable to hang out.  I want to love the people, things and places you love.  I want my heart to look so much like yours that you enjoy being there, feel like it’s home, where you can sit back and sigh and say “I’m home”, just like I feel so often in the House of Prayer.

Daddy, teach me when I make you uncomfortable by the things I keep in my heart, like fear, bitterness, unforgiveness.  Open my ears to listen like one being taught ( Isaiah 50:4).

Daddy, Jesus, Holy Spirit, today I ask you to set my nerve endings on fire – that I would sense you through all five senses today in an acute, amazing, super-sensitive way.  I can make it to the end only if I can see, hear, taste, feel, smell your presence!

Psalm 132:8  “Arise, O Lord, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might.  May your priests (me!) be clothed with righteousness; may your saints (me!) sing for joy!”

Releasing Hope

As vegetation is dying

Leaves breaking free

And falling to the earth

I collected hope this morning.

I picked up acorns

As I walked today,

Each a symbol of hope,

The potential of new life.

As I walk amidst

The dying lives around me

I remember the acorns,

The hope I carry in both pockets.

In the face of death

I empty my pockets

Releasing hope to the hopeless,

Calling things that are not as though they are.

Resting Place

When Zaccheus had you to dinner

He must have been embarrassed to bring you in

To his clutter and evident preoccupation

With the love of money, and fear of lack.

But you came to his heart anyway

And he watched as your eyes roved about

Touching the furnishings and disarray

Cluttering up his life.

And he fell in love with this Jesus

Who loved him enough to come sit awhile in his garbage,

The radiant Son of the Living God

Somehow seeing the gold inside of an ugly man.

After that first visit, he couldn’t clean house fast enough!

He threw out old treasures,

Abandoned love of money and fear of lack

To create a suitable resting place for God.

Arise, O Lord and come to your resting place,

My heart laid bare and open for you to dwell!

A heart that loves the things, people and places you love,

A suitable home for the heart of my God.

He Chose Me!

I remember many years ago, in gym class, watching the athletes choosing their teams.  Watching the team pool dwindle, finding myself last or next to last, the one the team gets stuck with at the end.  Zaccheus, I imagine, was like that last pick. 

“Oh, no, we got stuck with him last time!  It has to be your turn now.  He can’t hit a ball for nothin’!”

So, he didn’t even try anymore, to fit in, to be on anyone’s team.  But he found a way to get even.  He made himself a big shot by stealing people’s money as the county tax collector.

You can imagine that when Jesus stopped and set his sights on Zaccheus that day in Jericho, everyone was shocked, perhaps dismayed at Jesus’ choice of company.

But think about how this rejected, unwanted man must have felt to be Jesus’ first choice that day.

“There must be some mistake. Does he really mean me?  He chose me! He’s coming home with me today!”

And knowing that God picked him out of a crowd, chose to spend the day at his home, changed everything for Zaccheus.  “Just for the chance to be with you, to belong to you, I will give up my lifestyle, and pay back four times what I’ve stolen.  Just because you chose me.  Just because you believe there is something worth loving in me, I will be that valuable person you somehow see through all the crud.”

So we, too, get to be like Jesus, to look past boorish behavior, smelly clothes, obnoxious words, and pick the Zaccheuses of this world to befriend, share a meal, sit down and visit with them, because we see what Jesus saw when he looked up in the tree that day in Jericho so many years ago.

I want to love what you love.

I want to hate what you hate.

Want to hold dear to my heart,

All that you hold in yours.

Help me to see what you see.

Help me to hear what you hear.

To hold dear to my heart,

All that you hold in yours.

Invisible

I pass through a crowd

Keeping to myself,

Making no eye contact,

Holding my arms

Tightly at my sides,

I touch no one.

My mind tells me

I am insignificant.

No one notices if I’m present or absent.

You don’t look at me;

I don’t look at you.

I am invisible.

But you shatter the lie,

Seek me out,

Look me in the eye,

Confront me with the truth.

“You are not invisible!

I see you. I value you. I love you.”

“You are not invisible.

Therefore you are responsible

For what you see around you,

And what you allow others to see in you.”

My heart tells me I am significant,

Endowed with an instructed tongue

That knows the word that sustains the weary.

I am who I am, what I am, where I am,

For such a time as this.

Hands Off!

Don’t touch me there!

Hands off!

I got that scar 5, 10, 15 years ago

And it reminds me everyday

To keep you and everyone else

Out of my life.

But Jesus came

Bearing scars of his own,

And an invitation:

“Touch the nail prints,

Put your hand where the blood flowed from my side.

Let my wounds give you freedom

To let yours go.”

“You can trust me with your scars.

I can’t promise it won’t hurt.

But I can promise you freedom

From the prison you have locked yourself in.

You thought it would keep you safe,

But it just kept you wounded,

Alone in your painful memories.”

“May I? Yes?

I am peeling back the layers,

Uncovering disguised feelings,

Reactive behaviors,

Exposing the roots.

Scraping, cleaning,

Replenishing the soil,

Pouring in the oil,

The water of the Word,

The light of my presence.”

“No longer are you defined by your scars!

You are safe in my arms,

Healed by my wounds.

And one day, like me,

You will offer your scars

As a testimony of hope

For others’ healing.”

All About a Wedding

I just returned this month from a 14 day prayer journey in Italy.  It was amazing!

Our prayer journey to Israel four years ago was all about birthing, and especially birthing twins.  Our prayer journey to Italy developed a wedding theme early on.  As we drove around the first Italian cities we visited, Milan and Florence, we began to see brides and grooms and wedding parties on the sidewalks on their way to or from a wedding.

We visited two churches, the Basicalla of St. Nicholas, and the Santuario di Santa Rosalia on Monte Pellegrino in Palermo, where we had to hurry with our prayer time because a wedding was about to take place.  As we prayed we watched people bring in white flowers, ribbons, candles and roll out red carpets for the brides to walk upon on their way to the alter.  And God spoke to us about preparing Italy, and ourselves, for the Wedding his heart is longing for.  So we prayed and prepared the churches for the weddings about to take place, the immediate ones in those places, and the readiness of the Bride, God’s Church for her wedding to the Lamb of God.

In Venice we sat on some shaded benches overlooking the water and along came a stunning bride and groom with a troop of professional photographers who posed them and took photos.  We watched as tourists followed the troop and captured their own photos of a bride and groom they would never know.  

There’s something about a wedding, fresh hope for a new life filled with love, alongside someone who will know you and be known by you.  Even with the disastrous global divorce rate, and the high rate of infidelity in Italy and around the world, the wedding is an in your face declaration that this union will be different.  This time the vows mean something.  This time the two will become one for always and will make an impact on the world as a couple that neither could have made as individuals.  This time the man and woman will not cave in to their conflicts, but will work through them and become stronger and more glorious in spite and because of their wounds along the way.

Because it’s all about a wedding.  Jesus coming to this world and loving to the point of ultimate sacrifice, to redeem the very ones who called for his death, who heaped upon him the sins he carried – none his own.  But it’s bigger than that.  It’s not only the individual lives that come into the Kingdom.  Jesus longs to sew together the churches, to form his Bride, to adorn her in robes of righteousness, jewels of service to God and one another, to present to himself a Bride without spot or wrinkle.

So the day will come when the Spirit and the Bride say “Come”. 

Come Lord Jesus.

Just How Good our God Really Is!

When the grandchildren come over to play with me, one game we always play is "guess which hand". They sit on the bottom step of my 13 step staircase and I offer them two closed hands, one of which holds a tiny ladybug magnet.  If they guess the right hand and find the ladybug, they get to go up one step.  If they guess the wrong hand, they stay where they are.  The one who gets to the top step first is the winner, and he gets to be the one with the ladybug, while I join the others back on the bottom step.

Sometimes when the kids are over, even when we're not playing the game, I go to them with my hands clenched and say, "guess which hand".  No matter which hand they pick, there is a treat for them, a candy kiss or a tiny toy, for no other reason than I delight to give them a gift and watch them smile.

Father God plays that game, "guess which hand", too.  Not with stuff we need.  Like he doesn't hold our rent money in one hand and give us the chance to guess it, or lose it.  No he freely meets our needs, but more than that, he plays "guess which hand", and both hands are loaded with things we want, not just things we need.  "He opens his hand, and satisfies the desires of every living thing." Ps. 145:16.  Our desires, think of it, those things we long for in our hearts, spoken or unspoken, held out to us in his open hand, just for the delight of seeing our smile.

God is soooo good.

My Calling

Who will paint my portrait,

Sing my song,

Recite my worth,

When I am unable to believe in myself?

Who will see past my harsh demeanor,

Ignore offensive words,

Look deep inside my heart,

And remind me of who God made me to be?

Who, like Ananias, will see as God sees,

Visit the murderer,

Touch the outcast,

And call the terrorist by a new name, “brother”?

“Whom shall I send and who will go for us?

Who will see as I see,

Speak what I say,

And call things that are not as though they were?”

Here am I, Lord.

Send me.

The Lion

The lion roars! People scatter in fear,

Cover their ears and eyes,

Block out of sight and mind

The power and fury of the King.

Look a child approaches the Lion!

Women faint, men despair

As the little daughter

Draws near the King of beasts.

The lion bows his massive head, an invitation.

The child nestles in his flowing mane,

Her cheek laid in trust

Against his velvet face.

The lion roars! The people draw near,

Led by a little child

To the strength and safety

Of the King of Kings.

I Am Loved.

I had a quarrel recently with my best friend – OK, it was my husband, Jimmy.  We do life together, so we had to continue to interact with each other every day even with the unresolved conflict between us. And it wasn’t fun.  It was hard.  I found myself close to tears many times, but did not have the time or opportunity to allow myself a good cry.

I heard God say to me, “Have this mind in you…”, reminding me of the words in Philippians.  All I wanted to do was withdraw myself emotionally from my friend, insulate myself from the pain.  But God was instructing me otherwise.  Ok, God, I’ll try.

And I did try to continue in our relationship in this humble position, but it was hard.

Yesterday we talked out our issue, said our “sorrys”, and got back on the same page again, and suddenly love became effortless again.

Matthew 11:28-38.  “Come to me.  Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.  I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace…”

It’s so much easier to serve, to work side by side someone when you know in your heart you are loved.  It’s like being the birthday girl at a party and opening gifts from the ones who love and celebrate me.  No trying, just resting in the obvious adoration of my grandchildren, bringing me hand-made cards and wet kisses. I am loved and glowing with the knowledge of it.

I think that’s why every bride is so beautiful, even if she’s not the prettiest one in a crowd.  You see in her face, her countenance, her movements, the awareness “I am loved! Of all the women in the world, this man picked me to spend his life with.  He chose me!”

God uses the marriage relationship as a picture of the intimacy he desires to have with us.  So he wants me to feel every day like I did the day after my quarrel with my best friend was resolved.  Look in the mirror and see the face of one much loved, and rest in the giddy realization that I, Taffy Spaloss, am loved by the Father, chosen to be his own bride.

So I know and rely on the love God has for me.  1 John 4:16.

The Harp

I am at times an unwilling harp.

Don’t touch my strings!

I know I’m out of tune,

Strings worn, broken or missing,

Singing my song of pain.

Alone.

Then I hear the first few notes of your heart,

Your harp’s plaintive chords,

Touching places in me

I didn’t know were there.

Tears spring up unannounced.

I listen.

The words of your song

Finally penetrate my mind.

I hear my name,

Sung from a heart of love.

Your song written for me.

I weep.

I open my heart,

Offer my harp to you,

The Master tuner, lover.

You tighten, you loosen,

You remove and replace,

And you play.

Is that me? Can it be?

That this harp could make

Such beautiful melody?

Valued, nurtured by love,

This harp sings again.

Our song.

What’s that? Play your harp?

What? You would allow me

To pluck the heartstrings of

Elohim, God Most High?

“My heart is laid bare before you.

Play, Beloved.!”

I am my Beloved’s.  He is mine.

He plays the strings of my heart,

Sings my song,

And invites me

To play his harp over others.

The Melody of Intercession.

Autoimmune Disease: The Body Should Not Be Attacking Itself!

A friend recently shared what I thought were two distinct issues she was dealing with.  First she discussed an ongoing physical problem she has with an autoimmune disease.  In her frustration she blurted out, “The body should not be attacking itself!”

My spirit rose up about the injustice of it all, one’s body created to protect itself, now turning against itself and causing illness.

I found this definition of autoimmune disease online:

“Your body's immune system protects you from disease and infection. But if you have an autoimmune disease, your immune system attacks healthy cells in your body by mistake.  No one is sure what causes autoimmune diseases. They do tend to run in families… “ (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/autoimmunediseases.html)

Later in our conversation my friend described another attack she had experienced, another incident of the body turning on itself.  But this one involved the Body of Christ.  My friend shared in honor, naming no person nor any specific details about the incident, about how she had been wounded by friendly fire – by a brother or sister in God’s family!  

I could not help myself and blurted out the phrase my friend had shared earlier, “The Body should not be attacking itself!”

I felt God getting my attention in the natural to speak to me about something he wanted me to notice in the spiritual, with the understanding that I was not to put up with either situation.  How should I cope with these two incredibly unjust situations?  1: One’s immune system attacking healthy cells instead of fighting off infection and disease, and 2. The disease that infects the Church, the Body of Jesus Christ and causes members of one Body to attack each other.

I’m learning to pray for physical healing.  I make it a point to reject the familiar diseases that seem to have a right, an excuse to attack us, since they are “in the family”.  No more excuses to accept an illness or deficiency in our bodies because my mother, my father, my uncle… had that disease.  Not when Jesus’ stripes paid for all our diseases.  I cling onto the promises of God’s Word and if I don’t see the healing I am seeking, I pray some more, and don’t give up.

Nor do I have to accept the rifts and offenses in the Body as “normal” consequences when people are involved in each other’s lives.  I love how my friend gave no details when she shared about being wounded in her Church, no foothold for the accuser of the brothers out of this girl’s mouth!  I pray for the healing of my friend’s heart, that she would not be discouraged to trust again, to share her beautiful self in the Body for fear of being rejected or attacked once more.  I saw her recently, praying over people in the House of Prayer, no trace of autoimmune disease in her spirit.  I pray that healing in her physical body will follow soon, on earth as it is in heaven.