I have now seen the One that sees me!

I can’t take this anymore! Slapped by my mistress right across the face – it’s still stinging from the shame!

I willingly became a maidservant to the wife of the great man of God, Abraham.  Who wouldn’t have jumped at the chance?  Everything this man touched turned into gold!

His crops grew quickly and flourished in this desert soil. His sheep and goats multiplied endlessly. Every well he dug overflowed with fresh, life-giving water.

Even his servants and their families grew and found happiness, serving the man God has obviously chosen to bless.

I was hand-picked by Abraham’s wife, Sarah to be her personal attendant.  I was with her constantly, attending to her needs, even anticipating her requests before she spoke. I was proud to serve her well, and had found a good life for myself under their tents.

Being that close to Sarah, I also saw how she was when the servants and their little ones gathered together for a meal, or a celebration over the goodness of Abraham’s God.  Sarah would watch the mothers with their children and I could see the longing in her eyes.  Her arms were empty.  Sarah was barren.  I had grown quite fond of my mistress, and I felt her pain.

Then one day Sarah gave me a task I would never have expected in a thousand years!

“Hagar”, she whispered.  “I want you to go to Abraham’s tent tonight.”

I looked at her is disbelief.  She and Abraham were soulmates in every sense of the word.  They frequently touched each other on the shoulder or face as they passed in the course of everyday chores.  I used to joke with the other servant girls that my master and his wife couldn’t keep their hands off each other, even in their later years, Abraham pushing 100, and Sarah not far behind.

Sarah graciously allowed me several minutes to process her request.  Then she spoke again.  “You, Hagar, will bear a son for me, through my husband.”

Now it was certainly my desire to be married and have children of my own, but I was still so young.  Having a baby, and not having a husband – that was not what I had hoped for in life.  And Sarah meant that this baby would not be mine.  No, I would bear the child, but he or she would belong to Sarah.

I had seen other servants raising up children for their masters, but I never thought that would happen in this household.  If Abraham’s God was as wonderful and powerful as Abraham made him out to be, then why couldn’t he just open Sarah’s womb and let her birth her own child!

In the end I realized I had no choice in the matter.  I was the servant, not a master of my own life, and I had to do my mistress’ bidding.

Not long afterwards I began to experience the nausea of early pregnancy and realized I was carrying Abraham’s child.  Here I was, weak and nauseous, yet still expected to serve Sarah as before.

She should have appreciated me and the sacrifice I was making to lay with her husband and conceive his child.  I deserved some honor for sure – I was the mother of the only blood heir of my master.  My fondness for Sarah was gone, and I no longer took pleasure in serving her.  For the most part I still did what I was asked to do, all the while despising Sarah in my heart.

And she knew it, too.  I overheard her complaining to her husband one evening.  “It’s your fault, Abraham!” she moaned.  “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering.  I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me!”

Instead of standing up for me – after all, I was the one who was truly suffering – Abraham gave Sarah free reign to discipline me as she saw fit.

She’s treating me as if I have done something wrong, when this is all her doing!  But here I am with my face stinging from her slap!

So tonight, after Sarah and Abraham had retired to their bed, I decided to run away into the desert.

I shivered in the coolness of the desert night as I ran from my troubles.  Finally the sun began to creep over the sand dunes and it was day break.  Still I hurried on, trying to put as much distance as possible between me and my wretched mistress.

When the sun was high in the sky – it must have been near mid-day – I found a spring and refreshed myself in the cool water.  I drank and washed my face, and then lay down, exhausted. 

I wept as I realized that I was a helpless young girl, alone and pregnant in the desert, not knowing where I was going, no plan, no food, no one to take care of me.  What would I do?  Where could I go?  And how could I ever provide for myself and the young life I was carrying?

Then, as I lay, curled up by the spring, I heard my name like a whisper in the wind.

“Hagar!”

No, I must be dreaming, lightheaded from this lack of food and stifling heat.  But I heard the voice again, this time louder.

“Hagar!”

I lifted my tear stained face and looked toward the voice.  There was a man, standing just a few yards away, dressed all in white.

But a minute ago as I stumbled to the spring, there had not been anyone there!  How did this man sneak up on me like that?  Does he mean to hurt me? And, oh my word, how does he know my name?

I shivered in fear and hunched over as if to hide myself from his gaze.

“Hagar, servant of Sarah, where have you come from and where are you going?”

I raised my head as the man in white came nearer and nearer until he was standing over me.

He spoke again, so gently that I found myself seeking his eyes. He was an older man, with the kindest eyes I’d ever seen.  I found myself drawn to him.  I began to weep as I told him my story – why I was running away, how I had been mistreated.

“So, sir,” I said after my story had been told, and my sobbing has subsided. “What should I do?  I can’t survive here in the desert, especially because of the child I am carrying!  Please, tell me what to do!”

“Little One,” he spoke with kindness, yet firmness.  “You are with child, and you will have a son.

You will name him Ishmael -‘God hears’, for the Lord himself has heard of your misery.  Your son, Ishmael will be a wild donkey of a man.”

I giggled to imagine the tiny life inside me growing enough to be a ‘wild donkey of a man’.

The man went on.  “Ishmael’s hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

So much to take in – these words about the life of the one growing inside me…But I clung to the joy of the thought that my son – my son – would live, and grow to be a man, albeit a donkey of man.  He would live!

As I stood before the man in white, looking into his fathomless eyes, I knew who he was.  I did not need to ask him his name.

“Hagar, go home and submit to Sarah.  I will increase your descendants so that they will be too numerous to count.”

I understood now why Abraham worshiped as he did.  He must have come face to face with this one that now stood before me.

So I gave this name to the Lord who spoke to me.  “You are the One who sees me!”

“I have now seen the One who sees me!”

He left me then, without another word. But I knew I could return to Sarah, even submit to her meanness as I awaited the birth of my son, the first of generations to come – from my womb.

And I knew that although I could not see him anymore, this man in white, I knew that his eyes were on me, and that was enough for me to go on.

Ransom

Daddy, this morning after our walk together, you reminded me of a name I had thought about naming my son, Christopher before he was born, before I knew he was a “he”.  The name was Ransom, like the man named Ransom Stoddard in the classic movie, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.  My husband was not a fan of the name, and we both liked Christopher, so Christopher Ryan Spaloss it was.

But today, remembering the name Ransom, I felt you were telling me that you gave Chris that name, Ransom, in heaven.  You told me that Chris’ life is a promise of the ransom you paid for him, for his life, and his healing.

You bought Chris back a couple of times already.  You just keep paying the ransom, or cashing in on what you’ve already paid.

So today I declare that the ransom has been paid, the check deposited and cleared.  The enemy has no claim to the one who was ransomed, and who is named Ransom in the Spirit.

Twice bought,

At salvation

And re-commitment.

Twice bought again,

At first healing

And now healed again.

This is the year of the mouth (Hebrew year 5780),

So I say what I hear.

Christopher Spaloss is a Ransom,

A sign and a wonder,

A declaration of what’s been paid

To redeem him from the enemy,

And to release redemption to the ones you will bring into his life.

1 Timothy 2:6 “He gave himself as ransom payment for everyone.  Now is the proper time for God to give the world this witness.”

Do it again, Daddy!  Heal Chris again.  Dr. Cohen, put your hope in Jehovah Rapha.

Doing what I see the Father doing...

If you know me, you know I am a quilter.

Anytime I have a free evening or weekend, you'll find me sewing, cutting and/or designing my next quilt.

People have asked me what step of quilting I like the best. Is it the planning, choosing the fabric and the pattern? Is it the precise cutting of the pieces that will form the various blocks? How about when the blocks start going together and you get a glimpse of what the finished quilt will look like? There is also the finishing procedure, quilting together the layers with decorative stitching. And the last step, placing a label on the back telling who the quilt is for, and who it is from.

I really love the entire process from start to finish, but if I had to choose my favorite step, I would say it is when I give the quilt away. In fact, if a quilt is done, and I know who it is for, I can’t seem to give it away quickly enough. It’s like I must get this quilt to the one to whom it belongs. The only quilts that seem to hang around my sewing room are the ones undesignated at the moment.

So I examined my feelings about my favorite part of quilt making and here is what I have determined. The process is a crescendo for me. Each quilt is birthed with either a person in mind, or a message that I want to express, or both. Each step of the quilt is then performed with that thought in mind. I get excited when the blocks are sewn together and I begin to see what the finished quilt will look like. And the delivery of that quilt is the grand finale, the delivery of the blessing to the one God desires to bless. 

One of my life goals is to follow Jesus’ example of doing what he saw the Father doing, even in my quilting. My goal, my heart, is to release the Father’s heart wherever I may, whether in my words, my work, my life, and yes, my sewing.

Resurrection Day from the Glory Side

I need resurrection hope today.  I hate conflict.  I hate cancer, broken sump pumps, water flooding Rachel’s basement.  I love friends who drop what they’re doing and come to meet me at the hardware store to show me the right sump pump to buy, and then go and install it in Rachel’s basement on Easter morning!  

Yes, Daddy, my babies are your babies – you take care of them in miraculous ways.  Even the one in heaven with you – seeing Resurrection Day from the glory side.  Like on the other side of the waterfall in The Shack movie.  

But it’s still so dark here. 

God, don’t you see the blackness all around me?  The brokenness of lives cut short without warning.  Cancer ravishing bodies as loved ones anxiously look on.  Marriages broken, promises un-kept, hopes and dreams fallen to the ground.

But Melody is seeing Resurrection Day today from the glory side.

God, let me see!  What does it look like?

I see the completed puzzle, all the pieces, good and bad, fitting together to make the most glorious picture.  Better than I could even imagine or hope for.

I see Diane sitting on Daddy’s lap, so close to his heart.  All her tears are wiped away and she’s so happy, so full of joy as she watches over and prays for her grandchildren and husband.

I see Melody running with Jesus in fields of flowers – she looks just like William running with his friends .  She seems so happy, loved, all her questions answered, trusting Father God to father the boys and her husband.

There’s Mommy, a bride, still enraptured with Jesus after being in his presence over 20 years.

I’ll be there, too, one day. Seeing Resurrection Day, every day, from the glory side.

Resting in the artist who joins each puzzling piece of life together. Fitting each rough edge perfectly in place.  Pieces I never would have dreamed would fit together.

But today, I’m here, and it’s Resurrection Day from the world’s side. And he’s asking me again,

“Will you trust me with your puzzle?”

But Daddy, these pieces are awful! Misery all around me!  People sick and dying! Bad habits and addictions crushing the ones I love.  How, how can these pieces fit together?!?

“Will you trust me with your puzzle?”

You won’t lose any of the pieces?

“No.  Each one is precious to me.”

Then here!  I thrust them to you, puzzle pieces with sharp corners, rolling curves, straight edges.  I give them all to you, pieces of cardboard falling through my fingers.

But you retrieve each piece and as you touch it, I see the gold begin to shine.

Without hesitation you put together my puzzle.  Not laboring over matching colors, or finding corners first. You know where each piece goes.

And you hold Melody’s piece with gentleness that makes me weep, and you weep, too, for you know.  You know.  That’s all – you know.  And you place her in the picture that now radiates your light.

I am the resurrection and the life.  He that believes in me, tho he die, yet shall he live.

And the life I now live in the natural, I live by the grace of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Wounds

 “So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us.”  Hebrews 12:1, The Passion Translation.

The word translated as wound can also be translated “arrow tip”.  An enemy shoots his arrows at me, and I’m left walking around carrying an arrow tip that has broken off inside my body, constantly nagging me with painful throbbing, reminding me of the wound.

But Jesus says “we must let go of every wound”.  

Sometimes I find myself actually protecting the wound, like I don’t want to let it go.  I shield it, cover it with a pretty bandage, and hold it close. 

Maybe I believe I deserve to hurt.  I deserve to suffer a while.  Or I use the hurt as a defense mechanism to keep myself isolated from more potential wounding. 

The wound is actually familiar to me.  I’m so used to it that I may start to believe it’s part of me, instead of a foreign object that was placed in me by someone who wasn’t out to do me any good. 

Sometimes I just allow myself to sink into the grief and let it engulf me.  I’ve been here so long anyway that grief sometimes feels more comfortable than imagining what life would look like without the wound.

How do I heal from that?  

I have to allow Father God to remove the arrow tip so the throbbing pain stops. I have to let it go. I have to realize the truth:  That arrow tip is not mine. It’s not part of me.  It’s actually a foreign object and the fact that I’ve allowed it to stay in place a long as I have is that I’ve been believing a lie.

The arrow tip is still in there.  I have to choose:  Will I continue to protect the wound, keep it in place? Allow the wound to keep me where I am, in defense mode.  “Just let me hold it a little longer.  Maybe I deserve to hurt.”

Or, I can choose to let it go, ask you, Father God to extract the arrow tip.  “Please be gentle – will it hurt much?”

Your hand slips inside the wound – you know right where it is.  You remove the arrow tip and I immediately begin to feel the relief of its absence.

Then you take the arrow tip into your own body, and by your wounds, Jesus, I am healed.  For you are a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.  I was never meant to keep the arrow tip inside me. It was always your plan to carry it for me. 

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53:3-5.

Unable to Deceive

I was reading through Hebrews in the Passion Translation recently.  I read in Hebrews 7:26 that Jesus, our perfect high priest is “without the ability to deceive”.

I love that limitation that God puts on himself!  

But what does that look like for God to be without the ability to deceive?

Father God, you are by choice not able to deceive, the exact opposite of the evil one who is called the ‘father of lies’.

You are not in the habit of “bait and switch”.

You have no hidden agenda.

You are fully open and uncovered, nothing hidden.

You are accessible.

You are safe. Oh, not for everyone, but for anyone who calls you Daddy.

It’s not in your ability to deceive me.

You’re the only wonderful thing in this life that isn’t too good to be true. Instead, just when you think it can’t get any better than this, it does get better.  You reveal another facet of your love, your kindness, your goodness.  I can't help but love you!

My Puzzle

I was praying for my family in late December, 2018, and I felt like I was having trouble putting together a puzzle.  How am I supposed to help my family when some of them aren’t even speaking to me anymore?

Father God broke into my fretting.  He asked “Will you trust me with your puzzle?”

I was a little girl, my arms full of puzzle pieces, some dropping to the ground as I desperately tried to piece the picture together.

“Will you trust me with your puzzle?”

You won’t lose the pieces? Mel and Billy, Owen and William?

“No, I’m keeping them here, in my heart.”

Relieved, I thrust the numerous pieces to the Father.  He gathered each one, and placed them one by one into his heart.  There was a glow, a warm glow emanating from his chest as he held my puzzle pieces in that intimate place in his body.  I knew my family was safe there, safer than I could keep them.  And that I was safe there, too.

Matthew 11:28-30 “Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Then come to me.  I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis.  Simply join your life (your puzzle) with mine.  Learn my ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please.  You will find refreshment and rest in me.  For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.’

My Raison D'Etre

Raison D’Etre

I learned that phrase as a teenager, reading existential literature, navigating depression to which most of that writing was so conducive.  I needed to have a raison d’etre, a reason to be, a purpose for living.

1 Timothy 6:10 “…for this is your calling – celebrating in faith before the multitude of witnesses.”

My calling, my highest and best calling, is to enjoy God, and to lay open my heart so everyone can see what that looks like in the sorrow, in the good times, on the journey, and at the goal. Celebrating in faith before the multitude of witnesses.  

Working for Daddy

Ephesians 1:19:  “I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God’s power made available to you through faith.  Then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you!”

A walking billboard for the Kingdom, releasing God’s heart for the planet.  That’s the job description.

Who’s up for the job?    

All who apply are eligible.  Great pay, amazing benefits, and a retirement plan that’s out of this world!