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.

The Permission to Dream Again...

Some time ago, our pastor asked us on a Sunday morning, “If you could do anything you wanted to do, and time and/or money was not an object, what would you do?”

The dreamers among us immediately began to make lists of the dreams on their hearts: to paint – create works of art as a full time job; to travel anywhere and everywhere; to pay off all of my friends’ mortgages and car loans; to join Heidi Baker loving the children of Mozambique…

But my first reaction to the pastor’s words was to freeze and go blank.  And I dare say that I was not alone in my reaction.  For some of us have not allowed ourselves to dream for so long that we don’t know what to do with an offer like that. 

Sometimes it seems I believe in “the God of the second shoe”.  Yes, there are blessings in my life, but there’s this nagging thought at the back of my mind saying “Just wait – don’t get too excited.  That second shoe will drop.  It’s not a matter of ‘if’, but ‘when’.”

Yet I have seen what happens when someone begins to dream again.  One evening at Shore Vineyard Destiny Healing Rooms, a quiet young man came for prayer for severe depression.  He was way too young to be stuck, with his whole life ahead of him.  We prayed for him for a while.  Then I asked him, “what would you really like to do, if you could do anything you wanted?”, and it was as if a light switch was turned on in his face.  He began to smile as he told us the dreams of his heart, what he really wanted to do with his life.  Then we prayed again with him.  We prayed that the God who loved him and loved the dreams of his heart, the one who had created him for that very thing that made him feel alive, would fulfill those dreams and desires in his life.

I believe God has a word for his kids as 2014 ends and 2015 begins.  I believe he is saying “You have my permission to dream again.  You are not too old, too young, too frail, too sick, too soiled, too anything.  It’s not too late.  It’s time to dream again.  I am not the God of the second shoe!  I am the God who created you to dream with me, and see those dreams come to life.  For I am right here, dreaming alongside you.  

Some of you will paint pictures that will touch thousands of people, because my Spirit will communicate through peoples’ eye gates as they gaze on what you have painted.  Some of you will lay your hands on people with pancreatic cancer and see them healed before your eyes.  Others will travel the world praying and changing people and places by powerful words and prayers straight from your heart, and mine.  Some will get that reconciliation in your families that you have wept and prayed for in your secret time with me.  Some of you mamas will see the joy you prayed for – I have no greater joy than this, than to see my children walking in the truth.  There will be books published that touch people with my glory around the world.  You will feed the hungry.  You will release captives and teach them to abide in my freedom.  You will carry my presence wherever you go.  Signs and wonder will follow you, as you follow me.

You have my permission, my command.  Dream!  Dream big.  I am dreaming with and in you.  I love you and I love your dreams.  I’ll tweak them if I need to, but don’t hold anything back.  Dream huge, dream often, dream with me.  You have my permission to dream again."

Come and dream with me!

IF YOU LOVE ME, LEAN HARD

 

Facing some uncertain things right now, I could not wait to run into the arms of my Daddy yesterday and spill it all out to him in my journal.  I asked him some hard questions.

Daddy, in your word it talks about never seeing the righteous begging for bread, but I do see your kids desperate like that sometimes.  What about your people running from ISIS in the mountains of Iraq?  Daddy, it looks like sometimes you don't take care of your kids - you let them die.  What's up with that, Daddy?

"Then what happens?"

They're with you, and everything is ok.

But they suffer so, Daddy.  Will I suffer so, too?

"I am your Daddy.  Trust me.  I will provide for you and your little ones."

Daddy, I have no more little ones.

"Yes, you are a mama to many little ones.  They watch you.  They learn to trust me by watching you.  If you love me, lean hard."

Give me a scripture, Daddy.

1 Samuel 11:1-11.  God's people at Jabesh Gilead were attacked by the Ammonites.  The people tried to make a treaty with them, but the Ammonites gave them one condition for the treaty.  They would gouge out the right eye of every person of Israel, so that God's people would live in disgrace. God's people asked for 7 days to decide if they would submit to this condition, then they sent word to all of Israel to see if they could get some help or not.  Newly crowned King Saul heard about it and gathered the troops in their defense.  During the last watch of the night before the city of Jabesh Gilead was supposed to be handed over to the Ammonites, Saul sent 3 divisions of soldiers into the Ammonites' camp and slaughtered them until the heat of the day.

Never mind that all of this happened right after the prophet Samuel had told the Israelites that they had sinned against the Lord in even asking for a king.  Would God reject them for their rejection of him?  No, instead Samuel tells the people, "For the sake of  his great name, the Lord will not reject his people, because the Lord was pleased to make you his own." 1 Samuel 12:22.

Daddy, you were somehow pleased to make me your own, to be able to say, this one's mine - that pleased the God of the Universe, the King of all creation.  Why in the world did it please you to make me, Taffy Spaloss, your own?

And he whispered in my heart some of his reasons, as he will whisper to you when you ask him what he loves and treasures about you.

I thought then of Hinds Feet on High Places, and the times Much Afraid chose to trust her Shepherd when faced with impossibilities along her journey to the high places.

"Here I am, your little handmaiden, Trusting in Uncertainty."

Here I am,

Resting in your goodness.

Leaning HARD

On your everlasting arms.

Placing all that I have, 

All that I am, 

On the One who says of me,

"For the sake of my great name,

I, the Lord, will not reject you,

Because it gives me great pleasure

To make you my own".

Taken from 1 Samuel 12:22.