Busted!

I was fretting.  Again.  About finances.  Again.  I went to church and worshiped.  Came home and got right back into the fretting.

So I went to my sewing room to finish quilting a special blanket I was making for my sister’s writers’ conference auction coming up in June.  I often pray as I stitch along, but this day I was fretting, figuring in my mind the balance in my checkbook and wondering how and where to find the money to pay the bills due by month’s end. Then I felt God speak to me.

“Taffy, what are you doing?”

Now God knew for sure what I was doing.  He saw me sewing.  But as I took a look at the quilt I was stitching I knew exactly what he was asking.  You see, my sister’s writers’ organization has a theme each year for their conference, and my sister asks me to make a quilt for their auction based on that theme.  This year’s theme was “loaves & fishes”.  I had put together a quilt with blocks of realistic looking bread fabric, and underwater fresh fish scenes.  I put a cuddly, striped fleece on the back of the quilt, and planned the quilt label to read “Wrap yourself in God’s provision”.

My first response to God’s question was guilt, and shame.  I was busted!  Here I was creating a beautiful quilt to speak pictorially of God’s amazing provision, but not believing it myself.  The God spoke again.

“Look at me.”

God called my attention away from myself, back to him.  As I gazed at the Lord, I saw he was smiling, not condemning.  He was inviting me to put aside my negative thoughts, and believe him again, to seek him first and trust him that all the other things, including finances, would be provided to me.  “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matt. 6:33

There are lots of negative things to focus on all around us, things that we cannot ignore, like paying bills, troubled children, chronic diseases like cancer affecting those we love.  But God.  God asks us to set our minds on what he says for whatever situation we are going through, to believe what he says over what may be staring us in the face at any given moment.  To hope again, to believe again that God really is good, then to find the scriptures that speak the truth over the error in our thinking at any given time, and choose to believe them.  When hope rises up, faith comes right along.  I love the way Kris Vallotton of Bethel Church puts it:  “Hope is the seed bed that faith grows in, and faith is the highway to heaven”. 

Healing Women at Shore Vineyard is in the midst of a seven week CD series on Tuesday nights studying Joyce Meyer’s Battlefield of the Mind.  All ladies are welcome join us on the “highway to heaven” as we learn together how to choose to live out of God’s truth.

The Power of the Testimony

The power of the testimony was amazing at our Good Friday service this year.  Each one who shared had a different story of suffering, and how God was with them and got them through it.

                     

Jimmy and I are blessed to know a lot of the “fill in the blank” details on our son, Chris’ testimony, and I thought you might enjoy hearing a little more of our journey with cancer.

Did you know Chris has been under chemotherapy treatment for five years?  He goes through a regiment of four days of nauseating, diarrhea-producing chemical infusions every 3 to 5 weeks up at Monmouth Medical Center.  He calls it his “poison week” and posts on facebook when poison week is over.

Chris doesn’t remember some of the details of his first two months after being diagnosed with cancer.  But Jimmy and I remember them vividly.  We were advised that, with treatment, Chris, then 26 years old, might live another six months or so.  Within a few weeks of his initial diagnosis at Newark Beth Israel Hospital, Chris became bedridden because his legs were so swollen with fluid that he could not stand on them.  Shortly thereafter he developed an ulcer and began vomiting up blood.  He was rushed into emergency surgery, a scope inserted down his throat as the doctors tried to cauterize the ulcer.  Right after the procedure, Jimmy and I were with him in recovery and he once again began vomiting up blood.  Chris was so weak by then that another procedure was not possible.  He was put in the ICU, and given multiple pints of blood.  The doctors told us that they had no way of knowing if the ulcer was successfully cauterized and the blood he vomited right after the procedure was from the blood left pooling in his stomach, or if the ulcer was continuing to bleed. 

One of the nurses took me aside and told me that while she was getting Chris settled in ICU he told her he was afraid of dying in his sleep.  After she had gone, I talked with Chris about his fears.  “What will happen to you if you do die in your sleep, Chris?” I asked.  If you know Chris, sometimes his answers are not immediate.  He paused, and said, “I will be with Jesus.”  He dozed off after that.

We kept vigil at Chris’ bedside all night long.  I felt like I was breathing my prayers.  With every inhale and exhale I was begging God to heal my son.  Emergency prayer requests went out via phone calls and emails.  I told Chris’ brother and three sisters that if the bleeding had not been stopped, it was possible Chris would not live through the night.

Sometime around 6 a.m.  Chris woke up and looked at me sitting at the foot of his bed.  “I’m still alive,” he said.  And we both laughed. 

Chris did not vomit any more blood, so we knew the ulcer had been successfully cauterized.  Better than that, he began telling the nurses he was hungry.  They were reluctant at first to allow anything into his stomach, but finally allowed clear fluids, than soft foods.  The pastors of Shore Vineyard came later that first day in the ICI, gowned up and prayed over Chris.  By the next day, he was transferred out of ICU and back to the regular cancer ward.  

Chris began chemotherapy, and Shore Vineyard Church began fasting on Thursdays and coming together to pray for him on Thursday nights (in our pre S-HOP days there was only one prayer meeting on Thursday nights, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.).  Jimmy and I would drive up to Newark every night after work to be with Chris.

One Sunday, as Jimmy and I attended church and then got ready to leave for Newark, Pastor Brett brought us up front and placed his arms around our shoulders.  He addressed the church and told them that from now on, “Chris is your son, your brother”.  I cannot describe the amazing feeling we would have when we were sitting with Chris on a Thursday night, knowing that you all had his back, and ours, that you were depriving yourself of food, and giving up your evening to cry out to God for my son, now your son.

In addition to the prayer warriors in our church, there have been many other faithful family and friends who signed up to receive the prayer emails we send out on Chris’ behalf.  I hear from you often that you are still praying, and rejoicing with us along the way. You are all family now.

Chris was discharged from Newark Beth Israel in mid-January, 2009.  He was down to 125 pounds and very weak.  Five years later he has a pot belly and a hearty laugh.  He spends his days listening to worship and bible teaching online and on the tv.  He prays Psalm 91 over himself every day.  He loves to be in church every week.  He serves in the Thursday evening session at the Shore House of Prayer.  Our Friday night Redwood Group often hears Chris upstairs singing and worshiping with the World Revival Church in Kansas City as we meet downstairs.  And I echo with Apostle John, “I have no greater joy than this, to know that my children are walking in the truth”. (3 John 1:4)

  

The Sign on God's Frig

One evening our home group was discussing what it means to walk out our identity as sons/daughters of God.  We were filling in the blank in the phrase, “you know you’re a son when you…”  My husband, Jimmy said, “You know you’re a son when you go in the frig and get yourself something to eat without asking.”  That about says it all.  I am at home in the Father’s house as I partake freely of what he has there.

But what if you’re a cat.

I often hear a cat howling in the woods behind our house.  She’s a gray kitty, feral, without a home.  This morning I saw her crouched low with her tail almost dragging on the ground as she hurried across the front yard.  Tail wagging is a sign of happiness in a dog.  With cats, you can tell how secure or happy they are by the tail being straight up or down.  This cat was out of her element, not at all at ease, and got out of our yard as quickly as possible.

This afternoon, there was a different cat at our door, our outdoor cat, Lily.  Lily was also born a feral cat, but we have petted and cuddled her since she was a kitten.  Although we could not tame her well enough to come and live inside our home, she continues to stay nearby and eat at our back porch everyday. 

When she saw me, Lily hurried to greet me, her tail straight up like an arrow, a little curl at the tip.  Lily knows she belongs at our house, and her tail shows it.  Her tail says, “I am a son (or a daughter in this case) at the Spaloss’ palace.”

Now there are places/times where I feel out of place, not in my element.  If I was a cat, my tail would be dragging.  But there are other places/times where I feel loved and secure and my kitty tail would be straight and tall.  What makes me feel at home at one time, and out of place at another?  What gives me security or insecurity?  It’s like Lily showed me.  It is in knowing who I am, knowing I am a son or daughter of the Most High God. 

The King may not always be wearing his crown, but he’s always royalty.  He carries his royal presence whether into the throne room, or when he goes to the movies with his kids.  So it’s not a place or the people in that place that gives me my identity.  Instead, I am learning that I take my God given identity wherever I go.  

What does that look like?  Wells it looks like a cat with her tail straight up like an arrow.  It looks like me catching myself feeling out of place, reminding myself of who I am, and helping myself to whatever God has in his frig, his storeroom of provision for whatever inadequacy I am experiencing.  Whether I am lacking confidence, hope, security, words to speak, it’s in the frig, and I have an open invitation to take whatever I want or need.  Just read the sign taped on God’s frig: “Hey there! All who are thirsty, come to the water! Are you penniless? Come anyway—buy and eat! Come, buy your drinks, buy wine and milk.  Buy without money—everything’s free!”  (Isa. 55 The Message)

Video Scroll of Remembrance “S-HOP Post Sandy 11/1/2012”

Have you ever felt like your efforts are futile, of no consequence, so why bother anymore, like every job you do you end up doing twice?  Earlier this year my church, Shore Vineyard in S. Toms River, NJ spent many hours and many dollars refurbishing the building at 1 South Main Street, and here we are back doing it all over again.  Sounds like the people in Malachi’s day, saying: “It is futile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it.” (Mal. 3:14-15)

So what do God’s people do when the doubts come?  They worship:

“Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name. ‘On the day when I act,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.’”

In this context of second guessing their efforts and investment of time and resources, God’s people responded by getting together and talking about God, how good he is, how trustworthy, rehearsing the promises in his word.  And God   listened in on their conversations!  No wonder our hearts burn within us when we get to talking about Jesus.  He is right there listening, delighting in his kids loving on him, calling us his treasure.  He even gets a scribe angel to write up the incident and maybe place a label on its edge so we can find it when we’re with him in heaven.  I see one scroll labeled “SHORE HOUSE OF PRAYER Post Sandy 11/1/2012” where the sweet worship at an offsite location – since our regular meeting place was flooded from Hurricane Sandy only 3 days prior – left us weeping with joy. 

I cannot imagine the number of scrolls of remembrance the Father has already in glory, that we will get to read and remember when we get there.  I am hoping some are “video scrolls” so we can make some heavenly popcorn with lots of butter (no calorie counting in glory!) and replay those times in his presence that delighted, still delight his heart. 

Can you hear the Father’s Song?

Can you hear the Father’s Song?

This morning I was remembering some very wise counsel Jim and I received as we prepared for marriage nearly 40 years ago.  Jim was advised to be the initiator of love, because women typically respond to the love they receive.  That was especially helpful for me, a child of divorce who rarely felt love from my own father and watched my dad leave my mom and our family after 17 years of marriage.  More than once Jimmy would stop what he was doing when he saw the insecurity rising up in me.  Holding me firmly by the shoulders, he would look into my eyes and say, “I am not your father.  I will always love you.  I will never leave you.”

While praying this morning for our nation and the upcoming elections I realized that as blessed as I am to be loved this way by such a wonderful man, I am more blessed to be loved with abandon by an amazing Father.  Still sometimes I forget who I am and let the worries of finances and tragedies bring me back to that place of insecurity.  Then I need the Father to speak his words over me, just like Jimmy used to do:  “I am not like your father.  I will always love you.  I will never leave you.”

I think the people of our nation need to hear those words, too, even the ones that don’t yet know the Father’s love.  The cry of my heart from the time I was a little girl was just to be loved.  I used to long for the strong arms of a daddy to be wrapped around me and take the fears away.  I didn’t know that the Father’s arms would be the ones to do that for me, How transformed would people be if they could hear the Father singing over them?

I love the words of musician and composer, Matt Redman’s song, “The Father’s Song”.  How would it be if people across our nation heard the Father’s song, knew that he had sent for them, called them by name to be his own, had died so that he could wrap them in his arms and take away their fears?  How would we live, how would we love, how would our values change, how would we vote, if we heard Daddy’s voice singing with love over each of us?  Praying today for the nation, for the people to hear that song.

The Father’s Song (by Matt Redman)

I have heard so many songs
Listened to a thousand tongues
But there is one
That sounds above them all

The Father’s song
The Father’s love
You sung it over me and for eternity
It’s written on my heart 

CHORUS:
Heaven’s perfect melody
The Creator’s symphony
You are singing over me
The Father’s song
Heaven’s perfect mystery
The king of love has sent for me
And now you’re singing over me
The Father’s song 

I have heard so many songs
Listened to a thousand tongues
But there is one
That sounds above them all

I LIVE FOR IT!

                                                                

What do you do in an emergency, besides call 911?  I put it on the email Shore Vineyard Church prayer chain.  I know that even if I am lacking in faith to pray through the situation, my family will lift up my hands, believe and plead on my behalf.  And not only do I have my brothers and sisters on their knees beside me in my trial, but I find them jumping for joy alongside me when the answer comes.  This is family:  your sorrows, aches and pains become mine, and the best part, your joys and successes become my blessing as well. 

The best news of all is that God is on the prayer chain!  (I didn’t even know he got email!) The Lord spoke to me this morning about how he is right there alongside each of us, travailing in prayer over our trials, and dancing with joy over our blessings. 

I woke up a few times last night and heard this song by Jon Thurlow running through my mind:  “My merciful, faithful high priest, he lives, he lives to make intercession for me”.  Thurlow was obviously taking his inspiration from Hebrews 7: 25: “Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” 

As I ran this morning I thought about the phrase we so often use, “I live for it”, as in “I live for pizza!” or “I live to quilt!”, or whatever gets your juices running.  But here, God was saying, “I live to pray for you, Taffy!  I live for it!”

I had to ask him, “Why, God? Why would you live to intercede for me?”  I felt he answered me:  “Because I have such an investment in you.  Because you will imitate me and live to intercede for others.”

The Father is speaking those words over you today, too.  “I live to pray for you! Why?  Because I am confidently making an investment in you, that you will represent me and my heart to the ones I love, the peoples of the world, of your state, your town, your family.”

Yes, Lord!  I want to be like you;

To hear your heart,

To pray your prayers,

To speak your thoughts.

Yes, Lord! I want to be like you.

Message Quilts: Quilts that Speak

We are learning at Shore Vineyard Church, South Toms River, NJ, about love and honor, the concept of seeing people as God sees them and recognizing their potential to be amazing when God finishes his transformation in them.  I had the opportunity at church one day to see that sort of honor in progress right before my eyes.

A little girl started climbing on the edge of the stairs by the railing where she could fall and get hurt.  Her mother might have yelled, “Get down before you hurt yourself!”  Instead she said to the girl, “Come off the stairs.  You are not acting like yourself.  That’s not who you are, climbing where you know you’re not supposed to be.”  The mother took her daughter by the hand and called her back to her identity.

That’s how God calls us back when we go astray, too.  If we lie, he doesn’t call us liars.  He reminds us who the “father of lies” is, and who our Father is.  “That’s not who you are, little one”, he says.  “You’re my child.”  Then we have the opportunity to say, “You’re right, Daddy.  Forgive me.  I forgot for a moment who I am.” And that counts for however we stray from who God made us to be, whether it’s a lapse back into addiction, lying, unbelief, anger, bitterness, pornography, etc.   

We learn from the Father how to call back to identity people inside and outside of the Kingdom.  Jesus called the dishonest tax collector, Zaccheus down from the tree and told him he was going to Zaccheus’ house for lunch that day.  “Me?” Zaccheus must have thought.  “He wants to hang out with me?” Jesus identified Zaccheus as a man who wanted intimacy with God, and a man whose intimacy God also wanted.  There was no more room for thievery in Zaccheus, the God lover.  Right away Zaccheus promised to pay back four times what he had stolen from the people through unjust tax collection. 

In keeping with the call to love and honor, I invite you in the Ocean County, NJ area to join me in making “quilts that speak”.  Instead of making quilts that are just your favorite colors or pictures, we are asking some different questions.  How can I prophesy over my grandson, daughter, mother, with this quilt?  What is it that God wants to say about this person?

Does God see my grandson as a knight in his Kingdom?  Then I will put knights in shining armor in his quilt.  Does God see my daughter as a princess, daughter of the King of Kings?  Then I will use fabrics with crowns and tiaras.  It doesn’t matter if my grandson is not acting like a knight at the moment, not particularly chivalrous or bold.  If I ask God what he sees in him, and God says “knight”, then I will agree with God and call forth a knight.  If my daughter is going through the rebellious teenage years, but God says “princess”, there will be crowns and jewels befitting the princess she is called to be.

Quilting class currently meets on Tuesday evenings, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at my home in Forked River, NJ.  If you are interested in learning to make “quilts that speak”, please contact me for more information.