Tag Archives: healing

Prayer Ministry

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renewal pic tovel!Over a dozen years ago I began my own deliberate journey of inner healing. At the time I wouldn’t have named it this, as I really could not foresee what or who I might be going forward. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

But life at the time was falling apart around me. I was stuck and needed help, and so began a six-month commitment of prayer ministry. That six months turned into about six years of deliberate healing – a journey I would forever more be grateful.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I would one day be blessed to stand alongside others in specific inner journey’s. That’s where I am today and have been for some years now.

Trained in a number of methodologies the basic premise and work is simply coming alongside another as we together seek the Lord’s wisdom and clarity and healing.

Where there have been lies we break them. Where there are strongholds from years gone by we say ‘No More!’ And where chains of compromise have become thick and heavy we simply declare them smashed.

All of this is done in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, for after all it is only because of his work on the cross by which we claim any freedom whatsoever. In and of ourselves we are stuck. But in God, everything opens up. Everything becomes fresh and new.

We simply are new creatures in Christ. Free to shine. Equipped unto strengths. Friends of God.

Today we do this work one-on-one in the Vancouver area in addition to this being the foundation of inner healing and deliverance that we take to the nations.

In agreement and in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ we are breaking strongholds, restoring emotional strengths, and bringing deep spiritual refreshment everywhere we go.

“And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
    you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
    the restorer of streets to dwell in.” Isaiah 58:12

The Last Say

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new perspectiveTrue living requires heart, will, and risk.

Yet looking closely reveals this is not as easy as it looks, and that we do not have heart, will, or risk for a great many things.

And this is exactly the point.

It would mean nothing if we had heart, will, and risk, for everything.

Passion would spread too thin, and there would simply be nothing special in the ‘everything’ we would be about.

But take down the options, restrict the expressions, put forth some limitations and constraints, require a few hoops, and all of a sudden the ones who make it through stand out and catch our attention.

Nothing comes easy. For easy makes everything commonplace. Easy diminishes our passion, and counteracts our heart.

Heart is proven through the fire, through the difficulties and through much pain; we do not yet know the depth of heart when all is easy.

It is the same with will and with risk.

Both need some tension. Both require push-back.

Without tension or push-back our internal muscles are weak and under-developed.

And we never mature. Our resilience is stunted, our stamina is crippled, and what heart we did have is swallowed up in disillusionment.

The recipe, therefore, for success:

May you have one part heart and five parts difficulty. For your heart will grow larger in the face of trouble. And a heart multiplied results in much.

May you have one part will and ten parts tension. For as your will is challenged, it find its strength, and once having faced the scariest of things, it fears no more.

May you have one part risk and twenty parts push-back. For risk is proven in the fire, purified in the fire, and honed in the fire.

For, without the fire, the sword is dull.

Without challenge, strength atrophies.

Without tension, the heart grows dim.

Therefore, look closely at the difficulty, examine the fire, detail the push-back, and you will begin to see your purpose.

For with your strengths shining larger than the difficulties, your heart speaking clearer than the conflicts, and with your will putting forth action regardless of push-back…

Don’t let the hard stuff have the last say.

Be Sad

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balance and perspectiveLast week I was freaking out. This week, I am pretty relaxed and expectant.

The difference? Well let me tell you.

First off, NOTHING has changed about anything and yet everything has changed.

It’s been a few things that have created the shift:

  • First – I cried myself to sleep the other night. I was so incredibly discouraged about one part of my life that sobbing was the only decent course of action.
  • Secondly – I expressed in one of my relationships, “I am so angry and I still haven’t forgiven you for that!”
  • Third – I called on friends to pray for me. ‘Please Pray for me!’
  • Fourth – I gathered with others to just sit before the Lord, allowing the decompression of tears and strain to drain away into sweet peace.
  • Fifth – I told God off. “I’m not okay with this particular dynamic anymore!”
  • Sixth – I gave thanks. “Thank-you God for… ” a long list of thanks.

And come to think of it, these are my normal repertoire of action when I am overwhelmed and coming under great amounts of stress.

It all comes down to brutal honesty. Honesty that must start in our own hearts and minds, honesty that has nothing to hide and everything to gain (or not).

Honesty that simply lays it all out there, the good the bad and the ugly.

We have to be able to see the ugly if we are to move forward in life.

Not focus on it per se, but simply yet truly see the ugly and name it for what it is.

“That is not okay”

“This should have never happened”

“What a boatload of $%&#@ and I am so very sorry that happened to you.”

In this we are kept real. Passion is kept alive. Sorrows are washed away in healthy grieving. And fresh winds blow through our hearts and minds.

Unless we allow the full range of emotions we become critical and narrow minded, pinched and caustic.

Been there, done that; have you?

Grief unexpressed causes all sorts of damage to ourselves and to others.

We simply must allow ourselves to be sad.

We must speak our truth, frankly and honestly.

What part of your life deserves an, “ITS NOT OKAY!”

When we’ve gone to the core of our beings and declared all this (a most precious gift to ourselves), we will find that the stuff around us, our circumstance and present realities step back from the limelight; they just don’t matter so much anymore.

Most of all, we find God in the mix of everything. Our eyes are blessed to see glory and honor and goodness and light and life. Even in the midst of the yuck.

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.” Luke 6:21b

Strength is not about always being happy. And its not about sugar-coating anything, pretending this and that is okay when it is not. Strength comes when we’ve faced ‘the stuff’ head on within our own emotions.

Strength is about honesty.

Where might you express the truth a little more honestly today?

Make You Feel My Love

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Love that TransformsI’ve been taken by Sam Kelly’s rendition of Make You Feel My Love. Watching closely we see the impact of his heart and words on the judges and those in the audience.

It is a beautiful thing to witness how his sincere rendition of this song cuts through the veneers and polish of our lives (could you feel it too?), to the heart of our matters.

Here are the lyrics:

“When the rain
Is blowing in your face
And the whole world
Is on your case
I could offer you
A warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows
And the stars appear
And there is no – one there
To dry your tears
I could hold you
For a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you
Haven’t made
Your mind up yet
But I would never
Do you wrong
I’ve known it
From the moment
That we met
No doubt in my mind
Where you belong

I’d go hungry
I’d go black and blue
I’d go crawling
Down the avenue
Know there’s nothing
That I wouldn’t do
To make you feel my love

I could make you happy
Make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn’t do
Go to the ends
Of the Earth for you
To make you feel my love, To make you feel my love”

This – in a nutshell – is the heart of God for every single one of us.

It’s for you and me.

The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is right here, embodied in this song, and in the manner of depth and heart by which this young man who sings it.

“For God so loved the world”

Listen Again

And let it soak in,

God’s love song to you

A Rock and a Hard Place

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Difficulty Joy TrustBetween a rock and a hard spot.

I’m thinking it’s the best place to be.

I’m sitting on Mayne Island at our family home. The sun is shining, the house is still quiet, I’ve got my cup of tea and my little computer, my Bible and journal with a pen in hand and all is well and fine with the world.

It’s that moment in time, that day or hour or week, the now, where everything stops for a touch of time.

The needs and the demands and the opportunities are all on hold, standing back.

Into this space I received an email this morning.

In it a reminder that there are ten Ugandan churches eagerly waiting for me to come back their way once more (I’ll add those to the other nine invitations from five different countries).

It also contained a plea to help fix a difficulty (I’ll add it to the other twenty-plus pleas for help).

All of which are soon-as-possible please.

Now I get this ASAP place, I’ve a few as-soon-as-possible things laid out before God myself.

And in my younger years I was the ultimate as-soon-as-possible person. In fact, if you asked me when I wanted something done, I would reply, “Yesterday please.”

A mover and a shaker I’ve always been about speed and efficiency and action.

Thank the good Lord above, I’ve actually been cured of much of this.

(I can hear a few of you laughing)

The thing is, I’ve found that between a rock and a hard place is that space where we don’t have to fix a thing.

Between a rock and a hard place can have us thrashing and rushing and solving,

Or it can be that warm (in coastal BC it would be relished as the one warm place), and cozy and tucked away out of the wind, kind of place,

Where nothing has to be fixed and nothing has be solved.

Where the why’s and the how’s are held in open hands, but released at the same time.

We don’t have to have all the answers, and we don’t have to see our way clear of the problem at this time.

Deep into my bones this settled back about fifteen years ago. It was during a particularly rough patch of life. We had little to no food, I had five young children and I had personally gone down to eating one small bit of food a day so that my kids could eat.

This difficulty lasted in varying degrees for more than a years time. I got very used to our fridge being empty. If a friend would happen by and see into our fridge they were shocked… at what I had become very used to.

I tell this story because somewhere during that time I was cured of needing to have things fixed; of rushing to make things better.

(And I’ve never had to have my fridge or cupboards full ever since)

It settled deep into my psyche that despite the difficulty we were okay.

Was it a difficult time, for sure. Did we survive, yes. Was the way out of that time what I thought it would be, no.

I learned to reconcile the rock and the hard place.

Today, I see others rock-and-hard-places, and I am deeply glad for them. Delighted in an odd way, because I know the growth and faith and the many, many good things that will come out of that place.

Maturity is not something to be taken lightly. Spiritually, emotionally, psychologically we all need growth and stamina and guts, and there is nothing like the hard spots of life to grow these things.

Once we’ve traversed our own rock-and-hard-places, nothing is scary anymore.

Nothing.

And on top of all this, the rock and hard place is where God lives.

And it is where we can settle; cozy up, entering into ‘now’ like never before.

That place where pleas and opportunities and questions abound, but not a one of them must be answered at this time.

Between the rock and the hard place is the hardest place to be and the best place to be.

I wouldn’t rob anyone of the opportunity to have their own.

Capturing God’s Heart – Servants – Volume 9

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About 700 years before Jesus was born, an amazing prophet named Isaiah lived in Israel. God gave Isaiah many prophecies about Jesus.

One of the titles for Jesus appears in Isaiah 42. God said, “Look at my servant – He is my chosen one.” (42:1)

So Jesus is the “chosen servant”. We know Jesus is God, yet the Father chose him to be a servant. What can be more amazing? If God is willing to serve so should we.

It is an honor to be a servant alongside Jesus.

Continue reading →

Out of my Heart

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True HeartsI’m working out of my head lately. If you frequent my blog posts you have most likely noticed. And while our heads are important, they are not very moving.

Words without heart, without emotion, fall pretty flat. Even I am not satisfied with some of my posts these last weeks.

The best posts rather are those full of heart and soul. Brimming with raw authenticity these are the ones most loved and commented on; they are the ones that move us.

And I’ve a little secret to share. The only way for me to write from that place is to be in touch with sorrow and sadness.

When I am upbeat and in task mode, there is nothing inspiring to write.

The best writing comes out of my personal depths of difficulty and pain. Not that everything has to be going bad in order to get a good post, but I must be in touch with all that is not right and good.

‘In touch’ being the operative word.

To feel the depths of sadness sets the stage to feel the depths of delight and joy.

Without the stretch the one way, we cannot stretch the other way.

And safety in the middle, that controlled space where nothing is too bad or (god-forbid) too good, results in nothing. We simply are not moved.

We are working out of our heads.

Creativity rather, that place of an artist, comes from that core depth deep inside us. From the guts of our existence and experiences, here is where we find gold.

It is interesting that creativity is what saves us. Studies have shown that when we engage our creativity, regardless of what that might be, we no longer have need for addictions or false happiness of any sort.

Creativity draws from us something by which we are saved.

Its that depth of knowing, of raw reflection and naked frankness by which we come to enjoy life.

For art requires vulnerability and risk and that place where we put ourselves out there.

So in this head space, I’m working to connect with my heart. To feel the vulnerabilities, to name the dichotomies, to honestly see the difficulties, to cry aloud all of which terrifies me…

To enter into grace.

It is the very thing we shrink from the most,

Becoming the very thing which saves us.

A Gift

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P1270641 compressedBaby Dorian has graced us with his presence. Such an incredibly sweet thing to welcome a little one into the world.

It has been a full couple of days.

Last week on the first of two long plane rides home from Uganda, I spent a bit of time decompressing, grieving over a few things, shedding a few worthwhile tears, and of course one of those things to grieve still more was the loss of my granddaughter Anna not quite a year ago.

I had just been praying miracles of heart and soul and body over many individuals in Uganda, and was so so sad that I had not been able to pray Anna back to life last May of 2011.

Looking ahead to increasing signs and wonders by God’s power yet through my own hands, I was simply hear-sick that these gifts were not there for her.

It has been a poison creeping into my heart.

We have all known that Dorian was arriving. Making preparations in many ways, my home has happily burgeoned to fit a bassinet and baby clothes and a bouncy-roo-thing. With teething ring and facecloths and baby dishes all in the cupboard…

All signs of life arriving. While still grappling with a life lost.

I am so glad for God and life alongside the Spirit.

(and that is an understatement)

Just last Saturday I was spending some time before the Lord, and taking this poison of regret in my heart to Jesus I was healed.

It is the same healing we are bringing to many in Uganda. The same healing that in Restoration Prayer many find relief.

With God’s hand on my heart the poison was drawn. Drained away by the power of our living God. Nothing can mimic this, there is no substitute.

All in perfect time

This past week I’ve been free and clear of regret and excess sorrow. With things set straight by my God, my heart received the last freedoms it needed to fully welcome Dorian.

All in perfect time

Making it into the delivery room just moments after he’d arrived, nestled on his Mamma’s belly and with the umbilical cord still attached he has been free to arrive simply as Dorian.

And with a few tears shared with my daughter (it is impossible to welcome one baby without remembering the last baby lost), we are heading forward into the future.

Dorian is a Greek name and it means ‘Gift’

Exactly what we all needed.

All in perfect time.

Capturing God’s Heart – Freedom – Volume 6

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Today I share what I have found to be a simple yet profound process of bringing the freedom of the Lord into very specific areas of our lives.

Receiving Jesus Christ as Savior is the first step towards this freedom. And then as we continue to walk with Him we can begin to bring His freedom into very specific areas of our life, increasing His light within our own hearts and lives, experiencing freedom and the lightness of the Lord in increasing measure.

Freedom in any area of life comes about through a process before the Lord.

Continue reading →

Capturing God’s Heart – Compassion – Volume 4

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God has been bringing Compassion to mind. I’ve not always been a compassionate person myself. Years back I was rather intolerant of people. Yet the Lord is faithful to do a work in our hearts and minds. It is the Lord’s grace that teaches us compassion. Let’s see what the Bible has to say about this.

For starters, the Bible is pretty clear that the only way we come to know God is because of his compassion extended to us. We find a picture of the Father’s compassionate heart in Hosea,

“I led them with cords of kindness, with bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws and I bent down to them and fed them.” Hosea 11:4

Continue reading →

Capturing God’s Heart – Anointed – Volume 1

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Volume One:  Anointed

The Holy Spirit has been bringing to my heart and mind thoughts of our authority in God, about being anointed and the mark of God upon our lives; about the oil of His Spirit.

“Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed” Psalm 20:6

Now we all know, that oil softens the skin. It makes sore muscles relax, gives shine to our hair and heals parched, cracked skin.

Our physical bodies are soothed and comforted and healed by oil.  It is the same for our spirit.

Oil is the mark of God’s grace, where hard heart places are made soft.

God’s oil is the mark put upon his servants, those marked out for his service.

“Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of our Lord” James 5:14

Oil in God’s kingdom is a sign of consecration, of being set-apart and reserved for a particular work.

“…and shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests” Exodus 28:41

For those set apart and reserved there is a specific role to play and a job to do.

“Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him… and the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward” 1 Samuel 16:13

Even Jesus was anointed. Mary carried that privilege. Imagine the authority she carried in order to anoint the Son of God.

“It was Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment” John 11:2

Anointing is done through the authority given us by God, whereby we then pass that authority to others.

Authority and anointing is for blessing and releasing, for empowering and healing.

Anointing marks us for God.

“But the anointing that you received from him abides in you” 1 John 2:27

Anointing then releases us to heal. Consider this call to heal and to lead found in Isaiah.

“For a man will take hold of his brother in the house of his father, saying: ‘You have a cloak; you shall be our leader, and this heap of ruins shall be under your rule”; in that day he will speak out, saying: ‘I will not be a healer, in my house there is neither bread nor cloak; you shall not make me the leader of the people.” Isaiah 3:6-7

It is interesting to note that healing and leading go hand in hand. There is not one without the other in the Kingdom of God.

But in order to heal, we must first be healed. Part of our ministry before God and before those we serve, is to first make ourselves available for God’s healing in our own lives.

As leaders, as healers, as anointed, we must first know our own deep need of the Lord.

“O Lord my God, I cried to you for help and you healed me.” Psalm 30:2

And we must know our sin.

“As for me, I said, ‘O Lord be gracious to me; heal me, for I have sinned against you.”  Psalm 41:4

It is God’s favour that reveals to us our sin. How many times does it say in his word that God hardened hearts and blinded understanding so that sin could not be perceived and hearts could not turn to him?

Be glad, very glad for the understanding and deep repentance of your sin. It is a gift from God. Once we know our sin, compassion is close at hand.

“And he (Jesus) had compassion on them and healed their sick.” Matthew 14:14

Compassion is the emotional labour necessary to heal.

Whether we are healing hearts or bodies, healing does not happen without emotional labour.

It takes great inner energy to move towards others, to weep as they weep, to feel their pain in identification with them – but this is the only way we heal.

It was said of Jesus that he was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.

“He was… a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Isaiah 53:3

And it is through the compassion of the Father towards us that Jesus even came to earth. It was the compassion of the Father that clothed Adam and Eve when they had sinned and were naked and ashamed.

“And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21

Think about it, in one mighty act of compassion and in the midst of profound disappointment, God the maker of life, killed so that Adam and Eve might be clothed.

Jesus Christ carried on this work of compassion, and we have opportunity to do the same.

It begins with ourselves. Our first job is to view ourselves with God’s compassion. We then receive his compassion unto ourselves, letting all of the Lord sink deeply into the fibres of our being.

“For it is by grace that we have been saved.” Ephesians 2:8

Once we know God’s grace (and not before), we can give it out to others.

We therefore engage the emotional labour to know our own sin and our own need of God.

We let down our defences in order to receive his compassion and grace.

In this, the touch of God, we are all transformed.

We are healed.

This then, is our role as leaders in the Kingdom of God.

Priests, taking grace from God the Father, bearing it in ourselves, giving it out to others.

Reading again in Isaiah 3, we find what happens when we refuse the role of leader and healer.

“For Jerusalem has stumbled and Judah has fallen, because their speech and their deeds are against the Lord, defying his glorious presence.” Isaiah 3:8

When we do not receive God’s compassion and his grace we defy his glorious presence.

And from there, things go from bad to worse… “stumbling, falling, speech and deeds against the Lord.

“This heap of ruins shall be under your rule.” Isaiah 3:6

Not very glamorous, and not very encouraging, to have a heap of ruins under our rule. In our own strength we are simply overwhelmed by the needs and destruction all around us in the hearts and lives of people.

We are all human, and humanity is messy.

Yet as participants in the Kingdom of God we are equipped to make a difference in the mess of humanity. Not because of who we are, but because of who God is.

God is big enough for all the messy places of our lives and those we serve.

As summary, we find God big enough, as we:

1. Accept God’s anointing and call

2. Give ourselves over to the work asked of us

3. Understand that leading means healing

4. Know our own need before God

5. Allow God’s compassion and grace into our own life

6. Allow God to clothe us with himself

A prayer to speak aloud today:

“Today I come to you God in the name and blood of my Living Lord Jesus Christ. I know that you have called me, and I thank-you. I commit this day to the your work in me and through me to others. I acknowledge that as you have called me to lead you have called me to heal. In myself, I am ill-equipped for this. I cannot heal. But you can.

Therefore today, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I take unto myself your healing power. That from the inside out I may know your grace and compassion deep within myself. I give to you my self-trying, and I receive into myself your work of forgiveness and salvation as the gift that it is.

Teach me in the way of compassion both towards myself and others. I clothe myself in your grace and love. All this I declare this day in the name and blood of my living Lord Jesus Christ. With all glory and honour to you Father. Amen”

I leave you with a benediction from God’s heart to yours: READ Isaiah 42:5-9