A Day In the Neighborhood and the World





Sunday morning my alarm clock went off. It was my prayer team’s day to do prayer ministry. I hadn’t felt well in the night and was still feeling sick. I hit the sleep button on the clock and wrestled with the idea of getting up and going or staying home and resting. The alarm went again. I hit the sleep button again.

I thought about how a couple that is on my prayer team said they may not be there because they are hosting a family from Ethiopia at their home for the weekend. They host a lot of families that are traveling from Africa. The wife, a quiet, gentle, God-loving woman who has been given a mission door into the heart of Africa and her husband, a retired pediatrician, reach out in ways no one would assume if you saw them. My Mom is on the prayer team too, and she was vacationing in Florida so she wouldn’t be there, but she had made efforts for a substitute in her place. I lay there thinking there may not be anyone to pray. Substitutes don’t always make it in. The alarm went off again. I hit sleep. This time I thought, “I can pray from bed.” So, I did.

As I lay there praying, the guilt of not being at church and the possibility of no one being there to do prayer ministry, gnawed at me. This time, when the alarm sounded I got up. I walked down the hall at church to the prayer room, having already missed one of the services, and I saw my doctor friend. He was standing in the door and razzed me for coming in half-way through. I jokingly told him, “I needed a doctor!” I was surprised to see him and thought he must have chosen to hold to the commitment of prayer while his wife cared for their visitors elsewhere.

He assured me that they had enough people that came to do prayer ministry and that I would not have to stay. But, he said, his wife was at the church and she told him that she wanted me to meet the family and that if he saw me, to have me look for them. I was about to go and look and one of the other prayer people came in. She asked where I had been and I shared I hadn’t felt well, but that I felt worse for not coming. She instantly prayed for me to be well and so too, came the Doctor friend praying for me and the health of my family. I did begin to feel a bit better. He told me to hurry and find his wife and there was only five minutes left for me to do so before the next service started.

I did find them. They were here from Ethiopia. Their little girls were dressed in bright, colorful dresses with puffed out ruffled skirts and beautifully braided hair. Their shoes looked like new and were bright white running shoes with neon colored stripes on them. Their ankle socks were just as white against their beautiful brown skin. They were like a bouquet of flowers. The tiniest one held up a leaf on a popsicle stick that she had colored in Sunday school. Her leaf was the perfect accompaniment to her floral self. They were darling. Their Mom was beautiful and she greeted me with a kind and polite smile as she looked to her host for direction in the meeting. There was a bit of nervousness in her manner, too. Her husband greeted me also with politeness and my friend insisted I continue to walk with them and meet their sons. They were tall, young men that appeared years older than their actual age. Teenagers leaning against the wall like any other teenager.

My friend began to tell me quickly in just a few sentences that the wife’s brother had just been placed in prison the day before. He and 51 other people were imprisoned by another tribe because some of them had been translating the Bible. I then recognized the look on her face. What I had thought was nervousness in meeting me was the underlying concern for her brother and the others. This was foremost on her heart. She had politely brought a smile up to her face when she met me, but her heart was carrying a far greater concern. Then my friend told me that her husband, who is a pastor in Ethiopia, had been working under a church denomination and had some protection under that, but in his time in America, he learned that the denomination was not holding to the Word of God as they do in Africa. He had just made the decision to hold to God’s Word and left the protection of a people who did not believe as he did. I saw in him the grief he carried for the falling away that he had been witness to. He was mourning over this loss. And he stood out as one who would not bow down as all the others would and had. His height emphasized that sense to my heart and I also saw the reality of his concern for now being unprotected by people and title and what he was about to return to with so many now in prison. He was standing in the righteousness of Christ and His Word at whatever cost it may be to him.

In the brief moments of the information given to me and the sudden light into their heartache, I began to pray out loud for them. It was all I could do. I was helpless. I closed my eyes and held my hands out towards them. I don’t even remember what all I prayed except for God’s help, hand, peace, freedom and covering. I finished praying and opened my eyes. They stood there with their eyes still shut. She stood still and then opened her eyes. She had tears. I looked to him and he left an impression on me that I will live with for the rest of my life.

He stood tall but weak beneath the most pure and beautiful humility I have ever seen on a man. He stood with his arms held out and his hands opened up to receive any of what God could give to him in his hour of sheer vulnerability and the unknown ahead for him. He lingered there in prayer and the presence of God. He had peace on his face with eyes closed and his face tipped up toward the LORD. He stood as humble and bravely as a Daniel before the LORD in his dedication and love for all He is to him. His love for his Savior was greater than any love he had for himself. I saw a man, not knowing what will be, but knowing what is true. His family around him: sons who would see his bravery, daughters who would see his gentle strength and a wife that would be led through this hardship by a man who serves the LORD with all of himself.

That day in my own neighborhood, where I almost let a little bit of sickness keep me in bed, was a day that had more in God’s plan than I could have ever imagined could be. I prayed one prayer that day at church. But what I received was a lasting impression on my heart for people who are enduring persecution for the Word of God. My heart was broken that day, broken from out of its calloused, media infused reports to face ones, whose eyes I got to look into in their hour of pain for the real persecution in their lives that they would be flying back to that afternoon. While people, families, unaware and happily moving past us from Sunday school to church, a pancake breakfast and onto whatever they had planned that afternoon before the snow fell. Me, I had to work and hold a house open for people who were shopping for a new home. It all was trivial now.

 The depth of life is life itself in the One Who created us all. To Him be honor and praise.

Revelation 7:11-13  ESV  11And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, 12saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

13Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

 

On Guard! ~ Love Languages

A fight is stirring up in me. I have been noticing the hurts in people, but didn’t really know what was going on. Now I see better a variety of ways of what’s happening and its source. I'm seeing it in people's love languages, their giftings/talents and their faith struggles. There’s an enemy to trounce. This will be a three-part series.  So, here’s a sword, People. (Sounds of clattering swords being tossed before you) and here are your coverings. (Not exactly flattering, but very protective gear)

Here we go:

Love Languages.  I wrote a bit on this before, but this is going beyond that.

You may have read the book “The Five Love Languages” by Gary Chapman, Ph. D.  It has excellent information that was sectioned into five ways that people receive love. It helps you pin-point their hot button and your own to understand how best to love another. There is a flip side, I have found too, and that’s what Satan/the enemy has been using. Here are the love language categories and you can see where you may fit and those you love may fit.

Physical Touch

Words of Affirmation

Quality Time

Gifts

Acts of Service

When you recognize what it is that means the most to you out of these, you can see that when you receive love in that way it does more for you than the other ways do.  But, here’s where I am seeing the flip side. I am seeing what Satan uses to hurt people to far greater ways than we have recognized for one another. Satan knows how you are loved best and so that is the very thing he wants to rob and destroy to cause the greatest amount of pain. Sometimes the one inflicting that pain isn’t even aware of it, but is more an act through the enemy. When we know the source of the evil intent beyond the person in flesh and blood, because the Word says that our battle isn’t against flesh and blood, it is easier to not be as upset with the person, but know its source. It even makes you better able to forgive that person, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Ephesians 6:11-12   11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

With every precious way of the most meaningful way of love for each individual also comes their tender achilles. To the one who cherishes physical touch thrives with snuggles, pats, handshakes and may tend to sit extra close to a person. When that touch is denied, or worse, done in a harmful way, it cuts so much deeper. The wound hurts more than anything else because it is a gesture that is the opposite of the language of love they need in a loving physical touch. It’s an abandoning and an emotional pain at the heart-level that is much deeper than bruises and when it comes with bruises, I can’t imagine the pain. (If anyone is in an abusive environment one must get out of it and seek professional help and guidance.) Understanding the additional emotional pain in physical abuse if their love language was physical touch, is very important to be aware of.

Words of affirmation help one flourish in that love and it establishes them. All love languages, when received in each of their way, establishes the person in love. Language is powerful and each of these five is considered a language of sorts. The one who needs language itself as its love language already has a double dose of emphasis on the importance of communication. Negative words, yelling, degrading, or not speaking (the silent treatment) crushes the spirit of the one whose love language is words of affirmation. It is a stunting of growth and in some cases can be death to their spirit and hope. Words of encouragement are like a breath of life to them.

A quality time person is devastated by quick hellos and good-byes. They are desperate for companionship and deep connection and feel abandonment even though someone may love them dearly but is “busy.” The person not getting the quality time interprets being unloved. It really isn’t about them, it is often truly, just busy people, but when we recognize this we can make better strides to really be there for the person who truly needs quality time. Scheduling it and making a routine of it can help children and adults who need quality time. They know they are valued and counted and chosen as an important part to your life.

People who love to give gifts also like to receive them. I have a mother-in-law who loves to send cards. She talks about the cards she sends to people and how she wishes they would send one back because she likes to see the stamps etc. I’m terrible about sending cards and I have to very deliberately and intentionally send them. When I recognize her love language as gifts, it also involves her cards. Neglecting to do the same for her hurts her much more deeply than just a missing card. It is a symbol of love to her. I see her heaviness at Christmas time when she puts up the few cards that she has received and mentioned the names of all the people she sent them to. It’s love to her and by our not noticing or unseeing eyes, Satan tromps around and hurts her in her heart’s interpretation for love.

This one is pretty common, Acts of Service. If you are having a harder time identifying someone’s gifts, it may be Acts of Service. These people are usually quiet and not very demanding, but are always there to help. They may be nurses or in the health field, or volunteer to bring meals or host baby showers or fix your car or stop at the store for you. When you aren’t there to help them when they need it, because they always are the ones serving they hardly ever ask for help, it hurts. When they reach the point to ask someone else for help, they really need help when they ask! When they aren’t helped it is extremely painful and disheartening. Being let down feels like being unloved. It’s because they have already gone the extra depth of hurting because the "helper" has had to ask for help and then to not get the help REALLY hurts.

Satan has had a heyday with this stuff. The enemy silently slithers and goes for the achilles.

Genesis 3:14-15 ESV  14 The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel."

Getting sick enough of all these depths of hurting in the hearts of every dear person and being aware now, has given me a drive to be proactive against it; to be defensive and offensive.

On Guard!

Sometimes it takes something to rile us up into action and boldness. I am reminded of this kind of attitude from an event that happened a while ago.

I received a phone call that our daughter had been in a bad car accident on her way to church. We lived close by and drove quickly to the accident site. The car was rolled over and smashed against a pole. I jumped out of our car before it had fully stopped and ran to the ambulance that was parked in the road with its lights flashing. I grabbed hold of the silver latch of the door of the ambulance and burst inside of it. No knocking, just threw open the door and stepped up in. I saw my daughter on a board with neck brace, her dress strewn across her and her nylons torn. I knelt down immediately by her, wedging in by the Emergency attendant and placed my hands on my daughter and started praying. My daughter later told me that I came in there like I owned the place. I hadn’t thought about it, I just did it. That’s the boldness, that’s the fire of His Spirit, that’s the surge that says, “No, the enemy doesn’t get this!”

 Because…God has given us authority.

 Luke 10:19  Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.

We can do better! We can stop this junk because Satan has been sneaking around going at this from the backdoor and we have seen him. We can pray to be more aware of how to love and how we hurt. We need to love in all manner of ways. We have been given the position to bruise the serpent’s head, and authority to tread on the power of the enemy. We can love better and we can pray more!

In the power of forgiveness, I have learned that that is the beginning of healing and new life. The boldest example is in Christ’s forgiveness of us and our new life that comes.  You may not feel the people who hurt you deserve forgiveness, but neither did we when Christ forgave us. He did it out of love. A lot of times, the people that hurt us don’t even know that they needed forgiveness or caused such hurt. It isn’t that you need to go to them and say, “I forgive you,” but if you forgive them in your prayers and ask God to heal you in those wounds, He gives us that healing. You let go of bitterness and your right to judge them and put it back to God’s right. What God does in healing is really miraculous. From there, you are enabled to be more sensitive to the way you love others and the victory of love from God becomes the victory you have authority with and can stomp the enemy. There is healing to be had and love to be unleashed and in love we can all move from strength to strength.

Psalm 84:7 ESV  They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.