From April 30

A friend texted me about fear this morning as she listened to a Piper sermon ...

"Fear does battle with our faith. The two cannot co-exist. When we fear, we submit to the kingdom of this world. When we lift our eyes up in faith, we rise above it."

I texted back...

Perfect love casts out all fear, and when we submit to His perfect love - FULLY abandoned to whatever He brings and allows into our lives - then we will overcome fear. The question is how? I keep saying 'yes' ... and 'yes' again... yet I am still waiting...

So all morning as I consume TV as if I am eating snickerdoodles ... I asked myself - what am I so afraid of? What am I so afraid of that I watched TV until 2 am last night? - unable to fall asleep while my husband is away. What is causing me to rush to my TV alter today to bow down?

I'm not quite sure on all the particulars ... but I think I'm afraid of the silence itself.

rethinking prophecies

Its a horrible rainy day here in Florida, it's a rare occurrence to have no sun during the day. This followed a wretched night's sleep that had me tossing and turning, and I truly believe that last night my cat was a messenger of Satan waking me up each time I was about to fall back to sleep. This particular night I had restless leg syndrome again ... a crazy legged form of insomnia that I have had to deal with for the past 9 years - gosh I can't believe its been that long. I've learned that food plays a huge part in it ... so I avoid caffeine, sugar, and wheat along with most grains except rice really. Yesterday though, I was completely good and ate none of those things ... so the restless leg syndrome could not have been caused by food. And so as I tossed and turned in my sleep I thought all of that through and figured this - along with my stupid cat - was a demonic attack. I spoke the name of Jesus out loud in my half awake stupor... and instantly my legs relaxed and I could sleep for a while. The hits just kept coming though in other ways... crazy dreams, more cat craziness, and even my husband was having weird dreams.

I thought about all of this when I finally woke up in the morning ... and remembered back to some prophetic moments regarding my restless leg syndrome... they are from a few years ago... the first of which came along the same time that God began His silence... so I went back to read the blog posts that I had written. 

A friend had told me about a dream she had had about me and then the Lord tied the dream to my restless leg syndrome as I was up praying about it ...

You had just come back from a prophecy conference or something like that and you were so excited - glowing and beautiful. And you were especially excited about this new way of praying that you had learned. You wanted to show me, so you laid down on the floor and twisted your legs into a crazy but beautiful position. And it was clear that the strength in prayer came from your legs and this crazy beautiful position could not be achieved by human means. 

So in the rest of the blog post - as I was reflecting on this connection - the Lord said that my RLS was for my 'training'. Honestly, that still confuses me.... hold on ... I just had an aha moment... I always thought it was for some kind of spiritual training ... now I have just realized that it's for my problems with food. My legs are teaching me- what to eat and not. They make me pay the price when I am eating something that is simply NOT ok for my body - sucky but true. I'm not entirely sure the 'why' of it all -just what is happening. Later that year I had a friend text me 2 related prophecies about me at the Table of the Lamb in heaven ... I still don't fully understand each of them but here is the gist of the first : I was sitting there with my mouth missing unable to eat and I was totally confused ... and at the end the Lord yelled out "I want your appetite!" This came just a day after I had heard the Lord speak to me "I want you hungry." About a month later she texted again with part 2 of the vision ... this time I was ushered to the table as Mephibosheth was ushered to David's table. He was Saul's crippled grandson. And as just the Lord and I sat there, my mouth was returned and I was radiant and at peace. I had a doubled edged sword at my right hand and a bowl of water at my left. This second prophecy came just after I had written a post signifying that the fast I had been on for Lent was over ... so now I'm wondering just how significant that fast may have been ... and just how wrong my conclusions were at the time... prophecy really does take time to unfold.

Perhaps that fast was more symbolic than I had realized ... I still don't understand it all but I think that  time of fasting was a small event representing the greater event of His silence... framed with 2 prophecies from a friend about being at the Table of the Lamb... starting out mouthless and confused but in the second able to sit, eat and be satisfied in the presence of the Lord. All the symbols don't make sense yet ... like me as Meph ... will I have 'crippled' legs as I continue on with the Lord? Will this be something I have to deal with for the rest of my days? And what about that bowl of water and sword? The Word and the Spirit? What does that mean? I guess I will need to keep pondering ...

So while I was back in my archives checking out these prophecies I came across a dream I had back in August 2013...

My dream was of me racing down the Niagara River heading toward the Niagara Falls ... I had fallen in and couldn't get out and now I am about to go over! The fear was so big - so scary I woke up so startled!

And I realized as I reflected on my dream that the only way I was going to get out of that crazy current was to be rescued. I need to be RESCUED. Plucked out of the water by some massive hand and put back on land - nothing else would do. When you are heading for the Falls - what else could save you?

So as I was looking at the post and the next one and I realized this dream had little to do with my conclusion at the time and was in fact a warning that I was indeed heading over the Falls into an abyss ... but I still haven't been rescued yet ... that falling - was a falling into this great silence - my dark night of the soul. And indeed I do need to be rescued by the hand of God - and His alone. The very next post I wrote I began talking about God's silence ... and things have not been the same since... 

Why can I see these things now? Can I dare hope that this is the beginning of the rescue? That the reason these things are taking shape and becoming clearer is that I am being plucked out of the Falls?
I'm afraid to hope like that. 

blank

Blank is the word I would use to describe how it feels inside of me now. It doesn't matter what I read or what I study ... things don't really stick. It feels like I'm in a white room with no windows or doors - its just blank in every direction. I feel almost like a clean slate with nothing written on me... for example I was reading the Divine Hours yesterday for prayer and the scripture that I read felt as though I had never read it - like it was totally brand new. It's hard to explain the feeling really because I knew in my mind that I did know the scripture ... it was really just how it 'felt' as I was reading. It's hard to hold onto things - and things still feel like they do not penetrate all the way down.