Days of the Living Dead?

I just came from a Jesse Duplantis service and I'm all stirred up... it was so good! One of the things that excites me most is a confirmation I received about something I saw a couple weeks ago. My pastor had been talking about how we need to put our faith out there for really big, spiritual things. At that moment Yahweh told me that I needed to revise my vision board. I saw myself putting a picture of a cemetery on the vision board, and then saw myself envisioning/proclaiming that it was empty and that everyone in it was resurrected from the dead.

So what did I do? I changed two tiny little things on my vision board, neither of which had anything to do with raising people from the dead. And I've barely looked at it since, even though I sit right in front of it every day.

Then Jesse comes along and starts talking about a day when he was driving past a cemetery, looking at how beautiful the land was. Yahweh spoke to him and told him he should empty it out. Jesse had to pull over and ask Him to repeat Himself. Yahweh then said, If you don't do it, I will. Jesse admitted he didn't have the faith for that just yet, and Yahweh simply said, there's coming a day.

On the way home Orville and I couldn't stop talking about it. I mean... why not? All these Scriptures started coming up in my spirit, like "He holds the keys to death, hell, and the grave" Hello? Are you reading me? "Greater things than these shall you do in My Name" (Yahshua speaking) If EVERY knee shall bow and EVERY tongue confess, then some pretty radical things are going to have to start happening aren't they? I so wish I lived near a cemetery right now!

I truly see limitlessness at this moment. I would really like to know if anyone can give me a Scriptural reason why this cannot happen. And if it can, who's going to step up? Will I dare? What will it take? When will we start tapping into the power that is in us, Church? What are we waiting for??????

Reformed Control Freak (by faith)

Wednesday nights are my favorite night of the week, because we have an awesome service at our church that night. I usually feel like I'm in an advanced college course, while simultaneously at a comedy club, while also being 5 years old again sitting on my father's lap as he reads me my favorite story. There's nothing like it.

Anyway, last night the main topic our pastor taught on was control, and the concept of realizing that hardly anything is in our control so it's pretty silly to waste so much emotion and energy on trying to control everything. As a quintessential control freak, I listened to the message with a mixture self-consciousness, skepticism, and relief. I know wisdom when I hear it, so why is it so difficult to internalize it instantaneously (I also have issues with patience as you've probably surmised)?

It's so obvious: Yahweh is my Father -- He's good all the time, He's smarter than me all the time, and He speaks all the time. My steps are ordered by Him. He is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, whereas, let's just say I am not quite there yet. I trust Him... do I not? So why would I ever waste one millisecond of my precious time or energy worrying about anything??? And futhermore, why would I ever even bother to predict or expect things to turn out a certain way, let alone get all hot and bothered when they don't go that way? If it weren't so unfortunate (in my mind) I'm sure it would be hysterical. In fact I can see YHWH laughing His heartiest laugh right now, much the way I laugh at my kids when they do something cute out of frustration or lack of understanding. I know they will get it eventually. He knows I will get it eventually. By faith -- and only by faith -- I know it, too.

Expanding

I really didn't think I was going to like this blogging thing, but it's definitely growing on me. So much so, in fact, that I have started a new blog about my marriage, called Black Vanilla/White Chocolate. I'm actually going to "market" it to some extent (put tags on my posts, connect with other bloggers, e-mail people about it) because I want it to help people. So check it out and spread the word to anyone you think might be interested. I'll still keep up this blog for things not marriage related, but it's more for my own benefit than anyone else's.

Faucet of Youth

My dad and stepmom are on an ongoing quest for optimum health. They are eating raw, mostly organic foods, exercising, and doing everything they know to do, and are expecting to reverse their aging process and live well past the age of 100. Why not? Along the way they have inspired me and countless others to eat and live better.

The last couple times I saw my dad, in particular, I actually noticed that he seemed much more youthful -- the way he moved and spoke I kept thinking I was talking to my brother... it was odd but great. He told me about their latest discovery: alkalized, ionized water. They just bought (and we followed suit) an Orion alkaline ionic water system you can install at your faucet. (I'm not trying to sell anything, I haven't even tried it yet.) The idea is that it purifies your water of all the contaminants, separates the water into alkaline (to drink and cook with) and acidic (to clean with, tone your skin, or use as an all-natural mouthwash!), and gives it a negative ionic charge, which allows it to neutralize all the free radicals in your body. Free radicals are what cause us to age. So if the water takes out all the free radicals, your aging process slows down greatly. Isn't that cool?? Well I think so anyway.

So my "system" was delivered Wednesday night but we haven't been home long enough to install it yet. Hopefully tonight's the night. Stay tuned... If any of my future posts contain the letters OMG or discuss Hannah Montana or the Jonas Brothers in any capacity, you'll know it's working! LOL.

Pree years old!

That's how Isaac says three... sniff! where does the time go? Actually I feel more like he's 5, lol. But seriously, this kid is such an amazing gift to me. Every day he stretches my patience and cracks me up, sometimes simultaneously. I'm constantly aware that he is more Yahweh's child than mine and that we were put together for a reason... iron sharpens iron, or something like that. It's so cool to look back over the past 4 years (including the prep and pregnancy) and see how much we've grown. And I'm really looking forward to finding out where we're going! :-)

More photos available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lewinsons/.

Psalm 4:6-8

I've been reading a fair amount of The Message translation of the Scriptures lately, and for the most part I love it. It's the most modern and straightforward of all the translations I've seen, which causes it to hit me in new ways. For example I read this in Psalm 4 today:

Why is everyone hungry for more? "More, more," they say.
"More, more."
I have God's more-than-enough,
More joy in one ordinary day
Than they get in all their shopping sprees.
At day's end I'm ready for sound sleep,
For you, God, have put my life back together.

This may not be the perfect example of the modern slang in The Message, but it so perfectly captures how I feel whenever I'm out "in the world" or watching TV (which is rare). I so don't care about 99% of what people are talking about and looking for these days. Give me a day alone with nothing but a Bible, Strong's concordance, and notebook and I am in absolute bliss! Or just let me hang with my husband and kids with no agenda but to be together... nothing compares to it. I'm tired of all the world's distractions. They're all lies. The Word is the only truth and it's(He's) all I want.

Pray for China

I'm in a hotel room in Philly this morning (last minute business trip), waiting for coworkers to approve the website I just launched and YHWH keeps reminding me to pray for China (I will as soon as I finish this post).

There are over 1 billion people in China... I can't even fathom that. Only a very small percentage (I think it's like 3-5%) of the population is connected to the internet, and they already outnumber every other country for internet users. The U.S. has about 2/3 of its population connected -- imagine when China gets to that level! As I heard someone say recently, "We better start learning Chinese!"

And, of course, the Olympics are set to begin in Beijing on 8/8/2008... those numbers happen to add up to 26, the number of the name of Yahweh, and there are no coincidences... I know He's got plans for the people of China. The bottom line is that this is a critical moment in history for an extremely influential nation, and we Christians need to be at the forefront of what's happening. We need to pray for the kingdom of heaven to be established in China, for Christian leaders to have tremendous favor w/the Chinese government and people. Yahweh loves them as much as He loves any other nation. He is moved by the faith of the oppressed there, and He wants to do a new thing. We all need to do our part, whatever that may be.