The older I get the more I value my deep experiences with God. I had one of those today. After having such a busy week celebrating Thanksgiving with my family I found my self anxious to get my personal time with God back. I found my way to my carpet this morning and just poured my heart out before the Lord. Wow, how He promises to meet us. The more we seek Him the more we do find Him.

I am not sure of how long I was in prayer when a spirit if worship came over me in a strong way. I found myself rolled over on my back with my arms out spread eagle. I was worshipping and singing in the Spirit when suddenly I saw myself literally hugging the Cross and screaming with all of my might. ”God I trust You”! I began to weep in the presence of the Lord because I began to feel strength in my soul once again. You see, I have always felt like I lived a life of faith while in ministry until I really HAD to live a life of faith. I began to praise God for every prayer He has answered and for the beautiful way that He has provided for us over the months and though I don’t always know how to face tomorrow, He will grant me the strength to face today and then I know I can trust Him with my tomorrow. We are in such a season of trial in our home but I have watched at how even our kids have seen God move on our behalf in miraculous ways knowing that this year has been so hard for them too and they aren’t sure where we’ll be tomorrow either. But I know that seeing the mighty hand of God at work in our lives is something that will always stay with them.

God is doing such a purging and cleansing in my heart right now and He has made sure to silence my life to get me to this point and I so praise Him for it. I’ve shared before about how much the Psalms have spoken to me these past few months and when I get to the end I just have to start over again because how much God is speaking to me through it all. Psalms 19:12-14 says, How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep me from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

As I go along this journey, I have made this my prayer. I believe at times we can’t sleep at night because we know that there are things lurking in our hearts that we haven’t quite resolved. So, we try every formula we can to remedy our insomnia when sometimes all that is needed is just falling out of bed onto our knees and just telling God the truth about us. We may think that we hide things real well from people but He stares right into our souls and stirs conviction until we come clean before Him. I admit that my biggest struggle has been people…feeling like I have never lived up to their expectations of me but I have also found that maybe they haven’t lived up to mine either. It doesn’t matter what we hide behind, God knows the real us and sometimes the real us can be real ugly. The more He teaches me where I wrong, the more I see a great need for His never ending grace in my life and I have found that He is the only one that can really love unconditionally. I have chosen to surrender and allow His Spirit to continue to work in me until I have no more strength for deliberate sin. Maybe then…I will be raptured or get a good nights sleep.

He really does love us. Surrender those areas that you know are deliberate sin. We all have hidden faults even though we don’t want to admit it. Let Him have his perfect work in you that you may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing. James 1:4 He is developing our character as painful as it is but we will come out as pure gold and ready for His presence in the end.

I just returned from the PennDel Women of Purpose Conference in Hershey, PA. What an awesome time we had as we led 2500 women into the presence of the Lord through worship. At one point I had to pull my ear monitor out so that I could hear those precious women raise their voices about the rafters of that conference center and glorify their Lord.

After each session I would leave the stage early to get to my product table where my friend Sue and my sister-in-law Jeri helped me run my table. As they handled all the sales, I stood to the side and hugged every woman that I could who came by. You see, I went to this conference with a heart that was so heavy from situations that I have been going through in my own life and I just didn’t have any words of encouragement to muster up for any one when all I really wanted to do was lay across the stage and just sob my heart out before God. But God instead chose me to hug all of those women who came out of that conference room with their own tears and their own situations. Truly my heart was filled with compassion for them as I would just wrap my arms around them and assure them of God’s love to get them through.

When I returned home, I was greeted with emails from women who were just thankful for the hug that was given at the right moment. You know, sometimes we don’t have all of the perfect words to speak but I think there are times that God would have us say nothing at all because then somehow His glory shines through and we receive no credit which is how it should be.

I was reading in Proverbs today and several verses stood out to me that I would like to share with you. Chapter 20:3 says,“Avoiding a fight is a mark of honor; only fools insist on quarreling.” I had to ask myself…is this me? Do I want to fight with others? Do I allow myself to be a fool by insisting on having strife in my life? Then I read on down to verse 22 that says, Don’t say, “I will get even for this wrong.” Wait for the Lord to handle this matter.

Now let me tell you. This is an area that I am really trying to hear God in because the first thing our flesh ever wants to do is rise up but I learned recently that God sometimes draws a line and causes us to sit at that line where we are not allowed to speak or defend ourselves or we may mess up the very thing He is trying to correct for us. Getting even just isn’t worth it to me. How about you?

I will end this with the last verse that stuck out to me and it is found in Proverbs 1:21.“Whoever pursues godliness and unfailing love will find life, godliness and honor.”This is what I want to pursue and it will only come when I am stretched out before Him in complete honesty and surrender. Pursuing godliness may just come from our keeping our mouths shut when we need to and I think that is a lesson we can all learn.