New blog and website

Note as of April, 2014: Hello All! I am consolidating my writings into a new blog- Walking in Wholeness: Insights into God, Medicine and Healing. I will no longer be posting to this blog, so I invite you to subscribe to the new one! Thanks and God bless

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Insights into Warfare and What's Ahead for 2012

Since 9-11, 2001, life has been incredibly difficult for some of God's people. The fall of this year, according to a few well-respected prophets, was supposed to mark the beginning of transition out of these trials. For me, this fall has been perhaps the most difficult season I have ever endured, but this past week, I felt the winds of change sweep radically across the terrain of my life. I sense that a new found freedom is upon me, but also upon many who have been living under oppression since the events of 9-11.

Some prophets, such as John Paul Jackson, say that 2012 will be a year of great woes for the world, but that God will provide for those who turn to Him and trust Him for all things. Amidst the darkness of natural disasters, a floundering economy, terrorist threats, war, and all that plagues our world, God's light will shine most brilliantly in those who focus upon what He's doing in the world, instead of upon what the enemy of our souls is trying to do. And God is rescuing those that have been oppressed since 9-11, so that they may be radically used by Him to bring freedom to others in the year to come.

But we must know that the problem in our world isn't a lack of jobs, Lyme disease, war, hurricanes, cancer, or that our wives are alcoholics and our children drug addicts.

The problem is that we are waging a war in spiritual places, which can't be won with the weapons that are available to us in the natural realm, because the powers that are against us are greater than the resources of the natural world. But if we know that God lives within us, and that He has given us dominion over the powers and principalities of darkness, then we can change our circumstances- through the weapons that He has given us to overcome.

But we can't know how great these weapons are until we use them. Yet most of us are so accustomed to living according to our senses that until we witness God's power, we still rely upon our flesh and the things of the natural realm for our well being. And while God has given us tools in this world to enable our survival and to overcome, the real victories are won through His Spirit.

This past week, God gave me some keys. With those keys, He opened new doors of insight into my suffering and showed me why I have been unable to overcome chronic illness for so many years.

Let me preface this with an explanation. When you are sick, and the cause is purely biochemical, you can take a medical remedy and the body will heal. When the cause is emotional, if you heal the trauma, the physical body also heals. But if the cause of sickness is spiritual, then dismantling the strongholds that have kept the disease in place is imperative for healing, because the spiritual realm transcends that of body and soul.

I used to think that addressing all three realms- the physical, emotional and spiritual- were all important for healing. Yet for some, dealing with the spiritual causes of disease, may be sufficient for change to occur in the other two realms.

To my surprise, I recently discovered that my battle has been mostly a result of spiritual strongholds- which were set in place the day of my birth, and reinforced throughout my life. And I believe that disease is, for many people, a result of such strongholds- not toxins or infections. These only take root in the body whenever principalities and powers of darkness are able to create strongholds that weaken the soul and body and leave it susceptible to illness.

It isn't just about healing the Daddy wounds. It isn't just about forgiving your neighbor. It's about learning about strategies that powers of darkness use against people, and praying specifically against those. Unfortunately, precious few books and churches exist to explain what these are. But if you pick up a book on witchcraft, demonic curses and Satanic rituals, and ask God for discernment, you may get insights into your suffering that may set you and others free. More people are afflicted by these things than what most of us realize.

The knowledge that I received this past week about the strongholds that keep people in bondage- and not just physical bondage, but emotional, financial and otherwise- transcends common knowledge about healing the soul, and it is knowledge which I believe is now setting me free from many years of agony and pain. When the time is right, I will share specifics about my experience. In the meantime, I simply wish to encourage those of you who are suffering, to look beyond the natural realm for the solutions to your problems. Ask God for the keys that will unlock the doors to your freedom. Don't assume you know what they are, and that you know how to use them.

I have suffered for many years, partially because I have relied upon my own wisdom to survive, instead of leaning wholly upon God. I am an intelligent person, so it's been easy for me to do this. But intelligence is a thing of the natural realm, and thus, it has only served me in battles pertaining to this realm. It has not enabled me to win the war that has been waged against my life in the spiritual world.

God's ways are infinitely higher than ours, but He is faithful to deliver us if we seek Him with all of our heart, mind and soul. We may be little people with small minds, but we serve a great God.

Yet I am of good cheer. The heaviness that has been upon me these past two months is dissipating, and I believe 2012 will be a magnificent year, not only for me, but for all those who seek God. If only we know that He, and only He, can give us the wisdom that we need to prosper- in every area of our lives.

Happy New Year!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

All We Need is A Flicker of Hope

Here I sit, ten days away from the new year, wondering where the past seven weeks have gone. A storm that rolled into my life towards the end of October has not yet ceased in its fury. It has crashed upon my health but deeply impacted other areas of my life, too. And it has distracted me from posting to this blog as much as I would like.

God must have something good for me in 2012, because the trials have been so absurd and profound that even those who don't believe in demons would have to concede that this unrelenting hell is a bit out of the ordinary, even for those who deal with the hardships of chronic illness on a daily basis.

So I'm trying to look on the bright side, but I gotta admit, endless suffering has a way of stealing hope from the heart.

Ordinarily, when I spend time with God in prayer, or peruse the notebook of amazing and multitudinous (but unfulfilled) prophecies that He has given me over the past several years, (which include many promises to restore my health and all that has been stolen from me over the past decade), I am encouraged.

But hope deferred makes the heart sick, and I have told God repeatedly over the past two months that I don't "have it in me" anymore. People have always told me that I'm a fighter, and indeed, I am a strong soul. But for the first time in my life, telling God to heal me or take me off the planet has become more of a routine prayer than I'd like to admit.

I'm not suicidal, nor have I ever had the inclination, but even the strongest of the strong can only endure so much suffering without wishing they weren't stuck in this broken and busted up Garden of Eden anymore.

I know God uses me for His purposes. I have published five books on healing and medicine, and I minister healing to the sick on a regular basis. I can't leave this planet because I know I'm being used, but I could use a bit more happiness and comfort in my days. I need to be well, instead of being holed up in my house, living the lifestyle of a woman fifty years my senior.

I've gone through intense seasons of physical and emotional suffering before. Much of the past decade has been blacked out by these tremendous trials, but what has made the latest one unique-and perhaps more difficult- is the lack of hope I have experienced through it.

It's just been too long. I've confessed my lack of faith to God, prefacing my tirades to Him with, "I'm sorry, God, but I just can't muster up what isn't there. I want to believe you, but the despair is winning right now."

I took the matter to Him again last night, and He responded by giving me an image of a lit match flickering in the darkness, wavering and weak, as if ready to extinguish at the slightest puff of wind. The match represented my hope.

And then, it was as if God was saying that He could create a fire from that faint light in my heart. He didn't need me to have grandiose hope. He knew I was tired, and that I have been through too much. Few people can endure a severe chronic illness for years and still have sky-high hope for better days ahead. My feelings were normal and He wasn't going to punish me for not "believing more." That revelation in itself increased the size of the flame of my little hope match.

Because our society is so performance-oriented, it's easy to slip into believing that unless we have the right thoughts towards God, He can't heal us, or bless our lives. I'm probably more guilty of that than most people. And when circumstances don't change, you can't help but wonder what you are doing wrong.

But sugar-coating despair with words that we think God wants to hear, or to convince ourselves that God is going to bless us, does nothing but shove that hopelessness further down into the soul, where it begins to fester and silently torment us.

We can't increase hope by our own strength, any more than we can muster up faith by affirming God's truths. Neither strategy works, and while speaking words of truth and carrying out right actions can sometimes change the heart, it is also true that out of the heart the mouth speaks, and when the heart is broken, the mouth responds accordingly. When hope is gone, we don't need a bridle on our tongues as much as we need surgery in our hearts.

The good news is, when only a glimmer of hope remains, God can take that faint light and make a fire from it- which burns out the dross of unbelief, pain and every defiance of God's promises.

For many days, I cried out to God in despair, fear gripping me because I couldn't kick-start the hope that I have always maintained. And while I have yet to experience God's warmth upon me, the light within me has become a tad brighter, because I know that it is He who will rekindle the fire. I can't do it. My wilderness is too cold, and I'm too tired.

Yet I must seek His face and spend time in His Word...because only by immersing myself in the reality of Him can this hope return. Hope is a byproduct of spending time in His presence It springs up naturally from a soul and spirit that are in communion with Him. It also eventually makes manifest that which was initially hoped for.

All that I, that we, have to do, is seek His face. Let the enemy or the world not delude us into thinking there is another way to peace. There isn't. He is the restorer of all things. It doesn't matter that only a flicker of hope, or faith, remains. It is enough for Him to work with.

Tonight, as I light a Christmas candle, and study its dancing flame, I am reminded that Jesus Christ came to earth to be a light for every soul on the planet. His light brings hope to our hearts, and shines brightly within us, that we may transfer this same hope into the hearts of those around us.

Silent Night, Holy Night, All is Calm, All is Bright...