"He who scatters has come up before your face.
Man the fort!
Watch the road!
Strengthen your flanks!
Fortify your power mightily."

Nahum 2:1

"I will stand my watch
and set myself on the rampart.
And watch to see what He will say to me,
and what I will answer when I am corrected."

Habakkuk 2:1

"O Lord, revive Your work in the midst of the (my) years!
In the midst of the (my) years make it known,
In wrath remember mercy"

Habakkuk 3:1

Isn't it amazing how prophecy can still speak to us and be relevant for THOUSANDS OF YEARS?

Deliver me.....

from the desire of being

loved
extolled
honored
praised
preferred
consulted
approved
popular

from the fear of being

humiliated
despised
rebuked
calumniated
forgotten
wronged
ridiculed
suspected

Mother Theresa "A Simple Faith"

I have heard, through varied and divergent sources that "ministry" is only "ministry" if it is done through the established church that is presently operating. I know my blogstream pastors (you know who you are), would not espouse that tenet, but they are few and far between. I am blessed to have found them here.

I have also been told, straight to my face, with loud verbiage, and unspoken yet loud attitude, that mothering is NOT ministry, as if it is only what a woman does once she finds herself in the unfortunate predicament of being pregnant.

Mothers are expected to love (even though it is increasingly apparent that not all do) and to grow in love. So when a loving mother is found, it is not or seems not to be, a huge discovery. After all, it is expected, yes? What one fails to realize is that love is not a "given", even love for one's own, nowadays, let alone love for anothers.

"Love is patient, love is kind, love is gentle, not self-seeking...." Will I ever, EVER, attain this? Only God can supply that quantity and quality.

Yet if "ministry" is only "ministry" if it is played out in the arena of the "church", then God, tell me please God, what is ministry?

I see little love exuded and little given back. I see little patience, kindness, gentleness. If mothers and others are not ministers of the Gospel in ministry (I wonder what Suzanna Wesley would say about this), then what hope do we futile morons have on this earth of ever saying we lived for Christ and preached the Gospel? How can we say we obeyed the command to "Go ye", if we stayed at home? Stayed at home and cared for our husbands as is right; our children as is meet; other's children as is extra. Does this not count?

No, I say, a hundred times, NO!

This is my 52nd year, my 30th walking in the light of the Word. It is my opinion, maybe just mine alone, that the very microsecond that we take that baby step toward God and are born-again, we become ministers of that precious blood-bought Gospel that we carry in our mortal bodies. Ministers in every sense of the word. I believe that every act of goodness, every act of kindness, every word spoken in and through the Spirit, every time we clean the toilet, every time we serve a meal, every time we clean clothes, scrub a floor, mow the lawn, plant a tree, sweep, vacuum, wipe a baby's bottom, we make the earth a better place and we spread the love of Christ abroad, which is the heart of the Gospel.

If this is not ministry then we must redefine the word.

The Christ I know, the man Jesus, was no televangelist. Do not get me wrong, I love some of those who are called that and listen to them and what they have to say. But if they are the only true evangelists, if they are the only ministers, then Jesus was not one. The Christ I know was not the head of an established church, the kind with a steeple and a beautiful bell. If only pastors of churches are ministers then Jesus was not a minister and not in ministry. Schooled as He was in the Torah, He still did not operate within the established "ministry" of the time. In fact, if I remember correctly, He wonderfully succeeded in making them all mad at one time or another.

Lest one should think that this scenerio was only for Christ and not for us I will recall some faithful who followed in His path. John Bunyon who spent so many years in jail for preaching in the fields and not in the "established church" that he wrote all of Pilgrims Progress there and a number of other books too. Watchman Nee, the Chinaman who was a forerunner in the house church ministry. Anne Hutchinson, who was so despised in the colonial Massachusetts Bay Colony that she was not only kicked out of the church but she was kicked out of Boston! Kathryn Kuhlman, who never fit in with the male leadership of her time, but had one of the most well-known healing ministries of her time. Even our own illustrious Joyce Meyer, whose pastor was not thrilled about her outspoken personality and only "came around" when God spoke to him directly. My own forebear, Deacon William Rockwell, who came from England on a boat in 1630. At that time, if one was a deacon, they were called by that title as part of their name. He came over to America for "religious freedom" and was so frustrated with the lack of it in Puritan New England that he went back to England and stayed there for the rest of his life. His sons, John and Thomas stayed here and that is how my family was established in this country. These are just a few of the men and women who did it according to their "hearing". O, I forgot about David Livingstone.....yeah, the "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" guy. I'll leave that to another time.

Our unwillingness to step out of the established order, in my opinion, is nothing more than fear. Ungodly fear. Fear of "what they will say", "what they will think", "what they will do", if we dare to have our own idea. Fear of our reputation being slandered, fear of looking stupid, fear of rejection.

We have been trained to think that ministry is Sunday School, altar ministry, preaching, teaching, serving overweight, arrogant, self-satisfied, so-called Christians spaghetti dinners to raise money so that spoiled, rude, obnoxious kids can enjoy a week of summer camp which they claim has revival going on but is nothing more than self-grandizing pastors patting themselves on the back for spending a whole week of their summer with teenagers. Big deal.

Okay, if you aren't offended yet I will offer some more.

Ministry, in it's purest form is cleaning the toilet and the bathtub. I am certain that you, dear reader, have never read the words pure and toilet in the same sentence. That is because we are so trained to see everything from the physical realm and not the spiritual. In the spiritual realm, cleaning up after one's basic needs is the EPITOMY of ministry. Jesus washed feet, we can clean toilets and bathtubs and take someone else hair out of the drain, amen?

That, one must conclude, means that mothers and fathers who do these things are the essence of TRUE ministry.

Did not Paul call preaching "foolishness"?

At some point, when we are with the Lord, and LIKE Him (yaaaay!), we will no longer need teaching. Our worship, while it is eternal, will no longer need to be led by a worship leader, one hired to entertain us until we finally shake off the spiritual lethargy of the previous week and "feel like worshipping".

God forbid that we might be so revved up all week that we don't look at Sunday church as our duty, to assuage our weak consciences, but an awesome opportunity to share some nugget we have discovered that week in the Word. God forbid that we look at worship time as the culmination of a diet of the meat and vegetables and now we are assembled for some DESSERT! Whoo-Hoooo!

Now, my dears, you might begin to see why I don't fit in the traditional service. I live continually sanctifying myself deeper and deeper, so that there is nothing to "shake off" on Sunday morning. When the music starts my spirit is reaaaaaadddyyyy! Let's wooooorrrrssshhhhippppp!

True ministry, from what I can see in Jesus biographies is tuning into God's agenda, which is always working directly with people and not hiding in some back office, attending so many elders meetings that we have no time to help that single mother with her fatherless son. It is not taking a seperate elevator from the masses because you might have to deal with some nut out there. True ministry is getting on our hurting, arthritic knees and scrubbing something. Preferably for someone other than ourselves.

How DARE we take the best seat when Jesus sat in and among His disciples. How DARE we use the exuse that we need to hide from the masses because there are alot of "kooks" out there. Didn't Jesus, God Himself, walk through the throngs unafraid that an unclean woman with an issue of blood might touch Him or that He might be jostled by a radical Jew with a knife in his tunic? How DARE we call ourselves Christians when we have such attitudes. I am not against prosperity, I do believe that God wants to bless us, amen, however, I believe that with our prosperity we must remember that we are no greater than our Teacher. Oh, dear God, save us from this arrogant insanity!

Our society has so denigrated motherhood that somehow we think it is more noble to do almost ANYTHING else rather than raise our children ourselves. Is our moral bankruptcy so complete that we can't see the difference between a day care worker raising our children than we ourselves? Are we that bereft of personal convictions that we think ANYONE can raise our child just as well as we can?

I have become more peaceful in my fifties. My "fixer" personality has finally succumbed to the realization that I cannot right every wrong even in my own family. How then can I expect to right anyone elses wrongs? Talking, writing, even serving until your muscles ache to the bone, doesn't right every wrong. Knowing this has given me peace. Godliness with contentment is great gain.

I have been told that ministry without love is sacriligeous. If this is true then most ministry I have witnessed under the auspice of the "church" has been sacriligeous. If ministry without love is a clanging bell, it seems like there is alot of clanging going on. Like the cowbell my mother used to call us in for dinner.

I, the Lord, keep you.
I water you every moment;
Lest any hurt you.
I keep you night and day.

Isaiah 27:3

April 2003

As I ponder the fourth decade of my life, ready to pass away unceremonially this year, I can remember all sorts of pain, all kinds of trials, and all manner of triumph.

As this span of years opened all I remember are flurries of ball-games watched faithfully from a bleacher or lawn chair. I remember my Freshman Girl, Sophomore Girl and Junior Girl, babies all, and the care I took of them. I remember the emotional rollercoasters. At 41 we experienced a revival at my church. My husband and kids received prayer languages, my son began desiring ministry, my rebellious college student daughter fought against the move of the Spirit but finally succumbed to her "consecration in the Lord" as her name means. She found great peace and faith.

I began hearing from God.

It is that "hearing" that has turned my life around and upside down. It is that "hearing" that has caused me great agony and valiant victory.

By outward appearance it would seem that my life has not gotten better. Looking at the trials of church life in the past ten years, the constant trying of my faith and my love for some of my brothers who are in leadership positions, endurance and perseverance worked in me through foster care and adoption, and the inability to escape the daily reminders that I will never be any part of the Christian community I live in, one might be correct in wondering why I persevere the way I do.

What they fail to see from the outside is the inward working of God. It's that "hearing". That is what strengthens me, it is what breaks me, it is what makes me seem so easy, pliable and submissive in some peoples eyes, so difficult, unteachable, so rebellious, in others.

Even if I wanted to I can't shut it down. I can't tune it out. I think that even if I was backslidden I would hear Him. David said, in Psalm 139, "even if I went to the depths of hell you would find me there."

Sometimes His voice is so loud I can't hear anything else. I have been accused in those moments of being stubborn and unsubmissive, but it's not that. It's the hearing.

If the truth be told, apart from that I am a "people pleaser".

Other times His voice is so soft, like a whisper, barely discernable amid the traffic of my chaotic life and all the voices clamoring to be heard. In those moments, the ones that people might think I am most "preoccupied", it is those moments when I am straining the hardest to hear the faint call of my lover.

"Follow Me....Follow Me..." He calls from a distance.

"This way.....now that"

"Here I am....here I am...."

Because my direction is so radically unmainstream I have even questioned my OWN ability to hear at times. But hear I do, hear I must, for if I don't, which I haven't for a season or two, here and there, I feel like I might die.

It is in those moments when I cry to be released from this mortal body so that I might take on the immortal that my lover has promised me. And that I might see Him face to face.

It is those moments when like David, I cry, "How looooonng, O Lord? How loooong?"

Then somewhere, after I have stepped out of the haze that is my ungodly mind, I reach down into my spirit and hear Him calling again.

"This way....turn left....no go back....."

My steps, tentative some, bold and brazen others, have caused people to stare at me in wonder and confusion.

"Why would she spend so much time with those teenagers?"

"What is her motivation? It can't be good!"

"Why does she drive two hours each weekend to pick up those foster kids? They went back to their "real" mother. Doesn't she know those aren't HER children?"

"When will she settle down and take care of her OWN family and forget about kids that don't belong to her?"

"When is she just going to put away those foolish notions of Mission trips around the world, youth camps she is incapable of handling? Why she's rebellious, donchaknow?"

"Why does she let those teenagers mess up her house with their instruments?"

"Why does she help those boys with their band? Doesn't she have enough to do?"

"Why doesn't she get a "real" job like the rest of us?"

"Why does she let those teenagers call her and talk to her at all hours of the day and night? Does she think she is still a teenager?"

"When is she going to start listening to authority?"

"Why does she have to be so spiritually politically incorrect?"

"Why can't she just get along?"

"Who do you think you are, anyway, talking to ME, a MINISTER of the Gospel, as if you are my PEER?"

"What is she THINKING, driving 3 hours a day to take care of her grandson? I mean, take care of your family, of course, but this is just TOO MUCH!"

(were these the same people that said I should spend more time with MY OWN FAMILY and not other people's children?)

It's the hearing. It's the hearing. It's the hearing.

I can't turn it up; I can't turn it down. It just keeps coming.

Sometimes it's fuzzy. Like looking through a mirror darkly.

Sometimes it's clear as a bell. So clear that it has created in me a face like flint.

"Who is she anyway? Just a wife and mother with no 'ministry experience'."

God hasn't given me this hearing because I am experienced. Possibly because I'm not.

He has not allowed me a "position" and knowing what I know now I am very glad about that. No position could compensate me should I lose my "hearing". If I must endure the taunts of "unsubmissive", if I must stand in the face of "crazy, eccentric, unteachable", if I must submit to the accusation of "stubborn and rebellious", well, then amen. So be it. Let it be, just please God, don't take from me my "hearing".

Make it clearer day by day. Erase the static of my own mind and give me always the mind of Christ. Shield me Lord, from my innate desire to please everyone around me and help me to remember that I was bought with a price and not to become a slave of men. Perfect me in the awesome fear of the Lord that would protect me from all my fear of man and man pleasing tendencies. Let me know Your voice, let me know it better than my own mother's, my own daughters, my own sons, my own husbands, my dearest friends. Let Your voice be so near and so close that I never again question my "hearing". Let my mouth speak only what is acceptable in YOUR hearing, Lord. Thank you Lord for my "hearing". Please keep speaking, and turn up the volume.