It is the beginning of the third day and normally I feel a little frustrated by now…..like let’s hurry this thing up already!

Yet I am feeling a very wonderful, deep-seated peace. I think it is that peace that passes all understanding. There is no understanding this kind of peace. It’s like a river that is flowing so far under the ground of my present circumstances and outward life that there is no figuring it out. This peace tells me that when peace like a river attends my way....or sorrows like sea billows roll...that whatever my lot....Thou hast taught me to say....it is well, it is well….with my soul.

It’s almost like the last three days on the blogstream have been about vomiting up all the frustration that has been residing down in my spirit and now I am not sick anymore. Well, you never know with me...something could trigger the old stomach muscles to regurgitate again...but for now I am settled.

I ask my faithful readers to flow with me for now, even if some of you don’t agree with me. Several of you have my e-mail and for you, I would ask you to write to me if you feel the need to express something about what I am writing. Yet, I know that more is coming....not more of what I’ve already written…more of something much deeper...I can feel it....something that is not about church, not about the ludicrous out working of it that we are experiencing, not about routines, rituals, programs, church suppers.....not even about Bible Studies, house church, more fellowship or more worship, although those latter four things are all things I love. What I am waiting on the Lord for is so much deeper....I want a revelation of heaven itself...what the angels are doing, what the songs of heaven sound like, what God is speaking to the Body of Christ, what Jesus is whispering into the right ear of His Father....and what He is whispering back. I don't want it to be someone's predigested morsel of the Word....although those are nice....I want it to be mine. I want to hear the Lord, the way Moses did, the way John the Baptist did, the way Jesus did, the way John the Revelator did.

Oh, my Jesus....how I need You now....not to help me with the fast....I’ve had so little desire to eat or even drink that I have had only one glass of juice in the past two days and have to consciously think about drinking at all.

All I can focus on is getting the garbage out of my soul onto paper and moving on to what You are leading me into. Dinner the first night was hard but it always is....last night there was no temptation at all. Today I got the most wonderful package of strawberries and I shoved them through my juicer with such anticipation of the sweet taste that I knew was coming. Yeah, well, it was okay.....just okay.....

The sweetness I am feeling in my spirit today is sweeter than anything He has created. That is the sweetness I crave. I worship You Lord, NOT Your creation....and the fact that the strawberries tasted just so-so, even after two days of nothing that in anyway could be called sweet or even tasty, that is nothing short of a miracle. You are the joy of my existence here on earth. It will be my joy to come where You are.

I remember what it was like not to know You....I remember, even after being a Christian for many years, the long, dry seasons where I could not hear Your voice, where I held onto my faith like a dying man hangs onto a life preserver.

That is what I had grown to think faith was. Hanging on....hanging on until the bitter end. Getting saved by the skin of my teeth, and hoping....just hoping....I would not be turned away at the Gate. I felt like that a lot....even as a born-again Christian.

The promises of the Word were so hard for me to grasp. I felt so unworthy. I pictured myself dying and going before the Lord at the Great Judgment and throwing myself at His feet in desperation, not quite sure if He would accept me....begging His forgiveness there, just as I have begged it here.

That is not my conception of faith anymore. At least not my faith. The Lord has spent the past ten years drawing me into His Spirit in such a way that I don’t fear Him any more. Perfect love casts out fear. He has shown me His love, not in spite of my trials, but by my trials. What the devil meant for bad, God meant for good. I can say with David, “It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I may learn Your statutes.” (Ps. 119:71). The suffering has formed in me not only a strength in Him and a determination to see His purposes worked out in my life, but it has created a faith that cannot be shaken.

I have been called arrogant in my faith. But isn’t that what was preached from the pulpit all these years that I have been in church? Didn't they tell me to have faith? I am not presumptuous toward God, I don't think of Him as a cosmic bell-boy that will answer every time I snap my fingers. But I do know what the Word says and what His promises are. If I don't act on those, when He has told me to, then isn't that like dissing Him? It's not presuming on your parents to ask them for what they already promised you, is it? And not even to ask. In some cases, God just expects us to take it by force. I could quote the scripture but I'll let you seek it out in your concordance if you don't remember it.

Now that I am excited about my faith it seems like some people are threatened by it. Worried that I might be too overpowering with it. "You can't get too radical with this stuff, Connie". Wanna bet? I can be MORE radical than this! I have been called hard-nosed, stubborn, a know it all, and annoyingly unswerving. At least by people who think that it is their position in life to know more about God than I do.

I have been chastised for saying this....but my faith does not even feel like faith anymore. God is answering prayers for me that I haven’t even prayed yet. I just think a thing sometimes and then the thought leaves and within days the thought is answered.

I’m not saying that my faith is based solely on the answers to my prayers alone, although Jesus told one man, if you can't believe in Me for My sake, believe for the sake of the miracles. I have gone through long periods of time when I held onto my faith and had no answers, even to things that I knew, for sure, were the will of God. I STILL have some unanswered prayers, things I have been praying for a long time, yet, because God has answered so many other things for me, the ones that have not been answered convince me even more how much that must be the will of God in that situation. That does not cause me to stop asking though. Just because the answer is ‘not right now’ doesn’t mean it is ‘no’.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen". Aren't we supposed to speak those things which are not, as though they were? We may not be able to see the things we hope for, or have evidence of it yet but we speak them and they become. God is a creator....amen? I believe we have been called to create. We know we can create a cassarole out of different kinds of food....we know we can create a painting out of different colors of paint...we know that we can create a sculpture out of clay, a book out of words, a poem or a song literally out of our head if one is so inclined.

Why is it so hard for us to believe that if we contain the Spirit of God in our mortal bodies we can create something out of nothing like God does? I don't think God is asking us to test Him in this just for the sake of testing Him, but doesn't it seem just like a Jesus thing to do to place our hand on the stump of someone's arm and see a fully healed arm and hand grow back? Didn't Jesus heal the terminally ill child of a grieving parent when He was here? Why wouldn't He want to do that for someone today? Didn't Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? Doesn't He want to raise people from the dead today? I think He does. I know He does. Over in Africa and Asia. There's not as much doubt and unbelief over there. There isn't that pride that makes us need to be so quiet and respectable all the time.

An in-law of mine had a situation a few years ago where the grown daughter of a woman he had known had some kind of brain seizure while she was driving one day. Miraculously she was able to get herself over to the side of the road without having an accident. She was subsequently rushed to the hospital where she was in a coma for many days. My in-law called my husband to tell us what happened and we asked if she could have visitors. We went to visit her and I asked my in-law if I could pray with her. The answer was yes. Maybe he expected me to pray a nice religious prayer and be done with it..I don't know. I laid my hand on her forehead and began to take authority over every plan of the enemy that was coming against her. I thanked the Lord for her life and for His salvation, physical as well as spiritual. Upon leaving the room I was chastised for praying a "Word of Faith" prayer. I asked this person if he would rather have had me pray a "Word of Doubt" prayer. We left. The next day she woke up from her coma and was completely healed. I never knew her very well and have not seen her since then, but whenever I have asked how she is I am told she is "fine". I told my husband that if his relatives don't want me to pray a prayer of faith over their sick, they shouldn't call us and allow us to come and visit. Would this man rather have seen this girl dead? I don't think so, but still Connie, let's not get to radical with this thing.

It is my contention that God is trying to get us to use our faith for more than just to believe for a new car or a new TV set. More than just for the money to go to Disney World or college. I think He wants us to be so full of His anointing, to walk like Jesus walked, and talk like Jesus talked, that we can lay our hand on someones lame leg and see them walk. I believe Lord, help Thou my unbelief.

Well, I’ll be honest, I am going through some blogstream withdrawl. I miss my commenters and traveling around to other’s blogs. I know this is a good time for me though and I know that I am in the will of God and my heart is set on finding His purpose for me at this time in my life.

As per yesterdays post, I know what God is speaking to me regarding church yet I know that my view of it may not be His will for everyone, and I accept that, and do not judge those who stay within the established church. Especially since this is pretty much all that is available right now. It is a harsh and lonely road that I am on right now though, and in some ways I hate it.

I miss corporate worship, I miss being with people and I miss the feeling of being part of something outside of my home and family. In reality, I know that I AM part of something bigger because I know that I am still a part of the Body of Christ (in spite of the opinion of a few people who have called me backslidden because I’m not in church) but let’s face it, it’s not quite the same when you have lost the connection. Kinda like the internet, huh? Knowing that you have it, that it is hooked up to your house, and that you have the capability to get it, but then it goes down. It’s not that the internet isn’t out there...it’s just that you aren’t hooked up to it right now.

The part of my personality that still wants to please people wants to say I’m sorry for offending anyone with yesterdays post, but then there is this other part of me that is so unable to stomach what Christianity has become.

Is the former part, the part that wants to take care of everyone, nurture them, help them grow up, soothe their egos, serve them….is that part God?

Is the latter part, the part that wants to throw up just thinking about what the church could be and what it’s not, and wants to see the power of God manifested in the lives of everyday Christians, and wants the church to be something more than a political entity and a club to go to on Sunday morning....is that part God?

I’ll leave it with the reader to decide.

I forgot what the new Christian political bloc is called that I saw on the news yesterday. The one that attracted all these current Christian leaders and was visited by Tom DeLay. They were talking about how we, as Christians, are losing the culture war. Culture war? We are in a culture war? What is a culture war?

Please don’t think I am so ignorant of current events that I have not heard this term before, but I just don’t get what they are talking about. Hasn’t there always been a war between God and Satan? Isn’t Satan the prince of this world and the Father of unbelievers? Isn’t this something that has been going on since the world began? Isn’t the ‘culture’ the reason why God told Noah to build the boat and save his family? Can laws make any difference in changing the evil that resides in the human heart?

Do we actually believe that our culture was ever Christian? This is a foreign concept for me and I don’t understand why Christians are wasting their energy on it. Why aren’t we more focused on seeking God’s presence in our individual lives and being filled with His Spirit, so that when we go out into our culture, we are not just talking about the God we think we know, but we are transferring Him, via the laying on of hands, the prayer of the righteous, and the joy and love that exudes from us, to hurting people?

Do we really think that we will preserve this nation from evil through LAWS? That didn’t even work with the children of Israel and they had GOD’S Laws! Do we really think that we will save the world or our country through working it out in the political system? I am not suggesting that we completely ignore the process…and I do believe that we should vote in godly men when they run for office,...I just don’t understand the fervor...or the idea that any kind of politics is going to save us.

I understand that if you have no faith in God and you have no other hope, you would want to try to work things out in the here and now. But isn’t that what the zealots wanted back in Jesus day? Isn’t that what they were so upset about with Him? That He steadfastly refused to take a side? They wanted a Messiah that would rise up and take authority over the Romans, not a Messiah that preached turning the other cheek. All He said was to give to Cesar what belongs to Cesar...ie.pay your taxes.

What part of this world belongs to us? Don't we belong to a heavenly kingdom? Aren’t we just sojourners here? It is my opinion, and maybe mine alone, that when Constantine forced Rome to be a ‘Christian nation’ it was one of the worst things ever to happen to Christianity.

I always thought Christians were supposed to be in the world, not of it. Maybe that’s why I don’t take a real strong view on school prayer or Nativity scenes. Like another blogger stated in a past post, let the Christians put anything they want in their yards, and the other people put what they want in their yards...who cares? Isn’t this the beauty of America...the land of the free?

Is the faith of Christians so weak that we can’t handle diversity? Don’t we get it yet?

Diversity is what makes Christianity so attractive!!!!

Once they look into everything else Christianity is AWESOME. Well, maybe not awesome the way it’s presented in the current church but the Christianity of the Bible is just so chock full of love, joy, peace, miracles, signs and wonders....

Don’t the Amish let their children do rumspringa for a season? Do they have more faith than we do? I’m not advocating the Amish lifestyle, although I would live like that if I truly felt God was calling me to that.

What I am saying is that we need to have enough faith in the keeping purposes of God for our children, enough faith in the power of God to save all those heathens out there, even if we are not in the world to do it ourselves, and enough faith in the love of God to keep us even when we fail. It seems like a lot of our running around, getting all hot and bothered about politics, etc. is all about the fear we have that God can’t take care of us well enough. He needs us to take charge of the earth.

"I know in whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day" (I Tim. 1:12)

It is my contention that only as we humble ourselves and pray....only as we so take on the character of Christ are we going to impact the world. It won’t be through our rhetoric, it will be through our lives. Again, when was Jesus ever involved in the politics of His time. Yet, He gave Himself over completely to His Father and changed the world. It is my belief that only as we follow His example are we going to change anything around us.

Is that simplistic of me? Is that a low and common thing for me to think? I’ve been told that I am ignorant before. Not in those words, but that is what was meant. Is it more sophisticated to believe that we should rise up and take over the land and run these heathen out of town?

I guess I always thought that the point was to get the pagans saved. Not to summarily hammer them into the ground with our self-righteousness.

Well, what do I know anyway? A well-known evangelist who started a church in my area five years ago....told me that I am ‘not his peer’. He questioned why I would have the nerve to talk to him like I was on his level, questioning anything about anything, because I have never been in ministry, and have not traveled the world holding big revival meetings like he has. He called me a 'just a housewife' (I’m sure he would have put commonlittle in there if he had thought of it) and said that I needed to stay in my place. He told me that he didn’t like being talked to like an equal by a woman.

I asked if it would be better if I was a man...he said it would. I told him there was no male or female in the Body of Christ. I told him that God resists the proud. I told him a few other things I can’t think of at the moment.

This is the kind of pride that is suffocating the Body of Christ right now...and we think we have anything of value to offer the world? That guy was so blind that he couldn’t even see the arrogance of what he was saying. Do we not know the verse that says, “God resists the proud”?

Do we think that is only the unbelieving proud? I don’t. The verse makes no such distinction. It is my contention, in this late stage of my common little housewife life that God is going to use whoever He pleases and it isn’t going to just be those who went to Bible school, those who are ordained, those who have been in the formal ministry for many years, those who possess testosterone.

Ooops, was that incorrect of me to say that? Well, that might explain why I am so unpopular right now in my life.

Well, of course not when the worship starts up...thats when everyone wants my little ol’ revived self hangin’ around because then all the unrevived people can get a dose of my anointing and think they are revived too. That's what I've been told anyway.

Uhhhh, can I just say that whenever you find a truly anointed person you can be very sure that lurking deep and dark underneath was some serious persecution. They may not have bled real blood…but take my word for it...they bled. These people beg God for the anointing...do they realize the price that will have to be paid?

I just guess I’m too old and too tired to mince words anymore. Who knows when any of our time is up? Tomorrow is promised to no man, and even if it was, I’m getting old up in here and am not going to keep my mouth shut anymore.

Like I said in another post, when I hit the big 5-0 a couple years ago I started letting a little more of my indomitable child out from the shell. It actually started in my forties but when I hit 50 it’s just like I got a dose of this new kind of freedom all over me and I really don’t care anymore. Ask my kids...I went around for a solid year throwing my hands up in the air and screaming “I just LOVE being middle aged!” Yeah, I don’t love some of the aches and pains, but I love the freedom, man. Whom the Son sets free is free INDEED! It is for freedom Christ has set me free, not to be enslaved in that yoke of slavery! Whoo-hooo!

"I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings" Philippians 3:10

When does it start, Lord, when? How looooooong, O Lord? When do we really begin to live like Jesus lived? I’m not asking to be beaten, I’m not asking for starvation, I’m not asking for Paul and Silas’ jail cell...but if that is what it takes to know the praise they knew...to know the intimacy with you that they knew...to know the miracles and the signs and wonders that they knew...I’m awaitin’ on Ya, Lord, I’m awaitin’.

Lord, You know me so well. You know me more than my mother and father, more than my husband, more than my kids, more than I know myself. You know my heart and You know my words before they are even out of my mouth. You know my past, You know my present, You know my future. Dionne Warwick and her psychotic….oh, I mean psychic, cohorts ain’t got nothin’ on You Lord. No familiar spirit knows me the way You do.

I want to know You too. I want to know You as You are. Not some pie in the sky ‘force’ that some people think You are, not some figment of my limited reasoning and imagination, not just because the Bible tells me so, not the Jesus we think we know on Sunday morning that we somehow think accepts us because we put the ‘right clothes on’, because we ‘sing the right songs’ because we ‘smiled and shook hands during handshaking time’.

This is what we call fellowship? Shaking someone’s hand for two seconds? Why have we accepted this polluted, watered down, insipid version of Christianity and still have the nerve to call ourselves any kind of Christians? Christ’s ones.

This is church? This is what I left my country club for? This is what I thought I wanted so bad? At the risk of offending my readers, THIS AIN’T IT FOLKS. It’s not....and I’m not apologizing for saying it straight out any more.

I have suffered through 30 years…….ya want me to spell it out…..THIRTY YEARS….. of this GARBAGE! I’m tired of it and I ain’t takin’ it anymore. I keep waiting, I keep praying. I thought maybe things would change from the inside. But change never comes from the inside does it? Doesn't there ALWAYS have to be SOME kind of revolt to change the status quo?

My revolt may be one of prayer and fasting but make no mistake....this is a revolt. I am revolted and I am revolting. I'm not going back to that and no one, even with their sweet smiles and gentle pats on the arm to calm me down can make me. I was such a good girl....and by many standards I still am. My mother would say so, my husband would say so, my kids would say so.....it's just these people who are too busy with their church business to get to know me that don't think so.

I have friends who tell me, “Connie, you need to come back, we need your anointing, we need your excitement for the Lord, we need you during our worship time to spice things up…….. (why, because you can’t get YOURSELF spiced up?)

things are changing, Connie, the pastor is changing, the program is changing……”

BINGO!!! The program…..it may be changing but it’s still there, isn’t it? You’re Almighty Pastor is still at the top of the food chain, preaching that YOU have to come under HIS vision, isn’t he?

WHENEVER did Peter, Paul, Barnabas or Silas EVER start a building program and insist that you get with the program and come “UNDER” their vision or you have to leave the church? WHEN? The only time I ever heard Paul talk about disfellowshipping someone was when they were in ADULTERY!!!!!!!! I have seen this happen time and time again……and not just with ME. Just because someone had an opinion that didn’t mesh with the Pastor’s vision.

My husband and I tithed our income, we ALWAYS went along with every whim and fancy of the pastor who just HAD to have a bigger church, more people to preach to, nicer chairs and pews to sit in, more cars in the parking lot... but wait a minute...you can’t even take care of the few hundred you already have...and you want MORE???

Well, I can’t speak for all the other desperate housewives out there but THIS desperate housewife has never been with ANY other man in her whole life and I have still been asked to leave a church. One pastor, when I told him that I didn’t think he really cared if I was there or not, said to me, and this is a direct quote...”Connie, there is a time to stay and a time to go...”

Ooooooookay then! Guess I know how YOU feel...

and these people want me to come back and sit “under” THIS guy?

Like I said, I will welcome him in for coffee and crumpets but I’ve never been a party-crasher. If you ask me to leave, I’m very subservient that way...I leave. Just don’t figure I’m acomin’ back the minute you snap your fingers at me.

The pastor that kicked me out of his church DID have the nerve to ask me to come back during his so-called ‘revival services’. Not for Sunday morning, mind you, ‘oh no, we are too ‘seeker-friendly’ for your radical style THEN, Connie’. Gee, Pastor, aren’t you revived enough to revive your congregation? Now you need my revival? After you kicked me out? Nah, I’ll pass. I’ll wait on the LORD’S revival service. I know HE ain’t a kickin’ me out!

Notice I did NOT say I’ve never been with any other man during my whole marriage...I said my whole life. I wasn't even fornicatin' during the 'free luuuuuv, 'love the one your with', 'do your own thing' sixties'.

I tried to tell you before that lying underneath my sweetiepie face and magnanamous nature there is an irksome and tedious morality. My young friends always get pinched by it. "Connie, you're so much fun to hang with until you start quotin' that scripture".

Oooops, sorry....what a pain I am...you want my non-alcoholic pina colada smoothies with fresh pineapple and real coconut juice in it, but not the Word of the Lord, huh? Well, you'll have to find someone else to get your snack from today.

Oh, but “there is something wrong with YOU, Connie, you have sin in your life...I just haven’t found it yet.” What kind of pastoral ignoramous would say that to me?

Matthew 11:19 says, “Wisdom is known by her children”. If my children are so awesome in the Lord, what is that supposed to say about ME? What kind of pastor thinks it’s his job to be looking for the needle in my haystack? Take the board out of your own eye, bud.

“Your whole family is sooooo awesome, but there is something wrong with YOU!” Yeah, well, I’ll tell ya what’s wrong with ME! I’m the one that MADE my kids get up every Sunday morning and get dressed for church. I am the one that gave 'em a bath the night before and helped them put on the clothes we picked out and brushed their hair and made them brush their teeth. I’m the one that begged my husband to get out of bed, to puuuuleeeeeessssseeee stop reading the newspaper at 10:45 and take us to the 11am service at the local Baptist church.

It’s ALL my fault that I made sure everyone of my birth children, foster children and adopted children accepted Christ and prayed before they went to bed from the time they were too young to read the Bible to themselves. I’m the one that hung up Bible verses all over the house and gave out gumballs and candy if they memorized one. I’m the one that wasn’t satisfied with one Vacation Bible School a summer so I set up one at my house for all the neighborhood kids and prayed with them too.

There is no more devilish thing someone could have said to me than that. My insecurity being laid bare by a man who barely knew me. What I figured out is that it wasn’t him, it was a familiar spirit using him.

I’m the one that has had to encourage MYSELF all these years because whenever. as everyone knows, you talk about GOOOOOOD outside of church and at any other time besides Sunday morning, so-called Christians think you are too radical and they say you need to tone it down.

Yeah, well, be ashamed of Him in public then. Keep Him locked up under your vaulted ceilings and in your fancy sanctuary. Talk about how we are supposed to be taking it to the streets during the sermon but then only do that when the church decides to have an ‘open air revival service’. I was under the impression that we were supposed to follow the admonition of Deut. 11:18,19. See what I care. He’s already given the warning about what will happen. It’s in Luke 9:26 if you haven’t already read it.

Well, so much for the first morning of my fast. This wasn’t hard. I’m not even hungry. I’m so fired up now that I think I will spend some time in worship and then go out for a nice long walk on this spring day. Show my common little housewife face all over town. They haven’t seen much of me over the past few months....maybe even the past two years.... since I haven’t been in their solemn assemblies.

Why do I have a feeling this fast is going to be different from the rest? I can’t say for sure what God’s doin’, here, but see that verse in the upper right hand corner? The one about the battle-ax? Doesn’t that just tickle you? He gave me that a few years ago and told me I was His battle-ax. Doesn't it make me sound like I’m some overbearing, God-forsaken, evil, mother-in-law type? The opposite of what I always wanted to be. Oh well, I always wanted to look like a movie star too. I always wanted to sing like a cross between Laura Nero, Carly Simon and Wynonna too. I always wanted to write poetic words that would cause people to be lifted into the heavenlies too.... and I’m none of those.

I guess at this late stage I’ll take battle-ax. I’ve been bought with a price....and what a price it was...I never knew I was worth that much, Lord. I won’t become the slave of men. I am a slave to Your righteousness, Lord. I’ll be Your battle-ax.

This is for you Lucy....it is an edited repost of something that I did in January. Be encouraged sister!

"You need to be your own preacher. You must become a self-challenging and motivational speaker to yourself." Bishop T.D. Jakes

"Stir up the gift of God that is in you" 2 Tim. 1:6

I have learned to encourage myself in the Lord because I know that you can't depend on other people to do it for you.

"There are four kinds of people in your life:
1) People who understand what you are about and are trying to do it with you and appreciate you.
2) People who understand and don't appreciate it.
3) People who don't understand but appreciate it anyway.
4) People who either do or don't understand and they hate your guts."

Bishop T. D. Jakes

I have so much to share that I hardly know where to start. I can feel the nervous energy increasing already so I am trying to slow down and focus. I think I will wait to share some of my thoughts. If anyone is reading this, don't give up, there is more to come.

"Away from fools I'll turn my eyes
nor with the scoffers go
I would be walking with the wise
that wiser I may grow" Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

" Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;
Teach a just man, and he will increase in learning" Proverbs 9:9

Anthony, music, Cherry, all my little blogstream buddies. If you have not read the post before this one it will explain what's going on...pray for me and write to me through e-mail if you want. I love you all. prisonerofhope/mommyconnie