Psalm 100
“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.”
My Dad. Thank-you for your love -I love you.
I love you my daughter. You are Mine -you’ve done well and I’m very proud of you. Come..
Father I keep hearing the word “complete” in my heart. I know that my “apprentice” time is nearly complete, and I will continue to follow you deeper into this time of celebration because it’s not up to me to decide when it’s actually complete.
My daughter, rest.
Search my heart Father. Help me to completely let go and abandon myself to you. I fully trust in you. Help me to always remember that you preserve me as I step up, and that’s what I’m relying on. So Father, I rest in you.
Those who search for me will find me, for I am reliable. Come my daughter and rest, for all is well with you.
Reflection:
In my dream last night I was in a big room that I sensed was public, and I had a feeling it was in a hospital.The room was a bit chilly. In the middle of the room was a hospital bed and someone in it getting surgery. There was one surgeon and one apprentice who was young and had chubby cheeks. There was a brown sheet around them to keep the heat in. I vaguely remember the apprentice letting me into this enclosed space right at the beginning of my dream, and I vaguely felt in my dream that this had happened once before. Then I was watching them perform surgery, but there was another brown sheet around them so I couldn’t actually see what they were doing; I could only imagine this by their movements and by what they were saying. Because they had the sheet around them inside this enclosed space, I couldn’t see the surgeon, patient or the bed either. During most of the surgery I couldn’t see the apprentice either, but I did see him a little a bit later and saw that he was earnestly doing his best. I saw that the surgeon had part of the sheet tightly wrapped around his left arm a little as it was hanging from the ceiling, creating a firm or tight “wall” by the area they were doing surgery, which also was a support for him I think. I remember seeing the opening of the “curtain” at the top and saw part of it had a big opening, and I thought they were losing heat because of it. As the surgeon was giving instructions to his apprentice and the apprentice was trying hard to do exactly what the surgeon was telling him to do, I heard the surgeon become a bit frustrated when he was correcting the apprentice, and the apprentice was very apologetic and then did it correctly. After the surgery the surgeon smiled at him and gave him a one arm hug, showing that he was pleased with him and kind of making it up to him because of how frustrated he had been with him; during this part I had vaguely seen the surgeon’s face. Then the scene changed where because the surgery was all done, the bed and patient had been taken away and there was nothing left on the floor (I only saw the floor). Then the scene changed again where I was still in the exact spot with the apprentice, except that I was sitting on the table with my arms and legs held high, and I excitedly exclaimed, “Well, I guess my/our work here is done!” I believe this dream represents my journey with Jesus as my husband and me as the bride of Christ (the church is the bride of Christ), making myself spiritually ready for him. The surgeon is Jesus as my husband, leading me and teaching me how to do the things he’s asked me to do, and I am the apprentice who never does things exactly the way Jesus wants me to because of my inexperience but willing to learn. I’ve often been frustrated with myself when I’ve not done something correctly which results with me taking longer than I’d like.
This afternoon our family went to a restaurant called, Buvette, on Scott St., and I ordered a plate that was so delicious! It’s called, Dead Man’s French Toast; it had pork belly with pineapple and chocolate whipped cream on the top. Each dish only stays on the menu for about a week before it gets changed -a really neat place to eat! I just need to quickly say that my Converse all-star runners are the most comfortable runners I’ve every had!! They actually fit me perfectly!! Something I’ve been meaning to talk about for awhile but I never seem to have the time is that when my husband and I had gone to that wedding a few months ago where we needed to wear all black or black and white, the person sitting beside me on my right had been talking about having a health issue. I immediately thought to myself and prayed that if there was an opening for me to ask if I could pray for this person, I would ask. So an opportunity came as my husband and I were talking with him. I asked him again about his health issue and when he was done explaining what it was, I asked him if I could pray for him. But, when I asked him, I asked him with such authority that it even surprised me! It’s hard to explain but I asked him with so much authority that he couldn’t say no! As I was praying for him I could feel the Lord’s love for him, and he was so amazed that he said thank-you many times before we left. Anyway, at the wedding everyone had a really nice place setting that had their name written on a rectangular piece of plexiglass, and it reminded me of my dream where I had been laying in a rectangular plexiglass box inside a cave that was also a tomb. What amazes me is that in my dream I had something like a blaster on my right hand which I used to blast a hole in the box which also shattered the nearby brick wall. I think it had something to do with me praying for that person, praying with the authority of the Holy Spirit, which also represents me waking up from a spiritual slumber of self-isolation and self-preservation. For the longest time I couldn’t pray for people. I just didn’t know how to, like that part of me didn’t exist. So when I prayed for this person it was like I was using a powerful tool, yet it wasn’t by my doing, it was the Holy Spirit praying through me! During the time of me not knowing how to pray for people, I would always pray in the spirit for them.
I need to say in closing that I finally believe deep in my heart that the Lord is really leading me to become a pastor. I’m so amazed that there’s such a big difference between hearing something from the Lord and actually believing what he says deep down in our heart. What we hear is only head knowledge, and when this head knowledge finally reaches our heart is when we truly believe what the Lord is saying. That’s why it’s so important to go on a personal journey with the Lord because it’s in this journey where the Lord will give many opportunities for us to believe what he says deep in our heart. In my experience it takes time for head knowledge to travel to our heart where the seeds can finally open up and sprout. I believe that between the time of hearing something the Lord has said to the time it gets into the garden of our heart, this journey is all about trust-falling again and again, small trust-falls to becoming greater trust-falls. Every time the Lord asks us to do something in this journey, we need to decide if we’re going to do it, which is also trust-falling. In my experience, every time I did what the Lord asked me to do it was like taking a spiritual step with him. Instead of self-preservation, my heart began to open up and trust Jesus that he would preserve me as I made myself vulnerable in my trust-fall. And this is what I’m continuing to do as I step up to where Jesus wants me to be..