Who God is Not

On August 2, 2016December 10, 2016 By happyreignIn Heather, Reflections & MusingsLeave a comment

be-happy-017

God is not a feeling of rejection telling you you don’t measure up and just aren’t good enough

God is not the one who continually brings up your past accompanied by feelings of bitterness, regret or shame

God is not the one telling you you deserve to be treated poorly, with persistent difficulty and grief

God is not the one who has left you, abandoned you, is very close to giving up on you, and disqualifying you

God is not the one telling you you have never been good enough and never will be

God is not the one calling you fat, ugly, stupid, and unwanted

God is not the one causing you to fear and have anxiety and worry unto dread

God is not he one telling you you need to figure it out on your own and fix yourself up already

God is not the one who says everyone else has a right to dream but you shouldn’t waste the energy

God is not the one telling you you are too far gone, hardened, unloving, and dried up

God is not telling you to expect terror, collapse, hatred and violence

Abusers, cowards, and thieves deserve to be called out for what they are and the lies they perpetuate to steal joy, peace, love, and faith. God gives empowerment, inner-peace, and love inwardly and outwardly. His reign is indestructible, unmovable, unshakeable and seeks the liberty, freedom, and strength of each one of his children.

You do not have to tolerate any longer negative self-talk, destructive or discouraging ways of thinking, or anything that undermines your worth, your value, and your right to exist and succeed here today. Liberty is yours my friend and anything less is a sham.

Peace and trust are two things so much more powerful than they are given credit for; they conquer and overcome all doubt, hesitation, uncertainty and whimpering. They break apart fear, control and manipulation, and illusions of terror. The word terror itself is the fear of something rather than anything that has substance in and of itself. Peace is not passive. Live apart from any enemy tolerated within your midst and TRULY LIVE.

Peace where are you??

On July 25, 2016December 10, 2016 By happyreignIn Heather, Reflections & Musings3 Comments

I found myself not feeling the same effect of my relationship with God for a season of my life. I had experienced great change, experienced some intense relational and work stress and found myself making efforts to control my surroundings in order to manage my peace and somehow restore the inner stillness in my mind I had lost.

peace-of-mind1

It didn’t work. Stress continued, unsettled sleep, and a general underlying presence of anxiety persisted. Even though I prayed, even though I worshiped, even though I studied the Word, even though I was hearing truth. I was attempting to self-medicate my spirit.

I was reading the writings of another saint and was reminded of how far my spirit was from the exchange she was sharing with God in her soul. I missed that. One morning I asked God how to return and I heard, “Preach forgiveness to yourself.” I love preaching even though I rarely get to do it, and over here in the Middle East I rarely here others do it either. He asked me, “When’s the last time you’ve heard forgiveness preached?” And he wasn’t referring to that I needed to forgive someone else. He meant between him and myself, and the always by-product of that is between me and myself.

I thought about it and it has maybe been over a year since I heard someone speak about what God did for me on the cross and what it accomplished on my behalf without any effort of my own required.

Now let me clarify something. I’m strongly a minded-person. And what I mean by that is normally in order for something to have an effect on my heart, I need to have a linear pattern of thought that makes sense to my mind in order for an impact to be felt emotionally within me. This, however, has also been a weakness in my experience as I will get so caught up in trains of thought that will have nothing to do with life or freedom. Whether they could be categorized as anger-based, or fear-based, or relationship-based, I tend to reason things out in my mind or have conversations in my mind. Again this–I have not observed usually ends up in anything life-giving.

So the question is where has my peace gone? And God’s answer was, why don’t you preach the gospel to yourself this morning. And so I did. I looked up the word forgiveness in the back of my bible, hunted out all the verses and at least one more that came to mind and wrote them down. Now realize, heaven is not a formula. Just because someone reads the verses below doesn’t mean, they will receive the peace I did through the process of looking them up, but I share them with you because of some of you who will believe them when you read them and it will settle things within your spirit and peace and calm will be experienced in an increased measure again. Here we go.

There is forgiveness of sin for all who repent
Through this man Jesus there is forgiveness of your sins and everyone who believes in him is declared right with God
Even greater than sin and death is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this man Jesus Christ
Forgetting the past, I look forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of this race through Christ
He has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his dear son who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins
For God was pleased to live in Christ and reconcile everything to himself. He made peace with everything through Christ’s blood on the cross.
You must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it
Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard this good news
Now he has reconciled you to himself through Jesus Christ
He has brought you into his own presence and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault

My conclusion in all of this was that if Christ is at peace with me through Christ’s blood, I can be at peace with myself through Christ’s blood. I received a surge of confidence again in what Christ has accomplished and done entirely apart from my performance or abilities or competence, which freed me from any condition-ality in my relationship with God. There remains no room for my failure within his love and accomplished work on the cross.

calm-peace-innerpeace1

It felt so nice to be in the presence of a savior again. Previous negative experiences I’ve had had brought in a level of distrust between myself and God. Why was that so hard, why did that have to be that why, why is this still that way, etc. I grew in mistrust of him because I lot perspective of his heart through my experiences. All I could see was the past and present of what went wrong or what I was doing wrong now and I could no longer see what he had done for me or who he really was with me now. I lost sight of his goodness in all the muck. Now don’t get me wrong, my mind didn’t lose the knowledge of his goodness, it was my heart that lost belief through my negative experiences.

And so through reading the writings I read, I had regained hope of being restored not factually but emotionally with God and my heart flittering again with confidence in his goodness and his love for me where I could feel it when my thoughts drifted within me. He has returned this precious gift to me. It was once something I could remember feeling, but now again my heart is alight with a tenderness within. It is a gift that I have not been able to conjure up within myself for sometime. And I am grateful. His forgiveness is like nothing else that still the mind and soul; that he has made all things well and that treats me with kindness and tenderheartedness.

I will write another piece about returning a stillness to my mind soon.

A Life Worth Living

On November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 By happyreignIn JoelLeave a comment

It has been almost six months since we decided to move to the Middle East. Many have asked of how we ended up living and being involved in one of the most “difficult” and “hardest” regions on the planet. The simple answer is that it was all His idea. Both my wife and I have felt that our lives haven’t been our own for a long time. When you have this deep conviction it is easier saying yes. Our no has been Crucified with Him. We get people praising us for living what seems like selfless lives. The honest reality is that we are doing what makes us come alive. He has orchestrated our steps and has led us down the road of Love.

We have had the privilege of working with His persecuted Body. Our days and nights consist of hearing people’s journey of Faith. They have had loved ones killed and everything they have worked for destroyed all because of their unbreakable conviction of not bending their knees to fear. I honestly can say that I complain a lot less since I have been here. In the face of so much loss and pain what can I complain about??? Our brothers and sisters have lost everything but the ability to love. The way they have welcomed us to their homes and families is truly humbling.

If your asking yourself what can you do to help or how can I make a difference I say to you is that you CAN love. You can love fearlessly and fully. Start with those around you. Do not let yourself be filled or swayed with fear by the Media and ask your God what He thinks about the Refugees. Ask Him how He sees them and go from there. -Joel

Remembering Our First Year

On April 8, 2015May 23, 2015 By happyreignIn Heather

All God’s Done for Us in a Year

My first anniversary ever is coming up next week and I wanted to take the time to remember what God’s done for me in a year. Our Anniversary is April 15th. Just a little over one year ago I was living on the island of Malta and Joel was headed my direction after us not seeing each other for a month and half, after we had known each other for just one month prior to that. I was getting married in a week from now. Joel had brought wedding clothes and a ring and I had bought my dress online in one day for a hundred dollars, his ring that same day, and two $5 veils online from the U.S. depending on the color matching and length. I think it was this week that I picked up a pair of shoes for my dress for nine Euros in the Tuesday market outside our front door.

On a moment’s notice, wonderful people on the island helped make Joel and I’s wedding a reality. That day we went to high cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean in front of a chapel older than the U.S. and said our extemporaneous vows, shared communion, and were wed. The wind can be harsh on the cliff and although it was prior to the ceremony, afterwards it was light and playful and a Tasmanian man I had asked to play a song he had written at our wedding, took our camera and also happened to be a wonderful photographer, capturing our once in a lifetime moments.

Within the first month of our marriage, I participated in an art gathering in Morocco and Joel participated in a ministry event in England. After that first month, my mother and sister joined Joel and I on the island and met my husband for the first time in person, ever. They stayed a month and got to behold the breathtaking beauty of Malta and the surrounding waters. Soon after they left, a couple on the island gifted Joel and I their waterfront apartment while they were away traveling for our remaining forty days on the island before a visa ending initiated our departure.

During the time in that apartment was when a door opened to our next adventure: the Middle East. Flying through Turkey we arrived in Amman, Jordan, which would be our home in a desert land for the next three months. We were extended an invitation by a wonderful German young woman that had come to the Middle East from Mexico, where she had been serving a church the year prior. We stayed in the guest home of a church and got introduced to the Arab world, sharing our living space with young adults, and refugees, ministers, and all sorts of local people.

After getting to share life and visiting refugee communities and other churches, we made our departure at the end of November through the neighboring country of Israel. Staying in a hostel in the old city, I got to revisit some favorites in the area with Joel beholding the sites for the first time, which after living on an island with thousand year old fortresses and then living in the Arab world, no longer seemed that spectacular to him. But what was spectacular was meeting a new friend, who had already encouraged us along our way in taking risks.

Thanksgiving morning, we connected with a man named Andrew White from England who has been working in the Middle East for close to twenty years. He invited us to come join him as he was moving some of his base out of Iraq and into Jordan. We said yes. And then we were off to England and Wales again for the transition back into the western world. Fortunately our first host was Egyptian, understanding some of the cultural dynamics we were coming out of. Then off to Wales for wonderful times with friends and then back to South Carolina.

We were just in South Carolina for about a week, where we connected with family, and new and old friends, before heading to Florida for a few days to connect with more family and friends. Puerto Rico was wonderful in beauty and weather and surroundings. I walked down Joel’s memory lanes and connected with his friends that now have become mine. I experienced the holidays on this beautiful island place that truly has its own culture and with the wonderful people there.

After three weeks into the New Year we came back to South Carolina where Joel and I would depart across country, from coast to coast in a vehicle gifted to us by Joel’s amazing parents. We drove into the wintry tundra of Ohio and remained with friends there for a time before departing again across the southern half of the United States in a snowy weather pattern that did not lift until we arrived at the sunny coast of southern California.

After staying with friends, attending fun ministry gatherings, and traveling up the coast we arrived to our final destination for our first year: Redding, California, where I have since finished the first-draft of my rewrite of my novel.

In the midst of all of this movement were spontaneous paintings, costly lessons, character growth, seeing the miraculous, lots of affection, new horizons coming into view, new lifelong friends being made and old friends being appreciated. I forgot who I was and then remembered again. I’ve experienced and enjoyed the process of sharing my life with someone who made it all too easy to do. I’ve had to tolerate being celebrated and affirmed every day by my husband (note the sarcasm), who is tangible ministry of the holy spirit to my heart and mind.

Joel and I’s first year spanned seven countries, staying in thirty different homes, multiple hotels, visiting something like twenty different churches and connecting with so many amazing people. The most fun for me, in addition, to experiencing life with my husband Joel is being around those courageous people who are redefining reality and breaking down boxes they’ve found their identity too confining to remain in; whether it’s church structures, business ideas, educational positions, or just people remaining faithful to be their authentic selves despite demands the world sometimes tries to put on them that would damper their passion or creativity or dreams.

I’ve felt so privileged to watch people turn great corners in their lives that require faith and risk great failure; where if God doesn’t show up, this is not going to be good. But I’ve found when, it’s him that has placed that desire in people’s hearts, he always shows up. He’s waiting to reveal himself through the areas in people’s lives where they’ve risked trusting him.

Another thing I’ve loved is kitchen table church. Some of our most profound and encouraging conversations that feel like they are altering reality just because you’re having them—whether it’s that person’s life or country or culture—have happened over meals shared at a dining table. Whether in a restaurant, bar, pub, café, airport, kiddie table, or card table, you name it, I have felt the joy of life being exchanged there and have loved it.

God promised me years ago, that he would always take care of me and he always has, no matter where he’s invited me to go. This is also a thank you. Thank you to those wonderful people who shared their food, their homes, their guest beds or couches, but most of all shared their hearts with us. You are celebrated in the completion of our first year too.