Returning

We were on the North Carolina coast with my sister and her husband for a vacation. It was late afternoon and the tide had gone out. Josiah and Emily and I had walked down the beach a bit. Some tide pools had formed in the sand. There were some rather large fish trapped in these tide pools and we decided to see if we could catch them in our hands. It quickly became the best game ever. They were slimy and slippery and we laughed deep belly laughs as they shot out of our hands. The sun was so warm and I could smell our skin turning golden brown. Sunset began and the light glistened off of Emily's curls and Josiah's white blonde hair. Emily was the first to trap a fish and she was so excited her little arms shook as she held the fish up for us to see. We cheered and put the fish in our sand bucket that was filled with water and started to "hunt" again. In that moment there were no thoughts about the past year, no sadness over the death of our baby boy, no worries about the future, and no thoughts about how to put our lives back together. In fact, there were no thoughts at all, there was only purity. The troubles of living melted into the sun that now sat on the horizon in a golden pool of ocean. As we ran together down the beach to show Daddy our buckets full of hand-trapped fish, there was nothing in our minds but the joy of living right now. Covered in sand and salt we shook and showed our fish and literally squealed with delight as we set them free in the ocean while Daddy grinned at our joy from the shore. It wasn't until hours later I realized I had stopped feeling the constant pain that had gnawed at my heart since JohnMark's death. I smiled to myself as I recognized the purity of Jesus' presence. He gave us that moment and now, years later, I can still close my eyes and be back on that beach in the goodness of that moment. It is a gift I never get to stop opening.

 But how do I live there, in that pure state?

 I want purity because I have experienced purity.

 Purity. I've heard that word my whole life. In fact, one of the first Christian books I read was called "Passion and Purity." I have always associated it with morality. It has always been a cry of youth leaders to their youth to remain pure before marriage. It is a call to married people to keep their marriage bed pure. And it is true, it is all that. But it is more than a cry for a moral life. Somewhere deep in my soul I am searching for it. I am searching to find myself. I am pure. I was made that way. I want to go back there. I want to live and love in a constant state of pre-life purity because that is who I really am. I want to live in that beach-fish-catching state of that day so many years ago.

 Many will read this and say that this is unrealistic. I agree. It is impossible and impractical to dream this way. But, I am. The longing has turned into a journey. And, my God is fully able to complete the good work He began in me. He is the author of me, so my desires will always be outside of this reality. So, here I go....returning to myself as I was created in Jesus. I can only find myself inside of Him.

 This is not some self-help, out of body experience I am looking for. This is me, seeking to live supernaturally in a natural world. This is the power of love embodied in a tangible force. This is eyes to see what is unseen by most, despite my surroundings. This is living in a moment of eternal value. This is really living.

 "Earth's crammed with heaven, 

 And every common bush afire with God, 

But only he who sees takes off his shoes; 

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries." 

 -Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Approaching Home Boldly

I 'm getting a little worn out listening to everyone sing about God. How's that for a line from a missionary who helps run a worship ministry? What I'm saying is that I seem to keep hearing people sing about God and hearing how little they know Him themselves. It makes me sad and tired. Funny how you can really hear the difference in just the way a song plays out or in a conversation. God is great and mighty and all-powerful and all that stuff.....of course...and that demands singing about because He is worth it. But lately, it seems to me that there is an emptiness to many of these songs. While that may sound like blasphemy to a bunch of people, it's not. The emptiness in declaring God's almightiness comes when that's all we know. So many "Christians" are living on rumors and stories of someone else's relationship with Jesus. But, I am THE BRIDE of Christ. And brides don't live on rumors of their spouses, they live on an intimate knowledge of their husband!

The stories we hear are testimonies. These testimonies are meant to give us hunger for the real Jesus so we can get through the "Holy, Holy, Holy, Alpha and Omega, First and Last, Almighty, God of Abraham and everyone else but me" Jesus and find out what all that intimacy is that Solomon keeps singing about. Now THAT is a worship song I want to sing. Lets sing that song that comes from the heart of someone who has actually been in bed with Jesus.

I'm not just talking about busting through the emptiness of religion, either. I am talking about deep, deep, deep knowledge of this one we have served for so long and not known why. People are starting to get suspicious as to why we would serve someone we have never seen. Heck, that suspicion and lack of deep love for Jesus in my heart is what has plunged me forward. I have to know Him. I've really been allowed to see more of who Jesus really is the past 6 months than I have in the last 6 years. And, the deeper He takes me, the less like super-almighty, untouchable God He seems to me; and more and more I see my lover and my friend. Meanwhile, I am overwhelmed by the fact that God, with all those titles, has an intimate spot just for me in Him. That just makes the intimacy more sweet and a lot of those lofty songs seem so much like abandoned mansions--glorious to look at for tourists, but not really home.

Well, I want to be home. I want to live with Jesus. And, trust me, when you really begin to see Him, you won't wanna just sing about how great He is-- you're gonna want to go to your secret garden with Him and become part of Him and then carry His fragrance all over you all the time--inside and out. Lovers who are intimate smell like each other. I want to smell like Him.

I see a time coming when many of us won't even be able to get off the floor most of the day because we just don't want to. We're going to start understanding His "weighty glory" that people talk charismatically about all the time. We will know Him. When we do, then we will know that His touch is the touch of a real lover and that touch is interactive! His love overwhelms us while inciting us to action and rest and peace all at the same time. This lover is the one who invented love! That's what we will find in the holy of holies. That is what I want.

I know now that Jesus is all mine and I am all His. There is an intimacy that blazes between us and that is always calling me deeper into Him. It is having His liquid love rush over me and through me that causes me to fully know what Holy really means. I am set apart just for Him. And, when you are set apart by the most Almighty, Holy, Highly Exalted King of Heaven, you know you are very, very special. That is me. And there is room for you in Him. Let's go in and go home.

Wait For It...

9 years ago in January I had a very significant conversation with God. I was 9 months pregnant and not everyone that I thought should be excited about my pregnancy was excited. I was complaining to God about this and feeling quite sad that this was happening. In a fraction of a second, God responded. It was sharp and piercing and instantly called me to attention. He said, "Della, I've called you to marriage and missions and motherhood. If you will seek after me and stop worrying what everyone else thinks you should be doing, I will work these things out in every area of your life." I was stunned.

I didn't lie on the floor and weep over my complaining or fall down in His holiness, I just felt the rightness of what He said. And, I agreed as instantaneously as it had been asked of me. My heart was laid open before me. I embraced it. I didn't feel obligated because He was God or anything, but He opened me up and showed me myself. I can honestly say that my embrace was full and quick and strong and solid.


Two days later, I lay on a table in the doctor's office having an ultrasound. I heard the technician say,
"I'm looking at the 4 chambers of your baby's heart and I'm sorry, it's not beating."
I could see the flat line on the screen and I could feel the silence within me. Our baby boy, JohnMark, was dead.

I stood next to the tiniest casket you can imagine and thought,
"What in the hell is happening?"

For years I have wondered why God spoke to me and called me out like that and then, when I agreed, within 48 hours.....death comes in the place where there is supposed to be life; silence where there should be joy.

I awaited an answer. Nothing.

I resolved that I would not know until heaven, but I really never stopped waiting for it.



So here we are 9 years later. I am running through the forest in Germany. And, I began to imagine what it would be like if the path I am on suddenly allowed me to step through a portal into a spiritual world like they did into Narnia. I wondered if I could run through and see some things and then run back out with no time passing. I wondered what it would be like if I could step through that thin film that separates the two worlds. Somewhere in that wondering, He opened my eyes. I saw through the film.

In a flash of a moment I knew the answer to my 9-year-old question.

He spoke to me about my "calling" because I needed to know who I am. What I understood at that time to be a calling, was actually God revealing my identity to me. He just had to talk to me in words I could understand. He knew that we were only hours away from a life-altering moment when everything we had heard was true about Him and about ourselves was going to come into question. He knew that despite all kinds of hellacious circumstances, that if I knew who I was, I wouldn't get lost in the pain.

He knew the enemy would tell me to just take all the sleeping pills the doctor gave me so the pain would stop.

He knew Chuck and I would argue or just stop talking because we just wanted to hold our little boy.

He knew I would feel angry toward Josiah and Emily because I was frustrated all the time.

He knew the danger that was coming for our family.

He knew the enemy wanted to rip us apart.

But, before the darkness came, He lit the light of truth in me. From this truth, I would not allow myself to be crushed by the enemy.

He showed me who I am. He showed me that I have eternal value and that my life is not my own to destroy.

He revealed the value of my marriage and oneness with Chuck. He showed me how His real love binds us together and that not even death can stop it.

He spoke to my heart about the value of being a mother. He highlighted the beauty of my children, of all my children.

Jesus made me and He needs me. I have His love and I have Chuck's love and I have the love of my children.

He knew I could see this through the pain.

And, He knew the power that would come to us if we could cross the "valley of the shadow" and live.

And, we made it.

We crossed the valley as one and Jesus knit us together in a way that many families will never experience. We are a family intimately in love with Jesus and intimately in love with each other.

What the pit of hell sought to destroy, we now possess.

We understand deep pain and we understand what it means to be saved from it.

We have been shown the truth.



Do you know who you really are?

Do you want to know?

Do you know the difference between knowing what you do and who you are?

Do you understand that Jesus doesn't want us to DO things for Him? He wants us to be who He made us to be. He wants us to be with Him.

If this sounds contradictory to everything you have been taught about finding God's will for your life, it is not. I am only cutting through a bunch of crappy language that just confuses the truth. We have changed who we are into what we do. That is why ministries fail and people crumble. When people only know God as their employer and not their lover, then there is no relationship, only an empty shell.

But you are not a shell. Don't get covered up. Embrace the you Jesus made you to be. Don't lock yourself up in a vocation, a ministry or an ideal, but enter into the goodness of endless possibilities and endless joy. You already know Him don't you? Well then, He wants you to see yourself the way He sees you. You are His creation, His pride, His joy, His little one, and His King or Queen. Who you are is exactly enough to fulfill any callings. He works those out when we know our identity--the one He gives us.

If you have always felt like there is more for you, then you are right! There is a place for you. I'm not talking about a physical place, but I am talking about your place in His heart. We talk always about receiving Jesus into our hearts, but we don't let Him receive us into His.

Let Him receive you.

Look at Him. Look into His eyes. There you will see your true reflection. Embrace it. Then, He will begin to work you into every area of your life. And that, reflects Him.

I promise, you will love it, be able to stand in it, and thrive in it. He knows you so well.....you should know you too.


Psalm 139:15-18 (NLT)
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!

You were worth the wait. So is He.

Just To Be With Him

I had a weird, but good experience today. Chuck gave me the afternoon with Jesus and after running an errand that took longer than expected, I sat in Starbucks ready to be alone with Him. However, I couldn't stop thinking about going to the mall to this one store I really like. I tried to do all those things you are supposed to do to spend time with Him: listen to worship music, read, draw, and finally, write down some things God had been saying to me. Something wasn't working somewhere and my mind kept floating between my family and the passion I feel for them and going to this store. Real spiritual huh? After 2 hours, a lot of thought floating and multiple failed attempts to write anything of value, I didn't really think I was in the right place anymore. I made a deal with myself that I would go to that store I wanted to while listening to worship on my ipod.

As I was walking there, one of my college professors came to mind. One of his colleagues had told me what a great poet he was but how since he had children he did not really write anymore. This person said,
"It's a real shame he can't find the time anymore."
I recalled this story with the realization that my poetry professor couldn't "find the time" because he did not want to trade the experience of living his life out with his family for writing about living out his life with his family.

By this time I was in the store and I was overwhelmed with love for my own family. This love is other-worldly powerful, so I was nearly undone in this store. I suddenly wanted to buy every person waiting for me at home a gift, so I did it frantically and then rushed home instead of writing because I just wanted to hold them. I figured out along the way what I had been missing in my "time with God."

I just wanted, well, I just needed to physically feel God's pure love wrapped around me--touching me. I needed to experience Him.

And listen to what I have waiting for me....

Chuck--with gentle kisses and strong arms holding me fast--never leaving--even after all these years and seeing me for who I really am. And He loves that real me all the more. In fact, I can no longer define where I end and He begins. That has to be divinely created.

Josiah --who gives a hug and I realize that the little boy I once held is now holding me. His innocence and tenderness and purity are now under the cover of a genius' mind and a man's body. He desires my presence and I desire his. You can feel that between us.

Emily--my sweet little girl who still sleeps in a sea of stuffed animals but understands on a deep level the power of holding and being held..always has and always will. There is a beauty I feel with her little arms wrapped tightly around me that is greater than any wonderful thing I've seen in nature.

Micah-- the one who wraps his arms around me--demands to be picked up and then whispers "I love you as much as Jesus does," and I believe him.

Benjamin--tackles me with hug and covers me with kisses until it hurts (literally) and says he loves me with a million billion hearts....and again, I believe.

Justine--whose laugh and quirkiness bring fun into the very center of us....all the while, her intense love for Jesus and us can pull us all into the center of who we are created to be. It may make no sense to you, but it does to us when you can touch Jesus like that.

Alana--with her deeply passionate eyes. There is something in there yet to be unlocked, yet you can feel God's love for her in purity and tangibility. God has a way of pouring himself out of our eyes. It is inescapable, and I wouldn't want to escape.


In their arms I wasn't just writing about Him anymore.....I was experiencing Him.

So, I suddenly understood that I and we (the church) are always talking about getting into His presence....pressing in....digging deep.....striving for more in our journals.....in the latest books..... more more.......
But.......
He is surrounding us with His presence and we are MISSING it in one another!

We have to stop that or we are going to run right by His presence on the way to our next big encounter with the shadow of Jesus.


That explains why I feel a longing to go to them after only a few hours away. It is because my heart is worshiping when I am with them--even when I am playing games, cleaning up a spill, helping with school, handing out discipline, holding someone when they cry, or snuggling on the bed.

In those moments my heart is also throwing itself to heaven longing for more and more and more and continually being fully satisfied yet finding itself hungry again for more of Him.

I could not sing a more powerful worship song than this if I had all the musical talent --and yet it makes me want to sing because when you feel and see and touch His love you can't control yourself any more and you don't care to!

So, now you might be thinking that I should shut up. You might be thinking you don't have what I have. And, that you are lonely and thanks for rubbing it in and making it sound like you don't even have intimate worship with God. And my answer is: you are right on part of it. You can't have what I have because what God has done for me is particular to me. The relationship I have with my family and with Him is special and one-of-a-kind and I asked for it to be that way.

But I am not rubbing it in and not telling you intimate worship is not yours for the taking.

I am saying that we can't live on the stories and experiences of others because that is only a shadow of His light. I am saying that you need to look into others and see His presence living in them, right in front of you.

I'm not saying writing stuff down is wrong--but I am saying we should not trade the doing for the joy of being. My eyes are open now. Do you see what I see?

Passion Revelation

I just heard a recording of an old, typical Sunday morning in a Southern Baptist church. It reminded me of how many of those I have sat through in my lifetime. They talked about Jesus and His amazing love. Everything they said was true, but the way they talked was less than passionate. I suddenly had a vivid memory:

I remembered being asked to speak at our church about missions. I was to try and get people to give money for foreign missions. As I simply read the statistics the missions director had given me, I fell apart. I felt my passion welling up inside me as I thought of these people who didn't know Jesus and, while I didn't fully understand it, the passionate compassion of Jesus poured out of my eyes and spilled out for everyone to see. The mission director told me later that she had never seen people give so much money for missions. So, I knew passion was powerful, but I was often ashamed that I could never seem to speak about Jesus in public without ending up a weepy mess. I also noticed that I could not talk about Chuck or any of my children without the same reaction. That same love I felt for Jesus was somehow intertwined with these people I had intimate relationships with.

So, when I heard this old, typical service today, that passionate feeling rose up in me again.

But today, God said, "Get ready. You are not that restricted person anymore. Your passion is no longer going to be restrained." And, with that, I recalled so many times I had spoken in public about Him, about my lover and my savior, and held it in or fought back the tears.

I was overwhelmed with how this had been in my life for so long and I had not recognized it. I remembered a report I gave in college about abortion and why it was wrong and how I completely fell apart and actually sobbed through my report. I looked up only to see shocked faces of friends staring back at me. They didn't know what happened, and I didn't either except that I realized as I was speaking, all these little babies died for no reason. I felt how Jesus' heart was broken for them and for their mommies who didn't know any better than to believe the lies of the enemy. And, then, a full range of deep emotions came rushing out of that classroom with people yelling at me, other people crying, and one girl even admitting in brokenness in front of everyone that she had been raped. What had happened? Jesus' passion and love makes even a college classroom become a place of intimacy where we cannot hide from each other.

And, so what I began to think is WHY? WHY have I been ashamed of and hiding this passion that is as much a part of me as my skin? WHY would I believe those who tell me that this passion is improper. People are desperate to feel His passion. He wants US and we want HIM and we NEED each other.

So, I am trying to prepare myself now (and praying for those around me) who have only seen the tip of passionate me. I cannot contain it any longer!!!!!!

OH--How I know Him--the great I AM is my personal friend. He is my savior, of course, but more than that, we know each other and we are close. If you don't believe me, then you can ask Him. He will tell you over and over how much He loves me. And, OH, oh oh oh--how much He loves you!! Do you know how much He loves you and that you were created out of His love and that you don't have to do anything for Him? He literally just wants to love you and let you feel that love. Do you feel it? If you don't, just keep asking until you do. He often surprises me, like today, with His love in the strangest way. He took an old memory and showed me how I've been filling with His passion my whole life, but people and religion have been telling me to hold it in, to be mature, to be more controlled. But now, I am finding that passion is not "irreverent" but is the real Him in me just bursting out of me. And wow--does that feel good. I like leaking. And, the results of this leak are powerful.

So, next time you see me, get ready to get blasted. I may cry all over you (shamelessly), I may ask you if you've seen Jesus over and over until you either want to get away from me, or you have some type of spontaneous vision, or I may just hug you until you can feel it too! So, basically, expect the unexpected. Even typing this now, I can feel Him welling up inside of me and the old wells have been cleaned out. So, come and drink of His love! It is the water of our souls that leaves you unthirsty here, but hungry and thirsty for more of everything of Him. Aren't you tired of living without really knowing Him? Aren't you sick of just being? Well, you don't have to anymore, because He is I AM and that means everything. And, if I AM lives inside you then you are I AM. That is life that never, ever stops. Never, never, never stops. And, you don't have to wait to get to heaven to have life healed and whole. Jesus is here right now and did I mention that He loves you? He really does. We are way past the cheesy "Jesus loves you" that you have heard before.....this is real, deep, piercing love. You know, like you feel when you are in the deep heart of real worship and it is like the worship cuts you. It is wonderfully painful. It is His sharp word, the double-edged sword. It is His real love peeling back all that stuff on you so He can reveal the real you. That you He created before you were in your mother's womb. The you that you have always known is there and never could seem to find. Come out! Your lover is calling you out-----Come out! His love is calling you because He loves you and He can't do anything else. It is his nature to be singing about you, about His love for you, about His love for all his babies. So, don't wait anymore. It's ok to explode and let all those dreams and passions and love for other people and love for yourself and your love for Him gush out on the floor. That is what true art is....the colors from our Jesus passion explosions flowing together. That is living art. I'll see you on the canvas........Watch out for me--I will definitely splatter on you. Come out!