Breaking a lifelong vow

This may be a bit of a crazy post, but I’ll take the risk of making it into a Heart of a Warrior confession. Recently, my mom’s battle with cancer has become difficult and more of a narrower road for her. 

When I was 12, I believed my mom wouldn’t make it past 60. I would imagine she would die of lung cancer or a heart attack (she’s a smoker). I honestly don’t know what made me think this would even be possible, but I allowed my mind to believe this. Until recently. When I pray about my mom, I began to realize an inner vow taking and my heart completely breaking it. How could I have allowed myself to believe this lie for so long and even think it could become true.

I’ve been questioning what the next year will look like for my family. Will my mom still be around, will she be healed? What should I expect from this season for God to teach me and family?

The biggest lesson in this journey for me has been faith. Once I realized the vow I made when I was 12 was still logged in my mind, I needed to break it and replace it with faith of complete healing and restoration. It certainly hasn’t been easy, I feel at fault and burden for my mother’s illness. But I know that God is so much bigger than cancer and He could easily kick it in the teeth. Satan put lies in my mind and I allowed myself to believe it. But with grace, I’m forgiven and my mom is restored.

Pray for her in this time, that she won’t need to endure anymore than what she’s been asked to. Let her be blessed in all she does.

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Pull in the reins

I love how God has been working and sometimes in unpredictable and unexpected ways. One of the things I’ve learned in the past few months is how important is to remember of how we respond to God.

Yesterday, the secretary of the church of where I reside in came upstairs during lunch and asked if someone who knew signs from the YWAM team and talk to a deaf man in their office. I decided to go, figured he probably needed something. I spoke with him and found he has sickle-cell disease and just moved. I felt sympathetic and wished I could help more but started with a relationship.

I asked how he found the place. We usually invite people we know; his response?

“I was on the bus back to Maryland and noticed this particular church and decided to check it out,” Keith said.

It may not make sense if you’ve never been to this church, but there are about 4 churches on the same block and he decides to pick this church to walk in.

Unquestionable, I knew it was a divine appointment of God wanting to do something. There are not many churches with deaf ministries in D.C. and he just happened to pick Embassy Church. When he shared his heart, and asked for money. I asked if he was a believer and he said yes. I told him I would be more than happy to pray with him. We prayed for healing, finding employment and that God would provide the funds for his medical needs. I managed to ask for his contact info.

Today, I shared my testimony in the Washington House of Prayer meeting and I realized how important this was. Often, as disciples, we find ourselves running after people. Seeking for someone to share the word of God to anyone the Holy Spirit leads us to but yesterday, was the complete opposite. God drew this lost man into His house and called him to come and be prayed for. It’s really encouraging for our base and also for me. I love that God gets all the glory in this because it’s who He is. It’s a matter of how we respond to Him.

I could have advised the secretary of the church to turn him away but I didn’t. Maybe it was curiosity but I think God picked that specific moment before I decided to hit the showers to be called. I won’t question it but be expectant in everything He has to offer. 

If I didn’t respond to Him, I would have missed an opportunity to pray for him. If I didn’t respond to Him, I would have missed out on what God could do for this man. If I didn’t respond to Him, I would have never known how amazing and miraculous He is. Can you respond the same?

The weakest link

If you’ve ever lived in a community or worked with a large group of people, it can be easy to be faced with challenges affecting others. Having grown up with seizures, it’s affected my life one way or another. Including everything I do and everyone I associate with. I found myself often excluded or restricted from activities and events. This week, God has been challenging me as in what my role is in the community I live, eat and breathe with or even how I can make sure I am a part of it without feeling like I live in a bubble more than I already do. 

1 Corinthians 12:15-27
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it,so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

 

There will be times when challenges arises in the church where people need to be restricted in specific parts of ministry. But it doesn’t mean people should not be allowed to be a part of it; unless a specific circumstance calls for one to be. But, even the weakest link of of the group is the most important. There is something God sees that perhaps the world doesn’t recognize. Those who are strong, don’t require as much support because they are already held accountable but the strong pulls up the weak and the weak pulls up the strong. Therefore, each must be able to honor one another, even in times of suffering. No one ever said ministry would be easy but it doesn’t come without the benefit package of entering the Kingdom of God. 

Through it all, God is good.