Extraordinary Love Calls us to take Extraordinary Measures: A Sermon from June

This is the tale of two fathers, one father with a sick daughter and the other father with the ability to heal.




This is really the story of a little girl, sick with a hugely bloated belly, the six year old daughter of a Malian African pastor. Because of the pain, the little girl was not free to be a child, to do the basics of what a child is supposed to be able to do: to play and learn. Her dad, in passion for his daughter’s health, would pray for hours on his knees for God’s healing. When the doctors first started treating her, they thought that she had tuberculosis. But after treating her for six months with heavy medications, the pain was still present, the belly still extended. The dad, bereft, brought her back to the hospital but the doctors unfortunately were at the end of their diagnostic powers. Without having anything left, he got down on his knees again…for hours a day.  The dad asked the doctors what other course of action they could take. So, the doctors gave the little girl a CT scan, extremely rare and expensive for an African, especially a pastor…easily two year’s salary without health care. The results were discussed by email with American doctors. The answer coming from across the sea was that it was a cyst attached to many of her internal organs. Again, a total dead end. No Malian doctor would attempt such a surgery on a six year old. It seemed the little girl would have to live with the growing cyst without any possibility of care until she became an adult. Still, the father did not stop praying.


Then, enter my own father, traveling to Mali last January to a hospital six hours away from this loving dad and his daughter. What the pastor did not know, was that my dad was trained, not just in various types of surgery, but pediatric surgery in particular. So, in hope that the American surgeon could bring peace to his six year old daughter, the dad drove six hours over horrible roads, the little girl crying out in the backseat at each bump. Finally, using the CT scan that had seemed financially irresponsible, my father donned his surgical cap, gave this little girl anesthesia and with precision, cut the mass away from each organ, leaving the little girl pain free and healthy. The next morning my dad checked on the two of them, the pastor was joyfully watching his daughter’s belly go up and down as she breathed. It was flat…and she was able to sit up and talk. He tearfully thanked my father and spontaneously raised his voice in worship. His prayers had been answered.


Extraordinary love sometimes calls us to take extraordinary measures.


This is another story…this time with a mother. A dear friend, Clare, about ten years ago found out that her son, Bronson, had gotten caught in the web of the horrible world of heroin. …and was now being held by drug dealers in a house against his will until he could pay for his addiction. I’ll never forget this image she shared with me: white Clare knocking on the door of a rundown drughouse in one of the worst parts of their urban downtown and when the door opened, and a man peered out, Clare pried the door open, throwing herself into the house and with determination, went searching room by squalid room pulling back blankets, turning heads with empty eyes until she found her son. But, the danger was not over. In most of these houses, the drug dealers are armed and this one was no different. She was followed by an armed drug dealer and threw a huge wad of cash around the room, creating such a chaotic scene that she was able to escape with a stumbling, scared Barrett. She did not care about her own safety. She was willing to go to extraordinary measures because of love.


She was the epitome of grace and love unwilling to see her child die.


This, precious friends is the kind of love that we see in God in 1 Kings 18 with the contest on Mt. Carmel.


I’ll set the scene: You see baal was supposed to be the weather god and couldn’t send rain. He was supposed to be the fire god and could not rain down fire. God, our God was not above meeting baal on his own turf in order to show the emptiness his people were giving their lives to. He revealed himself in power…to save his people.


Extraordinary love goes to extraordinary measures.


But, I’m not done telling you the whole truth of what the Israelites were facing. The truth was even more sinister.


Israel exchanged a covenant with the Almighty Creator of the universe with a slavery to a god who was demanding blood. Baal worship was not a wild frat party around a golden calf.  Baal often demanded a bloody human sacrifice. Where temples of baal worship have been unearthed, nearby have been found the piles of children’s remains, especially infant’s bodies. In two other places in scripture, we even hear that Kings Ahab and Manasseh had sacrificed their own sons in order to try to gain the baal’s favor for their success. We see just a glimpse of the horror in this scripture when the prophets of baal could not get him to answer their plea to send fire and began to cut their body.


Forgive me for this difficult description, it is just absolutely essential that we get that this was not an embarrassed boyfriend, this was a loving, protective God, a Father demanding the freedom of his people from life-destroying evil. God, our God, was going to extraordinary measures to reveal himself to his children to guide them back to Life.


Sometimes we stray from God into something that doesn’t at the time seem sinister, but then we look back on our lives and realize that so much has been stolen from us. The worst thieves can sometimes be the most unexpected. Does that make sense?


Andrew, Kathy, Marie and myself had a chance to go to a healing prayer workshop two weeks ago and one of the most profound truths that I heard at the whole weekend was learning to ask myself: what has this cost me?


Sometimes the things that we believe are really lies. You need to be perfect or to perform in a specific way in order to be loved. You are not smart. You are ugly. You will always be rejected. You need people’s approval in order to be loved. Or after a parent has died or abandoned us, we hear an inaudible voice whisper, “I am on my own.” And for the rest of our lives we live, walled off, a self-fulfilling prophecy.These lies become a major motivation in our lives, sometimes coming out of one painful encounter with a teacher or a parent. These can be lies that we are told outright or that we were told indirectly:


Here’s another one: I will always fail. There are literally hundreds of these lies stemming from the wounded places in our lives that become the jumping off place for the sin and pain in our lives. Unless cleaned up and healed by God, these lies and places of woundedness becomes the garbage where the rats reside. This garbage is the rats' playground. In religious language: These lies and wounds become strongholds of the enemy. This is where the evil one can steal, kill and destroy.


The question: “what has this cost me?” often brought tears to my eyes during the week at the conference. Because of these lies, we often wall ourselves off from people to protect ourselves. Or like the Samaritan woman at the well, we jump into bed with people who do not really love us in order to gain approval, go to pornography to silence the loneliness or need for respect. We go to food to make ourselves feel better, hours of television, silly books, gossip, drinking, friends that we know aren’t good for us…but we don’t want to be lonely. Put your own stuff in the blanks: I go to--------- when I feel bad. We often don’t even know that we are doing it, we may have learned to go to the action so early we don't see it as a reaction anymore. But years can be stolen by depression, or even stolen by perfectionism, and our dreams are often stolen by fears.


Our bodies themselves pay the price. These strongholds literally give us years of pain.


What has this cost me?


Does this make sense? We might not have baal stealing our children, but we do have the evil one stealing our freedom. But wait, these lies do steal our children as well: these same lies and fears we live with are often passed right down to the next generation. If we don't deal with our fears, our sins and the lies we believe now, they will become our kids' inheritance.
AND we might not be asked by our god to cut ourselves to prove our worthiness, but in a way, that is exactly what we are doing by over and over trying to achieve to show we are enough, or trying to gain someone’s approval to show that we are worth loving, or respecting.


The sad thing is that we bring these same lies right into our relationship with God…thinking God wants the very same from us and move these same assumptions into our relationship with Him.


The question of the day is: what has this really cost me? What has believing this lie cost me?


We are stuck in a web with the enemy’s shadow peering over us and we need God to go to extraordinary measures for us.


Listen to these words spoken by the prophet Isaiah…that Jesus proclaimed as his mission in this war. Drink this in. There is hope:


“I have come to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners…to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion.”


Jesus took the extraordinary measure of leaving paradise to take on our flesh…coming into the sinful world that his children created in order to literally die for them. Have you ever heard a father say that he would die for his children? This is what God did.


This is what Clare would have done for her son Bronson.


Elijah today illustrates the best news of all. When we cry out to God, He always shows up! We don’t have to work ourselves up to get His attention. We don’t have to cut ourselves…or be perfect…or somehow try to come to Him with great amounts of good works to tell him that we are worthy. We come as we are…and as in the story of the prodigal son, the father will run with unbounding grace toward you.


God longs to sweep in and rescue! His personality is that He goes after the one lost sheep. He even does the ultimate, sacrificing his body on the cross in order to satisfy the blood demanded by our sins so that we can go free. By His wounds we are healed. His blood is the beginning of our healing.


He longs to show up for us when we cry out for him. You, my dear, my friend, are that son, that daughter. He will go to extraordinary measures to heal, to rescue, to restore and redeem all that was lost. Part of our going to Ohio for this training was that we could be one of the friends standing beside you, showing you the way to freedom, where Christ is pointing the way. We can show you the map out.


You are precious to the father’s heart. He longs to come through for you. Longs to show up for you. Longs to reveal himself wherever you are…He just says, come, son, come daughter, just as you are…and I will take extraordinary measures to bring you freedom.

A Lesson Overcoming Intimidation

In certain contexts do you struggle with being intimidated like me?

The Lord has been training me in a new way, away from codependancy and into an unshakable knowledge of my identity.  I want to be watching and following God like Lucy learns to track Aslan in Prince Caspian.  Do you remember?  Lucy gets a lesson in who her Authority is and how essential it is that she follows, whether her path is understood and others follow or not.

Gianna Jessen gets it.  (Check out the last post. Learn.  Mark. and Inwardly Digest.)

1.  She's straightforward, not apologizing, not afraid of being hated (My Jesus was hated and I expect to be hated too.)  There's nothing codependant about her!!!

2.  Her obvious love of the audience does not make her soften the truth.

3.  Her warmth, smile, and crinkly eyes.  She doesn't keep her emotions at the anger level.  She shows complex warmth.  Very 1 Corinthians 13.  Her heart is engaged.

4.  Her comfort within her very visible cerebral palsey weakness.  She even calls it a gift.  Can we do that with our weaknesses?  Christ is our overcomer...and if something else is overcoming us instead, this is an affirmation of the need for healing.  Pursue healing actively!  It is one of the necessities for a victorious life.

5.  She does not allow the obvious powerful make up of her audience or the formality of the setting intimidate her.

6.  The pain of her story has become the power behind her ministry.  She has mined the riches stored in dark places!Isaiah 45:3


6.  She knows who and Whose she is, solid in her true identity!  Her identity is not on the periphery but central to her message.  "I am God's girl."  This can only come, I believe, through scripture/truth memorization.  The answer has to be God-breathed.  Listen to what God has to say about you.  Memorize it.  The truth has to replace all the voices rooted in your mind, past and present. Memorize it again and watch His internal surgery take place.

Thank you Gianna!

Fierce Woman of the Week: Gianna Jessen, Abortion survivor, speaks her life sermon in Australia

Women are a fierce breed and we are meant to use our stories to tell the truth and rise up on behalf of others. 


Check out Gianna's passionate courage in the face of weakness.  I love her quote:  Where were the feminists when my right as a woman to live was being taken away?


Don't miss this chance to stretch and enlarge your heart for the babies of the silent Holocaust.



Her identity in Christ is solid.  She's not afraid to be hated because she knows who and Whose she is.  She's a teacher for all of us.

a chatty, rambling blogging letter

We're all up.  It's 7:30am. We're still in the pre-daylight savings dark and one child woke up at 5:30am finding that he needed company. 


So, baby is safely contained in the high chair and it seems that I have hands "free" to chat. 


This summer I took a few months to get a certain amount of "control" (what a tenuous word, as soon as you think you have it, the sooner it disappears,) in different areas of my life. 

First was my home, sadly neglected after Xavier was born.  I spent six weeks spending every available moment inching closer towards home organisation.  I read about it, watched shows and surfing blogs to inspire, chatted with my friends about it and found neighborhood Mother's Helpers who were out of school for the summer in order to find moments to accomplish it.

Sandra Felton is my favorite "organization lady."  Her books on cleaning and house organization draw me in.  She not only understands the struggle, she has been studying the psychology behind the struggle.  I always need to know the why behind the problem...though right now I'm pretty sure I found it!  He is sitting in the high chair covered with oatmeal. Hmmmm.  She glossed over that one.  I find that moms have a selective memory when it comes to the "adventure" of young children.  It is the great sucking time warp and once you move out of it, only the nostaligic pieces stick!  Have any of you found the same thing?


The next six weeks I rebuilt my home cafe, (We don't get to eat out often, but that doesn't mean I don't crave great food!)getting creative again, trying new recipes and focusing on nutrition.  Way fun.  Barefoot Contessa's recipes are all over the internet and her Cheese blintzes with blueberry sauce were simply divine.  Everyone agreed, even baby, who happily gazed up in a dreamy marscopone haze.  Yup, honey.  God has given us cheese and it is good. 
Then, in August, we delved right into the world of homeschooling...while Andrew started a side business in web design, (along with mobile webdesign, e-stores and social marketing) and honestly, I have taken on more administration and teaching than I should have at church.  Then, with baby waking up as soon as he hears me and going to sleep close to 9:30 each night, I fell into bed exhausted and uninspired to blog.  Hmmm.  Now I sound like I'm complaining and making excuses...

But, I miss you all as well as blogging so  that on my day off I have been writing post drafts and have lots to share.  You have been on my mind even while absent! 

I'm thinking through a change in blog title like Anglicanpriestmom...or something like that.  And, in the future, I plan on doing some book reviews and bringing more strong women mentors to the table.  Look for the first in the next few days.

Meantime, "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ." 

His peace be on your home and all who dwell in it,
Summer Joy

A Quick Laugh

Caedmon was rifling through Nana's generous pantry looking for a juice box. "Mom, where's the good juice?". He meant the juicy juice fruit punch, not the fruitables I got this last time.

No answer.  I was deep in conversation with my sister, who graduated from The Ohio State University this past weekend.  (Don't ask why they use the pretensious "The." It is actually the legal beginning  of their name.)

Back to Caed.  "Mom, where's the juice box?"

"I don't know Caed.  Check the fridge."

Then this is what I heard muttered under his breath:  "I feel like the only man around here."

Hmmmm.

Silence.  Stephanie and I stifle giggles for what seemed like an insanely long five minutes until Caed left and went to the bathroom. 

Where did my five year old get that?

The only Man. 

Our Cottages, His Kingdom: How and Why We Usher Him In

The Kingdom of God (the power of Christ in and through people) was never meant to be static.  You are filled with the Kingdom of God if you are a Christian and surrendering daily to Christ.(Luke 17:21) Christ's rule has come over your life (though we are pretty good and coming out from under it often) and the Kingdom of God is within you. 

As Christians we are meant to be praying on a daily basis:
Our Father
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy Kingdom Come
Thy Will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.

This is THE prayer that Christ taught his disciples.  It might be short, but it is not simple.

What is the kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is where Christ is on the throne where He is always meant to be, where all things are worshiping, and there is NOTHING placed before Him! The Kingdom of God is where we are WHOLE-hearted, Peter-stepping-out-of-the-boat focused on Jesus. The Kingdom of God is where every sin has been covered by the blood, where every disease and broken heart has been healed. Isaiah 61

In the Kingdom of God there is appropriate order.  Injustice is no more.  Every crooked thing (bad theology, sin) is made straight.  In the Kingdom of God fruit bursts out big and beautiful as we dwell in Jesus. 

The Kingdom of God is Eden before the fall where God walked with people in the cool of the evening.  The Kingdom of God is Heaven established on our soil.



So, here's the next working image:  The Kingdom of God wants to go out from you (Luminous One) through the Holy Spirit into every domain that you walk in.  The dark rooms will not/should not stay dark when we have walked into them because we are carrying the light of Christ with us. 

We can pray the Kingdom of God (God's true and powerful reign on earth) as we clean the dust bunnies from every corner of our homes, as we stroller through our neighborhoods, blessing our neighbors and praying that the Father would draw them to Himself. 

John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day."

We can pray the Kingdom of God as we walk to get coffee at work and then back to our cubicle, as we process the cross in our churches.  We can pray the Kingdom into all places where we have influence so that like ripples on the water going outward, the Lord can come on earth as it is in heaven.  This is our role, our joy as Christ-followers. 

When you walk around your home today, pray that this square footage would be Kingdom land, that Christ would reign there in every inch.  As you clean, pray, "Jesus, your Kingdom come here...in my heart...and here in this home.  Clean out our hearts as we clean out this room.  Lord, I pray that this home and the people in it would please you in every way.  Lord, heal us of every disease physical and spiritual that is keeping us from serving You.  Heal us of every broken heart that is keeping us from serving, loving, sharing You with our neighbors. 

We need to be healed so that we can stop the pity party, the utter self-focus, and LOVE others into the Kingdom.  Lord, we want to live in Your Presence...we want our food that we prepare to be kingdom food, our joys to be kingdom joys.  We want to dwell with You under Your tent."

When Jesus walked into a room and people began to believe in Him, this is what happened: healings occured.  Sins were forgiven.  Demons left.  Truth was told.  People were invited deeper.  The truth is that NOTHING HAS CHANGED!  He desires to do the same thing now, but here's the difference:

He wants to bring the Kingdom through you. 

Homeschooling...and shocking, I know... it's fun!

The summer is nearly over and I can definitely say that I am back...in more ways than one. 

We're homeschooling...a decision that I agonized over for the last few years.  My mothering stress level was crazy high and neither Andrew or I could have anticipated what has just occurred. 

I LOVE HOMESCHOOLING!  Who knew?  We've been "practicing" for the last month so that I could make an informed decision and have settled into a blend of Charlotte Mason and Classical for now.  Caedmon is an older Kindergartener and loves learning and Madeline has a mind that memorizes everything around her.  She soaks up knowledge without trying.  Caedmon and I were doing a few flashcards on question  sight words and Madeline was barely paying attention though every once in a while she would look up, barely emotionally engaged and in a monotone, say the right word (which had been shuffled, I promise.)

Right now our curriculum is using Living Books Charlotte Mason style and doing our other learning activities surrounding them.  Caedmon told his friend yesterday that he wasn't interested in going to school where you had to sit behind a desk and do worksheets all day.  "Yup," his friend said, "that's pretty much what we do."  You should see the tee pee in our backyard. 

I love my job.  No longer do I watch Andrew go out the door and secretly wish I had a "day off" to be a priest.  Passionate mothering is no longer a catch word to aspire to, but  (major prayer answered!) a reality.  I have always adored my children, but for the first time, I have major amounts of joy surrounding the work God has called me to.  I even started getting all domestic, baking and stuff.  No more Little Ceasar's crappy pizza.  Hello Barefoot Contessa's honey and kosher salt infused pizza dough. 

Homeschooling seems to order our day and builds quality time right into our schedule.  The bonding the kids and I are doing is deeper (Madeline even started wanting cuddle time in the morning) and even Andrew is getting involved reading "The Sign of the Beaver," before bed.  (We're doing all things American Indians from the late 1800's right now because that's where Caed's interest was already.) 

Personally, I love the creativity involved.  I've always been a learner and a researcher and spending time figuring out how to form feast-laying curriculum is fascinating.  The other night, I spent an hour of my after-bedtime free time figuring out how to make Madeline Sacajawea paper dolls!  Mothering has become my new guilty pleasure.  

I am rejoicing right now as this all has been extremely surprising and frankly, I am drinking insane amounts of orange green tea which steeps in the fridge at all times and is probably adding to the happy buzz.   Thank you, God and thank you, Lipton.