Postcard from Heaven:

Dear Friend,
Wish you were Here! I'm never coming back!
In His Love,
Lisa-Anne
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I wrote this in another place, on a board where I hang out... but since most of my blog friends have never been to that place, I thought I'd also put it here. This is a "future" journal entry I might make, after I arrive on that beautiful shore! Enjoy! -- LA

Journal entry:
Somewhere outside of Time and Space...
Some time ago I found myself here, and I'm still overcome with awe. Life in the Spirit is so *different*! I'm so glad I'm finally free from the prison I lived in on Earth... it's hard to even remember what it felt like to be encumbered with a temporal body. The new one is much nicer, and as light as air! The laws of Physics are different here...there aren't any! I find myself completely unhampered, unbound, unrestricted... FREE! The Joy of being alive (fully, truly alive!) is wonderfully overwhelming! When I arrived, I found myself drawn to a bright cloud, a glorious Presence, surrounded by worshippers on every side. The cloud seemed to expand and contract like the beating of a heart. The sense of Holiness and wonder and awe would sweep over everyone at each movement of the cloud. I felt my own being expand with Joy like a balloon filled with air! The light of the cloud was scintillating, sparkling, moving... bathing everyone around in a glorious ocean of colors and illuminating everyone from within. The worshippers made a rainbow-like ring of glory around that bright cloud, and I could hold back no longer! I was drawn into the crowd, swelling with worship, Pouring out all the love I could hold inside! Love wouldn't stay in, it was immediately expressed wherever it was felt, which was every moment and from all directions! Love was being poured out as fast as it was being poured in! The utter delight and amazement continued to grow as I looked ever more closely into that cloud and saw many facets of my Beloved. The angels would see, and cry HOLY! and we all would fall on our faces and echo the cry! This went on for some time, until I felt more "whole" than I knew it was possible to feel, and yet, my heart longed for more! In the cloud, I could see Jesus, wrapped in an embrace from His Father. I could stand it no longer... The Holy Spirit inside me leapt and cried out with passion and ran with me into that bright, bright cloud... Where we gave and recieved a million kisses and precious embraces and shouts of joy! And now, I can't bear to leave Him who my heart loves, I can't bear to look away from His face! The adventures we have in a single strand of time would fill the bestseller lists on a million worlds...
Time is only marked here by the continually new revelations of His glory, and the new Joys we experience every moment as His Bride. Every good and beautiful gift is from Him, and we live every moment to bring Him delight! There are, indeed, pleasures forever at His right hand!

Dreaming Cousins

I'm getting excited... I leave on Thursday to fly to Los Angeles. I'm taking my last class in "Biblical Dream Interpretation" and I'm really looking forward to it. I know it's going to be intense. Usually by the end of these 3 day classes I'm mentally overloaded and simply exhausted, but what a good kind of tired it is! I will just have to press in to the Lord even more to get the strength I need. I'll be "unpacking" the understanding and revelation from what I learn for years to come!

I've always been a dreamer, even when I was very young. I talked to my cousin today- the bright, beautiful, vivacious one who is only a couple months older than I am. We sort of grew up together, and I think of her as a sister. She's a dreamer, too. It's one of those things that runs in my family, kind of like how babies in our family tend to either come too early or threaten to!

As we talked today, I reminded her that "talking" was one of her gifts. Apparently, she got two copies of that gene, and I only got one... so those of you who know me can be assured that there really is somebody out there who can talk circles around even me! It's another gift that runs in our family, I call it "Persuasive Speech". It can be a good thing or a not so good thing, depending on whether or not the one who has the gift is a new creation in Christ, having all those generational issues brought to the cross and restored to their rightful function.

When it comes to talking, folks in my clan have to be careful. There's some powerful stuff in our inheritance... we find ourselves pretty much able to offend anybody, start riots or even wars, and even get crowds of people to believe what we say. Or, for those of us who have bowed the knee and pledged our mouths to the Master, we find ourselves able to speak deep and startling truth into pretty much anybody, preach on a moments notice with great effect on the hearers, and even get crowds of people to believe what we say. Talk about the power of life and death being in the tongue! I'm so glad that there are more "preachers" in my line today than not. It gives me a lot of hope for the next generation that we're busy raising up to know and love and serve the Lord.

My cousin was telling me that she was "stubborn" among other things. It occured to me to have her change that confession. She isn't stubborn any longer, she is "Steadfast". Thats restoring her inheritance to what it was supposed to be. We're meant to be able to hold our ground, and having done all to stand, keep standing. That's allowing the generational gift that was distorted by sin (it doesn't matter if it was our sin, or the sin of our Fathers) to be filtered through the cross, to be buried in death with the Lord Jesus and brought back in newness of life, being healed and restored to the original generational blessing it was meant to be.

My cousin and I come from a long line of dreamers. Both of us were shocked when we learned that not everybody dreams and remembers them. I'm still shaking my head in disbelief that some folks don't even dream in color, but in black and white! And not everybody has dreams that are immediately recognizable as a message or a gift from the Lord. Being a dreamer of dreams is to have a spiritual gift, and she and I are both learning to treat it that way. We're learning the Biblical history and teaching about dreams, and how to interpret dreams metaphorically with the help of the Holy Spirit. We're learning to take our dreams seriously enough to write them down and seek after the Lord about them. When we were both about 10, we each had a signifigant spiritual dream that changed our lives. It was at that point (hearing her dream and knowing my own) that I began to wonder just what God had wrought. I was only ten, so I didn't ponder on it too much longer, but I never forgot it, either. By the way, my cousin named her baby "Daniel". She'd prayed and asked the Lord, and that's the name she heard. We both think it's wonderfully right for him, and we can't wait to hear what he dreams about!

Just like the other generational things, dreaming was meant to be a gift. Some of our ancestors were dreamers who heard from God. Others who had the gift used it wrongly, or got mixed up with the wrong spirits. I'm thinking of some of our Indian forebears, who were great dreamers, but had to sweat it out in tents or chew something now on the illegal narcotics list to induce what they thought were "spiritual" dreams. There were also some of them who were Scotts and Irish, who had the gift of "sight" and prophecy, and dreams and visions, but until they knew the Savior, their vision was darkness and false. All too often, we pass over, ignore, or even try to get rid of the gifts we find in ourselves because we fear the gifts, and think they are corrupt, or worse, that they are from the enemy to deceive us and wrong in the sight of God. Nothing could be further from the truth! The Lord is the One who makes us, who puts us together and determines our inheritances. He uses our families (among other things) to impart things to us. Even if your family line passes down to you a "defective gift" like stubborness, God wants you to have it, and have it redeemed and made right, so that you can be the blessing you were meant to be, and do the Kingdom work you alone can do! His power is amazing... He can take a persuasive liar and turn them into a persuasive teller of truth! He can turn the darkness in someone to light, and make their vision clear. He can turn stubborn to steadfast in a heartbeat.

Every family in the earth has been blessed, and every person was born with a purpose, an inheritance, a legacy, a destiny. What generational gifts and blessings have been handed down to you? What traits or characteristics do you see that you need to ask the Lord to restore to being a blessing? Aren't you fearfully and wonderfully made? (The answer is Yes! You are!)

Be blessed, till next time!

Sunday Peace

I've been avoiding my blog, of all the silly things to do! Here it sits, waiting for me to come and post into it some exciting news, or some inspired revelation, or the results of some fun Word study. And here I sit, without much in the way of exciting news, unless you consider that I had front row seats this morning (actually, 3rd row!) to see 10 people come to the Lord. That was fun! :) I actually teared up a couple of times! As for the results of the fun Word study, we'll I'm working on it!

Inspired revelation... hmmm... let's see... no, not that one..., ummm...nah, uh-huh, not inspired enough... Oh! I know! Here's one! It's about prayer. Prayer is a good thing! But how often do we pray and talk to the Lord as if He's "out there, somewhere, beneath the pale moonlight; thinking of me, and loving me tonight"? (Can't you hear those dear little mice singing even now?) But seriously, when we address God, do we speak to someone in the sky, someone *outside* of ourselves? Most often we do! We might even feel "lonely" for the Lord, and sigh longingly for Him because we're not adequately sensing His presence. Well, I found a cure for that! *wink* Now just go with me for a minute, it'll all make sense soon! I am a Christian. (I am a C; I am a C*H; I am a C*H*R*I*S*T*I*A*N, and I have C*H*I*R*S*T in my H*E*A*R*T... Oops, there it is!)

As a Child of God, I have a direct hook up, right? Didn't Jesus give us His Spirit to live inside of us? So doesn't that mean that God is not out there somewhere, but in here, with me? It does, it does indeed! And He's not hampered, disabled, or limited in anyway. When Isaiah said "Behold, the LORD'S hand is not so short that it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear," I think Isaiah knew something that we often forget! It was, after all, Jewish folk who came up with the saying, "From your lips to Gods' ear!" Now, I know the Father is in heaven, and seated at His right hand is the Son, and that Jesus is there preparing a place for us and interceeding on our behalf. So yes, God is out there somewhere. But! The precious Holy Spirit, *HE* is in here. And He's fully God. If I really want to make sure my prayers aren't bouncing off the ceiling, but instead reaching the vaulted chambers of heaven, then I'd do well to speak into the microphone that's wired for sound right inside of me! From my lips to God's ear is no greater a distance than from my mouth to my heart, where He sits enthroned!

Learning to turn prayer into an internal thing takes time. Learning to seek Him where He promised to abide (in us!) isn't always intuitive. It takes quiet, and solitude, and being still. There might be some who are shocked or offended at the idea of turning inward and praying to a God who dwells inside your skin with you... but you better hope He does dwell there, or you have even bigger problems to deal with! I often think that we are suprised to find the Spirit of God inside ourselves, because we don't fully believe that He did what He said He'd do!

We're on a journey, right? Walking with God, headed for our "Home". I love this verse: How blessed is the man whose strength is in You, In whose heart are the highways to Zion! (Ps. 84:5) Did you get that? The highway to Zion is in your very own heart. So when you pray, you don't need to go out to the rooftop to boost the signal, no! You really can go into your closet, close the door, and get the best reception! And you know what else? I think the Holy Spirit likes being included! He's so wonderful, always pointing to the Father and to the Son, revealing the Father and the Son to us, but He *is* God, and fully ought to be worshipped as such! Father, Spirit, Son, the Three in One!

So when I feel a bit lonely, or hungry, or thirsty, or dying-man-crawling-through-the-desert *desperate*, I can open the eyes of my heart, and to my delight, find Him there, waiting on me, already as close to me as close can be. He's waiting there with a feast, with bread from heaven and a rich wine, the sweetest companion I'll ever know on this side of the veil. And when I look for Him and find Him there, He never fails to lead me into truth, or to do the work of healing and repairing and restoring my wounded soul. But best of all, He carries me into the deep places of God, and there, He helps me lay my burdens down.

My heart is His home, His heart is my home.

"I AM always with you," He said.