resurrection life

so here i sit 12:07am  Easter night, i think it’s the first Easter sunday i haven’t been to a church service in my life – yet, i feel more encouraged and full of Life than i do after most church services i attend… sadly enough. we went to pancake church at our friend’s house. we made food, we ate together, our children played and we had real conversation. of course i cried at several points…

since it’s late i’ll try to sum up my thoughts in a few words. so much was said, we talked for hours… but what i walked away with was a deeper awareness of the power of God in me. i told them about the dream i had about my sister… (i’ll tell it another time) in the dream she was sick, and i hadn’t known… for years i asked the Lord what the dream meant, what was He trying to tell me… and i only got parts, i only got that she was accepting something as true about herself that I believed in the dream was wrong. not that i questioned that she was sick, but it was more about her acceptance of it… it made me angry in my dream. and what the Lord has made clear in these days is that the cancer is not the enemy, the lies she believes is the enemy. and even then he was trying to show that to me.

it’s not that i believe we shouldn’t pray for her to be healed. we should and i do, and ask others to as well… but the more relevant issue is her heart. He wants her heart. that’s what He told me. over and over. He wants her to know who He says she is, that she is a daughter not a slave, that she is full of Life and resurrection power – and that above all, she is loved. He loves her. And more important than her body, which will pass away, being healed and whole, he wants her heart healed and whole – and I believe that her seeing her true identity as a daughter will usher in her healing… and i can’t make any determinations about how this thinking fits into anyone else’s theology of healing – but I do believe it’s true. That’s not saying God won’t just heal her… but knowing my sister, that would just bring more questions about God than it would answers, and He knows her heart, and he knows how to reach her and He loves her more than i do…

anyway, i left the conversation today, not only remembering the things He has said to me concerning her, but i feel a renewal of – oh i can’t find the right word, it’s not determination, or even hope…. but a renewal of energy – maybe that’s just resurrection life, a renewal of Life flowing through me, giving me the ability (grace) to pray. i’ve had the direction, but i have felt such sadness, such – lethargy about everything, but i think it broke today – at our friend’s home having pancakes, watching our children play, having conversation. If that’s not the church, I don’t know what is.