I didn't mention yesterday that Jonathan and I started attending a new church in Dayton, NJ after returning from Paris in 2015. It's a small, family-friendly, multi-cultural church formally called Abundant Life Church, but because there are so many Abundant Life Churches across the country and particularly in NJ, they changed the name to Life Church this year. And there is a lot of life and love in the church.
While in Paris, I looked into the church after a friend's brother mentioned visiting it in 2014. He said the congregation was so friendly and he was impressed by how the pastor and his wife remembered his name after only one visit. I checked out the Web site and listened to a couple of sermons. I was impressed by the teachings and even moreso by their commitment to missions and the community.
I knew I wanted Jonathan and I to find a smaller church where I would physically be in the same room with my pastor and his family on a weekly basis. Liquid Church was getting too big and I felt disconnected, despite my lovely group of ladies that were in my small group there and who I still connect with on a regular basis since leaving Liquid. Life Church offered us what I'd be longing to have in a church family. I've made great friends there and so has Jonathan and the children's ministry is wonderful. In addition, they have a great boy's ministry called Royal Rangers and I was able to get Jonathan into about a year earlier than normal (at age 5 rather than 6). It's like a Christian Boy's Scout and is led by a wonderful, dedicated man of God, who has been mentoring and leading the troop since the 80s. Royal Rangers might be the best thing about Life Church. For a young boy who does not have regular contact with his father, it's a huge HUGE blessing.
They also support a missionary in Haiti and have been doing so for over 20 years and send a team there every January to minister and simply meet with the families, teachers and the many children that the missionary, Ed Lockett, blesses through his sacrifice and calling to the area. I haven't gone on a trip yet. When it comes to short term missions, I prefer to have something tangible to do, like construction, medical service, etc.. The team typically goes around and visits with families and schools - bringing supplies and money and fellowshipping. A lot of time is spent just being with the children from the community that Ed blesses in his home. I'm not much of a sit around and just fellowship kind of person and really don't love spending a lot of time with kids that aren't Jonathan, so.... Nonetheless, when Jonathan is of age, I believe I will make the Haiti trip with him and hopefully will do other more service-oriented short term missions trips with him before he's a teenager.
Anyway, that's all the back story to the fast that the church actually started yesterday but I'm starting today. I needed to get rid of the last of the alcohol in the house last night😇, which I gladly did, and do a final night of watching my law & order re-runs and simply vegging out in front of the tv until 1 am in the morning.
So today marks the first time in years that I'm giving over myself to quiet and rest in Jesus. I am desperate to find a place of peace that doesn't require a cocktail or wine or mindless TV watching.
I'm not sure if I have any specific prayer requests. I know it's important to lay out before the Lord your specific needs before a fast. It's just that I feel I have so many and at the same time, not really any of true importance.
I talked with Him last week about simply wanting Him to lead and direct and that I'm done trying to figure stuff out. So maybe that's the primary need I want Him to fulfill during this fast: Removing my mind and hands off my life and the lives of those around me. So far He's been doing an outstanding job with Jonathan, despite all the ways I mess up, through action, word and thought. Jonathan is articulate, polite, sanguine, jolly, funny, smart and - well - the love of my life. He's also prone to angry outbursts (usually Kindle induced), stubbornness, disobedience (why can't he follow simple instructions?!) and boy can he be loud and sometimes TOO talkative! But I love all of it - frustrated by some of it - but grateful for all that he is and how the Lord is shaping him into the man he is purposed to become.
I no longer want to figure out what my career should be, where we should or should not live, how to care for this house, how to care for my parents, whether or not we sell this house and my mom go into assistant living, whether or not I have enough money, where Jonathan goes to school - nothing. I want to be completely beholden to the Lord God Almighty and led by Him. I want Him to download daily, moment by moment instructions and then enable me to carry them out. I want to be free of me and let Him do what He said He would do for me if I seek Him and believe that He exists: Richly reward me - richly reward Jonathan.
Do I still have dreams? Yes, yes I do. I mainly want Him to fulfill those words spoken to me over these past five years - whether audibly or through scripture, sermons, devotions. I won't write them here. It's between me and Him. Probably a few of the older ones are documented in earlier entries (2014 and earlier). There is one in particular that was quite specific, audibly given to me in 2015, but has yet to come to pass, and if it does or should i say, when it does, would be quite a miracle and testimony of His power and grace in my life.
Other dreams have died. I don't plan on trying to pull them back into this life. Maybe they'll be manifest in Jonathan's life. I don't know.
Quite a few dreams have been fulfilled: AmeriCorps VISTA, living abroad, running a marathon, bearing a son. It is these fulfilled dreams that enable me to believe that even what seems impossible can be made possible by the power of my living, breathing, wonderful Father in Heaven.
So, what I want for this fast I suppose distills down to having more of the Father - not running away from Him again. And it's a request that the enemy has fought to keep from me for most of my life but particularly these almost 10 years since making the decision to move back to NJ in Christmas 2008.
That was a God-ordained decision and I believe in it were to be blessings untold. And maybe in all the sadness and loss and regret, save Jonathan's birth and my dad's survival after that devastating fall, His calling back to NJ was manifest. Yet, I believe there was much, much, much more that He had for me here that those pivotal moments in my life sort of derailed (getting re-involved with Kay in 2011 after Jonathan's birth and then possibly, I believe now, suffering a bit of a nervous breakdown after my dad's fall and the myriad of changes and responsibilities and sometimes, yes, burdens, laid on me in the wake of it). I've been floundering - not really able to get a firm footing - and then simply giving over myself to what was an easy way to handle it all: booze and more booze - more and more as the years progressed.
I went for my run today after almost a week of not being able to get out there since the arctic burst and blizzard. It was cold but wonderful. I thank God for the gift of running. It is one of the things I hold onto, along with the many dreams He has fulfilled in my life, that tells me that in the midst of all my sin and forsaking Him, He is the giver of good things to His children.
He gave me Jonathan out of a poor decision of sexual sin on my part with a married man...
He brought me home to NJ to be there for my mother when my father's injury occurred, though I originally had other plans for my life in NJ and post NJ; ulterior motives so to speak...
He blessed me with a renewed relationship with my brother after my return to NJ - a few years to get to know one another as adults before the Lord decided to take Him home and away from the pain and angst he suffered for most of his life...
He gifted me with a love of Paris and quality time spent there, learning the city and being all that I am, without shame, and doing so with Jonathan...
He gave me running and released me from the burden of excess weight - reversing the curse of menopause, renewing my youth, and invigorating my life...
I still have a ways to go. He's working on me. bit by bit.
So I suppose what I most need, Father, is for You to make this fast a way to accelerate moving me back to that original purpose You had when you ordained that I come back to NJ. Open doors and lead me rightly, equip and enable me to walk it out. And move me to readily stand in the authority granted to me by Christ to withstand the angry darts of the enemy. He doesn't want me to move into what You've had for me - waiting for me - since 2008. He doesn't want it because He knows that within it is something - many things - that will bring you tremendous glory and me tremendous joy, satisfaction, peace and FULFILLMENT - here on earth - not out somewhere in the future by and by. Here and now - starting here and now.
Have your way o Lord.
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