...sticky things

I Cor 1:13 - 17  Has Christ been divid

ed? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so that no one would say you were baptized in my name. 16Now I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized any other. 17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. 


Yeah.  I had to back up and start again here.

At the Beth Moore Simulcast, day before yesterday,
I faced my old nemesis - jealousy.

And I can only say this,  the taproot

 

is gone
as a result of being core honest and letting someone I have been jealous of pray for me.

Being jealous of someone doesn't mean you don't like them.  In this case, just the opposite.

Jealousy is such a mask wearing sneaky thing.  

Unlike some strongholds that cripple our lives with jagged claws, jealousy is more like a sticky oozy glue

that molds around us

so subtly that it feels like a warm coat

... at first.  

I have been so "clothed" in jealousy for so long that I've even been jealous of my own children at times. 

But something broke as she prayed.

 As we talked, she gave me permission not to be everything to everyone... she gave me permission not to be in ministry in the "normal" ways    (small group leader, teacher, hostess, planner)

She encouraged me to continue with this blog.  I'm never quite sure who reads this, and in one sense it doesn't matter.  But at this moment it did.  She had read it.  I felt "seen".

As we laughed about being our age and still struggling with comparisons, I heard myself repeating the scripture I'd blogged about that morning... only it was in context of our conversation...

"Right!  Why would I compare myself to someone else?   Did she die on the cross for me?  Was I baptized in her name?"

Then my friend prayed a simple acknowledgement that it was time for this to be done.  And it was.  It is.... done.  It was done not by my honesty, not by her prayer, but by the simple fact of the cross and what was done there by Jesus Christ who DID die on the cross for me.  "It is finished."

...(wow)...   um...  wow.

Later in the seminar, I stood in humility to be prayed for as one who was carrying the wounds given me by a couple of other women.  "You'll know if this is you if it still hurts... I have a scar on my knee, but I can touch it and it doesn't hurt at all anymore... but if you think of that woman and it still hurts, then it still needs healing..."  As the women close by my chair prayed for me, something "rolled off" and it was just done.

A few minutes later, it was my turn to pray over one of my closest friends as a woman who had been wounded by men.   As I prayed for her, Beth Moore prayed out the words that God would restore the years the locusts had eaten.  Joel 2:25.  (This was a scripture I had prayed over my friend many times.  No woman should ever have to go through what she did.)

Suddenly, I inhaled with my mouth open and was bathed in such peace that I opened my eyes surprised that I wasn't coming up out of the water!  It was a physical, deep but soft gasp of air as if I had been under water and came up and sucked in the sweetest, purest, most sparkling peaceful air.   It wasn't like I had been drowning, but I had come up out of the water and it was clean.  Everything was rich and "foresty" and clean.

I didn't really know what to make of it.

I had this peaceful smile and the best way to describe it was that I no longer felt embarrassed.

We finished praying and as Beth Moore went on to different areas of prayer, my friend leaned over and said,  "While everyone was praying, it was like I saw torrents of water coming all over me and cleansing me."   I told her about my "deep breath." only I described it wrongly the first time.  As I reviewed it,  I realized it was like being baptized, but in really deep water... and that, at some point in that prayer for her, I had seen a swimming pool.  It was dry because it had been drained so that it could be swept clean, repaired  - and was now ready to be filled.  It was such a parallel to where my sweet friend and I have both been this past year in particular.

"Pray for one another that you may be healed"  kept going through my mind.  I prayed for her, and I got healed.  No one was more surprised than me.  "Rejoice with one another, that your joy may be complete"       I was so excited for her that I got the completion of my healing.

.......So I've just looked up that first verse.  It's James 5:16  15and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. 16Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.

I have just lived in the truth of that verse.  Like the poor woman who lived her life on the sidelines because of her issues, I suddenly didn't care who saw me.

I just had to touch even just the hem of what he wore and it would change what I wore.

He is clothed in righteousness, I was clothed in rags but trying to use silly scraps to cover myself.

For the first time in my life, I do not feel ugly.

I know that jealousy will try to stick itself to me again.

But as of September 13, 2014 I'm healed. 

When jealousy tries to attach itself, yes it will touch me,

but it will be like someone trying to post a sticky note to a waterfall.