Tuesday, February 14, 2006

A Red Letter Day- NOT!

Happy Valentines!! Should've had an evening out with my husband for dinner. Instead, Trailady is sick! Last week my children and my man were sick- they're better. I started out with fatigue & a tickle in my throat. Fri. night I got worse. Awoke next morning feeling like I was thrown from a horse! Headache, joint pain, chills, dizziness, chronic cough & nausea. Sun. I was wracked with fever, hands shaking, head pounding. My husband put me in a tub to cool me & soothed my forehead. Sun. night I awoke around 4am to discover my lips had cracked- the fever split the end of my tongue. I was up several times that night trying to quench my thirst and soothe my tongue. Felt like I had one foot in the grave! Mon.- so weak, could barely lift my head. Last night the medicine kicked in, head began to clear, coughing subsided. I'm a wee bit stronger now- still weak/dizzy- NO appetite. (tongue is healing) It's easy to be depressed when I'm unable to help my family. I always feel ashamed when I get sick- like I'm failing. How I needed encouragement today! My husband brought me a letter addressed to us through the radio station. Thought it was a friendly letter from one of our listeners. HA- jokes on me! Instead it was a 5 page rant from a 65 yr. old lady in our former home state of WA about how one of the people who called into our show offended her. (A young lady called to share a touching testimony of how God blessed her with an older woman to mentor her. She said, "I know this was definitely a God thing & I praise Him for it!") The elderly lady just couldn't get it out of her mind that the young girl said "thing". She felt it was our duty to sternly rebuke this young lady on the aire and set her straight for her disrespect and should never have allowed her to call on our show in the first place. She then went on to say how the younger generation is "ignorant". That we are "in apostacy" and if we don't change our ways we'll "grieve the Holy Spirit". Do you feel the love? Neither did we! My husband has been on call for 11 yrs of our married life, we literally moved all over the country, sold a house we just built with our own sweat & tears in order to be with this ministry- hoping it will help people connect with a living Savior. I can't tell you how many of these letters we've dealt with over the years. It wears us down & makes us heart-sick! Each letter-writer feels they are the "next prophet"- experts on both music & theology. This woman went as far as to call herself "The Holy Spirit's Helper". Again, I pose the question to thinking people- does being right, ever give the right to be rude? Peter was quick to defend his religion with a sword. Jesus rebuked him and replaced the ear of the High Priests servant. Jesus did not condone hateful behavior- even in His own defense!! There's not a HINT of understanding in this letter for what we're trying to do. (TGIF is simply thankfulness for God's goodness. People across the country, of all walks call to share how God has blessed. Sometimes we pray with those who are struggling.) I'm weary of religious banter, church politics, mind-boggling theology & wannabe prophets- plenty of that out there already. I've finally tapped into something REAL and I'm gonna hang on to it! WHEN will we be free to serve/worship our God as we feel convicted? We don't hate this woman- she did what she felt was right. I do feel sorry for her as she must be hurting. She could've been a blessing today- instead she pronounced a curse. So perhaps I should send her a card and tell her God loves her? What would you do?? WWJD???

3 comments:

BrainSyke said...

hope you feel better soon!

Raheel Lakhani said...

Get well soon.. I think you might have sinus. I know how it feels.. your life just becomes too lazy.

imfreenow.blogspot.com said...

I came into a church in Minneapolis, broken. They found me in the hospital - that is, the faithful ones who do things like that, like go meet people in those settings.

I went to my first free dinner that they have. I played the piano and sang for them that day and the worship leader, I'll call him "Rip" said they'd love to have me sing for them in the future. Two and a half years passed. I kept praying with people in the church, because this Rip guy kept postponing and making excuses for my not singing.

Finally, he went and lied to the pastor saying that he had made an appointment for me to sing and I just didn't show.

I went to confront him about lying and there he revealed he had no intention of ever having me sing there because I just wouldn't jump through their hoops properly. He called me evil. He called me unworthy!I had done every thing they ever asked and thensome. I showed love, loyalty, passion for God, service to God - everything. He just hated me. He just saw me as a threat! I had purposely avoided jockeying for a position, and waited, humbly.

Lady - let go of organized church. It's man's operation. Reach out as you are with the blog, go places, meet people, and the body of Christ will find you everywhere.

I've been traveling now - away from this god-forsaken city where all churches seem poisoned by the religious thing, and found churches here and there, fairly healthy, and worshipped in them. But if I got into their bureaucracy - whoa!, I know it would be a different story.

Let God have free reign in your life and abandon those who will not. Remember Paul saying "avoid those who deny God's power."

The true sons of God are going to rise-trust me!