Merry Christmas and a fertile New Year to you all!

This will most probably be my last post for this year because we are leaving on holiday tomorrow and we will only be home on the 30^th of December.  So I want to take this moment to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a prosperous and fertile New Year!  I hope next year will be filled with lots of babies!  May all your wishes and dreams come true!

We usually don’t go away over the December holidays, but this year when my sister suggested that we go with them, I jumped at the chance as I just can’t face being home this year.  When I heard that my due date was so close to Christmas I had hoped that I would either be a mom by then or very close to be one, and once again it’s not going to happen, but I hope that this year will be the last though…

All of you who are also sad this year, you are in my thoughts and prayers!  I know it’s hard on everyone, not just me and believe me I haven’t forgotten about you!

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Some more on waiting:

After yesterdays post I though I would post a link to the song:  “While I’m Waiting” by Jo.hn Wal.ler.  I just love this song, it is so beautiful.  I heard it the first time while I was watching the movie Fireproof, which is an awsome movie by the way, and I think especially helpful for people who are struggling with marital problems.   I don’t think however that this movie’s audience is limited to those with marital problems, because it certainly appealed to me and thank God we have no such problems.

Lately this song is one of those that I listen a lot to, it has special significance because I am in a stage of waiting, or like Joy.ce Mey.er likes to call it:  “the middle.”  When you are in the middle of a difficult situation, and not through it yet.  This song is a good example of praising God when times are hard…  I listen to it very often and it helps especially to get through the times when it seems like nothing is happening… 

I have learnt so much about waiting recently, that we have to wait in expectation, and that we must expect good things to happen to us, that we need to praise and worship in those times and to actually thank God for what he is going to do for us. 

I heard a message from Joy.ce recently on your attitude and going through the “wilderness,” as she also likes to call it, and it seems that the time we spend in the “wilderness” or “the middle” depends on us.  If we are going to have the right attitude the time spend there can be significantly reduced. 

So instead of complaining or questioning God, I like to listen and sing along to this song and rather praise and worship Him!

I’m just posting the link to Yo.u Tu.be because of restrictions from So.ny En.tertain.ment:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6X71sXagUY

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Waiting on God…

Here is part 2 of Joy.ce’s message that I started yesterday:

“The Bible says (Isaiah 40:31):  “They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and they shall not faint.”  Now waiting, what does waiting mean?  “They that wait upon the Lord?”  It means to look, to long for, to expect, I am expecting God to strengthen me and enable me to do what I do. 

Surely if God wants me to do this then He does not want me to drag my body all over the globe, feeling miserable all the time, surely He can give me the strength to be able to enjoy what I do.  Amen?  So I’m just telling you, don’t just settle:  “Well, I guess this is just the way I’m going to feel.”  That’s scary.  I mean that’s really scary, because that spirit of passivity…  A passive person just kind of gives up and they hope God does something kind of…, sort of…, maybe…  But they are not expecting.  They don’t even have the energy to open their mouth and say anything.  They don’t even resist the devil anymore, they don’t even rebuke the devil anymore, they just kind of get into agreement with him.   “Well, you know my arthritis is really hurting me today…”  I’m not making fun, but I’m saying:  “Don’t call it your arthritis!”  I mean you can say:  “the arthritis that is in my arm is hurting, but it’s not mine and God is getting rid of it!”   How many of you know what I mean?  We start taking ownership of this stuff, you know… 

Psalm 103:1-3 (NIV):  “¹ Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.  ² Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits— ³ who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases…”

Well there it is, right there! Amen!  Well I believe that there may be even a million people right now, watching by television, that you never had any idea at all that God was even remotely interested in healing you physically!  Well I’m telling you here today, that He cares about every single part of you, not just the spiritual part of you, He cares about your mind, your thoughts, He cares about your emotions, He wants to heal your broken heart, He wants you to feel good, He wants you to have energy, He doesn’t want you to be loaded down with sickness and disease and from this day forward I want you to start trusting God to begin to work in your body.  Now you say:  “Well, now wait a minute, you know, I’m a Christian, and I’ve believed God for healing and I’m still sick!”  Well keep believing God! 

“Well, you know, if healing is for today, then why am I still sick?”  I don’t know…  I don’t know maybe you’ve been like me and have done a bunch of dumb stuff!  You know if you want to have healing one of the things you’ve got to have is common sense, and you know we don’t always use it!  Now, I’ve had a problem with my back and for the last 2 months I have had a pretty serious problem with my back.  I mean I had like 3 Cortisone injections in my back, I’ve been to the chiropractor, I’ve been to the doctor, I’ve seen a surgeon, I’ve had a bone scan and it’s kind of like:  “Well, we don’t really see anything…”  Don’t you just hate the mysterious stuff?  I always get the mysterious stuff, so God brought me back to something that He tried to teach me 20 years ago.  I don’t know why we are so slow to learn…

Look I hate to say that God told me something many years ago and I didn’t do it, but you know, I tell everything else so I might as well…  I mean years ago I felt like God told me:  “If you would wait on me 5 minutes a day for healing, I’ll keep you healthy.”  5 minutes a day – well I did it for a few days…  You know and then those 5 minutes, I didn’t have time for that.  Isn’t it amazing how we will wait at the doctor’s office for hours, get our prescription, go wait at the pharmacy for another 35 minutes then take the medicine, wait for that to work and then when it doesn’t work we go get it refilled again, we go back to wait at the doctor’s office…  Why can we not wait on God for 5 minutes? 

Now my back is probably about 95% OK now, and I kind of got used to the chair so I’m going to keep it, but I probably don’t need to be running around all over the place like a maniac anyway, I need to rest a little bit, but here’s the point.  First of all going back to the back and the feet, I mean I had bunions taken off my feet; I’ve had corns taken off my feet…  You know I usually don’t do conferences in December, because it’s not a good month for conferences so for a while we just called December surgery month.  I don’t have the time to get anything done the rest of the year; I can only afford to get something certain times of the year.  I mean I had a bunion done one year and I had corns taken off twice…  So:  “Why God, why, why, why?  I’m preaching your Gospel and I’m helping people, I’m trying to everything that’s right God, Why?”  

OK, now rewind to like, long time ago, I was in one of my very first meetings when I was still working at the church in St Louis, it was only a women’s meeting then and a little old lady came up to me…  “Honey I have a word from God for you,” She said:  “thus sayeth the Lord – If you don’t stop wearing those shoes that you are wearing…”  Spike high heels, 3 inches – lived in them for years, I walked miles on these hard platforms.  Why?  To be cute…

So:  “thus sayeth the Lord, If you don’t quit wearing those shoes, you are going to have a lot of trouble with your feet.”  So, smart girl like me thought:  “well, she is a sweet lady but she probably doesn’t know what a pretty pair of shoes are…”  O come on, don’t act like you’ve never done that!  Here’s the point – I didn’t want to take my shoes off, and when we don’t want to do something, it’s amazing how selective our hearing is…   So I kept my shoes, I kept marching around, we had praise and worship, I would jump up and down, and my back starts hurting, my feet starts hurting… There were times when my feet would hurt so bad, that when I would go back to my room at night I would almost cry…  Now, you know what?  That was just plain stupid!  I mean, I’m born again, baptised in the Holy Ghost, preaching the Gospel…  Well I’m here to tell you – that was stupid!

OK, so now I got problems, so well does that mean God won’t help me and He won’t heal me?  No, He will, but I can’t keep being stupid…  So if you need healing the first thing you’ve got to commit to is getting over stupid.  So first thing we do is repent for stupid, and then we remember what God told us, you know like for me – I’m going to the chiropractor, I’m doing what I need to do, I’m doing my exercises and I’m taking my physical therapy, and in the midst of all that now, God is giving me one more chance.  “Wait on me…”

So, I debated on whether or not to talk about this, because I didn’t want to just lose the power of something God was speaking to me, but I believe if I can share this principle with the people who sit under my teaching, I believe that you can see some amazing results in your body.  I don’t want you just to do this, just as something to do, if you don’t really believe what I’m saying then you might as well wait until you do, but I am telling you that to wait on God is one of the missing things in our walk with God.  

What do you do when you wait on God:  “God I’m expecting healing in my body, I’m expecting energy today, I’m expecting strength, I’m expecting to be creative, and I don’t want a tired mind that can’t remember anything.  I believe that your healing power is working in me right now.  Every day I get better and better in every way.  You are my physician, You are the Lord that heals me, by Your stripes I am healed and made whole.”

I don’t even think in that time that you have to be talking out loud; I think you can just meditate on these things.  Take five minutes at lunch, wait on God…  Take 5 minutes in the evening, wait on God…  Every time you get an opportunity just take a few minutes and close your eyes and just say:  “I thank you Lord because you are my physician.”  You know what I have decided:  I’m not going to spend the rest of my life being aggravated with one thing after another.  I’m not going to waste my time running every time I have a doctor’s appointment.  Do you know how many appointments I’ve had over the last 2 months?  It’s just been the one thing after another, after another, and some of it was going to be free time for me!

So first we get rid of stupid, are you with me?    Then we do our part and our part is to take care of ourselves, you know if you want to be healthy you have to get rid of some of the stress in your life.  Stress will kill you – it will kill you!

I want to talk to you about eating:  You cannot live on junk and feel good.  You are what you eat.  “Well I can’t help it if I see a chocolate chip cookie I’ve got to eat a dozen…”  Now let’s just not be ridiculous!  I mean you have got the Power of God, the same resurrection Power that raised Christ from the dead dwelling within you, do not tell me that you do not have authority over a cookie!  Now you can eat one if you want one, there is no law!  But don’t say if you eat one you have to eat a dozen because then that means cookies are in control. 

Don’t over eat, don’t under eat.  When God sent the manna He specifically said that they could gather an omer a day for each person and it was a little bit over three quarts.  He rained the manna from the sky, not twinkies and potato chips and fudge and soda pop…  The deserts in our live should be the occasional thing not the daily thing.   There is nothing wrong with desert, there is nothing wrong with having a soda, there is nothing wrong with having a candy bar, but if you are going to have to have that stuff everyday then here is going to be the result:  You are probably going to weigh more than what you want to weigh and even if you are one of those super skinny people that can eat the whole refrigerator and stay thin that doesn’t mean that you are not going to feel bad.  

I believe that we need to feel good, I don’t even think that we can pray properly if we feel bad all the time, and furthermore when you feel bad all the time you are grouchy and cranky and hard to get along with and you don’t walk in the fruit of the spirit.  We need to be healthy for God’s sake!  Amen!  By His stripes we are healed and made whole.”

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What’s your attitude like?

I want to share another message of Joy.ce Mey.er with you on healing.  It’s a long one so I’m going to split it up again:

“If you are negative, grouchy, sour puss, hard to get along with, critical, jealous you are probably also going to be sick…  Somebody was telling me the other day about a relative who was just diagnosed with very serious situation with cancer.  Talking about the treatment, what to do and how to handle it and again to tell me that this person has just been so negative their whole life.  It is just so hard to be around them.  And he began to tell me how this person who is so negative was telling him about sitting next to somebody that was being so negative.  And how they got so tired about hearing this other person’s negative talk…

It’s like:  “Hello!”  You know what?  We need to look at ourselves honestly and we need to stop blaming everything on everybody else.  We need to ask ourselves sometimes:  “How easy am I to get along with?  How easy is it to offend me?  How easy do I get my feelings hurt?  What am I doing to make someone else’s life better?  How many days out of a year do I waste feeling sorry for myself?  Am I jealous of people who have more than me?  Am I judgmental?  Am I critical?”  You would be amazed what would happen if you would just have one 10 minute meeting a day with yourself. 

Proverbs 17:22 (Amp):   “²²A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.”

If you get happy you might get healed.  You need to laugh more, not be so deep and intense…  Jesus is a healer and if you look at Isaiah 53 it says and it says he forgave our sins and He took our sicknesses upon Himself. 

Isaiah 53:4-5 (NIV):  “ ⁴Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.    ⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Now I’m going to say a few things that I’m going to try to explain less anyone get confused because I don’t want that.  Sickness is a result of sin.  Now it may not be your own personal sin, but sickness was not in the world until man sinned.  Man was so healthy that it actually took the devil about 900 years to teach him how to die.  That was not in our DNA.  We were supposed to be happy, garden life people, who fellowshipped with God, ate the fruit, loved everybody, had a good time…  But no, Eve had to have the stupid apple.   

We all know that sin entered, man died spiritually, and God made a plan right away to redeem us.  But the sin principle is still working in this world and where the sin principle is working there is disease and germs and all kinds of wretched stuff.  And so there is going to be times, just because you’re here in this world that you are going to run into some germ on a day when your immune system is kind of off or whatever…  So we can’t all avoid ever having any problems with anything out there because we’re in the world, but we can expect and believe God for healing and we can do everything that we should do to make sure that we are not just an open door for any kind of sickness or disease that Satan wants to load on us.  Amen? 

You know I feel pretty good for an old gal.    We have guys that work for us that are in their twenties who can’t keep up with me and Dave.    I’m telling you the truth – they are like:  “This is not normal!”  Well you know what? It is not normal.  It’s not!  But a lot of it is your mindset.  Don’t begin to think old, don’t think old people thoughts.  Amen?  Think strong; think positive, the more negative you are, the worse you are going to feel.  The less you laugh the worse you are going to feel. The more you judge and criticize other people the worse you are going to feel.  The less you do for other people, the more selfish you are, the worse you are going to feel.  I’m telling you that our joy is connected to our health. 

How many of you needed a reminder today that He is your Healer?  How many of you agree that sometimes we just get into the habit of putting up with stuff, and really just trying to handle in the natural?  And I’m not putting down anything natural, I’m not going to stand here and tell you not to take your medicine, I’m not going to tell you not to go to the doctor, If God tells you not to do that, you do what He tells you to,  but you know, I’m not going to tell you that.   I mean if I need that, I do that.  I take medicine, I go to the doctor, but I have also been corrected by God if I start leaning on that kind of stuff too much and not making it very plain that I trust Him as my Healer and that I’m expecting Him to keep me strong and healthy and well.”

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My mom’s results:

My mom had her colonoscopy earlier this week and they had to stop halfway through the procedure.  Apparently my mom’s intestines have shrunk and they would have hurt her if they tried to force their way up.  The part that they did see was fine, they could see that there was damage due to the radiation where a lot of veins were dead.  New veins were forming, but they tend to bleed easily.  No polyps or tumours or growths or anything bad like that was detected.  The doctor then decided to do a Barium Clisma (barium enema) to see the rest which they could not see with the colonoscopy.  That was also clear. 

So it seems the bleeding that she had was due to those new veins that can easily be torn open.  That was not too bad news then.  She will have to watch what she eats for the next few months, but she should be fine.  The chemo is still cancelled for now and she will still go for the PET Scan in the new year.  So she can relax and enjoy herself for the rest of this year.  Whatever treatments she will need in future will be determined by the results of the PET scan. 

I am praying that the PET scan results will show no more cancer or any swollen glands, and that she would not need any further treatments at all!

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Who is God? Jehovah-Rapha

Here is the second part from that message of Joy.ce Mey.er:

“Who is God? Let’s look at Exodus 3:13-14 (NIV):  “¹³ Moses said to God, Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?      ¹⁴ God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.”

Now there is a whole lot of great things about the “I AM,” but one of the great things is that he is ever present.  So we need to think more about the “everywhereness” of God, that He is omnipresent everywhere all the time at the same time.  Isn’t that cool?  God is with you and with me at the same time even if we are on different sides of the planet.  He is all knowing.  There is nothing about your life that surprises God.  He is never like not ready.   “O no!  I wasn’t expecting that!  Now what are we going to do!”  You don’t even surprise God.  Your foolishness doesn’t surprise God!  Your hang-ups, your failures don’t surprise God.  He knew about them before you ever did them.  God knows everything from the beginning to the end.  He is all powerful; there is nothing that is impossible to God!  So when the disciples were in the storm in the boat and they started to get all excited, Jesus just said:  Why are you so fearful and timid, He did not tell them what He was going to do – He told them who He was – He said I AM.  He does not want to tell us what He is going to do – he didn’t tell the disciples what He was going to do, He just simply said – you don’t need to worry about it because I’m here.  And so when we realize that God is here then we can be peaceful because we know that if our trust is in Him – whatever needs to be done He is going to do it!  “I AM THAT I AM.” 

God’s character is wrapped up in His name.  The first name that God gave Moses was a name that could not even be pronounced.  He said that I am: “Yhwh,” which is unpronounceable because it’s got no vowels in it.  You could not even say what God was.  God is so far above us that you cannot even say what he is.  We just know that He is wonderful, that he is amazing that his power that He is unlimited immeasurable and we can know Him and get this:  He wants to come live within you!  I mean how can we sit around, discouraged and full of self pity and…

You know why?  Because we meditate on the wrong thing.  We get too caught up on what we see and what we feel and what other people say and we think too much about our problems and we don’t think about God enough.  Then you know, we think the answer is to just live in Church all the time and live in meetings and you know become a meeting junkie.  Because you know we feel good there.  But the point is:  it gets strong enough; now listen to me, on your own between you and God that you can stay happy all the time. 

All right they added some vowels to His name and it became Yahweh, then it became Yehovah, then Jehovah, which meant Lord God and then they took it even further and began to add other names to His name like Jehovah-Rapha, which is what we are going to talk about today which means the Lord my Healer.  God’s name is so important that one of the 10 commandments is:  “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”  And I have to take the time today to tell you that taking God’s name in vain is not merely saying God’s name and sticking a cuss word on it.  As a matter of fact that is probably the least way that people take the Lord’s name in vain.    It means to use Gods name uselessly or frivolously.  And one of the ways that people do it all the time is simply by saying:  “O, my God!”  Now it’s interesting – of all these people on television, many who claim to not even believe in God, every time something happens they say:  “O, my God!” Isn’t that stupid?  “My God”, but you’ve already said you don’t want anything to do with him, now you say: “My God”, because you have a problem.  It means nothing to them; it’s just become a phrase.  I’m not trying to make more out of it than what it is. But I think it is more than we think it is.  I just want to encourage you to realize that there is power in that Name!

Now all of these “Jehovah-“names, all are wrapped up in the name Jesus.  We don’t really have to know them all today, except for education, because we have the name above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee has to bow, His name represents everything that God is.  Jesus!  Amen.  You certainly never want to use that name frivolously or foolishly!

My intention is today take some time to talk to you about something that I really rarely ever spend some time to do a whole teaching on anymore, but I really feel that it is needed and that is just Jehovah-Rapha the Lord our Healer.  Now 3 John 1:2 (NIV):  “²Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.”

Now we know that our spirit is much more important than anything physical so the first and most important thing that we need to do is mature spiritually.  We need to be men and woman of God and not just stay little childish brats all of our life, we need to grow up in God.   With that being taken care of and God wants to load on the outer fruit, two of the things he wants you to have is to be prosperous, to not only have your needs met, but to have enough of an overflow to be able to bless other people and I’ll just put it as simple as I know how to – God wants us to feel good. 

Exodus 15:26 (NIV):  “²⁶ He said, If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you.”  

You can sit here and listen until your sweet little bottom is flat, but if you don’t go out and do what you hear it is not going to do you any good nor will it change anything in your life.  And actually every time you come to the church doors you need to set you mind that you are going to go in there and you are going to learn something and that you are going to go and apply it to your life. 

OK, so let’s all understand one thing right now, Jesus is our physician – I thank God for medicine, I thank God for doctors, most of us would have been dead now without it, but we are making a huge mistake if we bypass God.  I believe God gave medical knowledge and I believe that God gives these wonderful surgeons that can do the intricate things that they can do.  I believe its God working through their hands.  Now you are much more likely to have the medicine help you, to have the doctors help you if you go to God first and you say to Him:  “I know that they can’t help me if you don’t help them.  As a matter of fact they could do something that could kill me, if you don’t help them.”  So no matter how many doctors you go to, no matter how much of anything else you do, I want to bring you back this morning to the foundation:  “I am the Lord who heals you”  God is your Physician, the Word of God is your medicine.  Healing is for your whole being, not just physically but mentally, emotionally, financially, socially.

Proverbs 4:20-22 (NIV):  “²⁰My son, pay attention to what I say; listen closely to my words.  ²¹ Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; ²² for they are life to those who find them and health to a man’s whole body.”

So the Word of God is like medicine.  One translation says that the Word is medicine, so obviously one of the things that you want to do, especially if you need healing, or if you want to take it a step further and want to walk in divine health.  How many of you would like to have an upper hand in this and not just to get healed, but would like to walk in divine health and stay healthy?  We need to be on the offensive and not just one the defensive.  We don’t just want to get a problem, try to resist it, get another problem, and again try to resist it.  We want to be more on the offensive where we are doing what needs to be done ahead of time to make sure that we are strong in an area. 

So you need to learn different scriptures about healing and about the goodness of God and how God wants to meet your needs and you need to learn how to meditate on those and think on purpose about those things.  Meditation means to mutter under your breath.  So you might get up and say: “God you are my healer, by your stripes I’m healed, I thank you that your word is my medicine and the more I meditate on your word the better I feel.  You are my energy, your strength is in me, your life is in me and every day I get better and better in every way and I believe the healing power of God is working in me right now!”

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Expectations:

I have mentioned before that I have watched messages, or heard messages and it felt like they were spoken directly to me.  Well the following one from Joy.ce Mey.er was one of those.  Not only that, the day I heard the message, she quoted some scriptures in her message that I read during my bible study that very morning and they spoke to my heart already during my Bible study.  So naturally I had to take notice and I want to share it with you.  I think I will have to break it up in two posts because it’s going to be long…

“All tied up in with Who God is, is what we can expect Him to do.  The word revelation is very important for this conference – we don’t need lots of information – we need revelation.  We need to know that we know, that we know, in such a deep way that no circumstance could ever take it away from us.  When you really know that God loves you that no matter what happens you never doubt the love of God because it’s a revelation in your life.

Ephesians 1:17-19 (NIV):  “¹⁷ I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.  ¹⁸ I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength,”

Paul prayed for the church that they would have wisdom and revelation to know God, not to know about God, but to KNOW God.  I (Joy.ce) don’t think we can ever begin to imagine how awesome that is to be able to say:  I know God!  You know we think it’s something big to say we know some famous person.  You should see people’s reaction when they meet me (Joy.ce) in real life.  They say things like:  “I cannot wait to tell my sister – she won’t believe that I met you!” 

If she could get that excited over just seeing me (Joy.ce) – how excited should we get about knowing God?  So Paul said I want you to have revelation about knowing God.  Further he said I want you to have revelation about the hope of your calling – we want to make hope a habit in our lives.  Everybody say:  I’m addicted to hope.  And he said I want you to have the hope of your calling and the inheritance that is yours in Christ which means:  Paul said I want you to have revelation of what is yours in Christ.  What is yours – not what you’re trying to get but what is yours.  Then lastly he said I want you to have revelation about the power that is in and for us.  And it’s the same power by the way that raised Christ from the dead.  And if that power that raised Him from the dead dwells in us, the Bible says that it should quicken our mortal bodies. 

We are going to talk specifically about some of what is ours in Christ.  Off course I could stay here a year to get all of it and then I would only have scratched the surface.  Now – How can we know God?  Number 1:  we can know Him through His word.  You have to know the word of God.  If you are not going to study, study, study the word of God you can forget knowing God.  You can’t know God in the way we are talking about, just if you know somebody that knows God.  Don’t be satisfied with second hand faith.  Have your own walk with God.  We can know God through His promises and we need to take every promise personally.  We need to know what God expects of us, and there are things He expects of us.  Number 1:  first and foremost He expects us to believe.  Not believe and then doubt and then believe a little and then doubt and then believe and then doubt a little, but to believe! 

John 11:40 (NIV):  “⁴⁰ Then Jesus said, Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

So no matter what you’re going through – your job is not to fix it – it’s to believe. Just believe that God is working, no matter what you feel like, no matter what you see – if you have prayed and trusted God and you have found a promise in the word that says that God will take care of it then you’re position now is to believe.  It may feel like nothing is happening but I can assure you that something is happening.  And then we also need to know – part of knowing God is we need to know what to expect from God.   You know Dave and I marvel – we are now married 43 years – and we are pressing towards 44 – We know what to expect out of each other.  I can tell you before he does it, what he is going to do in a given situation, and he can tell the same thing about me. 

Well, we need to know that about God.  We need to know His character and we need to know what to expect. I want to talk to you about your expectations.  Now I think we expect God to forgive our sins – most of us who have any knowledge at all of what it means to be a Christian – we hopefully, prayerfully have that one down – that we expect God to forgive our sins.  But sometimes I think it stops there – What else are you expecting God to do for you on a daily basis.  Or are you just passive and kind of just going:  “O, I don’t know!  I’ll wait and see…” 

I have learnt over the years to have expectations every single day of my life and I verbalize those expectations.  That is part of my prayer time.  People say:  “You know when I spend time with God I don’t know what to do.”  Well one of the things you need to do is tell God what you are expecting, and I’m not saying in a sarcastic or a demanding kind of way, it’s like saying:  God this is what you said that you will do and I am expecting you to do it because I know you are a Person of your word.  And that honours God, so you say:  “I am expecting You to give me favour everywhere that I go today because I am your child.”    Not driving to work and thinking:  “I’m expecting to be treated like a dog today because I’m just the bottom of the barrel here!”  And even if that’s been your experience in the past You can turn that around, you don’t have to wait for someone else to come along and make you happy.  You can turn it around by getting into agreement with God and out of agreement with the devil. 

So what are you expecting from God.  I want us to look at 2 scriptures: 
Psalm 26:1 (NIV):  “Of David.¹ Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the LORD without wavering.” David said I’ve done my best to do the right thing now, I’m expecting You to move in my life.  And I love this one – let’s look at Psalm 27:13-14 (NIV):  “¹³I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.  ¹⁴ Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD” 

Now we see the words wait on God in the Bible and the word wait literally means to expect – if you study that word in the Greek it means to long for, to look for expectantly, you are expecting God to show up at any minute, you are expecting your breakthrough today, you are expecting your unsaved loved ones to hear the right word and come home and tell you:  I have received Christ.  Expecting your physical healing, expecting to get that job that you need.  You are not just passively shrugging your shoulders and saying:  I’m just waiting on God…  That is not waiting on God! That is some pitiful pathetic, giving up!  Waiting on God gives you hope and it gives you expectancy and God said:  When you put your hope in me your will never be disappointed or put to shame.”

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Could have, should have…

I cannot help to think about what could have happened or what should have happened.  I’m talking about my pregnancy.  The due date (6 January 2011) is getting closer and closer and if I think about the fact that my pregnancy started out as a twin pregnancy, it just makes me realize that I would most probably not have carried them to full term, so I could have been very close to having those babies by now, should things have worked out differently.   I worked out yesterday that I was supposed to have been 35 weeks by now. 

Last year we went to visit my mom in hospital on Christmas day.  We first went to church and then we picked up my dad and went through to the hospital which was quite far from where we live.  My mom had her hysterectomy on the 23^rd of December and she was the only patient in ICU at that stage.  It was incredibly quiet in the hospital, as it is a hospital that has mostly Gynaecologist’s and Obstetricians practising from there.  The only other people we could see were some new mom’s and dad’s leaving the hospital with their newly born little babies.   When I looked up how far I was supposed to be I saw that 38 weeks would have been on 23 December this year.  It is the same date my mom had her hysterectomy – emergency hysterectomy because she had cancer.  Her doctor did not want to take a chance on waiting until after Christmas or New Year; it had to be done immediately…

Now that we are getting close to Christmas I keep thinking about all this.  About how we could have had Christmas babies, but we are not having them.  How our family could have visited me in hospital with our babies this year on Christmas, or even better yet, we might have been home already!  And it makes me incredibly sad and angry!  I have moments where I just want to burst out in tears, most of the time at the most inappropriate moments, like social gatherings and in church, etc.  I am so angry at the devil for stealing and killing my miracle babies! He had no right to do that!

Christmas has been hard for me for so many years now.  I actually cannot remember when last I looked forward to it.  It’s been a stressful time for so long.  Firstly the issue of who do we celebrate Christmas with:  my parents or DH’s parents.  I know they love us and want us to spend the day with them, but what do you do when both want to see you at the same time? Try to divide it up as fairly as possible – but it is not always possible and not always seen as such by everyone!  It’s complicated by the fact that we have 1 brother and 2 sisters between us.  They also have to divide their time between their families and their in-laws and sometimes it doesn’t always work out that they can spend Christmas with our parents at the same time as we can. 

Then there are the presents – who do you buy for and who don’t you buy for?  Some people don’t buy presents for others.  Others put a lot of effort in to get us really nice presents. So I just buy for everyone, because I cannot buy something for some and not for others.  Even though it is quite expensive to buy for so many people, and because of that I really spend a lot of time trying to get nice presents at affordable prices, without it looking cheap… 

The last aspect and by far the hardest part are the children.  Christmas is the favourite holiday for children and they look so forward to it and opening up all the presents!  And every single time when it is time to open up the presents I think of how nice it would be to see our own children’s expectant faces!  This year is going to be the 12^th Christmas where I will long for that! 

And then I start to think of the meaning of Christmas and why we celebrate it and I realize that it’s not fair to Jesus that I dread it so much!  God sent his Son to earth, as a helpless little baby.  Jesus gave up His place in Heaven, His Godliness, to be born as a little baby, not as the son of a king or someone important but as the adopted son of a poor carpenter.  He was not born in a hospital or a nice house or palace, but in a stable and put in a manger, a trough that farm animals eat out of. 

And He did all that for me!  So I have decided that although it is difficult, although it is painful, I must be grateful and at least try my best to enjoy and appreciate Christmas this year.  Not to dread Christmas although it has the potential to be the most difficult yet.  And I have decided that this Christmas the presents will reflect the spirit of Christmas – it will be about Jesus, everyone will get something that will remind them of what Christmas is all about.  I don’t  want it to be about the commercial aspect of it, the Santa Claus image, the wanting of as many nice gifts as possible, but about Jesus’ sacrifice that He made for each of us.  About how much Jesus loves each of us, or rather each of them, every member of our family.  I think not all will appreciate their gifts, because not everybody is a born again Christian, but I hope and pray that the Holy Spirit will work in their hearts that they may also give their lives over to Him!  That is especially the reason they are all getting these gifts this Christmas!

Ps.  I am not saying what they are getting, because you never know who reads this post!  It might be one of them!

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Revelations about the secrets:

Psalm 18:28-36 (NIV):  “²⁸ You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.  ²⁹ With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall.  ³⁰As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him.  ³¹ For who is God besides the LORD? And who is the Rock except our God?  ³² It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.  ³³ He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to stand on the heights.  ³⁴ He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze.  ³⁵ You give me your shield of victory, and your right hand sustains me; you stoop down to make me great.  ³⁶ You broaden the path beneath me, so that my ankles do not turn over.”

I cannot even begin to tell you how much God has helped me the last couple of months.  From being hopeless, sad and depressed to hopeful, happy and joyous!  The above verses describe how God can change your life so beautifully!  I found it the other day while doing Bible study and I thought:  “Yes!  That’s what God does for me!”

But let me tell you it is not as easy as a “feeling” that comes over you whenever God is near or when He takes pity on you.  No, I had to look for comfort and strength in His Word.  God is always near, but we don’t always “feel” it.  We have to “know” what God does, and the only way that can happen is to know God, and that means learning by reading the Bible or looking for messages of hope and comfort.  Those messages do not always find you.  Let me tell you there were days where I felt so hopeless and despondent that I had to look for a message of hope from God.  Sometimes it even took days to find it!

I have found that there are wonderful “secrets” in the Bible that were not always evident to me.  I’ve learnt so much in the last couple of months that I can’t believe I didn’t know it before, because I have read the whole Bible through from cover to cover before.  But the other night I watched a program from Joy.ce Mey.er and she talked about revelation and that it only comes from the Holy Spirit, and then I realized that was what made the difference – I have had revelation about a lot of things that I didn’t understand before.  Before those words didn’t mean anything to me, now I know what they mean!  I’m not saying I didn’t have revelation at all – there were times when I got a revelation, but it didn’t happen as frequently, because I was not actively seeking it.

Ephesians 3:9 (NIV):  “⁹ and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.”

1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV):  “⁹ However, as it is written:  No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him—“

Matthew 13:11-13 (NIV):  “¹¹ He replied, The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.  ¹² Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.  ¹³ This is why I speak to them in parables:  Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.”

Do you remember the healing service we went to?  Well Pastor A talked about the secrets in the Bible.  He mentioned the above verses, and although I knew what he meant, I couldn’t even fathom what a difference it would make in my life to actually learn so much in such a short time!  The good news about these secrets is that it is available to all – God is no respecter of persons – he has no favourites and He wants us all to live a life of victory.  To share in the victory of Jesus Christ!  It is available to all; we must just be willing to put in some effort from our side!

But let me tell you – even though I have shared most of those revelations with you, unless you don’t get revelation on it yourself it might not mean much to you. O, I pray that the Holy Spirit gives revelation to all who read this blog, because I wish you all could experience what I’ve experienced lately!  I have certainly shared in the revelations of others and I have mentioned them all on this blog, so my wish for you all is that you can also have revelation about everything that affects your life!

But just a note of warning:  Revelation won’t help a thing if you don’t apply what you learn.  It is not just enough to “know” something – you have to act on it as well.

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Control freak:

 

I used to be a total control freak – especially regarding my fertility.  I think I’m one of the most difficult patients my FS’s must have ever had!  I questioned everything that was suggested.  I researched everything that could have been a problem with me or my DH, and I suggested treatments or medication.  I am amazed that both the FS’s were so patient with me.  I think even DH was embarrassed at times, because I really grilled both doctors as if they were in an interview with me, and basically told them how to do their job – me who has just high school biology behind me versus a doctor who has studied probably more than 10 years to be able to do his job. 

I think it’s only recently that I changed into this control freak, well regarding our fertility treatments anyway – say the last year and a half.  I think it’s because I trusted doctors and I still didn’t get a positive pregnancy test.  It cost us a lot of money and a lot of heartbreak, and I felt burned.  So I decided not to trust anymore, and only rely on myself. 

After our miscarriage and after Shumi was diagnosed with his cancer, I think I freaked out a bit, because matters were out of my control no matter what I tried.  There was nothing I could do.  Thank God that he has guided me in this time, and one of the things that I have learnt is that I must trust Him completely with everything.  I thought I trusted Him – I did in certain matters, but I cannot say I trusted Him completely.  I still wanted to control certain things.

During the last 5 months God has been chipping away at this control issue of mine – it was not something that I was willing to let go easily.  Slowly I was able to let go of certain things, one at a time, and I think I am finally at the point where I can now say that it is now 100% in God’s hands.  The decision to not go for anymore fertility treatments was the last little bit that I had to let go.  And I’m happy about that decision.  I am calm and at peace.  I’m not worried that we won’t have children or that I’ve made a mistake – I trust that God will work it all out for good. 

I would never have been able to make all these decisions if it was not for the fact that God has given me some minor breakthroughs as proof that He is faithful and will help us.  I should have realized it all a long time ago, but I guess we are sometimes blind to things right under our noses.  Let me take you back a bit to some examples that I have actually blogged about:

1.        With our last IVF I was worried that I would have adenomyosis and that it would impact negatively on our IVF.  The month prior to that I was in considerable pain all month and the FS actually picked it up on a scan when I complained about the pain to him.  It looked like huge black circles in the wall of my uterus – almost like the follicles look on your ovaries when you are close to triggering, and thanks to reading Ja.ckie Mi.ze’s book – Su.perna.tural Child.birth I confessed that I will have no adenomyosis and there was nothing – no sign of it at all during any of our scans.  You can read about it in this post.
2.       During this same cycle I got another polyp (see this post) – something we tried to avoid by being on a low dose stimulation cycle as I got polyps with my last IUI and second IVF.  I had an operation to remove one a few months earlier and I was really scared of getting another and that it would affect implantation.  Fortunately I also confessed that the polyp would go away or shrink so much that it would not be an issue and that is exactly what happened.  See here:  The polyp was so small it could almost not be detected by ultrasound when they did ET – this has never happened to me – the polyps only got bigger as my lining thickened, and the FS could not explain it either.
3.       I must put our pregnancy in here too – for me this is still a miracle that I ever got to see a BFP – as it took a full 10,5 years to see it for the first time!  Even though it ended in a miscarriage, it is still a miracle to me, and it’s given me hope – because now I know I can get pregnant.  That was something that at one stage I thought was totally impossible!  I can with confidence now classify our pregnancy as a miracle, because I know now that God did not cause or allowed the miscarriage, it’s not His fault, so that does not make it less of a miracle.
4.       There is the time I suddenly saw Shumi had a big lump on his back and it was rock hard, it felt like bone – that really shook me.  Once again with the help of God that lump disappeared completely!  There is still no trace of it!  Shumi also had a little hard bump next to his tail one day, that is also almost completely gone and once DH felt Shumi’s palate, because the vet said that it would go soft and that would be one of the bad symptoms, showing us that he is deteriorating, and it was actually getting soft on the left hand side underneath where his tumour is supposed to be.  DH felt Shumi’s palate again a few weeks ago and there is no sign of a soft spot.  The latest breakthrough is that Shumi had real trouble sleeping at night and he woke us up at least twice every night with his hard breathing and gasping for air.  So I started to say things like:  “Shumi your nostrils are both open and you can breathe easily and you will have a good night’s sleep without waking up every now and then.”  He has slept through since then, and his one nostril was even unblocked for a little bit that one day last week.  His eye also looks a lot better! 

So you see God reminded me that he has done some wonderful miracles already, and that it is not impossible to do the rest.  It seems that some things go away quicker and easier than others, but I think that has to do with what the problem is and how I see that problem.  For instance the polyp I had was not such a big issue to me so that was resolved in about 5 days.  Shumi’s cancer and my infertility was something that was not so easy to believe that it would go away and I had to work on trusting God that He can heal us of it completely.  Now, I’m convinced and I cannot wait for the proof that Shumi is completely healed and the proof that I am pregnant!

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