Hope Without Limits

It sounded like a war cry.  I heard it as I lay on my acupuncturist’s table earlier this week.  I felt a literal crack and something shift in my being.  All I saw was blackness and darkness, which scared me.  I started to say under my breath and then a little more loudly, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.  I belong to Jesus.  But the darkness did not lift.  I could not reconcile the darkness I was seeing and what I was hearing.  Even with the intensity of the cry, the voice sounded familiar but how could the voice of My Heavenly Father be part of this darkness?  I continued to repeat Jesus’ name waiting for instruction/revelation of what to do next.  No instruction came to me.  I was left with the ringing of “you’re mine” so clear within me; an unquestionable knowing that something very significant had just happened; but no understanding of what it was.

That state of limbo continued through to the next morning.  Without answers or understanding, the best thing I knew to do was to declare truth over myself as I walked:

• The blood of Jesus redeems me from the hand of the enemy (Ps 107:2)
• The blood of Jesus means satan has no place in me, no power over me, no unsettled debts against me (Rom 8:33-34)
• Through the blood of Jesus I am justified, made righteous, just-as-if-I’d never sinned (Rom 5:9)
• My body is a temple for the Holy Spirit, redeemed, cleansed and sanctified by the blood of Jesus (1 Cor 6:19)

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “the truth will set you free”  (John 8:32).  Well that’s exactly what it did!

Shortly after declaring these truths over myself I recalled the verse

He made darkness His secret hiding place;
as His pavilion (His canopy) round about Him
were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
Psalm 18:11

Then I heard “you get it with your head, but you don’t get it with your heart that YOU’RE MINE.”  I looked again into the darkness and it split apart to reveal a diamond-shaped sphere of pure light on a throne.  It was so powerful that it was hard to look at while at the same time mesmerizing.  I heard it again “YOU’RE MINE”.  Oh how I wept as my heart “got it” and echoed “yes, I’M YOURS”.

Revelation came to me that the darkness was a filter of doubt rooted in my years and years of physical pain through which I was seeing Father God and His love for me.  This filter had kept a pathway open to one part of my heart creating an exposed, unguarded target for the enemy’s firey darts of torment, self-doubt, self-hatred and the darkness those poisonous darts inflict as they accompanied the Fibromyalgia flares in any of its ugly forms .  The crack I’d heard and the shift I’d felt the night before was Father God hidden in that dark place revealing to me a part of my heart that I did not even know was stuck in the darkness of doubt.  He is the light that darkness cannot quench (John 1:4-5) no matter where it resides, how long it has been present or how vast it is. His presence will destroy it.

I was completely undone.   How incredibly surprised I was.  I started to laugh and cried out   “You’re everywhere …. even in the darkness!!!”

Now in the “fairy-tale” version I would write “and she lived happily ever after with no more problems”  Trust me, I wouldn’t argue with that … but actually I think I’ve received something even better … unconditional hope 🙂

The Fibromyalgia pain did not go away.  It actually has been a very physically painful week – but I was safe in the midst of the storm, torment, doubt and self-hatred had no place to take hold.

Then came a 2nd gift while driving to work listening to a podcast.

“If you’ll keep your heart unoffendable
I will use you to demolish the things that tried to demolish you.”
Testimony by Elizabeth Reisinger

This woman’s battle looked completely different than mine, but the truth God told her resonated through me as I listened.

I propose to you my Heavenly Father is using this blog as a way for me to demolish the very things that have tried to demolish me.  Amazing, at least to me it is.

I have more to share on keeping your heart unoffendable in my next post. But for now I have a question for you:

Where are the stuck places in your life?

My most recent experience is just one of many that allow me to testify to you that truly unconditional hope is available to you even in the most stuck places of your life, whatever they may be.   My prayer for each of you reading this is you will be delightfully surprised to find our Heavenly Father hiding in that dark place and experience for yourself the sudden the brilliance of His presence breaking through the clouds as He reaches down from on high to draw you out of deep waters; to rescue you from your enemy who always attacks when and where we are weakest; and to deliver you to a place of safety because He delights in you (Psalm 18:16-19).