Ask whatever you will...

We have been seeing some exceptional answers to prayer lately. God has been speaking to my heart in the last few weeks about what he wants to do for His children. The link that was supposed to be in my last entry didn't show up. Here it is: www.kimclement.com Darrel and I have been sort of keeping up with Kim for the last few years or so. His music is great and his ministry has been incredible. Anyway, he has been prophecying the last few months about how there would be a shift in the spiritual realm and that November would begin a great time for the church - an outpouring of the Spirit like we have never seen in our time.

All of these things we are seeing God do, teamed with these amazing prophecies have inspired me to look a little further past what I have always assumed about God and about prayer. I have never experienced such a surge of faith as I did that night at Mosaic - Halloween night. The air was thick with God's presence - I could hear Him plain as day speak one single word, "ask". And ask we did - for souls, for specific people, for needs. Then the most awesome thing happened - God answered. Now for me growing up, as I suppose it is for most children, it seemed that when you asked, the answer was generally "no" whether due to lack of money or time or simply because it wasn't good for me. It's hard being a parent. So I guess I had just adopted the same philosophy with God. Why ask when the answer is just going to be "no"?

I was directed to the scripture in James 4:2b-3: "You do not have, because you do not ask. [Or] you do ask [God for them] and yet fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is [when you get what you desire] to spend it in sensual pleasures." Also in Matthew 7 and John 14-16 I found scriptures on asking. It is not hard to see the theme of persistence and faith - believing God is Who He is and that He will do what He says He will do. Along with that is the issue of motives and what you desire to do with what He gives you. So many things to consider - so many things to allow God to perfect in us. But I am finding that the key is not being perfect - I can never be that. I think I am finding the key is in faith, which we know to be relationship with God. The more relationship/faith we have with God, the more our motives and hearts become like His - the more we are conformed to His image, His likeness, and the way He does things. It's so not about our outward actions or how we are acting - you know what I mean - how we trot around spewing our positive confessions even though in our hearts we are still the same wavering relationship-starved people. We cannot make our faith behave - we can't increase it by outward rituals or spoken incantations. God is not a good luck charm or a superstitious god who is only moved if we can rub his belly in the right way. He is simply looking for some time with you - being real with each other. He longs to do good things for us. It is not hard to ask for what God wills when we are close to Him. These things just naturally begin to flow from our hearts - because we are in tune with His heart. We are touched by the things that touch Him. We ache for the people He aches for.

Just today I saw a miraculous thing happen in a situation that is very dear to my heart. There is this person who had a disagreement with another person. There was tremendous hurt feelings and the relationship looked to be beyond repair. It has been over a year since the latest rift and I had begun to give up on any reconciliation. But Halloween night, God moved in my heart to begin to ask again for her soul and for the soul of the other person involved - that God would remember them in this great outpouring of His Spirit. I had a call today that one of the people was just saying how Thanksgiving would have been perfect had the other person been there. What a miracle - hardened hearts melting in the move of God. I have great faith/relationship in my God, that He will indeed remember them and that He is already working.

So today, I ask you to take a leap off the edge of belief, off the edge of reason, off the edge of the past. Forget what lies behind - the many times you've heard the answer "no". Find real relationship with God - the kind where you are simply comfortable being quiet or sharing your true feelings no matter what. Then listen for the heart of God. Listen for Him to prompt you in prayer. Then just breathe it - live it - ask for it! Then let me know what miracles you see - it will increase our faith/relationship. Just ask...

Ain't It Grand?

Well, Darrel's commercial kitchen is finally done and we've been in it for the last few weeks non-stop it seems! I think I will never forget that first big catering - Brandon and I were working away, every now and then stopping to look at each other and express to God how thankful we were for some aspect of this new space. It is incredible how much room we have to work and how convenient it is to have everything near and at your disposal.

We ran an ad in our local exhanger paper offering a Thanksgiving meal for 8 with Turkey, Dressing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Cranberry Sauce, Green Beans or Corn, Rolls, and a Pumpkin Pie all for the low, low price of $56 plus tax. So far we have cooked 8 full dinners and a few little side dishes for people who just wanted certain items. It has been so much fun to work side by side with my sweetheart helping people, who because of health issues or time issues can't cook for themselves, to have a home-cooked Thanksgiving meal for their families.

Our annual FUNatics Thanksgiving Dinner and Revolution 375 last week was wonderful! Pastor Shay Strickland came with Chris Greshom who led worship. God is certainly moving on our behalf. We have now officially become Revolution Ministries - a non-profit organization. We have acquired the use of a building on the Lamar square to use for at least 3 years. We have been asked to set up a nativity on the corner of the sqare - it is going to be awesome! We will have the usual nativity set and a cross. The banners will say something like, "God became a man to bridge the gap; He lives so you can have relationship; Unto you a Revolution is born...join it!" It will be sponsered by Revolution Ministries and a local doctor here in town who owns the property. What an incredible presence for us in this town! We also received our first major donation of $500. Things are getting so exciting and we know it is just the tip of the iceberg! If you get a chance, check out the link above - click on Prophecy and the News to read some of the recent prophecies Kim Clement has given. The TBN interview is especially cool.

RPM sang last Saturday night at the Java Mule for Lamar's annual "Home for the Holidays". We sang a variety of Christmas songs - both traditional and spiritual. Debbie, my sister, again filled in with singing and playing the piano. She's awesome... We sing on the 3rd for a variety show fund raiser here in town for our local taxi service. We will be doing 4 of our 50's songs in the whole poodle skirt get-up. It should be fun. Then we sing Dec. 8th at Dot's - Christmas stuff again. They are our biggest supporters - they have sold our Christmas CD song every year and keep up with all that we are doing. God has been so good to pour out His Spirit through new songs lately - I think I've written 3 in the last two months.

The kids are sad due to the loss of their piano teacher - they are moving to Indiana to take a church there. We are sorry to see them go. School has been crazy and wonderful at the same time - trying to balance it with catering has been interesting. Well, I will let all this useless information settle in to your brains. Thanks for sharing our lives and keeping us in prayer!

Ready to take some more leaps? Stay tuned...

A Sensitive Topic

Time eludes me...I don't have to tell you how sorry I am that I haven't blogged for so long. There's probably no one left that still reads this blog. Anyway, for whoever is out there, I will jot down a few thoughts. I think I have been avoiding this leg of the story because it's something I have struggled with for most of my life. I still do at times.

The stress of Jonah's birth plus the tension of having a preemie newborn that screamed all the time and had to be hooked up to an apnea monitor for five months took it's toll on Darrel and me. Our relationship was stressed to the max - not only with family troubles, but with trying to manage the church as well. I was dealing with a lot of anger at the time - it's no secret that my dad and I had a turbulent relationship. I had been through quite a lot in the past with my oldest sister's issues, and the enemy had tormented me for a long time that I would have the same troubles. I know now that traumatic circumstances and stress can bring issues to the surface that we sometimes suppress. We knew nothing at that time about post-partum depression, but I have a feeling now that I was dealing with that as well.

We made it through a horrific Christmas, warding off divorce by sheer willpower. We were so poor at the time - we had no money for propane and it was sooooo cold! It snowed like crazy. We had blankets over the doors and windows to keep the heat from the space heaters inside. My help had all gone home, and I was struggling with Kelsey not feeling like I was her mother and Jonah not progressing as fast as he should. Spring finally came. But with the warmer temperatures, my heart only got colder. Now what I am going to write next is not something I am not proud of. In fact it makes me sick to even see it in writing. So, at the risk of losing approval from some, I will share it with you.

Darrel and I had taken the kids and gone to Leavenworth to buy groceries. My paranoia was at an all-time high. Darrel and I were arguing and he told me to just go in and get the groceries while he stayed out in the van with the kids. Well, something in my head just went off. I convinced myself that Darrel was going to leave me there and take the kids if I went in by myself. So he said he would go in and get the groceries. Well, again I knew there was some sinister plan afoot. In frustration and desperation, Darrel said we were leaving - not only the parking lot and the town, but that we were packing up and leaving that day for Lamar. I will try to expain my thoughts - what I perceived him to say was, "Diane, you've messed up my one chance at ministry and now because of you, we will have to abandon our calling and go home." I went absolutely balistic. Postal. Whatever you want to call it. It must have scared Darrel, because he turned the van around in the middle of the highway and headed towards Kansas City to take me to the hospital. I still remember my precious babies in the back crying - it haunts me to this day. We came to a bridge just outside of Leavenworth. I told Darrel that I would stop if he would take me home. He wouldn't. So calmly I reached down for the van door and opened it. It is all so surreal - I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. All I can say it the hand of God reached down through Darrel and grabbed me as I began to fall out of the van. The moment he touched me, I think I came back to myself. He talked me into shutting the door. The kids were screaming by this point - again another haunting memory. Darrel said he would turn around if I would promise to go to some kind of counseling. Well, of course I said I would. I was calm all the way home. When we got home, I crashed and slept for a while. When I woke up, I could hear Darrel on the phone. I got up and thought I could please him by making his favorite dinner. I knew if I could just make him happy with me, that he would forget everything that had happened that day. Well, he was on to me...I realized that he was talking to a pastor friend of my brother-in-law's about scheduling some counseling with a woman in Liberty, MO. I snapped again - grabbed a bottle of pills and headed out the door. Darrel dropped the phone and tackled me on the front lawn. Great eye candy for the church ladies living across the street, I'm sure...

I promised again that I would calm down. But you need to see that the enemy was having such a heyday with my mind. I was so paranoid that there was a plot to commit me and take the kids away. I just knew that Darrel had some other perfect woman lined up to replace me - if only he could get me committed involuntarily so he could divorce me. I even allied with my dad on the phone and convinced him that Darrel was out to get me. It was the worst day of my life. It will be burned into my memory forever. The whole time I just kept thinking how bad I was messing up my kids. I think of the verses of scripture that say, "O unhappy and pitiable and wretched man that I am! Who will release and deliver me from [the shackles of] this body of death? O thank God! [He will!] through Jesus Christ (the Anointed One) our Lord! So then indeed I, of myself with the mind and heart, serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." Romans 7:24-25.

The next verse describes what I had to deal with next. Romans 8:1-2 says, "Therefore, [there is] now no condemnation (no adjudging guilty of wrong) for those who are in Christ Jesus, who live [and] walk not after the dictates of the flesh, but after the dictates of the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life [which is] in Christ Jesus [the law of our new being] has freed me from the law of sin and death." We made it through that awful day and several days after that. I agreed to go see the counselor that our friend Pastor Nathan had suggested. It was going to prove to be one of the most influential times in my life. Our first meeting, Regina asked me to tell my story. Then she looked at me with those serious eyes and said the most profound thing I have ever heard in my life - something I've repeated to my "girls" over and over again since then: she said, "Diane, that's awful. No one should have had to grow up with those kinds of things happening. But now you're an adult - you have been for many years - and it's time that you realized that you make your own decisions and that you are sinning." You could have knocked me over with a pin. I couldn't belive my ears - how dare she! She was taking away my only security blanket - the fact that I could go on blaming everyone else for what was wrong in my life and never take responsibility for it myself. Wow. Then she told me that she would not tolerate parent-bashing, and that she wanted me to be out of here in a few months. No years and years of rehashing and self-pity. Just getting things squared away and new thought patterns in process. How amazing! She very lovingly taught me through scripture how Jesus sees me and how I can change the destructive thought process based on lies to biblical patterns based on truth. She helped me realize that I was not alone - that many of her patients over the years had been pastors and pastor's wives. That people in ministry often deal with the same issues. It would prove to be a springboard into the ministry that Darrel and I are involved in today. I love Regina - she is a valued and trusted sister in the Lord. I still email back and forth with her.

Darrel and I left Potter later that summer. We came home to Lamar in time to celebrate Jonah's first birthday. He was completely caught up as far as walking, talking, etc. by the time he was a year and a half. His eyesight is pretty normal - he has reading glasses. There are no long-term effects from the prematurity. That stormy time has served to remind me that the storm is not my reality. That there is always a clear sky somewhere above it all. That God can use anything in my life if I will let Him. That forgiveness is not only possible, it is an inevitable step we must take if we want to be free and minister freedom to others.

I will leave you with one more scripture from 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of sympathy (pity and mercy) and the God [Who is the Source] of every comfort (consolation and encouragement), Who comforts (consoles and encourages) us in every trouble (calamity and affliction), so that we may also be able to comfort (console and encourage) those who are in any kind of trouble or distress, with the comfort (consolation and encouragement) with which we ourselves are comforted (consoled and encouraged) by God."

I love you all - thanks for sticking through these past few blogs with me - they've been tough. It's the first time I've every written it all out. You guys are awesome.

Now on to more exciting topics...!