Heidi B & Mother T

I just got a Heidi Baker book in the mail yesterday, I think I jumped up and down for about an hour. I love Heidi Baker. She has an orphanage in Mozambique and she has no plan B. If God does not show up in supernatural provision then they will die. She is a simple and authentic example of what it means to genuinely and radically love the one who is front of you.

My heart started being deeply moved about this time last year for the poor, the least of these. They inspire me. Their stories simply cut me to the soul. Underground churches, saints who give their lives, people who have lost everything, have nothing, and know what it is to weep from their souls. They are some of my heroes here on earth. The brokenhearted and forgotten, I shall take up my lot with them, for Jesus says to cast your lot with the oppressed. I long to learn from them and their examples of love and faith. I wish they would tell me what they know. Compassion means to suffer with. I feel like He keeps fashioning my heart in this place of suffering with. Mourning with those who mourn and rejoicing with those who rejoice. It takes maturity to take yourself from your place of mourning and rejoice with one who is rejoicing, in the same it takes maturity to take yourself from your place of rejoicing and to mourn with one who is mourning.

About this time last year I started to become obsessed with the beatitudes, they are some of my favorite scripture in the whole Bible. I'm still in love with them and I think I always will be now. My absolute favorite one is "Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom Heaven." It floors me, I can not say why. Being poor in spirit is not about what you have or what you don't have it's an issue of the heart. It's when you have no plan B what-so ever, just Him, He must come through for He is your only option. My prayer is that I too may truly become aware of the serious and overwhelming need for Him in my life.

I wish to go lower but I feel as though I just can't get low enough. I know He must take me there. I know He is lowly and I long to be where He is. I want to sit in the dirt with the poor. Not to be poor but to be among them one day. I love them. Gary Haugen, founder of International Justice Mission, states that "The Poor and oppressed save us from our life of trivia", he is right.

And if I didn't mention this before, I LOVE Mother Teresa. She inspires me to live my life inspired. To look for the Holy in the common place. She could be considered a stereo typical symbol of compassion and goodwill but there has been something about her that is MOVING me lately.... I am drawn to the humility of ordinary people to admit that they are ordinary but they are bringing the Kingdom in power. It makes me know, although I am ordinary, that I can bring the Kingdom in power too. I just told my mom that I wanted a biography or a book full of quotes from her for Christmas. The work she did in Calcutta is truly moving and challenges me to rethink what I think I know about love. I love to be challenged in that way, it lets me know that I have not arrived yet. My hunger continues to drive me on to what's possible.


"What I do you cannot do; but what you do, I cannot do. The needs are great, and none of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love."
-Mother Teresa


"Let God use you without consulting you."
-Mother T

be free. :)
love,
Dea

Fight for your rights??

Wow what a busy week. I feel like I haven't had anytime to breath. I'm pretty much booked until Thanksgiving break with presentations and projects. My birthday was yesterday and my roommate and a good friend surprised me and decorated my room and made me a cake and it blessed me SO much because honestly I wasn't really expecting to do much because I was so busy. Lately I feel like I'm going in circles. Hungry for SO much it hurts but not seeing any results...and wondering if it's me that's the problem.

My mom called me Saturday night and told me she is losing her job because of mass layoffs due to the governmental funding for their medical facility that is dwindling. It's just me and mom and her job, because it was a well paying full time job, was one of the biggest reasons we made it through the divorce because we could actually support ourselves, so it came as a shock. It made me wonder what we were going to do for money and it made me angry because EVERYTHING keeps changing...in fact her job may have been the only thing that hasn't changed since the divorce. So I got sad and then I got angry...it always goes that way. I got angry at the Lord which is selfish and immature I know but I did. It's been so much the past couple years, sometimes almost too much, please, no more change, I have had enough and I haven't even finished adjusting to half of them yet. Something inside me doesn't want to yield to Him sometimes anymore. My flesh is aching to have it my way. My body aches from trying to fit into His mold.

The Lord has been speaking to me about my rights lately...and how I have none. He keeps saying "Deanna let me be Lord over your life" We have talked talked and He is my creator, we have talked and He is my Father, we have talked and He is even my lover but He keeps saying "let me be your Lord"....I know what that means.....really means, this is one of the reasons why I hesitate before saying yes because I know what it means. In our culture it is hard for us to grasp the REAL meaning of Lord. In Jesus' time and mid-evil times and in many cultures someone with the title of Lord meant they owned EVERYTHING. They owned your livestock, your property, your children, your money, even your personal rights. That's what it meant in those days to be Lord over a kingdom. They were fully Lord, they owned EVERYTHING and all the people in those cultures knew without stipulation what that meant, no questions asked because that person carried the title of Lord. That's hard for our American Culture to understand sometimes because our culture thrives on individualism and individualistic freedom and rights. To have someone else own your life is an outrage in our culture. Now, I do not believe other human beings should own other human beings, absolutely not. However, I do not think it wrong for the inventor of a machine to own the patant to that that machine and therefore own the machine because he invented it! like wise with the Lord, He created us!! He is the creator and we are the created! He holds ALL the patants and copywrites to us because He created us! He wants to own our lives because they were originally His. We were made for Him by Him, He orginally owned us. Lately He has been reminding me... "Let me be Lord" I know what that means, it means a greater death, which will ultimately bring life of course because He's a perfect paradox like that but it's my choice, it has to be my choice to die further. I can almost feel Him whisper the words "It's Time" to me right now. I know what this means. It means I have to let go of my rights. I have been fighting with Him for weeks, maybe even moths over this issue now. My rights. I just wrote a paper on how as human beings we automatically have unalienable rights. Our constitution even says it. The RIGHT to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, just by being human beings we have rights right?? .....at least our culture says we do. And don't get me wrong injustice carried out against another human being is WRONG of course. I am certainly not saying we should let everyone walk all over us and be treated badly.. No, this is something the world may not understand but Jesus has been speaking.

I keep saying "but that wasn't fair! She treated me so wrongly! She believes things about me that aren't even true!!" I keep saying "These losses in my life were unfair! This event has kept me from certain opportunities others have had" I keep implying to Him that my life should turn out a certain way because of the these "rights" I have. But He keeps saying to me "What rights?" ahh He is right. What rights?? I am His and not my own. To say I have rights is to say that I am my own. The parts of me that still think I have rights are the parts of me that are independent of Him. If I do have rights then they are not my rights anymore because like everything else I had to hand them over to Him, which would mean they are not mine but truly His. lol... I wonder how many times can I say "rights" in this blog...I'm so scattered tonight, just trying to get this thought out, it's been eating at me more intensely for weeks now. Sorry if its scattered brained, makes me look crazy, or doesn't even make any sense, that's okay, I know I'm on to something even if I can't word it just right.

He is coming against my flesh that still seeking justice on my own behalf because I have been treated unfairly. Still trying to right these wrongs in my life and heal my own wounds. Still seeking to right my reputation when someone has a false misconception of me (that's a big one), still wanting to defend myself against the world when it treats me bad and hurts me, ...hummm can someone say prideful and unsurrendered? lol, But I can so feel Him tug me and softly say "your fighting for your rights, you have no rights you gave them to me when I became LORD over your life" Being the created and Him as the creator it's true. "Every time you fight for the rights you think you have it's because you don't trust me to vindicate you" and I know He is right.

These last couple months I have been struggling with this concept because it goes against what my culture tells me...when I actually have given up my rights on certain days...and let everything go...I have felt so weak, yet so clean... I have felt SO needy...so in need of Him. I have been asking myself the last months "is this what it feels like to give up EVERYTHING? my rights, my plans, myself? I thought I gave up everything before but now I know there is more to put on the alter. Quite honestly it's uncomfortable, it's not in my human nature to live like that, it was almost like my Spirit was in some sort of poverty, but it was not bad, i think it was just a feeling of true dependency on Him... "I am making you poor in Spirit" mmmm blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of God. (Matthew 5:3) I think when we give up Everything and become truly dependent upon Him we become poor in Spirit and needy, so in need of Him, which is what makes us weak, which is what makes us strong... funny that when you are poor in spirit you are truly rich.

They say "fight for your rights." I am hearing myself say "I am fighting to give away my rights... to Him." There's that paradox again.

Greater death ALWAYS brings greater life in His Kingdom. It's a backwards upside down Kingdom, one must lose to gain and die to live. In a democracy one has rights. The church is not a democracy, it's a kingdom with one Lord.



"May the Vision of you Be the Death of Me"
-Shane & Shane



....wow this is long...i guess that what happens when you don't blog for ages and then it all comes out in one night. :)