Father

Father’s Day Ramblings

~ Patrice A London ~ 2 Comments

Sometimes, following God’s leading makes no logical sense to me, but, when I feel that familiar tug in a specific direction, I always go anyway.  The results of doing so, always ends up being nothing short of spectacular.

Back in December, I began to feel the Lord was leading me away from my commitment as one of the leaders in youth group.  I felt it was to take a more concerted effort to write. Of course it turned out to be more in the end. I cried profusely about it as I spoke with the youth pastor and another leader.  They laughed at me and assured me that all was well and that we are all still family.

Since then, God has been making sense of everything I have been feeling for a few years regarding my theology and what I was raised to believe about myself, Him and others.  Things are changing in the best way.

Recently, as I walked and talked with the Lord, I admitted to Him that I am feeling as if I am being pulled away from church (attendance).  I cry easily, and did so as I admitted aloud to Him that I don’t want to go to church anymore.  Learning what He is teaching me is making it hard to sit and hear the opposite.  Because He knows me better than I know myself, I asked Him why I don’t want to go anymore.  I feel it’s Him leading me away again.  Now please don’t read between any lines here.  This is my journey. I am simply telling my story.

I asked Him several very specific questions and asked Him to give me the answers in dreams because I couldn’t dismiss dreams.  Dreams just are, what they are, without my meddling and changing things around.  He answered every single question in spectacular fashion and in response to my question about not wanting to attend church any longer, He had a friend mention a book to me.  The books title is, So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore, by Jake Colsen.  I borrowed the audio version from my local library and devoured it in short order.  It explained my feelings exactly, even touching on house churches.  It answered my questions, and some I hadn’t considered, and, I gained a greater sense of peace.

In the meantime, I am enjoying meeting with other believers to simply hang out, eat and more.  I am learning a lot more about the people I love than I ever did attending church meetings with them.  There was never any real time to learn about them and their lives in that setting anyway.

Another thing that has been happening is that a group of friends and I have been asking God questions each day.  This started from a short clip of Shawn Bolz, teaching on hearing from God.  He said to ask the Lord something like, what you are here to do and what He likes about you.  On another day, my friends and I asked the Lord why we don’t always trust what He says and why we sometimes doubt Him.  On another day, we asked Him to show us where we are and where He wants to take us.  It has been wonderful getting answers and sharing them with one another.  I have done these exercises with my sisters and my children as well.  I encourage you to do it too.  We are doing it for 30 days.

In the midst of all this, Abba has been giving me specific instructions on how to go about reaching various goals I have set for myself.  We have been talking about hair, weightloss and more.  Talking hair with my Abba was an exciting and endearing first for me.  I am so enjoying these conversations with Him.

We also had an amazing thing happen a few days ago.  My children and I decided to go for a walk in a nearby park, after dinner one evening.  As we walked to the car, I noticed, but stepped over an envelope on the ground.  My oldest, who was behind me, is naturally more curious than me and she picked it up saying someone named Wayne lost his card.  I smiled and watched her open it.  My smile dropped when she pulled out cash and screamed, “WAYNE!!!!”  We all saw and started looking around frantically and screamed for a Wayne we didn’t know.  No one answered.  Everyone admitted feeling awful that someone had gone out of their way to thank Wayne and give him money and he’d lost the card.  We prayed about the situation and remarked at how bad we felt.  No one enjoys losing money.

When we got home, we read the card again, as it was dark outside when we first looked at it. There was a keyword- coach- Wayne is a coach in our area.  Long story short, my oldest was able to locate Wayne, and because it was a bit creepy, I called him the next morning.  We found him, well, she did, lol!  We met him later that next day at a nearby store and gave him his card and money.  What a load off!!  It turned out that the family giving him the card were the ones who lost it.  We thank God that we found it and was able to get it into the right hands.  God is so gracious and kind.

I will end this week’s post by saying Happy Father’s Day to all whom it applies.  We are eagerly waiting for our guy to get home from work so that we can dote on him.

The Happiest Father’s Day of all goes to our beloved Abba.  You are literally the best Father ever!!

A Father’s Love

~ Patrice A London ~ Leave a comment

My husband is the one who brought into my life, the practice of being held.  Just being held close to the heart of another, for an extended period of time, just because.  During a time, early on in our relationship, when I thought he would be angry with me and reject me, I began to cry and his response was to drop everything and just hold me.  Words can’t describe what that did for, to and in me.  What was once foreign became something so dear, something I now cherish.  I love being in his arms.

Over the weekend, my family and I attended a prophetic retreat.  It was an amazing experience.  Very healing, exciting and transforming.  So much happened.  One of my favorite moments was during a workshop called Poetic Expressions.  We were given time to sit quietly, asking something of the Lord or just allowing Him to speak to us and write out what we got.

After writing, we each had to read what we wrote to the class.  It was kind of alarming at first but it turned out to be quite wonderful.  Then, we had to choose a partner and trade what we wrote with them and read what the other person wrote.  Now that was amazing.  The first piece was written by my friend Evelin.  A guy read it and man, I fought tears as he read her piece because it took on a whole other personality and meaning.  It was so beautiful and touching.  I was floored.  We went around the room and then, just before the last one was to be read, Tomas announced that the Lord had instructed him to hold me in his arms as he read mine.  So imagine, two virtual strangers, embracing as father and daughter as he read what I wrote:

You are Mine, you were always Mine and you will always be Mine.  Dive deeply into the well that is My love.  Let Me dissolve all of your hurts, your cares, let Me love them all away.

Let my love become an all consuming fire for you.  Come up higher and see as I see. I have equipped you for this.  You are to be a carrier of My love, My very presence.  You are to release Me over a hurting and dying people, but first, you must let My love consume all of your pain.  More and more, I will reveal areas where you have not yet let Me in.  You are safe with Me.  Let Me in and see what I will do.  I want to take you from glory to glory.  You’re amazed now, you’ve seen nothing yet.  Come up higher.  Rest in Me.  There’s more for you to discover, so much more.

I just held on for dear life, fully accepting and returning this engulfing love. I listened carefully not just to the cadence of Tomas’ voice, but his very heartbeat, and I cried.  I was as in the arms of my Abba and I loved it. He wanted nothing from me but to just love me.  It was something I will never forget.  I will always cherish that moment.

Then, just so I wouldn’t miss what God was trying to get through to me, I received something special on Sunday as well.  We did a prophetic activation that included picking a person you didn’t know, then picking the first thing you thought of from your purse or pocket, and using it to prophecy over the person you chose.  My partner had a hairbrush.  She saw the Lord brushing my hair, nurturing me, loving on me as a father loves on his daughter.  What she said means so much to me.  This is not about feeling sorry for myself.  It’s not a thing of wanting pity for what I missed, it’s about giving God glory for His redemption.  What I once missed out on, is now being supplied in abundance through many, and it has been this way the last several years.  I am so grateful for my Father’s love.  There’s nothing better.