March 22, 2024
The Real Life
Today (the morning after our prayer meeting) we heard a powerful declaration from Sr. Bernice, MC on Hallow’s Pray40 Lent Challenge. She claimed that there was on overflowing joy for Mother Theresa when she died because she was about to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; in her words it was the “beginning of the real life.”
If this isn’t a confirmation of how we began our prayer meeting last night with Almost Home by MercyMe, I’m not sure what is. We are in the Lenten season and I’m not sure how all of you are feeling, but I am ready to walk out of the desert. It has been a long road as I realized it is every year. I offered Jesus up my time during Lent this year and He my journey has been transformative. As we are about to enter Holy Week, it is so important for us to remember what it means to know Jesus, to understand that a life lived in Him gives us the hope we need to thrive here on our Earthly journey, but also to look forward to one day when we will begin our “real life” up in Heaven.
This song played at my husband’s wake 3 1/2 years ago. I had no idea the impact it would have on my life for the years to come. I really hadn’t listened to it again after the wake until Easter Sunday morning 6 months after he passed away. It was the first time I was beginning to feel a slight resurrection from the darkness of grief that had struck me. The lines in the song that always stick out to me are “sister run wild run free; hold up your head, keep pressing on knowing Heaven is cheering you on.” We live in constant communion with Jesus, Our Father, the Holy Spirit, and the saints. We must continually welcome them; we must say yes. As one of our members stated last night, our lives must include a daily renewal of our minds: ‘I know who I am in Him.’
Every day everyone fights a battle that we do not know of: a battle of our minds and our hearts. We come together each week brokenhearted, sorrowful, angry, and all of the above! We have been in this routine of spending an hour and half together each week dedicating ourselves to our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ: who has REDEEMED us, who LOVES us, who has and will never ABANDON us. He meets us exactly where we are at every moment of everyday. He is big in you, open your eyes to Him, look into them and know how much you are loved exactly where you are and exactly who He created you to be. You are loved in a way that no human love on this Earth could ever compare. If only we could all love like Jesus does. I know I can’t, but I know the closer I grow to Him, the closer I could get to that.
We seemed to all be experiencing and sharing the flow of humanity last night: conflicts with the people around us, death, break-ups, sickness, and any chain that is holding us back. Yet, Jesus was there AGAIN standing in the middle of our circle and as we spoke and sang “In the Name of Jesus,” He swirled around faster than I have ever seen before and He broke those chains with His arm; He set you free from whatever it was you were asking of Him last night. You opened your wounds, your confusion, your questions, and your heartache to Him, and because you did, He filled them with Living Water. The world wants us to fill them with other things, alcohol, depression, anxiety, fear, confusion, sin, self doubt, self condemnation, etc but Jesus wants to fill them with faith, hope and love. Let Him! Your sin is great, but His love is always greater. Let your wounds be filled with His living water and rise up new. Every day!. You don’t have to run anymore. This is your invitation; He wants to heal you.
Practice saying yes; practice letting Him heal you because this is constant revival. The world tell us there is a problem and we fix it, then we don’t face it again. The truth is until we begin our real life, we will always face challenges and struggles, but you are never the person you were before you met Jesus and before He became your In-Between. You are different now. There has been a clear change in you. You will go through seasons. You will be restored. You will fall, but He will always bring you back up; maybe even higher than you were before. Meet His eyes. Follow Him. Even if you don’t trust yourself, you can trust Him: surrender everything to Him. He is the only way, the truth, and the life.
As we listened to God of All My Days, the same vision came to my mind every time I hear it. Casting Crowns sings, “And I trusted you and stepped out on the ocean; you caught my hand among the waves, because you’re the God of All Days; my seasons change and you stay the same.” I saw myself just as I always do standing on a body of water. I was on the shallow end, the sandbar on the ocean. Jesus is up higher than me, but I know He is standing tall on a much deeper part of the water. He always reaches out HIs hand to me and I take it, almost every time, the water actually turns into a step (sometimes more than one) and I step up to Him. I step up to the level of the water He is on. The storm is around us, but in the middle, on my water created steps, when I take His hand and I meet Him each time, the storm subsides. It does not go away, but there is a level of grace and peace that withstands any storm I will face.
