Purple Teacup

Where I live

2011-10-24T10:38:00.007-05:00

Life was good. For a time. I had to admit that things were better, but still not right. At the same time God was revealing much truth to us, faster than we could keep up. He had placed some wonderful people in our lives who showered us with unconditional love and acceptance. Most of them happened to live in the place we had moved from.

It made no sense.

Time froze for me recently when I heard someone say, "What is practical in the world is not practical in the Kingdom of Heaven."

I have such passion for that. I ADORE that.

I wish I could find a group of people like that. Who don't buy into the pagan traditions that have been brought into churches via the doctrines of man. People who understand the esoteric nature of the symbols that brand this country, the television, and the movies. The things that are unknowingly seared into our minds through our eyes and ears.

There is a reason is called television programming.

Having a TV is so practical these days isn't it? I mean, it's unthinkable to not have a TV, right?

Is that why people are surprised because my family doesn't watch television anymore? I can feel the judgment emanating....and we are promptly classified into the freak category. Maybe you who are reading this feels the same way.

I acknowledge your experience. I would like to ask why does it make me a freak? Because it's different?

Some have said they admire and respect it, but that wouldn't work for them because they just HAVE TO watch this, and that and this and that.

When I posted on Facebook, "What is practical in the world is not practical in the Kingdom of Heaven" I wanted to shake some people. I mean I can't, because that is no way to minister to someone, but the thought crossed my mind. There were two responses that caused this. One was, "like clothes" and the other was "like handbags" or something of that nature.

I love to laugh. I find joy in the little things. Indeed, I did laugh. Then I cried. Behind every joke, there is a grain of truth. That's why jokes are funny. What's not funny is that so many people don't realize the spiritual implications of what they are doing. They are dismissive of anything that doesn't fit their belief system.

I want to vomit when people say that it's all in the interpretation. Let me tell you, if you don't have the Holy Spirit interpretation I would be very concerned. And there is much teaching that is under the guise of being spirit-filled. But which spirit is it?

There are too many of us holding hands with the world.

I was. I still do sometimes. I have to catch myself, and ask forgiveness.

I am not to care what others think, but what God thinks........

There is a people-pleaser inside me who likes to whisper in my ear from time to time. She sounds like me. She can justify anything. But her words are not my own. They are the enemy's.

Before, I lived in that bondage. I didn't know what to do. I just couldn't GET OVER IT. I was afraid that the cracks that were gone would return.

The love and support came from miles away. I stayed on the path of fusion.

I returned to my home many, many times because of the 'thing.' The foreign land was 'just the place that I lived." I quickly helped people understand that I was not FROM that place.

I began to see why God had moved me away. The last few times I have been there, I can't imagine living there ever again. I began to truly understand that this world was just the place where I lived.

He had to take me out of my home, only to bring me back to see through His eyes.

When I realized that, I really had to say I was sorry for complaining......

The 'thing'

2011-10-23T22:03:00.007-05:00

He convinced me to let him come home because he was going to go to some 'life-changing weekend' that a friend of his had suggested. I was hesitant, as this is coming from an award-winning salesman. This was the man I loved. And of course I think about the children. I remember my shallow breathing. I wasn't going to give in, but stand my ground.

And he knew it.

So he goes to this 'life-changing weekend' that ironically takes place in the city where we had moved from. The place I had lived my whole life, but had never heard about this 'thing.' What in the world was going on in here?

The way my husband found out about this 'thing' was even more interesting. He met a guy in a restaurant that he would have never been in had it not been for us moving and his company changing his sales territory because we moved. Did you get all that?

That same man ended up being the friend that my husband had prayed for. Turns out the man was praying for the same thing. It is an amazing thing......

Fingerprints of God.

Due to travel for his job, he couldn't come back immediately from this 'weekend of change.' He sounded different on the phone though. Like annoyingly different. I wondered how long it would last.

When he got home, he looked different. In the eyes. Face. It was kind of spooky. He had this peace about him. Peace like I had never seen.

I had a feeling that I needed to go to this 'thing.' But I didn't tell him that. I needed more information. Come to think of it, he hadn't had much information about this 'thing' before he went.

But he couldn't tell me anything. Nothing. Nada. Zippity Doo Dah Zilch. And it made me mad and want to say ugly things because I was the kind of person that needed to know things.

I was asked to basically do something I didn't do very often if not at all......

TRUST.

It was very, very hard.

But I knew that God wanted me to go, so I did. I will never be the same again.

His ways are not bound by the walls of any church. HIS WORD LIVES. IT BREATHES.

It heals.

I thought that this 'thing' would perhaps help my husband and our marriage. I got so much more.

It saved me from myself.

You have to understand. I knew Jesus then. I knew who He was and what He had done.

But I was in a box of bondage, and I couldn't get out of it. Everything I had tried...books, Bible studies, women's retreats, volunteering, teaching, Christian counseling.

NOTHING WORKED. NOTHING.

People sure do like to give me their opinion on that. They can't see through the veil on their eyes, ears. They are a product of their life's experience. They are willing themselves to overcome things, rather than have true freedom in Christ. Just like I was.

Until God brought the 'thing' from the place we had moved. And He asked me to trust.

There weren't so many cracks in me anymore.

I became the joyful and peaceful woman that I always was, but never could be.

This place

2011-10-19T23:22:00.008-05:00

I have been in a foreign land for almost 4 years. The story by Shirley Jackson called "The Lottery" came to my mind shortly after I got here. People didn't seem to take to kindly to outsiders.

I didn't like this place.

And I was a bit mad at God.

"You told me to move here, so now I'm here! What am I supposed to do now? You have taken me away from everything and everyone I have ever known! My marriage is still a mess, my children still have autism! What is the purpose of this?"

And He was silent, but He held me in His hands. I knew He was there, but I couldn't hear Him.

My marriage had experienced so much rattling and shaking, and I wasn't sure how much longer we could go on like that. I had been fighting to keep things together for so long, but wasn't sure how much longer I could fight. I knew that this was the man God intended for me.....

We couldn't find a church. In the town that was proclaimed "Fort God" in the nineties, we couldn't find a church. That is another story.

A friend came to visit. What a dear friend she is.

She confronted my husband on my behalf.

NOBODY had done that before. People saw, they knew, they watched it happen from afar and never did anything. You see, people don't want to get involved.

But JESUS got involved, didn't He?

He was out there in the streets. Confronting people. Confronting the hypocrites.

Confronting me.

I am a sinner and a hypocrite. But that is another story, too.

I took my friend to the airport after the weekend, and she asked me what I was going to do. The same friend that told me to pray "Whatever it takes."

So I told him that he couldn't come back home until he got things figured out once and for all. I couldn't fix it. I couldn't fix him.

And little did I know that this was where the cracks would begin to fuse together.

The voice

2011-10-17T23:45:00.006-05:00

Just over 4 years ago, I was at my mother-in-law's house. I remember it so clearly- sitting in front of the computer in the office/guest room. In the not so comfortable wooden chair that now has a zebra stripe fabric on the cushion. I was checking email, the weather....

I heard something.

Words.

Inside my head.

"You need to move here."

Did I just hear that right? What in the WORLD would prompt that?

I didn't hear it that way again, but I was saying the words in my head grasping for some understanding.

And I knew that if it was really HIM saying those words, then HE would work it out. Because I remembered when I had heard the voice before, and what was said had come to pass.

Though no one had believed it.

And that hurt swelled up in me like a wave, threatening to take me out to the sea of pain that I frequently drowned in. On my boat with tattered sails that wafted to and fro in the winds of people's words that seared my heart.

I am hurled back to the moment and say out loud to my mother-in-law, "Um, I think we are supposed to move here."

And so it began.

But I had to tell my husband. And he thought I was crazy, and then I prayed. I went with him to look at houses around the metroplex where we lived, because he thought that maybe we just needed to move to a different house.

Then one day he looked at me and said, "We are moving there aren't we?"

So the house goes up for sale and just about a month later we have a cash offer on our home. We didn't like that the buyer thought we were desperate because of all the boxes we were packing out of obedience. Besides, I had a 6 month plan. We were moving after the school year was over. Right?!?!?

God had it laid out differently. As hard as we tried to make those people and their money go away, they wouldn't.

So my husband goes to look for a home over 400 miles away and he is sweet to take extensive video because OH MY GOSH I am not going to set foot in the home we are going to live in until we actually go to live there? That was a BIG DEAL.

I had to answer questions. Questions I did not have the answers to. Over and over again, increasing in frequency.

I was told, "God doesn't talk to people like that."

Um, yeah.

I was accused of taking children away from their grandparents.

It was horrible.

The day we are moving my husband almost slices his finger off due to a carpet blade being lodged in the carpet of his office closet. It's amazing that the blade just happened to show up on the day we are leaving, when we had the carpet replaced before we moved in......

We finally make it to where we were told to go. To the house that I saw on video. To a foreign place.

And once we got there, I complained.

But I tried to find humor in my confusion, sadness, and loneliness and thus began Purple Teacup.

And by the way, God always confirms His word. He confirmed it for us by swinging the door wide open and holding it open when we were hesitant to walk through it (amongst other things.)When the enemy infiltrates your mind, he doesn't say 'YOU' but he says 'I'. So you hear 'I am crazy.' He is much smarter than we give him credit.

Don't forget, we are to test the spirits: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that[a] Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world." I John 4:1

Putting on the new man

2011-09-24T10:10:00.007-05:00

"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." Colossians 3:5-11

This blog was originally started as a chronicle of someone who had moved from a big city in Texas to a much smaller city in the Mid-South. It was quite a shell-shock, and it was nice to vent about these foreign things and people, as it was likened to traveling back in time.....

However, looking back and reading over the posts and comments made me realize that I was complaining. Whining. Frustrated. Upset. Desperate.

Broken.

So very broken.

Like a hard-boiled egg that had been left in the boiling water for too long....I had some cracks. Then the egg fell on the floor and was utterly fragmented, but remained intact. Barely.

My brokenness has been made whole through a dot-to-dot journey that I have been searching for ever since I can remember.

I was told by a friend to pray "Whatever it takes."

And I did. And here I am. Whole.