Extraordinary! Russia, Ukraine, breakthrough, God
At times in this world, all eyes turn toward what seems most important, invincible, extraordinary. If we look further, the Lord will remind us what actually is.
At times in this world, all eyes turn toward what seems most important, invincible, extraordinary. If we look further, the Lord will remind us what actually is.
As we struggled to reach another hemisphere and to connect with the people of Russia and Ukraine, hindrances just kept coming. Then, the breakthroughs began.
The day I woke to news that tanks rolled through Moscow’s streets, I wrote, “I don’t plan to beat down any doors. But what God opens, I will walk through.”
Why, in midlife, did I suddenly find my boundaries battered and my adulthood denied?
Two weeks after I asked readers to pray with me for wisdom and strength for a final push, my updated e-book is live! It tells my story of all the ways God answered, from the moment I finally asked him: “What about women, Lord? What do you say about how women in your kingdom relate to other people and to you?”
When the "threat alarm" goes off in an abusive church system, the response is orchestrated and brutal. But it's church: Appearances must be kept up. People loyal to the system confuse while pretending to clarify, cover-up while pretending to address, attack while seeming to answer, put-down while pretending to help.
Behind the scenes at Living Proof Live, I'd found a celebrity culture - not the "one anothering" of the church of the living God. So with all my heart, I cried out for change.
This is what happened when I served as onsite leader for a Beth Moore Living Proof Live event. It’s a peek into celebrity culture, the exploitation and manipulation of women and abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention.
All my life, I had been deceived by Good Christian appearances. Then, when pummeled and guilted to choose loyalty to a church system above all else, I saw.
God saw my stifled spirit. He saw my confused soul. He’s teaching me to act on my spirit's yes even when my soul is screaming no. For then his life can flow.
As I stumbled around, stuck in the fog – confused as to what was good and what was evil, what was true and what was not – my Lord knew I wanted to see. And he kept showing me what I needed to know to be free.
When Jesus calls you to walk on the water to meet him – GO!