Empty Pockets

Empty Pockets

Mystify, arouse, and confuse me

Shatter all my plans and illusions

That I might lose my way

Don’t let me see the path or the light

Until I am ready to be led

To the harbor of the poor and willing heart

When there seems to be no remedy for darkness

Don’t fear to sink into it

Let God reveal Himself in all things, thru faith

And trust is my gift back to you, God…

 –Kevin Prosch, from “Every Ray,” Palaquin

Wendy Alec

Wendy Alec

In, Visions From Heaven, Wendy Alec recounts her conversations with God following a devastating two-year illness, which led to her husband’s abandonment.

Wendy and her former husband, Rory, started GOD TV, Europe’s first Christian television network. They had just signed on to work with Mark Ordesky, executive producer of Lord of The Rings, to make an A-grade secular blockbuster film from her end-times book series called, Chronicles of Brothers.

A week after she started working on the screenplay, she was hit with gastroperisis, a virus that damages the vagus nerve and causes intense and unending nausea. The condition was so rare that medical treatment had only been experimental.

iStock_000039953360SmallFeeling nauseous from morning until night, she began losing weight at an alarming rate. She sought healing prayer, medical advice, specialists, naturopathic help, experimental treatment ideas and drugs, but nothing abated the distress of being chronically sick every day and not knowing if it would ever end.

Her children and husband were bewildered and angry.

They lived out of their suitcases.

Their pets were kenneled for an entire year.

They abandoned their home for an entire year.

Her ministry with GOD TV seemed all but over.

The movie production came to a screeching halt.

And eventually her husband left her for another woman.

Trapped in a debilitating illness, she had lost everything.

She wanted her life to be over.

God had been her all in all, but now she was reeling with abandonment. That was the hardest part.

GodYet God was there the whole time. As the grip of her disease began to loosen, she had vivid conversations with Him in the night. God talked to her about the great sifting of His people, beginning with Job and Peter. That faith is proved genuine and strengthened beyond measure in these times. Or not. That people who come through it are prepared for a weighty “mantle” of responsibility and authority for the end-time season that is upon us. He answered her questions with tenderness and compassion.

Still, the trauma of her experience remained like a deep scar. She feared she would never feel safe again. How could such a bad thing happen to her when she had set her love on God?Continue reading

Lost Outside

Lost Outside

It was all so perfect. We’d planned it for months! And as we hoped, the surprise brought more unfettered joy than I’d seen in a child for a long time.

She asked, “Is Christmas, um…nexterday?” As a four-year-old, she was searching for the word “tomorrow.”

“Yes,” I said, “Tomorrow, and tonight is Christmas Eve!”

Santa BagWe sat around the dinner table in the soft glow of candlelight. When I finished eating, I took some garbage out to the garage and snuck around to the front door to leave a small Santa bag on the doormat. Then I knocked hard three times, before running back through the garage into the house.

My granddaughter nearly jumped out of her pajamas.

“Someone’s here!” Her mother played along with enthusiasm.

“What! What’s going on?” I said.

“There was a knock!” she said to me, half-scared, half-excited. She wiggled down from her father’s arms, and we tiptoed to the door. I unlocked it and slowly opened the door a crack. No one was there. Only the Santa Bag! She shrieked with delight as Santa had brought an early present the same way last Christmas.

ErnieInside, wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with a red ribbon…Continue reading

Bucking Heaven

Bucking Heaven

At this point, you might be wondering about my preoccupation with Terry. By telling you these stories, I’m showing you a steep incline of growth in my spiritual journey. After thirty some years of following Jesus, I was just starting to learn about the Holy Spirit. Terry’s illness and death became a marker, a turn in the road, a point of departure.

Old Arch Gate opening to endless country road leading nowhere. Hopelessness and great unknown concept.

Flipping through my old journals, I noticed an impression dated September 30, 1998: “Terry is the timeline.”

Jenny’s prophetic word regarding the prayer meeting for Terry included this phrase:

“The time is not yet ripe.”

What are you saying, God?

When Terry died, some believed we weren’t ready for the ramifications of a major healing. God wasn’t saying no, but perhaps “not yet.” He saw we needed more time and growth to handle the weight of glory.

C.S. Lewis’ classic work, The Great Divorce, illustrates this thought: In a perpetually gray city, representing something akin to Purgatory, the main character decides to take an excursion on a bright bus and arrives at the foothills of heaven. He and his fellow travellers appear as ghosts in the glorious light. wonderful waterfall with colorful tree in thailandAnd while the country is beautiful beyond imagination, the visitors are in no condition to enjoy it. Every blade of grass feels like a sharp knife, the rain like bullets, the waterfall like thunder.

They are not ready for the reality before them.

Solid-looking men and women come to meet the ghosts. They promise them if they enter Heaven properly and travel forward, they too will become solid. As they gain substance, they would experience heaven as wonderful instead of painful.

Back in the 1990s, we were spiritually hungry, but like the ghosts, we weren’t prepared. We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We longed to see miracles, signs, and wonders. God set our feet on a path for growth, yet we had a long way to go. We still do. We want to be solid shining men and women, ready for the supernatural power of heaven to manifest on earth.

Then, the Holy Spirit gave me another clue about the process…Continue reading