exhortation

What Would Smith Wigglesworth or a mom do?

~ Bev Parker ~ Leave a comment

The March 21 offering in Devotional by Smith Wigglesworth is the tale of a miracle healing, wherein before Smith came on the scene God prepared a woman’s heart to receive. This was a handy thing for me to be reading, as my son came to ask for healing prayer just after I finished. My heart was prepared to pray, and I wanted his heart prepared as well.

“First,” I answered, “Sit down and do me the honor of letting me read this to you.” Benjamin sat and I read Smith’s marvelous story, beginning with Matthew 8:17: He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.

After finishing the devotion, I took Benjamin’s right hand and wrist (where the pain was) and began praying, during which action I was impressed to remind my son that his name means “Son of the Right Hand.” There was much more, and he received more than healing. He received encouragement.

I didn’t wake up encouraged today, and I was in no mood to encourage anyone else. But then there came that miracle thing called Quiet Time, and I was encouraged by the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John; then by Paul in I Corinthians with Love words, and David speaking straight to my heart in Psalms.

In Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest I was struck by the statement, “I have been identified with Him in His death.” Pondering this, I read from Smith Wigglesworth, focusing on the fifth verse of Isaiah 53: But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

I choose to identify myself with The Healer.

The final thought in this devotion is, “One bit of unbelief against the Word is poison.”

He IS the Healer. Amen.

Constrained by I Know Not What

~ Bev Parker ~ 2 Comments

rusty-chain

I am reading a lovely book on the creative process.  In it, I am told to do a half an hour of creative work “right now.”  Write a post?  Make cookies?  Work on my novel?  All of these sound like work, and I’m not afraid of work.  But at this moment in time they also sound like toil.

The Bible tells me His yoke is easy.  So, I ask, what can I do that is work, with all work’s inherent creativities and satisfactions, but without toil?

Laundry.  Dirty clothes in the wash, clean ones ironed.  It is a clearing of the mind exercise, which will pave the way for a more deeply creative endeavor.  Perhaps.

laundry

But alas, all this, all these tools I attempt to use, they leave me pretty much where I was, only with clean laundry.  Dull, constrained by I know not what.

I read the words of Jesus, telling me not to worry, which was what got me into this funk in the first place.  I go back for more of His words, put on Celtic Woman, diffuse lemon essential oil and make my bed – so lovely.  And yet.

“I will conquer this,” is a mantra no longer of any use.  “A smart girl like you oughtta be able to figure this out,” is yet another mantra gone by the wayside., at least for the time being.  It’s beginning to feel complicated.

Complication, I know, is the nasty covering over truth, which is always simple.

God never meant to be a formula.  He meant to be a friend.  Sought out, communed with, adored, enjoyed.  The author of all things lovely and right, acknowledged, experienced, loved.

As always, I will return to the Word.  Not for a get-by message, but to enter into His very presence.  Everything else can wait.  Even my book, the one that told me to go DO something.

This one thing I can and will do:  Be still and know that He is God.  Shhh.  Listen.  Be still.

Ah, and Heaven is helping.  It’s beginning to rain.  What could be better than rain to reestablish rhythms of grace?  Perhaps a walk in the rain?

little-girl-in-puddle

Constraints?  What constraints?