Breathless from Relentless Love

How intimately our Father knows us! And oh, how he surprises me on a regular basis. Just when you think you have God’s intentions tracked and figured out . . .

Back on January 6, 2011, I thought I had been waiting in the dark and cold on January 1st on “A” Mountain for an unexpected appointment with Jessica to bless her with connection to City of Grace and our prayer team. Just three weeks ago I felt a prompting to call Jessica. I hadn’t seen her at church for a long time, wondered how she was doing, and really, really wanted her visionary prayers for my ongoing and seemingly headed for defeat battle for my husband’s faith and our marriage. Honestly, I have plunged into bouts of the deepest pain and despair I never imagined I could endure. So much for trusting God ruthlessly, as Brennan Manning writes in his book I read on my way to Chiang Mai in 2008. Had I only known then how I would need the ruthless love of Jesus one year later . . .

And that is exactly what showed up on “A” Mountain, though I didn’t know it at the time. I didn’t know it till April 13, on a day I was flat on the floor feeling totally abandoned and devastated by yet another sign that this war in and for my husband and our marriage is advancing ruthlessly on toward defeat. Prayer, prayer and guidance – “Oh, GOD,”- let’s be honest, I screamed - “show me your will! I need to hear you!” I reeled to the phone and dialed, forcing my voice to be calm.

“Hi, Jessica, it’s Rose. How are you?”

“Rose, I’ve been thinking about you for weeks, but I though you were probably too busy . . . .” (Note to me: NEVER assume anyone is too busy for me to call if the Spirit puts her/him on my mind!)

And thus began the conversation and prayer that totally changed my understanding of New Year’s Day. In our initial catching up Jessica revealed that she’s moved back across the valley and is attending our former church. “Hmmm . . . ., “my brain started churning, “Then what was January 1st about?”

Prayer followed catching up, and out of Jessica’s prayer for me poured visions of my husband, visions of our younger son, and visions for me, including “I see you in God's arms. He cherishes you!”

How I wish I had a pencil and paper with me that afternoon to record her words accurately! To say I was blown away is to understate the lifting that was going on in my heart. What I do remember precisely was her momentary pause, then this instruction: “God wants to give you a new outfit . . . . He wants you to go buy a new outfit.”

How funny, how unexpected, and how I suddenly recognized that back on January 1, 2011, Jesus knew I would need Jessica’s insight and prayers on April 13! I though I was there for her, but Jesus placed her there on that cold rock for me! I know this; I know how many times God has maneuvered and moved me literally across the world to meet other people’s very pointed and specific needs at pointed, specific times.

He’s positioned me to carry his word and love for someone else, and what a jazzed juice that is for me to be part of what God Almighty is doing! But to experience him doing that for me – how humbling, how powerful, what a profound sense of his loving and knowing and being more than able!

Now this is what the LORD says – he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep, and my sheep know me . . . . “ John 10:14

Oh, to be known by the Creator of the Universe – to be called HIS! Treasured, cherished, known!

So what did I do? Given the financial vise our joint checking account is in, I couldn’t afford to splurge on a new dress, but on April 14th after a doctor appointment, I went to Savers, a local thrift store chain, and found a spectacular ruddy crimson, gauzy, ankle-length dress embroidered with gold thread and gold sequins for – drum roll please - $6.99. I wore it last weekend while I presented the Sunday morning devotional message at a women’s retreat, testimony to the truth that our Father knows us uniquely as individuals and CARES PASSIONATELY about us, uniquely, as individuals, as his one-in-a-billion beloved child. That dress restored broken hearts! Thank you, thank you again, Father!

He showed up for me the next week at the fountain at the Forest of Uco at the Zoo, where I was waiting for a very late high school tour group to show up for their rainforest tour. Many people passed me heading up the trail, but one woman with her husband stopped and turned to me. “Rose . . . mary . . . Rose?” Fourteen years since I’ve seen her, but I recognized Jan immediately! She’s moved out of the valley and lives about 100 miles north now. Amazed and joyful reunion! We had a wonderful time of reconnecting and prayer right there in the middle of traffic, and to top it off, she and her husband are great friends of the brother of our counselor, who lives in the same town they do.

What are the odds? Spot on when Jesus is at work loving and knowing me. What does this mean for you? He knows you, truly knows you, and is already at work to meet your deepest heart needs with his ruthless, relentless, mighty, able, and more-than-willing love.

Yes, I believe in miracles . . . .

The Greatest of These is Love

Many times in the past two months my heart has been bursting to set these words down, but as many times it has been cast down by anxiety and fear and I couldn’t bear to write through the pain. The deepest betrayal of my life has brought me perhaps the greatest blessing: the absolute certainty and powerful experience of God’s unrelenting, un-soundably deep love for me. If when Samuel Clemens stood on the riverboat, he took a measure of the depth of God’s love instead of the Mississippi River, his pen name would have been “By the Mark, Fathomless” – and Mark Fathomless wouldn’t have rolled off the tongue or stood out on the book cover like Mark Twain. But how overjoyed I am to cry out, “Mark, Fathomless! Relentless! Flood stage!” Will Mark Fathomless turn this blog into a book? Editors, take note . . . .

Can you see between the lines to my leaping heart, and do you wonder how betrayal can turn into dancing? Two things have become the floor under me: the power of forgiveness and the power of God’s love. From the outset of this crisis, I determined that I would forgive, come Hell or high water, for my own sake and for Jesus’ sake as much as for my betrayers. Forgiveness alone couldn’t support me, couldn’t keep me standing through the torrent that threatens to tear down the foundation of 37 years of my life, and I sensed immediately that I needed God’s love working through me to restore my heart and give me brand new love for my betrayer. I never dreamed that love would come through knowing how deeply I am loved by God, but now I see THAT is the bedrock of my life, and so it was meant to be for all of us.

I hang on to a verse in Jeremiah when I’ve felt the sting of rejection over the past seven months. I remember the “address” to this verse by thinking of it (with only a joke in the waist department and slight exaggeration in the hips) as my measurements: “They will be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them singleness of heart and action, so that they will always fear me for their own good and the good of their children after me. I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them . . . . I will rejoice in doing them good . . . . “(Jeremiah 32: 38-41)

Joy I never felt before spills over in me in unexpected places and moments. So many small miracles, seemingly unrelated to the calamity I’m facing, nevertheless tell me that God hears me and delights, absolutely rejoices, in doing me good because he LOVES me! From meeting Robin Mark, a singer whose music on my iPod reduces me to tears and praise on my daily dog walks, to the many times I’ve been a channel of blessing to someone who needed encouragement, to connections with women walking the same road with me, to an outpouring of provision for my upcoming mission trip to Thailand, to sweet conversations with Jesus whispered in my spirit, God’s hand surrounds me, guides me, provides for me, surprises me, gives me “warm fuzzies” and downright belly laughs. I have dared - yes, I do fear and reverance God, BUT I have dared to leap into my Abba's lap, bury my head in chest, and know he loves it. That childlike confidence in our Father's love is ALSO, and perhaps truly, to fear and reverence the LORD.

My latest chuckle came yesterday as I ate a grilled salmon taco with mango salsa, and suddenly I sensed Jesus telling me how much he enjoyed eating grilled fish there by the Sea of Galilee. Wow, I was transported to his side, fire crackling, fish sizzling, and I ate the rest of my taco with Jesus beside me in the Taqueria. Do you bristle with religious indignation or with disbelief that I would dare to see myself sitting beside Jesus on the shore as I sit in Tia Rosa's? My unabashed boldness and embrace of every sweet moment with him comes from knowing in the deepest places within me that Jesus is nothing but love, and he did – and does – all he did and does for me out of love for me. Now I see it as an affront to the cross to question his love for me.

Beloved of the Lord, that love birthed new love, faith, and forgiveness in me, a passion for the one who wronged me that burns through rejection and hopelessness like the fire that consumed the drenched wood and soggy sacrifice on the altar when Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 18:16-39) I know in the depths of my soul that the God who answers by fire – the fire of passionate, forgiving, overcoming-the-Gates-of-Hell love – he is God, and he loves me.

I don’t know the end of this journey yet, but I feel like Merry and Pippin in the movie version of Lord of the Rings when they sat in the branches of Treebeard as the rushing waters of the Rive Isen swept away the evil of Isengard. I sit on the shoulders of my beloved bridegroom Jesus, the true Oak of Righteousness, who says to me, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God. The Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isaiah 41: 2-3)

I reply to him, as King David did: "When I said, 'My foot is slipping, your love, O LORD, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.’” (Psalm 94: 18-19)

I see now and more importantly know the bedrock truth of 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love has a power greater than even great faith and steadfast hope: knowing how much you are loved heals and transforms and empowers amazing new love within you. Beloved, I don’t know the river sweeping over you or the fire blazing all around you, but you are unceasingly loved by Jesus, and his love will renew your heart and carry you through to love those you never thought you could love, with his own heart.

“And we have come to know and have believed the love that God has for us.” (1 John 4:16)

By the Mark, Fathomless!

A "BUT . . ." to pray: Almighty God, my ABBA,sometimes when I look at the circumstances of my life I just don't feel your love. Honestly, I've wondered if it's true. How that must grieve you! Okay, Father . . . I see my failures, I hurt because of ________________________ in my life, BUT you say that you love me, and you don't lie! I may not feel it this instant, BUT I know that when I ask you to draw me in to your love, you won't turn away from me; you will embrace me joyfully. Father, ready or not (whether I'm ready or not, because YOU always are), here I come!Help me today to KNOW your love for me!

If this blog has blessed you and you would like to contribute to my October 2010 mission trip to speak at a women's leadership conference in China, you can send a check made out to Outreach - City of Grace, with Rose Jackson China on the memo line, and mail it to:

City of Grace, 655 East University Drive, Mesa, AZ 85203

Check my posts of January and February 2008 to read about my first trip.

Conformity? Really? Really!

Rose Jackson © 8/27/2009

(caveat: I am not suggesting anyone endure physical or emotional abuse. Be safe and get help, please!)

The photo is the front door of the little house with the screen door out back; these front steps are filled with love.

Love that keeps on coming. Love that gets slapped down and gets up again to keep loving. Love that refuses to quit.

I used to read the verse, “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18) and other verses like it (1 Cor. 15:49, Romans 8:29) that talk about being like Christ, and I’d think, “Oh, yes, God, that’s what I want to be!”

Did I? Did I want to be the one who’s betrayed and comes back, bleeding, but loving still? Did I really want to be the one who endures accusations, condemnation and lies, and looks beyond the sin to see the wounding of the sinner and to forgive? Is that what I really wanted? I never looked that deeply into what it cost God to bring us to him, because that’s the reality of being like Jesus: love that never turns away, never gives up! Love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (I Cor. 13: 7)

In frustration I often cry out, “God, why don’t you . . . why aren't you . . . .?” My real question - as Philip Yancey writes in his book "Disappointment with God" - should be, “God, why do you bother to . . . . What is it that drives you to love me still in the face of my anger, my accusations, my condemnation, my apathy, my lies about your motives and your heart? Why don't you give up on me?”

My real question should be why Jesus had to die to prove God’s love for us. Yes, I know Jesus' blood atones for us. But God isn't bloodthirsty., so why did it require that? I wonder – is it in part because our sixth love language (beyond affirming words, loving touch, giving gifts, acts of service, and quality time) , the bottom line we humans all understand, the one we all hold out for and perhaps even demand as proof of love, is blood: sacrificing your own life for mine? That we understand - maybe, until some circumstance or event that doesn't go according to our plans causes us to question God's heart. I'm not condemning you, my readers; I've done that myself, and I know it comes out of pain and confusion.

Even after Jesus shed his own blood and God sacrificed his beloved Son, we don’t believe God loves us! Is it that perhaps some stubborn, self-preserving pride drives us to deny such love?

“No, my circumstances tell me . . . . " "But I don’t feel your love, God . . . ." Perversely somehow we'd rather think we're right that God doesn't love us than come to him in humbled recognition that there’s no reason on earth that God should love us – no reason besides WHO GOD IS himself: completely LOVE!

"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us." 1 John 3:16

I can hardly read the computer screen through the tears flooding from my recognition of the extravagant, unjustified, unrelenting love of God. My tears come, too, from the knowledge that I had to endure betrayal – and that I had to recognize the lies I had held onto, also, that kept me from loving unrelentingly – to finally get it in my gut that God IS love, nothing but love, purely and unceasingly love.

This conforming business hurts – but rather than resent God for the pain, I see and now hunger to press in to the truth that Jesus bore, and bears joyfully, even deeper pain to love me. In the scariest valley of my life, I am rejoicing and reveling like a glutton in the passionate, unrelenting love God has for me - so I can get up and love again, and again, and again.

Why won’t you come through the screen door into arms waiting to embrace you? What circumstances in your life are big enough to outweigh the relentless, extravagant love of God in Jesus? What are you holding out for?

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

Why won’t you love with his love? Who won’t you love with his love?

A “ . . . but . . . “ to pray: God, ABBA Father, Daddy, maybe not in my mind, but in my heart I have denied your love for me over and over again, BUT who are you, what kind of love can this be that loves in the face of pain, again and again and again? I want that love for me and in me. Maybe I’m still too scared to truly want it through me, BUT because you love me, I am willing to love this one who keeps denying and rejecting my love. Hold my hand and hold my heart as I keep loving, and please give me joy along the way so I can persist and pursue and bear your likeness in me.

Your own “. . . but . . .” to pay: Father God, Jesus, lover of my soul, I have denied your love for me because _________________________________ BUT I lay that down in the face of your relentless love, and I say to you now _____________________. I've been hurt so badly that I don't want to keep loving ________________, BUT ___________________.

Fire in the Ashes

Rose Jackson © 8/3/2009

Some journeys take you to unexpected discoveries in familiar places. Right now I’m walking through the most difficult time of my life through the smoking ruins of a destroyed relationship. Recently my friend Sharon’s daughter, Charity, told me she wanted to take me on a journey through “the Father’s house,” a spiritual journey into Jesus that had given her a breakthrough in a challenging time in her own life. Hungry to experience God’s presence more deeply, I sat with her in Sharon’s bedroom two weeks ago and lifted my sanctified imagination to the Holy Spirit’s voice.

“Please, God, I don’t want to conjure this out of my own imagination,” I silently cried out. Long ago I had sat beside my then boyfriend in a “spiritual” Sunday evening church service, the hair standing up on my arms, my spirit filled with the suspicion that the “spirit guide” the pastor was listening to absolutely was NOT Jesus. I wanted nothing to do with that kind of experience ever again! But I know Sharon’s and Charity’s heart and faith, and my own as well, so this day I could sit in confidence believing that Jesus guarded my thoughts and nothing of the Enemy could enter. So I set off in my mind’s eye up a long driveway. We talked about what we were “seeing,” and my friend described a beautiful mansion in vivid detail. I was having some trouble, my analytical brain questioning whether what I was sensing was me or the Lord, but I pressed on in faith, believing God truly did want to speak something to my heart. Crossing polished hardwood floors, walking into large rooms whose vague details disappeared as I tried to focus on them, I just wasn’t getting anything. The idea is to “walk” through God’s house to find Jesus. My friend’s words were awash in love and amazement as she narrated her journey.

Hmmm . . . . No such experience for me. Why was I getting nowhere? After much mental wandering, I decided to follow the tug on my heart to go “out back,” and I pushed open a worn screen door and smelled my Grandmother’s apple tree. As my friend saw glorious flowers and a beautiful river filled with gems, I sat on the old wooden tree swing and felt someone pushing me. Ah, could I dare to believe this was Jesus? So natural, so common, so familiar, so ordinary . . . so wonderful! What I was experiencing wasn’t at all like the things Charity had seen in her own walk, wasn’t like the things her friend who’d first shared the journey with her had seen on her own walk, wasn’t like the splendor my friend was seeing now. So simple. So free.

Now Jesus and I sat in the grass on the edge of my Grandmother’s garden, and I smelled dill and rich, warm earth. “What does Jesus want to give you?” Charity asked.

“That’s a good question!” I thought. Nothing was coming into my vision as my hands dug beside Jesus’ hands in Grandma’s deep brown, moist soil. Ha! My hand playfully put a smudge of black dirt on Jesus’ left cheek, and I sensed -or maybe dared to believe - it pleased him. This wasn’t the grand spiritual adventure, the overwhelming breaking in of the Holy Spirit that I had hoped to receive. This wasn’t Acts 2 in the upper room. This was sitting on the grass with my hands in dirt, my hands beside another set of hands, feeling completely at peace and joyfully loved. This was awfully ordinary for a powerful spiritual encounter.

“Jesus wants to give you something. What is it? Ask him,” Charity gently encouraged. Vaguely I sensed something like a gold brooch in an extended hand, sensed rather than saw, and I got the impression the gold setting held an opal. He was holding it against my chest. “Ask him what it means,” Charity offered.

“Uumm . . . . ,” I was determined NOT to attach any meaning that wasn’t absolutely of God onto this experience. The still small voice of God was so quiet, more a trickle of understanding seeping into my mind. Sharon wasn’t sure what opals looked like. I know many precious stones are mentioned in Revelation 21 where John describes the foundations of the walls of the New Jerusalem, but I wasn’t at all sure opals were among those stones. “Opals – really pure, beautiful opals – are fiery,” I recounted. “Maybe – maybe Jesus is saying, ‘Don’t let the fire go out in your heart.’ Or maybe, ‘I won’t let the fire go out.’”

Tears erupted from my eyes. My heart is under siege – has been for the past three months. This wasn’t the encounter I wanted with the splendor of God, but a sweet communion with the passionately loving heart of Jesus, and if he wanted to run under me on my Grandma’s swing and wear a smudge of dirt from my hand, that was more than fine by me. He was telling me there was no place he’d rather be than here in my heart.

Wow! Sharon and Charity may have been a bit puzzled and underwhelmed, but I was overcome. I remembered I have a small opal pin at home. I checked both my jewelry box and my concordance as soon as I got home. Yep, there was the pin with four small opals, though the tiny white stones in it aren’t very fiery, and nope, opals aren’t mentioned in the Bible. Did that mean my experience had come solely out of my own imagination? I left a message asking about the significance of opals with a friend who’d spoken a year or so ago about gems in scripture to ask her about opals. When she returned my call, Amy said nope, it was a mystery to her, too. The Bible doesn’t mention opals. She did go on to explain some information she’d found on opals, and my heart soared as God’s assurance settled deeply in. This information wasn’t in any of the geology books we had at home:

Opals are semiprecious stones treasured for their fire and light. Very fragile, opals deteriorate in heat and cold. They contain water, but lose water easily in dry air and become brittle, so opals need to be worn next to flesh so the oils from the body can seal in their moisture. To clean an opal, you must wash it in pure water. Left to dry, an opal will crack and lose its brilliance and beauty.

There it was, God’s word to me: my heart is like an opal, and just as fragile. He washed and cleansed my heart in pure water, the Living Water of Jesus. My heart is meant to be – God WANTS me to be - filled with Jesus, my heart pressed close to his so it doesn’t dry out and lose its fire, brilliance, and beauty. There is absolutely nothing common or ordinary in that truth!

In this dry, hope-sucking valley of the shadow of death that I’m walking through where the Enemy is working to destroy my heart (are you walking that valley too?), God wants above all else for my heart (yours, too!) to be whole, beautiful, and filled with his fire, pressed against his chest in a place of safety, sustaining, and love.

I clasped my opal pin on the chain of a necklace I haven’t worn in over 30 years. The pendant on the chain is a gold-colored, jagged-edged half circle inscribed with these words from Song of Songs 2:16: “I am my Beloved’s.” Surprisingly, when the opal pin hangs on the chain, it looks like a cross . . . .

A " . . . BUT . . . " to pray: Oh, Abba Father God, my heart feels crushed, ground into the dust, broken, BUT your word says, "All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you." (SOS 4:7) and you promise I can count on your love and power as "(I) wait in hope for the LORD; he is (my) help and (my) shield. In him (my) heart rejoices, for (I) trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon (me), O LORD, even as (I) put my hope in you." (Psalm 33:20-22) Restore the lustre, beauty, fire, and water to my heart even in the driest place with the Living Water of your love, Jesus. Thank you that my heart is precious to you and you hold my heart close to yours! Amen!

Your own" . . . BUT . . . " Abba, Father, Beloved, my heart is weighed down with ________________________ BUT I know you desire to restore my heart, so I give you ______________________________________________ and I receive your _________________________________________________. Take me to that place where your heart resides in me. Amen!