My dad is getting married on Sunday.
Courtney and I are leaving at noon (in NightWatch time, this is absurdly early) to drive to Indiana for the wedding.
Prayers are appreciated.
I would write more, but I need to pack and get to sleep… with a quickness.
Everything is changing. But nothing is changing.
Anyone who has really talked to me since I returned from training can bear witness to this fact: I have a lot to say about those four days.
My first impressions about CRI were correct. Sean Malone was articulating the vision that was actively abiding within my own heart. I was hearing an answer to questions I had been asking for years.
As it turns out, though… CRI was answering a lot more questions than I had initially perceived.
Two days in a row, my roommate and I have received unexpected packages from a delightful woman in Pennsylvania. So much fun!
It has made me think of what a huge impact those unexpected little things can have. It totally made my day… both days! (That, and the fact that I was finally beginning to recover from my cold. My brain works again and everything! Just need to get my throat, head, and weary body to fully catch up.)
I have been receiving far fewer surprise packages in the mail since my mom passed away. So it means A LOT to receive something in the mail “just because.”
I’m also realizing that several birthdays passed while I was busy being sick and fuzz-brained. Sadness. To everyone (I know and love) who has numerically aged in the last few days, I love you a lot and I am glad that you were born! I just got derailed by my colision with the sickness train. (I blame it on the schedule change and then four days of running around in the cold for CRI training. My immune system didn’t have a chance. Sleep is really important!)
Anyway… Mrs. I, yet again, you have brightened my life considerably. I am so blessed to have been introduced to you and your incredible heart via Blogland.
Speaking of meeting people from Blogland, I wanted to give a quick shout-out to Jim from CRI training. (I’m pretty sure I promised myself to never use that term, “shout-out,” when I first became acquainted with it. Sigh… I wonder what similar terms I may lose my resolve in resisting. This one doesn’t bother me now, but I know that it did at one time. I sincerely hope that I do not lose my distaste for some of the things that I presently refuse to say.) Random fact, you have the same name as my phone. Well, the Jim part, at least. I think I just assumed that my phone received my last name when it was adopted.
I think CRI training was the least unsettling place to meet a total stranger who has read many of my thoughts… who has seen some of the deep things of my heart. So… way to not be creepy. Sometimes I forget that there are real people who read this thing that I have never met. I like meeting the people who read my blog. (For example, Mrs. I was a total win. She’s even more delightful in person than she is in comment form.) But, truth be told, it would probably freak me out if a random person approached me outside the prayer room and knew my name… and my life.
Bearing gifts might help. I’ll see if I can get a list going to enable such gift-giving introductions. (OK, actual fact… I am creating a Christmas/birthday/everyday wish list. It will consist of all of the gear that I need to deploy with CRI, or to do further training. All I want for Christmas is the ability to easily leave town on short notice to love and serve people in the midst of crisis. Bonus to that Christmas wish: it might also enable the reintroduction of camping to my already-pretty-fantastic life. And that would be… awesome. In any case, that list might make it onto my blog… in case people are interested in being a part of my future work with CRI. We shall see.)
Oh, look at that! I still know how to ramble!
Well, hopefully, there are some (somewhat more coherent) blog posts coming in the near future about CRI. I have a lot to say about the training. The Lord had a lot to say during training. I just have to find the time to reign in all of those words.
I’m going to publish this without rereading it. Probably a mistake, since I have just been babbling on. And… since I have been typing the whole thing on my phone. But I’m just going to go with it. Freedom from perfectionism. That’s what we’ll call it.
Thanks again, Mrs. I!
Before I left for CRI training, I wrote this outline that was intended to turn into an actual post, when I had time to write it. I probably spent all of two minutes typing this list out, so there is probably some redundancy. It basically just lists out some of what I believed I could bring and be in the midst of crisis. So… here it is, the post that I never had time to write:
Isaiah 58. Let’s just pause for a moment and look at Isaiah 58.
“Is this not the fast which I choose,
To loosen the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the bands of the yoke,
And to let the oppressed go free
And break every yoke?
Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry
And bring the homeless poor into the house;
When you see the naked, to cover him;
And not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then your light will break out like the dawn,
And your recovery will speedily spring forth;
And your righteousness will go before you;
The glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
You will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I Am’
If you remove the yoke from your midst,
The pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
And if you give yourself to the hungry
And satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
Then your light will rise in darkness
And your gloom will become like midday.
And the LORD will continually guide you,
And satisfy your desire in scorched places,
And give strength to your bones;
And you will be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail.”
(Isaiah 58:6-11, New American Standard Bible)
I can’t claim to really understand most of the book of Isaiah. It has intimidated me for most of my life. Though I have definitely been feeling an itch to study it, lately. (More, Lord. Help, Lord!)
I am not in a position to give a stunning exposition of the words of this chapter… or any of the book. But a few things do seem rather clear to me in this passage.
The Lord is answering Israel’s accusing question: Why is He not acting in response to their fasts? Why are they not seeing prosperity and justice?
His answer. Stop oppressing people and serving yourselves. Stop striving with one another and exalting yourselves. Walk out justice. Care for the poor and the hurting. Liberate the oppressed. Help the needy and the afflicted.
This is what God requires of His people. He loves justice. The church should do more than ask God to make things right. They should do their part in bringing forth justice.
That, in essence, is what I believe CRI does. They serve the afflicted. They give of themselves. They pour themselves out to help those who are hurting and in need. And they have an incredible open door to bring the light of true hope into the midst of devastation and tragedy.
It’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
The summer of 2005 was nearing an end and I was about to make the move to Kansas City, where I would be joining full-time staff at the International House of Prayer. I had gone through the FITN internship in the two previous summers and had just spent a month of that summer in Kansas City, longing to fully join the ministry. My heart was full of joy and anticipation, finally released to join the beloved NightWatch community.
And then Hurricane Katrina hit.
A few weeks ago, we had a very stirring message at our weekly FCF service. (If you are interested, you can buy the MP3 for $2.99 here. I think it is well-worth the money and the time.) Sean Malone, the director of Crisis Response International (CRI), shared and introduced his ministry, which is now becoming more officially connected with the International House of Prayer.
If you haven’t already heard of CRI, I strongly recommend checking out their website: www.criout.com
In summary, CRI is a disaster response ministry. Borrowing a sentence from their website: “Our vision is to train an army of end-time, prophetic, mercy missionaries, mobilized in the spirit of night and day prayer, to release great demonstrations of power, reach the harvest in crisis and rebuild cities on the Kingdom of God. “
Yes… that is a pretty loaded sentence. I am fluent in IHOP-ese and I STILL have a hard time keeping up with that sentence. Rather than unpacking each of those terms here, though, I seriously recommend listening to the message. He breaks it all down and gives a very clear summary of what CRI is all about. (And he tells stories. Who doesn’t love a good story?)
I had multiple people tell me that they were thinking of me during this message. And it makes sense that they were.
When I heard the message, what I experienced was more than being stirred by a great vision. When he cast the vision, it fully resonated with something that I have been carrying in my heart for years. It was an incredible moment. This thing that I have been weeping about for years was beginning to take shape. My own vision found greater clarity and I sensed the beginning stages of something I have carried in prayer finally coming to fruition.
In a few days, I will be heading into the woods with CRI to do a four-day training. I am more excited than I can articulate. I am also fairly nervous. It is a sober but hopeful expectation. I know that I am going to be REALLY stretched. But I feel the Lord in it and I trust His leadership. Please pray for me. The training will be taking place October 8-11.
I have more to say about all of this than I could fairly put in one post, so I will be writing a series of posts about CRI. If it’s any indication, I wrote 14 pages about this in my journal the other night. And training hasn’t even started yet.
If you are interested in hearing the message but don’t have the money (or feel sufficiently MP3-savvy), let me know. We might be able to work something out.
In a recent post, I talked a little about my migraine headaches and shared a testimony of the Lord healing me in the midst of an especially ferocious migraine.
Well… I wanted to share a quick update on that.
It has now been five weeks, and I have not had a single migraine since the one that was healed. Given the frequency of those wretched headaches in the months before then… that’s really good for me.
I have had several really bad headaches, but they were definitely different from a migraine. I’m still praying for an end to those… but I am grateful for what has happened.
Still living in the hope that I will never have another migraine…
I find myself incapable of blogging, at the moment. The reason? I simply have too much to say.
We, the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, celebrated our 10th anniversary last weekend. 10 years of 24/7 worship and prayer seems like so much… and so little.
As part of the celebration, Mike took us back through the prophetic history. Mike simply shared stories from the last few decades about how the Lord was giving vision for this ministry (really, this movement) and beginning to ready the hearts of our leaders to keep a growing body of mostly 20-somethings centered in the Word and in the heart standards of Intercession, Holiness, Offerings to the Poor, and the Prophetic.
Every time I listen to the prophetic history, it stirs me. Never has it gripped me and shaken with the intensity of this last week. I also felt like I was getting a lot of correction from the Lord as we heard the stories and were given exhortations. Correction is always painful. However, I must also say that I am feeling the Lord’s kindness, in His correction, and that my heart is greatly encouraged.
At the end of the celebration, we committed ourselves to 24/7 works of justice to accompany our 24/7 prayers for justice. This means a much greater emphasis on evangelism and on serving our community. I am so grateful for this. It has been a growing longing within my heart, and I am overwhelmed to see it begin to come to fruition in our community. I have been weeping over this in a distinct way for about a year and a half.
No simple words exist to describe the major shift that is happening in my life right now. I feel like this is such a critical time for me. I can no longer live the way I was living before. I am feeling a greater weight of responsibility. I am also feeling a greater grace to walk in the risky things that the Lord has set before me.
Even in the last week, things have been happening to me in the place of prayer that I have experienced only rarely. And I am finding a boldness growing within me that I never imagined was possible, before.
My heart is full of hope. My heart is also very heavy, as the Lord has been sharing His emotions with me and causing me to feel the pain of injustice. In particular, there is an unsaved man that I have been carrying in my heart this week. Never have I felt such a “burden” of intercession.
I am also getting ready to do training with a ministry called Crisis Response International. I was originally planning on writing about three posts on this alone.
So, as I find time and language, I will begin to give expression to the many things that are shifting within me… and shifting around me. I could write pages about each of the above sentences.
I really encourage you to check out the videos and audio from our 10th anniversary celebration. I will post in more detail, recommending specific videos that are especially meaningful to me. But, if you want to go check it out, everything is available online at www.ihop.org.
More to come!
