Hello, tender friends!
This weekend, the Lord brought to mind a word that I received years ago. Its hits way different at 40 than it did at 29.
When I was 29, I was at a Bible study at the home of dear friends, Mike and Lisa. Anthony and I were dating, and people were giving prophetic words regarding spiritual gifts and fruits.
For context, Anthony has a prophetic gift that I don’t. Sometimes he hears really random messages for people we pass on the street. His two best friends have also been privileged to witness miracles on the mission field and other things that I never have.
I’ll be blunt here- I have struggled with jealousy over this. I have at times worked messages out for months with the Lord and then seen the Lord give Anthony the same message after one measly prayer.
Then I’m all like Why did I have to do all that work and he doesn’t?
That night, Anthony received a word that he would use his prophetic gift in ways he couldn’t foresee. One of his best friends received the word “signs and wonders.” I knew in my soul that both words were accurate.
Both those words are also kind of exciting. They have an allure. If it were appropriate to call spiritual gifts “sexy,” they would be in the sexy category.
Then came my word: stability. With a sinking in my soul, I knew it was accurate. I knew it wasn’t sexy. I felt boring.
Even when most people thought I was chasing wonder when I lived in Spain, I was stable. I went to work every day, sometimes even on weekends.
When I did nonprofit work, the demands for stability crushed me. Most of my students came from highly unstable environments. I was responsible for creating a stable environment so they could learn and overcome the odds stacked against them.
I did it. I was stable for everyone around me, but also unsatisfied in certain ways. I was tired of being stable.
Because I want a life of wonder. I want the fire of God to fall every day. I want to live slain in the Spirit. Even in late-night church services, when people say they “go down easily” I feel jealous. I’ve never fallen down.
I want my life to be like the book of Acts, but I instead sometimes feel trapped by Marthadom.
But after a chaotic weekend that reminded me of my childhood in the worst ways, I see what a gift stability is. As I lay on the couch waiting for Anthony to get home that night (because he handled things so I could stay home with Jacob), I couldn’t organize my thoughts enough to pray. That was when the Lord brought the “stability” word I received so many years ago back to me. That’s when I realized, as flawed as I am, as much as I explicitly teach Jacob about generational curses as a disclaimer, his childhood is far better than mine was.
And it’s because of the gift that God gave me, a gift I once viewed as less than, or not exciting, or not sexy.
Sometimes generational curses aren’t broken in one charismatic moment. Sometimes they’re daily work, daily modifications and daily decisions to be and do differently. And for that, you need stability.
Ok, that’s all for today, tender friends! Thank you for stopping by, and thank you for sharing!
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