When Spirit Is Quiet

There are times when there is so much going on in our life that it is difficult to hear Spirit. The busyness of everyday living, chores, errands, work, family, relationships occupies our thoughts to the exclusion of hearing Spirit.

It is during these times that we need to be close to God the most, yet it is so easy to ignore the voices in our head {I.e.Spirit}. We want to do things our way.

The last few weeks, amongst the responsibilities of life, I felt like Spirit was quiet. In fact I didn’t blog last week because I felt spiritually depleted. In reflection, I now know Spirit was not quiet, I was not listening.

Take some time this week to be still and listen.

A Soldier’s Gift

My family has a long history of military service dating back to the Revolutionary War, Civil War and more recently my grandfather in World War I, my father in World War II and my brother in the Vietnam War.  We were lucky that they all came back home physically whole.  My brother Jerry who served in Vietnam brought the war back home with him as many vets did then and are doing now with current conflicts.  He also came home with a new gift or “curse” which I write about in my book “Blessed Assurance Through Visions and Dreams”.

Jerry developed a sense of who was going to die in battle.  He told me it was something about the person’s eyes that gave him the sense of the person’s fate.  Years after Jerry died, my daughter told me of a conversation she had with her uncle.  He told her that he would see the person in black and white and that would be the sign that death would be near.

After the war, this ability continued his whole life.  I remember one instance where he said good-bye to a co-worker on a Friday after work and he knew she wouldn’t be back on Monday.  She was killed in a motorcycle accident on the weekend.    It was a huge burden to know something, but not be able to do anything about it.  How do you tell someone to be extra careful because you think they might be at risk or ill?  Having fore-knowledge is a gift but also a curse.

I remember him watching television and Joe Louis, the boxer, was in the audience.  Jerry said he was going to die.  Mr. Louis died the next day.

Being an intuitive comes with responsibility to be ethical, compassionate and empathic.  If you have a gift, I would love your feedback on how you handle your fore-knowledge of events.

Intituition Can Be Contagious

Today I celebrate the 30th anniversary of the day I met my husband!  We are going to go back to the little town we met, Wales, Wisconsin, and to the place we knew as the Whistling Toad.  The place has changed hands several times over the years and we are not even sure it is currently open.  If it is not, we will go to one of our other favorite dinner spots in the area.  I am feeling a little nostalgic and wondering where the time went.

When we married, his children were 16 and 14.  Mine were 8 and 4.  It took a lot of love and patience on everyone’s part to get through the struggles and the joys.  Milestones such as birthdays, graduations, weddings, births of grandchildren and their birthdays and graduations and now weddings have come and gone but through it all our love for each other and our faith in a loving God has sustained us.

One of those most challenging areas for my husband at first was dealing with an intuitive who has crazy dreams.  At first, he has polite and empathic but skeptical.  Than as more things came to be, he started to believe more in my dreams.  He also learned to trust and believe my intuition.  When I said we needed to something a certain way or in a certain timeframe, he began to trust my judgment.  Soon we were on the same page, an old married couple you might say, at an early point in our marriage.  I loved him more each day.

As the years have fallen by the wayside, the most exciting thing for me is watching him develop his own intuition.  When he gets that little nudge in his ear to do something like take the car to work instead of riding the bus or bring home his computer so he can work at home the next day, he listens.  Nine out of ten times it becomes apparent why he needs to take the action.

We all have the gift of intuition.  Some of us are just more tuned in than others.  We can learn to be better at it.  It is a matter of being observant, listening to your heart, mind and body and acting upon what you hear.  I am so blessed to have met my husband and have had a great ride thus far.  He is retiring October 1st and we are ready for the next part of our journey together.  Happy Anniversary Jerry.  I love you.

A Mother’s Love

This past Sunday we celebrated Mother’s Day.  I like to think of this day as celebrating all those women who have nurtured me along life’s journey.  The list includes Aunts, neighbors, church ladies, co-workers early in my career, pastors (yes, I was lucky to have female pastors growing up), and of course, my mother and grandmother.

These women taught me how to me a strong, compassionate, faithful woman.  I am deeply grateful for each of their influence on me.  My mother was the best.  I know you are thinking the same thing about your own.  She was raised on a farm in Tennessee and brought southern values into our home.  Her work ethic was beyond reproach, her faith in God steadfast and her love for her children ran deep.  She also had the gift of precognition, so I grew up knowing it was not to be feared.

She died when I was 26 and my grandmother died a few months later.  I became the matriarch of the family at a very young age.  The other women in my life became my mentors and mother-figures.  The person who entered my life thirty years ago was my mother-in-law, Laverne.  She showed me how to be a loving wife, mother, step-mother and grandmother.  From the moment I married her son, she accepted my children as her grandchildren.  There was no “step” in front of that title.  Her love is unconditional and I love her deeply and am grateful each day that when I married her son, I also her as part of the package.

Even though my mother has crossed over, she is never far away.  I feel her presence at the times I need a mother’s love the most.  I pray to God for her to be near and I feel her close.  The bonds of love can be very strong and survive even death.  I have been blessed with many “moms” that I give tribute to this day.  But none are as strong as the love between my birth mom and me even in death.  Be sure to let your mother know how much she means to you this week and every week.

Let The Spirit Lead

This morning I heard someone on K-Love radio station talking about how she had lost 74 pounds by simply letting go and letting God lead. I use the word simply knowing that it is a loaded word, for there is nothing simple about trusting someone much less God to lead us to a desired end. She talked about how she would take a moment and pray for guidance when eating out at a restaurant to make the right food choice which would help her reach her health goals. She paused and thought about what she was doing and trusted that the Spirit would help her.

As she did this more and more about food choices, she found it slipping into all aspects of her life. Whenever she needs to make a decision, she pauses and prays for guidance. Wow. If only, everyone would do this, think of the ramifications for the world. Letting the Spirit lead us in all our decisions might have widespread changes amongst peoples. I am not naïve to think we can get everyone on board with such a plan. However, I do believe we can begin with one person at a time.

Taking a moment before we take action to center ourself and remember who we are spiritually can make a difference in our daily life. Many of us like to start the day with prayer and meditation to connect with Spirit. Some of us like to pray in short bursts throughout the day. Others like to end the day with centering prayer and devotions. There is no right way to connect with Spirit. The key is to listen to what Spirit is telling us during these times of devotions and trust what we are hearing. If we can let go and let the Spirit lead us, changes for the better are promised to us.

Dreams & Interpretation

The experts say we all dream.  But, we don’t all remember our dreams.  Some of us dream in black and white and others dream in magnificent color.  We are most likely to remember the dreams we have just before we wake, whether this be in the middle of the night or at the break of day.  It is the same with me.  I remember the dreams just before I stir awake.

I first began to have dreams in my early twenties that seemed to have messages embedded in them from a source I call divine or God.  The messages interrupted my dream.  They were powerful, direct, and clear.  They would be about a person I knew well, usually a family member.  I wouldn’t always be told anything specific of events to unfold, but I always knew who the message was about.  The first time this happened was when I was pregnant with my first child.  I had a dream that I was having a daughter because my mother needed to have a granddaughter before she died.  She already had a grandson and so I knew I was going to have a daughter.  My daughter was six weeks old when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She died after a courageous battle 15 month later.  God prepared me for what was to come.

picture taken from stock.xchng http://www.sxc.hu/photo/485146

After my mother died, the dreams came fast and furious with my mother delivering the messages.  It took me awhile to figure it out.  I would have a dream about a person and then about six weeks later something of importance would happen to that person and I would remember the dream.  After this happen several times, I began to link the dreams to the events.  This was not easy to accept.  I was not at all sure that having knowledge of events before they happened was a good thing.  In fact, I have spent a good part of my life fighting against it.

All of my immediate family members have now crossed to the spiritual world and they are the ones who deliver the divine messages that interrupt my dreams.  When they show up in my dreams, I pay close attention.  I like to think of their time with me in the dream state as little visits with a message.  It is always good to hear from them.

As far as interpretation of the messages, God has been very direct with me.  If I dream about a person, it means I am to get in touch with them – something significant is on their horizon.  Often it is not good news, it is not my place to tell them that.  It is my task to check in and gently see what is going on in their life and if I can somehow help them.  Sometimes it is good news and then I share the information.  Or, it may simply be that I need to reach out to a friend I haven’t made a connection with in a while.

How often to do you dream?  Do you have dreams that later come true?  I challenge you to keep a dream journal and pay attention, you may be receiving messages too.

One’s Calling In Life

Today I would like to address what it means to discern one’s calling in life.  Many of us can go through our entire life with successful careers or vocations without answering our calling.  How is this possible?  We can make good decisions on life’s journey that insures a lucrative career in a field that is thought highly of by the majority of people, yet there is something missing.  There is still something that gnaws at you that you can’t quite explain – something that is unsettling – or leaves a little hole inside you that nothing seems to fill.  Nothing materialistic fills this void.

picture taken from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1243996

What might be missing is your calling.  That best part of you that God intended to be included in your earthly journey.  Somewhere along the way, we chose to ignore the small voice inside each of us to answer the call that God extended to us.  This might have been to be a great musician, a teacher, a preacher, a doctor, a social worker, a mother or father, or the best of something.  Many people believe that a “call” is only about being called to ordained ministry, but this is not true.  God calls us too many things.  I believe we are called to a greater purpose.  It is our job to discern our calling.

That being said, we need to redefine calling to a broader meaning.  Determining a calling on one’s life is to understand God’s purpose for one’s life and respond in joy and thanksgiving.   This can mean a vocation, or it can mean something much simpler such as an ability to undertake a task as a prayer warrior, or the friendly receptionist at the hospital who greets patients coming into the hospital.

Once we recognize our calling, our response can only be one choice.  We must answer in the affirmative.  No matter how small or large the call may be, God requires of us the same response.  We are to answer with yes in our heart and thanksgiving in our very spirit knowing that we have answered God’s call on our life and we are on God’s path.

picture taken from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1189123

Sometimes answering God’s call does not require much change.  We are already doing what we need to be about.  It is having an ahah moment that reassures us we are on God’s path for our life.  Sometimes answering God’s call requires much change.  It may mean more education, leaving a good job, taking a risk, changing a primary relationship or much more.  Whatever is required, God will remain with us during the whole process.  When I answered the call to ordained ministry, the process took ten years from start to finish.  I never felt I was alone in the process.  God was present at every step of the way.

If you have a calling that you have said, “not me God”, I encourage you to say “why not me” and let God lead.   The ride might be bumpy, but the rewards are indescribable.

Blessed Assurance Through Visions & Dreams

Hello everyone.  When I first stepped into the pulpit in 1995, it felt like I had finally arrived where God had intended for me to be since I was a child.  Writing this first blog is nothing like that experience.  I am a bit outside of my comfort zone, but I am sure God will lead me in this adventure like all others.  So welcome and thanks for taking time to be with me.  I hope you will come often to explore and interact with me about matters of the spiritual real.

I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin  in the fifties and sixties and have stayed in the area my whole life.  My parents worked hard in construction and assembly work.  Money was often scarce, but there was always food on the table and a roof over our heads.  I was the youngest of three and the only daughter in the family.  So, generally, in hindsight, was spoiled.  I got away with many things that my brothers did not.

I was the first in my family tree to attend college where I received a BA in Social Work and then went on to receive a Masters of Divinity from Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary to prepare me for pastoral ministry.  I’ll write more about that in a future blog.

I wrote Blessed Assurance through Visions and Dreams essentially to give voice to all who have mystical experiences but are afraid to speak of them less they be unfairly  judged.  This book is more than a recounting of my dreams and visions.  It is a story of inspiration of a God who changes lives daily through ordinary moments that become sacred memories.  We all have those moments, we just need to be shown that they indeed exist.

My hope for this blog is to have a place where mystical experiences can be safely shared. I eagerly wait to hear your  stories.