Are You REALLY Ready for the Return of Jesus Christ?

Welcome!  This first post is a simple starting post to tie in the name of, and reason for, this blog.   Many Christians (and I dare say, most evangelicals) believe that we are in or nearing the “end” of “the end times.”

 

Yes, I know, “the end times” has been in operation since Christ ascended to heaven.  Yeah, yeah….but most Christians in America don’t mean that when they say “end times.”  They mean that they believe Jesus Christ’s return is imminent.  That the the rapture, the day of the Lord, the end of the age and/or the tribulation period is drawing near.

 

Perhaps this year or perhaps in 2012 since we tend to want to show those who don’t follow Christ that ideas like 2012 are NOT of God….(and hey, wouldn’t it be COOL if God trumped the New Agers and raptured us in 2012?  Ahem…read on, dear reader ‘cuz maybe some eyeballs need opening…)

 

What IS the Christian response to 2012 anyway?  Is the concept of 2012 in the Bible?  Do you know anything about it?  Do you know that a whole lot of people believe that the world is going to have some kind of huge upheaval in 2012?  If not, I suspect you’re not really doing what Jesus said to do:  watch the signs of the times, pay attention and stay ready.  Not just “get ready” but STAY ready…keep your lamps full and your wicks trimmed!

 

What did Jesus say about the end times and the Rapture?  Is Revelation just allegory?  Is the concept of a “secret pre-rapture rapture false?  (As in, will millions of Christians suddenly disappear, throwing the world into chaos that kicks off the Tribulation?)   Are Christians getting raptured or not?  WHEN will the Church get raptured?  Where does the Bible talk about “The Rapture?”  What is Pre-Trib or Pre-Tribulation?  Mid-Trib or Mid-Tribulation?  Post-Trib or Post-Tribulation?

 

What is the difference between the wrath of God and Satan’s wrath?  What is the difference between the tribulation and the Day of the Lord?  What is the Day of the Lord?  What does the Bible say about the Day of the Lord?  What are the End Times?  What is the Church age?

 

How will we recognize apostasy in the church?  Could God pour out His wrath on Christians?  Are believers safe from the wrath of God?  Is what I’m seeing from T.V. evangelists and Christian television true?  How can I know what my church is teaching is true?  Are the gifts in operation today?  Where does the concept that the gifts are NOT in operation today come from?

 

Can I “summon” or command the Holy Spirit?  Do I need to speak in tongues to be saved?  What does the Bible say about speaking in tongues?  What does being “slain in the spirit” mean?  Do others besides Christians speak in tongues and get slain in the spirit?

 

If you’ve been asking these kinds of questions, you’ve arrived at a place where I’ll try to give insight to BOTH sides of the debate.  Then it is up to you to take it to God and let HIM and the Bible tell you the truth…to discover God’s wisdom, not mans.  To learn “how then shall I live, Lord?  What do I DO with this life you’ve given me?”

 

I no longer believe much of what I’ve believed as a Christian for most of my adult life (I got saved in 1981, started actually trying to BE a Christian in 1987 and it’s now late December 2010, almost 2011.)  I’m 51 years old and the older I get, the more I question my assumptions, the teaching of others, the arguments and divisions WITHIN THE BODY OF CHRIST (and all the differing views and teaching coming from “bible believing churches” and pastors, teachers and scholars where they all say they’re right and others are wrong and if you don’t believe as they do, you’re demon possessed or at the very least, on your way to hell.)  Confusing?  Yes!

 

Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:11-13 and 1:17 (NIV):  “My brothers, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.  What I mean is this:  One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”  Is Christ divided?  Was Paul crucified for you?  Were you baptized into the name of Paul? (1:11-14)  For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” (1:17)

 

So this is the reason for this blog (and some of these posts are from a previous blog that I basically abandoned last year, a blog called “People Get Ready.”  Now, the same principle is being picked back up…blog to obey God and to look at these questions, at world events, at Scripture, at the different teachings and belief systems within today’s church and try to get to the truth as well as focus on the one burning question inside most of us:  “Lord, why am I here, how shall I live and am I ready to meet you RIGHT NOW in my life?”

 

Christians, ARE you ready to meet your savior?

 

 

 

What’s Wrong with Looking for The Rapture?

What’s wrong with looking for the rapture?  Well, actually…nothing.  It’s the WAY some in the church today are looking…and why.  ”Stand up and lift up your heads because your redemption is drawing near.”  Jesus said those words in Luke 21:28 and He commanded us to watch the signs and be excited about His return.  The Rapture WILL happen…it’s just that a secret Rapture concept has taken hold…AND many don’t spread the gospel because they’re too busy waiting to get the heck outta here!

I’m going to start this two part post the the two quotes from Pastor Rice Broocks of Bethel World Outreach Center in Brentwood, Tennessee. The following concepts he wrote about in his blog hit me hard.

First one:  “You don’t have to know a drowning person to save their life.”  This has to do with the current teaching that you must form a relationship with someone who is unsaved if you hope to share the gospel with them.  He disagrees, as do I.

And the second concept he commented about is “looking for the Rapture” instead of spreading the gospel:

“Jesus explicitly admonished them (His disciples) to not worry about times or dates of God’s plans. Instead they (we) will be given power to be His witnesses to the “ends of the Earth.” Their focus is to be our focus: Preaching the Gospel and being His witnesses.

After 9/11, Time magazine’s Nancy Gibbs posed the question, “Why do Christians spend so much time trying to read the signs and break the code – trying to know what can’t be known rather than do what must be done – helping the poor and needy and preaching the Gospel?”

When we ignore Christ’s call to make our focus the advancing of the Gospel, we lose our way and ultimately our ability to reason soundly: literally, we lose our wits. We may not go as far as trying to set a specific date for Christ’s return or some impending cataclysm, but we establish priorities that aren’t the ones of heaven. In America, the Gospel is indistinguishable from other calls to success and happiness.  True conversion accompanied by repentance as well as faith is getting harder and harder to find.

Pastors are now Life Coaches and Success Therapists rather than preachers of the Gospel. When leaders diminish the Gospel, it’s only a matter of time until the followers do the same.”

In some ways, this sums up what has been bugging me about “Looking for THE RAPTURE.” In many places on this blog, I’ve talked about the origins of the current concept that Jesus is going to return “in secret” to gather His followers…before the final triumphant return after the 7th trumpet.  (This is a new concept that has only been around for a little over 100 years — and has origins that blew my mind when I studied them.)

And I’ve also expressed frustration with what I see some Christians do “while waiting to BE Raptured” and I call it “Beam me up, Goddy.”  They’re just waiting to get rescued off this rotten planet…because they have to deal with unbelievers who do awful things like “take Christ out of Christmas” and other things that are earth shaking…and apparently faith shaking as well.

To me, this is a mind boggling mindset that I see all around me in the church today.  It looks something like this:  people staying inside the walls (I’ve heard it called “inside the Christian ghetto”); speaking Christianese; wearing obvious symbols for “the world to see” like Christian T-shirts and gold crosses; being friends only with other Christians; working out only at their church’s gym; refusing to speak to anyone at their job about their faith (which is of concern because people can get fired…I’ll give them that) and staying silent while their children are punished for speaking about Jesus in school.

They’re taking a Biblical concept too far, the idea that we are to be IN the world but not OF the world. When I meet people who are looking for “The Rapture”, I often hear additional scriptures, like Revelation 18:4 – “Come out of her, my people. so that you will not share in her sins…” which cross references with 2 Corinthians 6:17 – “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.”

But surely God didn’t mean to completely avoid the world because we read in other places in Scripture that we are to preach the gospel!  ”Coming out from them” and “being separate” surely can’t mean having no contact…because it’s impossible to witness to people you refuse to talk to because they are unclean sinners!  Who ELSE are we to WITNESS to????

But many Christians today DO just that and they wait to get beamed up by God…having done no “occupying until He comes” and having done very little to advance the gospel.  ”The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”  (Matthew 9:37)

But back to Pastor Broocks’ comments.  His comments helped me pinpoint my annoyance with current teachings in church today and it’s this:  Too many Christian people are so busy looking for Christ to return — looking for signs and looking for “The Rapture” — that they often completely ignore looking for Christ IN themselves and /or looking for the opportunity to tell others OF Christ.

How does this mindset line up with the Bible and the great commission to spread the gospel?  To me, it simply doesn’t.

But on the other hand, if so many Christians are busy staying away from unbelievers…how on earth did the concept of forming relationships with them in order to witness to them come about?

Something isn’t making sense to me.

(Part Two of “What’s Wrong With Looking for the Rapture?” Coming Soon)

3 Visions of Heaven and the Church by Jason Byers

JUNE, 1999 – 3 VISIONS by JASON BYERS (AGE 15)

I had three visions.  In my first vision I saw a man and wife and a garden with fruit.  In my second vision, I saw a temple with 8 pillars.  In my 3^rd vision, I saw a perfect garden with no weeds, but had weeds on the other side of a gate, and a farmer and his wife.

I think that the man and the wife gathering fruit is God and the church gathering their children and the snakes that bit the fruit as it fell to the ground and died is satan and his demons, taking the people who didn’t believe or believed false religions.

I think that the temple with 8 pillars is God’s kingdom.  The 8 pillars:  2 are gold that represent purity, 2 are silver that represent refinement; 2 are bronze that represent craftsmanship and the last 2 are iron with represents strength.  There was a multitude that worships Jesus and a multitude who didn’t worship Jesus that got crushed.

I think that the perfect garden is the place that we will go after we die (or are taken up) and we’re the flowers and the farmer is God.  The wife is the church and the weeds are the unbelievers and the farmer (God) protects us.

What Type of Christian Are You? Part Four – The Mountain

If you’ve landed on this page, this is Part 4 of 4. Please start with Part 1 or what you read regarding “frozen, desert pasture and jungle” regarding Christianity probably won’t make any sense!

---

In 1998, I’m laying in the sun in my backyard, reading my Bible and praying and also writing songs from my Bible, seeing word and rhyme patterns. That day, I wrote 3 song lyrics out of Bible verses and concepts.  Then something happened as I was writing down the rhyme patterns I was seeing within Psalm 19, words about honey and gold.

At that time, I’d been doing song collaboration and loved it. I had about 100 song lyrics under my belt (and a few songs that had music to them from within those 100 or so lyrics) but had no intention of trying to “do” anything with them (I can’t sing or play an instrument) nor any intention of ever moving away from Seattle.

We were settled and my family — dysfunctional as they were — all lived there. I liked the Pacific Northwest, the water, the mountains, the funky places in downtown like the Pike Place Market and the street fairs and events in summer like the hydroplane races and airplane shows of SeaFair…no, I had no desire to leave.

So here I am, figuring out how to put the concepts in Psalms 19 into a song and I hear God say, quite clearly, “I want you to move to Nashville.”

My first thought was something not particularly obedient, something like, “Uh, that would be a big “no” there, God.  Yeah, that’s a BIG “no”, good buddy…as in absolutely NO way!”  My second thought was equally uncooperative, “Pork rinds, rednecks and pick up trucks. Yuck. No God, I don’t think so.”

So God — being bigger, more persistent and far more powerful — proceeded to dismantle my life bit by bit.

My boss for the part time job I had, a job that allowed me  to not only homeschool Jason but also take him to work with me AND work at home, announced he was moving to Florida.

The next good news?  The house we’d lived in, and homeschooled in, for 7 years was being sold. And wouldn’t you just know it, the new owners were planning a gut job renovation and we had 30 days to get out.

I had just gotten my first computer with internet access and so I got online and tried to figure out how to follow Steve Seaton (my boss then and still a great friend — and now a website client for his yacht design business) to Florida.  One of the things that I’d been doing in the few weeks that I’d been online was poking around probably the very first Christian dating site “Christian Cafe.”  I had an account and had gone on a few dates in Seattle but nothing had come of it.  But at first, the whole online dating thing was fun and I was definitely husband hunting at that time in my life.

So I started looking at potential men in Florida and looking at apartments for rent.  It was pretty amazing to me how those doors kept slamming in my face. Not ONE interesting man and the rent prices had me falling off my chair. Not only did Jason and I have a great house for those 7 years, the rent was dirt cheap. The apartments in Florida were twice the price and half the size.

So, just for a lark, I looked at Nashville. Tons of interesting Christian marriage prospects and affordable rent. I was getting nervous, sensing God was getting ready to force me to Nashville after all. So I got online again and looked for a place to move in Seattle. Nothing I could afford and without a job, the prospects were pretty dismal. My nervousness grew.

Then I met John in Nashville through Christian Cafe.  We had a whirlwind romance via email and over the phone. He was Christian, a songwriter, a sound engineer and ministry minded too. I fell.  Hard. Suddenly, I was sure HE was the reason God had opened the door to Nashville and I started trying to figure out how to move there but there was one little problem…I had no money at all.

Then, fluke of all flukes, my boss came to my rescue. I had overseen the packing of the moving company truck of most of his things but Steve (my boss) had planned on taking a “starter package” in a Uhaul and fly his daughter to Seattle from Florida so she could make the journey with him. They would beat the moving truck by a week and he could get settled and have the additional advantage of some quality time with his daughter while they were on the road.

But that fell apart because he found he had to be in Florida sooner.  So he calls me and says, “Hey, if I get a bigger moving truck, can you fit all your stuff in it?  I’ll pay you $1,000 to drive my stuff to Ft. Lauderdale and you can stop on the way and stick your stuff in storage in Nashville.”

Well, at that point, I was positive God wanted me to move to Nashville…and I talked myself into believing that I should marry John.  Remember, dysfunctional was my modus operandi at that time and knowing someone for a few weeks on the phone (especially someone that seemed SO very Christian) was not odd at all!

I accepted and next thing I knew, I was in Nashville.  Married John a month after I got there, went through 1 month of great times with him and then 5 months of sheer hell as his manic depression kicked into high gear and he became abusive and insane with a huge overlay of legalism.  I left him after 6 months, stuck all my stuff in storage in Nashville and fled back to Seattle on the bus.

Then I stopped talking to God because I was absolutely terrified He would tell me to return to John.  One day, the cold fire feeling moved into the pit of my stomach again…and stayed.  At first, I shrugged it off, pretending it was an upset stomach from not having eaten that day and drinking Coca Cola on an empty stomach.

But as rebellious as I could be, I knew better.  After a day and a half of God sitting inside me with that cold burning feeling (I kept picturing him squatting there like a fat little Buddha and I swear He kept kinda “pressing down” or something…it was darn near impossible to ignore), I finally screamed, “What!  What do you want!?!”

I opened my Bible, not trusting anything I might hear in my head was truly from God — not after what I’d gone through — and I turned to Isaiah 54, a scripture that, among other things, says God is my husband and that He will rebuild broken lives. Better than before even, with more blessings and pretty jewels and everything.

Right after that, my husband emails me out of the blue, I give him a chance and I return to Nashville.  It doesn’t work out the 2nd time either but we remain primarily friends.  He arranged for an annulment.  Then I find my 2nd husband, a man raised in church but kinda wild like me.  After John’s super legalism, I was enamored with my 2nd husband’s wild side.

That truly horrible relationship lasted a total of 1 1/2 years…and most of that time I spent trying to get him out of my life. I knew how to throw horrible fits and drive the bravest man away by acting like a crazy woman.  It not only didn’t work with him, he actually thrived on fights and insanity.

He wouldn’t leave and I fled back to Seattle.  He followed and then I married him…to keep the apartment.  I knew it was only a matter of time before he left and went back to his Mommy.  Good riddance.  He had destroyed my credit though and so I knew if I married him, he wouldn’t be able to throw us out on the street.

He tried but he was unsuccessful and God even put some women who had been abused in place to stop the next thing he tried…getting all the utilities shut off. I lived in fear for about a year after he left. I divorced him long distance and that was that.

Yes, I was a Christian but still seriously dysfunctional and divorce meant absolutely nothing to me. I didn’t have a lot of respect for marriage to begin with…by then my mother was on her 4th marriage (and her 4th husband thought he was her 3rd which meant many years of eggshell walking for me, afraid I would let something “slip” about her 3rd husband) and dad was on marriage number 3.

I gloss over the marriages because they only serve to highlight my journey toward the mountain — and my willingness to dump out illusions, unhealthy relationships, sick family pattterns and to follow God without reservation. To allow God to forge me into a weapon fit for His use.

I moved us to Houston in December of 2008. I wanted to buy a house and Houston had better houses for less money than in Seattle, and more jobs.  But God didn’t tell me to move to Houston…although He graciously allowed it. I now know that He was just getting me closer to Nashville. He did, however, pry my eyes ALL the way open about Human Trafficking in Houston (38% of all trafficked humans in the U.S. come through Houston.)

In May of 2010, God told me to move back to Nashville. This time I didn’t argue, changing my phone and business website within 2 days. We arrived in July 2010.  And I’ve been happy despite this last year being tough financially.  I trust in God and I know He has a purpose for us being here…and I am positive He will reveal it in His time.  I believe it has to do with Christian music and publishing books (since Nashville is the seat of both those industries) but I don’t know for sure. Nor do I care, I am content to wait on God.

From 2001 through now, July of 2011, I’ve moved toward the mountain, steadily and surely.  Busy dumping emotional baggage, alcohol (even the occasional glass of wine at dinner isn’t something I want in my life anymore), unmarried sex, rebellious mindset…you name it.

This last 10 years has been all about allowing Jesus to have his way in my life, my heart and my mind…to allow Him to be Savior, Friend and Lord. I no longer want Him to just come into my existing “house of Janet” and do a little cleaning and rearranging (while I keep some rooms locked) but instead want Him to take the wrecking ball and level my own house to the ground…and rebuild it from the ground up.  From the foundation of Christ on up, to rebuilt into a dwelling place fit for the Holy Spirit to live in. And He has.

In June of 2011, I prayed for God to start moving me into my calling, fully and finally. The next few weeks were amazing and I know He has.  I’ve ministered to people, I’ve started writing whatever and whenever He moves, I’m getting more cemented into my church (still have reservations about church though…these will pass, I am sure) and I’m free to be the woman that God knew I would become, 30 years ago when He came to me in that hospital room.

My relationship with my sister had gotten seriously damaged when my mother gave my crazy 2nd husband my grandfather’s guns.  My sister got stuck in the middle after he threatened to kill me and Mommie dearest managed to get me and Barb mad at each other.

My brother Mitch moved to Austin and ducked out of the whole dysfunctional process that my mom is STILL determined to keep going.  I don’t talk to her anymore because I finally understand what “reprobate” means…my mother enjoys evil and enjoys hurting people.

(Narcissists are very good at controlling their children and love to do something called triangulation…keeping themselves in the middle, controlling and manipulating.) But I stopped talking to mom and I had the courage to call my sister.  Now I talk to my beloved sister several times a week for hours. Next we’re working on bringing Mitch, my brother, back into the great sibling relationship we all once shared…and will share again.

God is giving me prophecies and moving me toward my life’s calling, stopping Human Trafficking, in a more concrete and active way.  My web design business is flourishing and my son is walking with God again.

Life is not perfect but all in all, I LOVE being a mountain in the range, standing strong and firm and tall in God.  I’ve become a Christian who is willing and obedient and I delight in doing the Lord’s will.

Life doesn’t get any better than this.  No matter what storms may come, I stand secure in the Lord.

I love you Lord, thank you SO much for everything!

What Type of Christian Are You? Part Three – The Pasture and the Jungle

If you’ve landed on this page, this is Part 3 of 4. Please start with Part 1 or what you read regarding “frozen, desert pasture and jungle” regarding Christianity probably won’t make any sense!

---

During the years in “the desert” between the ages of 21 and 27, I knew for a fact that God did indeed exist and that He loved me — loved human beings — SO very, very, very much.  But I was damaged from the verbal abuse and alcoholism of my childhood and I didn’t really know what to “do” with God or His amazing love. Being around Christians and going to church was not an option for me.

I had not forgotten the treatment I’d endured at the hands of the first Christians I ever met, my step-family. In fact, I remember telling Sandy, one of my step-sisters, about my experience with God in the hospital. She said, “Did you ask in the name of Je-sus?” in a rather snotty tone of voice. “Are you sure it wasn’t the pain drugs?”

My response was blunt, “F–k you Sandy, I didn’t need your stupid Jesus. I talked straight to His Father.”

My own lifestyle wasn’t easy to change either and while I had an unshakeable faith in God now, I didn’t have enough faith to change or grow. Then I had another supernatural experience, this time with Jesus, in 1987.  It was due to my son and a series of strange events that led me to to attending church.

Jason was 2 years old, I was in a bad relationship (I knew no other kind) and I kept hearing a radio program in my car every morning on my way to work, a broadcast by Pastor Lloyd John Ogilvie, called “Let God Love You.”  I did NOT want to hear the program but my usual rock and roll music station kept jumping over to it.  I would punch the button back and it would jump again.

This happened for a couple of days and then one time when it jumped, Ogilvie was talking about bad relationships.  Being in one myself, I finally listened because I knew we needed help.  Looking back, I know it was just another one of the many “pokes” God had continued to give me over the years since the experience in the hospital.

I remember telling my boyfriend Dennis about it.  He was a damaged man who’d been raised in a Catholic home, molested by his own father and had been in prison for many years.  We were perfect for each other!  (Yeah, that was sarcastic.)  We drank a lot together, trying to drown our personal demons, and then we fought.  We started going to A.A. together.

One night, he and I went to a meeting and we landed in a gay men’s meeting in Hollywood.  They told me to leave because it was a closed meeting. So we pulled out the meeting booklet and went looking  for another one, an “open” meeting…but we got lost.

We turned a corner and right in front of me was Hollywood Presbyterian.  The readerboard sign in front read “Pastor Lloyd Ogilvie” and I got very excited and told Dennis, “That’s the guy, that’s the guy on the radio I’ve been telling you about!”  So we went to church that Sunday.  I raised my hand when they asked if they had any visitors.  They gave me a red velvety paper flower (that I kept for years) and I filled out the little visitor card.

The following Tuesday, a group of people from the church knocked on my door and I invited them in.  They asked me if I’d ever accepted Jesus into my heart.  I said no.  They gave me a brief overview of the gospel and then asked if I wanted to invite Jesus in.  Now that I understood — now that I could put the God of love together with the Jesus who had been so badly misrepresented to me by my step-family — I said yes.  I wanted that prayer…I wanted that love.

Because I suddenly understood, when I heard  that God gave His only begotten son for US, what kind of love was behind that amazing sacrifice.  It was the same love that I had experienced in the hospital room, an almost incomprehensible love so huge and powerful that it led to Jesus himself choosing to be the sacrifice for all our sins.

You see, I loved my 2 year old son more than life itself and I knew I could never give him up for ANYONE! I literally tried to imagine myself picking him up and nailing him to the wall in the hallway of our apartment. Of course, I couldn’t. I agreed to say the prayer with them, the “sinner’s prayer” as it is so commonly called.

During the prayer, Jesus rushed into my heart.  Freaked me out and my eyes flew open because I was going to say something like “did you guys feel that?”  But the other people in the circle still had their eyes closed and were still praying.  I somehow knew that none of them had just felt what I had.

It was different than the hospital, neither the cold fire nor the overwhelming wave of love.  This felt more like someone who rushed into a cabin way up in Alaska during a terrible blizzard; rushed in and slammed the door behind them, relieved to be safe inside. So to me, now I had both God and Jesus and I started going to church.

This led to the “content years in the pasture”… from 1987 to 1994.  I was learning to be a Christian and I was content but I certainly didn’t tell others of Christ. I used to call myself a “stealth Christian” because I knew the gospel was meant to be shared but I was afraid people would reject me so I didn’t show any outward signs.

I moved back to Seattle in 1990 and started homeschooling my son after meeting another homeschool family.  I had realized that something was “odd” about Jason by then.  His strange behavior that started after he got his “2 year old” shots had only become worse.  By age 6 he was smart but not doing well in 1st grade.

Then the school did something that really angered me…they put him in a “special ed” reading class without telling me.  He brought home a report card and there were two teachers names on it.  I asked him who the other teacher was and he told me about his reading teacher; told me that he left his regular class and went down the hall with “the other retards.”

Needless to say, I blew a gasket.  To make matters worse, I figured out that Jason couldn’t actually read but instead was simply memorizing the little readers.  The school was unapologetic and told me something was wrong with my son.  I replied that going behind my back and not allowing me to help in the situation was not the way to go about it.

Looking back, I think they took the hard line stance because I could have sued them but I didn’t know it…nor did I care, I just wanted what was best for Jason and their sneakiness had NOT helped him but hurt him.  Their continued hard line stance (without any explanation of what they thought was wrong with Jason) finally angered me enough so that I pulled him out and started teaching him at home (with the support of the homeschooling family I’d met.)

The first year was really hard…I had no money and I was given some books by the family and I bought books from the thrift store.  Then I came to realize that I could teach him about “Phonics” with the Bible and started also using it for reading, art projects and beginning science through studying dinosaurs and animals, the weather and farming.

I knew I needed “official curriculum” materials if I was going to continue but that first year, I was able to carve a curriculum out of the Bible. I also knew that homeschooling had led to great men like Einstein, C.S. Lewis, Frank Lloyd Wright, Andrew Carnegie and our direct ancestors, George Washington and Robert E. Lee (Jason’s full name is Jason Carey Lee Byers.)

Through teaching Jason, of course I too learned more and more about the bible.  During those years, I also became less content as a “cow Christian in the pasture.”  The “jungle years” probably began in 1994 when I started learning about Spiritual warfare. I had to because we were struggling with some weird crap going on in the house we lived in.

Then I had a supernatural experience with a literal demon who literally tried to strangle me.  Jason had bought me a cross for Mother’s Day, a beautiful gold cross with a rose winding up the bottom.  I never took it off.

One night, I tucked my cross down into my nightgown, said my prayers and went to bed.  In the middle of the night, I had a horrible nightmare of a demon coming into my room, grabbing me by my cross, twisting it around my neck, strangling me.  Then it dragged me down the hall into the kitchen and tried to pull me through the roof of my house (through the light fixture of all things) and out to wherever it wanted to take me.

I woke up, shaking and paralyzed with fear.  Then I saw something at the foot of my bed, barely visible in the dark.  It was black and squatty and it made gross noises.  An extraordinary fear suffocated me and I couldn’t breathe.  But I managed to choke out one word:  ”Jesus.” I choked that word out twice and the thing left.  I knew Jesus was with me and after awhile, I fell back asleep and slept peacefully through the night.

The next morning I woke up and recalled the night’s events.  I blew it all off as a bad dream, including the part about the demon sitting at the foot of my bed. I got up and went into the kitchen…then I saw something glinting on the kitchen floor. I bent down and chills covered my body as I picked up a gold chain.

My hand flew to my neck.  My cross necklace was gone.  I looked all over for the cross but didn’t find it.  Then I looked around my house.  I found it all right, 60 feet away at the other end of my house.  The cross was lying in the middle of my living room floor.  I knew then that what had transpired the night before was no dream.

I immediately called my church and talked to Pastor Ron, the pastor who led my recovery classes.  I knew he also taught about “Spiritual Warfare” but had no idea of what that meant.  From 1994 to 1998, I learned about Spiritual Warfare, the gifts of the Holy Spirit and more. I started walking closer to God and became very evangelical, telling people about God, and started writing again. Mostly I wrote Christian poems that at some point started turning into song lyrics.

I had now officially stepped into my “jungle years.” God had moved on my heart and I started serving the homeless and the hurting and broken people all around me.  I was wild about my faith but I had so much “stuff” going on.  For example, I was trying to homeschool a special needs kid as a single mother with only a part time job…but nobody called him “special needs” including me.

Nobody could put their finger on just what was “up with Jason.” Neurologists missed his Asperger’s Syndrome because Jason was already 10 years old before the diagnosis reached America so none of the doctors had ever heard of it.  He didn’t get diagnosed until he was 21 years old because it took another 11 years for enough medical professionals to learn enough about the disorder to be able to recognize the signs.  God gave me the grace to do what was best for Jason but the “jungle years” were hard.

The mountain years were just ahead and I thought I was ready and willing to do what God wanted.  I just didn’t know it would include moving from Seattle to Nashville in 1998.  Learning lessons and experiencing new things in life including: the joy of song collaboration; a lot of emotional pain through marriage and divorce to men God did not choose for me and the shaking of my faith in God and watching the faith of my son get damaged as well.

And the bitter taste of the consequences of rebellion.

>> Read the final part – What Type of Christian Are You?  Part Four –  The Mountain

What Type of Christian Are You? Part Two – My Testimony

If you’ve landed on this page, this is Part 2 of 4. Please start with Part 1 or what you read regarding “frozen, desert pasture and jungle” regarding Christianity probably won’t make any sense!

---

Alas, I’ve spent much of my adult Christian years in the jungle…seems I had to whack my way through a lot of stuff to reach the mountain!  There was a period of “pasture grazing” but mostly it was “life in the jungle”…wild in my faith but too much going on in my life to be effective.

I had an abusive childhood with a mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and an alcoholic father, no church input whatsoever and then bad life choices as a young adult including drugs, alcohol, dancing as a stripper and occasionally being a prostitute.

Yes, coming from my messed up childhood indeed meant that I was “primed, loaded, cocked and aimed” for bad life choices but I now accept that I am the one who fired the gun.  I am the one who made those choices…no one forced me.

It took a lot of years of traveling my life’s journey to reach what I now know is “my truth”…I AM finally a mountain in that range! Spent years traversing over frozen ground, starting at age 14 when I first heard the gospel.  I had a step-brother and 2 step-sisters…and a pretty mean step-mother. The kids were Christian, my dad and his wife were not.

The years before age 14 were not mentioned in the vision…Jason pretty much saw ground that Christians walked on and ways that Christians behaved.  In all the years leading up to 14, I’d heard about God only a little.

I remember going to church with some Catholic neighbors at about 8 years old (which terrified me…it was very dark and scary place with candles and strange chanting.)  Other than that, there was simply no religion in my upbringing…ever, period, end of story.

Jesus was just another one of the Christmas decorations, a sweet little baby figure in a manger tableau and that was pretty much it.  So I guess I’ll call those years leading up to my first hearing the gospel a type of ground that was not in Jason’s vision.  I’ll call the spiritual ground I was raised in “the cave.”

So there I was at 14 years of age after having been raised in a cave.  Mother was working on her second divorce and had already found a new man who would become hubby number three. (I had no idea of course.  She’s 77 now and working on her fifth husband.)

She dumped me into the middle of my dad’s new marriage and a household full of hostile people and then promptly disappeared out of my life. I had no idea where she was for an entire year and had zero contact with her.

I was an emotional wreck and to make matters worse, I barely knew my dad because he hadn’t been around much most of my life. The times I saw him before moving in with him included a lot of times when he was blind drunk and very scary to me.

Anyway, I heard the gospel at 14 from my step-brother and step-sisters and at first, it sounded pretty darn good.  But later, I began to hate them and ended up completely ignoring their “Jesus” because they treated me so mean and acted nothing like how they said Christians were supposed to act.  I thought maybe God might be sort of okay but thought His followers were not nice at all…called Christians “mealy mouthed hypocrites.”

I was 21 years old when I broke my neck in a car accident, May 26, 1981…my dad’s birthday. Happy birthday dad!  I will call the years between 14 and 21 the “frozen” years…I had heard the Word but ignored it.

At 21, after I had the car wreck I had a life-changing supernatural experience with God and this is why I’ve titled this section of this 4 part writing “Part Two – My Testimony” (The writing started by a simple posting of my son’s vision…and then I realized that I personally had been on all four kinds of ground described in the vision and my own testimony started coming so I ran with it.)

I’ll be 52 in a couple of weeks and it’s ironic for me to realize that I’ve never actually written my testimony down.  Told it plenty of times but never have written about it.  Doubt the supernatural part of it will come across as well in black and white but I hope it does. I’ll let you be the judge of that.

So I broke my neck and spent five days in intensive care.  They had drilled screws into the side of my head and attached a weight in the back so I couldn’t move; keeping me immobile was the only thing standing in the way of complete paralysis from the neck down.

I had broken my neck in two places and walked around at the scene of the wreck so it was a miracle that I wasn’t paralyzed…well, a miracle and being drunk and high on Quaaludes, a popular “downer” pill in the 70′s and 80′s.  I was pretty rubbery and I was already passed out when the wreck occurred.  It was ironic that the seat belt itself broke my neck…had a hard time wearing them for years.

We’d gone to Seattle looking for cocaine and found “ludes” instead.  My boyfriend promised he wouldn’t take his until we got home but he took them halfway across  the floating bridge over Lake Washington.  We wrecked in Bellevue, a few blocks from the hospital and less than 5 miles from my house.

I was lucky we were in a Mercedes Benz because he hit a telephone pole and the engine got driven 3 1/2 feet into the ground. Mercedes put a steel plate between the engine and passengers for this very reason.  In another car, the engine would have been in our laps and we’d either have been dead or legless.

Besides having broken my neck in two places, I also broke a bunch of ribs.  I got OUT of the car at the crash site, walked around and then the excruciating PAIN that hit me — and washed from my ribs all the way up over my head — quickly became not only excruciating pain but unbearable.  So I climbed into the back seat of the car and lay down. I know this sounds horrible but I’m glad I was so high…that pain would have probably killed me had I been stone cold sober.

Yeah, I am aware that the wreck would not have occurred if there hadn’t been drugs and alcohol involved.  And I remain someone who prays every time I pass a bad wreck on the freeway, hoping that someone inside isn’t going through what I went through…minus the body full of painkillers that I had when MY wreck occurred!

I remember the ambulance arriving and can still see the faces of the paramedics.  They asked me how I got into the back seat, whether I had been thrown back there in the wreck.  I told them no, that I’d gotten out, walked around and that when the pain hit, I knew something was wrong and had climbed back into the car.

Someone said, “That’s impossible, your neck is broken.”  I promptly went into shock and passed out.  That’s the last thing I remember until I came to in the hospital as I was going in the MRI machine.  The reason I remember that part so well is that the machine made me feel like my blood was boiling and it made me sick to my stomach.  I started throwing up flat on my back and people kept telling me not to move and then they realized what was going on.  I passed out again.

The next memory flashes include my family being there and nurses in the intensive care room asking me to stop screaming so loud.  I remember hearing them say they were amazed that the drugs weren’t working, that what they’d given me should have had me out cold.

Course, they didn’t know that I have a really high resistance when it comes to drugs…got it from my mom. Drugs don’t work on us the way they do on other people, our systems seem to burn them up very quickly.  They had me on Morphine, Demerol and Valium in intensive care and still I screamed in pain.

This has been a problem with novocaine, regular aspirin, you name it.  It’s also probably the only reason I never overdosed during the years I abused alcohol and regularly combined it with drugs. My next memory is being in the private room, five days later.  A nurse came in and announced that she was going to give me an enema.

I said something to the effect of , “Uhhh, no thanks, think I’ll pass.”  She explained to me that after the massive amount of pain killers I’d gotten in intensive care, I was bloated.  They were going to fit me for a body cast and so I had to empty my bowels so the cast would fit correctly and a fat, bloated tummy wasn’t going to work for the tight fit they want.

I still didn’t care, there was no way I was letting anyone give me an enema.  Ick poo yuck.  I worked very hard to talk her into letting me handle it myself and she finally relented.

Talk about pain…it was intense and I screamed out, “Oh God, help me!”

A voice popped into my head…and I heard, “Stick the washcloth in the ice and water and apply. The pain will stop.”  So I did and the pain stopped.  I was staring up at the sprinkler heads in the ceiling. Then I look out the window and it was a beautiful sunny day, blue sky and cumulus clouds.

I spoke aloud, “Okay, I know I just heard something…someone…in my head.  I’m lying here looking at sprinklers in the ceiling and it’s a beautiful day outside.  I don’t know if I should even be alive and I don’t understand why I’m not paralyzed from the neck down.  So I think it was you God but here I am, staring at the ceiling. I have a question for you:  Do you ever…I mean, can you…do you…show signs?”

In between the words “can you…do you” an ice cold yet burning hot “feeling” — I could only describe it as cold, burning fire — started in the pit of my stomach and quickly rose up through my body to about halfway down my upper arms, right about to where a french-cut t-shirt sleeve would come to.

Then pure love hit me like a wave, love so beautiful and so pure I could not believe it.  I was literally filled with God and I lay there, stunned and amazed. I say now that it was a gazillion times stronger than any love you’ve ever felt in your life for anyone.  It was that wonderful and powerful.

The very first thought that popped into my head was, “If I could bottle this and sell it, I’d be a millionaire.”  Then I said, “Why don’t you show this love to everyone?  If you did, there would be no more war.”

I talked to anyone who would listen about this experience.  I got my cast on later that afternoon, June 2, 1981, and told all of them. Once I got my cast on and could leave my room, I went down to the chapel in the church and talked to the pastor.  I remember him telling me that he’d heard accounts like mine.

I was changed forever by that experience.

In a strange twist of irony, I broke my neck on my dad’s birthday, May 26, 1981 and I got my cast removed on my mother’s birthday, September 2, 1981.  I tell people now about how I got God…and then tell them there are much easier ways…that breaking your neck is probably the least desirable way.

I KNEW, without a doubt, that there was a God.  And I knew, also without a doubt, that He was a loving God.  He loved me!  And I knew that I had felt but a drop of that love, that any more and my human frame could not have contained it.  I would have exploded; I would been spaghetti on the walls of that hospital room.

I knew, and said to anyone who would listen, that Hitler himself could torture me to death and that I would not deny God or His love; that my last words through my dying breath would be “God IS love, God loves us.”

This was the start of my “desert” years.

>> Read the next part of “What Type of Christian Are You?  Part 3 – The Pasture and the Jungle