Blood on the Ground

The men have come for me

just as I saw them come

for my own mother when

I was a child.

I watched as the stones flew

first one, then another, then more

until she fell for the last time.

Blood on the ground.

Now here I stand

before different men

with different stones

who call out the same foul names.

But one Man says nothing.

Only stoops and writes in the dirt.

Finally he speaks.

“Go on then, whoever

here is without sin,

throw the first stone.”

He stoops again and writes

a word? a name?

and doesn't even look

as men slowly walk away

impotent

their rocks falling.

The Man stands and asks me

"Has anyone

condemned you?”

My voice is shaking.

“No one, sir.”

There is mercy in His eyes

as He says

“Neither do I condemn you.

Go, leave your life of sin.”

Just go?

(I had thought

by now my blood

would soak those stones

but no.)

Soon it would be His

Blood on the ground.

Mother how I wish

you had lived

to know this mercy.

.

Keep My Baby Safe

A Book That Wants To Be Written.

I keep hearing parts of a book that is buried deep within my belly.  I don’t want to write it but it wants to be written . It is called " A Mother's Prayer " ……for her baby to be safe.....even through the madness …… she has a prayer in her heart for her baby to be safe. Even though she loses track of all time and all reality the echo of her prayer lingers in the atmosphere. “ Keep my baby safe”  she hears from the window sill. “ Don't let me kill her” she hears from the bathtub. “ I don’t have a child” she hears from the dark closet.

 ,

As I think more about what would happen if I wrote the story that has been hiding for 40 years, I hear a soft, sweet voice that whispers to me  " A Daughter's Prayer".  That makes me want to cry. Can it be that a woman who never had a Mom has a secret prayer in her heart that only her Father hears from the heavens?

In the prayer she whispers words of forgiveness to this mother she never knew. She whispers silent requests on her Mother's behalf that don't quite pass through her lips. Her desire and pain are so intense that the prayers eventually make way past the dam and fly on the wings of angels to the throne room. Jesus gets the prayers and reads them to the Father. He weeps as He reads this out loud and the heavens begin to move, shake and birth a sound, a new sound for the motherless baby in the crib who cried all of those unseen tears. An angel has brought the bucket of tears to the Father. Jesus speaks into being a new life, a new breath, a new vision for the baby who is now a woman. The Holy Spirit moves and the sound of thunder fills the heavens and the echo is heard on earth to only the ears of this woman, this special, sacred, beloved young woman who God himself set aside for his own purposes.

Note:  I don’t remember why this was written years ago.  Did I copy it from someplace?  Or did I write it as fiction? It’s not my story, but it feels like my writing.

Laci's Story

I walked right into a strip club all by myself, carrying a bouquet of flowers. It was afternoon and the bouncer was very suspicious. He began interrogating me. I told him I had a delivery for one of the dancers and it would only take a minute. He said to wait there, so I did. Finally, as I was being urged to leave, the girl God had put on my heart came walking past. I approached her and handed her the flowers and a card. I said “These are for you because God wants you to know how much He loves you.” She received them with a surprised smile and a hug. I ran out of the club that day filled with joy and hope. 

See, I knew all about strip clubs. I knew about dancing, about using sexuality to get attention and money and drugs. In fact, I was in the sex and entertainment industry for five years of my life. The drugs made it all seem exciting and harmless, but I was soon addicted. For years I had believed my only value was my looks, my sexy clothes, my seductive dancing, my ability to manipulate people to get what I wanted. I had learned at an early age that this was all people wanted from me. Family members and friends of family had sexually abused me for years of my childhood. Even as a 12 year old, when I went to the stables to ride my horse, the teenage boys working there joined the parade of my abusers. Did I have a target on my forehead that said “Take what you want”?

Years later, working in the clubs and selling drugs became my life. At the age of 19, I became pregnant, and that soon ended my dancing and modeling career. Everything changed. My identity was destroyed. Even my boyfriend lost interest in me because I was no longer “cute and sexy.”

Then when my baby was one month old, I “had” to go back to dancing and selling drugs. I told myself it was the only way I could support us, but the reality of this sad lifestyle was beginning to get to me. It wasn't exciting, it was just survival. When I endured a horrific rape, I hit an all time low. Around that time I was caught and arrested for dealing drugs. I will always be thankful for that, because when I was put on house arrest, I finally had to face life sober. In sobriety I saw how I had destroyed my life. I even thought the world would be better off without me in it. Desperate and battling suicide, I cried out to Jesus. He met me in that dark place, and I felt the evil that had been surrounding me for so long finally leave.

Always, I had been spiritually sensitive. Even as a little girl, when I thought “monsters” were attacking me, my Mom had taught me to say ”In the name of Jesus, leave.” And they left. But Satan wasn't done with me yet. I could actually feel spirits attacking me but now when I said “In the name of Jesus, leave,” they would go away – only to come back and harass me again with their tormenting thoughts and frightening manifestations.

It wasn't enough to just say the words. God wanted me to believe, to give my whole heart and life to Him, to know Jesus personally. On that day in 2010, on my knees next to my baby girl's crib, wearing a clunky house arrest ankle bracelet, I cried out to Jesus for salvation. From that moment, my old life started fading away, and my new life with God began. I learned about grace and forgiveness, instead of penance and condemnation. By 2013, I had truly surrendered all; Jesus had set me completely free. Oh, He was sending me back into the strip clubs alright, but this time to tell others about Jesus.

My heart was being healed, my past was forgiven, and I could not be quiet about the Lord. When I found out about Eve's Angels, I knew I was called to minister to the women trapped in a dark lifestyle. I was ready, I had a testimony prostitutes and strippers could relate to. I joined a chapter of Eve's Angels and later broke off into an independent ministry founded in Indianapolis called “Unconditional.”

God knew what I needed in order to do this, despite the late hours and sometimes dangerous settings. I prayed for reliable child care, and He provided it. I prayed for finances and He provided them. My church, Church for the Nations, donated to our ministry, and my children and I were even given a house and a car through God's provision.

It has only been one year serving on team with “Unconditional.” During that time, I have seen God tear down the walls of religion that bind hearts and hide the true face of Jesus. I have seen girls  weep as their True Father tells them how He sees them.  I have held hands in prayer circles that include dancers, servers and bartenders as we pray for their loved ones, right there in the middle of the strip club. Jesus can go anyplace, and He was always there. Now “Unconditional” has several women ministering. Some of the women we prayed with have made miraculous life changes, been set free, and given their lives to Jesus. I even had the opportunity to open my home to one of these amazing women, during a season of transition in her life.

Did I ever dream during those dark days when I was a slave to drugs and sex, that God could make it all work together for good? I found out He still transforms lives. And sometimes even sends flowers!

A FOOT, AND A WOMAN NAMED BRANDY

By Sonya Waters

On a recent plane trip with my husband John, I overheard a passenger complain of severe foot pain due to an injury. Since I was working through a workbook called “Walking in Supernatural Healing Power” by Chris Gore during the flight, I thought I better pray for her as I read. So during the flight, I started asking Jesus, the Healer, about her. He gave me a picture of Him washing the woman’s feet, so I agreed with Him to heal her foot. I asked if He wanted to tell me anything else about her, and I made notes in my workbook about what I thought He might be saying. I wrote three notes: 1) The picture of Jesus washing her feet, 2) that it might be an Achilles problem in her right foot (because I had that problem in my right foot lately), and 3) a woman’s name (because I asked if He wanted to tell me her name). The last two notes had question marks by them.

We caught the woman after the flight and I told her I overheard her comment about her foot pain and asked if we could pray for her. Clearly irritated, she agreed. I asked her name and was not surprised when it was not the name I had “heard” earlier. She said she had snapped a tendon in her right foot and had just reinjured it. I told her I believed Jesus was healing her foot, prayed briefly, and asked how it felt. She actually smiled as she moved it around and said the pain was 50% better. We prayed again, but had to run for our connecting flight. We left her a bit bewildered, but smiling.

On the next flight I continued my Healing Power book. The flight attendant stopped and asked to see the cover of my book. She was a believer, and wanted to know about it, so I told her about how Jesus heals supernaturally and shared the testimony of how Jesus had touched the woman’s foot earlier. She was very interested to hear about this so I offered her my book, notes and all. She reached out her hand to introduce herself, and said, “My name is Brandy”. I grabbed my book back from her, and looked for the page where my notes were. I pointed to the name I had written in my notes and said, “Look! Your name is already in this book! I wrote it earlier when I asked Jesus to tell me the name of the woman with the foot injury. I thought I heard “Brandy” but I wasn’t sure! It’s YOU!” I don’t know which of us was more shocked! (Pretty sure I made a scene.)

She came back a few minutes later, saying she could hardly do her job because she couldn’t keep from crying. We affirmed that she has the gift of healing and the Lord wanted to teach her how to use her gift through the book. She said several people had told her that in the past, and she always said if she could have one superpower it would be to heal people! She didn’t realize she already has this superpower.

Look out, world! Brandy is discovering more of the Holy Spirit’s beautiful power and love for people as her gift is awakened and she steps out in faith to bless others with the great love and goodness of their Father in Heaven. My heart shifted as I replayed this story. I had asked my Father such a simple question, and He just whispered the simple answer right back. I am in such awe I can hardly get over it. He loves every single one of His creations. As our pastor Mark Thomas said recently, there is no such thing as failure when we step out in love.  

A Shining White Cross Brings Me Peace

Sleepy and tired, still recovering from a bronchial infection, I had just put on my nightgown, and picked up my cell phone to charge it for the night. I saw Megan had called me only minutes before and I hadn't heard the ringtone. It was almost midnight, so I knew there must be a problem. I called her back and she answered the phone crying. My son Seth had had an accident and was in the emergency room with a head wound, bleeding profusely. He had fallen and hit his head on a concrete post. They wouldn't know how serious it was until they did an MRI, but he was going to need stitches. She cried “I don't want him to be there by himself.” I told her we would head out for the hospital right then, and for her to just stay home with their sleeping four year old.

When I got off the phone, my husband Scott was already getting dressed, surprisingly in an orange sweatshirt I knew he didn't like. I threw on clothes and went out to the car. As I got in and started coughing, I realized I didn't have my tissues or inhaler with me. I rushed back in the house to get them. There right in the center of my dresser was a shining white ceramic cross about the size of my hand. You couldn't miss it, but it had not been there even five minutes before. Comfort and warmth washed over me, as I realized God was speaking to me. How thankful I was for His presence! Through that cross, He reminded me He is in control.

Back in the car, I said to Scott, “There is a white cross on the dresser that wasn't there before.” He said “I know, I put it there.” Then I remembered I had bought it at a little shop in Florida when we were on vacation. To protect it, I had wrapped it in the new orange sweatshirt, packed it in the suitcase and forgotten all about it. Tonight, six weeks later, Scott had pulled out the sweatshirt, and the cross tumbled out. He placed it on the dresser. Amazed, I said, “I think it is a sign from God.” Scott said “That's what I thought too. Because I never wear that sweatshirt, and I don't know why I got it out.” It's a God thing, we said. On the way to the hospital, I texted my prayer sisters for help.

We were in the emergency room with Seth until 3 a.m., waiting for the results of the MRI (perfect) and standing by while they sewed him up. Thirteen stitches after an excruciating injection of novacain. After all the blood was cleaned up, we could see it was just one injury, a deep cut above Seth's eyebrow. Thanks be to God.

What makes you pick up a phone you didn't know was ringing? Or reach for a sweatshirt you don't even like? When seemingly random thoughts pop into your head, when you suddenly know something you didn't know the moment before, pay attention. Every day, every minute, God is giving you a message. You can tell it's Him. Because He sends it wrapped in peace, and sealed in love. And maybe even  tucked in a sweatshirt.

The Wild Man John

 

By: Linda Stamper

We saw it

the day the heavens opened.

Tired, we were so tired

of dead ritual and

religion

like skeleton bones

that we walked a day in the hot sun

over rough roads and danger

to get to the Jordan

where this John was,

this baptist,

this wild man

who brought people up out of the water

ready to live for God.

This John who said

Look for the One who is coming:

I baptize you in water

but He will baptize you

in the Spirit of God,

and with fire.

And then we all saw

the man Jesus

come up out of the water

under an exploding sky.

The heavens opening,

the Spirit of God descending

like a dove

and a Voice like thunder speaking

calling Jesus son, beloved son,

and one Who pleased Him so.

Our hearts opened too,

like the heavens

torn wide, ready

for that Spirit

that baptism

that fire

John promised.

The wild man

John

standing in the water

hearing God talk

under a torn up sky

The day the heavens opened.

Luke 3:16, 22

It All Started With Archie Bunker -- My Testimony

I can't even count the ways God tried to get my attention over the years. If we went to a sales award dinner, the Number One National Salesman in the company would thank God in his acceptance speech and tell the crowd that it was prayer and faith that got him to to the top. When I had to go the hospital for a mysterious illness, my roommate in the next bed was the most angelic person you ever met, with her bible on her tray table. She would save me treats from her tray. She would come straighten my covers. She would check on me. Honestly, her side of the room seemed to glow, and when she was released, it felt like the light left the room with her. " See?" God was saying. "See how dark it is without me? Pay attention."

If I was searching for a book to read, I would come upon a biography of a great missionary like Corrie Ten Boom whose family hid Jews from the Germans during the war. They were all caught and sent to concentration camps to die, but somehow Corrie survived. Years later she came back to Germany to preach forgiveness to the very Germans who killed her family. I would read and cry and read some more.  Looking back through the years, I see God was everywhere I turned.

So when He spoke to me through Archie Bunker, that did it. I was sitting in my little family room in Toledo, Ohio just two weeks before my first baby was due, watching All in the Family on television. It was the episode where Archie was beside himself because his son-in-law "Meathead" refuses to let baby Joey be baptized.

Despite Edith's objections, Archie takes his grandbaby out in the carriage, down the street and into the side door of the church. There, in typical outrageous Archie style, he tries to bribe the priest to baptize Joey without his parent's consent. The offended priest turns him down, and in the next scene Archie goes sneaking into the baptistry with baby Joey.

He says to God "I may seem a little strange in here because I haven't been to church lately but don't worry, I'm still Archie Bunker, and I still believe deeply in Thee.Thoo. This here's my little grandson Joey. . . I wanna do dis while we got the chance because I don't want him growing up widout religion in dis rotten world of yours, although we all know you did Your best in only 6 days.  He lifts the baby up and introduces him to the Lord. And in the most touching Archie scene I ever saw, he sprinkles the baby himself in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, kisses him on the forehead, sighs and says "I hope that took, Lord. Cause they gonna kill me when I get home."

So the pregnant lady (me) is home crying at an All in the Family episode, saying "What about my baby? Who's going to sprinkle him? I haven't been to church, or even  prayed,  in years. Maybe I should, just in case."

Two weeks later Zachary Lee Johnson is born. And about 18 months after that, because of some home repairs, and scaffolding, and plaster dust, my husband thinks I need to get the baby out of harm's way, and take him to spend a couple of days at my old friend Christine's in Dayton. So off Zach and I go, and on the way I feel a sense of anticipation, a lifting, a cloud passing, the sun shining.  I have no idea why.

When we get to Christine and Bill's, and their charming but creaky 100 year old house, all I see are Bibles. Two or three of them.  Scattered everywhere. The Gideons must have been through here, I think.

I get up early in the morning with Zach and try to read one of those BIbles, opening it randomly to . . . .Job. Job. The one who loses his wife, all his children, his land, his cattle, and has boils too. O my word, this is awful I think. I start asking Christine questions about Job, about God, about whether or not Paul was a chauvinist. She says I'll have to ask her pastor those questions.

So later she gets him on the phone, and I go back in the guest room with my cigarettes and my bourbon and water.  I talk to that pastor for over an hour. Questioning, challenging, scoffing. He gives me the Reader's Digest version of God's plan to save His people from themselves. I say "Well, I still don't see why anybody had to die for me." And he takes me through the Bible and explains it. Shows me the rebellion, the sin, the pain, the disease, the inhumanity, the wars, the murders, the immorality. He asks me how such fallen creatures could ever be united with a perfect, holy God they can't even see and don't know? Telling me that's why He sent His son to earth to say "follow me and you can find the Father." The pastor tells me a story about a horrible ice storm when all the birds were freezing, and the farmer thinks "if I could just be a bird I could lead the other birds into the barn to be safe." The farmer couldn't be a bird, but God could be a man, to show us, to lead us, to die for us.

Next the pastor says "Now I would like you to pray with me." I say "Oh I can't do that." He says "Why not?" I don't know what I thought I was going to say, but what comes out of my mouth is "Because I've been such a shit." I could not believe I said that, to a church guy, no less. Then he says it. Tells me it doesn't matter if I've been a shit, because God forgives and forgets all our mistakes, through Jesus. I do pray with him then, just repeating after him that I would like to know this Jesus, this Godman, who could make me clean and whole, and not a shit at all.

We get off the phone, and out in the kitchen, Christine says "how did it go?" I say "I don't think anything happened."

Later that night, I tiptoe up the back stairs with little Zach so he won't wake up. I put him in the crib Christine borrowed, and start back down those spooky, 100 year old, dark creaky stairs. I hear a mysterious groan and creak that sounds like something alive. But I keep going. Suddenly, it dawns on me that I am not afraid. Not a bit afraid. Not spooked. That I know I'm not alone, and will never be alone again. That's when I realize something has indeed happened to me. Something new is pouring into me, like liquid love or light. I'm new inside. Peaceful, unafraid.

That was June 1, 1978. Thirty-eight years ago. That's the day I met God. Had an encounter with Him. Found out, to my amazement, about His unconditional love and protection. And in all these years, He has never left me or let me down. Even when I drifted away from Him, He never moved.

You don't have to sneak into a church, or talk to a pastor to have an encounter with God. You can just talk to Him directly. Tell Him you want to meet that Godman, Jesus. And if you want somebody to pray with, I'm here.

_____

* Archie's character was under the impression that without sprinkling or immersion, there is no salvation. But the Bible tells us salvation is by faith alone, and that if you say and believe that Jesus is Lord, you are saved, and the angels have a party. This scene was no doubt meant to be satirical, but there was a beauty and simplicity in it that changed me, the nervous pregnant lady who didn't even know she was yearning for God.

** Through my wildest, most self destructive years, whether it was working as a Latin dancer in a sleazy nightclub in New Orleans, walking down dark streets in the middle of the night, taking speed (“diet pills”), taking off for New York with $40 in my pocket, completely estranged from my family -- my grandmother was praying for me.  She told me later “I didn’t want God to forget about  you.”  I am living proof you should never give up on anybody.  Keep praying.