Day 214

Today is Day 214 of  The Red Shoe Project.  I started out in my black suit and RED heels for an important business luncheon earlier in the day.  Now, I've kicked off my shoes entirely, and am dressed down significantly.  Comfortable is best when blogging.

Before I even stepped foot from my bed this morning,  I noticed
a picture that hung on my wall.
I painted it, myself, earlier in the year, at an art class I attended.  It shows a little girl, in RED Mary Janes, opening a big, heavy, wooden door and peeking inside.   Behind it, a magnificent light shines forth.

In big, bold, block letters, 

the sign on the door says...

"FAITH." 

That's exactly where I was in the early months of  The Red Shoe Project.
I felt so small in comparison with the things that God was bringing my way.  Part of me was intrigued and excited, like a child looking inside the door of a toy store.  On the other hand... how intimidating!  Who would have thought, that in such a short period of time, these RED shoes of mine would march me right into the middle of that place? LOL.

I'm not saying that I'm not intimidated at times.  But I'm no longer outside, looking in.  I'm well into the world of FAITH.

One of the things that I found fascinating in L. Frank Baum's book, The Wizard of Oz, was the chapter featuring "The Guardian of the Gate."
When Dorothy and her friends arrived at the Emerald City to see the Wizard, they first had to  pass through the front gate.  There, they were met by The Guardian of the Gate who fixed upon each of their heads a pair of green colored glasses.

How else would everyone view the  GREENESS  of The Emerald City?  With the glasses locked in place and immovable, everything appeared some shade of green.  (You didn't know that, did you?)

Sometimes faith can be that way.  Things seen by faith are not visible to the human eye.  I have to put on my spiritual glasses to see them.
Once I had a pair of readers that had tiny little lights on the front of them so that I could see what I was reading in the dark.  They were tiny, but they were powerful.  Everything on the page immediately came to the forefront.

The Holy Spirit is the power behind my spiritual glass.  He brings everything that is meant to be in the future 

to the forefront of my heart and mind.  

Why?

So I can pray it into existence!

God loves it when I believe enough to pray something I've seen with my spiritual glasses into existence.  That means I keep bathing what God's shown me or told in prayer, until I see it happen.   Every time I go to prayer, I remind God of it. When I talk to Him, I say things like... 

"I know you are going to do it, Lord!  
Hallelujah!  

 Praise the Lord!  I can't wait!  
Thank You Jesus!

Bring it to pass, Lord!  
Glory to God!  
Amen!"

What I love most is the manifestation of those prayers.  Seeing what He told me would happen,  become reality.   Just a note though... sometimes manifestation comes the same day, week, month or year.  And other times it's decades.  (It's that  "Divine Time"  thing!)  But if He shows you, just believe, pray it through, and it will come to pass.

Jesus said in Mark 9:23 NIV...

"Everything is possible for one who believes!"

One thing I've noticed is this...

When it comes to FAITH, 

you have to start sometime, somewhere.  

Once you do, it gets easier.  

Here's why...

God shows you something.  You think, "Maybe this is God?" 
so you follow through and pray.  Next thing you know, it happens.
You think... "Wow!  God told me He was going to do that and He did!"
Then some time goes by and God shows you something again...
almost exactly in the same way.  You think...
"God did something like this before - Maybe it's God again?"
So you follow through and pray again.  Sure enough, it happens.
"Wow!"  you think.  "Look what God has done!"
Some time goes by and lo and behold it happens again, and again, and again.
And God is faithful time and time again.

 He so desperately wants us 

to know His voice and how He works.  

That's why He does things the same way over and over again.  He's building your faith through experience.  Then, He'll speak to you a little differently... and the cycle repeats itself.  It doesn't take long before you realize that time and time again, God comes through... that you can trust Him to do what He says He's going to do.

Before you know it, there you are -- in the big world of FAITH, in your little RED shoes, believing God for GREAT and MIGHTY things!

Amen!

Gail

Day 213

213 Days... that's how long I've been wearing RED shoes and looking for God.  Last night and most of today was a time of soaking in His presence.  That's right... every free moment, I have found myself with my headset on listening to worship music and closing in with God.  Sure... I've had other things going on too, but, I don't know... I just can't seem to get enough of Him.

Sometimes you just want to be around that  "Special One", you know?  You can't wait for Him to walk in the room, and when He does, you just want to plant yourself next to Him.  When He speaks, you listen.  When He doesn't, you listen anyways...  waiting patiently for words to drop from His lips. Who cares?  You're in His presence.  And when He's not right there in front of you, you're consumed with wondering... "When will He be?" 

Yup...  I'm hooked!  He has won my heart.  It's done.  

I'm His! 

Yesterday, one of the ladies at Bible study shared from
The Song of Solomon 4:9 which says,

"You have ravished my heart, 
my sister, my spouse." 

Another translation of this is could be...

"You have stolen - captured -
 taken possession of my heart.  
I can't get enough of you.
I want to be connected to you!
I want to be with you all the time!" 

King Solomon, (son of King David) is the writer of this magnificent love song. It is primarily the poetic words of The Bridegroom to His Bride.  This is the depiction of the Love of Jesus towards His Bride:  The Church.

Jesus is saying to The Church,  "YOU have captured my heart!"  If  The Church has captured God's heart... that means I've captured God's heart.   Jesus is saying... "Gail... You have captured my heart.  I can't get enough of you.  I want to be connected to you!  I want to be with you all the time!"  
All this time, I thought it was the other way around.  I thought I was pursuing Him.   I thought He had captured my heart.  But no... He's pursuing me!  Really?  He's pursuing me?   WOW!

When my daughter was little, there was this little banter back and forth that we used to have.   I would say, "I love you!" and she would respond, "No, I love you!"  I would return with "No, I love you more!"  and she would say... "No, I love you more!"  After going back and forth several times, we would eventually give up, giggle and say together..."We both love each other." 

I guess that's how it is with God.  We both love each other.
I can't tell anymore who's pursuing who.
All I know is that I love Him!

Maybe this is what...

"Loving the Lord, 
my God with all my 
heart, mind, soul 
and strength"

is all about.  Look!  I'm doing it!

In RED shoes, 
Gail

Day 212

It's Day 212 of  The Red Shoe Project.  I just kicked off my Ruby Reds, took a long hot shower and washed away all the product from my hair, makeup from my face, and sweat off my back.  What a day it was!  Overwhelming to say the least, but a good day, all the same!  Don't you love a hot shower after a day like that?  Sometimes, just going out into the world, and experiencing all it has to offer, can leave me feeling like I have a thick coat of  "YUK" all over me.  Did things attached themselves to me when I wasn't looking?

The toil of life has it's residue:    Doom -- Gloom --  Negativity --  Restlessness --  Deceit --  Lies --  Gossip --  Heaviness --  Doubt --  Trouble --  Stress --  Aches -- and Pains.

Sometimes I just have to shake that stuff off me.  Other times I have to shower it off.  And when none of that works... I have to pray it off, in Jesus' Name!  That does the trick every time!

Today was just the opposite though.  As a Christian, searching for God, outside the comforts of my home, can be overwhelming... in a good way.  How can I explain that?  As you know, I've been seeking more and more the heart of God.  Today, I experienced a couple things in which God decided to reveal His heart to me.  He did that by flooding my heart with His emotions.  That kind of sharing in partnership can be divinely explosive!  Whooosh!  Watch out!  His feelings are not like mine.  They are intensely powerful!  It can leave a girl thinking...

"That's it, I'm done! 

God's gonna kill me right here and now!"  

I won't say,  "Stop! It's too much!"  I refuse to say that!  I'll take all that God wants to share... and if I die, I die.  I want to see what He sees!  I want to feel what He feels!  I want to know His thoughts on things!

It sounds so awesome...  and I guess it is awesome, but it has its challenges.  The picture that pops in my mind is King Kong at the top of the Empire State Building with that beautiful girl in his hand as he swats the airplanes attacking him.  If her grips her too tightly, he'll crush every bone in her body.  Of course, I realize that's just a movie and a human perspective of things.  I know that God is very aware of His strength, not to mention my frailty...  but His power can be somewhat intimidating.

It started at The Bonfire Bible study.  Three women were asked to give a short presentation on "The Intimacy of Christ."  They all had good things to share.  My friend, Zeva, was the last to go.  Instead of speaking, she decided to portray God's intimacy through dance.  First, she humbly shared -- so intimately -- about her personal relationship with God.  Then she concluded with a jewish marriage dance which she performed unto the Lord.  I was so overwhelmed with emotion.  I had to do everything in my strength to not fall to the floor and cry like a baby.  I was awestruck!

"awestruck" =  struck with wonder,  amazed,  at a loss for words, reverential,  terrified,  afraid,  fearful.

What was it I was feeling?  Had God poured His applause for her actions into my heart?  WOW!  Even now, as I reminisce and write it out for you, I am brought to tears.  It was glorious!  Thank You for sharing your thoughts with me, Oh Lord! 

If that weren't amazing enough, I had a meeting with my Giving Circle later in the day.  Today our group was hearing presentations from three non-profit organizations in the community.  We will determine in the upcoming month which of the three will receive the donation that we've been gathering up these last six months.

All three of the presentations were outstanding.  All of them are doing great work in the community.  All three are meeting critically vital needs of people.  How does one choose, which one?  When all the presenters left, and a few of us women still remained, I thought I was about to lose my composure completely.  

I asked the ladies if anyone would like to join me in prayer.  Six or seven of us gathered in a circle and joined hands.  Several of us lifted our voices to God.  We weren't looking for God to specifically decide which one was to be the recipient.  All of them are worthy of it.  My prayer was that God would somehow provide financial gifts to those who don't receive ours.  Another prayer was that God would use us in our community to give abundantly to those making a difference.  Still another prayed that God would show us the bigger picture... how we might impact others to give generously to such causes.  The whole time it felt as if electricity was flowing through my body.  

I wept.

Right there... 

in the middle of this group 

of businesswomen, 

I wept.  

I could feel the tears rolling down my face.  I could hear them  hitting the carpet below me.  Who cares!  I was lost in the grief that filled my heart over the atrocities of man. 

These two meetings today... they had to be two of the most moving moments of my life!  Sensing the love of God and the grief of God, all in one day.  I'm amazed that I'm still alive to tell of it.  All I can say is...

Our God is an Awesome God!

Thank you Jesus for Today.

In RED shoes, 

Gail

Day 211

It's the 211th Day of  The Red Shoe Project.  Adorned in my RED sneakers, I set off on another prayer walk.  I know I'm prayer walking almost every day.  That's just what God is doing right now, so I'm there!

Today I had an interesting conversation with Him.  Seven months into The Red Shoe Project and I'm still seeking answers to some questions I have.  Lately, I feel like I'm being unwound...  kind of like a spool of thread.  I, myself,  have unwound thread from its spool, many times,  but it's always been while I was sewing something.  I think that God is just discarding all my thread.  In fact, as I sit here writing this, He's confirming to me...

 "I am discarding it -- all of it!  

It's binding you up and it's keeping you from experiencing the fullness I have for you."  

Okay... I wasn't quite expecting Him to answer me on the spot like that, but  THANK YOU,  Lord  for clarifying!

(Talk about interactive blogging!)

I just now looked up the definition of "unwind."  Here's what I found:

Unwind - Undo - Unwrap - Unbind

to repeatedly untwist and uncoil something from it's core.

Undo - Untie - Unknot

to take apart.

Unwrap - Uncover  

to bring out in the open.

Unbind - Loosen 

to release what's holding it all together.

 

Wow! It's not all that hard to conceive that LIFE has somehow wrapped itself around me in a way that's so binding that I'm unable to move for God in the way He desires.  But it seems God has a plan.  He's at work... in me!   He's unwinding my life, loosing me of things that I don't even realize are a hinderance to what He wants to do in and through me in the future.  

I'm all for it --  FREEDOM!

Okay... so back to my day.  During my prayer walk, I cut across the desolate land where the garden is.  What can I say?  I wanted to take a picture of it.  As I was leaving,  I sensed the presence of God, so I took a moment to ask Him...

"What's going on?" 

Why all the unwinding?  Am I really still all wrapped up?  

Even after 211 Days?

With that said, He responded in the quietest whisper that penetrated into the depths of my soul...

"I'm doing a DEEP work in you."

After showering and cleaning myself up, I finally sat down at my computer screen.  What kind of deep work?  God doesn't always go into great detail with me.  But I had to wonder, "Is that all you got for me, Lord?"  Oh well, I didn't have time to pursue it any further right now.  I had some research to do.  

Tomorrow's Bonfire is on "Intimacy with Christ."  Three of our ladies will be sharing their thoughts on the subject.  I'll be introducing them so, to prepare my heart,  I thought I'd Google the theme and see what came up.  I could never have anticipated what was about to happen.

Once again... He read my mail!   God answered me before I even asked out loud.  I wasn't on Google but a minute and something caught my eye.  It was an interview between two well known ministers.  Wondering what these two men of the cloth had to say on  "Intimacy with God",  I clicked.  Long story short, they began to describe in detail what I was personally experiencing -- the whole "unwinding"  thing.  Then they began discussing what it meant in detail.  I can't squeeze into this blog all that was said, but I will leave you with this paraphrased golden nugget:

"God gets us alone... strips everything from us... until there's nothing left -- but Him.  It's a deeper experience than anything you could ever imagine.  It takes total surrender... total death to the flesh.  You'll be relying on Him -- not ever day -- but every second of every day.  Ultimately He wants to fill you to the brim with His Holy Spirit...  all the way to the top so that just  ONE MORE DROP of Him will produce an overflow that will reach others on His behalf.  Your ministry is  THE OVERFLOW!"

As I look back on today and all that God has done, I'm  thinking that all this "unwinding" is a good thing,  a great thing!  That doesn't mean it's easy.  It's more of that "dying to self"   stuff.  But at least I have a clue to what He's doing.    

By faith, as I say goodnight to Him,  I'm lifting my arms upward,  in the shape of a cup, and shouting...

"Pour into me, Oh God!"

"Don't stop until I'm 

overflowing!"

Going deeper...

in RED shoes, 

Gail