My Revelation on the Island of Patmos: Part 2 of 5

Can I Trust His Heart?

The pulsating electricity, the fiery burn and the spasms in my face ignited a grave desperation. Exhausted from pain, silently I pleaded with my God of mercy to help.

There was only silence, except for a hint of His Spirit saying, “I love you.” I sensed that Yeshua was weeping with me. Hearing these simple words and seeing Him in this intercessory role brought comfort that calmed and quieted my soul.

As beautiful as it was to see this picture of Yeshua, this was not the revelation on the island of Patmos that I had anticipated or wanted. At this point, I just wanted the pain to end.

Waiting for healing, fighting to believe, and enduring a debilitating disease that made me want to detach my head from my body, this is not the life I wanted.

In the throws of bitter suffering I was faced with a critical decision, “Could I trust God’s heart for me and His leadership over my life?”

God Is Love

In everything God does, He is love. He is holy and blameless in love, and He cannot escape Himself. He was love, is love and will always be love.

Elohim alone defines love and holds the truth to the mysteries of the lengths, the widths, the heights and the depths of love.

On bended knee He invites us into the fellowship of love with the Godhead. Oh the beauty of our God Who alone is good and Whose love endures forever!

Whether this loving God restrains Himself or if He moves in the power of deliverance, of this I am confident: He is love and is much smarter than I.

His brain is bigger. His heart is bigger, and He knows what He is doing.

These simple truths were the foundation stones that saw me through the quagmire of the pain and suffering. These truths kept my heart from growing cold.

When I chose to trust His heart and His leadership over my life a gentle peace washed over me. I embraced the simple truth of Who I already knew Him to be.

God is love.

His unwavering dove’s eyes were on me. Steadily His fiery eyes stayed upon me communicating His affections and giving reassurance that all will be ok.

His eyes peered deeply, searching out the secret places of my heart discovering the words hidden in my heart and how my soul responds in a dire situation.

Bring Me Forth Into Love

God seeks to bring us forth into love by using the greatest amount of pleasure and the least amount of pressure.

He alone knows the perfect balance of pleasure and pressure that is needed to recreate a soul into being a vessel who emulates the very image of her loving God.

Am I saying that those who seem to suffer more are in need of a bit more refining than others? No, of course not. (But with me, that might very well be the case. ;D)

What I can attest to is that God does work all things together for good if we open our heart to Him. (Romans 8:28)

In the face of a martyr refusing to deny Yeshua, in the face of Yeshua Himself, the light of glory shines brightly as the sweet-smelling incense of sacrificial love ascends into the heavens.

These inspirational martyrs and Yeshua’s own sacrifice strengthened me to follow the way of love.

While enduring taxing and grueling pain, there was a distinct expression of unfailing love and trust that my soul slightly tasted as I worshipped the LORD.

This offering of trust and love as strong as death was beautifully glorious in the LORD’s eyes.

Pain is pain. We all experience it. We all are thrown into the raging waters of what to believe of God and how to respond to Him while in agony.

“Love is as strong as death. It’s jealousy unyielding as the grave. Love’s flames are vehement flames of fire, the very flame of Yah. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it.” Song of Songs 8:6-7

My Revelation on the Island of Patmos: Part 1 of 5

The Island of Patmos

Having suffered two years from trigeminal neuralgia and then having a near three years of respite from the pain, it was terrifying to feel the sensations of electricity begin again.

The benefits of the first two brain surgeries began to wane in 2012. I was still recovering from the trauma of the torturous pain and from the two months in a hospital undergoing the surgeries and overcoming the complications.

And now again, with each passing day the pain in my face was substantially increasing.

When the pain first began my stubborn spirit was against having yet another surgery. Because of my resistance to medical treatments, my loved ones and I felt that a change of scenery away from the spiritual and physical intensities of Jerusalem could be helpful.

On the island of Patmos there is a lovely couple who owned a quaint and quite stunning bed and breakfast. Their refuge was on a hill with a picturesque and impressive view of the turquoise Aegean Sea.

This couple have a unique affinity towards Israelis and those whose lives have been consecrated to God. Two Israeli friends, the Burger brothers, yearly escaped to this island home for extended time alone with God. They paved the way for my own arrival.

The apostle John was imprisoned for the gospel on this small island of Patmos. It was here that he had the astounding and in-depth “revelation of Yeshua the Messiah” that is recorded in the book of Revelation,

Though I was crazily afflicted with attacks of pain, my hopes were high that the Transcendent One would heal my body and perhaps visit me with a dream or vision like He gave John.

He did it for John, so why not me?

Finding My First Love

Zealous For Yeshua

When I first came to faith I was 9 years old. Natalie, a childhood friend, shared about Yeshua with my sister Teri, and as a nosey little sister I was all ears.

She described God’s holiness and that our sin separates us from God. She said the punishment of our sin is death and that Yeshua took the punishment for us.

My unembellished response was, “I believe that.” It seemed logical enough.

Natalie told Teri that in order to be saved from the punishment she needed to believe with her heart and confess with her mouth that Yeshua is Lord, stop sinning and be baptised.

“God will then give you mercy to live with Him,” she said.

I thought in my heart, “Ok.” It seemed like an easy enough way to get out of the punishment.

And I liked what I was hearing about God and wanted to be closer to Him.

Moma and Daddy felt the weightiness of such a decision and wanted me to wait until I was older to decide.

The Lord used my strong-willed nature and made my little heart zealous to accept and follow this One Who took my punishment.

A childlike faith erupted in me that made me hang on to what even I as a child knew to be true.

My parents’ decision for me to wait only solidified my beliefs and increased my desire to follow Yeshua.

For a year I stubbornly continued to tell my parents that I want to give my life to God and follow Yeshua. A year of pleading was evidence to them that I was serious and not going to let this go.

April 1, 1984, nine days before my 10th birthday, I was allowed to give my life to Yeshua.

My Heavenly Abba

A month later in May, Moma and Daddy called Teri and me to the kitchen in our country home. They told us that Daddy was moving out and that soon they would be divorcing.

It is impossible to express with the written word the love and emotional bond that Daddy and I have. My little heart was shattered that he would no longer be at home.

I remember sitting on my bed and understanding that God had foresight that Daddy’s move and the divorce were coming.

It was God Who had been pursuing me because He knew my world was about to change. For a year He intentionally set His heart on making me His.

With compassion and tears He drew near to me as a 10 year old little girl who felt a deep sense of loss in her life. That night on my bed God became my heavenly Abba.

Healer of My Broken Heart

After several heartbreaks, broken promises and tragedies, at 21 years old I found myself in a hidden depression.

If you were to ask others from that time in my life, they most likely would not have known. I was succeeding in nursing school, and as a dancer I had been trained to perform.

The show must go on.

As a bulimic youth and college minister, I taught about following God while a war raged on inside of me that I was failing to conquer.

When the doors to my room were closed, tears would automatically begin.

After opening up to Linda, my friend’s mother, she asked me to go with her to a conference.

Sitting in the car in the conference parking lot with my friend Missy I confided in her, “I feel like God is mad at me all the time. I know that bulimia is wrong, but I can’t seem to stop.”

Missy was aware of the tragedies, broken promises and ultimately my broken heart.

She responded with wise words that I yearned to hear and, yet, wrestled to believe, “God is not mad at you. He loves you, and He is going to heal your heart.”

Holy Spirit

The woman leading us in worship appeared as if Yeshua were standing right in front of her. I told Linda, “If I could have that with the Lord, then I know I could live.”

She responded, “‘That’ comes with the baptism of the Spirit.”

To be completely honest, I rolled my eyes inside. The “baptism of the Spirit” was not what I was looking for.

The people who proclaimed they had been “baptised by the Spirit” appeared unquestionably bizarre to me.

I merely wanted the intimacy with Yeshua that I perceived the worship leader was experiencing.

As I walked down the aisle with trepidation, I prayed, “God, protect me from the demons in here. Protect me God. Protect me God.”

People were being prayed for, and they would fall over. It really freaked me out.

Nevertheless, as I gazed upon the worship leader interacting with God, I longed for the discernable intimacy she had with the Lord.

Keeping my head down, I petitioned for God’s mercy as I walked into the space near the stage.

A God in Love

In all the worship services I have ever attended, something out of character and amazing happened.

The worship leader set down her microphone, came off the stage and made a straight line toward me. She introduced herself as Lily, and asked me what I wanted prayer for.

I told her that I wanted the baptism of the Spirit.

As she began to pray, I sensed the same presence of God that I usually felt in worship but only stronger.

The magnitude of God’s Presence literally brought me to my knees and then I was lying on the floor.

I began to weep deeply and bitterly in public nonetheless. At the time I honestly did not care that this side of me that I had kept in the dark was now being observed by others.

The cry was a groan deeper than I had experienced in my room.

I told Lily, “I don’t know why I’m crying.” She reassured me and said that it is the Holy Spirit going deep and that He wanted to heal me.

Someone lifted my hair off of my ear and whispered, “The Lord says that you are the Rose of Sharon and that He wants you to read the Song of Solomon.”

That night on my bed I read the Song of Songs and was in awe. My head swirled and then clarity came.

“So, You are not a God Who just wants me to be good all the time but You are actually a God in love.”