We just completed our first TENT season and I will tell you it was time well spent. The session I took was about intimacy with the L-RD and while it was challenging and emotionally stressful it brought a new understanding of intercession for me. A few years ago KL had some warfare women come teach and lead us through things for our own city. Before the women left they prayed over me, blessing me with an "Esther Anointing". Part of the prophetic aspect of it was that I would minister to women in my kitchen. I did not know what all of this meant and from time to time asked the L-RD about it. I felt it had something to do with being a good mother, teaching women to be strong and successful in their homes.
When my sons left I felt like I had been fired from my job. Going from three children to one seems like a demotion and I continue to struggle with how to adjust to this change. Two months ago a woman who I barely know said she saw Jesus anointing my head for this season. I don't think she had any idea what those words meant to me, but I've been wrestling through this. If I had known four years ago what the Esther anointing meant I wouldn't have been so excited about it. Looking back I can see His preparations for this, though.
The summer I was pregnant with Zeke we did the Beth Moore Esther study. In this dramatic story, after her cousin warns her that if she doesn't do something to help her people then another way will be made (and she will suffer because of her cowardice) she eventually gets to the point where she says, "If I perish, then I perish." There are so many things the L-RD calls us to lay down for His sake, and I thought I trusted (and hoped) enough that I could lay down my children. This has proved so much harder than writing it in a study book.
You see, there's a quote from The Cry that I originally wanted to post about. Then I got off on this tangent, which is how it usually works. It all ties in so powerfully (at least for me). According to Esther 4:16 all of the Jews in the city fasted and prayed for Esther as she requested: "Go, assemble all the Jews to be found in Shushan, and have them fast for me, neither eating nor drinking for three days, night and day; also I and the girls attending me will fast the same way. Then I will go in to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish." She says "if I perish then I perish". But it's not until the whole community enters into this cry that she follows through with it.
I know that because of the prayers of this community and others around us Tom and I have made it through the last 19 months. It is through no strength of our own. I have wanted to bail so many times, to move and start over, as much as possible. And that means moving away from G-D. Some days He is the last person I want to talk to. I feel so weak, so empty, so sad most days that I want to forget about the deeper journey, the eternal purpose. And then I read something like this and realize, it's not just about me: G-D will stir the hearts of His servants to intercede and those who obey will stand before Him and cry out for those who are initially in despair and cannot or refuse to turn to Him (The Cry, 53).
If G-D could turn all the human hearts towards Himself, He would. But that's not love, and that's not obedience. It's because your hearts are turned towards Him that you have stood in the gap for us. I can feel those prayers, sometimes in my spirit, sometimes in the physical. It's a powerful and humbling thing to know that people are willing to spend time on their knees asking G-D to be present in our lives. I shake my head at it; I don't know what to do with it. I hope I get to see the look on His face as He smiles on you for your own selfless love. He stirred your hearts and you've answered and there are no words from my heart that can equate to the thanks I have for that. I have wonderful models of intercession that are pushing me along on my journey. I desire to be as faithful when He stirs my heart.
