desperation. and a cup of coffee.

i am sitting in my kitchen, the sun is shining through the window and i am sipping coffee and making a plan for what i am going to feed grandmother when i get her out of bed( she has new leg braces that i need to figure out how to manuever with the wheel chair...). it's been so long since i was able to enjoy being home like this. the house is quiet and i love these quiet moments with the Lord. i am a desperate woman but this time desperate for all the right things. there is a fire blazing in me, the lion of Judah is rising up inside and ready to roar. it's amazing how the Lord can change a heart, my heart. i am desperate for truth and real love, for family and pure worship, for the Son to illuminate my world. and to do His will.



i am being stirred so intently by Him. yes, intnently. i know that He is intent on having me wholly set on fulfilling His purposes for my life. He is intent on showing me how detailed He is in providing a way for that perfect will. He is intent on showing me His faithfulness and i am blown away.



i am going to be attending Living Light which is a church i began to explore three years ago, like march/april of 2006 maybe. it was there that i learned so much about the Holy Spirit and entering into the fulness of that. and now everything is coming back full circle. i am amazed at how God set this up. if i were to list all the little nuances as to why it is so clear that i am to be there now, three years after all the initial seeds were planted, you might understand why i am certain this is part of His will for my life. but, there are so many i can't possibly write them all on here;)



the Lord loves to prove himself. that's waht i am seeing very clearly. HE is ministering to my inner woman every single day and i feel the fire in my belly again, the all consuming Holy Spirit fire that i forgot could be so sweet. i was so burdened by my curcumstance that when God gave me a way out, i ran towards it knowing that i could be free again. that i could be made whole and alive in Him like never before. i remembered what that was like in the trials but i didn't want to just get back to that point. no, i actually wanted more than what i had before. and i knew that is what God wanted to give me.



the parable of the prodigal son is one of the most gripping stories i have ever read. i read a detailed version of this story that henri Nowen wrote inspired by Rembrandt's painting The Return of the Prodigal Son. the son thought he had lost his inheritance and forfeited everything. he really did but the fathers response changes the whole story. i was kind of feeling, when i was back in ohio, that i had run from God's plan for me, that i had come so close to settling for the wrong everything that i at one point beleived was the right thing.

i felt i had lost my inheritance.

but the Lord has assured me that i did not lose it and what i thought i had lost, He is actually wanting to multiply a hundred fold.

i am so humbled.

i am amazed at how God is healing my heart, binding up my wounds and mending brokeness. it is beautiful. it's funny that i preached a sermon back in november about this very thing, Him binding up our wounds.

everything has a way of coming full circle and connecting in such ways that evoke the deepest praise.

that's all for today!

In the Vine,

bethany belisa

something new.

wow. so much has changed since i last wrote. there is so much new. so much excitement.so much to just trust the Lord in as life moves forward. i have moved back to illinois after moving to ohio. my heart is so full of passion and love i feel like i could explode sometimes.

there is a battle raging and i am not sleeping. i do not fight as one who beats the air. i have eyes to see. i have ears to hear.

new church.

new recording project.

new friends.

new house to live in.

new job.

new everything.

it's amazing.

i feel so blessed that i did not waist my inheretance but that God is faithful and is releasing His abundant blessings in my life.

i want to love. i want to sacrifice. i want to walk out His will for my life and i finally feel like that is happening. yesterday was almost too perfect of a day...just wonderful. :)

i am also very excited about the future. the season i am in now is a foundation bulding one. the foundation for the rest of my life is being laid right now. a place to plant roots and allow them to go down deep has been handed to me and it's all from seeds that were planted three years ago...

things have a way of coming back around full circle. God's timing is indeed perfect and everything is just making sense. i love this season.

in the Vine.

autumn. that's a cool word.

everything seems new and yet familiar these days. i mean, i am 23 and have been doing this seasons changing thing for as long as i have been on this planet in this midwest region of the unuited states...

but there is a newness i have encountered in life this last three weeks where it feels like im a new born baby...like, things are alive and in full color and everything is stiring curiosity and adventure in my spirit. it's cool. i'm in school full time..learning alot day by day, week by week. and my Teacher is the best in all the world.

there is this under lining comfort in the changes that are happening. this knowing that my Daddy has got me exactly where He wants me and everything is going to be alright. my faith is growing. my trust is increasing. my passion is burning in my chest, my passion to know God, His ways and His word and His Spirit that speaks all the time. i want to hear Him. i want to feel Him hovering in between my shoulder blades...the weight of glory to rest on me.

it's beautiful this time of year. there is cold with the promise of warmth, death as a promise of new life. it happens every fall, the warm days turn brisk with biting winds and snow will soon follow, the leaves whither and fall to the ground and the branches are stripped naked. skies turn grey. animals hybernate. the winter coats come out. dormancy. there is this urgency to protect ourselves, our skin from the cold air, our families from the seasons colds, and our hearts from loneliness. we seek the warmth that hearths promise and the flames from a stoked fire can produce not just for our flesh, but for our souls. and the idea behind the fire is that we are with others being warmed together, sharing the bond of our human limits, the same desire that we all share as winter approaches to be warm..to be connected. to be loved.

and we are. we are not alone. there is love all around. there is true caring happening everywhere i look. i am drawn lately to the scenes of young infants nestled closely to their mothers chests, little ones tugging at daddy's jacket to be picked up and carried, couples hand in hand, or the woman leaning in closely to her man as he sheilds her from the wind as they walk. brothers and sisters in church kneeling and praying together, bearing one anothers burdens and going boldly before the throne of grace.

yes, this is what my eyes see. and long to see more of: the hungry being fed, the naked being clothed, the lonely being loved, the sick being healed, the broken and forlorn being mended and accepted. this is the Christ i know. this is the gospel i carry. and this is what i want my life to look like.

i trust the wisest way, i trust the Giver of wisdom. mmm. and it's good. this trust feels like the feeling i get around that hearth, the fire blazing, laughs being shared and warmth between souls exchanged. that's what trust feels like...it's safe.

:)

how's that for an update?

back in school...

yes, school did start an entire month ago today, but i am back in school none the less. the excitement of meeting new people, the smell of new sext books, the nervousness about your indevidual standing with your professors, the mystery that you are to your fellow classmates and that your fellow classmates are to you, it has all begun to fade here in week five. the new people have been met, that new text book smell lost its potancy, the professors and i have developed 'standing' while i have sat respectfully and intently under their instrucion. while i have not missed one class this far along in the school year, i have participated in class discussion with enthusiasm, taken vigorous notes, i have been absent in other ways. it is secular in every sense of the word. a place of the world, where the world goes for instruction and finds out how to further their carrier to keep building into the capatilism that is destroying our nation.

i carry my bible in my purse and also whatever christion book i am reading at the time, to read on breaks in between classes. i need mana every day. i need it in this place where darkness breeds. i know there are others tho, other Christians. i have met some and it's engouraging to find these treasure houses at school. and i know that i carry the Light. i just underestimate the ability of myself to be used to actually pierce the darkness. and then i think about that statement and i have to conclude that in underestimating my ability to pierce the darkness i am underestimating God's ability to live, move and breath in and through me to pierce the darkness. Oh God, help my unbelief! i find myself amazed by this concept, God using earthen vessels to bring the Kingdom. use me, My Love, earthen vessel that i am.

my heart is longing to learn Your ways on a greater level, a deeper level of understanding. not just cognitive understanding but the kind that is full of passion, fire and conviction, the kind that wraps its heated fingers around my heart and massages it's truths into my core that has somehow recently become cold...i want You as my very Teacher, Your Holy Spirit instructing me in conversations and in prayer, in study and work. servitude is developing in me begrudgingly it seems at times...discipline. You are teaching me discipline in ways that make my flesh, which is by definition weak, flair up. so much is being honed and developed. i do not want to resent Your sweet corrections. no, i ask for them.

one month and two days ago i turned 23. it has been a very trying month. my faith is being stretched. my sin is before me. i am humbled. i am becoming desperate, the kind of desperate that causes me to want to give up everything, everything i know and love to have more of You. O let Your fire fall! i have been wondering what my life is for, having a birthday recently and all. and it is interesting that every time i ask this question, the answer is the same: You. my life is for You. knowing this causes peace to settle over my soul like fog settles over the waters. and i know that this last month is worth far more than i can now see in the natural.

so i press on. and desperation to go where You are leading me is ever increasing. thank You for that. i am Your student, i yield to your instruction. all i ask is that You let me have ears to hear!