From The Sheep Pen

It’s late Sunday afternoon as I go for a walk.

The April days are already getting longer with light now until almost 8:00. After this winter I am more than ready for a warming sun. But, with the breeze it’s still a little chilly, and since I’m always cold lately I’ve dressed up in scarf, gloves, my old parka.  Ten minutes of brisk walking and I’ve stuffed   hat and scarf into my coat pockets.

A man walks toward me up the road. He’s in shirt sleeves, carrying his jacket over his shoulder nonchalantly. He looks familiar. As we approach one another I recognize him from the food bank. How are you, I ask, adding, What are you doing over here? My words sound pretty nosy and even rude,  but he just grins. He has a beautiful smile. Just visiting some friends, he says. He speaks with a slight stutter I remember. We go on our respective ways past one another.

His name comes to me finally, David. David Something. There have been a lot of Davids over the years at the food bank and a lot of folks whose names I can’t remember. But this one, I do recall. During a really bad time for him, he lived in a tent in the woods, coming out when he needed food and supplies. Usually, he looked disheveled and worn, dirty from being homeless. I’d see him walking around McCall, always with a backpack, the same pack he’d fill with food because he has no car and doesn’t drive. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for months and then he’d show up again, like so many people at the food bank do. Our conversations were always brief and I never knew much about his life.

Seeing him yesterday in my neighborhood made me wonder. He looked good. Perhaps he was doing better and had found a place to live. Maybe he was working and even driving. I couldn’t imagine him walking from McCall to Meadow Creek just to visit friends on a Sunday afternoon. My curiosity about him turned into hope and I finished my walk feeling encouraged.

Later that evening, I remembered something else about David. I remembered that he has come to our church, more than once. Just as he appears and disappears from the food bank, so he’s popped in and out of Mountain Life Church on Sundays. He sits by himself, doesn’t say much   and doesn’t hang around after service. That he comes at all says volumes. David is seeking not only something, but Someone to give him meaning and hope.

This forgotten detail weighs on me now. Yesterday, Pastor Joe had challenged us to invite an unchurched person to Easter Sunday service. I’d been thinking about some friends to invite, you know, women friends who were “safe” and might actually respond. I wasn’t thinking about those whom Jesus holds especially close, the poor and the challenging. Especially not the dirty, homeless ones.

I missed an opportunity yesterday to offer  one of God’s least  much more than a food box. My encounter with David was not by chance. God’s timing never is. The lesson for me is to look past  what is obvious. I pray to  to see with the “eyes of my heart”, with the eyes of Jesus. I pray that He’ll give me a second chance with this young man.

Friede Gabbert

Normally I pop out of bed bright and chipper on Monday mornings. I enjoy the freshness and new beginnings that Monday mornings offer. I can restart after a week of procrastinated projects and broken diet promises. I know that God’s mercies are new every morning….but there is something really liberating for me on Monday mornings. Call me a freak, but I LOVE MONDAYS!

Except today. I lay awake from 4:30 am on, trying hopelessly to get back to sleep. It was a powerful weekend in the Lord. I am still buzzing with the presence of God at our Encounter Retreat and excited about what He is doing in our church. Mental gymnastics all hours of the night….Oh if I could just turn this into prayer…..5:05 am….I vainly imagine that there is still time for more sleep until the 7am drop-dead-have-to-crawl-out-of-bed-and-make-school–lunches-time. 5:40 am…cartwheels, 6:10 am, summersaults, ugh. I only have 50 minutes left. I realize now what I really knew all along. Going back to sleep is a total joke.   Just pray. “Get up” says God.   “It is way too cold” replies my flesh. Wrestle, tumble, the gymnasium of my mind is starting to smell like sweaty bodies. Yuck. 7:20 a.m. I am long past “go” time.

How fast can I feed these kids, pack the lunches and drive to school? God. Yes. I say yes to you at 8:05 when the last kid is dropped off. Will I hang on until then? Will God? Does God ever get impatient? What would He have said to me had I been obedient to his 5:05am wakeup call? I know that God is love and I know that love is patient, so I conclude the answer to my question. God is patient. I suddenly remember the memory verse that 8 year old Isaac prophesied over our class yesterday. The fruits of the Spirit one.   I learn more in Kids’ Church than anyone.

8:05. I love you too, have a wonderful day sweetie. Good bye Remy. Hello God. I come to the realization that for the past 36 hours, the King of the Universe has been waiting for my response to the message I preached not 48 hours prior. Conviction. It only stings for a second. Repentance. Oh, but His unmistakable gentleness. Return you Prod-i- Gal, I am waiting with open arms. Let me help you get freedom from that choke-hold the devil has had you in for the past 37 years.

This deep wounding and the accompanying shame. I have been praying the prayer of Paul (Ephesians 1:17) for revelation of the hope of my calling in Him. What is God inviting me into today? It comes as illumination of an area of my life that I have been too ashamed and broken to explore.   Or maybe, in God’s perfecting timing, He deems me ready to go into a new level of healing with Him. Yes. That’s it.

“It is time sweetie”. The Gentleman of the Universe whispers ever-so-kindly. He beckons me to the prayer room. I respond in sheer obedience because I feel His grace all over this.   Even though I have a mountain of responsibilities looming on this Monday morning, I cannot possibly go to work today. The world can definitely wait. The Spirit of Understanding is guiding me to my day of liberty and there is nothing that will stop me from responding to Him.

I step into the prayer room and can tangibly feel him leading me into the anointing of His presence. So sweet. He is so very gentle and kind (more fruit of the Holy Spirit, thanks for the reminder, Isaac). He bathes me in His beauty, His love and goodness. Squeals of delight from the girls as they come up for air and realize I have skipped work to come and play.   We soak, we worship, and we petition the court of heaven for the brother-to-be.

Monday morning confessions. So very good for the soul.   God’s amazing grace is dispensed by my faithful prayer warrior best friends who listen intently to my baring of the deepest, darkest hidden places of my soul. The terrorist sleeper cell is exposed.   I feel HIM walking me through this with calm and peace and surprising ease. Years of blame and shame and filth, washed by the sacrifice of Jesus’ brokenness. Just like that. Victory. The enemy is defeated. So profound the healing. So simple and beautiful and right. Freedom. God must like Monday mornings too!

Kathy Sawdy

It’s been over a week now, ten days to be exact. I am sleeping at night. I am sleeping long and well, without fear or dread of nightmares. I feel rested and like my normal self   again. The insomnia which has plagued me every night for the last four or five months is gone. And I know exactly when it stopped.

Saturday evening March 15, I left church after Encounter Week End. As I pulled   onto the highway, I felt something inside me as slight as a breath and gone almost immediately. I knew there was a breakthrough for God had healed me of insomnia. Why so certain? I can’t explain it except it was pure grace. As Pastor Joe Wilson says so often it is the Mystery of God. That night I fell asleep almost immediately, slept through and woke up to a beautiful, light filled morning, refreshed in spirit as well as body.

I’ve had trouble sleeping in the past. Worries about children, family, health, finances and life in general disrupted my sleep. During especially difficult times, I didn’t sleep at all some nights and I learned to function o.k. for a day or so without sleeping,

I believed that a lot of the problem was genetic. For years my mother complained about not sleeping . I never paid much mind. How could she sleep? My father snored so loudly next to her he could keep the neighbors awake. My uncle would go out into his gardens to transplant or dig weeds in the middle of the night. My older brother regularly “fought the nightly bed sheets” as he described it. And my maternal grandfather who was a police chief in Europe, cooked up a storm during his night wandering hours. Obviously, my sleep problems were inherited.

Over the years and especially as I’ve gotten older, sleep disruptions became “normal,” if annoying.   There were seasons of sleeping and seasons for not. There was nothing I could do about it, except wait it out.

This time , however, the insomnia was different. I could not fall asleep, no matter how tired I was.   The sleep switch was turned off. As soon as my head hit the pillow, my mind revved into high alert.   I cut out caffeine in the afternoon and drank herbal teas at night, took walks, researched sleep disorders, quit listening to the news, stayed off the computer before bed. I turned the clocks toward the wall so I wouldn’t see the time. I opened winter windows and froze my poor husband. Nothing helped. I read my Bible and prayed. My pastor and church family prayed for me many times. My nightly prayer became desperate: God, please just help me! Exhausted, I’d sometimes doze off during the night, only to startle awake half an hour later. Then ugly, very violent “dreams” began to manifest to torment me even more. I was afraid to go to bed. Sleeping pills were the only way to get some sleep and not have night terrors. In the mornings I felt groggy, drained and angry with God. How could   I serve Him   if I couldn’t sleep? Our Pastor counseled me that there were inexplicable seasons like this, when the only thing to do is to trust God. He wouldn’t abandon me. In my weakness, He is strong. Fine, I thought, peevishly. I’m certainly weak. Now let me sleep.

A key part of Encounter is Forgiveness and choosing to forgive those who have hurt us. On Saturday I wrote down a name on the Forgiveness List, but then God did what God does best. He showed me the truth – I was writing the name out of obligation, not obedience . I saw exactly how resentful I still was. Unforgiveness chained me to the other person. I saw Jesus nailed to the cross for all my transgressions, his Body broken and His blood shed, healing me with every stripe He bore.   What right did I have to reject His forgiving sacrifice? None at all. No harm ever done to me is big enough to negate Christ’s sacrificial Forgiveness. That’s when I gave my foolish resentments to the Lord and repented.

Afterward, two beautiful prayer warriors prayed with me. I left after Encounter very tired. On the way home God’s merciful, loving kindness fell. Rest and sleep were never so sweet as that night.

Sleep disorders have many causes, natural, emotional and spiritual. I don’t know what caused my natural sleep cycles to go haywire, but I know it is not God’s wish that his children go around sleep deprived and exhausted. He does not want me, as an adult, to be afraid of the dark. God created both the day and the night, the waking time and the resting time so human bodies can rejuvenate.

Christ calls us to forgive one another as He forgave us.  My secret unforgiveness put me spiritually at risk and gave the enemy a doorway for lots of mayhem.  Forgiveness  put Jesus  in the doorway and  as I called on Him, the enemy had to flee.   Once again, the Lord who is slow to anger was greatly abounding in love and mercy. He gave me my miracle.

I was looking at genetics, at aging, at stress instead of examining what God’s Word says about sleep. The Scriptures, especially the Psalms, are filled with sleep references.

Here are my favorites: Gifts for Sleep

“I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8).

“On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night” (Psalm 63:6).

I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me” (Psalm 3:5)

“I rise before dawn and cry for help; I have put my hope in your word. My eyes stay open through the watches of the night,  that I may meditate on your promises” (Psalm 119:147-148).

“You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you” (Psalm 91:5-7).)

“He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:3-4)

And a reminder that there is definitely a time to go rest.

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he gives his beloved sleep. (Psalm 127.2)

I do believe that King David and I may have some things in common! Praise God from whom every blessing and  sleep comes.

Friede Gabbert

 This afternoon I went for a walk in the late afternoon sunshine. Although it’s the second day of spring, the weather is still frigid in the mornings,  almost  as cold as in winter but by late afternoon spring seems just around the next curve of the road.

There is something about autumn sun light  in this hemisphere. Its slanting at angles toward the earth   burnishes green tree trunks  like bronze or copper and makes me catch my breath in wonder.  I love autumn’s golden glow on hay cut   fields.   Shades of   brown become my favorite color palette.

But in early spring, like right now,  it’s the air  I notice. Crisp as ice in a lemonade  glass spring air is  fresh, clean, and new.  It refreshes my lungs and my heart with the  promise of new life, new hope, new energy and vitality. If fall displays itself  with a last glorious burst of colored light before the long winter comes, then  spring  is windows thrown wide open  to new, green shoots and taking down the winter shutters.

The distant dark mountains ringing the valley, rise up into the sky, crowned with  fresh white snow. The setting sun reflects on the snow and sets the mountain momentarily on fire until the sun  drops beneath the western  horizon.   Sturdy daffodil shoots appear out where the snow’s already disappeared against the warmth of houses.  The canopy of trees holds on to passing clouds.    No painter can capture such  ephemeral  beauty on canvas.  We writers stand in awe, speechless, struggling to find any new  words, a fresh metaphor  for spring beauty.    How  can I possibly describe  what’s  been  described  hundreds of thousands of times before without sounding trite.

 I see  ice covered ponds  beginning to crack and thaw, shifting the weight of  their waters toward the shoreline where pairs  of geese nest in the marshy reeds.  I can’t see the goslings yet. Perhaps they’re already hidden in the cattails.  Hawks fly in circles above the fields  searching for food so I know small animals have survived the winter.

I hear melting snow water rushing down the hillside, carving furrows  into the dirt.  The running water  creates swirling , circling patterns over the rock filled ditches.   Soon the blackbirds will come and fill the trees with their melodies. Their songs sound like waterfalls high up in the pine trees.  Lime green lichen brightens the north side of the pine trees, clinging to crooked branches while along the roadside, moss the color of Ireland and emeralds    grows beneath the snow.  The afternoon is a pleasurable gift. The more I look, the more I see.  Snow drifts on the ground are peppered with gravel.  A friend I’ve not seen for weeks is back in the area.  Crows scold me loudly for disturbing their roosting. And there’s my neighbor’s happy three -legged dog,   dancing  a jig around my feet.

Suddenly my heart fills up with deep gratitude for God who invited me to “come and see that the Lord is good” on this afternoon walk. Everywhere I look, His  glory abounds . Psalm 19 speaks of God’s glory in matchless poetry :

“The heavens declare the glory of God;

And the firmament shows His handiwork.

Day unto day utters speech,

And night unto night reveals knowledge.

There is no speech nor language

Where their voice is not heard.

Their line has gone out through all the earth,

And their words to the end of the world.”

 Indeed, what I see is His glory  displaying itself   unabashedly  in the  heavens above  and on  this small patch of earth I inhabit.   This mid March  spring display  itself bears  evidence that our God  is a glorious, magnificent Creator.  His character is to create and “say that it is good.”  For all God’s abundance, I am grateful to find His beauty wherever I walk. For all His mercy, I am grateful to live where the spring air is clean, unpolluted  and life giving.  I am grateful that I can take a walk in safety and come home to an unlocked door.  For all  God’s goodness, I am grateful that He was always with me in every situation. One gratitude leads to another gratitude, for family and for friends. For faith and  a loving church  family. For  relationships.  For my friends who drove up from Boise to have lunch with us today.   For her husband’s healing from leukemia and the science which made his difficult treatments possible.

Most of all I thank Jesus  for redeeming me from  my old life and  giving me a life with Him that I neither deserve  nor have to earn.    I am overwhelmed with  God’s loving kindness to me and all my loved ones  through many trials. Heartfelt gratitude   becomes refreshing water  like spring creeks rushing down hillsides.

Gratitude  is a gift unlike any other.  The act of being grateful expands the heart as it opens up to God’s incredible generosity. It reminds one of blessing upon blessing showered by a loving God, even in adversities. God created us to be grateful people and grateful individuals.  For what would kind of persons would we be without it?  I for one would probably walk through the world  without ever look up, focusing on my own footsteps instead of  discovering  surprise after  surprise along the way.  If I   could never acknowledge that  I am  being lavishly blessed, I’ll never know the One who lavishly blesses me.  I’d miss out on an opportunity to go for a late afternoon walk, not by myself as I used to do, but  in Christ’s blessed and blessing company.

Friede Gabbert

From The Sheep Pen.   March 2014