Night Unto Night

Though weeping may last for the night… September 5, 2008

I had “Home Group” tonight with my worship band.  Sitting in Sada’s(my worship leaders) home, we sit and talk about our week, how our prayer time is, how our support raising is going(everyone in the house of prayer, which is about 1300 of us, live on support), and pressures and praises and a few other things.  We, about 11 of us, choose our spot to sit and have coffee talk for about 2ish hours before our next worship set which is around 2am.  I sit and listen to them speak of their testings and trials.  Sometimes there are tears, sometimes unending laughter.  We sit and try to avoid the social drama from the previous nights awkward debrief due to someones sarcasm for a couple hours and enjoy the company of although new, seems to be, old friends.  I drink my cup-a-jo, “chocolate milk”, and soak it all in.  I feel so much peace.  The past few years have been the hardest years of my life and that’s saying a lot cuz growin up was nothing short of a rare challenge combined with some train wrecks(yes, multiple).  Finally I’m here, and frankly, never thought I would be.  Thanks to a small band of faithful intercessors back home who believed in me, (you are a bright and burning lamp in a broken world, thank you for loving me like you have) and believing parents, I’m here.  I feel the peace of God resting in my heart.  I feel like I’m home.  It’s not home, but it is.  I feel totally at rest with this new fork in the road and know exactly which way I want to turn. Don’t get me wrong.  It’s not easy leaving “home” behind.  It kinda just makes me realize all the more how much all my family and friends mean to me and how much I love them.  I think of so many good memories, holidays, vacations.  I will miss them. Not to be lost forever though:)!  It’s not an easy transition at all, but somehow I have complete peace about it.  A joy and hope is bubbling within me that I haven’t felt in a long time.  My time at the house of prayer has been so needed.  I have been in such a broken place for the past couple of years.  Not understanding the Lord in His movement in my life.  He doesn’t explain everything, ya know?  Sometimes the gentle nudge of the Lord, if resisted, can become a wound.  Granted, wounds from a friend can be trusted…but a wound none the less.  I didn’t see what He was preparing for me.  I couldn’t see through the pain.   So, I thought I was coming for a 3 month, possible 6 month, internship to get “charged back up” and then give “life” a running start all over again.  But instead I have found that He has a different calling for me, an Intercessor!!!  As if I jogged to the top of some monumental hill and then was given a skateboard ride down, here I am.  In this modern day monastery of worshipers and lovers of God.  Ones who literally give there lives to communion with the God of all creation day in and out.  I know it sounds so glam doesn’t it(not really!)?  It’s a difficult day to day walk that does one thing consistently…show me whats wrong and then shows me what to do about it…pray.  Try it sometime(I know you all do, it’s no easier here than it is back home, although it does provide a much needed context that is no where else that I’ve been).  And so I will begin to live the life of a missionary, right here in the USA…for the USA.  An Intercessory Missionary.  Who thought Doug Lipe would “waste” his life on prayer?  I never did!!!  I would have it no other way!  And so it is proven true, once more, though weeping may last for a night, joy comes in the morning.