A TRULY HAPPY EASTER!

I am unable to write an original post this Easter Sunday so I am sharing a prayer I wrote here a few years back along with a photo taken today:

I pray that each of you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus loved you so much He died so you can have new life.

I pray that you will experience the amazing freedom that comes from resting securely in His love.

I pray that the knowledge that He was passionate enough about you to be broken for you will bring the complete healing that you need in your heart.

I pray that you will fall so in love with Him that all the trials and hurts of this world will pale in comparison to His beauty.

Love to you all and HAPPY EASTER!
Elysa

TRAPPED BY FEAR

One of our neighbors showed up at my house yesterday morning quite upset. She lives alone with her cat. Kitty Baby is her only family here in Jackson. But four days ago, Kitty Baby was chased up a tree by a gang of wild dogs.

Merry and I went with her to look at the cat way up in the top of the tallest tree around. The fear was that the cat was tangled up in vines and couldn't get down, but as Merry and I prayed for the cat, it started moving from branch to branch. It didn't come down, but the movement at least assured his human companion that he was capable of getting down. We stayed for a while and prayed and talked. Someone from down the street heard the crying kitten and came with cat food in a bin and shook it long in hard of hopes that Kitty Baby would come down. He didn't.

Merry and I had to leave and get back to the ministry base, but we assured our neighbor that we would keep praying.

And we did. In fact, this morning, I told my children's church class about Kitty Baby and asked them to pray.

Just a bit ago, our neighbor came back. It is raining quite hard and the wind is blowing but Kitty Baby persists in clinging to his treetop retreat. The cat is like many of us. We run away to escape dangers or hurts, and for a while that place of safety is exactly that, a place of safety. But all too often, we stay in that place much longer than we need to and the very place that was initially a good place for us, becomes a trap. A place that actually is hurting us and even could be hurting the ones who love us. We are afraid of the process involved in getting back to normal. Sometimes the process is hard. It can even be dangerous, but it is absolutely necessary if we are going to live life to its fullest, and not stay isolated and stranded on the top of an old dying tree.

Tonight, I want you to pray for Kitty Baby and the neighbor who is worried sick over her kitten. But I also want you to do something else. I want you to ask yourself if you might be like that kitten. You're trapped in a place of your own making and you desperately need to take the steps necessary to be set free. The journey to freedom can be extremely difficult. You might have to face the demons of your past before you can be free from them. But that freedom is so worth it. You are worth that freedom and the people who love you are worth you being set free.

Just as my neighbor stands and sits and stands hour after hour calling up to Kitty Baby, encouraging him to come down, so our Savior is calling. He is waiting patiently and persistently for you to take those first steps.

But unlike Kitty Baby, who has to take the journey to freedom all on his own, you don't have to. The very Spirit of God is absolutely willing and able to actually give you the ability to take those first steps and God promises to empower you every step of the way. You just have to ask Him.

Kitty Baby is up in that tree howling and yowling. His master is powerless to help him.

Our God is not.

Our God is able to do anything and everything needed to bring you home.

[Jesus] came to Nazareth where he had been reared. As he always did on the Sabbath, he went to the meeting place. When he stood up to read, he was handed the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written, God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free, to announce, “This is God’s year to act! ”He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the assistant, and sat down. Every eye in the place was on him, intent. Then he started in, “You’ve just heard Scripture make history. It came true just now in this place.”

Luke 4:15-17

SET FREE....ONCE AGAIN

Since we moved to our new home at We Will Go ministries, I've never doubted that we're supposed to be here. I've not at all wished we were back in the country and we've been aware of God's provision and presence. For the most part, the kids have adjusted really well to all the changes and have been enjoying life here in the heart of Jackson. We've had some fun times and we've been building new friendships and traditions.

But despite all this, I've still been pretty stressed. I have often feel overwhelmed and little things would just feel like too much.

Last night's Bible Study was one of those things weighing heavily on me.

On one hand, I knew it was an honor to get to share God's truth with the folks there. Many of them would be strong Christians who'd grown up knowing the Lord, but there'd be others who were brand new in the faith or don't even know God at all.

But on the other hand, I just felt totally inadequate and filled with dread. I'd been reading through Galatians, the book that I was assigned to teach out of, and had even listened to a related teaching online by Steve Brown. I'd asked people for prayer and done some praying myself. But over all, I felt like I was never getting any real time to focus on getting deep with my preparation. Life around here is just very, very busy and there was always something else going on and by the end of the days, I'm just wiped out usually.

So yesterday I woke up, and my first thought, before I even get out of the bed, is that I wished it was already bedtime again. I was worn out before I'd even opened my eyes and the day had started.

My friend Karen was due to come back over and help me unpack and organize our school room which was a big relief. We've still got lots and lots of unpacking that needs doing and this is another aspect that had been weighing heavy on me. I'm pretty stinky at organizing stuff and so I just look at the boxes, don't know where to put the stuff, and I feel that suffocating, overwhelming feeling sinking in.

Well, Karen arrived and we ended up not even touching the school room. We chatted, we laughed, Karen cut everyone's hair, and before we knew it, 3:00 had come around and it was time for me and the teenaged boys to head next door for canned goods ministry.

I spent the next two hours hanging out on the Love House porch. I helped give out food, met neighbors and did a lot of talking, introduced one of our ministry friends to Karen who was back at the house hanging out with the kids, and before I knew it, the time had come for me to throw some supper on the table and then head to the clothing ministry that happens just before Bible Study.

Yes, the stress and dread about Bible Study was constantly present in me by this time. I had been asking the Lord about it, but over all, I was still just feeling really not qualified for the task. I mean, after all, I'd not led an adult Bible study in years and years. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd led one. Back in my college and young adult years, I had led them on a pretty regular basis. But now? Now, I was a mom with a lot of kids who felt primarily called to minister to kids. Ask me to teach Vacation Bible School or Children's Church and I am perfectly at ease. But an adult class? Adults expect you to be smart and wise and organized and know stuff. You're supposed to know stuff they don't know and be all deep and everything.

And this group would have the added complexity of being a very diverse group. I'd be teaching a roomful of folks ranging in age from seven up to retirement age. Some would be church people but others might be prostitutes, addicts, alcoholics, transients, whatever.

I'd been attending Bible studies at We Will Go long before we moved here. All of the other teachers just seemed so different from me. I just didn't think I could do it the way they'd done it.

Slowly, I started getting the idea that I didn't have to do it the way they'd done it. I even asked one of the other missionaries, Sean, about how to do a certain aspect and he said I could do it the way I wanted to.

Not knowing the results of yesterday's events, I can only believe that it was God who was speaking to me and directing me because before I really even knew what I was doing, I was calling my kids --- and poor husband --- up to the front of the room and we were dancing and singing an African song and teaching it to the group. Singing and dancing to Siya Hamba (a song about walking in God's light) broke something loose in me. As the study began, I shared my story with the group. Tonight's Bible passage was on the subject that it is God's goodness and our faith in Christ that makes us right with Him, not our following of the law and our goodness. This is so much a part of my testimony. Growing up in church and knowing God from an early age, I'd lived the first twenty-five years of my Christian life being wrapped up in self-righteousness and always seeking to be seen as perfect.

As the study progressed, folks interacted, asked questions, and shared from their hearts. By the time it ended, I'd not only survived the dreaded leading-of-the-Bible-study, but folks seemed to have been ministered to.

Then I threw the kids in the van and we raced out to Swirly Treats where our daughter Betsie works and our church was holding a fund raiser.

Embracing my friends, taking pictures, and just chatting, I sensed that the burden was gone. I felt happy and free. The kids and I did a brisk walk down the long length of the shopping center and back. I enjoyed laughing and running and being loud and singing and taking pictures.

This morning, I woke up and I was fine. My first thought wasn't "oh, I already wish the day was over". I didn't mind getting up. The physical sensation of being burdened was gone.

I knew something had happened. I'd turned a corner spiritually and emotionally and started asking why things were different.

Yes, as the mom, I've had a lot of demands put on me over the last few weeks. Jim's been crazy busy with work. We've hit the road running with ministry activities. The kids still need to be schooled. Money has been incredibly tight, even nearly non-existent. And often, my best laid plans to unpack or work on a project, have gotten interrupted or even made impossible due to unexpected things coming up.

But I've had lots of demands put on me over the years. In fact, there have been harder and more intense times, like when I had four kids five years old and younger.

This time was different. And it wasn't until last night's Bible study was over and I felt the sweetness of freedom that I began to understand part of the root of the stress, a honking big root.

I was once again falling into the people-pleasing trap that I used to live in before I got set free in my early thirties. It wasn't that others were pushing me to that place, I was doing it to myself.

I was looking at me and comparing myself to others in the We Will Go family. For the most part, the way they pray and interact with others is just very different than who I am and the way I pray and interact with folks. And since I am a mom of seven kids, I also don't have the same freedom and flexibility with my time that many of the others do.

So as I looked ahead to leading the Bible study, I was feeling that I had to do it just like I'd seen the others do it and that freaked me out.

But when I led the group in a rousing rendition of Siya Hamba and then just told my story and did the Bible study in a way I was comfortable with, including teaching from The Message version of the Bible, it was okay.

Actually, it was more than okay. It was good. Jim, whom I consider to be one of the very best Bible teachers around, even told me that I did a stellar job --- that the weaving of my personal testimony with the teaching of Galations 3 was a very effective way of covering the subject matter.

See, what God did was get me to minister the way He has created me to minister.

God's the one who has made me this way. He's the one who has called me to absolutely love kids, enjoy silly songs, and be able to make conversation with just about anyone I meet. He's the one whose given me a bouncy personality, an easy-to-please attitude, and a desire to believe the best about most folks. I love God immensely but it is pretty simple most of the time.

I rarely feel deep or complex. He speaks to me through song lyrics, popular movies, and everyday happenings. I still love VeggieTales videos and Donut Man songs.

And that's okay.

Just before we moved here, a group of missionaries from Iris Ministries in Mozambique was visiting We Will Go. One or two of them prayed over us and spoke on this subject where I was related. They said that God wanted to use me at We Will Go just as I was. That I didn't have to be someone else. I just needed to let Him use me and my unique personality, callings, and giftings.

I forgot that.

Somewhere along the way, I started feeling inadequate because I couldn't or didn't do things the way that others were doing things. I was feeling guilty and inferior because I was me and not them.

I know...it sounds ridiculous now that I type it out, but that's the truth.

I am inadequate, but not because I'm different from others, but because we are all inadequate apart from God. If I try to do anything on my own strength, especially things related to minsitry, then I'm going to be a failure. A stressed out failure at that.

But when I rest in who He has created me to be and then allow Him to flow through me, empower me, strengthen me, then I am adequate.

Actually, I'm more than adequate.

I'm awesome.

Awesomely His and awesomely used for His Kingdom in ways that He has prepared for me and my uniqueness.

And that, my friends, is intoxicating.

DAY 11 OF THANKFULNESS:
VETERANS WHO FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM

Today is Veteran's Day. Officially, it is a day to spend honoring those who have fought in the military. Many of those who are veterans joined the military specifically to protect our freedoms as Americans and to bring freedom to those in other nations who were oppressed. In my own family, I have brave men who gave of themselves to ensure that we stayed free as a family, men like my Papa Roy who served during WWII, the Korean War, and the Vietnam war. My husband Jim served as both a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division and was a Green Beret with a National Guard unit.

Roy spent time in a Korean P.O.W. camp because of his willingness to serve his country and fight for the freedom of others in Asia. Others have given their very lives and served their nation, their neighbors, their families thru dying.

The occasion led me to think of freedom fighters of other nature, those who have fought for freedom not as military soldiers, but as fighters in other kinds of wars.

There are the doctors and nurses and researchers who fight daily against death and disease.

There are the pastors and missionaries who fight day in and day out against the darkness and bondage of sin.

There are the teachers who fight in the classroom against ignorance and illiteracy that lead to poverty, crime, and despair.

There are orphan advocates who fight to bring hope and help to the most vulnerable.

There are those who spend their nights hitting the streets and clubs fighting against the bonds of human trafficking and the degrading sex trade.

There are those who pour out their lives fighting for human rights such as those who fought so valiantly in the American Civil Rights Movement of a few decades ago. Crosses were burned in yards. Rocks were thrown through windows. School children were cursed at with screams of hatred. College students had food poured on their heads in cafes. Fathers were fired from their jobs. Mothers stood by the graves of their dead sons and daughters. Children grew up without parents. Hundreds were thrown in prison.

In 1961, large numbers of young protestors rode buses into the segregated south to protest unfair treatment of blacks. Those protestors faced beatings and imprisonment.

In fact, right here in Mississippi, 14 year old Hezekiah Watkins was sent to the state prison, Parchman, for his participation in the Freedom Riders protest.

The first time he was arrested, was a bit of a mistake. But after being released, he went on to be arrested another 100+ times.

For fighting for freedom. For fighting for the right to attend school with white kids, go to the university of his choice, live where he wanted, pursue the career of his dreams.

He wasn't imprisoned because he had set off a bomb or opened fire on a crowd of people. He was imprisoned for peacefully protesting against the atrocious injustices that were part of the American landscape, primarily here in the south.

Today, I am thankful for all those fighting for freedom, and those include young teenagers like Hezekiah Watkins and his fellow Freedom Riders, young and older, black and white, Christian and Jew.

We are free today because of their sacrifices and courage, not they they were free from fear, but because they were willing to do the right thing despite the fears, despite the consequences.

Are we willing to be Freedom Fighters despite the cost?

**************************************************************

For local folks, a special tribute to the Freedom Riders of 1961 will be held tonight in Jackson.

Where? Alamo Theater, Farish Street

When? 7:00 pm

What? This free admission program will feature scenes from a new PBS documentary about the Freedom Riders along with a panel discussion by some of the actual Freedom Riders. Hezekiah Watkins, the youngest of the Riders, will be participating.

For more information, go to: http://downtownjacksonms.blogspot.com/2010/11/freedom-riders-at-alamo-theater.html