OH MY SOUL

Here it is Sunday morning and my husband woke me up with breakfast.  So very sweet of him but I stayed up for a couple of hours after he went to bed.   I groggily “smiled” and got up.  (God always has a reason for my needing to get up early.  He has proved it to me again and again.  Even though so out of it in my own mind, I seem to tune into Him much more easily at this time of day.  I have written most of these blog posts in the wee hours of the morning.)

I did not need my husband to open the blinds to know that it was raining outside, I could hear it.  It’s been raining all week almost every day all day and now we are expecting a tropical storm today.  Just truly typical tropical weather for this time of year, but it can get depressing.  I have a friend who it has been affecting extraordinarily so and when we came home from the grocery last night it struck me to send an uplifting song to her so I looked one up and was sharing it with my husband this morning:

As I was looking for it, another song came to mind that helped me in my last dip of depression… this depression spell was a doozy!  It was, though, as if God, Himself was speaking to me. 

That day was one of my worst in some time.  My hands are having major problems right now.  I’d had trigger finger for some time in my right hand, which is debilitating to say the least but I’d had a stroke when I was 40 (now 57) with some effects to my left hand but “FAITH” kept me going like it was nearly normal.  This day I was “seeing” my left hand shaking terribly when I was typing and I had trouble hitting some of the keys.  I’ve been typing for 45+ years and playing piano for even longer. (The stroke slowed me down when I typed 120 words per minute as a Radiological Transcriptionist).  OH, WAS I EVER SHAKEN!  I was mad!  I called my hand doctor for an appointment but the office lady explained over and over to me how my family doctor had to know about my left hand issues before I made the appointment and I went off.  I had a “melt down”.  I even hung up on the lady, which is totally unlike me today yet it was how I would’ve reacted just after the stroke.  I was in tears.  I was more mad than I’d been in I don’t know how long.  BUT I cried out for prayer.  I go to God!  As much of my artwork depicts, “I RUN TO HIM”:

I was still mad.  I sought out doing housework while listening to worship music to get my mind off of it but this did not help, it used my hands!  BUT, “Oh My Soul” started to play and I heard “One more day, He will make a way.” And it caught my attention so I listened more. 

Oh My Soul

Casting Crowns

Oh, my soul
Oh, how you worry
Oh, how you're weary, from fearing you lost control
This was the one thing, you didn't see coming
And no one would blame you, though
If you cried in private
If you tried to hide it away, so no one knows
No one will see, if you stop believing

Oh, my soul
You are not alone
There's a place where fear has to face the God you know
One more day, He will make a way
Let Him show you how, you can lay this down
'Cause you're not alone

Here and now
You can be honest
I won't try to promise that someday it all works out
'Cause this is the valley
And even now, He is breathing on your dry bones
And there will be dancing
There will be beauty where beauty was ash and stone
This much I know

Oh, my soul
You are not alone
There's a place where fear has to face the God you know
One more day, He will make a way
Let Him show you how, you can lay this down

I'm not strong enough, I can't take anymore
(You can lay it down, you can lay it down)
And my shipwrecked faith will never get me to shore
(You can lay it down, you can lay it down)
Can He find me here
Can He keep me from going under

Oh, my soul
You're not alone
There's a place where fear has to face the God you know
One more day, He will make a way
Let Him show you how, you can lay this down
'Cause you're not alone
Oh, my soul, you're not alone

Songwriters: JOHN MARK HALL, BERNIE HERMS

My heart melted once again.  He knows me so well.  Music speaks to me.  He speaks to me so often through music.  And here it is a good 2 months later and it is in His hands still!

May God bless you through my writing. If He has especially touched you in any way, please leave a comment below. Your comments are so very encouraging to me to help me to keep writing. Also, click on the “Uptweet” button on the above right and share! I pray you will keep coming back. I fully believe that my writing is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so if I am writing, there is someone that needs to read it! Maybe it’s you? Also, please be sure to share any questions you might have with me and if you would like to keep them personal (just between you and me) please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at juliana.pace@gmail.com. If I don’t know how to answer you, I will may every attempt to refer you to someone for more information. Thanks and may God bless all your days! 

Intercession + My Weakness

I have been praying for years.  My mother taught me how to pray when I had nightmares as a child of just 3 or 4 years old.  Although I did feel somewhat adequate in my own prayer life where no one else heard me but God, I still feel quite inadequate praying in front of others.  In an emergency if someone asked me to pray, I would drop all of my fears and pray.  Yet by my early 50’s I still felt quite skiddish about praying out loud around anyone else.

While living in Palmetto, FL, a BFF was living at Christian Retreat (Christian Retreat.org) and I attended some conferences there at the Family Church.    

At one Billy Burke conference (billy Burke.org) a lady asked for prayers for herself as an intercessor.   Billy told others who thought they were intercessors to claim the prayer that he was about to say for themselves.  I had not yet seen myself as such but prayed, asking the Lord if I should claim this prayer and I believe he told me to claim it.  All of us who claimed this prayer for ourselves outstretched our arms towards him.  As I held my arm out, it was though I could even see a lightning bolt come from Billy, up through my outstretched arm to me and I hit the floor.  “Obedience”.  This has happened to me more than once when I followed what I thought the Lord was telling me to do.  Powerful prayer and I was still on “cloud 9” regarding it when I got home.  I can still “see myself” standing in front of the mirror talking to God.  I was telling Him how weak I felt regarding prayer and He said to me “that’s when I am strong.”  

*2 Corinthians 12:10 “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 

May God bless you through my writing. If He has especially touched you in any way, please leave a comment below. Your comments are so very encouraging to me to help me to keep writing. Also, click on the “Uptweet” button on the above right and share! I pray you will keep coming back. I fully believe that my writing is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so if I am writing, there is someone that needs to read it! Maybe it’s you? Also, please be sure to share any questions you might have with me and if you would like to keep them personal (just between you and me) please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at juliana.pace@gmail.com. If I don’t know how to answer you, I will may every attempt to refer you to someone for more information. Thanks and may God bless all your days! 

Don’t Put it Past Him

I’ve wanted to share about this for some time but never think about it when I can.  This is how I learned to never put anything past God.  In other words, don’t ever say that He won’t do something.  In early 1989, when I was in prison so not long since I’d rededicated my life to the Lord -  I was sitting and talking with a friend and told her that I knew that He’d never use me to speak in front of people because I wasn’t a public speaker.  Right?  I know it wasn’t 2 months!  

I still remember that Tuesday night Bible study that some ladies put on from the outside.  It was one of my favorites and I attended for months.  We’d sing a bunch of more familiar hymns then one of the ladies would give a lesson yet never was anyone from the inside asked to speak until I said that God wouldn’t have me do it.  I was asked to give my testimony with only a few days to prepare.  I wanted this to be totally Him anyway so it did not require much.  On the night of my speaking I went into the little half bath that was adjacent to our Bible study room and got on my knees.  I asked Him to speak through me. I remember feeling very nervous and like I rattled on but it was well received.  After the meeting we went back to our rooms to be counted.  I rarely came out of my room after this but my bestie at the time asked me to come out.  We sat in the “day room” and shared.  As she read these scriptures, telling me that I had spoken on all of it as she listened at the Bible study that night, I bawled.  Isaiah is 61:1-3:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

I was in awe.  I went on to being interviewed on the telephone on TV at a local to home Christian TV station.  I was on TV just a week after I was released.  At that time I gave several testimonies to youth groups and was on TV another couple of times.  If you check out the archives, I've also given my testimony twice at Celebrate Recovery in more recent years.  Only God knows what is next.

Recently I have been attending an online Bible Journaling conference called “Flourish: where faith and creativity meet”.  It consists of several online videos every other day.  On one of the days a lady spoke much about the sketching process and she walked us through a project of a faceless self-portrait (any woman) with words that we felt gave us an identity.  I was not even going to do it at first but as I thought about it, these scriptures came to mind.  So, I did a quick draw even though my hands are the worst right now at drawing and even signing my own name.  Typing works a bit better since I don’t have to bend my fingers much.  It’s easier to just share the finished product.

 I found that I also loved working with my new watercolors and contemplated doing more.  I have also still had the idea of doing more hand lettering going through my mind.  I believe God showed me that this newest self-portrait was wrong.  I was supposed to letter these entire 3 verses with a self-portrait.  And so I began.  I was also inspired to label the self-portrait.  I need to remember that lines are a good idea.  But not bad for a first attempt.

May God bless you through my writing. If He has especially touched you in any way, please leave a comment below. Your comments are so very encouraging to me to help me to keep writing. Also, click on the “Uptweet” button on the above right and share! I pray you will keep coming back. I fully believe that my writing is by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit so if I am writing, there is someone that needs to read it! Maybe it’s you? Also, please be sure to share any questions you might have with me and if you would like to keep them personal (just between you and me) please don’t hesitate to e-mail me at juliana.pace@gmail.com. If I don’t know how to answer you, I will may every attempt to refer you to someone for more information. Thanks and may God bless all your days!