This is the Rise...

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

This weekend was our annual women's conference at church; it's always the weekend after Labor Day but this year, being as how Labor Day was Sept. 1, it just feels like it came REALLY EARLY.

Like, I wasn't ready.  I'm still stuck somewhere in June, I think.

And this year was different. We partnered with Krista Smith and her B.I.G. Ladies' Club ministry for a conference titled 'This is the Rise'... and we were challenged to 'rise up' like Deborah.  

It inspired me, a bit, to think about Deborah.  We kinda get the idea that Deborah appeared under the palm tree and began dispensing wisdom to Israel, and shortly called Barak to go after Sisera and defeat him...mostly because that story happens completely in Judges 4, and she sings about it in Judges 5.  But, here's what hit me over the weekend....

The Israelites had been oppressed by the Canaanite king Jabin, and his captain Sisera for 20 years when they cried out to God for help (Judges 4:3).  My first reaction was... why did they endure it for 20 years before they asked for help? ...but that's not really part of the story.

Except that we read that Deborah was leading Israel at that time, and she 'held court' under the 'Palm of Deborah' (Judges 4:4).

Here's the thing...we don't know how long Deborah had been meeting folks under that palm tree.  In fact, what I heard in my spirit when I was thinking about it was, "It wasn't known as 'the Palm of Deborah' when she first went there."

When did Deborah 'rise up'? (Judges 5:7)  At what point in those 20 years did she first sit under a palm tree?

I may actually write a story about it sometime...but my thought processes took me to a young lady who was desperate to get some time with her God, and who, at some point, took a short walk away from the everyday setting and sat down under a random  palm tree and poured her heart out to God and was refreshed.  So maybe the next day, or maybe three or four days later, she went back.  And went back again.  And, eventually, this became her regular practice.  

She was regularly communing with God.

Eventually, folks noticed this.  And maybe, one day, one of her neighbors timidly interrupted Deborah's seeking time to ask her to pray for her.  And Deborah did...and got an answer for her.

Which was an accurate word for her situation and told the neighbor that God saw her and heard her.  She told another neighbor, who also came to Deborah with a problem, and who also got a word from God...and...word spread, and eventually the palm tree was designated as Deborah's and people were coming regularly; tribal leaders consulted with her.

She was leading Israel.

This whole process probably took years.  YEARS.  She was likely a grandmother by this time.

But when the people cried out for help, Deborah was positioned to hear from God and give instruction to defeat the enemy.  She didn't just pop up in charge of things; it was a culmination of small moments of obedience over a Very Long Time.

This was  my take away from the weekend; I must become more consistent with those small moments.    True confession: I have been coasting for some time.  I repent.  I need to just go to the palm tree... and keep going.

Beginner artwork inspired by Deborah's sojourns under the palm tree....

A Little Exercise in Creativity...

 posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

We are having once-a-month ladies' leadership meetings to prepare for the 2023 Women's conference; we are going through the book It's Not Supposed to Be This Way by Lysa Terkeurst, and in chapter 5, Lysa writes about her mother taking her to painting events to do some therapeutic painting on a canvas.

Lysa protests that she is not a painter, but no matter to her mom.  They took the painting classes.

So tonight in our meeting, canvases and paint were distributed and...we painted.

I will honestly say that my best artistic medium is not visual arts, lol.  And we only had about 40 minutes to paint, after the devo.

That ain't much time...specially if you want to layer paint.  Can't wait for it to completely dry between layers.

Most of the ladies painted flowers or trees or butterflies or sea/landscapes.

I am not most ladies, lol.

I can point out about 20 different things in that which could have been done better.  But I felt like I expressed the thought I had and that, my friends, is what it's about.  Not perfection. As a non-painter, I am kinda surprised it turned out at all.

Eight years ago I wrote a song taken from Ezekiel 37...which periodically gets stuck in my head.  It's kinda been there for a bit now.  Probably why that painting came to be.

Oh- Oh- Oh

Can these dry bones live? Can these dry bones live?

It's such a dismal sight; bones all bleached and white

But the question comes to light...can they live?

Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know....

We prophesy to the dry bones, we prophesy to the dry bones, 

We prophesy, we prophesy - 'Live!  In Jesus' Name!

Live! In Jesus' Name!  Live! In Jesus' Name!'

Oh - Oh- Oh

Can these dead dreams breathe?  Can these dead dreams breathe?

The spark has long gone cold, they're all stale and old

We have not been told - can they breathe?

Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know...

We prophesy to the dead dreams, We prophesy to the dead dreams, 

We prophesy, we prophesy - 'Breathe! In Jesus' Name!

Breathe!  In Jesus' Name!  Breathe! In Jesus' Name!"

Oh - Oh- Oh

Can this mute hope sing?  Can this mute hope sing?

Its voice has long been gone, shutters closed and drawn,

Forgotten every song -- can it sing?

Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord, you know....

We prophesy to the mute hope, We prophesy to the mute hope

We prophesy, We prophesy - 'Sing!  In Jesus' Name!

Sing! In Jesus' Name!  Sing! In Jesus' Name!

Oh- Oh- Oh

We will live, we will breathe, we will hope in you, 

With your life, your breath, your song!

We will live we will breathe we will hope in you, 

With your life,  your breath, your song!

Oh- Oh-Oh

 

Conference Approaches...Kingdom Sisterhood 2019

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The first major women's conference our church held was in the fall of 2001. That also happened to be the final nudge that convinced My Sweet Babboo and me that this was to be our family's next place of service.We'd been in our previous church for 20 years; moving to a new congregation was...a process.

Our church has had a major women's conference every year since, with the exception of 2005, when we took all the funds designated to host the conference and put it towards hurricane relief to help those who had lost everything to Katrina.  In 2008 we had a shift in the women's ministry; the conference that year was called SHE Revolution (SHE = 'Seeking His Embrace')...which led to the women's ministry coming under a new vision and a new moniker...She Revolution.  Over the years, it's kind of morphed into 'She Women's ministries'.

A key piece to the puzzle was the 2013 (I think?) Color Sisterhood conference in Sydney, Australia.  Somewhere around 30 women from our church went...including a number of our lady pastors (pastoring is a couple's calling here; husbands and wives serve together.  Same for deacons and elders.  Not getting into the background of it, just explaining the culture so the terms make sense.).  That conference heavily influenced the direction our women's ministry took in the years following.

This year's conference, then, is probably a direct result of the seeds sown in 2013.  It's titled 'Kingdom Sisterhood' and at our first leadership prayer time leading up to the conference we were all given an assignment:  to read Bobbie Houston's book on sisterhood.

So I ordered it from Amazon and it arrived over the weekend.

I started reading immediately; there really isn't much time between now and the conference (Sept 6 - 7) so I thought I should get on it.

But I have a confession to make.

I can hardly say 'Kingdom Sisterhood' without getting a lump in my throat and a heavy sting in my eyelids.  See, I do not have a good history with this 'sisterhood' thing.  It grieves me that I am not good at it, but there it is.

You folks who have been reading the blog for a long time will know this; I talk about it from time to time....that self-protection wall I have that keeps relationships safe. And by safe...I mean, hopefully,  so that my bull-in-the-china-shop tendencies will not overstep those boundaries and I won't hurt someone's feelings without realizing I've done it.  I do not always succeed.  There have been conferences in which I have sat in the back, well away from others, and cried myself into a state of complete sinus shutdown. Because of this whole I'm-not-good-at-sisterhood thing.  Oh, there were specifics to each time that reflected current events but at the core of it...was that.  My ability to offend people without even trying, to so completely fail to explain something  that I left folks with the sure knowledge that I thought something/felt something/expected something that had nothing whatever to do with my actual thoughts, feelings or expectations.

My friends, this is ridiculous.  And it has to stop.  I have to get it.  This is the thing I wanted to leave in Israel...that social awkwardness that has plagued me since elementary school.  I didn't know it would rise up and slap me in the face quite so quickly or emotionally, but here I am.

So you know, this is sort of an accountability thing here.  I have GOT to get over this blocking hill.  I have to figure out how to deal with my inevitable faux pas in a healthier way.  I am surely not the only person who does this sort of thing...but pulling back and retreating and...sitting in the dark back seats alone...is not the way handle it.

Sort of like swimming...someone who knows how to swim won't be afraid of water.  Someone who knows how to deal with conflict and miscommunication won't be afraid of close relationships.

It's time to stomp that down...and let it stay stomped down.

And experience Kingdom Sisterhood.

..In the Midst of the Mess, Part 2

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Ok, I admit it.  Last night...I was ready to throw in the towel.  I mean, really throw in the towel.  I had decided that I was incapable of doing...well, what I was doing...and perhaps if I stepped down someone who had better people skills than me could take over.  And do a better job of pulling opposites together.  At least without inadvertently running roughshod over folks who were legitimately doing their best under circumstances I was clueless about.

I was ready to bail out,  run for cover, shut myself up at home because I didn't think I could EVER get this thing right.

But this morning...

Our first speaker was a lady I hadn't heard before, Amie Dockery.  I had no idea what she was going to talk about and, to be honest, I was expecting it to be good but not, you know, specifically applicable to my situation.

O mi goodness.

I do not know when I have EVER sat in a service in which the speaker described, right down to the words floating around in my brain in the last 18 hours, exactly what was going on in my life.

Now, there are a bazillion topics that she could have talked about in a women's meeting.  But she chose to talk about the lures the enemy uses to pull us away from God's purposes.  And these weren't the same ol' same ol' things normally heard.  No, she dug into the temptation of Jesus in a way I had never heard before.  I mean, I thought I knew what she was going to say...and she said nothing like I thought she was going to say.  She talked about three specific lures.

Not gonna go into her descriptions, but  all three lures had been cast at me since the sun went down last night.  And I was perilously close to falling for them.

That doesn't mean that I'm not a socially awkward person who routinely puts her foot in her mouth.  But what it does mean is that that is not a disqualification from service. I'm not allowed to quit just because I am flawed.

Ultimately, those flaws simply mean that I have to lean harder into God and my relationship with Him.

That's actually why they are there.

I told you.  Every year it happens this way...first breaking, then restoration and refreshing.  I should quit being surprised by it.

A not-Bible-Study-post in the midst of my mess

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I didn't get the Joshua post up today; it's Conference Weekend.

The weekend after Labor Day, in which we switch over the church to all things feminine and host a weekend for women.  It's always powerful, always stretching, always needed. What usually happens at the conference is a breaking and a restoring. The Spirit puts a finger on what's ugly, what's inhibiting growth, what's got. to. go.  And by the end of the weekend, the Spirit has also washed away the broken bits of the ugly and given a fresh perspective and purpose to take its place.

Now, as a staff person, I get a whole nuther aspect on the weekend.

And sometimes, the thing that unmakes me really has nothing to do with the service or the speaker.

Sometimes, in the logistics and the planning, I get my lessons.

Tonight was one of those times.

A friend held up a picture of how my attempts to help...to fix...to catch things...looks to other folks.

It wasn't a pretty picture.

Sort of like the picture above; my old attempt to re-liquify honey that had crystallized.  Only I made a mess instead.

The speaker was good, but I sat in my spot and processed the picture I'd seen.  It was a rough go, I'll be honest.

And that's one thing that I don't know how to fix. 

 So I'm looking for the second half...the restoration, the encouragement...tomorrow. I honestly don't know how God can redeem this mess...but I do know that He can.

I am really ready to stop being the bull in the china shop.  Just bein' real. 

So I'm putting a demand on the anointing for part two.  The redemption and refreshing. 

I'm ready.

Selfie anyone?

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I'm trying to learn about successful blogging from the blogs I read.

Only, I don't really read successful blogs.  I read blogs that stir a sense of connection between me and the author.

I don't read blogs for edification, I guess.  I read blogs because  I  don't get to go have coffee with friends often.

And that statement just hit me...in my mom's generation, friends went to each other's homes to have coffee.  Now they go to Starbucks.  But that's a digression.

Anyway, I often find myself skimming by posts that describe events people attended. And if that's the case...there's not much point into going into details about this year's women's conference.  At least, not from the standpoint of providing information for my readers.  So I'll skip the details of an absolutely amazing conference and cut to my take home message.

There was a big difference in my conference experience last year and my conference experience this year.  If I had any doubts about the growth and healing that has taken place in the past twelve months, all I have to do is look at the mess I was in virtually every session last year.   Last year I was dealing with a wound that was still raw.  This year,  I found myself contemplating other areas in which I need to grow and mature and open up.

Several areas were addressed, but the one that resonated in me as MY take away had to do with isolation.

And I know it is my take away because it surfaced last weekend; it was already on my heart before the Friday night speakers spoke to it and prayed over it.

Last week, we did a video shoot in the mountains in Tennessee for background video for our conference closer.  There were about 80 of us that rode vans and carpooled and such up to a wedding venue on a really back road.  We all got various stripey designs on our faces; I took a rather  bad selfie of myself with the paint on:

This is supposed to be a 'Not on my watch!' face;  I cropped the photo really tight because otherwise it looked kinda lame.  In the background were other ladies taking selfies as well.

But...here's the deal...I'm in my selfie by myself.  All around me, ladies were taking photos of themselves with their friends, sharing the experience.

I'm in my selfie by myself.

Part of this is a technical difficulty;  I don't have a smartphone so I have to use my tablet, which is two-handed awkward and, at best, takes rather grainy photos.  So it would have taken some effort for me to grab someone and take a photo and I just couldn't muster the oomph to mess with the tablet enough to get a picture. And I was reluctant to try to explain my camera to someone so I could get a photo of me with anybody.

But part of it is also that I am not selfie-close-buddies with anyone.  I rode in the van, and I made new friends whom I enjoyed talking with very much, but they were part of the groups of other folks.

I actually looked around at the other ladies laughing and taking photos, and found myself wishing I was 'selfie-close' friends with someone.

Now, I knew nearly all of them at some level.  And we are smile-and-greet-and-hug compatible.  But I have somehow not gotten past that.

I have written about this before, my seeming inability to let my walls down enough to be close and vulnerable and mutually supportive with others.  I did not have this issue when I was younger; it's definitely a product of aging.  And it rests entirely on me.

Somehow, I have gotten so busy and so consumed with all that is to be done on so many areas that I've totally forgotten how to be a friend.

One of the speakers reminded us that we had to be intentional to leave space in our lives for other people.

Yes.

For me, this was my assignment as I left.

Make space.

Be intentional.

Embrace friendship again.

A friend of mine got this on her camera; it's not a produced video so the technical quality detracts considerably from the experience of being in the sanctuary, but you can get an idea of the closer and how the video footage worked with the live presentation to send everyone out:

The Well of the One Who Sees Me

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I did not intend to write any more posts with the label 'Transition 2014'.  I declared myself Done.

But.

If you write a blog with the title 'Beer Lahai Roi', whenever you are in a service in which the speakers talk about Hagar, you tend to prick up your ears.

Our quarterly women's gathering was this month...focusing on opportunities for service within the women's ministry  department.

But our senior co-pastor and both campus co-pastors spoke first, speaking of Hagar, who first ran away and then was sent away.  Who had an encounter with God Himself, who spoke into her and into her future.

Suddenly, in the midst of the meeting, I identified fiercely with Hagar.

I tried to run away, early on, and was told to go back.

In the end, though,  I was sent away.

I thought I was over being wrecked but...I guess not.

I've had some conversations with God over that night, let me tell you.

And I have seen some things.

Firstly, what I saw was that Ishmael held the place until the promise came.  He was evidence that God was working a miracle, even though he wasn't the miracle himself.  What made Ishmael bitter was Hagar's attitude.  Jealousy, disrespect for the authority over her, a victim mentality...who knows what was percolating in her spirit.

God keep me from Hagar's error.

Then I saw that Ishmael was not a product of Hagar's rebellion.  He was a product of her submission and obedience, even if it came with a bit of opportunism.  Our society looks very differently at the whole process, but in that day and that culture one of the highest achievements a woman could attain was to bear a son.

Hagar had a son.  She had a promise and a future.  She had hope.

All of those things were represented by a son.

But Ishmael was more his mother's son than his father's son.  None of his actions reflected the character of his father.  The wounds in his mother influenced him.

God, teach me to heal my wounds rather than propagate them.

What would Ishmael's place have been if his mother had encouraged him to grow into his father's character?  How would he have treated his younger brother, the true heir?  How would history have played out if the older brother had seen himself as the protector and guardian of the younger instead of the rival? 

Hagar had two supernatural encounters in her life, but she failed to apply the lessons of them to her spirit.

God, do not let me only superficially respond to Your Spirit.  Let Your words and Your instruction change who I am and how I react. Let me always use any influence I have to encourage others to develop the character of their Father.


There is a part two for this, dealing with lies  of the enemy.  Stay tuned.