Chop, chop!

The road trip went so well. I am almost beyond words, almost. One of the places we went to was a church in south Georgia. I wasn't sure what my part was there. I was part of a ministry team, but hadn't gotten an exact definition of what the leader wanted to happen, because he was being open to whatever God wanted to do. So I told God I was open too. Whatever He wanted me to do, if He let me know, I would do it. The thing was...I didn't WANT to do anything. I thought about how I didn't have any desire to minister to anyone as we were driving the long hours to the church. I thought about how selfish I've been lately, even mean. There was no way I was going to be able to reach out and pray for people without feeling like I had a disease.

At the same time, I still felt the reassurance that I have blogged about. It is OKAY for me to be feeling this way and being who I am. But I also knew that I really have wanted to pray for people in the past. So what was the deal?

At the church that evening, our team was going to lead worship, so they started rehearsing. I started dancing a tiny bit in front of the stage, moving back and forth, asking God to let us know what to do. There was a lot of freedom in the building, so I thought I would dance during the worship.

I did dance, and it felt comfortable. I started feeling excited to be here with all of these people who I didn't know. I was excited to see them excited, because a lot of them were. Then, I suddenly became overwhelmed with gratitude for everything that Jesus has ever done for me. I turned to face the congregation and started weeping, and then screaming. Before I could stop myself, my body started leaping in the air, spinning, twirling, flying through the air. I lost control, and felt like I had no other choice but to move rapidly around the room, yelling at people "God loves YOU! He did it for YOU!"

So I knew that some of them thought I had lost it, and they were right. I had lost any care of what they thought of me. The others though, the others started throwing their hands in the air, and then some even came up front with me, and we all jumped and danced together! It felt like we were suddenly at a party.

I ended up having a vision on the trip. It was one of my first in a while. Jesus and I were standing in front of our tree, the one we lean against as we have coffee time. I hadn't been here in a while, and was glad to see familiar surroundings. But then I looked at the tree. It had been chopped down. "YOU CHOPPED DOWN OUR TREE!"
Jesus said, "Look again, Jenny."
I looked. The thick stump still in the ground.
"You are still rooted and grounded in Me."
My eyes widened as I realized that the tree had represented myself the whole time. I had not known that. I then shook my head as I realized further that I was going through a season of pruning (John 15). I had wondered why I couldn't get myself to do anything spiritual lately. Well, now I knew why. Jesus had chopped down not one branch, not two, but every single one. The whole tree was down, and now all I had were my roots. There was no fruit that I could see in my life because no branches were there to produce it. Everything made sense.
I turned back to Jesus. "No wonder I see you here so much!"
"Just settle in, just settle into it, Jenny. You will grow soon."

When I thought of how selfish I had been being, and how I just couldn't make myself change so I could love everyone, Jesus looked into my eyes with enough force to make me know that He meant every word He was about to say, and He wanted to make sure I knew. "Jenny, I know you are hard."
Whoa. Ouch. But relief flooded me with this statement.
"I know that you are hard, but I want to soften you, and I don't want it to be hard, and it is not going to hurt you."
I still thought of all the songs that I had written, telling Jesus how I was tired of trying so hard, and wanted to just be selfish. I hated knowing that I had said those things, but I didn't know how to stop it.
Jesus said, "No! I want you to be selfish and mean, because I need to see that part of you. I need to see all of you so that I can soften those things. I'm going to smooth the edges."

We talked for a while longer, and Jesus told me how He wanted to change me so that it was my nature to love! I couldn't change myself, no matter how hard I tried. So now He was going to do it for me.

It's a wonderful thing, knowing that Jesus understands us more than we do, and knows exactly what we need. He will give it to us if we let Him.