This is a poem I wrote for an article for Abolition Now, about the power of prayer for freedom. They decided to wait on the article part and only published the poem for now…
Freedom’s Door
I hear your voice call out to Me
Most times it is My symphony
Most times it is all that I need
To move, to act, to pour.
Believe, I fashioned you this way
Let’s talk and laugh throughout the day
I’ve placed them in your path for you
To move, to act, to pour.
So move again, and you will see
My Spirit in community
Each act of faith, a rugged key
To open freedom’s door.
Dash the mountain with My Word
After Break Free tonight, talking and praying with my awesome friend and prayer-sister Samantha about sex trafficking, I had to stop by Freddies on my way home. I figured I might possibly run into David from about a week ago (https://chelan.me/2015/02/21/david-from-freddies/), but wasn’t sure. What made me wonder, is that I’d picked a random sermon to listen to on my way home from some church called Victory, in my Podcasts. I’d never listened to one from there before. This guest speaker was preaching all about King David. She was specifically using him as a prime example for us to embrace repentance along with forgiveness.
As Freddie’s was closing, I picked a line to check out and then saw it was his line! But he had to shoo me away to self check out. I left, a bit bummed, but then saw him again at the main doors a few minutes later. I turned to him, “DAVID. I told you I’d pray for you, remember?”
He smiled, and I watched it come back to him. So I asked him there in front of the electronic double doors by produce, what I could pray for him about. He said for a stressful real estate deal set to close March 13th or 18th? to go through successfully. And then he asked me if I had anything he could pray for. I thought about it…& said sure! I applied for a part time job and want it, only if God does. So direction on that.
He placed his hand on my shoulder and we stood there, basically strangers but brother and sister in Christ, and prayed for each other as his co-workers exited the store every minute or so.
After he prayed for me, I prayed for his real estate deal but added a part that I’d just heard from that sermon: that God would help him to see repentance for what it is – a turning away. And when we turn away from sin, we are turning toward our God who loves us deeply. I prayed for a desire to always turn away and then turn toward, trusting that there will always be a great freedom found there.
He lit up even more and mentioned that there was power in that prayer, & that he feels like what I prayed for him should be “reciprocated”, back to me. And I received it. Cause I’ve always had a hard time with repentance for some reason. But now I’m realizing its the step to take before asking for forgiveness. Like they’re dance partners.
I was thinking, our hands, if they are still filled with undealt with (unrepented of) sin, they will not be able to be filled with his gift of forgiveness. It’s a give and then get. A bit like a spiritual dance. Move toward God a few steps and give up the sinful action or attitude and then move back a few and get freedom and joy that comes from receiving His forgiveness. And a bonus comes when we gain victory over that area. Praise God!
Now that’s my kinda dance.
On the way home from there, the Lord gave me a new song with these words:
Vs1: There’s an outpouring of your spirit – out of our hearts, out of our homes. An outpouring of your spirit – into the streets, into the public places.
Vs2: There’s an outpouring of your spirit – out of the church, out of our songs. An outpouring of your spirit – into our work, & into the lowly places.
Pre-Chorus:
So I will gogogo into my worldworldworld and I will lovelovelove every boy and girl! Yeah, I will gogogo into my worldworldworld and I will pray – for freedom every day
That defies space, and laughs at time
Makes rain and soil, twists the vine
It takes that which was never so
And speaketh it to be, to grow
To burrow roots and draw from silt
And push aside condemning guilt
Its nutrients of truth and grace
Are coursing through my spider veins
Until at last in seasons’ time
A glimpse of pink, a bloom, a sign
And all the waiting, and irresolute
Will pale behind colors of life-bearing fruit
Transformation Northwest – Conference with Father’s House Church, at 1st Baptist Church SW Portland, featuring guest Speaker, Pastor at Hope Centre in Tauranga New Zealand, Kristen Williams. Also featuring breakout session speaker, Joshua Shaw, on speaking out with boldness to those in public, words of knowledge, and healing those with pain or afflictions, by the power of the Spirit.
She used to be a sturdy branch, proud and blossom-bearing.
Now she is a piece of firewood, split with an ax and used to warm a man for a moment.
She stares from the backseat down a crowdedfreeway and ponders the irony of that word.
.
Westbound
.
Cut from her life-source, now unable to bear the weight of fear, it gets so heavy that it crushes young bones.
It leaves her whiskey-scented, terribly fragmented.
.
At the Border
.
She recalls the shaky voice of her Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Ray, “all things work together for good” and asks herself if this journey could be included in the glorious idea of “all things”.
Good, at one point surrounded her; it is now a speck on a mountainside with no road leading to – or from – it.
Her one piece of ID is taken. Soon after, another piece is stolen, never to be returned. This one, much more sacred – a blend of body, mind and potential.
.
Eastbound
.
Her eyes watch the signs blur by and the pavement turn to gravel to dirt
An unsuspecting field her suite, flowing curtains made of wheat
A client tries, her eyes to meet as she lets them close, recalling a song her Mamma lulled, “turn your eyes upon Jesus”.
She waits for things of earth to grow strangely dim.
.
Southbound
.
Split with an ax by one more of hundreds.
Wholeness is a far-fetched dream of which she cannot afford to let go. There would be but one option left.
Stories of rescue, of raids and redemption resound with hope just palatable enough to grasp in her small hand.
She opens her eyes and discovers what was clenched in her hand: the corner of a stained sheet. Could have sworn she was in a field.
Knuckles turn white from this plight. If her spirit weakens any more, her hope will be reduced to a thread, spinning and taut.
.
Southeast bound
.
She hears a wrinkled woman humming a hymn & the words come back to her.
Its truth thickens the thread.
She recalls when that freeway used to be a free way, summons the courage to imagine a listening, loving God and wonders if anyone is praying to him on her behalf.
And just in case they are not, she whispers, “I still believe in you. You are all I have. Free me. Please.”
Chelan 