women getting real

Under the Rock

/ Jana / 3 Comments

We all feel the weight and pressure of our lives. It comes in waves. It comes in a crash. Or it comes one proverbial straw at a time until we finally buckle under the weight. But regardless of the reasons “why” we get weighted down — lack of boundaries, not taking care of ourselves, or spiritual attack — there is  a “who” to rescue us.

I texted this to my friend last night, “Please pray for me. Really under a rock.” And as I hit the send button I heard the Spirit say, “I am your Rock.”

Moments later, my sweet friend relayed what the Spirit had told her: “Uh…don’t know if this is a word for u but he keeps telling me HE is the rock. Is he perhaps covering  u and/or trying to make u be still? He tells me he is the only rock that has any power in ur life.”

Who knew that you could pack such a spiritual punch in a text?!  The only Rock with any power.

Our whinings, our to do lists, the people who frustrate us have no power except the stories that you and I create about them. They are illusions. Dare I say it, drama created to keep us stirred up. All this time we run here and there only to find that our feet rest on the steadfast might of God. God’s power is the Rock we stand on forever, regardless of the circumstances.

Now what my friend didn’t know  is that I had just listened to the song, “Hide Me in You.” Think God is trying to tell us something?

Rock of Ages, cleft for me. And you. Forever. Hide in the Rock today.

Hide Me in You (Unmixed)
Hide me inside You
Inside Your great heart
In the cleft of the Rock
In Your side

Brother and Ransom
Your nailed pierced hand
Covers me
As you pass by

All the mountains quake at the sight
When Your glory passes by

Let me hide
In the cleft of Your side
My shelter, my refuge
Let me hide
In the cleft of the Rock
Hide me, hide me in You

Hide me inside You
Your name’s my defense
The Rock that was opened for me

Jesus, My Savior
Your sin broken heart
Has poured out mercy on me

All the mountains quake at the sight
When Your glory passes by

Let me hide
In the cleft of Your side
My shelter, my refuge
Let me hide
In the cleft of the Rock
Hide me, hide me in You

© Jana Spicka
Real. Life.

Our Heart for Unhindered

/ Jana / 1 Comment

This is the Lord’s mission statement. It’s what He’s always doing. And this is our desire for the women who are part of Unhindered 2.0.  Don’t miss an amazing day with the Lord as we press into His freedom, His favor, His comfort, and His beauty for us. You can still register here.

Isaiah 61:1-3

 1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
   because the LORD has anointed me
   to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
   to proclaim freedom for the captives
   and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor
   and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
   instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
   instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
   instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
   a planting of the LORD
   for the display of his splendor.

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

/ Jana / 1 Comment

Soak in this amazing prayer today and realize that you are an indispensable part of Christ’s body, working out His love around you.

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

Pot Full of Promises

/ Jana / 2 Comments

It was a really stunning moment. I was considering lots of decisions that needed to be made. I felt like my back was against the wall and I had to choose: would I react out of fear or faith? Fear would have me grasp at straws, trying to cover my bases. Faith would have me walk in boldness, simply trusting God to provide.

My answer came through a three-way conversation.

Charis asked me, “Is there really a pot at the end of the rainbow?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Why do people say that, then?” Charis questioned.

Instead of focusing on the legend, I had her retell the story of the first rainbow. We talked about Noah and the rain and the bow in the  sky.

“Why did God give Noah the rainbow?” I asked her. 

“Because it showed God’s promise that He would never flood the whole earth again. The rainbow is a sign of promise. So why would people look for gold?” Charis asked.

And my mouth said out loud what only God could have spoken: “Because people would rather have a pot of gold than God’s promises.”

Did you hear that? the Spirit prodded.

“Yes, Lord. I do that. I want a pot of gold instead of Your promises. Forgive me. Instead I choose Your love, Your promises. I choose You.”

What are you working for? Believing in? Depending on?

Take a Deep Drink of God

/ Jana / 1 Comment

No matter what I do to store up my intimacy with God – beach trips, revelations, journalling – my heart gets depleted. It is much like when I stockpile my pantry. Eventually all the food is consumed. It is the same with my “moments” with the Lord. Eventually the demands and needs of the day consume my warm God thoughts, my cups of His love, my bins full of truth.

But neither are futile.

This is why we must come again and again to the Table of God. You see His brilliance in the depletion because it is not the assurance of eating He desires for us, but the assurance of our hunger. He is glad when we hunger and thirst after Him. For then He gets to satisfy us just as He promised.

Take a long,  long drink of this song. It will slake your thirst. At least for today. Smile.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6

Divine Romance
The fullness of Your grace is here with me
The richness of Your beauty’s all I see
The brightness of Your glory has arrived
In Your presence God, I’m completely satisfied

For You I sing I dance
Rejoice in this divine romance
Lift my heart and my hands
To show my love, to show my love

A deep deep flood, an Ocean flows from You
Of deep deep love, yeah it’s filling up the room
Your innocent blood, has washed my guilty life
In Your presence God I’m completely satisfied

by Phil Wickham

Being Still or Doing Nothing?

/ Jana / 2 Comments

“Be still and know that I AM God.” Psalm 46:10

Be. Know. I AM.

These are active verbs, especially when God Almighty is in the equation.  It came fresh to me yesterday when I was watching a scene from the new Karate Kid movie.

The student, Dre, asks Mr. Han, the master, when he would be taught all the moves so “he could control other people.” 

The master aptly replied, “The only person you need to learn to control is yourself.” 

Ouch. Let that one soak in a minute. Think about how much time you try to convince, cajole, manipulate, or arrange others for your benefit. Instead, consider how pressing into control yourself, your attitudes, your actions, and your beliefs could impact others for good.

They continue on in their teaching and Mr. Han attempted to explain the power of being still in your heart and in your mind.

Incredulous, the 12-year-old student balked, “You want me to beat those other guys by Doing NOTHING?!!”

Mr. Han looked at his student intently and said,” Being still and doing nothing are two totally different things.”

Add in the God factor to this statement, and you have a profound truth. Being still and knowing that GOD is at work  is different from you doing nothing but whining, quitting, and coping.  Being still and knowing God is for you generates a superpower hope and confidence while doing nothing only exposes your own weakness and inadequacies.

Being still and knowing, experiencing, believing, embracing, leaning on the Great I AM is a life changing point of origin.

Doing nothing is, well, full of Nothing. No God. No hope. No life.

Get busy being still. It will change everything about your Life.

Does Jesus Matter in Life?

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Does it really make any difference if we are Christians when we are facing real life circumstances?

I wonder if the average Christian truly has any expectation that the presence of God will actually impact the situations he or she is living through. And I also wonder, do we lack expectation because we lack faith?

Right now in my circle of life, there are all kinds of car issues. Our old van is more and more refusing to go into reverse. Laura’s transmission gave up the ghost all together. Shimmi just got hit with huge auto repair bills. On top of these needs I have loved ones facing foreclosure, facing medical debt collectors, and using roofing loans to pay for groceries.

Does an eternal Jesus matter in these concrete issues?

My mind goes to the Narnia stories by C.S. Lewis. Lucy was the first of four children to experience the all together Other Reality of Narnia that was far more real than their everyday England. And over and over people would doubt, malign or question the reality of Aslan, the great Lion who was the True King of Narnia. And over and over, Lucy looked for Aslan. She asked for Aslan. She hoped for Aslan.

And over and over, Aslan showed up in the most surprising ways. Unpredictable yet unchanging. I am learning to believe that if you never have need of a god, you are doomed indeed. It is in those “God I am hopeless unless You show up on my account” moments that we see we need a God, and we are not God. I think this is a good thing. And God is happy to be God for us. I think this is the best thing.

In one Nania scene when all seems lost, Aslan remarkably shows up, to which Lucy remarks, “You came!”

“Of course I came. Did you question that I would, child?” Aslan asks.

Lord give us Lucy hearts. Teach us to look for You in the hardest of moments with hearts of faith. And teach us to wait expectantly for Your appearing in our hard places.

“You surround them with your favor as with a shield.” Psalm 5:12

Leaning on Her Lover

/ Jana / 2 Comments

Doing anything creative is a blur of emotions. You begin with hesitation, hope and unknowns. You get going and you love it, hate it, and hope for it to be more. All at the same time.  And when you push your chair back, assess and grade your work, sometimes it a tricky moment.

What was the greater work, the outcome or the process?

When I was writing the music for the Real.Life. worship cd, it happened in stages. First was the simple time in prayer when I tried to get the groan in my spirit to take shape in the form of letters on paper.  Weeks later, Chuck and I spent the late night seasons knocking around words and guitar chords.  Try to picture this.  He is standing up just jamming on his guitar looking out the window. I am sitting on the bed reading through pages of lyrics. And tucked in the pile is this gathering of words that suddenly start spilling out of my mouth in song.

It was as if the Spirit was painting a beautiful picture, grabbing color from Chuck, color from me, then blending, splashing and dabbing. When we stopped, we just sat there is silence. Three way intimacy.

The funny thing is, I started not to send the recording to the producer. I told Chuck this is more of a “moment” that a song. But I sent it anyway. Then the Spirit pulled in Chris’ colors and gifts and the song became an even more brilliant picture.

Last night the Artist signed His name at the bottom of the painting. The final touch. Chuck listened to the rough cut and his comment took my breath away and burned in my spirit.

“Jana this is just like the scripture out of Song of Songs. ‘Who is this coming up out of the desert, leaning on her lover?'”

Read the words as you listen to this as yet unpolished recording. And hear that the whole point is to let Him do what only He can do through me, through you, through us. He is our life and He loves it when we lean on Him.

Depend Unmixed

Depend on You
So glad to depend on you
So glad to lean on you
Your strong arms
So glad to see my need for you
Glad to know you made me that way

Be my life Be my life  O God
So glad to lean on you
Be my life Be my life  O God
So glad to lean on you

So glad to depend on you
So glad to lean on you
Your strong arms
So glad to see my need for you
Glad to see it was your plan all along

Be my life Be my life  O God
So glad to lean on you
Be my life Be my life  O God
So glad I can lean on you

Bridge:
Losing the scrutiny
It’s all about you and not me
Losing the need to control
The illusion is gone
I can rest in your arms

(Editor’s note: The Real.Life. worship CD will be available for purchase at Unhindered 2.0, February 12, 2011.)

Playing in the Sand

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I do it a lot. Act like God is not with me. I get myself in wads and then whine, complain, quit or cope. Instead of simply turning to Them and asking for truth, or help, or just understanding.

I don’t simply stop very often.

But yesterday I did.  The wind was blowing fierce on the beach and I sat beside a storage shed to get some shelter. As I was sitting there, I started running my fingers through the white, sugar-like sand.  I realized, though, I was still running the autopilot list in my head of stuff to process, fix and resolve.

It was a paradox. Child-like playing in the sand. Grown up stressing in my head. And the Lord asked me, “Write in the sand.”

“What should I write?”  I asked.

“How about all that stuff in your head?” (Yes of course He already knows it.) So I wrote out a short list of the needs I had. 

“Great. I got all that. Now wipe that away.”

One movement of my hand, it was erased.

“Now, do it again.”

This went on for several lists. Physical needs, material needs. People I was praying for, events coming up. Each time, the reassurance came that He had this taken care of, each time came the instruction to wipe it away.

Then there was a quiet calm. As I sat there for a few minutes and JUST played in the sand, two powerful things happened. One was a simple reflection. Wonder what I wrote last year? He had indeed wiped all those things away. He had over time resolved, provided, and advanced each the issues that pressured me last year. Would this year be any different?

The second thing was a very, very real awareness of His presence. As I played, the wind lifted and shifted the sand smoothing and scattering my doodles. I looked to my right, and the wind was lifting and shifting other little mounds of sand.

“I like playing in the sand too.”

Sometimes you have to stop the noise to hear the roar of the ocean. Sometimes you have to sit and play to remember that you are His child. Sometimes you have to give stuff to Him and let Him blow away all the distractions and just be with Him.

Oh to sit in the delight of the One who thinks of us, more than the grains of the sand.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.
Psalm 139:17-18

Moving Forward

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Seems the Holy Days can be hard on our hearts.  I find myself surrounded by powerhouse people who have been brought to their knees by sin, sickness, and struggle. It has been a whirlwind of emotions. And I have been asking the Lord to give me insight, not only to know how to pray in power for them, but to learn from their stories, their reactions, their deep, deep aches.

And I repeat again something that my friend and spiritual teacher, John Dee, taught me, “Go mainly, mostly to Jesus.”

We don’t give in to the flesh. It betrays us with destructive deceptions.
We don’t give in to idolotry. Those man-made gods have no breath or healing or comfort.
We don’t give in to running away. Those helpless days are past.

We can’t go back to Egypt. We were slaves there.
No, we must press deeper into the desert. Our God has led us here, and He will provide for us here. He will make Himself known as the great I AM. As I have been praying for God’s people to be lifted up, the song “Moving Forward” came to my spirit. It makes me weep every time. He makes all things new. All things. He makes them new.

No, we cannot go back.  Only forward into more of Him.
May God bless your journey with “all power in His hands as He gives a second chance.”

Moving Forward
by Israel Houghton

What a moment
You have brought me to
Such a freedom I have found in You
You’re the Healer
Who makes all things new
Yeah yeah yeah

~Bridge~

I’m not going back
I’m moving ahead
Here to declare to You
My past is over in You
All things are made new
Surrendered my life to Christ
I’m moving, moving forward

(2nd verse)

You have risen
With all power in Your hands
You have given me
A second chance

Hallelujah hallelujah
Yeah, yeah, yeah

(back to bridge)

~Chorus~

You make all things new
Yes
You make all things new
And I will follow You
Forward