A Wake Up Call to Complacency

This morning I awoke with a start. I looked at the clock and it was 4:45 A.M. Why am I not still asleep? Is the Lord trying to get me up? My sub-conscious told me to just sleep in. No, I realized, I had fallen asleep on my watch. Was this a dream or reality? What have I done? Or really, what have I not done?  And then the words, what have we not done? The word complacent flies from my mind to my lips. Then I thought what does it matter at this late hour?

My heart beats fast and I felt this dread come over me as I realized what God was pointing out. What did I do? What have all of us done? What has America done? Where did that spirit come from that had us do nothing when we could have done more? I slipped to the floor to pray.

"If then my people, upon whom my name has been pronounced, humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their evil ways, I will hear them from heaven and pardon their sins and heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14

It is my job to protect, to warn, to speak God’s truth not only to my children but to those I love. Reminding us not to walk on the path that the Israelites did. It is also my job to speak truth to my fellow country men and women. To realize America is off course from what God desires and speaks of in His instruction.

My mind ran and I saw a missed opportunity. Why was I asleep?

Why was I so complacent? 

What is wrong with us that we only care when deadlines are near and counting down?

People inform you that at a certain age you have to let your children go and make their own mistakes. After so many years, I got tired. I listened to the world's voices. All of them. But only I know that in my own journey where I should have been protected. Where I should have had a clue. There was a detour that I should have taken to avoid the pit. You assume your kids watch you long enough that they know your hearts cry for a different road.

Just like in our path for a better America. A better country. It is my job to pray for that better path. Even at this late hour. I want to have that hope in my heart and future.



My heart cries out now for what I let slip away in my slumber. That feeling of too late came over me again and I pushed it back. The movie frame of the past opportune time goes through my head one slow frame at a time. Why did I let the time slip by? I prayed, "Oh God, you gave me this time and I let it go. You gave me a watch and I let it slip through my hands. Forgive me!' All of the warm sand moved and slid very quickly falling at my feet. But between my fingers I caught one heavier piece. The one stone that was too big. I hold that heart stone tightly not willing to let it go. I could just throw it out. Or maybe carry it in my pocket all day as a reminder to take heart. To still hope. To trust that God has it all. This is God's America. It is the country linked with JerUSAlem

Some people in the world do not really care what path this country takes. But I do, I am unwavering! Just like a mother with her children. I really, care! 
In this state of reflection I have to lean on the Father’s promises of a future and a hope. Every single day and especially in this season! 

I sit quietly with no sound around me and out of nowhere a siren screams a warning. We could be in trouble. The scream reminds of the commitment I made years ago to pray when I heard a siren. So I pray for that stranger. I pray for this country. And then I return to my hearts cry and asked, “God is it to late?” I should still be interceding. I had been quick to assume the thoughts, the whispers in my spirit I had awoken to that morning were true. I had quickly let it set me into a disheartenment and that I knew was a lie. Maybe it was just a wake up call for me! No it was also a wake up call to pray for both of the candidates. For the next President to include God in His country.

"Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people chosen as his inheritance." Psalms 33:12 

Independence is a funny thing. A natural thing in the progression of life. A time when you know so much and you start to believe you know it all. That is where that big stone can get stuck in your shoe. The one that can trip you up. The one that can bruise your soul. Ruffles your know it all path. Shut down the words of God's warning. Just like the Israelites did over and over. We all have a history of doing that. We just want a dependence on self.

I did that. I knew it all. I wanted what I wanted. And 40 years later I looked back and wondered if my mom had also cried out for me?  Like I am for my children and our country?

Please pray and vote!

    With a caring heart for our children's America,

        Rebekah

"May the peoples praise you, God; may all the peoples praise you! May the nations be glad and rejoice; for you judge the peoples with fairness, you guide the nations upon the earth."

Psalm 67:4-5

"If a land is rebellious, its princes will be many; but with an intelligent and wise ruler there is stability." Proverbs 28:2

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” Proverbs 22:6

*My blog is setting a bit as I write a book and I wait for my new website to go live. It am excited!

It will be rebekahtesone.com 

Can Hope Stretch Another Day?

The winter has felt so very long. Cold weather. The season of tireless sorrow and dreary time. The woman who can always tell a story of hope and recovery has lost her edge. At least for this moment. God had taken her familiar comforts and people from her reach for whatever reason he deemed necessary. That simple fireplace space is absent to write and unload in the current home. The dream of that short lived excitement thinking a new blog .com page, now faltered and laid dormant. Watching and feeling 5 deaths. No 6 in one year. What a sad way to start a blog.. I am sorry but I have to clear my spirit of the intoxicating hope-less-ness. Can you bear with me a bit as I work this out?

I have been so sick. How sorry can we feel?  It has rolled over me again and again since December. Worn me out. Tipped the sad scale. Dropped me to the sheets for too long. I had not really known the depth of it all as it pushed out the good things. Holding it together for others and encouraging others. Watching precious people mourn and weep as they watch their dreams disappear wishing they could have done something in the past to change the outcome of their current sorrow. Feeling the no answers leak through their eyes in liquid form. I feel their bottom. Saying to those I love, it will be ok as they hold a sick child or two. Hearing the sorrow in the voice of my daughter and my grand as they lose their dream of a baby. 

Reminded that Christ always pulls it out for us month after month. Yes, he does but it has been far to long to just breath a sigh of anything like relief. Just this over and over helplessness. The same ole living.  Have I flunked Gods test for 12 years since my mom passed? I see all of the promises hanging in the air out of reach. Hearing those friends say again, "I thought this was going to be your year."  Watching my husband give up his passions. Seeing sadness in his eyes as a job ended that we thought had a miracle potential. Loss of income and that thing called joy. I need joy. This house needs joy!

                                                    It   all   stacked   up. 

                                           Joy   comes   in   the   morning   right? 

                 I know I felt the tears start to emerge this week as I slept the flu, infection, headache and fever away all week. 

I need another kleenex can you tell and a new view? I have been happy for each new piece of news of others new relationship, a new home, a great promotion, a new child. a time of rest. We all deserve those long awaited victories. But I selfishly wish for happy news that’s for my husband future or my planned out journey. A victory dance! How selfish that sounds. But I am  so very human. I desire a rescue from my tired soul. A reminder of warm light from above. But truth be told its not just the winter season of real time but the eternal waiting my soul has been in for years. 

As I read a post this morning at 1 a.m. my bottle of tears must have fallen to the floor and cracked opened. Was the lid really on that tight for so long? It dawned on me I have no idea if good things or despair were in my dreams these last couple of weeks. Lacking my usual encouragements I personally seek. Being isolated has taken a hit. I dreamt I asked for my old life back that had that security and sweet lilac bushes on our property on Long Circle or Cheetah Winds. I want a dry empty tear bottle and a vase that is filled with tulips that aren’t frozen in the close position that I recently bought myself and tossed.

As I have slept for the last 2 weeks I wondered what has been deposited in my spirit? Have I slept through a dose of hope? A correction? A God healing after 3 doctors couldn’t clear toxins from my body. Or my soul?  A moment of being aware of Christ around me and in me? I guess I just need to spill the sorrow in my heart of loss. Loss of hope.

The funny thing is God can tip the scale whenever He wants. He knows your breaking point. The point he can get you to hear in whatever way He wants. God is mysterious but really He speaks to those who can reach you when you can’t reach yourself. He uses these who listen to break open your sad bottled up self that was getting fossilized. My room and life had been so quiet as my husband came in and out caring for me. 

                          Out of the blue, God awoke my tribe.

It all started as my youngest son was leaving at 4 am for YWAM. He came in and hugged me goodbye as he left for 3 months again. I was sad. I had not even had the time I had desired with him.

My hair dresser texted and said she hoped I was ok. She was thinking of me. A friend called in the morning and prayed for me on her way to work. I needed that. A different girlfriend called and said she felt something was wrong and told me to take care of myself. My oldest son called out of the blue and said, “He hoped I was feeling better and to, Make it a great day!” His trade mark phrase. He never calls midweek, in the middle of the day. Then a persistent cousin reached out and renewed some hope in a good deed that really should not have been possible. She heard from God. She was obedient. She’s the one who just lost her brother. She had time for me? My prayer partner texted when I confessed I was stuck and I had not been praying,  She said, “She was praying like crazy for us.”  And then at 1 A.M. this morning I read Beandkeepbeing Instagram post. She wrote simple truth. The words open my tears up. It unload my darkness. I am undone which is a good thing. Here are her reminders of God’s word that are exchanging fresh air into my soul. It called out to me the fresh word of God. The things that usually bring me comfort that I usually grasp on my own forced my lid to come off the contained tears from a fellow writer I have never meet..

Winter ends and spring will come.

Weeping last for only a night and joy comes in the morning.

Our God redeems what is broken.

He repays us for the years of what is loss and suffering.

Don’t give up.

Hold tight.

Wait for the promises.

Drink deep from the deep intoxicating well……..

I want all of those overcoming words to come forth like Jesus out of the grave. To celebrate for days like Esther’s victory party. To have our walls rebuilt for the future. I so badly want to throw off the old sack cloths of despair to a new victory. I want to kick those locust back at the enemy and tell him to gag on em. 

Our situation has not changed this long night as I wrote this blog. God has not changed, He is still God. It’s all his call. He just called on his faithful people to open the way. My people. His people, My tribe. His tribe.

Spring will come and eventually something of that long awaited joy will bring that which we have waited years for. God is for us not against us, I told my husband hours ago as he fell asleep. We sometimes allow the enemy to lie to us. And we believe him. Christ has overcome for us. Thats the true unselfish victory.

So when the Spirit whispers to you. Heed the call. Be obedient. You are doing something by your one small deed. As many little deeds and acts of kindness make a breaker anointing possible. I truly felt it all. One bit at a time. From each of you my friends.

 He has stretched my hope for another day. 

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Psalm 126:5

365 Days of Grace To 1 New Year of Promise

As I read a challenge to take some time, slow down the New Year and think about what I learned last year, I thought about my year that I had labeled "Grace". Not only was I given grace once again by God and those close to me, I learned to pour it out on situations and those who challenge me. Here is a gathering of my thoughts.

Surrender - Starting off my mornings with my hands held out loosely was where I learned to start my day as I pray Jesus come. Surrendering to God Almighty to guide and fill me with joy. I ask the Holy Spirit to lead me to His heart and show me who He really is, and who He wants me to be.

Home- As my nest was blown away in 2003 and 2011, I have learned I do not control my life. No matter where God moves me and mine, how many times we re-adjust, whether we own or rent or what circumstances are driving where we are to live. I will survive and learn something new. I miss being fully settled and having a mantel and a fireplace to decorate but its not the end all. The point is God has put me in a new area to pray for those around me and spread his love. To show others who Christ is to us, and who we are to him. 

Life and death - Four is the number of funerals that I attended this year. From a man who prayed and spoke hope into my life, to my oldest daughter’s new foster child loosing her Momma, to my precious Aunt, and then my Sister in law. Death always has a initial sting or a spirit of rejoice. Three of these left abruptly and stunned those who loved them. We watched as our middle daughter and husband announced a new unexpected baby to their 3 excited girls. Then only to have a miscarriage open the door to grief. All I know is heaven is more appealing to me then ever before and I will serve my days to the one who numbers mine.

The past - How do I not look back once I have processed my past situations? I now glean it like wheat and find it helpful to use as grace to carry forward. Looking over my shoulder can take time off of my day and after too many trips backwards it makes me lose my forward movement and alignment. The past can teach you but it can also bring sorrow and put you in shackles keeping you from finding your path and destiny.

Gifting - Watching my youngest daughter, in her last year of college, use her gifts was a wake up call to my slumber. Dreaming without action is ineffective. Everyone has gifting. I wasted it by ignoring those heart pulls. Gifting's have been put in my spirit for a reason. They stretch me, build the inner self and touch others. I am currently on a new path with a online group called Hope*Writers. We are making room for each other to dream, to ask for help, getting a course of action and bringing encouragement. 

The weight - What goes into your spirit is what weighs you down. For me turning off media’s immorality and even the news that brings despair and weight to my spirit. I am replacing that time with things that are joy givers. Peace and prayer can rock your world around you more than pride of politicians and disheartenment of people and their actions. I believe God made two political parties to bring balance. Instead I see pride and blame. I am learning not to engage. To pray for the state of our country and the world. God has a hope and a future.  A Son who died for all of us and our errors. Amen to losing that weight!

Missions and ministry - I realized through my son that I have a distinct purpose and have been created to impact others. My past is my key determining what that path looks like. Watching our youngest son raise money, put his life on hold here in America and take off 6 months to give to others has been so impactful. His life took a turn and made me realize how little I do as a individual and we as a nation. How visually impaired I have been whether watching those in my sphere or further away. I have learned to look deeper at those who serve others in the simple or complex ways. I want to help others as I have been helped!

Perseverance - My oldest son rode in a race here in Colorado called the Triple ByPass Bicycle Tour. He rode for 2 days, 240 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing with gears and bike peddles over 3 mountain passes. The beauty of our land was crossed by those who had the will and handled the pain of the process to feel the reward. His perseverance taught me I could maybe get back my groove. So I started working out again to gain my inner core body strength, and uplift my inner beauty. A decision to help myself where no one else can, because I can. 

Control - I learned that creativity breaks the control I use that is self destructive. I have complained and put everything else I do as a wife and mother over my abilities. Maybe even enabled myself to feel empty and miserable. I choose God as my defender over my abilities. The whisper in my spirit to move forward. It is all a choice. We will see what I gain as I lose those things that bind me as I work with more intent on my creative side. 

My treasure - is not my material belongings but in those close to me. I am so blessed to be loved and have those around me who encourage me, give me a push and honest words. I say Lord, “Come with your glory. Have your way in me. I give you permission to mold me and take me further in my growth.  Remove the camouflage covering over my life and heart.”