November 3rd

These sections of my journal largely record the way I was praying, which was increasingly in tongues. I don't want this to cause any stumbling. I learn from and have great respect for Christians who do not pray this way. My family currently attends a church that does not recognize this gift as being currently active. Our pastor is a man of integrity, humility and faithfulness and I know it is a gift from Jesus to be a member of his congregation. The Holy Spirit is clearly active and present in the church services.

I did not pray this way for the first five years after Jesus came into my life. During those years, Jesus did not ask me to try and pray this way again, nor I feel that I was lacking anything at that time. However, over the summer, the gift that was latent in me for years came flowing back, and it was with joy and gratitude that I received it. I cannot imagine now praying without the use of this language, and it would require a concentrated and sustained effort to prevent speaking it when I pray with my prayer partners or in intercession.

June 8, 2017

During prayer with prayer partner, prayed in tongues almost the whole time. At one point, Jesus seemed to be so close to me that even the syllables coming out of my mouth changed to a different sound and I rose up on my knees and poured out love on Him from the depth of my being. At some point, before or after this, when I opened my eyes, I saw that my prayer partner was lying flat on the floor, worshiping Him.

We prayed for a person the Lord put on our heart, and I prayed in tongues also, but I knew what were the words, because I was hearing them again and again in my spirit, so I drew the English words up and spoke them, which was almost hard to do, and my voice came out with this peculiar accent, with this indescribably yearning love, and it was Jesus saying, Daddy, let Me take his place, Daddy, let Me go for him, Daddy, I cannot let him go. And then I was saying to Jesus, "The price is already paid in full, go and tell him this! Jesus, reach Your hand into His heart and unlock that prison and let that captive go free! Daddy, draw his heart to Jesus. Jesus, there is a sheep, there is a lost sheep! Go after him, as You said You would, until You bring him home! Do with him according to Your word!”

Later - “I’m not sure what You’re saying in that Scripture from Mark in this blog…”

But I do, He replied.

June 12, 2017

Yesterday at church, I went into the prayer room right as the worship team was beginning, expecting to see my prayer partner, but she was not there, and I realized as soon as I saw the empty room, that this was why Jesus had opened the way for me to attend Sunday service, even though naturally speaking, the way should have been blocked by an unexpected development. (The prayer room is a little room at the front of the church, positioned in such a way that a person within can hear everything going on in the service, but not see it, and no one outside the room can see them.)

But it turned out that my prayer partner was there, only she arrived a little late, and the prayer leader was praying also, while in the service. So there were three praying.

During worship, they sang a song that had the words, "In a little while, I’ll see You, in a little while we’ll be together," and as soon as I tried to sing those words, I was crying. “It’s not going to be a little while!” I cried out to Jesus, because it’s likely to be decades before I get to be with Him, and at the same time, asking Jesus to give me strength and guidance to do all His will while I was down here.

Then I realized I had tears all over my face and a runny nose and there was no tissue in the room. But, thank God, I had two tissue in my purse, and that was enough to get me through the service.

At the end of the service, during the alter call, the Holy Spirit came down. I was moving like a tree in the wind in the little room, or dancing like a bird, or like a piece of kelp in the ocean current. Jesus was there, I kept reaching up and singing with love and embracing Him in my spirit, and He would extend His hands and my hands would go out and I would place my hands lightly in the palm of His hands and then bend and dip for joy, all the time warbling in tongues. I took His hand in my physical hand and held it to my face, singing and murmuring love in tongues; I lifted my hands and set them on His shoulders and looked up at Him.

His face was close to me- I saw His luminous eyes, thickly lashed, full of gentleness, and His beard, which was thick and thickly curled, His hair was thick, with looser texture and fell to the back of His neck.

When I was there in that little room, pouring out prayer and interceding and pleading with Jesus and the Holy Spirit (during the service, very quietly), I thought of how sometimes I have seen myself in a little, hidden room in heaven, and here this seems actually to be happening in the physical world.

At a certain point, I reached a kind of fear of what would happen if the Holy Spirit really got a hold of me, which is a fear I sometimes do face, but this time, I threw that fear away and gave the Holy Spirit permission to do with all of me whatever He would. He is so precious. Much of the time, I was delighting in Him and pouring out gratitude.

At a certain point, I seemed not so much to be dancing before Jesus, as to be speaking His words; I was saying the words, “Abba, Abba, Abba,” but with an inflection that I don’t normally use. When I realized this, I got a little unnerved and backed away from the intensity of it.

Near the end of the service, the pastor prayed that more of the Holy Spirit be poured out and for us to receive, because it was being poured out right then, and we should lift our hands up. I was lifting my hands up and I felt oil come pouring down my open hands and my arms and I tilted my head back and I felt something delicious being poured straight down my throat- it was going straight down, like out of a bucket being tipped over, or out of a garden hose. It was clear and delicious and did not cause me to choke, though it got splashed up over my face once, I think on purpose, because it was refreshing and startling. I was dazed for a moment afterward.

At one point, I kept thinking about something in a self-gratifying way- that is, looking at what the Holy Spirit was doing with me as though it were something that made me interesting and important, and how much better this would be if people could see me or if they knew it was happening, and this line of thinking was so destructively attractive and so appallingly wrong that I went to the Lord for help, and was reminded that I could go right to the throne, which I did in my spirit, and poured out my heart at the footstool, where His feet rest, and pointed behind me at the temptation that was bothering me, and boy! I don’t know how to describe.

Something blew over or around me with great force, only I wasn’t afraid and it didn’t hurt me, and it seemed to free me of something that had been around me, like a veil, only this was not a veil I wanted and I wondered afterward it if was the veil of flesh- fleshly thoughts and desires. Afterward, I felt much freer.

Later, seeing Jesus in the garden at Gethsemane, and pouring out love and adoration to Him, my spirit bubbling up in tongues, because my life, my very life, is hidden with Christ in God. My life is hidden with the One who prayed, “Not My will, but Thine be done.”

The Lord is full of such kindness. He gathers me up in His arms with such kindness. Jesus never causes hurt or shame. His heart is overflowing with lovingkindness, a cup that is brimming over with tenderness and love and pity.

June 13, 2017

Last night, I read the account of Gethsemane in all four Gospels. On Saturday night, I had read the account in Matthew. During Sunday service, at the end, when we were singing praise, I drew upon that over and over again to worship the Lord, thinking of Him in the garden.

It struck me again when I read it last night, and Jesus nudged me to read it in all four. Repeatedly, the realization burst upon me that Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus who had conquered for us and cut the way through, Jesus who had suffered agony in obedience in order to save me, this same Jesus, was with me, and I could love on Him and worship Him face to face, and say everything to Him that my heart longed to say in response to what He endured for my sake.

It said He was struck with terror, amazement, horror and deeply depressed. Each time I thought of what He went through, it was as though my entire inner self melted down into love. I worshiped and adored Jesus for an hour, half in tongues and half in English. Tongues is easier, but sometimes I draw the words out in English and then back to tongues to sing it. “Come settle down, come settle down, come settle down,” I was singing to Jesus with melting love, with unspeakable joy. “Come into Your temple of flesh and blood, the temple You made Yourself and bought with Your blood, come and rest here in love.”

From my phone last night:

“You could make a little set of stairs...” Because I wanted to slip up to Heaven right then, even for just a moment.

The stairs are within you.

Hang in there a little while more, Jesus said, when I was pouring out my longing so intense my stomach was knotting up.

June 14, 2017

My prayers are almost always in tongues now, and to switch to English requires a real focus of energy, and often the English is heavily accented. Twice when privately praying in the evening, I stopped praying to declare, with laughter, in my usual voice, “I don’t know why I’m praying with an accent!” But I just let it be, and trusted the Holy Spirit- the most precious Holy Spirit, that holy gift of God, the gift of His most precious self, His own breath, His own Holy Spirit. When I think about this, my prayer turns to dancing.

Saw the Lord in the garden, speaking in Aramaic to His own and then to those who had come to arrest Him. It wasn’t so much that I saw Him as I could almost hear the tones of His voice and the syllables of the spoken words, and in the speaking, I could hear His spiritual authority, combined with His emotional and physical weariness. Then they brought Him to the high priest's house and falsely accused Jesus over and over again, and then compelled Him by the Living God to declare if He was the Messiah, and Jesus declared it- openly declares the truth. And then He is condemned for telling the truth.

Afterward, I was thinking about the judgement seat of Christ. I was thinking about appearing before the Lord Jesus to have one’s actions in this life judged to see if they pass through the fire. For some reason, I was completely terrified that it would be discovered that I had buried a talent, and I saw myself condemned for burying this talent instead of using it to multiply it, and Jesus was saying, Jenny, in that voice of deeply loving reproach which means, you are getting this all wrong, sweetheart, back up. Because I was begging Him not to let me hide away any talent, but to use them all, and Jesus was saying, where is your trust in Me? Aren’t you trusting Me to guide you? Would I fail to point that out to you, if it were true?

So, I prayed as I usually do, “The Lord Jesus Christ is my Good Shepherd, and He leads me along the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake,” and huge amounts of anxiety were lifted off me. Then I saw myself appearing before the throne, but this time, with all the harvest of a fruitful life, but I was on my face and I was declaring with great force of truth, “You are faithful! You are faithful! Your faithfulness reaches to the heavens! It all belongs to You, Lord, all of it is Yours. All the work is Yours, take all that is Yours, I am Yours and all this is Your work, and let me only live curled up at Your feet…”

But again Jesus said, Jenny, because He wants me closer than His feet, and Jesus picked me up, and I was limp as a noodle with relief and was clinging to Him with abandon.

“And then, after that…” I whispered to Jesus.

You will live with Me.

June 20, 2017

I’ve been praying in tongues each evening now, and often throughout the day- whenever no one can hear me, I hope. I switch back and forth between tongues and English, and I still have that funny accent sometimes.

Usually, as I pray in His language, the Holy Spirit drops something into my spirit and after a few minutes of praying about it that way, I pray what I hearing aloud in English. The night before last, most of what I was doing was worshiping. I was worshiping and adoring the Holy Spirit, amazed that I have in my presence and in my own self the very Spirit of the Living God. Then I was worshiping and thanking Daddy for giving this gift. Then I was worshiping Jesus and adoring Him for being Him. This worship in tongues took my spirit to the same place that I see inwardly during my morning devotions, only the atmosphere within me was very heavy with awe, because I was aware, in this much more powerful way, that my spirit was in the presence of Jesus Christ. I was resting my head on His foot and crooning and singing to Him in tongues, pouring out love and adoration and gratitude. Last night was similar, but less heavy.

June 26, 2017

“Dear Lord Jesus, here I am.”

Beloved Jenny.

During while I was in the prayer room, during the worship service, in one of the songs, the lyrics go, “…and wait to hear what You will say…” I was absolutely drenched and swimming in the Holy Spirit and the Lord was sometimes kneeling in front of me, sometimes holding me in His arms, sometimes putting His face close to mine while I nestled my face under His chin, so when I waited to hear what Jesus would say, I wondered if it would be some extraordinary revelation or something, but what I heard, perfectly clear and still quiet, was, Jenny, I love you.

Even last night, each time I went to be with Jesus, I kept thinking of last Sunday, and how Jesus is right in front of me, and how I may hold His hand to my face, or put my cheek to His, and I can see His beautiful eyes of love, and feel the weight and strength of His palm, or throw my arms over His shoulders, or put my cheek against His heart and pour love into Him.

At one point, I felt suddenly physically exhausted and there was nothing to see very much and suddenly I wondered how I was going to keep going, and I worried that this might adversely affect what the Holy Spirit was doing, but to what degree I don’t know, but I want if at all possible to always be contributing something; I wanted the atmosphere to be drenched in the Holy Spirit, and if I can contribute to that in any way, I would like to.

I looked upward, confessing without words this sudden, unexpected stumbling, and I felt the Holy Spirit come sweeping down toward me and breathe into me. I did in fact take a long, deep physical breath, but not as deep or crystal clear as the spiritual breath that was blown into me, and immediately, I was filled again, and went on worshiping and pouring out tongues and intercession and adoration as I have been doing each time I am in the prayer room during the Sunday service.

Had a really hard time focusing on loving Jesus this morning, managed to rest with Him for a few times in between long periods of distraction, for which I humbly apologized each time I was reminded of Him, but Jesus never lost patience and never left and even said that I was doing well. I don’t feel like I was doing well.

June 27, 2017

During the worship service, was carried so close to Jesus that it was as though I felt the stone floor physically under my feet. It was more immediate and complete than ever before. I was on my knees at Jesus’ feet. I was crying. The taste of the peace and wholeness and joy of Heaven, and the inexpressible joy of knowing that I was with Jesus always and fully, caused my heart to break like a damn, and I could not imagine going back and had no strength to make myself do so. I was holding on to His knees and  crying out, “I'm never going back! I’m never going back!” even though I knew that was not the highest response of self-sacrificing love that is willing to go, but I couldn't help it. All I wanted was to stay, but it was to no avail- I could not remain there, on the threshold. I returned to where I usually am.

August 8, 2017

Have been continuing to see His Passion in a different way that before. The horror and the outrage of it strikes me in a new way. I was seeing Yeshua before the counsel, and the first time they struck Him, I was in shock and sick to my stomach. Then when they went on beating Him, I was sobbing on the floor. It’s the most horrible thing to watch someone that you love, who is innocent and beautiful and full of innate, lovely dignity- integrity and honesty and authority- to watch Him be senselessly beaten and mocked, to watch it right in front of you, to know how inexpressibly wrong it is, and yet you can do nothing to stop it.

Of course, this gets worse and harder as the day goes on. I kept wanting, with increasing desperation, only to reach Him for one moment, just to touch Him, to say something, do something, give Him one thing of comfort, and it was impossible to get though the bristling wall of Roman aggression that guarded Him.

In the garden, just before Judas and the temple guards arrived, Jesus had said in my ear, remember resurrection. And I kept trying to remember, and I kept thinking of His voice saying, “I have a baptism to be baptism to be baptized with, and how constrained I am until it is accomplished!” And, “Tell that fox on the first two days I cast out darkness and heal the sick and on the third I will be perfected.”

Most of the time I could not watch. I saw rivulets of His blood come trickling between the stones as He was being scourged. I heard His voice scream hoarse in pain, pain that cannot be held in and that isn't being stopped, but is added to and added to and no one is having mercy and it is a living nightmare. Jesus was right there, the Beloved is right there, the beloved, known Person, only the beloved is being continuously tortured and mangled and this beloved, living Person is hard to recognize sinking down without strength in all that blood. It’s so hard to believe that He cannot come to you at that moment, cannot respond at that moment, even though He is so close, just yards away, but He cannot come and He will not escape, because the Son of Man goes just as it is written of Him, and He is choosing to drink that cup.

All the while, I was thinking also of Mary His Mother; who had carried Him in her womb, who had cradled Him in her arms and taught Him to walk and sang Him to sleep, and watched Him grow and cherished all these prophesies in her heart, who followed Him in His ministry, who tenderly loved and deeply respected and humbly served Him. She was the one who was there in history, who had to watch as it actually happened, who had the strength to follow Him all the way to the foot of the cross and not look away. 

Before all this, I was with Him and I was overwhelmed by the fact that Jesus was doing this for me, because of me, because I had been lost, because I had turned away and chosen something other than Him. “Forgive me, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” I was saying in His arms.

“Forgive me my sins,” I whispered to Jesus inwardly, thinking of all that blood. and with such love in His face, He lifted my hand and kissed it. The humility of His self sacrificing love is past understanding.

“Lord, in Your mercy, come wake the people up,” I was praying to Him, resting there in His arms, resting in His life like a little branch clinging to the Vine.

October 17, 2017

Sometimes these days, the awareness that I know Jesus Christ and that He loves me, hits me like an arrow, or like a sunbeam from thick clouds, and I am jolted awake into wondrous gratitude. It hit me while I was on the couch in the evening, putting my aching legs up on the broken ottoman and resting before dinner. It hit me and I had to look toward the golden autumn light streaming through the thinning leaves of the trees, everything out there a dazzle of green and gold.

“I want to know everything,” I told Him just now, earnestly- everything about what He said and what it meant, and immediately, I felt frustrated that I hardly understood anything and hadn’t been growing.

Haven’t you? Jesus asked gently, reminding me of several years’ worth of growth in insight and perception. It was not as much as I wanted, but it was growth.

In His presence- each time, to know I was in His presence, I inwardly opened my arms with abandon to each side and tipped up my face and the joy I felt became radiant light breaking out of my heart, breaking upward and out in a dazzling array. In this light, I saw the face of Jesus, serene and loving. Three times I did that as the knowledge hit me, each time the light got brighter. The last time, I could see nothing but light, and all I could see in the light was the face of Jesus, serene, confident, loving.

I was thinking of how many times and for how long He has patiently reassured me and built up my faith and bore with me in love as I grew, always on His toes, able to catch me or head me off in whatever direction I mistakenly went, and when I thought of all this, I put my arms around Jesus and whispered with love, "You do so well." This expression of melting, intense love passed over His face.

I owe Him everything.

When yesterday, the knowledge that I knew Jesus Christ and that He loved me hit me like an arrow of wonder, I poured out adoration in a murmur of tongues, which was the only language that could express this, and then I sat up from the couch where I had been sitting.

“How might I serve You?” I asked Jesus, wanting to do anything for Him, and remembering with joy that there is always a way to serve Him. I got up and went away to do something for my family- I think I finished putting away the laundry.