Hello Friends,
My personal testimony continued from my last note…
It’s my fondest hope that you are connecting to the inner growth processes where God wants to work in your life, through your conscience and by setting a new moral standard in your heart of God’s Law of Love. I’ve been writing to you about my earlier processes in coming to the Lord and allowing Him to work in my life. In this note, I want to go back to the beginning of what God did to ignite desire in my heart so it would grow in me toward actively seeking Him.
This story takes place in December of 1983 about five months before God flipped the light switch of my conscience, allowing me to see my true spiritual condition and how I had lived my life, effectively bringing me to a surrender of my life to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
Jim and I had signed up for a Cursillo (The Episcopal version of a short course in Christianity, 3-day weekend). Jim had gone to a men’s Cursillo and had come home changed in several ways. The night he came home he decided to put the kids to bed himself and pray with them. I had always been the one to bring them to bed and have them give nite-nite hugs and kisses to daddy, but now he wanted to do it—and pray too, which was a first! He never stopped this pattern throughout their childhood years, but continued to perform his nightly rituals of reading books, telling stories he made up just for them, and praying with them as he said goodnight.
Three weeks later it was my turn to go to a women’s cursillo. I didn’t know what to expect, because Jim was instructed not to tell me anything about it. Nothing seemed to be happening for me that would have made me feel like change was happening, but on the 2nd day, the women were instructed to kneel at the altar railing so the priest could pray for each of us individually. This in itself was a new concept for me, since the Episcopal church we attended didn’t engage in personal ministry like this, and so it did feel a bit intimidating. I was about two thirds of the way down the altar rail, waiting for my turn, and I noticed that as each woman got prayed for she went back to her seat, and I noticed that the priest didn’t seem to be laying hands on anyone, but only bending over enough to hear each woman whisper something in his ear for him to pray about. I had no idea what I was going to tell him! No one had ever prayed for me before, and I was really nervous. It was close to my turn and I still didn’t know what to tell him, and I was getting more and more nervous.
Finally, when the priest leaned his ear down to hear me, I just mentioned that I had been depressed for about ten months, and shrugging my shoulders, didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what else to say and so that was it. The priest began to pray for me in a whisper right into my ear so only I could hear his prayer, and as he prayed, a supernatural power came upon me that I had never experienced before (well, I had never experienced anything supernatural before that!). Emotion began to well up in me and I felt held to my kneeling position. I couldn’t have stood if I had wanted to! The priest moved on down the line of women, each of them getting up and returning to their seat when he finished, but I just knelt there, completely unaware that I was the only one left at the communion railing!
The ladies around my dinner table that evening filled me in on what had happened. They said that after the priest had finished praying for all the women, he was beginning to move on to the next activity, when he noticed I wasn’t moving. He motioned for two of the nearest ladies to come get me. They helped me up by my arms and supported me as they walked me back to my seat, wobbling and feeling heavy with the powerful weight of, I later learned, the presence of the Holy Spirit on me. They all wanted to know what had happened to me, because everyone could see that I had difficulty walking back to my seat. I told them I didn’t know, I just knew that depression was completely gone from my life, and it never returned!
You see, I had felt immobilized in my life, and God got me unstuck! He set me free so I could seek Him! This is when I recognized heart-level desire working in me for the first time. I began seeking God after that, whereas before I was only doing the religious activities that were an expected part of going to church. Now I knew God was real! He had made Himself known to me in a real way! He was intimate! He cared!
I never really knew the particular cause of that season of depression, except for my self-centered life not going the way I wanted it to go, but I came to understand later that I had carried a weight of guilt for a life lived in self-centeredness while still trying to be “righteous” by going to church and doing the activities of religion. God decided I was ready for the next phase of my spiritual journey when He opened my spiritual eyes to see my true sin condition so I could begin the process of reconciling my life to Him. He had brought me out of darkness and into His marvelous light, and He began to give me new holy desires!
Desire is like the internal engine that moves us toward something we are longing for, and in fact desire is like our deepest longings. Desire is placed in our heart by our Heavenly Father so we will seek Him out. It’s amazing to me that He initiates absolutely everything within us! All of His works that He has prepared for us are made in love for exactly what our current need is, for how ready we are to receive each work and provision. He actually prepares us to receive His hand in our lives! Such a wonderful God and loving Heavenly Father we serve!
I’ve found that many believers aren’t even aware that their deepest longings are placed in their heart by God Himself, and that He wants to help bring them to pass. I’ve developed the five mini coaching programs, Making Heart-Level Connections, to help you connect into your inner growth processes where God is at work. The newest program is “Your Heart Desires” and I’ve targeted the specific disconnects people usually have in their understanding about how God works through desire so they can more fully cooperate toward receiving His love and spiritual blessings.
Here’s what a few participants have shared:
“I can now see, regarding the many desires the Lord has put in my heart, that I was totally leaving God and relationship out. I was mistakenly operating as if it was all mine to do and bring to pass, and it was all too overwhelming. I am so deeply thankful to realize that it is He that will bring the desires He gives to pass, and that my role is simply and wonderfully to seek to know Him more intimately and cooperate with Him more fully.” ~ Rosemary
“I thank God for the privilege to be one of His own chosen ones and to be brought into this season of sobering in Truth and Reality. Wow! Thank you Marilyn and Barbie (and Nancy) for your specific work on our behalf and thanks to your families for giving you over to this work.” ~ Mary
“Marilyn, thank you, thank you for the time you have given to get to know us so that we are not being given a general message. So grateful for all you are doing for me…for us.” ~ Rhonda
“This series has been life changing for me and my family. My eyes, heart and spirit has been opened in ways I could only dream before. My home is bursting with love and learning. We are majoring on the majors and see much fruit from it. Because I am now taking my orders from the Lord (thank you Lord!!), my life is full, satisfying and much more peaceful. I have not ‘arrived’ but I am stopping, repenting, taking the time to invest in my family’s hearts and desires. Now I have been spending time with my heavenly Father finding the real me and remembering my dreams. I did not even remember my dreams. My heart is full. My home is becoming a lovely place because the Lord is now in charge. I am so thankful and appreciative of everything Marilyn and Barbie have done.” ~ Sharyn
The “Making Heart Level Connections” coaching programs have been so well received! Barbie and I are excited to see the real changes taking place in the participants. We hope you will join with us! We are currently in live session with the 4th coaching program, “Your Faith”, which will become available to you as a product in our eStore about 3-4 weeks from now.
In the meantime, if you want to get started in Making Heart-Level Connections, you can purchase the first three programs “Your Conscience”, “God’s Moral Law” and “Your Heart Desires” from one of our eStores. Each program comes with all the same materials as their live versions: 4 hrs of audio discussions, topic specific eArticles, questionnaires, plus an edited version of the private Facebook discussions that we had with the participants.
We hope to encourage more of our LOLACHE members to participate in these personal and dynamic programs, and toward that end, we have produced an audio of testimonies given by coaching program participants on the LOLACHE members’ site. You can find it here.
Click Here to Learn More about the programs in Making Heart-Level Connections
Go Here to get the program “Your Conscience”! Regular price is $63.00. LOLACHE members pay only $47.00!
Go Here to get the program “God’s Moral Law”! Regular price is $63.00. LOLACHE members pay only $47.00!
Go Here to get the program “Your Heart Desires”! Regular price is $63.00. LOLACHE members pay only $47.00!
I hope you can join in on the next live coaching program “The Holy Spirit” coming August 2nd!
Grateful to be in the Lord’s service,
Marilyn Howshall for Lifestyle of Learning™ Ministries
[Lifestyle of Learning™/LOLACHE eNewsletter ~ July 11, 2012, Issue 28]