Hey! you got a problem with my Father's Kingdom?

(As always, when I write about my life this openly, it is not my intention to diss anybody. It is simply my intention to honestly work through some stuff and to share it with some people who might be interested in reading about it.)

Reader, I apologize if I alarmed you with the title of my post. Don't worry. I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the demons.

"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12)

"Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle..." (Psalm 144:1)

 

This evening at the church bookstore, when I saw this CD of Messianic Jewish praise/worship music in Spanish, something inside me ripped open and said, "AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH!" in a good way. Yes, during my drive home this evening, I was praise-grooving in ways that I'm not sure my soul had previously dreamed possible. Yes, I was the half-Mexican chick clapping while driving down the local strip. And, of course, I cried. Don't worry. That type of thing is normal for me.

Perhaps my cross-cultural appreciation has something to do with my upbringing. I was raised by a white polyglot linguist who juggled foreign languages as a hobby, made money with them as a career, and spoke them as a lifestyle. And yet, I will always have something that he will never have: ethnicity. He may always be a wannabe Mexican, but I will always be a half-Mexican. Ain't nothin' ever gonna change that.

Your natural heritage is a pretty important thing to know about, because many of your issues are inherited from your parents. Sometimes your ancestors' secrets follow you around like a ticking time bomb, and then suddenly when you least expect it, BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEEEP! KA-BOOM!!!!! in your face. And then your ancestors aren't around to help you clean up the mess. It's all YOU. Good grief.

Of course, if you've given your life to Jesus, He helps you clean up your mess, because He now owns the mess, and He's very intentional about helping you work through it, and He's very eager about making something brand-new out of it, and He's dead serious about giving you abundant life, and you couldn't do any of the above without Him.

And, of course, when I say "you," I mean "me."

So, honestly, if you were to tell me that my paternal grandfather or great-grandfather had ever had an illicit sexual encounter or full-blown affair with another woman, or another man, and they never told anyone about it, or perhaps their wives had found out about it and just covered it up like good little helpless females... honestly none of that would surprise me. I'm not saying that any of that happened. (I hope it didn't. I'm just using my imagination.) I'm just saying that IF it had, it wouldn't surprise me, and it would explain a heck of a lot of the stuff that God and I have been working very hard to clean up in my life lately. See? Keeping family secrets from your kids is a very bad idea. Good grief.

But lately, I've been thinking about my other grandfather -- the Mexican one. I've written about him here before. I didn't attend his funeral, partly because I didn't like him. Several years ago, he had a temporary bout with dementia, and I liked him better that way because he couldn't remember who I was. He was a lot nicer, and he actually made an effort to get to know me.

But when he was in his right mind, he was the type of guy who would preach a sermon at a pulpit on a Sunday and then pick a fistfight with an innocent driver while he was driving his grandkids to school on a Monday.

When I was in college, I found out the real reason why he and my birth mother's family emigrated from Mexico. He pastored a Baptist church in Mexico that was growing and, consequently, taking people away from the local Catholic church. Apparently, this ticked off the Catholic priest, because he hired a hitman to take out my grandfather. My grandmother got wind of the plot, and the entire family was whisked away to safety in Texas, where they settled. For some reason, my birth mother wasn't told about this entire ordeal until I was in college.

My Mexican grandfather was not the type of guy you'd want to mess with. He was really tough. And yet, since he raised four daughters, he had to have had some sort of soft side to him. (I'm not exactly sure at what point my birth mother decided that she needed to marry the wussiest, most controllable guy she could find, but I guess that's none of my business.) But my grandfather was definitely a Mexican warrior.

If you've been reading my blog for the past couple of years, perhaps you know that I used to have a Jezebel spirit. In general, that means that power is like a drug to me. I used to be abusive, intrusive, manipulative, and very controlling. Now I understand that I can manipulate and control things like art, music, and blog posts, NOT people. (Notice that AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH! is spelled very intentionally with 10 As, 5 Gs, and 3 Hs. Hmm. I can be pretty obsessive. I can be pretty obsessive. I can be pretty obsessive. I can be pretty obsessive. I can be pretty obsessive.) A Jezebel spirit can take a really long time to uproot out of a person. I can definitely vouch for that. Being Jezebel was sort of like the family business.

But that was then. This is now.

I recently listened to a teaching that said that part of having a Jezebel spirit is using intimidation against people. Recently while I've been working through job-related offenses, I've found myself being very willing to verbally assault my bosses, especially the ones who have very subservient wives. I've imagined myself bullying them and getting pleasure out of the fact that they're probably not used to having a woman stand up to them. So, as I've taken that to God and confessed, "I have this intimidation inside me," He's just kind of casually declined to take that from me and said, "No, use it on the demons."

Oh. So, this violent ticking time bomb inside me is supposed to stay inside me... and it's supposed to be wielded to make war against the demons, NOT people. Cool. No problem. Can you hear my knuckles cracking?

"And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." (Matthew 11:12)

I've heard this Bible verse quoted lots of times, usually in intercession/prophetic contexts, so from what I understand, the verse is talking about spiritual warfare (like Ephesians 6). But, of course, I could be wrong.

And I don't know exactly what God had intended to work inside my grandfather or my birth parents, and I don't know exactly what could have gone so wrong years ago before everybody was born or while I was being raised, but I do know some things for sure: God is real. He's the King, and His Kingdom is at war. He takes people like me, cleans us up, and turns us into demon-massacring warriors. (In my case, I would be Tirzah: Warrior Princess.)

I still have a lot to learn, but this is a very good, interesting learning season for me. Lesson #1: The battle is against the evil spiritual forces, not against people, period. Lesson #2: I am so much stronger than I had previously believed myself to be. God basically told me once, if I understood Him correctly, that the enemy attacks some people with abusive situations so that they will believe the lie that they are weak and helpless... when the truth is, they are very strong. I believe that I am one of these people.

I can be very sloppy when I pray, especially when I do spiritual warfare. I can be even sloppier when I praise with music. I kind of think of myself as using a machete to hack through all kinds of infested territory. It's definitely an exhilarating rush. I don't really politely "rebuke" illnesses or situations when I pray for my friends. I bully the demons, corner them, relieve them of their demonic assignments, and command them to go straight to hell. And I don't really tiptoe onto the praise battlefield. I use my voice as a chainsaw to do business, and the other evening I noticed myself wagging my head at the demons. I think God liked that. The Psalms sometimes talk about the enemy wagging their heads at us, so I think God decided to take revenge on the enemies who mocked me by letting me mock them back. Maniacal chuckle.

A quirky hobby of mine is driving past other-religion temples in town with my windows cracked while praise/worship music is blasting inside my car... so that the music can soar toward the demonic forces in the air and confuse the heck out of them. Heh. So, the other night, this half-Mexican chick -- whose grandfather was once intimidated out of his homeland -- took great delight in intimidating the demonic forces of an other-religion temple by screaming, "JESUS IS LORD!!!" while she sped down the road with her windows cracked. Maniacal chuckle.

I hope the members of that particular temple wake up one morning wondering why Jesus appeared to them in a dream and told them that He wants to be their Lord. I ain't gonna lie. That would be extremely cool. That would make my day. That would make my year. That would make my entire life.

That would be worth everything. AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHH!

Candy dish 2

I won't say that this post is rated R for "Really? Tirzah thinks this way?" but I will warn you that I'm just gonna let it all hang out.

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Once in a while, somebody will post a cat photo or a cat video to my Facebook page and say something like, "This reminded me of you!" I have a confession to make. I'm kind of waiting for the day when somebody will post a photo of a supermodel to my Facebook page and say, "She reminded me of you!" I know, right? I just hope no one reads this, takes it to heart, and posts anything stumbling-blockish to my Facebook page.

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One of my old roommates told me that cats don't like affection. Perhaps she should tell that to my Choochie who keeps inviting herself to snuggle with me.

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Whenever you submit an unspoken prayer request, I hate to break it to you, but you kind of already spoke it.

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When I was a freshman in college (in 1994), my roommate burst through our dorm room one day and announced in horror that her professor told her class that in the near future, books would no longer be printed on paper. They would all be electronic. Thus began my journey of discovering how difficult it is for people to predict the widespread acceptance of new technology. (Did anyone predict the cellphone selfie?)

Last weekend at my church (in 2015), my pastor released a new book (both in print and electronically). He requested that we purchase the book that weekend at a discounted price. He didn't have to tell me twice. I stood in line at the church bookstore for about 15-20 minutes, which honestly was my pleasure to do, because I had never seen a line that long at a church bookstore. The line of people curved around the store displays like a giant treble clef. It was so cool.

Yes, it was Mother's Day weekend, and our church gave away nifty coupons to use at the bookstore. But my pastor's new hardcover book was flying off the shelves. I had never seen bookshelves empty so quickly at my church. I think my old roommate's professor should stop trying to predict what people will want.

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I like movies, but I don't do Netflix, because when I lived in my old apartment, the mail carrier used to accidentally deliver other people's DVDs to my mailbox. Then I would have to hunt down my neighbors to deliver their DVDs to them. Technological convenience fail! I'd rather drive to the movie rental store and just rent a movie the old-fashioned way. There ain't nothing wrong with that. If I were to join Netflix, and if my movie were delivered to the wrong mailbox, I don't think my neighbors would appreciate having to walk over to my catapartment to deliver a Dune DVD. That would be way too much partying for a Saturday night.

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Online news stories keep saying that McDonald's is in trouble because people have stopped eating there. But all the McDonald's restaurants in my area are usually jam-packed during the weekday lunch rush. And a new McDonald's is being constructed in my general vicinity. I think online news stories are full of crap.

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One of my favorite parts about this particular season of my life is that God and I will pal around together while I'm driving home from work. Of course, anytime I'm around a close Friend, I totally unplug like a teenager on a Friday night.

One of my biggest frustrations at my current job is that the management claims to have standards about good grammar, spelling, style, etc., but rarely ever enforces it. There is very poor quality control. I feel like nobody at work really cares about the English language or treats it with respect. For example, the CEO's administrative assistant -- who does not know how to spell -- is often assigned to proofread our writing and editing projects. Of course our periodicals look like we typed the articles with our feet.

So, during my drive home one day, while I was ranting, I erupted, "Why don't you just pee on a dictionary?" Then for the next 20 minutes or so, I laughed off and on quite hysterically and quite cathartically about this imaginary peeing-on-a-dictionary concept. So, Tirzah, what do you for fun? Oh, I just blog, play my guitar, and pee on dictionaries. So, if I ever publish a memoir titled I Peed on a Dictionary: Confessions of a Frustrated Editor, you'll know why.

I think that was one of the most fun times I've ever had during a drive home.

Almost 40

When I first sat down to write this post, I intended to write a sequel to this post, which was a random collection of unrelated tidbits. Instead, I ended up writing stuff to help me process what's currently happening in my life. I think I'll keep it that way. Thank you in advance for reading my rambling, possibly unrelated opinions.

"He raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts the needy out of the ash heap, that He may seat him with princes -- with the princes of His people. He grants the barren woman a home, like a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord!" (Psalm 113:7-9)

I guess that's what happens when you turn 39 and your life turns out waaaaay differently than you originally thought it would. You look around and see that you're not married, you don't have kids, you've gone almost 21 years without a date or a real reciprocated love interest, and all you have is God and 2 cats. But ultimately, that's enough. That's plenty, especially when you realize that your 15-year-old felines keep defying the longevity odds and keep surprising medical professionals with their ages at the vet's office. I have breath in my lungs, blood in my veins, fire in my heart, a roof over my head, and a God who likes to hang out with me. I'm OK.

No, I don't have a husband, children, or a network of stay-at-home moms to pal around with. Maybe instead of that kind of life, God decided to give me a giant playground. And I'm OK with that. And if He decides to change His mind about that sometime in the future, I want to be OK with that, too.

Social media is truly incredibly wonderful, but not everything is Facebook-able. It isn't good to share every tiny little life occurrence with your friends. Some things are sacred enough to be kept private. Perhaps this is one reason why Jesus said to go into your room and close your door whenever you pray in secret. Your moment needs to be kept between you and Him.

Not that it's completely wrong to share your life with people online. If it were, I wouldn't be blogging. I'm just saying that if you rob a bank and post your note to the teller on Instagram, the police might catch you. Then people like me will read about what you did, because it's all over the internet, and we will be quite entertained by your egotistical escapade. I'm guessing that's not the type of attention you wanted in the first place.

My current job is located in a metropolitan area which seems to highly respect dogs and wine. (Not sure what the connection is, but it is an interesting phenomenon to witness.) For a while, one of the ladies who works in my building used to take her dog to work with her. I knew this because she would take him into the ladies' room with her while I was there. She explained to me one day while she was wiping him off that the dog had a broken leg, so whenever he would pee, it would get on his leg. Poor pooch.

Yesterday while I was shopping at the Dollar Tree near my workplace, I saw a lady shopping with a one-eyed dog in her arms. The pooch looked right at me. I don't think he/she was in there with his/her owner for service-dog purposes, e.g., as a seeing-eye dog, um, for obvious reasons. And the pooch wasn't barking or doing anything disruptive. I just didn't realize that Dollar Tree allowed canine shoppers. No, the dog's owner was not Hispanic.

My current job is located a short drive from a vineyard. This might explain why everyone who lives in the vicinity has an interesting obsession with wine, and I wonder if it may also have something to do with why one of my bosses has wine delivered to the office. No, I have not dipped into that stuff. No worries. I have plenty of other bondages to work my way through in the privacy of my own home.

In spite of the terrible experiences I had years ago in spiritually abusive environments, I had a mentor who prayed a really cool prayer that stuck in my brain many years ago. It was my birthday, and she prayed that God would give me little presents throughout the day. Perhaps she meant things like His presence or His peace. But I think God my Daddy likes to give me tangible presents, too. For example, a few days after I turned 35, He gave me some cool white hair. It's fallen out since then, but it was still a very nice, very Facebook-able birthday present.

About a dozen years ago, I heard a very nice Andrea Bocelli song playing on a wine commercial. I really liked the song, and I looked for it but had a hard time finding it (especially since it was in Italian, which no hablo fluently). A few days ago when I was buying birthday presents for myself at a used CD/DVD store, I found an Andrea Bocelli CD that seemed very interesting (and cheap), so I grabbed it. This morning when I finally had a chance to listen to the CD, I discovered that track 2 was the cool wine-commercial song -- the song that I had given up looking for, the song that is now in my possession. And I cried. Am I obsessively sentimental? Of course I am. And my Daddy knows it. He loves me, and He loves to give me cool little tangible birthday presents like that. That, in my opinion, is better than any wine.

You can't just add water

"Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power; in the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, You have the dew of Your youth." (Psalm 110:3)

This Bible verse will be my latest treasure hunt. Every time I read it, I go, "What?" I have no idea what it's saying. I'm not even really sure what it's saying in the context of the rest of the psalm, which is about God ruling over His enemies. Um... "volunteers" like the people at church who wear badges and shake your hand when you walk through the door, or "volunteers" like college students who show up to pick up trash along the highway, or "volunteers" like people who have just been drafted into an army? If I try to read it in its original Hebrew, will it make sense then? Or will it just be funky-weird artsy poetry like just another song that some beatnik would read at a coffeeshop... in addition to being sharper than a two-edged sword?

God is cool like that. At least, I can say from experience that He's cool like that with me. I'll be just reading my Bible, minding my own business, and then suddenly it's as if He throws a rock at my window. SHATTER! There's no way that can be fixed with superglue. You just need to replace the entire window.

Or I'll be just living life, minding my own business, and then suddenly it's as if He throws a rock at my window. WORLD-SHATTER! While you're waiting for the glass to be replaced, you could just duct-tape some cellophane or maybe a garbage bag over your glassless window, but it wouldn't keep you warm at night.

So, if you hear a crazy cat lady screaming, "WHAT?" in the middle of the night through her glassless window, it's me.

Speaking of the crazy cat lady, here's a snapshot of a typical scene in my home. I'll be just living life, minding my own business, checking out the internet on my computer, and then suddenly my little cat Choochie appears. She knows she's welcome to (unless I'm trying to work on something important). She's mine. She's family. She can snuggle with me pretty much anytime she wants.

How much more, then, the God of the universe who is the Lord of my life? He's more than welcome to be that close to me. In fact, I hope He comes even closer than that. I hope He's already been making Himself at home in the deepest parts of my insides.

Choochie and I haven't always been as close as we are today. When I first met her, I wasn't even all that impressed by her. But now I love her so much that I ache at the thought of anything happening to her. I would take a zillion bullets for her. And she's just a cat.

But she's my cat. I've known her for a decade and a half. Our relationship didn't just happen overnight.

Have you ever needed to whip up a meal in a hurry? Just add water: instant soup. Just add water: instant coffee. Or did you ever used to play with those creepy miniature water toys in the 1980s? Just add water: instant huge water toy.

But there are some things that just can't be microwaved. (Or maybe you could microwave them, but they would taste soggy and gross.) There are some things that can't be rushed. You can't just add water to everything and expect it to be instantly wonderful. Some things must take time -- lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of time -- to grow and develop. A healthy relationship is one of them.

I think sometimes the deepest relationships involve the craziest code words. If I were to tell you, "Exit, exit," you'd probably look at me funny. (You'd probably go, "What?") But when I tell Choochie, "Exit, exit," she knows exactly what I mean. She knows that she must leave the room. This comes in handy when you have two cats who need to be fed in separate rooms because they're on completely different diets. My other cat Macho understands the same command. If "Exit, exit," doesn't work, I'll say something like, "Let me whisk you," and then I'll pick Choochie up and literally whisk her into the next room while she trill-protests. Yes, I am a cat herder.

And, of course, my relationship with my cats is sort of like God's relationship with me. He probably has to talk to me a little bit differently than He talks to everybody else. (And not just with me. He probably treats everybody that way.)

About a dozen years ago, I was worshiping at church on a Sunday morning. During one of the songs, God told me, "You're a groovy chick." This touched me so deeply that I began to cry (in a good way). I am not making this up.

Some time afterwards, I told my mentor/leader about this incident. She said, "That just shows that God speaks to everyone differently. He called you 'a groovy chick,' and it made you cry. If He had called me 'a groovy chick,' He would have offended me." Indeed.

Stuff like that happens to me all the time. God talks to me in a way that I need to hear all the time. And our relationship isn't just add water: instant closeness.

The other weekend while I was driving around by myself and feeling sad and lonely, God comforted me by saying, "No one's going to take you away from Me. That's all I care about." Yes, His words truly ministered to me. I am not making this up.

Last night, I decided to watch a movie from my old taped-from-cable VHS collection. The Champ is a 1979 remake -- a major tearjerker. It's about a troubled ex-boxer and his little boy. During one scene, after the dad returns home from jail -- where he went after he got in a fistfight with someone who was trying to collect a gambling debt -- he tells his little boy, "You know what you are?" And his 8-year-old son answers, "A pain in the [bleep]." Then they both hug while the orchestral music plays dramatically. The dad tells his little boy, "I love you so much," and you can tell when you're watching it that he really means it.

I was totally bawling like a baby. I thought about my earthly ex-father -- the professor who would whisk me away when I was about 4 years old so that he could study me linguistically -- and about how he treated me more like a science experiment than a little girl. While I was watching this touching movie scene with this dysfunctional dad who obviously loved his little boy, I thought to myself, "I'll never have that." And God threw a rock at my window and said, "Whatever. You have Me now." Yes, while I was sitting there totally bawling like a baby, His words truly ministered to me. We were relating to each other like an old married couple watching an old movie together on the couch on a Saturday night. I am not making this up.

Just because you are genetically related to somebody doesn't mean that you will automatically have just add water: instant relationship. It doesn't work that way. Deep, close relationships take time to grow and develop.

This is something that I have learned the hard way. But I think it's been an expensive, precious lesson to learn -- and nobody can take it away from me.

So, the "volunteers" from "the womb of the morning" in Psalm 110:3...

What?

I don't know yet, but I hope to find out. I don't think I'll be able to just add water: instant revelation. I'll probably need to spend some time and some love. And I'm very OK with that.