The Mercy Journey

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You inspire me a great deal; you are a goal getter, a pacesetter. You deserve this new venture and its promising prospect. May you achieve extraordinary feat and fulfilment. Safe trip, my cute friend. Love is a ‘ state of being’, a state that can change. ‘State’ is described as ‘a specific condition at a specific time’ and my condition of feeling loved can change. The tension here is that we often only receive the love that we feel we are worthy to receive. The goal therefore, is to not rely on the feeling of being loved by God or the feeling of love for Him to measure how well we’re doing in our Christian walk, but to allow those encounters with the Lord to lead us to a place of intimacy with Him. Not just a Christian walk but a lifestyle of walking with Him unafraid and uninhibited, regardless of how we feel.

Make sure you’re not too exposed to the cold weather. Take good care of your health because I’ve got no other friend asides you. I wish you journey mercies and safety as you go and when you arrive over there. I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.” (John 16:12, NIV) In the past, before Mercy, I experienced many disappointments and hurts; my hope had dwindled and I lost the sense of who I was. I had reached a place where I was hanging onto the idea of hope, let alone purpose and hope for any kind of a future. For too long I had been living out of a place of disappointment, despair/discouragement, hurt that turned to self-hate, fear, unforgiveness and a belief system that said, “I am a victim, a target and a failure.” This led to me avoiding parts of life and isolating to try protect myself and avoid any more hurt. How can I believe for tomorrow, for growth and expansion when we can’t even pay today’s bills?? And every time His answer was I've held onto that throughout and after graduating from Mercy to remind myself that regardless of where others are on their journeys and where I am on mine, I truly believe that Mercy was just the start for me, that there are so many more layers of healing to come and that's ok, I'm trying to have grace for myself through that process and bash pride and condemnation on the head!Here is a prayer for safe driving and traveling. Let us seek the Lord’s protection before we go on a road trip so He can protect us and keep us safe while we’re on the road. His promises, spoken to us in the quality time set aside with Him, become deeply personal to us and become the place of protection we can trust in when the storms in life begin to rage. Presented as a supernatural being, we struggled to relate to God; we approached Him as the unknown, feared Him as the unknown, and rejected Him as the unknown. As His people would not draw near to Him as Almighty God, then He would become man, and walk amongst us. It’s a bit like being a superfan, we can know everything there is to know about any given celebrity, we might even catch glimpses of them from the crowd and feel the love at the concert, but we have not yet sat with them face to face and experienced a heart-to-heart. Baby, it’s going to be a long trip ahead and I wish I could be with you. Stay happy and safe. God’s mercies are with you as you go.

John 8:47 promises that when we belong to God, we can recognise Him. When we say yes to Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, our spirit becomes awakened to His spirit. It’s as if our own spirit offers us a secret place of meeting, where we can learn to recognise His presence and His voice. That is, we receive the ‘ Access All Areas pass’ to our own private audience with the King. These steps to intimacy are what God has called us into – what He has attracted us into. To attract actually means ‘ to cause to participate in a venture by offering something of interest’. It leads us to ask, “what led me to choose God or to be interested in who He is?” To live from this place of unconditional love means loving ourselves the way He does and for many of us, the Steps to Intimacy is a journey we will need to take ourselves on. What about if your friend’s new marriage seems to stay at a superficial level – without intimacy, without relationship, without fruit? Would you be concerned? I won’t pretend this journey has been easy. There are times where I have doubted God and the things He has said. Despite the evidence and cases I ended up challenging Him with, He has remained constant, and He has shown me how He sees me. He has broken off and removed so many lies, replacing them with His honest, loving truth.Being a Christian of many years, and working in ministry … AND feeling that things in my life weren’t quite right, struggling in my head with overwhelming feelings and thoughts was a really challenging one for me… but I strongly believe that when we show ‘shame’ the door and speak up about what life can actually be like, we leave that door open for others to bravely consider seeking support for themselves. I honestly believe that God welcomes our questions and doubts …there’s no feeling of judgement with Him, it’s simply an invitation to draw closer.

Anyone in love finds joy in making the other smile. In our love for Him, as in the days of our first love, we felt delight in making Him smile – we felt joy in going round doing good, the way Jesus would. Putting it slightly differently, John 14:15 may as well as say, Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to Him for protection.” (Proverbs 30:5 NIV) To everyone who supports Mercy I want you to know how truly grateful I am, during my journey we were hit by a pandemic (you know the one!) but Mercy was able to operate virtually and continue to support us and I cannot tell you how much that meant and how incredibly significant that was for me. I am sure you will not have a difficult time choosing from any of those have a safe journey wishes and messages. They are written to meet your needs of sending to friends, family, lover, colleague and others. Think about it, when you recall a number such as a phone number or pin number, how do you do it? Do you ‘hear’ the number in your head or the corresponding sound of the beeps? Do you see the numbers, like a picture? Do you recall how you wrote them down and recall the memory of it? Do you remember the pattern your fingers make as you enter them?Britney Spears’ new memoir, The Woman in Me, is a heartbreaking story about a life spent at the mercy of others. — TIME, 20 Oct. 2023 Whether that means a majority of the conference, or a two-thirds or three-fourths supermajority, the bulk of the conference should not be at the mercy of a small number of dissenters. — The Editors, National Review, 13 Oct. 2023 The overall stress of the agriculture industry is also a concern: Farmers are often at the mercy of weather, supply shortages, volatile markets and other factors entirely out of their control. — David R. Buys, Fortune, 12 Oct. 2023 Now the fate of that rule is becoming a pivotal part of the debate surrounding the selection of a new speaker who would be at the mercy of the same unforgiving math if nothing changes. — Carl Hulse, New York Times, 7 Oct. 2023 The relationship ultimately grows increasingly toxic, leaving Ella, Mary and her half-brother Sammy at the mercy of Willard’s alcoholic rages. — Nicole Acosta, Peoplemag, 6 Oct. 2023 See More You are going to have a good trip ahead, trust me. Just relax and enjoy the ride and the fun on the way. All the best wishes to you, my dearest friend as you go. The discomfort itself isn’t always a reflection on the other person. More often than not, it's a reflection on me, as the other party in the relationship. It’s a reflection of the internal vows and beliefs about the risk of looking stupid, of being judged, or being dropped, of feeling betrayed. This is also where the treasures of conversations with God really come into play as we move from asking Friendship Questions, to questions around the conditions of our own heart and how we might become free to love and be loved. Go in peace, may the Lord be with you and protect you. No ill on the road will come close to you because you hear the mark of the child of God. I wish you a safe and very exciting trip ahead.