He's Never Late...

God’s Time

It’s hard sometimes to understand, God’s great, all knowing and mighty hand.

We see our world in limited view, knowing our need; at least we think we do.

We do our best to live obediently, without complaint, expediently.

Not comparing ourselves to one another, not being jealous of sister or brother.

Somehow, some way, hard as we try, we just can’t help but wonder why;

God seems to have overlooked our need, and still has neglected to water our seed.

As hard as it is to understand, God’s great, all knowing and mighty hand.

Let us remember his motive is pure love, he looks over us all, from his throne above.

His vision encompasses our entire life, from beginning to end, every joy; every strife.

He knows the plans he has for us, they are good not evil, in this we must trust.

Knowing down deep within our hearts, through all the tears and false starts;

God’s Word is ever and always true; HE will always see his promises through.

If we fully delight ourselves in Him, not just in part, he will give us the desires of our heart.

A Message

Psalm 18 From "The Message"

 I love you, God— you make me strong.
   God is bedrock under my feet,
      the castle in which I live,
      my rescuing knight.
   My God—the high crag
      where I run for dear life,
      hiding behind the boulders,
      safe in the granite hideout.


 I sing to God, the Praise-Lofty,
      and find myself safe and saved.


 The hangman's noose was tight at my throat;
      devil waters rushed over me.
   Hell's ropes cinched me tight;
      death traps barred every exit.


 A hostile world! I call to God,
      I cry to God to help me.
   From his palace he hears my call;
      my cry brings me right into his presence—
      a private audience!

 Earth wobbles and lurches;

      huge mountains shake like leaves,

   Quake like aspen leaves

      because of his rage.

   His nostrils flare, bellowing smoke;

      his mouth spits fire.

   Tongues of fire dart in and out;

      he lowers the sky.

   He steps down;

      under his feet an abyss opens up.

   He's riding a winged creature,

      swift on wind-wings.

   Now he's wrapped himself

      in a trenchcoat of black-cloud darkness.

   But his cloud-brightness bursts through,

      spraying hailstones and fireballs.

   Then God thundered out of heaven;

      the High God gave a great shout,

      spraying hailstones and fireballs.

   God shoots his arrows—pandemonium!

      He hurls his lightnings—a rout!

   The secret sources of ocean are exposed,

      the hidden depths of earth lie uncovered

   The moment you roar in protest,

      let loose your hurricane anger.

 But me he caught—reached all the way

      from sky to sea; he pulled me out

   Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,

      the void in which I was drowning.

   They hit me when I was down,

      but God stuck by me.

   He stood me up on a wide-open field;

      I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!

 God made my life complete

      when I placed all the pieces before him.

   When I got my act together,

      he gave me a fresh start.

   Now I'm alert to God's ways;

      I don't take God for granted.

   Every day I review the ways he works;

      I try not to miss a trick.

   I feel put back together,

      and I'm watching my step.

   God rewrote the text of my life

      when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.

 The good people taste your goodness,

   The whole people taste your health,    

The true people taste your truth, 

The bad ones can't figure you out. 

 You take the side of the down-and-out,    

But the stuck-up you take down a peg. 

  Suddenly, God, you floodlight my life;

      I'm blazing with glory, God's glory!

   I smash the bands of marauders,

      I vault the highest fences.

  What a God! His road

      stretches straight and smooth.

   Every God-direction is road-tested.

      Everyone who runs toward him

   Makes it.

 Is there any god like God?

      Are we not at bedrock?

   Is not this the God who armed me,

      then aimed me in the right direction?

   Now I run like a deer;

      I'm king of the mountain.

   He shows me how to fight;

      I can bend a bronze bow!

   You protect me with salvation-armor;

      you hold me up with a firm hand,

      caress me with your gentle ways.

   You cleared the ground under me

      so my footing was firm.

   When I chased my enemies I caught them;

      I didn't let go till they were dead men.

   I nailed them; they were down for good;

      then I walked all over them.

   You armed me well for this fight,

      you smashed the upstarts.

   You made my enemies turn tail,

      and I wiped out the haters.

   They cried "uncle"

      but Uncle didn't come;

   They yelled for God

      and got no for an answer.

   I ground them to dust; they gusted in the wind.

      I threw them out, like garbage in the gutter.

 You rescued me from a squabbling people;

      you made me a leader of nations.

   People I'd never heard of served me;

      the moment they got wind of me they listened.

   The foreign devils gave up; they came

      on their bellies, crawling from their hideouts.

 Live, God! Blessings from my Rock,

      my free and freeing God, towering!

   This God set things right for me

      and shut up the people who talked back.

   He rescued me from enemy anger,

      he pulled me from the grip of upstarts,

   He saved me from the bullies.

 That's why I'm thanking you, God,

      all over the world.

   That's why I'm singing songs

      that rhyme your name.

   God's king takes the trophy;

      God's chosen is beloved.

   I mean David and all his children—

      always.

In His Hand

In his hand

Forever

Since my beginning

Until my end

Created like him

Wonderfully

Designed to worship him

Fearfully

I am surely my beloveds

And

He is mine

Heavens King calls down

I answer with a sigh

[I must have more of him!

Or I will surely die!]

My LORD, who am I that you gaze upon me;

Opening the windows of Heaven like a curtain?

“You have called, my LORD…I am here.

Your own beloved Hand Maiden.”

Engulfed in heavens light

Stunned

Beholding heavens hosts

Awestruck

Swept away in spirit

Desiring

Taken to my LORD

Humbled

I am surely my beloveds

And

He is mine

Heavens King takes my hand

Brings me to my feet

Celestial music fills the air

We dance; our eyes they meet

My LORD, who am I that you gaze upon me;

Opening the windows of Heaven like a curtain?

“You have called, my LORD….I am here.

Your Own Amy Colleen.”

by: Amy Colleen Klapp

Hands up - I pick YOU!

Me me me! Pick me!

So, is there anyone out there who can identify with ever having raised your hand in response to a question something like this,

"So who would like to be on my team?"


Then never, ever get picked, ever.

Or perhaps you may remember shooting your hand up in response to a question similar in style to this,

"Who'd like to volunteer to help lead a project with me?"

And then gotten the old hand shot up right back at cha with a, "Slow down there - Just remembered someone already told me they were going to help out. So sorry 'bout that."   Speech added on to boot.

Then there's always the feeling like you are never number one in anyone's book. 

Ever struggled with that one?

Come on now. You're telling me you have never felt like you don't belong where you are? Ever?

(and not in a GOOD way)

You have never felt outta place before...always confident and secure....???

Well great then. If that is YOU - then this blog post is NOT FOR YOU - you can say T.T.F.N.

Tah Tah For Now !

For the rest of us let's continue on....

I know I have always struggled with feeling like the BLACK sheep. No matter what period of my life. Oh,  I understand why, now. I didn't then.

                                                      It's because I am.

For the L O N G E S T time, literally for years; well into adulthood, being so different was a stumbling block for me. Even though I was a believer. I knew the Lord Jesus as my personal Savior.

 I still did not have a grasp on how to embrace the uniqueness of who I was....who God had created me to be.

Every time I began to truly blossom and show characteristic traits of this beautiful creation that God himself created. 

I began to stand out and become more noticeable.
Why? Not because I was better or more beautiful - because I'm not. (reader please don't mis-understand my heart here. I have a reason for saying this)
I began to stand out because of my difference.
The vibrancy of my difference.

Unfortunately, I found that the majority of people, in and out of the church, do not like different! So the more I began to blossom into "AmyColleen" *God's Own Beloved Hand Maiden*(name meaning)

The fewer invites I began to get. The fewer responses to invites, phone calls and such I would receive back and yes when I raised my hand to be picked I was no longer a desirable candidate for anyone's team. No one wanted to be around me any longer.

I guess my difference made others uncomfortable.

I will be quite honest. There were many times I shrink back for a time into  an Amy that wasn't quite all of me, just so I could have some company. I would compare it to a night Lilly. One that goes to sleep during the day and blooms during the night. So beautiful - these Lily's have so much to offer the world. Yet we never get to see them because they wait until the deep dark wee morning hours to bloom.

That's what I did off and on for years. I was Amy during the day with my church family and AmyColleen at night with the Lord. It seemed the happy medium and the only way I could get any fellowship.
One problem. No one ever got a picture of the real me. AmyColleen. Kinda like this beautiful Lily that only blooms at night. Just to get this picture of a night Lily to put on my blog was difficult enough. For a photographer to catch a good shot of one of these is so rare that there are so few pictures on the web to choose from that aren't copy written.


Well here I am all grown up now. Still AmyColleen, Still surrounded by a multitude of people. I still have the choice to be Amy or AmyColleen. I have learned a thing or three. The most important and life changing lesson I have learned (and point of this blog) would have to be that  God does not create junk!

I mean that is the short of the long of it.
We. You and I. We are created in God's image.  We are fearfully and wonderfully created, right?
(hey...if you are reading this and you don't believe this then see me after. i.e. email me call me...see me....we will talk. this DOES apply to YOU as well! )

God, the creator of the universe...of all the things we can and can not see. All the GOOD things....HE does not create garbage. Plain and simple. He is not a man, that he should lie....(that would be Satan, for HE is the father of lies)
So, if me, YOU are created a little different, maybe ALLOT different than people around us than it was NOT A MISTAKE or FREAK OF NATURE.....OR CURSE OR ANYTHING ELSE! The devil, Satan our accuser would VERY much love for us to blame God, our creator, the one who loves......and would very much love for us to listen to the lies that he (Satan) is streaming into our minds through tons of different medians....telling us that we need to be different than we are - in order to receive God's love....but THIS IS A LIE FROM SATAN. The Word of GOD tells us in  Romans 5:6-8
"For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. ⁸ But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

All of this to say and encourage those I know and those I don't know but am aware may be encountering challenges in this same area.

It's okay to be yourself! SOMEONE has to be! 
No one sees things the same way you do. - that's okay.  That is why God created you after all. We are all unique.

Go ahead and don't be afraid to raise your hand!
Stand out and shine!

The Door & the Bridge - A Vivid Night Vision

The Door and The Bridge

I was in a house....or a building....it looked more sterile than I would have my house, but the sense I got was that it was a house.

There were very many doors along the inside of the walls of the house.
There were other people in this house with me. No one in particular, that I remember by name....just that I remember getting the feeling they were people I was close to.

Some of the doors were open and people were coming and going, in and out of them freely.
There were other doors that were open and no one was going through them; in fact no one was even close to where they were or seemed interested in going over to that side of the room where the doors were open.

Then there was this one door in the upper right side of the room. It wasn't closed all the way, nor was it open all the way. It was slightly cracked....just enough to get my attention.

I headed straight for that door....and when I got there I opened it right away ...all the way.
Several people in the room immediately turned around and saw me and spoke very clearly to me, "No! You don't want to go through that door!"

I just ignored them.

They kept on trying to stop me with their words, (no one would come near the door)  "It's too dangerous in there!! it's dark and...."

I had already stepped through the door and onto a bridge...
The bridge was a large sturdy bridge,(at first) like one you might see cars drive over.
I said out loud, "All I need to do is soak this bridge in oil!"

I then went back inside the house; got a huge bottle of anointing oil and headed back out onto the bridge. 

I began to walk across the bridge and anoint the side railings with oil. As I did the bridge became smaller. The farther I got across the narrower and the weaker less structured the bridge became.

So much so that it was no longer a large sturdy bridge capable of holding cars. It had transformed into a much smaller bridge
only big enough to hold one or two people at a time 
and it swayed back and forth as I walked along,
making it necessary for me to hold on tightly to the what once were the side bats of the bridge and now were the ropes that kept the bridge suspended. I continued on unto half way across the bridge where I ran into a curtain of utter and complete darkness.
Suddenly the bridge began to swing back and forth violently in the wind. A wind that seemed to come out of no where!!!
I knew I had to head back to the house but held on tight and took the last bit of oil that I had and saturated the railing/ropes with it.

As I turned around and began to make my way back the wind became so violent I couldn't hold on any longer and just before I reached the door  to the house I began to fall and that's when I felt some one's hand on my back.
In the midst of the raging storm this hand kept me from falling and lifted me to safety until I could step back into the room.

I have never felt anything like it, ever. Not in real life or in any vision or dream. Ever.
I wasn't afraid, at all. Not even when the I began to fall. However, when I felt the hand touch on my back, I was consumed with peace. So much so, that when I awakened from this dream. When I opened my eyes immediately following this dream, I was still overwhelmed with this peace.

It was amazing.

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This was spiritual warfare, not a plan, not a prophecy, but the real thing as I was dreaming.  The doors are areas of ministry that were open to me, and had I gone through any other door, it would have been a different dream, but I chose this door. The one with the bridge....it was a passage being used by the enemy to bring evil into this world by the truckload.  As I minsitered holiness, (the oil) the bridge lost power and strength.  Because of the impact of my prayer and walk of faith, the enemy came against me. (the raging storm and wind)  because I walked in faith into the battle with nothing the but the Lord, He delivered me from the hand of the enemy, who was unable to harm me.

**** **** **** **** ***** ****  

Which door will you choose? Are you ready to take your stand against the enemy? 

Let's stand together as faithful followers and servants of the most high God!

Shalom ~ AmyColleen