Jana Spicka and Women Getting Real Ministries
General
The Last Word
Aug 4th
Okay. Don’t creep out. I have a tough question. And your answer might be hard or easy based on how old you are, how psychosomatic or how morbid you are. Ready?
What do you want your obituary to say about you?
I have been to several funerals in the last couple of years. The deceased were in their 20s, 30s, 90s, and the last person was even 103. You can glean a lot of wisdom for the living when you sit in the ceremonies for the dead.
There is almost always a recurring theme. She was a lot of fun. She was a great mom. He was a hard worker. She loved music. And all those things are good and true.
But Chuck and I inevitably asked the same question: Where was God in their lives? We would sit through these long rememberances of people and then at the end of the service, the pastor would ask God to receive this person into His arms.
Yet there was little to no evidence that this person ever received Jesus into his or her arms or life.
Want to clarify your life goals? Write your obituary. It might help you focus on what you and the Lord really want to accomplish while you are in this earthen vessel.
The Punch of Prayer
Aug 3rd
I got this great response to yesterday’s blog. She said, “I think I’m following you, but if you’re not familiar with the kind of warfare-pray-with-authority stuff that you do, it could sound to the average Jane like, ‘See! I told you. So now we’d better just love our enemies and pray.’ That’s NOT what you’re saying…”
She is so right. That is NOT what I am saying. That article is a living, color photo of abuse. Just like the sex trade. Just like the raid and arrest on Papermill Drive. Just like the women I talk to whose dads or brothers or mom’s boyfriends stole their innocence and childhood.
I go through a gamut of emotions initially when I see this myself. Shock, rage, revenge, despair. But then I have to remember that God has known about this problem all along. And He has decided that it is time I know about it. It’s time that you know about it. So what do we do?
We tend to do a couple of things: Get overwhelmed and do nothing. Or, get scared and do nothing. Or, start to engage, get pushed back and then quit. This is where the despair kicks in.
But when I look at the model of Jesus, and His instruction to us, He never lost sight of the enemy, the battle and who would win. He modeled for us “praying in the Spirit” and agreeing with God’s perspective. He is a God of Justice. The God of Vengeance. He doesn’t just get even, He overcomes the evil of the world. He makes wrong things right, either in our lives or in the life to come.
My bottom line is this, pray with the power-filled name of Jesus and pray against the evil of the day.
Lord, You see and know more than I do, the lost, hurt, abused women and children of our day. Please show them that they are not forgotten. Please bring Your supernatural help to them. Rescue them Lord, send people to them to rescue them from the evil they are facing. Give them hope. And Lord, I pray that You would raise up warriors who would intercede. I speak the name of Jesus into this world. Your name is poured forth like ointment. To Your name be the glory. Amen.
P. S. from Jana
For another way to intercede, read Psalm 140. It’s is a comfort, but also a great thing to pray aloud.
P. P. S. from Laura
Be sure to keep an eye out for our new look! The updated Women Getting Real website is coming soon…
Those who live by the sword…
Aug 2nd
I know there is a flood of comments about the mutilated Afghan girl featured in Time magazine. My first response was: Now do you believe me when I talk about the heinous acts toward women worldwide? Now are we getting mad enough, or horrified enough, or outraged enough, so that we might pray and respond? But how?
Jesus said to Peter, one of his own disciples who mutilated a servant during His arrest, “Those who draw the sword will die by the sword.” (Matthew 36:52.)
Is that a threat? No, it is a promise. Because right after this statement Jesus asserts His own power and authority saying that He could call down legions of angel armies. Legions. Of angels. Angel armies. Let your mind soak in that. And what was His next action?
Jesus healed the ear. The ear of His enemy.
And so God calls us to this same place of grace. We seek healing for the perpetrators. We call down, with the same authority and confidence, angel armies to help us bring justice to this world.
Our enemy is not the Taliban. It is not even perverted, curse-bearing, female-abusing men. It is the devil who so hates the Image of God that we bear, that he will stop at nothing to distort and destroy it.
Oh Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we cry out to you to in the name of Jesus,
that you would bring set the oppressed free, and break every yoke,
that you would equip and enable us to bring justice in a depraved generation,
that you would bring beauty from ashes, and restoration from devastation.
You are our strength, our hope, our reward, and the only name by which we are saved.
In Your name Jesus, heal us.
Amen
Rivers of Living Water
Jul 29th
Many of you have asked about Beth’s return trip to Zimbabwe. When is she leaving? Does she need help? So I asked her give us some views from her heart and specific needs. Just as you prayed and invested before, please do so again as we witness God’s continued heart for His people. Blessings, Jana
“I started out in Zimbabwe trying to figure out what I was supposed to be getting out of the three weeks. What I realized by the time we left was that it wasn’t about what would happen during those three weeks; it was about what would continue after. The biggest thing God revealed to me there is that I still don’t see or know myself as He sees and knows me. I’ve had a lot of growth in these areas especially in the last three years, but there is more.
In Zimbabwe I was looking at the huge dam that holds back the water, which is what made the gorgeous lake where we had spent the previous few days on a houseboat. As I stood watching the water pour out I clearly heard the Lord speaking to me.
The water in the lake, while beautiful and containing lots of life, is just sitting there, unchanging aside from occasional fluctuations in level. But when it is released from the dam it pours out with astounding power creating a moving river and becoming a life of its own. I don’t know about you but I hate swimming in lakes because when water is still it gets murky and gross, growing all kinds of vegetation with who knows what hiding in it. I will take a moving river over a stagnant lake any day. This is what the Lord is calling me to in going back to Zimbabwe. I’ve been poured into and experienced a lot of healing and freedom in the last three years sitting under Jana’s teaching, but there is a lot in me being held back. Now God is inviting me out of my familiar environment where I’ve learned how and where to hide. He’s taking me to a new place where He wants to begin releasing the water and revealing the true life that He has created in me which includes strengths and abilities I’m not aware of yet. It is an adventure I am excited to take with Him.
While I really don’t have a clue what He has in store for me there, the plan for now is that I will leave August 19 to stay for six months with Alistair and Shelley Croudace who own Lasting Impressions youth camp near Kadoma. I will be working at the camp as well as helping Shelley home school their three kids and teaching some in her women’s group.
I still have to trust the Lord to come through in a lot of areas. Here are some things you could be praying for with me.
- Loneliness since staying connected to people here will be difficult
- Willingness and courage to step out into the unfamiliar as the Lord leads
- Health and safety both traveling and while there
- Finances (Beth needs to pray in $2000 either before she leaves, or on a monthly committed basis)
- Visa renewals. I can only get 30 days at a time and will have to apply for a renewal every 30 days.
- Smooth travel as I will be by myself this time.”
Lord, we thank You for doing far more than we can ask or imagine. We thank You that we are seeing with our own eyes, ”there’s a bigger picture (we) can’t see.” We say yes and amen to these prayer requests and thank You for Your grace and provision. May You continue to bring glory to Your name through Beth and Your work in Zimbabwe. In the power of Jesus’ name, Amen.
The Long View of God
Jul 28th
Have you ever been somewhere where you can see a long way? Picture in your mind the view from a mountain top. You can see a lot of landscape. Rivers, roads, tree lines, meadows. There are a lot of details and specific markers that help you identify where you are and where you have been.
If you are like me, when you look from the mountain view of your life, you can rattle off many markers that may have shaped your life. School, abuse, addiction, car wreck, divorce, bankruptcy, abortion, buying a house, getting new jobs, losing jobs, getting married, having children, death of loved ones, moving to new cities. These markers act as points on a map tracing our journey. But. There is more.
Here is one of those Holy Buts. If you look at your life and you only see those woundings or events, only see the hurt and scars, you might need to look again.
Many of us have long memories of past hurts and use them as stumbling blocks and excuses to stop us from moving forward. With great precision, we can articulate how this person did this and now we…. Or we say, “I chose this and now I can’t….”
When we do this, we need to look again because we fail to see God’s presence in the exact same life. Do we have a long memory of God’s faithfulness and help? With the same precision, can we articulate, this happened…but God…? He is, in a word picture, the mountain that we move over and around and through. He is our rock.
God was there. God is there. God will be there.
Was working, is working, will be working for our good.
In the book, The Shack, they pose a question to Mack about why he looks to the future and makes up things that will happen, but he never sees God in the future with him. Our regret about the past, our fear of the day, our anxiety about the future might be radically altered if we zoom out and see God is here.
It is, after all, His world. And we are His people.
Take a moment to pray this prayer out loud over yourself and your loved ones. Take a long view at God. Learn how to recount His presence in your life. It may help you see better.
O LORD, You have searched me
and You know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
You perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
You are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
You know it completely, O LORD.
You hem me in—behind and before;
You have laid Your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from Your presence?
Psalm 139 1-7