Can I actually sin by ministering to others?

God: I desire obedience more than sacrifice.

One of your standing orders is to pursue healing for yourself, for when you do not, everyone else suffers. Your wounds are not yours alone. Every single person in your life suffers from the behaviors, conscious and unconscious, that are the natural result of woundedness (not to mention that they hurt because they love you and your hurting hurts them that way as well). I think you can hear Him saying, "You keep turning your eyes away from the hurricane of your soul-- you'd rather tend to the hurricanes of others. Yes, Dear One, when you offer sacrifices I did not ask for in lieu of obedience to what I am asking of you, you sin."

You still have ahead of you this very important epiphany--the one that God used one of you to show me this year: I cannot pull those I love out of hell, if I cannot let God help me pull myself out of hell. Place the oxygen mask securely over your own face before assisting others.

Stage one: letting the scales fall from your eyes, letting the cocoon fall away so that your raw baby skin touches the air for the first time, and finds a healing balm in the gentle wind of the Holy Spirit for you there. You look for diversions-- you TRULY care about the broken hearts around you, but you involve yourself with them in ways that distract you from the business of tending to your own broken heart.

Pursuing God’s calling on your life requires you to undergo this surgery of the soul--you have to have the open heart first; if you don't, you won't live to save the others. Trust me in this, Honey. I am broken, and I know that. You know that. But broken people are all God has to work with. It is His amazing plan to use the broken to make things whole. Everything is a big fat joyous paradox for Him! He gives us so much to laugh about for eternity!!!! He will turn your ashes into beauty and your mourning into dancing. But first, you have to STAND UP.

It is painful to reset a broken arm. But you won't be able to carry that baby out of hell if you don't. Schedule the operation. I'll do anything you need to make this happen. I BELIEVE IN YOU. I see a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night hovering over you, leading you to healing that moves in every direction. You are interwoven in it with the Holy Spirit, with the Body of Christ, with broken relationships He will heal, with broken children He will make whole.

Too oft said, but denial . . . de Nile, is not just a river in Egypt. If you sit down in the safety of Jesus and look at all these shards in your life left by hurricane after hurricane, He will make looking at them a healing experience. Surveying the damage accurately is the first stage of rebuilding and renewal. Take some of the spiritual lessons from Katrina and Rita. They have hit home for you on so many levels. You are little David. The armor doesn't even fit you. You will have to go out there with just your sling and your unflappable faith in God Almighty. You'll take that giant down and we will dance for years in celebration.

Take him out, Baby Girl. This is your calling. Your armor is His spirit, your stone is Jesus. Your sling is faith, a gift from God. I am standing here on the sidelines praying all the way. With the clouds and crowds of Holy witnesses—insert names of your loved ones, on both sides of the Jordan, the moms and dads and sweet little boys and girls. run, child, run. let it rip. He's in you. He will not fail you. Run. Chase that demon down and beat the living crap out of it. If you want me to, I'll hold him down while you punch. (: