I know we know lots of people who have various faiths. One aspect (undeniable and a truth) of being a Christian is following Jesus Christ. And it is being of faith that is being open to God.

The truth about Jesus is that Jesus is Truth. We can not deny His Diety, His existence nor His Calling on our lives as His followers. Like psalm 139, He will find us, reach to us.

 I recently shared my awakening story in super condensed fashion and a poem about piety, the openness to God of following Him. I’m not sharing the whole presentation, just parts. This write up as a speech has poetry included within the writing. Again it is not the whole speech, just my personal testimony (in ‘brief’).

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One day (December 10th 2014), I woke up – just woke up wide awake – 2:30AM – and I started writing – processing – pondering – NOT SURE EVEN WHOM I WAS WRITING TO – BUT I WAS writing out things that I should have been DISCUSSING WITH GOD for years – so much – and all that went into WRITING AND WRITING, I can see now, in hindsight, that I had to process my faith beliefs AND disbeliefs – I was answering questions that I myself had – I was taking stock of life – but also dedicating time – essentially teaching myself where I thought I would/could/should be better in my  faith. In hindsight, I can tell you that I really didn’t know if Jesus was the Son of God – where is the data? Who wrote these New Testament chapters and could we trust it  was not more than a telephone game passing info down the road – maybe Jesus was just another prophet with a publicist – how was I to know??? What was evident to God and to me was that I was IGNORANT in my faith – God was fixing that. 

I wasn’t completely cold or uneducated – I was president of the women’s united methodist group for years, taught Sunday school and even ran vacation bible school. At that time in Dec 2014, I was truly scared at why I was having to wake up and write out these 2:30am conversations and explanations – I was scared that the Lord was  taking over my brain – I chose to talk to no one about it – but after about 2 weeks my head and heart pouring out – dare I say popping out of my head into my fingers – both diatribes of ignorance then natural faith devotional writings (wondering where it came from and why). I hid these writings by emailing them to myself – printing them out and hiding them in my car. I found about 2 weeks later then I had to speak to SOMEBODY – and God choose for me to reach to some folks outside my normal faith circle – not my spouse – not my pastor until later – just the right person at the right time who didn’t interfere nor challenge nor coddle me – just listened – said “these are real, Debbie, raw – open and real…”. 

I was not sure what was going on –- but later I realized – again in Holy Spirit nudging way – that THIS was an AWAKENING. I was painfully but blessedly going through the birth of Jesus IN me. I was AWAKENING.

AND IN THIS AWAKENING – over the course of almost 2 months – I started absorbing scripture with a voracious appetite – praise songs to fill my headspace – I saw signs (little and big) and wonders and seemingly perfectly placed people in my path – As a scientist, God knew I needed the data – and wow he found the people (often in duplicates) and the info (to be my “data” catch up, also in duplicate) to send my way – wow God seemed to know – imagine that! That God knows where we are and where we aren’t – and He knows to “show us the Way.”

And in my writings which continued I was acknowledging that I wasn’t listening to God in all that I could be – and this writing helped me do participatory processing – God got my head on straight and led me to notice Jesus who chose to grab me ever so gently and wake me up – like Jarius’s daughter (Mark 5:21-43). God knew my faith was dead – Jesus said “eh, she is just sleeping” – and Jesus took control of the situation, I was born again, and Jesus has never let me go since…

John 10:28 scripture recounts Jesus says: “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand”.

I REALIZED THIS FEB 1ST 2015 – I HAD CHANGED – I used to be uninformed and 50:50 on Jesus – Now I WAS WITH JESUS 100% – IT WAS 50 WRITINGS IN 6 WEEKS – AND a recording of AN AWAKENING showing that IT WAS GOD AND GOD ONLY saving me.

My writings – I slowly shared with friends and later on – months later – I really simply asked God – can I stop? – am I done writing now? Can I be done please? I’m with you now Lord 100% as my SAVIOR – but why am I still waking up (gratefully not 230am anymore – but 5am) and so I asked God if He would stop doing that – stop waking me up – stop making me write – I was no longer petrified yet still puzzled – perhaps I still am – eleven years ago I was praying if maybe God would let me return to “my normal” – God said “NO”. I DON’T EVEN ASK NOW – I JUST WRITE – AND WRITE.

God said “YES YOU – I called YOU” – God said call Me YOUR LORD… YES Lord… God continually said: “there’s no turning back” – “When you serve Me – which is the best path for you – and you put your hand to the plow like the scripture of Luke 9:62)– then LOOK FORWARD – there’s no turning back – no turning back. Here is one such poem that “popped out of me”: called Patchwork:  “I am a patchwork quilt of bible understanding – God makes a warm blanket out of me even though my patchwork quilt is made of a multitude of bible scraps… God’s WORD is still being sewn delicately and strongly together into my head, my heart, and my soul, by God’s gentle hands” … God says He can use me – and He doesn’t throw any of His scraps or discard any of His children or waste His Word in any way. I am a patchwork quilt of bible understanding – but He reads me needs me and loves me, just the way I am.

Yes, Poetry POPS out of me with Purpose – Essentially in practicality, God tells us that we are His and no one else’s – but I was too busy for too many years to figure out what I was missing in my relationship with God – I was too distracted and full of my own agenda – but I was not doing bad things – I was just mostly going about things without consulting Him enough – and then – beginning in these morning writing wake ups – God essentially said to me: “[now is the time to start listening – to stop drifting – to be caught in my net – and to start and keep swimming WITH Me not against My Tide]”…

Here’s the Poetry 

Pursuit of Piety = with P’s to PoPulate the Point:

The Lord brought me to a Place of Peace well before certain Particulars POPPED UP in my Path.

Particulars of Problems have POPPED UP Personally, even Presently, but because of PIETY, His PEACE and PURPOSE Permeate me with Perseverance.

Praises and Prayer for His Promised Protection Pay off in Peace.

A Practicality of Piety is that God gets to POPulate which Powerful Phrases Perhaps Punch or

POP into our Processing and Prevent Problem Pitfalls 

Piety Provokes Pursuits of His Path, causing the Pickup of our Pleasing Pace, and Put us Positionally Properly in Praise and Prayer.

God will Ply His Powerful Word, Plus Props and People Particularly Placed to Pursue us and to get us out of a Pickle. God asks for our Piety to Pull us into His Peace, Permanently.

Piety is tapping into God’s Presence, Pursuit being under His Pavillion, as well as Perceiving Proper Place, Plus Piety gives Procedures for Path Paving, Particularly Pointing to Him, not just as Partner but Him as Lord, Abba, Father, Papa. 

No Photographic memory Plates needed, PIETY Pieces together Parts of scripture to Purpose, to Ply and apply Properly. 

Whether our Piety Platform uses Paper, or Phone apps, Praise singing, Podcasts, Pamphlets, or VBS Plays, Piety allows our biblical Pursuits to be Proficient and Profitable.

PIETY PROVIDES PROOF POSITIVE THAT God’s Pursuit and THE POWER OF THE WORD is

PRECIOUS. So, Phew, in Prayerful Pleading: I say Piety, Pursue Piety, PLEASE!!!!!!!

Amen 

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And that Guidance from God that He gave me directly? Making me write out my awakening and still write to this day – I started put my writing into a blog format to help keep it numbered – now almost 3000 daily writings – I am in chapter 121 in my organizational way – and I do print them on paper too – that is what I want my kids to remember – and others to remember – that I loved the Lord and that God is real and alive and still working in our lives – individually and collectively. One chapter is all processing after my Dad’s death – wow that helped me – and I hope it will help someone else too as I do know eventually, I need to get them published in some fashion – but how and when? Well, I trust the Lord will tell me somehow – I have to be devoted and listen… My piety is still popping.

Plying of piety would change my life – forever – for Him – for me – for you – for who knows. God knows. That is why God wants our piety and our practice and our pursuit of Him. God knows best AND all the rest. He gave me a place and a purpose – in my writing pursuit – a relationship far deeper than any religious practice – a relationship of pursuit and prayer and certainly praise… And this piety puts scriptures into one’s head – to pop up when needed – and I will tell you a short story –a time where something awful had happened – or well, my brain ran away with it – because it was probably manageable but it scared me and I feared immensely – and well the benefit of being in community was that my friend from work, whom I knew was a devout follower of Jesus, she came into the my office just at the right time – when I was so stressed to the point of being ill – and well, I told her – I am so troubled -and I know that if I just raise my hand up to Jesus like Peter – sinking in the water – well – yes – and I lifted my hand – really lifted it and wow – wow wow wow the Lord pulled me up at that moment. Knowing scripture and action and pulling closer to Jesus – begging Him really – my struggle was gone – the situation remained by the peace of mind was palatable and wow… My joy is in that I have repeated this rescue with Jesus seriously at least two or three times since them – the trouble was clarified and most importantly the peace from the Lord POPPED me back into JOY.

[Thank you for letting me share. As you know my writings are curated at debbieupper.blog with writings 1-50 as my awakening, writing 1 is the faith diatribe, writings near 50 are realization having to share. I’ve also written through the whole old testament after through the gospels, 11 years of writings,  email format].

Amen