Today I just want to write about something I am really passionate about and I’m hoping you will be inspired by it.

Recently, I was sitting at the local Starbucks where I usually hang out. I see a friend at another table talking to someone I have never seen before so I decide to walk up and say hi. This new person introduces himself as Trey. We laugh over practically sharing a name and I walked away. I honestly thought that was the last time I was going to talk to Trey. 

Two days later I’m back at Starbucks, hanging out with a girl who is also a regular. We are talking and I hear the barista call out Trey’s name. I see him go and sit across the room with a large water in his hand and a little magazine tucked under his arm. Now, normally this wouldn’t look that weird to me, but something was telling me to go and talk to this guy I had met once randomly. 

I walked up to him and ask if he was the guy I had met a few nights before and he invites me to sit down. We ended up talking for the next three hours about his life and how he got to be in the bay area. It turns out that Trey had pretty much run away from home during a mental breakdown after graduation. He left his house and hitchhiked across mainly California for the past two years. He talked about sleeping under bridges, getting picked up by strangers, dangerous situations, having no food. 

As I am listening him tell me his extensive story of the past two years the only thing I can think is how amazing God is. This guy needed shelter and it was provided, he needed food and never went hungry. The only problem is that Trey doesn’t see it that way. Trey’s mother forced religion on her son his whole life and when he left, part of what he was running away from was her. 

Trey is currently living in his car but has no money for gas or for food. He is cold every night. Although Trey put himself in his circumstances, I can’t help but care about his well being. 

Homelessness is an issue that is really close to my heart. People living on the streets is something that really could be avoided if we had better drug rehabilitation centers, mental facilities and all over acceptance. I am not saying that everyone who is homeless is a drug addict or mentally ill, but I am saying there are a lot of people out there on the streets who need help. 

Trey’s story has been on my mind a lot lately. He is one of the smartest people of his age (19) that I have ever met and he is also unique in his passion for just hitting the road and following where ever God takes him. I know Trey doesn’t view it that way, he sees it as a possibility but doesn’t have a personal relationship with the Lord. 

I’m asking you guys to pray for him. To pray for Trey and other people who are hungry and tired. A lot of the time when we pray for those things, I find people saying it with an empty heart. Have a heart filled with compassion. There are people living in the cold. People who die and no one even knows their name. There are people all over the world, or sometimes even in your neighborhood who don’t know how they are going to feed themselves or their family. 

I just wanna leave you with this thought. Sometimes we cannot do a lot about the problems in our world, but sometimes we can. Change starts with one person, one idea and it snowballs into the future. If there is something you are passionate about go out and do something about it! You might make the difference between saving a life, or a soul, or whatever! And if you aren’t sure what you are passionate about, or don’t know how to help, pray. Prayer is the power that will change the world. 

Well guys, here’s the deal. I have to stop doing the internship. In fact, I already have stopped doing the internship. I have to stop doing it because I need to get a job and it was holding up a lot of my availability. The awesome thing about the prayer room is that it is open almost all the time so I will still be going and I will still be praying over the prayer requests I have received. 

There are some other updates I thought I might share. 1: I will still be singing for a set on Thursdays and staying for Thursday evenings at the house of prayer so I will probably still be posting some amazing revelations the Lord is showing me. 2: I spoke in the spirit for the first time today. I don’t know how you feel about the idea of speaking in tongues, I was pretty uncomfortable with it myself, and then it just kinda happened. And it was weird, but awesome. Definitely a direct line to the holy spirit. 3: For some reason no doors have been opening in my job search. I was supposed to have a phone interview yesterday morning and they never called and thus far that has been the only job to get back to me. 

Well. I guess it’s goodbye for now. I’m praying for all you guys and I hope you are praying for me too. 

Tracey

Well. Tonight was a very sobering night for me. Victor, the guy who is in charge of my internship, and I sat down and had a talk about my current home situation. The house of prayer supports me in anything I choose to do, but they also acknowledge that there is a real world out there and that I have obligations to my family and to my well being. 

Victor basically told me I have an ultimatum with them to have a decision about my level of devotion to the house of prayer by next Sunday. Victor told me that he and other staff member are worried about my health because of the insane amount of pressure I am under. 

I am at a point in my life where I really don’t know what I am doing or where I am headed in life. I had to drop out of school to look for a job with the current home situation but it seems that all the door are closing and nothing is opening. In a way, I feel an insane amount of freedom right now, I am considering all the possibilities that there are out there. I have always wanted to attend bible college and I have had the crazy idea that I might want to be a missionary. But what does all of that even mean? 

I never wanted to be a missionary. Like when all of my friends were going off on mission trips I thought they were crazy. I am one of those people that definitely enjoy the comfort of home. For some reason today I was sitting in bed reading and I just said out loud, “Maybe I should be a missionary” 

I also had another weird experience this past week. For a while there, I thought I was going to be living in my car. I was getting off the freeway and there was a girl, probably between 20 and 25, sitting with a sign that asked for food. I got off the freeway, parked my car, and even though I don’t have much cash to spare, I offered to buy her lunch. Her name is Trina. After loosing her job she hit the streets and is now traveling trying to find work. She was so grateful for the food, and I realized that it really is the kindness of strangers that gets you by. 

As you can tell, I am a little all over the place. I have a lot of passions, and I am not sure where to go in life. For someone my age, it’s completely normal. That doesn’t mean that being in this place is easy. 

The point of my post is this: Please pray for me. I am at a point in my life where I may not have a place to live within the next couple of months and I am completely confused as to which direction I should go in with my life. On the positive side, the Lord has filled me with joy even in this hard time. I hope you feel inspired to do the same. 

Well, because I didn’t get to post as soon as I would have hoped we are actually looking at 180 hours. But I’m not really going to say a lot this post. Simply explain that below are two poems that I wrote during my time in the prayer room on Wednesday. They haven’t really been edited and are a little rough and they are both pretty personal, but I though you guys might be interested in them. They came to me shortly after having a bit of a breakdown in front of the Lord about my situation. So as always, send me your prayer requests and maybe even a testimony? I’d love to hear about you guys and what God is doing in your lives. 

Poem One

Lord I think I’m failing

I’m not giving you my all

I know you think I can

I can even hear your call

I turn my back for just a minute

You reach out crying, “Stop this!”

The next thing I know

The darkness grabs my arm

Soon I’m dancing with the devil

You look on in alarm

It starts out with a waltz

I try to break away

“Jesus, I want to day with you!”

But satan begs me to stay

Reluctantly I dance some more

A fox trot, the Vianese

As we continue to dance

The more evil he teaches me

You watch as I begin the tango

And as I swirl around the floor

You see my light is fading

You know I could have so much more

I stumble over the dances

Confused and off balance

At first it felt so right

Now, it’s just a constant fight

I catch sight of You in the crowd

You’ve been cheering me on impossibly loud

The music pauses, this is my chance!

I run to You to finish our dance

You hug me tight

And whisper, “It’s okay

You’ll always be my daughter

I’d never give you away”

We start to dance, sometimes I trip

But You are there every time I begin to slip

Slowly I get better

Slowly darkness is made to light

You tell me that you love me

And I know I’ll be alright

Poem Two

Dear Mom, 

I’m sorry that I hurt you

I’m sorry I didn’t quite live up

I’m sorry what you expected

Wasn’t what you got

I wish I could explain

How much I love you

How sad I am it’ll never be the same

Mom, I’m sorry I was disrespectful

I’m sorry that you can’t come first

I wish you would try to understand

Jesus isn’t just a name, He’s an unquenchable thirst

My relationship with God

Shouldn’t get in the way

It should strengthen our love 

It should be proof from above

You gave me life, but Mom, so did God

Because you know you can’t be perfect

He is, He always will be, and He was

Maybe if you knew how much God cares

You’d realize I’m trying to be fair

The bible says, “For God so loved the world”

That’s not just me, it’s you

Mom, why can’t you know in your heart

Jesus died for you too

Well, I guess that’s all

I’ve told you that I love you

I’ve told you God loves you too

I’ll always be your daughter

Don’t think that will ever change

I’m trying my very best Mom

And you? You try to stay strong

Love you always,

Tracey

So I haven’t written during this past week because I have only been to the prayer room Sunday and today. This is due to increase amount of tension at my home situation. I am currently staying with a friend in a city that is about 40 minutes away from where my internship is. 

I will be pretty honest about my situation. Things are not looking so great. My mom and I cannot be in the same room without getting into an argument. I will hopefully be living at my house again by the end of the weekend, but living away from that environment has shown me how much I need to get out of that household. 

When my relationship with the Lord is being effected by simply walking into the front door, I would rather find somewhere else to live. Granted I wish I had a job and was able to do so on my own terms. 

I have a few things I want to share that have happened in the prayer room, and so today I’m going to talk about Sunday because I didn’t get a chance to post about it yet and hopefully tomorrow I will be able to share with you what the Lord was stirring in my heart today. 

So on Sunday, I spent a lot of time really pulling apart the scripture on the sermon on the mount. (Matthew 5-7) The House of Prayer advocates sermon on the mount living. If you haven’t read it I highly recommend it, it is a great outline for how to act and how to live your life. 

When I normally read scripture I don’t analyze every word, I usually just try to get the main point, but for some reason I was really interested in the beatitudes. When you go through them, at least for me, some of them just don’t make sense. Matthew 5:5 says, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land” and Matthew 5:3 says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven” Now if I am just crazy and the only person who read those a couple times and got confused then so be it, but I wanted to share some of the stuff I learned. 

Matthew 5:5

When I think of the word “meek” I think of mousy, quiet, not really a positive correlation with that word. After looking through a biblical dictionary I discovered that it is more along the lines of being gentle and patient. It makes sense, someone who is patient will inherit. First lightbulb.

Matthew 5:3

Poor in spirit? I thought we were supposed to be close to the spirit. I thought we were supposed to be strong in spirit. After a little research I found out that this really means people who depend heavily upon the Lord! Wow, what a great quality! And the kingdom of heaven, well I am taking that to mean Jesus. So this is my version of the verse, Those who rely wholeheartedly on the Lord will know and receive Jesus. 

And finally, a verse that spoke miles to me. Matthew 5:10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”

I just want to leave you with this thought. There are people out there that really are persecuted for believing in Christ. I do consider my situation persecution, but then I think about the places where people who believe in Jesus are killed and tortured. Maybe someone gives you a hard time about believing in God, maybe you get laughed at, maybe you get kicked out of your house, maybe you don’t get a job, maybe you get killed. God never promised that following Him would be easy, but He did promise salvation, and for me, that’s enough. 

Well, this post is not going to be very much about the prayer room. Don’t get me wrong, God is doing great things in there, that place has become my sanctuary. I just want to address some stuff I’ve been feeling about my situation because I feel like it is relevant to Christians who have Christian friends (in other words, all Christians).

There are times in life when things get hard. God never said that the road to Him would be an easy one. Through out the last weekish I have told a lot of people about my situation. For those of you who don’t follow my tumblr, my mom has asked me to move out (she recently told me to take the time I need and we both agreed the sooner the better). The reason she asked me to move out is because I am a Christian and because she doesn’t agree with the place I am doing an internship because she believes it is a cult, and that ultimately Christianity as a whole is a cult. 

My mom is my best friend. She has seen me through everything I have been through on this earth and she is always looking out for me and loving on me like only a mother can. The fact that we went a week without saying more than the necessary phrases to each other is monumental. We have had a few discussions about everything and she has told me that our relationship is forever changed and that it will never be strong like it used to. 

With all that being said I go back to my previous statement. Through out the last week I have told a lot of people about my situation and almost everyone has had one of a few responses. The most common is “Wow, I can’t believe she would do that. But you know, the Lord is going to provide for you, Tracey, He always does, and He always has your back.” This is all true. And yes I know that God will help me to get through this, that He will provide avenues for me to figure out my financial situation and a place to live. 

Another common one is, “This is an opportunity for you to take charge and do what needs to be done. You need to get a job, find a place to live, and just do it because it has to be done. You will get through this and I know you can do it, but you need to get on top of everything and get it done.” This is also true. I need to do all of those things in order to not live in my car.

This one is almost as common as hearing that God will provide. “I’m praying for you.” I like this one a lot. I think prayer is super important and anyone taking time out of their conversation with the Lord to pray for me is greatly appreciated.

And then my personal favorite. People who don’t know what to say at all. They usually start with, “That sucks.” It also usually ends there. This is my least favorite, not because I expect people to read my mind and say what I need to hear but because these people make ME feel uncomfortable about telling them what is going on. And I will say this, one of my closest friends has had this reaction, continues to have this reaction, and it is causing problems because I can’t talk to her about it.

Now, in my ideal world, this is what someone would say. “Tracey, I am so sorry you are going through this. This must be really difficult, like not only finding a job, but emotionally. Are you okay? Is there any way I can be there for you? I know I can’t offer you a place to live, but I am praying for you and your mom. I know that God will carry you through this, but wow, that is so hard. I can’t imagine how you feel right now. It’s okay to cry, you know. You should feel comfortable around me enough to be upset because I would be really upset if I were you.”

If someone said that to me, I would not know how to respond because no one has. People hear about my situation and they feel bad for me, but not in the right way. Am I making sense? People feel bad that my mom is against Christianity and people feel bad that I don’t really have a home, but they don’t even think about the emotional toll that this is putting me through.

Some times as Christians, we run into problems that really only can be fixed through the Lord, and usually, those situations are taking a HUGE emotional toll on us. I absolutely advocate praying for people in those situations, but I also advocate being emotionally supportive. Let those people be weak around you, don’t be afraid if they cry, don’t be afraid if they don’t want to talk about it, but let them know you are there.

Okay, that’s my soapbox for the night. People reading this, please pray for me, more importantly pray for my mom and her salvation. And I want to be praying for you! That’s my job, 5 days a week, 6 hours a day. If there is anything you want to have prayed over, anything at all, please message me on my tumblr page. Everyone can always use more prayer. 

I hope Jesus is moving in your life as drastically as He is moving in mine.

Tracey

Happy beginning of lent everybody! Man, I completely forgot about that, not going to lie. I’ve had a little bit more on my mind. But it’s never too late to start. So tonight I will definitely be thinking about what I am giving up. 

Well, last night in the prayer room was a first for me.. We had our weekly staff/ prayer meeting. During this time we worship the Lord together and pray for each other. Now, let me start by saying this, I had a different image in my mind of how that was going to go.

Side note: Everyone who has a relationship with Jesus has a unique one, and some people celebrate their relationship with Jesus in ways I don’t understand. One of the things that is fairly common within the prayer room is speaking in the spirit, or more commonly known as speaking in tongues. I personally have never experienced this, I have witnessed other people doing it, and I don’t have a problem with it… if that is your way of communicating with the Lord then do it! 

During the worship set of our prayer meeting, a lot of people were speaking in the spirit, truly having moments with Christ right in front of my eyes. The energy in that room went 0 to 60 so fast. And as the prayers were shouted to God, as people humbled themselves before the Lord, I will be honest, all I could do was watch. Now, to most people, seeing something like that and not expecting it might have freaked them out to the point of leaving. When the Holy Spirit is present like that, well it’s intimidating!

As all of this is happening I am sitting there watching, first feeling a little freaked out, but then I thought about it and all I could think was, how beautiful. It almost felt voyeuristic because I was witnessing someones intimate moment with the Lord. As I grew more comfortable, it became easier for me to focus on my relationship with Jesus, but oh! How the Lord filled that room.

I believe it was last post that I mentioned writing about communion. And i feel like today would be an appropriate day to share what the Lord was telling me because its Ash Wednesday. Now a lot of this may seem redundant to those of you who have been in church your whole lives or go a thousand times a week, but the as I describe, this is food for thought for anyone who believes in God.

Have you ever had a meaningful communion? Like truly meaningful. Think about it.. blood and body of Christ. Christ’s body, broken for our sin, for your sin… His blood, clean, sacrificed for our dirty, impure lives. Jesus wants us to remember, wants us to know Him. When do we ever truly experience what Jesus is trying to tell us through communion? We are sinners, unworthy of the gift Christ laid down and died to give us. Christ broke His body, spilled His blood so that we might have life through Him. As Christians, its something we hear over and over again, but do we understand it, let it dwell in our hearts, and take hold of our lives? It’s hard to fathom, hard to begin to imagine what Jesus did. I’m at fault, I think we all are, of taking that weird wafer and sip of grape juice for granted. At my church, they had the elements on a table in the back so no one would feel obligated to partake in communion, but as a Christian, most of us view it as something we are supposed to do. When I think about what Jesus did, I will be honest, I am not always humbled, not always thankful, not always in a mindset that honors Christ. In fact, it’s fair to say most of the time I am in a state of confusion. It took me a long time to realize it’s okay not to fully understand, no one can fully understand! But that doesn’t mean I am not going to spend the rest of my life trying to understand. Because when I get a glimpse of Jesus, of the what the perfect Lamb of the world did on the cross, I am on my face in front of the cross, the cross where Jesus sacrificed His life for me. We hear that all the time, “Jesus died for you, Jesus died for you!” Parents often say that they would die for their children, friends say they would do anything for someone close to them, husbands and wives take meaningful vows, and Jesus? Well, he really did all of those things, He fulfills all His promises, and guess what, Jesus died for you. It’s okay not to get it, I don’t most of the time, some people never get it at all, but no one will love me like Jesus loves me, and I am in no way worthy of what He did for me. So the next time you take communion, don’t do it unless you mean it. It’s not a wafer and some juice, it’s Christ’s body and blood. 

of course i will pray for you. satan is much more present at night than during the day. Just know that there are people out there right now, praying for you and people like you so that they will have restful peaceful sleep and not be tormented by the evil of the night.

I would like to start this post by talking about something that is difficult for me to talk about, but because I feel like it is important for me to explain. Please be praying for me. 

My mom has never been okay with the idea that I believe in God. In fact, she’s pretty against it. This morning, we went to a meeting with the director of the house of prayer so that he could answer some of my moms questions about what their theology is and why they do what they do.

The meeting went decently, he was open and honest about everything. My mom, however, got more and more upset as the meeting progressed, and although she didn’t express that aloud, i could feel the tension rising. We didn’t really talk on the way home, but when we got home she told me that she basically cannot handle me doing this internship not only because she disagreed with it, but because she can’t handle me coming in late and disturbing her sleep. I listened to everything she had to say, didn’t say much myself because I had only gotten about 4 hours of sleep. 

After a long awkward silence my mom told me that she wants me to move out. She said that my belief in the Lord is ruining my relationship with her. She said that basically, this isn’t working for her. She didn’t give me a date to be out of the house by, but at this rate, I am going to try to be out near the end of Feburary, which for those of you with the date staring you in the face is 7 days away. 

I am only 19. I have never lived away from home because I didn’t go away for college. I don’t have a job. I don’t have a place to go. I have faith that the Lord will provide all these things for me. So please, I am asking all of you out there reading this to pray for me. I never thought that believing in God would make me choose between my family and my beliefs but at this point, that is what I am forced to do. 

However, through this struggle I feel extremely close to Jesus. Jesus was persecuted to the point of death, which leads into what I want to talk about from my prayer room experience last night. 

I spent a good deal of time meditating on the idea of communion.. which really if you think about it is the sacrifice Jesus made when He came and died for us. Dwell on that, Jesus came and died for us. He suffered like we suffer and then, even though we sin and are completely unworthy of His gracious love, Jesus sacrificed himself. That’s my word today, sacrifice. 

You know, I wrote this big long thing while I was in the prayer room and perhaps I will share it with you at another time but for now, I am going to focus on Jesus and that he sacrificed His life for me, Jesus loves me that much. And because He loves me that much He will guide me through my home situation, and He will help those who love Him. 

Also, on my page there is a button that says “How can I be praying for you?” Im serious, please tell me! I am in a prayer room 6 hours a day, I’m not just sitting there talking to God about my problems! Also, if you’d like to leave me a personal comment/ question/ concern, that would be the place to do it.

I am praying for anyone who reads this, that they might be touched by my story and the story of others like me. 

Tracey

So last night was the first of 40. Sitting in a prayer room for any extended period of time can get to be… weird. When I first got there it was just an hour of me and the Lord, reading my bible and searching for something that would capture my heart. Now the way the hierarchy works is pretty simple. There are section leaders who will be there from 6-12 in the room and if I have any questions, I go to them. Other than that although I do I have an hour long class Mondays and Thursdays and will be helping with worship Thursdays, it is pretty much free reign. 

I learned about all the scheduling and was given a couple of books about a few different things- prayer, the foundation of a prayer house and what it should look like, living a sermon on the mount lifestyle, fasting.. the list goes on. I read one book last night. It was a quick easy read, took me about two hours, but after reading it, I understood so much more what I am going to be doing for the next two months. 

The house of prayer has constant worship going on. So if someone is not on stage singing or playing to the glory of God, they have a live webstream that comes in from the House of Prayer in KC. When I first started going to ihop (international house of prayer), i was really confused by the way that they sing because although they tend to take the root of a song, they go some where completely different with it than just a verse, chorus, bridge type of deal. They call it singing prophetically. More on that later.

But after reading this book and getting a little bit of backround the words being sung by these people thousands of miles away from me began to make so much more sense. One line in particular that has just struck my heart, “You provide the fire, I’ll provide the offering.” One of the things that was done at the tabernacle of David was twice daily offering of clean lamb. But the fire that the offering was done on was kept stoked by the Lord, the Lord kept the fire going. 

I often think back to pre Jesus days where the Lord would show His awesome power and might, like when he scorched the offering (off a bull i believe?) that had been soaked in water. Sometimes it is hard to compare what we call the Old Testament God with the New Testament God. A lot of people seem to forget about the old testament and try to focus on the happy-go-lucky Jesus that just healed everyone.  Well, understanding the past is the key to unlocking the future.

My first goal for myself is to read the old testament in a month. There are a lot of references to the old testament that frequently get ignored. And hey, if I dont finish it it’s not a big deal, I’m working on God’s time.

I spent a good amount of time in Proverbs last night, hoping to get some wisdom about this adventure that I have just begun. I’ll be honest, nothing stuck out to me with obvious conviction, but I will say this, when I am in the prayer room, whether I am pacing, praying, appealing to the spirit of the Lord, no matter what I am doing I feel renewed when I leave. God is good? All the time.