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Home Page About Connecting Hearts Scriptural Foundation Meet the Director Counseling Ministry Vision Statement ContactSuzan's Books: EARS TO HEAR SEEK ME AND FIND ME Articles/Get Connected Healing Insights One Accord Promptings Proverbs 4:23 Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life. Proverbs 27:19 As in water face reflects face, So a man's heart reveals the man.
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Dismantle the Snares of My Heart, Lord!
I suppose this could be called a new year’s resolution—getting a Newsletter put together in order
to communicate regularly with the people who have been somehow involved in the ministry at PCM
over the years. It could also be called an act of obedience, since it has come to mind more than
once to do it.
New Year’s Day held an incident that touched my heart profoundly. It has been reverberating
in my heart since then, and again it occurred to me to start the Newsletter with witnessing
about that time.
I had just made an initial pass at writing a new brochure for the ministry, and it had flowed together easily. Just as I finished, I heard the flock of doves in my yard take off. I looked out the window to see what was happening. I saw a dove flapping around inside one of the chicken wire enclosures I made to protect my plants from the rabbits, and a hawk that had swooped down to keep it trapped there while it moved in for breakfast. I raced out the door yelling and clapping my hands, and the hawk departed. But in those 2-3 seconds some blow had been dealt to the dove. It was not flapping anymore. It was still within the enclosure. Its wings were partly extended but motionless, and its head down on the ground partly under its body. It was breathing—a very heavy, labored breathing. It was lying there in a pile of its own feathers, a horrible sight for me, as I spread the seed each morning and was responsible for the snare. I stood for a moment looking at the wounded dove, feeling absolutely terrible. I determined in my heart to dismantle every snare and began with one about 10 feet from the battleground. As I did so, I began to pray: “Lord, can you help that dove recover?” I looked back over at it, and it was still in the same position, still breathing heavily, and motionless otherwise. I continued taking down the enclosures, which were dotted all along the back fence. The next time I looked over the dove was sitting up, not standing, kind of settling on the ground, but up and seemingly recovering—no broken neck or anything, which is what I had feared. A few seconds later I heard the sound a dove makes taking off into flight. I looked back at the scene, and it was gone. My heart cheered gratefully: “Thank You, Lord!” Yet, the determination to take down the snares did not lift one bit. As I continued, I realized that the Lord was showing me some very important things. The wire had been put up to protect something valuable, like my own heart protections. But it turned into a snare for the dove, giving the hawk a means of trapping the dove. Then I began to pray again: “Lord, as I take down these snares, I ask You to dismantle all of my snares in the same way, and as completely as I am determined to remove these. It was a sobering and freeing encounter on New Year’s morning. How glad I am that this lesson did not require the death of the dove.
Who has not given us as prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers; The snare is broken, and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, Who made heaven and earth (Psalm 124:6-8). A Heart’s Returning Published In August of last year the book I had been working on since October 2002 was published. It is my story about returning to the Lord in my early 30’s and something of the journey with Him since. I think it is a book that could touch and encourage many, if they know it exists and have access to it. So I encourage those of you who have a copy to let others borrow or know about it. I would really like to have some folks who would talk to their local bookstore about carrying it, so it is more visible to people. Any volunteers? The current means for ordering the book are: Online:
To order by Phone from the publisher: 888-280-7715 Or you may order the book from any bookstore, giving them Author name, Title, and Publisher: 1st Books Library, Bloomington, IN. Current Things I’ve just begun a Newsletter J. I have also begun work on another book, which will be entitled something like A Prepared Heart. In it I will be writing through Is. 61, talking about the whole process of healing our broken heartedness, the exchanges, and the outcome of being called priests of our God, the lifting and freeing from shame, the joy in the Lord and His fruitfulness in our lives that are all covered in that chapter. Is. 61 will be kind of a plumb line for the book, and I will be pulling in many other scriptural reflections to describe the work of restoration and uniting of our whole heart with God. I believe that is the key to healing, equipping, wholeness and the discovery of how it works has been my life work. It seems it is time for me to try to write down a life-work statement of the truth that preparing our heart with and in the Lord is the foundation of life and the crux of restoration. I hope to do a Foundations for Hearing God class in March and have it videotaped, so it could be available for VCR or DVD viewing. The written materials are already prepared, and it would allow small groups at a distance from a PCM site to take the class. I would be available to work with the leaders of those groups in terms of answering questions or helping to field issues that emerge in the course of the class. In the last year or so the Lord has done a lot to both free me and enable me to say things in a much simpler way. I hope that by this time next year (or thereabouts J) there will be three materials more widely available that give a clearer picture on our journey into intimacy with the Lord and the discovery of our mission with Him. They are the Foundations class on video, the Prepared Heart book that will present the scriptural picture for preparing our hearts, and my personal story as to how it has looked for me in A Heart’s Returning. It is my hope that those three would give anyone seeking the Lord more deeply a map to go by on the journey. Eventually I would like to have the other classes in video form, too, but I don’t have that as this year’s goal. I would appreciate your prayers about all of these things, and this comes with prayer for all of you for a blessed and fruitful new year in Jesus. To contact me (I welcome and enjoy your comments):
714-538-1542 (the Orange office on Tuesday and Thursday) 909-532-3379 (Murrieta the rest of the week) Current addresses for Pastoral Care Ministries are:
Orange, CA 92867 Or, 29729 Windwood Cr. Temecula, CA 92591
Pastoral Care Ministries is a non-profit Christian corporation.
Love in Jesus, Suzan
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