Inwardly I’m dancing with Jesus through my days, while outwardly my life looks “normal.” I’ve raised my three children and am enjoying having some grands. In the time since my husband Terry died in 2012, I’ve worked to become one person (after 36 years as two) and I think I’m doing a fairly good job of it. I figure that since I didn’t have any choice in the matter I might as well embrace it, and I’ve come to enjoy the advantages of being single.
After losing my father it became mutually beneficial for me to move in with my mom. Living with her allows me time to focus on my writing and gives her someone around to help out. Because she is now at a place where she can’t be left alone I do my writing at a small desk in my bedroom instead of Starbucks or Panera.
My “Jesus Space” is currently on my bed where I hang out and enjoy him, not that we don’t enjoy each other 24/7. However, it’s that time alone together that makes the relationship grow deeper. In March of 2023 I stumbled onto something that has changed everything in my relationship with Jesus. Until then I worked to find longer, uninterrupted times to be with him but life is busy. However, because I celebrate my birhday the whole month of March I decided that my gift to myself would be spending twenty minutes a day with Jesus for every day in March. It revolutionized my relationship with him, gave me increcible new experiences, and taught me so much I could hardly get it all journaled.
By the end I had no desire to quit that wonderful time and have continued it. For who I am and my personality this has catapulted me into the Kingdom in a way I could never have dreamed. Years ago I discovered the power of using my santified imagination to do things with Jesus. He created my imagination and he can enjoy it with me in the way a father and daughter can pretend a tea party together. They both know the tea in the cups isn’t real but it doesn’t change how much they enjoy the fun. Yet so often Holy Spirit will change the “pretend” into reality in the Kingdom realm, which you can read more about in my book, “The Door With A Handle.” Living in the Kinddom is incredible. Never underestimate how powerful even twenty minutes a day can be when you’re spending it with God.
If you’re interested in how I got to where I am in my love for Jesus you can read about it in my journey below.
My Journey
I was born in Bangkok, and Thailand was “home.” My missionary parents taught me to love God passionately and I grew up seeing and sharing their compassion for others.
I got involved in a Charismatic group at Morehead State University in Morehead, Kentucky, where I met my husband Terry, who was one of the leaders of the group. We spent the next twenty years trying to find a church where we fit, but even though Terry was often the worship leader or on the worship team (he played the keyboard), and we were a part of the “inner circle,” we still never really fit. Out of our desperation for more of God we asked questions that pastors found uncomfortable. We would dream of worshiping in a church where most of the people were passionate about God, did that exist, and what would it be like?
During a small Bible study I started in 1992, a neighbor challenged everything I believed, causing me to go home determined to find every reference in the Bible that answered her challenges. Maybe because it was the first time I’d ever had to defend what I believed or just that Holy Spirit switched something on in me, from that night on I became passionate about God. In my quest to learn more about prayer, I bought the book Conversation With God by Lloyd J. Ogilvie, and one thing he suggested in his book became the catalyst for everything that has come after. While the book talked about different aspects of prayer, the one that was new to me was silence. He said to sit in silence before God for three minutes a day and listen, even if you have to use a timer, which, being a perfectionist, I did.
I decided to start out with twenty minutes a day with God (the youngest of our three children was four years old so I couldn’t leave them for long) and during that time, besides worshiping and praying, I would try silence. With nowhere to go in our small apartment I would sit on the washing machine in our tiny laundry room. Occasionally the children would wander in and out asking questions or just seeing what mom was doing, but God isn’t easily scared off and it didn’t matter. At first, I spent my time before the throne, worshiping an awesome God who was huge and powerful, and holy. I was overwhelmed by such an almighty God, and often in tears.
Then one day I suddenly realized that instead of worshiping before the throne, I was hanging out with Jesus. Instead of worshiping a holy Father-God I was laughing and enjoying a close relationship with my Bridegroom. It took me by surprise. I hadn’t thought much, if anything, about the Bridegroom relationship. I just realized one day that my God-time had changed. Jesus had come and wooed me without my realizing it. Where I had been writing prose about an awesome God, I was now writing about dancing with Jesus. Now, instead of being on-my-face worshiping, I was sitting and hugging Jesus’ presence to myself wherever I was.
Here’s something I wrote that shows where my heart was, and it was one of the first signs that my writing and perspective had changed. I wrote this on a napkin I found in my coat pocket, standing in the hallway outside my son’s first grade class as I waited to take him home.
I walk around with my head in the clouds.
I feel protected in a cocoon of love.
These people who see me have no idea
that I am Your beloved.
I am Your chosen bride
and You have set Your seal on me.
My heart glows in response.
I feel Your love radiating over me,
warming me to the depths of my being.
I walk in a world apart from others.
Sheltered, protected and secure in this knowledge,
my heart bursts!
It was a few years later that I first experienced “doing” something with Jesus, as in, he was really there. Not his omnipresence, but his manifest presence. God is omnipresent, everywhere all the time. But when he chooses, his manifest presence comes, and you can physically know his presence. I was sitting on my washing machine having silent time with God as usual and I became overwhelmed with the thought of being his bride, and what it will be like to dance with Jesus at our wedding. I began to imagine dancing with Jesus, and then it was real. I felt his presence with me, and it wasn’t like my imagination anymore.
With my eyes closed, sitting on my washing machine, I danced in the Spirit (meaning not physically) and cried. It was as if I were really dancing with Jesus, and I felt his presence strongly, and later it kind of freaked me out, like, is this wrong? I’ve never heard of something like this, is it allowed?
That was in Columbus, Ohio, in 1995. Growing in intimacy with Jesus has been a process. It took me a long time to really start experiencing his reality, as I didn’t have the knowledge of what he wanted or what was possible. I was still limited by my traditional Sunday school upbringing and by my fear of being “in the flesh” or making it up. It was hard to drop man’s teachings and let Jesus show me the relationship he wants, what is possible in him.
For example, I had believed the lie that we should never imagine God or have pictures of him, doing so was to limit him to our human perceptions, and for a long time I was crippled by that. Then I came to understand the beautiful truth in the Bible where Jesus repeatedly tells us to use our spiritual senses to “see” and “hear.” Where for 33 years people saw Jesus, and they didn’t drop dead.
Since then I’ve grown into an intimate relationship with Jesus as my Bridegroom that has changed everything I believed and everything I thought being a Christian was. You’ll find more of my journey in my book The Wild Romancer.
Besides writing and sharing with women how they too can know Jesus intimately, I have served alongside my husband Terry as we traveled, taught, and ministered in our weekly meeting we called Ginmay (God Is Not Mad At You).
Unfortunately my beloved Terry died August of 2012. He appeared to be in great health but had a heart attack or a stroke.
Since then I have learned to be one person, rediscovering myself and building new dreams, goals, and visions. Now it’s just Jesus and me and I’m enjoying taking my relationship with him ever deeper.
My goal is to flow through life dancing across the waters with Jesus as I touch the world around me with His supernatural love.