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OUR SHELLS: LAYERS OF SELF PROTECTION 3/06/09
HEARD: I am transitioning you.
VISION: I saw some kind of a jointed
contraption inside a giant transparent bubble. It
looked like the pieces were built from an erector set,
but it was life sized. It was
somehow compacted and collapsed and needed to expand its
joints to come to full size. We were trying to move the
bubble but it was too big to make it portable. So, we
had to let the air out of the bubble to move it.
HEARD: That’s what we are supposed to do.
Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention. I
was going to have this bumper to bumper, but I dont know
that is necessary.
IMPRESSION: The bubble was like a ball with
rounded corners so it could roll and bounce off things
at any angle. I have past rhema where bumper cars with
rubber bumpers around them represent bouncing back from
backlashes of the demonic or from people aggression.
PIX: I saw the same contraption and now all
the joints had
 expanded
to full size and I could clearly see that it had turned
into something like a low-seated motor cycle, only still
made with the same gears and joints of the erector set.
The cycle was like this shape.
UNDERSTANDING: I realized that the joints
represents God’s body of believers, and that once built
and expanded into place, He positions us in a place of
riding low in humility.
Col 2:19 NKJV
...Holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body,
nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments,
grows with the increase that is from God.
UPDATE CONFIRMATION SHELL (Bubble) 3/21/09
I had put some prayer into the above word about a bumper
pad around a jointed contraption as it really puzzled me
what the Lord was saying about removing the bubble. I
didn’t like that idea at all. I wanted my bubble. When
I attended a conference this weekend, it all came
together and I finally understood.
I have been in a miserable yearlong arthritic flare (of
my joints – just like the erector set) and so I braved
the attendance of an out of town healing conference. The
person praying over me told me not to take this wrong,
but he saw I had a soft shell around me that the Lord
wanted gone so He could come in with a deeper two way
reciprocal intimacy. He also said that it was keeping
me from being me and the Lord wanted me to be free to be
me and no one else. He also emphasized it was not a
hard shell, but a soft shell. The next thing he said
was that the Lord told him he was not to touch me when
he prayed for me and so he proceeded. At the end of a
wonderful prayer time and several Words later, he said,
“NOW I can lay hands on you,” and he did as he laid
hands on my ankles that were in spasm pain.
I went through a very long process of pondering and
praying through the Words the Lord gave me through this
person, and many wonderful revelations came. I wanted
to share the shell part with you because I felt it was
very relevant to many. This touches on several streams
of thought, not just one.
========
1) First of all, when he emphasized that it was not a
hard shell, I immediately thought of a hard heart. With
a hard heart, it is very difficult to receive from the
Lord, whether His tangible Presence or His gifts. I was
grateful it was not a hard shell.
Ezek 36:26 NKJV
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit
within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your
flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
As I thought about carrying a shell around us, I
immediately thought of self preservation. I have been
having to walk very carefully and tenderly recently due
to a lot of pain and so my movements are deliberate and
very slow so that I don’t accidently get hurt. I saw
this same thing with several of the people at the
conference. They were walking very carefully and slowly
and I immediately understood.
Recently, I have been trying to learn that when I walk
and the pain is really bad, how to control my face
expressions so that people do not see my face all
scrunched up. That is the epitome of NOT being
transparent and not allowing the world inside.
I have also found that the more I expose myself to
others who care, the more they press in with questions
and answers. I find myself feeling like I have to
explain my situation so much that it almost becomes a
defense of what I am having to deal with, in a state of
constant fluctuation of symptoms, even hour to hour. It
is easier to stay home and stay isolated than to have to
deal with another layer of stress of people pressure.
This too is a shell of protection.
Sometimes in our attempts at protecting ourselves from
getting hurt, we come to a place where we don’t let
other people inside to touch our pain and sometimes we
even hold ourselves from the Lord’s inner touch and we
lose that intimacy that we once had.
========
2) Secondly I thought of the butterfly cocoon, where we
have been inside coming through a painful transformation
process. When the fullness of time comes, we are to
break through our own shell and have a coming out
party. If a person tries to pry open a butterfly
cocoon, the butterfly will die. It needs the whole
wrestling, moving process to strengthen it as it breaks
through its shell. A butterfly has to be willing and
ready and no one else can tell that butterfly when it is
time to come out of its shell.
========
3) Thirdly, I wondered why this person was told not to
touch me. The butterfly analogy came to me which was a
good one. Don’t try to pry open a butterfly cocoon!
Then I saw something quite profound on 2 different
levels.
The Lord gave me the analogy of a new bride and groom
where the bride had been previously abused and the groom
was all excited and aggressive in his love for his
bride. Any sudden aggression will make her want to run
away! But if he withholds his affections just a tad, it
allows her to come to him and want his touch. I have
never suffered physical abuse, but I have suffered
emotional trauma from aggressive people and also
spiritual warfare traumas through the demonic backlash
of laying on of hands, to the point I hesitate and shy
away from both.
I suddenly realized that I had approached this person
who was going to pray for me, as though I expected an
aggressive style of ministry. Instead, he was very
tender and almost aloof. I was immediately released
from having to put up all my inner warfare shields so
that no demonic issues were passed on to me from the
laying on of hands. And so I found myself saying to the
Lord, “But I WANT the impartation of Your Presence as it
comes through the laying on of hands!” As I realized
this, I smiled and understood how wise God’s ways are to
each of us.
I saw how amazingly God would so deeply know and care
for my quirks - so much that He actually told this
person not to touch me and to hold back in how he was
ministering to me.
I saw that neither did the LORD want to pry me open in
order to minister to me. Instead He wanted ME to come
to HIM and let Him do His tender work. He wanted me to
open up and receive and respond. However, with my
preconceived expectations, I had that soft shell around
me and He was waiting for my permission to melt through
the layers of self protection.
Now remember the jointed contraption that needed to
expand and come out of the bubble? I found out the
person that ministered to me works at a chiropractor’s
office! (For readers overseas, that is a joint and bone
doctor that puts joints back into place. The process
always extends the body longer and also gives it back
its mobility.)
Col 2:19 NKJV
...Holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body,
nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments,
grows with the increase that is from God.
========
4) The grand finale came as I kept pondering and
praying over this shell that was not supposed to be
there. I did not know how to break through it and I
felt a level of frustration at the thought.
The next night, my friend of 37 years came behind me and
laid a mantle over my shoulders. I had been suffering
shoulder and back cramps so the warmth, weight and her
loving Words just melted all the pain in less than a
minute. I badly needed her hug and had told the Lord
the night before that I needed her hug. Here she was
coming behind me with her gentle hug and Words of
comfort and reassurance from the Lord. We went out into
the lobby so as not to disturb others and I sobbed and
cried as I just melted and let all that soul pain wash
out as I told her how much her hug meant to me. When I
was done crying, I felt like a mountain of weight had
been lifted off of me.
At the end of that service and prayer for needs, she and
I and friends gathered in the back of the church. She
told her friend to share with me his hair story. I had
no idea what I was being set up for. He proceeded to
tell me that he had been asleep on the couch and
evidently he is a really deep sleeper. His kids put
braids and rubber bands all over in his hair so that it
was sticking straight out all over. My son did this once
with his own hair and so I had a perfect picture of what
this would look like! Then they put a bunch of hair
clips in his beard.
The door bell rang and woke him up, so he went to the
door. A guy was there that looked like he was from the
“black panther club” and he took one look and fled away
as fast as he could run!!! I bellowed out laughter that
gushed and gushed. At one point it was so loud, I think
it filled the whole auditorium. I could not stop
laughing, it had to be the funniest thing I had ever
heard. I needed that laugh SO much.
I realized that the Lord had broken through my shell
through the safe place of friendship, both in sobbing
tears and then hysterical laughter. I experienced
genuine deliverance and healing in both. I was set free
to be me once again and it felt SO GOOD!
Ps 30:5 NKJV
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the
morning.
Ps 84:6-7 AMP
Passing through the Valley of Weeping (Baca), they
make it a place of springs; the early rain also fills
[the pools] with blessings. They go from strength to
strength [increasing in victorious power]; each of them
appears before God in Zion.
P.S. - I had to go to bed several times to rest
in order to make it to and through the meetings.
Therefore for this meeting, we came late and landed in
the back row. I felt nothing except pain and watched as
an observer at all the stuff going on in the room when
people were touched by the Lord’s Presence.
I leaned over to Anna and said, “There is nothing like
sitting in the back row stone sober, watching the front
rows have the time of their lives!”
The Lord heard me, because after all was over and my
friends gathered in the back row with me, that was when
His Spirit hit me and all that laughter bubbled forth!
I once heard a joke about hurrying up to get to church
in order to save a back row seat! Smile. Beware, God
even visits the back rows!!!
Prov 17:22 AMP
A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind
works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. [Prov
12:25; 15:13,15.]
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Update
CONFIRMATION CHUCK PIERCE 3/25/09
Chuck shares the following quote on Elijah List. This is
exactly what happened to me when I first deeply sobbed
and then bellowed laughter:
"This is the time that from the depths of your being you
are going to release a new sound. For some of you, the
sound will be a shout. For some of you, the sound will
be a laugh. For some, the sound will be the groan of
travail! For all, the sound that is beginning to rumble
in the bellies of My people will stir the old atmosphere
that has been filled with stale unbelief. This sound
must come forth! This sound must come forth now!"
{end quote} Chuck’s
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