You Will Not Miss a Thing

Today as I write, I want to invite you into a very personal space of my heart. I feel like the Apostle Paul when he writes, “No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it {perfection} but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.” (Philippians 3:13)

I am so painfully in process, I hesitate to share any wisdom, but bear with me, as I feel I have an assignment from God to share this.

When I first entered the Charismatic church, I was but a shell of a person. The flag-waving, tongues speaking, and passionate worship hardly penetrated my hard heart. I could not understand what I was seeing, but I soaked it up, nonetheless. Our very first time attending Chapel in the Pines (for my family that remains there), we happened upon a fellowship luncheon. I didn't know anybody there, though I felt like God Himself had planted me in the family right off. I can't explain it, but I knew I belonged. The reason we had even attended was because Paul's father, though he was in the ministry himself as a priest, had sent us there. I was struggling with crippling panic disorder and we had heard that the only deliverance minister in town attended this very church, so we went.

Here I was with my one child in tow, standing in the midst of a bustling fellowship luncheon when a middle-aged fatherly man approached me and rested his elbow on my shoulder, completely casual. “Well,” he started, and looked into the distance beyond me, “You, precious daughter, are not going to miss a thing. God is saying that over you today. Not going to miss a thing in your life.” I had no grid for a prophetic word at this time, so I mostly considered him odd and parted ways as quickly as I could. 

To include a brief back story, I began to receive counseling from this church's deliverance minister, and allow me to emphatically say that deliverance is an active, real, tangible, effective, powerful ministry that set me free from panic disorder after nearly a decade of reliance on anti-depressants. I consider the man who prayed with me a father in the faith, and how blessed I am to have met him. 

Back to the prophetic word, though. I began reciting it each time the spirit of fear dug its greedy talons into my soul. “NO!” I would say out loud, “I am not going to miss a thing!” Interestingly enough, as I continued on my life journey, combating fear in nearly every realm of my life, I discovered that my greatest fear was actually that I was missing out. If I felt lonely, I thought no one loved me. When I was ill, I thought for sure the remainder of my life was being yanked from my control. When I was frustrated, I feared justice would always elude me. When I was angry at my husband, I felt in my heart I would never experience a healthy, wholehearted marriage.

Missing out was my greatest fear, and so I clung to this word as a lifeline. On turbulent airplanes. In messy family drama. In the middle of catastrophic toddler tantrums when going out in public took two hours to administrate I would tell myself, “I WILL NOT MISS A THING!”

All of this I believed until Paul's parents were killed in a car accident. Especially in the company of those with strong family ties, particularly grandparent figures. I began to dwell on what my kids had lost by losing their Opa and Nana, and living at a distance from my parents. The pain was so overwhelming I could hardly stand to be around people, even my closest friends, sometimes. I began to suddenly realize how much of our family's journey had appeared to accomplish the very OPPOSITE of the prophetic word, as we have moved about the country doing what we believed God had called our family to do, resulting in multiple new beginnings with no family, no friends, no money, no stability, and no job. My flesh began to full on reject this word more times than I can count. And, why wouldn't it?

One day, after a glorious sun-shining afternoon spent with extended family, I wept from the passenger seat of my van. Not one person had failed to hug my children. They were received, celebrated, and loved upon. But, it just wasn't the same. The fear that I was missing out weighed so heavily upon me, I began to question the goodness of God, and the existence of God, altogether. I screamed at Paul, “I JUST WANT YOUR PARENTS BACK!”

There came a point when I had to reconcile what I had been told eight years prior. When the truth of that word crumbled beneath my experience. Then, that same day in the van, as I wept over my losses, I closed my eyes and asked God what-on-earth sort of tease it was to give someone like me a word like, "You will not miss a thing.”

I began to experience His overwhelming love and affection in that moment, and though weak, took up my declaration once more. I realized that all of my hope is in Him. I began to declare that I will see the goodness of God in the land of the living, and it has already begun. I will taste and see that the Lord is good. This realization that the most fulfilling experience in life will come as a result of knowing God opened my heart not just to trust Him more {still in process, here}, but to thank him. I began thanking Him for all of the goodness right in front of me. 

Now I know, even as I grieve, even when life is unfathomably unjust, even when scarcity and lack is all around me, it cannot cripple me permanently. Though the feelings and experience painfully exist, much more than I wish at times, my spirit resides with Him who is able to do more than I can ask or imagine, according to His Spirit at work within me. Now I know this word is rooted in my identity, not in my experience. How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called his children! How can we miss anything when we grasp this? The words of the familiar chorus, "All you need is Love, Love, Love..." ring through my mind, and an endless amount is available. 

God seeks to guide us and satisfy us in the very areas we lack. He strengthens us, causing us to flourish, bear fruit, and even rest in seasons we are being stolen from, and scarcity reigns. He is sufficient. I wanted to release this very word today: You will not miss a thing. Began to declare it over your life. Fight for this promise in the natural, but rest in the Spirit, knowing that God will accomplish His purposes in you as you partner with Him. He will never fail. Grief and self-pity cannot co-exist where the God of abundance has authority.

Please don't hear me say there is no allowance for grief, there is an incredible amount of grace for the process. There came a time in my own journey, several years later, where I had to stop thinking of all the things, the very many things, I had missed out on, and see what I had gained. It pointed me straight to His Providence. 

Honestly, at times, it's just faith; meager, sloppy, less-substance-than-a-mustard-seed, faith. I get this. You won't always see it, even as you believe and declare it. This is what sets us Christians apart from the rest of the world and makes us seem a little crazy, I get it. But, don't miss the opportunity in places of pain to take up your position in Him, as His child, in His presence and beneath His wings, knowing that in DEATH AND LIFE you will not miss a thing, because you are so loved.

“The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” Isaiah 8:11