Michael

He said his name was Michael. That stopped me in my tracks! I'd been thinking about my little brother, Michael all day. I have a wooden airplane Boompa carved for him before Michael passed away. It was handed down to Slone. I had it in my car to give to Slone last week but I wound up not connecting with Slone before I had to leave Fort Worth. I noticed it as I was loading the latest Wal Mart do-it-yourself needs in the backseat of my car yesterday.

The Lord was speaking to me all day yesterday, sometimes about random things I didn't yet understand. Then at 6 o'clock this stranger ... a tatted twenty-something, walked into my kitchen behind one of the young "men of the village." He had brought this kid over to help with the studio. My first reaction was along the lines of not necessarily wanting every "punk kid" in town to know where I live -- Fear! Judgment! Hypocrisy! Prejudice!   (Let me call it what it was.) I'm honestly not usually like that.

Two minutes of conversation revealed that he was yet another artist wandering across the path - a fashion designer. He's good at it too. I can see it on him. I immediately check in with the Holy Spirit "What's up with this kid?"  and begin to tame my dancing-browed, beady-eyed discerning prophetess chick thing. He's familiar to me. Actually his tattoos are familiar to me. He's familiar to my husband. We don't really know him from anywhere -even though "ironically" he just moved to ...DUMAS??? from ... LA??? -- actually a few burbs east of where we moved from ... a year ago today? WHAT????  

And then he says his name is Michael and the air changes. "That's my little brother's name!" The power of the Holy Spirit hits the room and off it all goes! "Synchronistic" elements begin entering the stage like a cast of characters. Things the Lord has been speaking to me during the day start to line up and make more sense. The Lord begins feeding me statements and questions. Michael tells some of his testimony and recent story. The presence of the Lord is thick thick thick! Michael is precious! Michael is in need. Michael is tired. Michael has been "delivered" ..."to your home" (says the Lord) for reasons that are not all revealed yet. One reason I know: Here, Michael is loved! The Lord has invited Michael to "Go in peace" which translated correctly reads "Go INTO peace." Michael is aware of the invitation and I discern he is filling out the rsvp.


I relish the supernatural life! It is the biggest kick this side of dying and going to heaven. Everything that happened in this house last night was supernatural. It is a pure air that I can easily breathe in.  The heavens have opened over Dumas in the last few weeks and He is pouring out His Spirit on us. My spirit has recently been ripped back out my fleshy chest again and I am once again, gratefully, living "beside myself." It's the only way to fly!

2nd Corinthians 5:13

New International Version (©1984)

If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.
New Living Translation (©2007)
If it seems we are crazy, it is to bring glory to God. And if we are in our right minds, it is for your benefit.
English Standard Version (©2001)
For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

Peace In Him,
Jill Welch

Our New "Arts Ministry House"

"This is an arts ministry house!" I was buzzing in and out of this house we bought a couple of months ago...painting things purple for Rona's debut production of Butterfly MasKerade (more on that later) and this declaration came up from my spirit and out of my mouth. Rona had glitter and feathers and masks all over the kitchen table...and floor...and in her hair and on her face (you can imagine, it's Rona after all). I loved the sight of it!! Jenna was there at the table acting as accidental production assistant - something she's very gifted at actually. My brother-in-law, Jeff and I were preparing to go up and create a "set" from ...nothing -- something we are both gifted at. Watching people in their giftings thrills me to no end!

This week Jamie Sloan, an up and coming country artist, will be staying with us and recording in our (not quite yet built) studio. My husband has been pounding lumber and crawling in a 150 degree attic for a couple of weeks racing the calendar and clock. He has been lit up like a little boyscout seeing smoke, real smoke rise from that stick he's been ruthlessly twirling for what seems like hours. I've sensed the covertly silent tribal grunts filling the air in there as the men of the village have shown up to lend a hand. But not to worry! Jamie and I will fill it to overflowing with luminous estrogenetically charged radiation - a God given, undetectable yet powerful, protective force field few men can survive. Yes, I will mark my territory! The truth is, Kirk has been lit up because the finished space is a gift he is giving me and giving it makes him deeply happy. He is wonderful that way!

The next week we have visual artist, Lance Brown scheduled to come in. He will be doing a live artist interview from Java Casa. Java Casa is what I would call "the beginning stage" ---get it stage --- of a vision for a Christian arts venue the Lord began giving me years ago. A truly remarkable happening took place last week that more than affirmed this arts ministry house notion. It was the biggest miracle to happen to me since I watched an orange size mass, in my very own body, disappear before my eyes over time. It's a little too soon and too long of a story to blog right now but 'tis "coming soon"...

WOW! It is blowing my mind thinking of it again.

We are completely re-decorating the house inside and out. It will take us a very long time to finish what we've planned but we are dedicated to our "slow flip" concept. I'll share some before/after shots soon. It's fun stuff! As a matter of fact, it's time to paint again. So there's blog #2. This is a super charged season of my life - a good time to start this blog, I suppose. It's about to get good. I can feel it in the air!!!!  

Peace In Him,
Jill

My very first blog ever... ever!

Why now? I don't know. I don't have time. I have 50 other technical ways to express myself. I've been feeling led. That's it. So here I am.

Let's start with this bothersome title I chose. Seems ...self centered (but then isn't blogging just that?) I wondered if this title would offend people - a flippant slap to those who did and did not survive the great depression. It came out of my head and then out of my hands and into the sign up text box. Usually there's more attached than I realize at first when things come out of my head and then out of my hands. Some things that come to mind...

~~~~~~

I too have been poverty stricken in my life.

The heart is a hungry beggar waving around an empty tin cup
we stick it under any spicket we can find just to try and fill it up
So why are we still so empty...

(Those are lyrics from a recent song I wrote.)

~~~~~~~

I preached a sermon one time based on a bunch of grapes sitting there on this grand piano beside me...well not really but the women of the group were visualizing it there ...like I asked them to. I realized that we are like those grapes. We have been cut from the vine. They look beautiful for a while, with vibrant color and plump full of water but they are dying there in front of our eyes. Disconnected for their source of life, the vine, slowly they wither, dry up and die.

I found that source... I mean He found me! He came and sat patiently beside that spicket I was bowing to and offered to fill that empty tin cup, forever -- with "living water" and as long as I placed the tin cup under His spicket, He promised I would never again find myself empty. He was clearly the miracle that had come to reattach me to the life source -- the vine. I was suddenly no longer dying. I was gaining life upon life upon life, eternally.

~~~~~~

I am the vine, ye are the branches: 

He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit:

for without me ye can do nothing. 

John 15:5 

Receiving that life upon life thing caused an almost immediate explosive passion from deep within to "bear much fruit". Over the past few years, I began to wither a bit. I don't believe I became disconnected from the vine but it was more like I was refusing to receive the "living water". Turns out it comes at a cost. Once you've had this water you find it near impossible to live without it though. Out of desperate thirst, I finally pushed the blockades out of my spiritual veins and set myself to recieve again. Maybe that's "why now". 

I've written my testimony in book form and titled it "Time In The Sun." It is about to be published by Westbow Press. In a few days it will be available on BarnesandNoble.com and Amazon.com and a few Christian bookstores. I plan to write a follow up called "Chapter 2". There is intentionally a ten year block of time missing from the first book. It is during that ten years that I stepped into the super freaky, mind bending, life changing, flesh eating ways of the Holy Spirit and this incredible place called the Kingdom of Heaven I suddenly found myself living in.

 

I didn't start a blog to sell a book. I wrote a book to avoid a blog -- but here I am. Who knows what this blog is about. But I pray most of all that it is fruitful. 

Peace In Him,

Jill Welch 

P.S. We dig and dig but have not yet found that my husband is an heir to the Welches Grape Juice fortune -- or Raquel's. No worries! We are heirs of the KING OF KINGS!