"Be joyful.. rejoice for her, all who love her"

Jen shared with me a revelation the other day concerning this situation with Sarah. She said that God had spoken to her about her heart for Sarah, so I asked her what He said? She said that her Heart, after receiving the news about Sarah's condition, brought her to a deeper love for Sarah. When she realized that Sarah was in the safest place she could be by being in her womb and that Sarah wasn't in pain there, it brought Jen comfort. She feels blessed to carry Sarah and to be able to give her a safe place inside her.

So God spoke to her concerning that and said: "My church is like Sarah, broken and lame. The love you have for Sarah is the love you could have for my church. Why don't you love the church the way you love Sarah?"

Jen will openly say she has struggled to love the church at times due to its structures, the religiousity, hypocrisy, and because of its lack of a genuine sense of "being real" about things, just to name a few. It's been hard for her to feel comfortable in the way things operate. She loves the people, but hasn't felt connected to the lack of relational culture most churches cultivate. Anyway, Sarah has changed her heart concerning all this, she now looks forward to going to church because it gives her a chance to love the church in the same way she's loving little Sarah.

"My church is like Sarah..." A people who are being born anew, whose lives are woefully limping along. A people so loved by God that He wants to heal them and make them whole. Where they are lame, He wants to heal them. Where things haven't formed properly, He wants to make them perfect in Him. We've been contemplating those things. In our own lives, we feel that same sense of Him bringing healing where there was once brokeness.

We feel through Sarah's life that she is a picture, a type and shadow of a spiritual reality existing in the church of Santa Barbara, as well as in the larger body of His church across this state and nation. We are more than slightly limping; our lives, to different degrees, are crippled.

I watch Jen carry this child not just in her womb but in her heart. It's beautiful to watch and understand. Not everything is visible yet. Things are hidden beyond her physical ability to see them. She's hoping for Sarah. She's praying for Sarah. She's holding Sarah, thinking about her, wanting the best for her. She's thankful for her life just the way she is, but is still believing for her to be complete and whole and overflowing with all that God has for her. She's fighting for Sarah. She's carrying Sarah in her heart and body everyday. There is a vital connection she shares with Sarah because she is her mother. Jen's life is a resource for all that Sarah needs. Anything Sarah needs, she can draw on Jen for because Jen's life is to see Sarah formed to the will and image of God.

Sarah is going to be a bride someday. A friend of ours had a dream about Sarah recently and saw her in a wedding dress walking down an aisle to be married. You could say Jesus the Bridegroom already sees her as His bride. She's just not ready for Him yet. She needs a mother...and a father. She needs support. She needs nurturing and love. She needs to be held and spoken over, healed and prayed for. Sarah is the church. Are we going to give to the church what we are giving to Sarah? Do we love and care for God's children (His church) the same way we love and care for Sarah?

"Be joyful with Jersualem and rejoice for her, all you who love her;
Be exceedingly glad with her, all you who mourn over her,
That you may nurse and be satisfied with her comforting breasts,
That you may suck and be delighted with her bountiful bosom.
For thus says the Lord, Behold, I extend peace to her like a river,
And the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream;
And you shall be nursed, you shall be carried on the hip and fondled on the knees.
As one whom his mother comforts, so I will comfort you;
And shall be comforted in Jerusalem.
Then you shall see this, and your heart shall be glad,
And your bones shall flourish like the new grass;
And the hand of the Lord shall be made known to His servants,
But He shall be indignant toward His enemies." - Isaiah 66

This is our blueprint for loving Sarah, as well as a picture of where the church is going. The church is the Jerusalem of God and we are too. God's church will become the mother He intended it to be, for all of those who need to be comforted and loved. God is giving to back her (the church) identity. And we, in each of our own ways, is learning how to not only see her in the glory that's hers, that she's to be clothed in, but we are learning to be clothed ourselves in the same garments she is to wear. Truly we are the church. We are Sarah. And we are mothers and fathers. In the language of motherhood and/or fatherhood we see a beautiful picture of what love can do. It's a picture worth considering... again.

When you look at Jennifer Dalton right now, there is a revalation of God's heart for the church: for those that have eyes to see and ears to hear. She's a walking prophetic sign of what God is wanting to do with His wounded church. He wants to extend peace to her. He wants her to have exceeding gladness once more, if not for the first time. He wants deep intimate connection with her like a baby has with her mother when she is nursing at the breast. He wants her in His arms, comforted by His provision of life, by His comforting breasts. And He is looking to us to be that comfort, like Jen is to Sarah. We are to mother and father His people with hearts that are full of love, that know what it is to love and care for the broken and hurting.

The doctors have made it clear that Sarah's life is not worth bringing to full term, that it would be better to abort. They say she doesn't have a chance, that there's no hope. All of that has been said. This has all been said of the church in different ways as well.

"Shall I bring to the point of birth, and not give delivery?" Says the Lord.
"Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?" Says your God. - Isaiah 66

As Sarah forms in us, God forms in us His heart for His people. We are given the gift of His heart for His kids, for His sons and daughters, for His children, for His babies... like Sarah. With that heart comes a transformation. It's not just her. It's not just the church that undergoes transformation. It comes to us first. Having a revelation that you are to be a father or a mother is one thing, but to actually become the revelation, to become like the Father, or like Jesus, is a whole different thing. We are to be transformed. We are to be enlarged. And it's not just our physical body growing during the pregnancy , it's our hearts as well. Our lives, especially our hearts, are to be filled with love. We are to get healed.

We become pregnant with people's lives... It sounds strange, but it's true. We are to bring forth a people in the likeness of Jesus. We labor with God until Christ is formed in them. We father and mother them. We are to carry the church on our hip. We are to play with her like you do with a child on your knees. "You shall be carried on the hip and fondled on the knees." This is our role to His church, to become that, to be that loving and intimate mother to her. Paul described it in a hundred different ways in all his writings. His heart overflowed with this reality. This is what God formed in Him:

"But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares (cherishes) for her own children.
Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God
but also our own lives (souls) because you had become very dear (beloved) to us."

Then he said a few verses down:

"... just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring EACH ONE OF YOU as a father would his own children, so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory."

- Paul to the Thessalonians

to be continued...