I strum through the streets like a peasant, being homeless has been less than idyllic and yet somewhat picturesque in that couch-surfing paints a new scenic view, daily. I have since walked in to the lives of three house holds. I don’t pay attention to the order of any house other than to say I watch just like a spectator how people live, more importantly how they love. All three households built on good ground, laughter, celebration and a continuum of joy I haven’t seen since my father passed away.
I knew the moment I put all my furniture in pods that I was going to be homeless, temporarily at least. Here I was with a family that has since become my spiritual family. They offered me a place to stay while I wrote the book, ‘Chasing the Devil’s Kettle,’ and I did it living out of a small camper on 40 acers of beautiful land. The pond was one of my favorite things to gaze upon while praying long after the midnight hour when everyone had gone to bed.
It was perfect outside of the cold brisk wind that seemed to find you even on a warm summer day and the only thing I could truly do without are bear sightings, a herd of cows, and a turtle that I thought I killed. As a writer it was the most breath-taking place I’d ever been even though I learned early on that I am not a farm girl. Yelp, no camping in my near future.
All that to say, I stepped out of dancing, long enough to put away my stilettos and walk with God rather than away from him. Before I became known as winter in a gentleman’s club I was Paula, the worship leader, house manger/mom, board member, and as I like to say a teacher of God’s word. I spent nearly twelve years in the inner city mission field in Detroit. When I left the church I swore I’d never darken the door of another church as long as I lived, furthermore I certainly had no right to teach the word not with the name Jezebel lingering over me chastising me for existing.
I left the pulpit and found the pole and like many girls I had to tell a story. I had a dark and eerie past, A past that I couldn’t seem to escape. The only time I did not feel haunted by it was when I was dancing. Two years after walking away from God, He brought a ministry into the clubs, a team of women who loved for the sake of loving with no hidden agenda, there was no handful of judgement. They came into the clubs monthly leaving behind baskets full of makeup, candy, and on this particular occasion, a plague, not just any plague, I knew this one was for me. I knew amid the laughter in the dressing room that God was trying to get my attention.
God wanted me to leave the hustle behind… He wanted me to stop dancing and trust Him, but how do I do that with condemnation smothering me. to write this book He called me to write, and trust that in the end, God was with me, and not only with me, but for me. In spite of the darkness that lurked behind me, mocking the call God had on my life. How could the God of hope use the girl who was not acquainted with joy much less perfect peace?
My past was one blues song away from devastation and one pill away from a numbing agent that allowed me to slip in and out of life; a life where darkness didn’t seem that dark the longer I walked in it. I was always a stage name away from being someone else, anyone else as long as I did not have to be me, the authentic one, the one who underneath the makeup and clothes was a complete and utter mess. The girl men wanted to take home but not marry. I suppose black lights, fog, and strobe lights have that effect. …But, what now Lord? I wrote the book and published it and yet here I am still homeless, still restless, still waiting.
And with a past like mine, I still feel flawed, the imperfection in my beauty marred by my ability to move to a rhythmic song humming in my head announces the catastrophic end to an otherwise healthy new beginning or at least a second chance. A chance to walk in God’s grace and undeniable forgiveness only to discover that while God may be forgiving not all people are open-minded; any more than one can say all people walk in love. So, how does an exotic dancer go from the pole to the pulpit unless God calls her out? It seems ridiculous at best but the truth is God uses the foolish things of the earth to confound the wise, to confront the hypocrisy, and demote the hypocrite.
Am I that girl, that woman that God wants to use to unsettle the normality of Christian censorship using a dramatic theme, a theme that could only come from a deep place of trauma to prove God uses whom He chooses simply because He can; besides, anyone with a painful past has a trail of tears on their face and scars most people will never see, but God does! Nevertheless, here I am still homeless with the belief that if God called me out of darkness into his marvelous light that He will perfect that thing which concerns me. I then wait for that epic moment, that moment where He God uses my new life in Christ to bring Him glory.
But what does that look like when you go from making a ton of money in a gentleman’s club and the ordinance of your will that was once abstinent and permissive now changes suddenly but then again, so has your wallet proving that poverty can lead you into things you never thought you’d do come hell or high-heels. I am not alarmed, instead, I am called to summon my faith because unlike in the past where I was self-reliant I was also always in danger, just one bad decision away from another self-inflicted wound, a wound that never really goes away without God.
What then… suddenly, I am at the crossroad. I know the word on one hand and the world on the other. The truth is the world does not offer us anything we don’t have to pay for but the word offers us the wealth of an eternity we could never buy, nor earn. The kingdom is not an afterthought like death, to be kingdom-minded is to treat the King’s palace as a place you have been given earthly rights to walk into day or night, boldly at that!
I may appear to be homeless and troubled, in the natural. No one likes couch-surfing but then again the bible says, ‘I am in this world but not of it.’ That is something to remember when I feel like I am going through housing withdrawals, all of that and like most people, I long for my temporary home, a place to call my own… a place to light candles, lay on my white leather sofa in a clean house and drift to sleep simply because I can.
God said, ‘I will withhold no good thing from them that love me and walk uprightly,’ I trust Him with my whole heart until fear creeps in suddenly I become like the Israelite’s who after being led out of captivity, after witnessing God part the red sea, after watching God provide manna, and show up time and time again provisionally they determine they were better off in Egypt, a place of slavery and bondage far from the promised land and even further away from the palace.
One of my favorite verses in the bible is found in psalms 27:4
‘One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.’
Recently a friend of mine posed a question Jesus often asked in the bible, ‘What are you seeking?’ and today she asked me the same question. I began to ramble on all the things I was seeking both spiritually and naturally… Knowing that when Jesus asked that question he had an answer to both those needs. The beauty here is this if your eyes are fixed on Jesus you will find that what He was trying to tell them was He was both.
Jesus came that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly, in that natural world and the world without end.
It does not matter if your past is riddled with sin when you know the God who forgives.
It does not matter if what you need looks like a desire…
He said of his children, “I will give them the desires of their heart,”
God did not call us to live in spiritual poverty any more than a spirit of false humility connected to poverty. So when I say after 18 months, “Lord I am tired of being homeless,” God hears the cry of my heart. If I give the devil an ounce of my faith he turns it into a mountain of fear. Satan comes to kill, steal, and destroy.
satan is coming to steal that which is sown in our hearts. Keep in mind the devil can not sow anything other than discord, he doesn’t sow peace, but it’s a false sense of peace.
If you have hope God gave it to you
If you have joy God gave it to you
… and that is exactly what the devil is attempting to take from you.
God gave you hope, that you might walk in it, even if like me you are homeless.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope through the power of the holy ghost.
If you have peace Jesus gave it to you…
‘Peace I leave with you, my peace give I unto you, not as the world gives, give I unto you, let not your heart be troubled or afraid,’ -Jesus said that!
Satan cannot create good fruit any more than he can sow good fruit however, he can taint and destroy the fruit. On the other hand, the enemy is crafty enough to mimic good fruit, thereby many are deceived. All that to say he is a liar; not only is he deceptive but he is the Father of all things deceptive. (satan is not a big deal so I chose not to capitalize his name, but our Heavenly Father is, Praise God!)
When I said early that I want to walk through the palace, I was not referring to an earthly palace, I was referring to the Kingdom where we are encouraged to come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and help in your time of need.’
What are you seeking? What a great question, ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” Jesus said that and what He meant by that was this… seek me, I am the embodiment of the Kingdom and everything we need is found in Him.
As the new year approaches we make new commitments, make new alliances, and the truce that whatever we are seeking out of the New Year we will get if we strive, work hard, and even harder… only to find that we placed an unreasonable expectation on our lives where disappointment now lives.
This is not my New Years resolution, or a determined inner resolve to be or have. Instead it is what every woman would want, a comfortable place to land. I want my own palace hidden in God’s palace here on earth. A place to call home.
