Day 5: Worship
“Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you.” Exodus 23:25
Happy Fifth Day of Thanks Everyone!
Have you ever had a sudden eureka moment that just blew your mind because the revelation of what is or has been occurring for years has just hit you and you think to yourself “wow! God is just so amazing?” I had one of those moments yesterday and stand totally amazed at how God uses the simplest (foolish) things/acts to shame the wise and uses weak things/people in the world to shame the seemingly strong (1 Corinthians 1:27).
Yesterday, on Thanksgiving Day, my daughter had another seizure in her sleep. This is something that has occurred simultaneously with her menstrual since she was 7 years old. For most of the day, especially in the morning, both of us were exhausted. Every muscle in my body was screaming, “Calgon take me away!” (Lol. I know I am dating myself.) Without realizing it, I fell to sleep after a few hours of watching Delilah like a hawk. I woke up to tapping on my side, “Mommy. Before the throne.” Lilah, with huge bags in her eyes and a scratchy voice was waking me up to tell me that it was time for her ritual—spending time in the presence of the Lord. She needed/wanted to worship and, on cue, I needed to play the first of the two main songs in her worship playlist, “Before the Throne” by Shekinah Glory. I found the song on Youtube and let it play. When Lilah is in worship, she boguards my devices (Monique, thank heavens for that new gift!) and my time to make sure I am available to make sure the song is on repeat. A few minutes into her worship, I was so amazed at her love for this song and how she started to sing with the lyrics, I secretly started taking video. She spent almost 1.5 hours in worship with this song on repeat. Once she was done this round of worshipping, she had enough strength to eat. When she got up to eat, she was all smiles and happy that she would get to enjoy the favorite keto dishes that she requested for thanksgiving dinner. I had to memorialize her smile with a picture because her smile didn’t reflect any smoke or ashes from the hell fire that she had just encountered for the last few days. There was pure joy radiating from her face.
After she finished her dinner and dessert (homemade keto cake and ice cream), she said “Mommy, [singing] Savior Lord and friend, heavenly father, the holy lamb.” This meant that she needed/wanted to start her second round of worship. She was requesting for me to play the second song in the playlist, “We honor your presence” by Shekinah Glory as well. We would be entering into another few hours of worship that once again would involve the boguarding of my time and device. It was a few hours into this worship session that God allowed me to have my eureka moment. I had sung these songs a million times with Lilah (sometimes to the point that it drove me crazy) and she even learned to play the beginning of “Before the Throne” on her piano. But, it never occurred to me what God had been doing in and through her. God put it in my spirit to really pay attention to the lyrics of the songs this time and what was happening. The lyrics to “Before the Throne” are:
“Before the throne is where we come to offer praise and seek wisdom/You have torn the veil that separates/No more outside now in Your grace/So we bow as we enter the throne room/And we cast ourselves down at Your feet/We cry holy, thou art holy, there is none like thee/In Your presence is where we must be/Prepare our hearts for service now/When we fall short please show us how/Guide us with Your truth, ancient of days/Renew our hearts and cleanse our way.”
Because Lilah is minimally verbal in her autism, this song was speaking to God on her behalf. She was humbling her heart and putting herself in a posture to adore God. She was telling him that first and foremost she was bowing and reverencing Him so that she could enter into his presence in the Holies of Holies. She was declaring, like the angels around God’s throne, that He was Holy and utterly unique. She was repenting and asking him to cleanse her heart and to renew it and then lead her to be in right standing with him so that she could ultimately enter in His presence.
Wow!
In that 1.5 hours of listening to that song, God had heard the prayer of Lilah’s heart and let her into His presence. As she was in His presence, He was restoring her back to health, giving her new strength, and changing her countenance so that a smile and pure joy, and no evidence of the smoke, could emanate from her. Most importantly, as she was worshipping God, God was delivering her and taking sickness from her (Exodus 23:25).
The lyrics to the second song “We honor your presence” are:
“We honor your presence/We reverence your royalty/We worship your Majesty/Glory and Honor/Savior Lord and Friend/Heavenly Father, the Holy Lamb/Strong and Mighty King/Be exalted, Be glorified.”
Now that God had driven out sickness and allowed deliverance to occur, she was sealing the moment with praise and a song of victory, declaring all of who God is in her life (Royalty, Majestic, Abba, Holy Lamb, Strong and Mighty King) and that she will forever exalt and glorify Him.
Wow, again!
I have always known that Lilah was a worshipper and that her spiritual assignment in the kingdom was to be a minstrel. All of her life, I have been so intentional about teaching her the word of God (the Bible) and how to pray and worship God. I am crying as I type right now because I have seen her worship like this since she was five/six years old and have never known, until now, the depth of what was happening and how God was delivering her from sickness and covering her through her very act of worship. Each time she entered into God’s presence over the last 13 years, God was strengthening her and preparing her for her destiny. God was showing her how to step into her kingdom assignment to destroy the kingdom of darkness, through her worship.
My heart is humbled. In the dark seasons, as you worship, God is literally preparing your breakthrough. Just as Paul and Silas prayed and sang songs of deliverance in their darkest hour to prepare the way for God to break out and cause breakthrough, Lilah has been preparing the way for God to break out in her life so that her breakthrough can come too. Watch and be amazed at the salvation of the Lord!
Today, as we give thanks for worshipping in the dark season, I invite you to not only worship your way into healing if you have any type of sickness in your mind or body, but to serve the Ronald McDonald House (https://www.rmhc.org/donate). They provide hope, comfort, and a place for the families of children, who are severely ill, to stay while they are undergoing treatment at the hospital. This organization is near and dear to my and Lilah’s heart. We have known families of her close friends who have benefitted from this organization’s help as their loved ones were undergoing treatment.
Love Ya,
Have a great day of Thanks!