Many years ago, on an Easter Sunday, our pastor preached a message entitled “The God of TADA’s!” It affected my Journey. I realized — and continue to realize — that He delights in bringing us to those TADA moments and I’ve had more than my share of them. (But only because I’m one of His Favorites!) I’ve Journaled these moments for years, and it’s one of the Joys of my Journey to share them in conversation with friends and watch with delight as their mouths drop open and I can hear Him whisper, “I know…TADA!” But in recent months, I’ve felt His Hand pressing me to share these stories in more of a public arena, in Hopes of touching hearts to turn and open the door to the One. The Faithful One who’s been relentlessly pursuing them, knocking on your heart’s door, longing to come in and make Himself at home there…. And so…

The Journey Begins … why “Prisoner of Hope”?

There are moments in your life … those that change you forever. That moment in time when you are suddenly and completely aware that you are KNOWN and SEEN by God. The One who you had heard about, read about, longed for but been afraid of, suddenly He is real. Suddenly you are in His Presence and you discover you are loved. And that moment changes everything. You will never be the same….this is one of those moments that is part of my story…..

This particular moment is dated March 27, 2007…. during one of the most difficult seasons of my life. Four years before this date, I had been drawn into a Journey back to the heart of the God of the Bible who had come to heal my broken places. It was a Journey back from my own private hell. Twelve years earlier, I had flown to Las Vegas on March 25, 1995, to give my heart in marriage to the love of my life. Unfortunately, this wonderful man was still in the grips of grieving the loss of his first wife to cancer, and struggling to believe he could live again. The morning after he married me, he declared without warning, that he had made a terrible mistake and shouldn’t have done this to his kids. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt so alone in my life.  (But Spoiler alert: God was and always is in control, and He truly works all things for our good….we had both carried mountains of tattered baggage into this marriage that He was drawing us to come lay it all down at the Foot of the Cross.)

And so we returned back to our home where we struggled together, roller coaster life ups and downs, until finally we had reached the end of our ropes on this date, March 27, 2007. In his woundedness, my dear hubby had quite a temper and our fight the night before had left me devastated as he stormed out the door. Waking the next morning, I felt defeated and heavy with a hopeless pain…unwilling to get out of bed and face the day.  I reached for my phone, called Tammy, one of my dearest friends, poured out my tears and my heartache. She encouraged me, prayed for me, and somehow got my feet under me to start the day….  I made coffee, and headed to my computer for morning devotional. I found that Tammy had sent an email earlier that morning, and suddenly I was captivated by the scripture in the center of the page:

“…because of the blood of My Covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from their waterless pits; but as for you, RETURN TO THE FORTRESS, O Prisoner of HOPE, and in that day I will restore to you double….”  Zechariah 9:11-12

I was undone by the thought of what that would be like, to be chained to HOPE, instead of the chains to which I was so familiar … I looked up the Hebrew meaning to the word HOPE. It was “Tiqwa” (pronounced Tik vah) and it is literally a cord, an attachment, a twisting that binds you together and not easily broken. Oh, YES, bind me to HOPE! I dug into the meat of that, and it became written upon my heart as my spirits were lifted. My heart was captivated and strengthened, and I had to pull myself away from the computer because I had plans for lunch with a dear friend Karen. I left the page open on the Bible WordSearch Program so I could return to it later. I picked up Karen and found out she had invited another friend Ruth to join us, and we headed to lunch. During our visit, as we shared our burdens and prayer requests with each other, Ruth told me that I should listen to an online teaching on the church website — she said Paige Henderson had given an amazing lesson on the rejected wife Leah. And we went about the rest of the day…. unaware that a Divine Appointment had been made…

[Note: Paige Henderson is an anointed servant of the King, a gifted teacher and author, and co-founder of Fellowship of the Sword. For life-changing Journey, visit their website and sign up for Quest — there’s also one for the guys! Mine was HeartQuest 17 in September of 2006 — came home radically healed, and in company of a beautiful Troupe of warriors to journey with me….but that’s another story.]

When I returned home from lunch with these precious ladies, I was drawn to the message on my computer again … Prisoner of Hope … and I pondered the beauty of that message. Then I remembered Ruth’s words. Leaving that scripture open in the background, I went online and searched through the archives, finally finding the teaching that Paige had given on October 30, 2005 — which was seventeen months earlier. I also opened up my notes because I love to type as I listen — it seems to help me retain the critical facts. Digging in for the lesson, I was soon caught off guard as I found my own story coming to life through Paige’s words. Tears flowed as I really “heard” — for the first time — Leah’s story. The Genesis story Leah, the one who married Jacob who was in love with Rachel. The one whose husband, the morning after they were married, turned away and said “I didn’t want HER, I want Rachel!” I felt her pain, her longing for her husband to love her. I heard how she named her sons after her pain…as she presented them one after another to her husband and begged him to SEE her (Reuben), to HEAR her (Simeon), and to be ATTACHED to her (Levi). Her pleas fell on deaf ears — there was no record that Jacob was moved towards her. But as the story unfolded, you could feel a shift in the atmosphere as Paige said, “before you get too sad for Leah, let me tell you that things are about to look up for her…her situation didn’t change, but SHE began to change”…. and she named her next son Judah and said, “now I will praise the Lord.” And Paige told how Leah began to let go of the earthly things and get her focus upwards toward heaven. How that there’s an empty place fashioned in the heart of every one of us that can never be filled by our earthly relationships….that place that’s reserved for God alone. And how the names of the rest of her children reflected the change in her heart…Troop (Gad), Happy (Asher), Reward (Issachar), Habitation (Zebulun)…  The message went on for 40 minutes, and I went through a box of Kleenex…. The name Judah actually means to let go of the things binding me here, and lift up open hands in worship to the King. Paige said if you picture the things that are breaking your heart as if they were hot rocks in your hands, drop them to the ground, lift up your face and your open hands to the heavens, and move your focus totally there, you will find what you’ve been longing for…you will find your home! And then … Paige’s voice softened as she said she’d like to wrap up the message if we’d turn with her to chapter 9 of the book of Zechariah. I remember thinking “that sounds familiar…where have I heard that before…” and then Paige’s beautiful voice was reading aloud (from 17 months earlier) the verse that had been written upon my heart this very morning …

“…because of the blood of My Covenant with you, I will free your prisoners from their waterless pits; but as for you, RETURN TO THE FORTRESS, O Prisoner of HOPE, and in that day I will restore to you double….”  Zechariah 9:11-12

She went on to explain about the waterless pits that their captors had thrown them into, and then she broke down the word HOPE, how it was “Tikva” in Hebrew, and how it meant tightly bound and woven together. I had to pause here as I typed this once again, remembering that moment, that encounter, when I had stopped typing, turning my drenched face upwards to heaven….I remember I could almost hear the laughter in the cloud of witnesses as they said, look at her face! She got it! We’ve got her! And HIS Face as He reached and took my face in His Hands….and made me forever His Prisoner of Hope. And the Journey to Freedom had begun….