Episode #418 – Loving Us Through Us!

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Loving Us Through Us!
December 7, 2014
Episode #418

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special guests: Jennifer Wentzel, Jim Pierce, Lori Thomas, and Carole Nelson

(J) Well, going on what you said, Jen, I said something at the “Christ, My All” conference. I said that light is the grand equalizer, that we’re all brought to a common ground when the light shines. We’re all human. We’re all sinners. We’re all naked. We’re all in need. It’s across the board. I didn’t say that at the conference, because it was a ladies’ conference, but I can say it now, because that is what I was saying. And I think that, you know, what you’re saying, her being in the light… I don’t know if this is what you were saying. This is how I’m processing it. Her being in the light made everything kind of equal; that her being in the light and her being in the truth was the equalizer that put you both on the same plane; that it didn’t matter if she was a housewife, that she was a mother, that she had a totally different background, that she came from a totally different generation, that she’s a totally different person than you. That didn’t matter because she was in the truth and in the light, and because of that there was a grand equalizer that could… You both could meet on a common ground, on a commonality. Am I right? Am I…?
(Jennifer) Yes. I’m just astonished that the light and the truth; I’ve just never seen the two of them in the way that you just described it. To be in the truth of your story is to be in the light; the way, the truth and the life, the truth and the light together. It’s just never struck… John, can’t even… My goodness! Good grief.
(J) But that was what made ya’ll equal. That was, that’s what made you… The light actually was what made you compatible. You were brought to a compatibility because of light. You can be friends because of light. You can be in fellowship because of light. You can be in union because of light. And your story doesn’t matter a jot or a tittle. It’s just, you know.
(Jim) Martha was walking in the light as He is in the light as the scripture says. Jennifer was walking in the light as He is in the light, so they were walking together in the light.
(M) I think it goes back to what you said in the beginning, Jennifer, “We love because He first loved us.” When you’re born again somehow you receive the love of God, and you are accepted in the Beloved. And no matter what stuff and mess and complication lies within you that’s still entangled, there’s an acceptance that you feel, that you don’t really… You feel the acceptance of God, and that acceptance is contagious.
(Lori) It’s amazing. It’s love. The love and the light, and I like how Jim said it too, “When we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, continually cleanses us from all sin.” We were talking about self-hatred, and I was just realizing the other day that I’m not really there right now. And being the recipient of such enormous outflow of love has just been wonderful.
(M) How beautiful.
(Lori) Just been wonderful. There’s joy. There’s contentment. There’s happiness. There’s love, and I was just sitting there the other day and yesterday, for the past few days. In fact, I wanted to ask about it, because I was loving myself. I mean I was just content, not with my old woman, who, you know, my flesh and not all that. And it’s the new creation that I’m enjoying.
(M) You like her.
(Lori) I do. I do.
(M) That’s healthy, see? That’s healthy.
(Lori) How wonderful.
(Jim) We do too!
(Lori) Pardon me?
(Jim) We do too.
(Carole) Uh-huh!
(Lori) Well, thank you and back at ya’ll. But really coming was in fear and trembling and whatever it was and coming, and just the love that’s been given and shed abroad; just outrageous love, amazing love that Carole had talked about the tsunami of love. And it’s Him. It’s really Him, and it’s done an amazing thing. It really has. You know, I’m still just kind of touching on to that. And like I said, just sitting in those kind of quiet moments and realizing, “Wow, I’m liking this,” there’s laughter, and in my spirit I’m doing cartwheels. I never could do cartwheels, but my spirit does cartwheels and is just happy in the simplicity of where He has me.
(M) She’s had the joy of working with Jennifer, which is…
(Lori) I have. Oh, my goodness, yes.
(M) Which is a delightful adventure.
(Lori) It is, and it’s been such acceptance too, and acceptance of my own sheepness, sheepiness or however we call it, and the joy in just being that too that I have never had before, because I did have that “You have to reach this standard” and then once I get anywhere near that, no, no, it goes higher and higher and higher and it’s impossible; rather than having no expectations, which is like, wow!
(M) Well, Jennifer has this great fun being herself that is… And she really is filled with the love of God.
(Carole) And I see that. That is the contagious; it is contagious. That acceptance of your knowing that you’re accepted in Christ; your knowing it, your experiencing it for yourself and then manifesting it, Jen, is contagious, and it causes the Body and those that you’re with to also surprisingly, probably, … for me, surprisingly, enter into that acceptance of your own self as you watch it in someone else, as you see it in someone else.
(Jennifer) What I love about loving people, about letting Him love other people, is all the small details. He does not make it hard to love. It’s not difficult to love who He loves and who He wants to love through you. I’ve told Lori that, you know, because Lori is, you know, just precious, and she is constantly giving feedback on what it is to work with me, which is really appreciated because I have no idea, you know, on a day to day basis. And sometimes I think, “Oh, Lord, I hope I’m not just annihilating her.” And Lori is absolutely easy to love, and I didn’t know Lori from Adam when she first came in. I have no basis for relationship with her as the world would see it. You know, we don’t have commonality. We didn’t, you know, have some sort of bonding experience out in the field sort of thing. You know, there’s nothing like that, but… And forgive me, Lori, we can take this out if you don’t want it, but once you commit and say, “OK, Lord, I’m going to love this person, and I’m going to let you love them,” it’s funny how He gives little things, little touchstones like that, that ground us, that connect us, just little things, sometimes completely inconsequential in the big scheme of things. But I still remember the day that Lori and I were talking, and we were getting to know each other and our stories, and Neil Diamond came up.
(J) I knew you were going to tell about that.
(Jennifer) I am going to talk about Neil Diamond, because it’s not about Neil Diamond. It is about what the Lord did with Neil Diamond, and what He revealed was that Lori and I each when we were young, teenage girls fell in love with the fabulous Neil Diamond and his music. And we loved it, and we rocked out to it, and we memorized it, and we thought he was just dreamy and wonderful. And it’s little things like that that He literally… I don’t know what prompted me. There was absolutely nothing that… We working on orders. We were talking about different things. Neil Diamond should not have come up in the office during ministry business. There was no basis for the introduction of Neil Diamond, but he did come up. And we found this out about each other. And it’s little things like that that He does, because He wants that connection to be there, and He wants us to see that we’re all sitting at the same table, and that there are things that we can touch base on in a very human way. And it’s beautiful. It’s amazing when He does that. I love that He does that. It’s sitting there sifting through index cards and trying to find a topic of commonality and, “Tell me something. Is your favorite color blah, blah, blah, blah?” It’s not J-dates or something. You know what I mean? It’s not what it is. It’s the Holy Spirit knowing that you still, you know, have a fondness for Neil Diamond, and so do I. God bless him. I don’t know that I won’t sing him in heaven. Jesus will have to stop me. I love Neil. And He knew that, and He’s much bigger than anything else, and He said, “Oh, and prodded my brain and your brain and I don’t even know which one of us. I think I did… to bring up Neil Diamond in a completely off topic train of thought. And He did that, ‘cause He loves us, and He loves loving us through us. It’s just, I don’t know. That’s just such a picture of Him.
(J) That’s how He can make the gutter drunk and the sophisticated, classy, elegant lady have any kind of commonality is because it’s only in the light. The classy, elegant lady will always have a, you know, snooty, down-nosed look at the gutter drunk as long as she’s not in the truth of the light in the commonality. But the second that she’s in the commonality there is, I mean, it’s mutual. There’s a mutuality. I mean Martha’s a, you know…
(Jennifer) A classy, elegant lady.
(J) She’s a classy, elegant lady and, you know, it’s kinda “Lady and the Tramp” here, but, you know? He made a commonality between us, and I have a totally different background, totally. But there’s mutuality in a working that He did between us and continues to do between us that we’re, I mean. We flow, we just flow. And I think all of us can flow when we’re in the light, in the truth of who we are.

Loving Us Through Us! – Episode #418 – Shulamite Podcast