In all that He knows He knows all... and in all my frailty and in all my strength He knows me perfectly.... In realizing how perfectly I am known by Him I can rest... I can rest that He intrinsically understands the very fabric of my life and all of my days.. past.. present ... future sit before Him...
His outstretched hand so welcoming and being led by Him so crazy incredible... and yet at times as I see His outstretched hand and I know where it is that He is leading I pause... I pause and I look into those eyes of His and I wonder... Silly me .. I still wonder...
But then I looked at that hand and I know that heart... and I know that even if the first grasp sends chills throughout all that I am.. His strength quickly follows and I have been led by Him enough to know that whether it is the valley of the shadow of death or the highest heights... it is He that I walk next to... it is He that leads me... and while He leads me I know that I need not ever be afraid....
This time.. this time looking into those amazing eyes of His... this time.. understanding even a tad more of the where and the what... I look deep into that which He is as He looks deep into that which I am... and I am confident of this.. that He who truly began a good work will carry it onto completion and that He has already made allowances for my doubts and fears and all while He still holds out His hand.....
I know that I know that I know that He sees me.. completely... there is nothing I can hide from Him.. He sees the areas where He has already with amazing love transformed me into His likeness and He sees the areas that still need to be yielded...and He knows.. He knows how to perfectly and patiently gain access to all those places... and He loves me so very perfectly and tenderly and yet with great strength and authority does He take my life into Him and call me to abide and allow the life flowing power and grace of the vine to flow into the branches of my life......
His delight is truly in us... His delight is in me and for me.. and He delights.. He delights in us... and that I am hidden in Him and that He is in me and that we are together... He delights in the relationship that we all share...
It isn't that there isn't a valley of the shadow of death.. it isn't that there aren't trials and tribulations... It is that He walks next to us through them and that He has fully overcome them... It is that He has made a way.. and that He makes a way... so that we can journey through them all with a confidence of who we truly are... we are not slaves to elements nor are we captives to those things that occur within the framework of our days... it is that we are more than overcomers... not in a religious sense of that phrase but in reality... that truly is who we are...
That is who He has formed and fashioned us to be.. that is what He has done... He took us from slaves to death and went and got the keys to the cells that would bind us and lay a hold of our lives and He loosens our chains and opens those doors and in all His authority He renames us and calls us His citizens and His friends and His ... His period.... The enemy could not hold Him and because of that which our Lord and Savior did the enemy can not hold us..... Our Lord breaks those chains and sets us to soar...
This world can no longer lay claim to that which I am... it can longer have any power over me.... and that which it tries to touch the Lord has made provision for that too in the ancient wells of His heart the balms of healing pour forth and show up with strength and healing in His wing......
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Awakening and being seen... I am His daughter.. I am His girl
I stood before her... and I trust her... I could tell she was looking at me... no.. not the passing people on the road and looking... but the looking at me... seeing me...
There are times when I know that someone is doing that and I feel slightly unclean.. .like they are looking into something that isn't theirs to examine... But this wasn't that... I trust her and I don't mind if she sees anything good or bad... I am one open to correction and discipline and encouragement....
This morning thoughts were traveling through my mind and my heart about how a friend teaches on the fact that holy means to be set apart.. uncommon... and I was thinking about how that pertains to me as a daughter of God and as a wife and as a woman.... a woman so dearly loved by a Father who made amazing provision for me to know Him and be known by Him...
As I thought through these things this morning... I realized that I was awakening to more of who it is that I am .. intrinsically am... not what roles would define me nor what gifts would categorize me but me... Who I am....
And then something a tad alarming happened... I started to shut down.. I could fell my heart go into this mode and not only was it alarming ... I was almost shouting inside for it not to happen... placing my will and emotion to stay open.... to stay vulnerable...
The the Father stepped in in this most marvelous and yet completely Him kind of way.. gentle and kind and sweet but completely full of authority and power... He looked at me... "Do you trust me?" Well.. when I know who it is that is asking and I know what the right answer is then temptation and knee jerk reaction wants to say .. but of course....
But He didn't even (of course He didn't) want that... so I looked at Him and I looked at Him looking at me.. and I paused... there are things that I care about... there are things that I want.. but do I trust that no matter what I want and no matter what I think He knows better... even if it hurts... even if that which He wants to say or do hurts... and I realized that I still was always waiting for the other shoe to come down... I was still in my heart believing that He would come and take away all that would make me happy and ask something horrifically difficult but that out of my desire to please Him I would submit....
And I continued to look at Him as He continued to look at me... and He bore His heart and spoke... "It isn't as you think...." and we both knew that I couldn't hear all that He had to say... so we just looked at each other... my heart was saturated in unbelief (I know.. I know.. you are probably thinking uhm.. Mims... the Father is that present to you and you still have unbelief in your heart... all I say dear friend is that this is a relationship and I know He is so other and holy and magnificent... but He comes to Father... He comes to love... He comes to woo... and so yes.. even when I know His presence more real than these keys I am typing on .. I allow my heart to be that which it is)
As we stood in that moment... gaze locked... all else disappeared... and He smiled... light surrounded us as to blanket anything else I would see... anything else I would hear.. anything else that would distract a heart that had learned all to well to shut down when afraid....
And I stood there... and what I knew was that I was awakening... and I was being seen ... but I was surrounded by His determination to make it safe for me ... I was not being chastised... nor was I being rebuked... I was being loved... I was being so perfectly and absolutely loved....
Perfect love will look different for all of us... and in this moment it was the King of kings and Lord of lords ... the Father of all things.... shining forth the fact that one aspect of Himself is a baby wrapped in cloth.... He is gentle and He is kind... and to one who many things were forced upon He comes wooing... He comes wooing... perfect love to me this morning looked like that gentle lamb... the infant that centuries ago needed to nurse at His mother's breast.... He needed and there were the gentle comforts for Him...
That is my God.. this is my Father.. and into His presence I walk... Hand taken.. following alongside... leaning and listening to His heart beat... This is the Lord of lords.. and King of kings.. this is the Creator of all things.. this is He who calls us and knew us before the foundation of the earth was laid... This is our God.. this is my God.. This is my Father.. I am His.. I am His daughter.. I am His girl....
There are times when I know that someone is doing that and I feel slightly unclean.. .like they are looking into something that isn't theirs to examine... But this wasn't that... I trust her and I don't mind if she sees anything good or bad... I am one open to correction and discipline and encouragement....
This morning thoughts were traveling through my mind and my heart about how a friend teaches on the fact that holy means to be set apart.. uncommon... and I was thinking about how that pertains to me as a daughter of God and as a wife and as a woman.... a woman so dearly loved by a Father who made amazing provision for me to know Him and be known by Him...
As I thought through these things this morning... I realized that I was awakening to more of who it is that I am .. intrinsically am... not what roles would define me nor what gifts would categorize me but me... Who I am....
And then something a tad alarming happened... I started to shut down.. I could fell my heart go into this mode and not only was it alarming ... I was almost shouting inside for it not to happen... placing my will and emotion to stay open.... to stay vulnerable...
The the Father stepped in in this most marvelous and yet completely Him kind of way.. gentle and kind and sweet but completely full of authority and power... He looked at me... "Do you trust me?" Well.. when I know who it is that is asking and I know what the right answer is then temptation and knee jerk reaction wants to say .. but of course....
But He didn't even (of course He didn't) want that... so I looked at Him and I looked at Him looking at me.. and I paused... there are things that I care about... there are things that I want.. but do I trust that no matter what I want and no matter what I think He knows better... even if it hurts... even if that which He wants to say or do hurts... and I realized that I still was always waiting for the other shoe to come down... I was still in my heart believing that He would come and take away all that would make me happy and ask something horrifically difficult but that out of my desire to please Him I would submit....
And I continued to look at Him as He continued to look at me... and He bore His heart and spoke... "It isn't as you think...." and we both knew that I couldn't hear all that He had to say... so we just looked at each other... my heart was saturated in unbelief (I know.. I know.. you are probably thinking uhm.. Mims... the Father is that present to you and you still have unbelief in your heart... all I say dear friend is that this is a relationship and I know He is so other and holy and magnificent... but He comes to Father... He comes to love... He comes to woo... and so yes.. even when I know His presence more real than these keys I am typing on .. I allow my heart to be that which it is)
As we stood in that moment... gaze locked... all else disappeared... and He smiled... light surrounded us as to blanket anything else I would see... anything else I would hear.. anything else that would distract a heart that had learned all to well to shut down when afraid....
And I stood there... and what I knew was that I was awakening... and I was being seen ... but I was surrounded by His determination to make it safe for me ... I was not being chastised... nor was I being rebuked... I was being loved... I was being so perfectly and absolutely loved....
Perfect love will look different for all of us... and in this moment it was the King of kings and Lord of lords ... the Father of all things.... shining forth the fact that one aspect of Himself is a baby wrapped in cloth.... He is gentle and He is kind... and to one who many things were forced upon He comes wooing... He comes wooing... perfect love to me this morning looked like that gentle lamb... the infant that centuries ago needed to nurse at His mother's breast.... He needed and there were the gentle comforts for Him...
That is my God.. this is my Father.. and into His presence I walk... Hand taken.. following alongside... leaning and listening to His heart beat... This is the Lord of lords.. and King of kings.. this is the Creator of all things.. this is He who calls us and knew us before the foundation of the earth was laid... This is our God.. this is my God.. This is my Father.. I am His.. I am His daughter.. I am His girl....
Sunday, June 26, 2011
something so different than anything I have ever known...
I have stumbled into many things in my life... and in so many areas I had to learn to walk .. in basic areas of life... I did not contain the capacity to live.... I barely existed... and then I met Him and in twenty years of being loved by Him I have entered into a life I would have never even dreamed about .... He takes my hand and walks with me... He lets me rest my head upon His chest... He takes my weary soul and we walk down paths of quiet and still waters and He restores my soul....
His hand.. His glorious hand... the way His flesh feels .. the way strength enters my being when He reaches His hand out and takes mine in His... it melts me... it melts me... I could stand there in those moments watching Him hold His hand out as He beckons me to walk with Him.. to sit with Him.. to dwell with Him where He is.... I could walk into those moments forever and never leave...
The peace of those moments ... the peace of those times... when I sit with Him.. and look at Him and know that He is looking at me... the air that holds the gaze is enriched... and strong... How He sees me... How He sees me and even when I would think that that which He is seeing is ugly .. and full of darkness ... even when I know that I come empty .. with hands that hold nothing... when there is nothing I offer Him but a broken heart and a weary mind...
He comes to me and looks at me with those eyes and draws me into His side and beckons me to rest ... and creates a warm and safe atmosphere where that rest that is so divine and so beautiful fills every corner of all that I am.... and I breathe... I can breathe in that place with Him... in that place where I run to when all else seemingly would bear down upon me and bring its weight to bare and crush me....
He closes off the world.. and blankets me in His love and cares for me ... He shuts the doors and quiets all the other and He without opening His mouth brings His truth alive... as He serves my injuries and bandages my wounds.... With tenderness He rises and with loving kindness He walks and with love He woos me into His most amazing truths...
When my expectations born from experience with humanity would speak that He would come with exasperation He only comes with more mercy... when my faulty assumptions would allow fear and experience to possibly mirror onto Him my false beliefs He stands .. oh how graciously He stands... firmly and without hesitation... opening up His heart so that time after time I see something so different than anything I have ever known...
Time after time He woos me back and burns off even more layers of faulty thoughts of how He operates... and time after time He allures me to His side.. and while my feet still feel the soft and lush and wondrous grasses of sweet pastures .. we journey through the wilderness of the evening side by side ... never forsaken and never alone..... but oh so very loved and supported...
Blessed be His most magnificent name
His hand.. His glorious hand... the way His flesh feels .. the way strength enters my being when He reaches His hand out and takes mine in His... it melts me... it melts me... I could stand there in those moments watching Him hold His hand out as He beckons me to walk with Him.. to sit with Him.. to dwell with Him where He is.... I could walk into those moments forever and never leave...
The peace of those moments ... the peace of those times... when I sit with Him.. and look at Him and know that He is looking at me... the air that holds the gaze is enriched... and strong... How He sees me... How He sees me and even when I would think that that which He is seeing is ugly .. and full of darkness ... even when I know that I come empty .. with hands that hold nothing... when there is nothing I offer Him but a broken heart and a weary mind...
He comes to me and looks at me with those eyes and draws me into His side and beckons me to rest ... and creates a warm and safe atmosphere where that rest that is so divine and so beautiful fills every corner of all that I am.... and I breathe... I can breathe in that place with Him... in that place where I run to when all else seemingly would bear down upon me and bring its weight to bare and crush me....
He closes off the world.. and blankets me in His love and cares for me ... He shuts the doors and quiets all the other and He without opening His mouth brings His truth alive... as He serves my injuries and bandages my wounds.... With tenderness He rises and with loving kindness He walks and with love He woos me into His most amazing truths...
When my expectations born from experience with humanity would speak that He would come with exasperation He only comes with more mercy... when my faulty assumptions would allow fear and experience to possibly mirror onto Him my false beliefs He stands .. oh how graciously He stands... firmly and without hesitation... opening up His heart so that time after time I see something so different than anything I have ever known...
Time after time He woos me back and burns off even more layers of faulty thoughts of how He operates... and time after time He allures me to His side.. and while my feet still feel the soft and lush and wondrous grasses of sweet pastures .. we journey through the wilderness of the evening side by side ... never forsaken and never alone..... but oh so very loved and supported...
Blessed be His most magnificent name
He gives me beauty for the dust that would be my life.....
The unseen aspects of my life.... the places in my heart that darkness still resides and the enemy of my soul can still land and mock... the places that upon waking in the early morning hours serve as reminders to why I need His salvation.. and that without Him I wouldn't walk... I wouldn't walk... I am not one who could casually walk the face of the earth .. and without Him I know where it is that I would reside....
I know that I walk with Him.. and I know that I share my life as an open book.... I know that I recount the times we walk together whether He joins me and embeds His foot print upon the earth again or He takes me to be where He is and we journey upon a place that is so other that the very air always brings me healing by just breathing it ....
He touches my grieving heart and applies His healing balms.. and He sits with me and looks at me and looks at me as I look at Him.. He sits silently with me in my pain and fear.. and He sits with me and bares His heart and His presence... and in that place sitting cross legged across from each other gazing at each other I know His love... His determination to never leave me nor forsake me... never to injure my soul but to bring restoration.....
His love is like warm liquid honey that pours itself upon me and over me and in me... warming cold places... soothing hurts away... penetrating to the deepest recesses and bringing its golden healing hues upon my inner most being...
It crushes me when I hear of others recounting Him in some foreign way that I know would never be Him... It pains me when I hear of others talk about Him and pass forward some demonic evil religious notion of that which He is.....
He is gentle and kind.. and while being King of kings and Lord of lords and reigning in majesty on high.. He is lowly and dwells with the broken hearted... never condemning... never ... for He knows how it is that we are made and He knows we are but dust and He loves us.. oh my how He loves us.... How thoroughly passionate He is about us....
Without that passion.. without those moments of being lost in His gaze I would be lost... and He knows.. so in mornings like this... He comes and He sits and His compassions fill the room and He sees me... He sees my heart and my mind and He touches my soul....
These moments aren't about the encounter.. nor are they about where we walk... these moments are simply and profoundly about that He walks the recesses of my heart and He holds my hand and He brings me strength and takes upon Himself my pain...
and He sits and He waits until the joy of being with Him .. the simple.. quiet... solid joy of being in His most magnificent presence burns away that which would bare itself upon my soul ... and He replaces His strength for my ashes.... He gives me beauty for the dust that would be my life.... for the ashes ... and He melts away the pain... this time... time after time.... He takes His love and burns away that which would hinder its flow... a slow and steady and ready flame... full of passion... for me....
I know that I walk with Him.. and I know that I share my life as an open book.... I know that I recount the times we walk together whether He joins me and embeds His foot print upon the earth again or He takes me to be where He is and we journey upon a place that is so other that the very air always brings me healing by just breathing it ....
He touches my grieving heart and applies His healing balms.. and He sits with me and looks at me and looks at me as I look at Him.. He sits silently with me in my pain and fear.. and He sits with me and bares His heart and His presence... and in that place sitting cross legged across from each other gazing at each other I know His love... His determination to never leave me nor forsake me... never to injure my soul but to bring restoration.....
His love is like warm liquid honey that pours itself upon me and over me and in me... warming cold places... soothing hurts away... penetrating to the deepest recesses and bringing its golden healing hues upon my inner most being...
It crushes me when I hear of others recounting Him in some foreign way that I know would never be Him... It pains me when I hear of others talk about Him and pass forward some demonic evil religious notion of that which He is.....
He is gentle and kind.. and while being King of kings and Lord of lords and reigning in majesty on high.. He is lowly and dwells with the broken hearted... never condemning... never ... for He knows how it is that we are made and He knows we are but dust and He loves us.. oh my how He loves us.... How thoroughly passionate He is about us....
Without that passion.. without those moments of being lost in His gaze I would be lost... and He knows.. so in mornings like this... He comes and He sits and His compassions fill the room and He sees me... He sees my heart and my mind and He touches my soul....
These moments aren't about the encounter.. nor are they about where we walk... these moments are simply and profoundly about that He walks the recesses of my heart and He holds my hand and He brings me strength and takes upon Himself my pain...
and He sits and He waits until the joy of being with Him .. the simple.. quiet... solid joy of being in His most magnificent presence burns away that which would bare itself upon my soul ... and He replaces His strength for my ashes.... He gives me beauty for the dust that would be my life.... for the ashes ... and He melts away the pain... this time... time after time.... He takes His love and burns away that which would hinder its flow... a slow and steady and ready flame... full of passion... for me....
From the wondering question, "isn't that a cult?" to an understanding of where it is that I am truly from....
Freaked out couldn't have described it... I had never since I had known Him not felt Him and there in that moment I stood frozen.... Where was He? And I ran... I ran back to my dorm room and flung myself on the floor and started repenting ... my body hadn't really even touched the floor nor the carpet received my tears and He was there....
That is a true story.... He had introduced Himself to me via a visitation ... mind you I was in a pysch ward... I had gone to a window and without ever having had someone tell me the sinner's prayer the words of repentance and commitment poured out of my mouth.... He was there... I knew God.. God was knowable and touchable and from that moment forward my life would never be the same....
He led me to a Christian college... so lacking understanding of Christian culture.. but having had a salvation experience I stumbled my way through the whole introductions.... so unlike the introductions to Him.. Himself....
I called for an application... "I'm Jewish can I even come to your school?" Was the first question but oh my so many more were to follow because when I received the application it was a major assumption that I knew how to speak the language.... Here is where some funny or not so funny stories come....
The application asking so many questions that I just didn't even comprehend.. like the essay for instance was.. "Describe your relationship with God..." hhhhmmmm not understanding that along with so many other seemingly insurmountable obstacles I threw the application away.... lo and behold however the Father really wanted me to attend.... Woke me up... literally woke me up and told me to get the application out of the garbage can... I kept trying to push the whole thing away but He was incessant.. well, of all things I was going to meet my husband there ;) so grateful the Father pushed me....
So I did I got up and removed the application from the trash... next morning before I woke up my mom came into my room and cleaned out my trash can...
Upon waking up and seeing that .. the application that was on my desk became the task at hand....
First... tackling the essay.. OK .. I thought.. Relationship with God?!? Uhm.. don't have one but let me tell them what happened.... uhm... Life fell apart.... all this craziness happened... ended up in a pysch hospital... prayed a prayer ... God introduced Himself... so I don't have a relationship with God.. but I need to know more about this experience I had... can I come? Upon arriving and meeting people .. one girl got truly upset with me ... She had lied on her application when it came to her relationship with God... she had one... she knew the terms but she had lied... I wonder what would have happened if she had opened up her heart and had spoken her doubts and her fears that she really wasn't sure about all this God stuff but this Christian college was the only one that her parents would pay for... I wonder what they would have done....
Next point of conflict... pastoral recommendation.... didn't have one... hadn't gone to church yet.. but in the movie Steel Magnolias they went to a Presbyterian church and one day driving across town I saw one off to my right and the pastor who responded with the statement of how he was never really ever at the building at that time welcomed me into the church to talk.... problem.. after the "talk" he thought I had been saved all my life.... He thought I thoroughly knew what it was I was talking about...
you see I could talk about Him like I knew Him because we knew each other daily when I would take His hand and walk with Him and He would tell me about Himself..... but there were oh so many things about the "Christian walk" that I was lacking..... anyway the man was gracious enough to be willing to write a recommendation and so I was over that hurdle....
There would be oh so many more however the one that makes me laugh the most sometimes is the survey I had to fill out when I got to college... the first question... Have you ever had a born again experience... uhm wasn't this a Christian college? However I at that time didn't even get that far? Because I thought heck no ... isn't that a cult?!? Seriously and that is what I wrote......
Oh it would take a while.. a long while in some instances to unravel and untangle my life and my past and these new things that were happening to me.... it would take years to unravel why so many people thought that all I was experiencing would end once I stopped being a baby Christian... seriously.. if I got that once I got it on numerous occasions... not anyone thinking or saying .. that they couldn't wait until I matured and moved even further into the heart beat of God.. no ... there was all this ... You are only experiencing these things because you are a baby Christian and when you understand like we do then you will calm down... seriously?!!? Students.... friends..... professors.. .alike ... all of them.. when you mature you won't act this.... HELL no... I will act even more uncivilized then this....
I have a beautiful wonderful friend ... who does these awesome events during fairs and festivals etc.... and she was telling me these most amazing stories today of encounters she has had and how people were just so very hungry to talk to her and sit with her.... and her heart and the way she walks with these people are stunning...
I know this pastor who simply undoes me every time he opens his mouth to teach and preach.. how he knows the love of God.. the need for grace and mercy and compassion... how he understands the necessity to be that living example....
I know this other pastor who I want to pinch and make sure I'm not dreaming .... and if I am.. well, then... I don't want to wake up..... He gets that it isn't about people's expectations but about what God wants and where the Lord is leading and how the Lord is guiding... and emerging .... How the Father loves His children and is calling sons and daughters to Himself...
I know these people that I am so blessed to have in my life that hunger ... hunger for more of the Lord... more of Him and less of all of us.. who hunger and thirst for the reality of the kingdom to break in upon us even more and that we would lives together that would resemble that which His heart aches and groans for us to have with each other....
I know God... I know God.. and now.. now I know Christian culture... and I know this.... there is so much I have come to embrace.... culturally ... but not as you might culturally think...
I am so not of this world.. so not of this place... and that the place that I am from is MAGNIFICENT... AMAZING... the place where I am from there is no sickness. . there is no sorrow or sighing... the place that I am from receives the hungry and the thirsty .. receives the meek... receives the peacemakers... receives the poor in spirit... The place where I am from knows living waters that when one drinks of them they are never thirsty again...
The place where I am from knows .. intrinsically knows the authority and majesty of its God.... and that is where I am from... that is whose citizenship I bare.... and that is the place where I have learned the authority of my Father.... I must live in this world.. but I am so thoroughly intrinsically fully blessed beyond measure that I no longer am of it.... that I am of a place that is so much more .. so much more beautiful.. so much more everything... so much more ...
I long to not squander away my days upon being in the world ... I long for the day when upon the day I remember throughout the whole day that I am truly of another place... and from that place I already sit... I sit as a child.. as a daughter... and I walk upon the face of the earth knowing whose I am... and where I am from.....
That is a true story.... He had introduced Himself to me via a visitation ... mind you I was in a pysch ward... I had gone to a window and without ever having had someone tell me the sinner's prayer the words of repentance and commitment poured out of my mouth.... He was there... I knew God.. God was knowable and touchable and from that moment forward my life would never be the same....
He led me to a Christian college... so lacking understanding of Christian culture.. but having had a salvation experience I stumbled my way through the whole introductions.... so unlike the introductions to Him.. Himself....
I called for an application... "I'm Jewish can I even come to your school?" Was the first question but oh my so many more were to follow because when I received the application it was a major assumption that I knew how to speak the language.... Here is where some funny or not so funny stories come....
The application asking so many questions that I just didn't even comprehend.. like the essay for instance was.. "Describe your relationship with God..." hhhhmmmm not understanding that along with so many other seemingly insurmountable obstacles I threw the application away.... lo and behold however the Father really wanted me to attend.... Woke me up... literally woke me up and told me to get the application out of the garbage can... I kept trying to push the whole thing away but He was incessant.. well, of all things I was going to meet my husband there ;) so grateful the Father pushed me....
So I did I got up and removed the application from the trash... next morning before I woke up my mom came into my room and cleaned out my trash can...
Upon waking up and seeing that .. the application that was on my desk became the task at hand....
First... tackling the essay.. OK .. I thought.. Relationship with God?!? Uhm.. don't have one but let me tell them what happened.... uhm... Life fell apart.... all this craziness happened... ended up in a pysch hospital... prayed a prayer ... God introduced Himself... so I don't have a relationship with God.. but I need to know more about this experience I had... can I come? Upon arriving and meeting people .. one girl got truly upset with me ... She had lied on her application when it came to her relationship with God... she had one... she knew the terms but she had lied... I wonder what would have happened if she had opened up her heart and had spoken her doubts and her fears that she really wasn't sure about all this God stuff but this Christian college was the only one that her parents would pay for... I wonder what they would have done....
Next point of conflict... pastoral recommendation.... didn't have one... hadn't gone to church yet.. but in the movie Steel Magnolias they went to a Presbyterian church and one day driving across town I saw one off to my right and the pastor who responded with the statement of how he was never really ever at the building at that time welcomed me into the church to talk.... problem.. after the "talk" he thought I had been saved all my life.... He thought I thoroughly knew what it was I was talking about...
you see I could talk about Him like I knew Him because we knew each other daily when I would take His hand and walk with Him and He would tell me about Himself..... but there were oh so many things about the "Christian walk" that I was lacking..... anyway the man was gracious enough to be willing to write a recommendation and so I was over that hurdle....
There would be oh so many more however the one that makes me laugh the most sometimes is the survey I had to fill out when I got to college... the first question... Have you ever had a born again experience... uhm wasn't this a Christian college? However I at that time didn't even get that far? Because I thought heck no ... isn't that a cult?!? Seriously and that is what I wrote......
Oh it would take a while.. a long while in some instances to unravel and untangle my life and my past and these new things that were happening to me.... it would take years to unravel why so many people thought that all I was experiencing would end once I stopped being a baby Christian... seriously.. if I got that once I got it on numerous occasions... not anyone thinking or saying .. that they couldn't wait until I matured and moved even further into the heart beat of God.. no ... there was all this ... You are only experiencing these things because you are a baby Christian and when you understand like we do then you will calm down... seriously?!!? Students.... friends..... professors.. .alike ... all of them.. when you mature you won't act this.... HELL no... I will act even more uncivilized then this....
I have a beautiful wonderful friend ... who does these awesome events during fairs and festivals etc.... and she was telling me these most amazing stories today of encounters she has had and how people were just so very hungry to talk to her and sit with her.... and her heart and the way she walks with these people are stunning...
I know this pastor who simply undoes me every time he opens his mouth to teach and preach.. how he knows the love of God.. the need for grace and mercy and compassion... how he understands the necessity to be that living example....
I know this other pastor who I want to pinch and make sure I'm not dreaming .... and if I am.. well, then... I don't want to wake up..... He gets that it isn't about people's expectations but about what God wants and where the Lord is leading and how the Lord is guiding... and emerging .... How the Father loves His children and is calling sons and daughters to Himself...
I know these people that I am so blessed to have in my life that hunger ... hunger for more of the Lord... more of Him and less of all of us.. who hunger and thirst for the reality of the kingdom to break in upon us even more and that we would lives together that would resemble that which His heart aches and groans for us to have with each other....
I know God... I know God.. and now.. now I know Christian culture... and I know this.... there is so much I have come to embrace.... culturally ... but not as you might culturally think...
I am so not of this world.. so not of this place... and that the place that I am from is MAGNIFICENT... AMAZING... the place where I am from there is no sickness. . there is no sorrow or sighing... the place that I am from receives the hungry and the thirsty .. receives the meek... receives the peacemakers... receives the poor in spirit... The place where I am from knows living waters that when one drinks of them they are never thirsty again...
The place where I am from knows .. intrinsically knows the authority and majesty of its God.... and that is where I am from... that is whose citizenship I bare.... and that is the place where I have learned the authority of my Father.... I must live in this world.. but I am so thoroughly intrinsically fully blessed beyond measure that I no longer am of it.... that I am of a place that is so much more .. so much more beautiful.. so much more everything... so much more ...
I long to not squander away my days upon being in the world ... I long for the day when upon the day I remember throughout the whole day that I am truly of another place... and from that place I already sit... I sit as a child.. as a daughter... and I walk upon the face of the earth knowing whose I am... and where I am from.....
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
And so how can I not share..............Lean into Him and lean into Him and lean into Him until you can't lean even one bit more
The songs lyrics play through my head... "I'm falling on my knees... offering all of me..." or where the lyrics state.. "Jesus Your all this heart is hungry for..."
I have known hunger... my heart has known what it is to be hungry... my eyes have known what it is to be empty sockets with pupils staring out of them but to exist in some far off daze... I have known what it is to not belong and I have watched as an outcast.. lonely and afraid ...
Why do I share so openly and completely about interacting with the Lord...because His love and His testimony of greatness compels me towards expression.... It is so stunningly amazing that He ... the desire of all nations.. desires us ... It is so magnificent to me that He will open up His heart and His nature to be known.. thoroughly and truly known.... He wants to be known.. He wants a people who know Him .. who see Him.. who hear Him.. He wants a people.. He wants you.. He wants me... He wants us... He desires us...
There are so many avenues of deep relationship that are ours and yet I have settled for religion at times instead of the very heart beat of our God... and I can't ever again... I can't live anything less that a heart hungry .. steadfast one who has been loved... eyes focused... heart tuned into only one lover....
I don't want other loves... they leave me empty and lacking.. but not Him.. never Him.... and while I lack language to always describe or even to understand that which takes place I am beyond grateful that those times take place...
What an incredible honor... I was dead.. I was alone.. I was living in darkness so deep and yet He made me alive .. He called me His own.. He shined His light upon my being.... I was oh so very many things and I wasn't so many things and now... Now I am His... and so how can I not share.....
I have known hunger... my heart has known what it is to be hungry... my eyes have known what it is to be empty sockets with pupils staring out of them but to exist in some far off daze... I have known what it is to not belong and I have watched as an outcast.. lonely and afraid ...
Why do I share so openly and completely about interacting with the Lord...because His love and His testimony of greatness compels me towards expression.... It is so stunningly amazing that He ... the desire of all nations.. desires us ... It is so magnificent to me that He will open up His heart and His nature to be known.. thoroughly and truly known.... He wants to be known.. He wants a people who know Him .. who see Him.. who hear Him.. He wants a people.. He wants you.. He wants me... He wants us... He desires us...
There are so many avenues of deep relationship that are ours and yet I have settled for religion at times instead of the very heart beat of our God... and I can't ever again... I can't live anything less that a heart hungry .. steadfast one who has been loved... eyes focused... heart tuned into only one lover....
I don't want other loves... they leave me empty and lacking.. but not Him.. never Him.... and while I lack language to always describe or even to understand that which takes place I am beyond grateful that those times take place...
What an incredible honor... I was dead.. I was alone.. I was living in darkness so deep and yet He made me alive .. He called me His own.. He shined His light upon my being.... I was oh so very many things and I wasn't so many things and now... Now I am His... and so how can I not share.....
A tad bit too personal .. maybe... but that truly is ok... I have walked there so that I can walk here.. and I know the love He pours out upon us..
So this post does get a tad more than a tad personal but I have felt the Father's heart's desire for me to express some things about how intimately aware He is of us and how much He truly cares for the details...
So without lingering too to much upon things of the past... some of those stories are found earlier within the beginning days of this blog.... there were times and seasons where harm was done... and upon my body and my mind and my heart much transpired...
As I have lived a life beyond those days and had times and seasons of amazing healing and abundant balm to my soul applied I have had to learn and relearn aspects of living and life....
I relish the times that the layers between heaven and earth seem so thin for I truly marvel in them and in them I am loved and granted access to an understanding of love that for so long seemed so fragile and so elusive.... I share those times because they have transformed me and born fruit of confidence and have changed a heart that was so oriented toward that of an orphan into one that is strong and bold as a daughter...
I share those moments that are so intimate and so private between the Father and I or our Lord Jesus and myself to offer glimpses of how hungry our God is for us to know Him and to the extent that He will go for that to happen....
Tonight as I come back to writing this article I pause to say that I have spoken with my husband in regards to where this article is now heading and while once again opening up transparency and vulnerability we both understand that there are aspects to my story and to our story that can really minister... and so we go there...
As a fall out from some of those times and seasons of life I was left ... well here is where it gets personal... and so last disclaimer is placed....
Because of the events and moments I walked through as a child and a youth my capacity to feel desire was truly inhibited... and while in the beginning of my marriage it was more of an issue the issues continued throughout the years that would come.... some times better and some times worse....
But I longed for wholeness in all areas of life and I longed for all aspects of life to be mine.... with all my heart I came to the Father and prayed... not knowing how He would answer .. but He is the God of Song of Solomon... He is the God whose deepest desire is for us and whose heart is ravished by us.....
There were areas in life that had just been so violated that I wondered if I would ever feel normal ... if I would ever feel or just even desire intimacy .. and this is another reason why I open up my "diary" and share moments that are just between the Lord and I... is because He so deeply cares about all things as it pertains to us... His heart's desire for us is to walk boldly and confidently as His in all areas of our lives...
I set before the Lord that I truly wanted to know what it was like to feel and to desire a healthy and right relationship with my husband .... so much in relationship to sexuality and intimacy had been deliberately broken down for so many years as a young child and youth.... and He who is the very lover of our souls cares for us... He cares for me... He cares for my husband and He redeems... He redeems.... I could say over and over again... He redeems.... He redeems all things...
.... In this area of sexuality and in all other areas where I wanted to know the truth of God not just believe it... I wanted it to be mine... I didn't want to call myself a Christian and live some feeble expression of that dynamic truth ... some water down version that wouldn't be recognizable to the very Lord I long to love and belong to... some version that says its ok for me to live the rest of my life hindered by events that had transpired so very long ago... not my redeemer.. not my God.. not my Father.... It isn't good enough for Him to leave me there in those places of lacking.. in those places of pain
I have come to Him... I have come to Him and not with arrogance but with true hunger said but You say... that we can love because we were first loved.. and while I could understand the scriptural truth to that it was not my life experience to know what any aspect of being first loved even looked like... So I held that up to Him and He answered and between my interaction with Him directly and with those that He placed in my life He showed me how truly first loved I was...
I held before Him that He says goodness follows me and that He desires good things for me and while I had walked in goodness my heart was not convinced and it would betray my confidence and I would walk around shattered and scared and not assured of His goodness and yet His love covers me and He brought strength to heart that had been weak and afraid....
I held before Him that I was His daughter and that He was and is my Father and that He is responsible for me in that relationship and that I declared that I was His and that He had spoken that He was and is my God and He had laid out what the paradigm for that relationship was going to be... and so I held that out to Him and I hold that out to Him...
Because I can not walk with lack.. not in a name it and claim it type way but in a way and path of confidence... That my loving Father desires me to be His and hungers for me to know that I know that I know His love.. He has my name written on the palm of His hand.. .that He crowns me with loving kindness and has good plans for me not to bring harm but to prosper me in His ways....
I could not believe that He would leave me to walk incapacitated in life... with a heart always lacking the capacity to hold love... and in so all areas He has brought redemption and brings redemption.. He truly makes all things new... and so whether it is a simple need to know that I was wanted and loved or a more complex issue of recovering the beauty of sexuality after knowing abuse... whether it was the fact that it took me literally 15 years to fully establish a relationship with the Father through Jesus because just even that term held so much terror for me.... He took His time.. and He was patient and kind and gentle.... and He desired for me to know Him as He is a most loving Father more than anything else....
These are the reasons I share my encounters... these are the reasons I put myself out there.... so that anyone can realize that this is the Lord we serve.. He runs to find the one ... He gave everything He had that we would be His... that we would have the right to be called sons and daughters.... He hungers for us and desires us and longs for us and loves us beyond anything we could ever even fully conceive to think or imagine...
So He takes us to be with Him because He wants to be with us.... it isn't even fully about me or you... it is about us... He wants us.. He wants you and He wants me and He is hungry for that relationship even more than we could ever think... So I share of times and places where I don't fully understand that which is happening.. I lack the language.. but I know the fruit... when I see Him.. hold His hand.. walk with Him... and see His eyes and know His gaze... My heart melts and I know that I know that I know for why I was created... I was created for Him and His affection for me ... for us knows no limitation...
This is the God we serve... Redeemer... lover.. friend.. counselor... Lord.. Father.. Brother... and He is so very very good... and He has His goodness follow us all the days of our lives.... He is that goodness..
So without lingering too to much upon things of the past... some of those stories are found earlier within the beginning days of this blog.... there were times and seasons where harm was done... and upon my body and my mind and my heart much transpired...
As I have lived a life beyond those days and had times and seasons of amazing healing and abundant balm to my soul applied I have had to learn and relearn aspects of living and life....
I relish the times that the layers between heaven and earth seem so thin for I truly marvel in them and in them I am loved and granted access to an understanding of love that for so long seemed so fragile and so elusive.... I share those times because they have transformed me and born fruit of confidence and have changed a heart that was so oriented toward that of an orphan into one that is strong and bold as a daughter...
I share those moments that are so intimate and so private between the Father and I or our Lord Jesus and myself to offer glimpses of how hungry our God is for us to know Him and to the extent that He will go for that to happen....
Tonight as I come back to writing this article I pause to say that I have spoken with my husband in regards to where this article is now heading and while once again opening up transparency and vulnerability we both understand that there are aspects to my story and to our story that can really minister... and so we go there...
As a fall out from some of those times and seasons of life I was left ... well here is where it gets personal... and so last disclaimer is placed....
Because of the events and moments I walked through as a child and a youth my capacity to feel desire was truly inhibited... and while in the beginning of my marriage it was more of an issue the issues continued throughout the years that would come.... some times better and some times worse....
But I longed for wholeness in all areas of life and I longed for all aspects of life to be mine.... with all my heart I came to the Father and prayed... not knowing how He would answer .. but He is the God of Song of Solomon... He is the God whose deepest desire is for us and whose heart is ravished by us.....
There were areas in life that had just been so violated that I wondered if I would ever feel normal ... if I would ever feel or just even desire intimacy .. and this is another reason why I open up my "diary" and share moments that are just between the Lord and I... is because He so deeply cares about all things as it pertains to us... His heart's desire for us is to walk boldly and confidently as His in all areas of our lives...
I set before the Lord that I truly wanted to know what it was like to feel and to desire a healthy and right relationship with my husband .... so much in relationship to sexuality and intimacy had been deliberately broken down for so many years as a young child and youth.... and He who is the very lover of our souls cares for us... He cares for me... He cares for my husband and He redeems... He redeems.... I could say over and over again... He redeems.... He redeems all things...
.... In this area of sexuality and in all other areas where I wanted to know the truth of God not just believe it... I wanted it to be mine... I didn't want to call myself a Christian and live some feeble expression of that dynamic truth ... some water down version that wouldn't be recognizable to the very Lord I long to love and belong to... some version that says its ok for me to live the rest of my life hindered by events that had transpired so very long ago... not my redeemer.. not my God.. not my Father.... It isn't good enough for Him to leave me there in those places of lacking.. in those places of pain
I have come to Him... I have come to Him and not with arrogance but with true hunger said but You say... that we can love because we were first loved.. and while I could understand the scriptural truth to that it was not my life experience to know what any aspect of being first loved even looked like... So I held that up to Him and He answered and between my interaction with Him directly and with those that He placed in my life He showed me how truly first loved I was...
I held before Him that He says goodness follows me and that He desires good things for me and while I had walked in goodness my heart was not convinced and it would betray my confidence and I would walk around shattered and scared and not assured of His goodness and yet His love covers me and He brought strength to heart that had been weak and afraid....
I held before Him that I was His daughter and that He was and is my Father and that He is responsible for me in that relationship and that I declared that I was His and that He had spoken that He was and is my God and He had laid out what the paradigm for that relationship was going to be... and so I held that out to Him and I hold that out to Him...
Because I can not walk with lack.. not in a name it and claim it type way but in a way and path of confidence... That my loving Father desires me to be His and hungers for me to know that I know that I know His love.. He has my name written on the palm of His hand.. .that He crowns me with loving kindness and has good plans for me not to bring harm but to prosper me in His ways....
I could not believe that He would leave me to walk incapacitated in life... with a heart always lacking the capacity to hold love... and in so all areas He has brought redemption and brings redemption.. He truly makes all things new... and so whether it is a simple need to know that I was wanted and loved or a more complex issue of recovering the beauty of sexuality after knowing abuse... whether it was the fact that it took me literally 15 years to fully establish a relationship with the Father through Jesus because just even that term held so much terror for me.... He took His time.. and He was patient and kind and gentle.... and He desired for me to know Him as He is a most loving Father more than anything else....
These are the reasons I share my encounters... these are the reasons I put myself out there.... so that anyone can realize that this is the Lord we serve.. He runs to find the one ... He gave everything He had that we would be His... that we would have the right to be called sons and daughters.... He hungers for us and desires us and longs for us and loves us beyond anything we could ever even fully conceive to think or imagine...
So He takes us to be with Him because He wants to be with us.... it isn't even fully about me or you... it is about us... He wants us.. He wants you and He wants me and He is hungry for that relationship even more than we could ever think... So I share of times and places where I don't fully understand that which is happening.. I lack the language.. but I know the fruit... when I see Him.. hold His hand.. walk with Him... and see His eyes and know His gaze... My heart melts and I know that I know that I know for why I was created... I was created for Him and His affection for me ... for us knows no limitation...
This is the God we serve... Redeemer... lover.. friend.. counselor... Lord.. Father.. Brother... and He is so very very good... and He has His goodness follow us all the days of our lives.... He is that goodness..
How those times affect these times and where I am headed
So more often than naught recently I have written about these experiences that I have entered into .... these times have truly begun to change the way I think or maybe it is more that they have served to confirm that which I already believed and brought that which I believed into a place of knowing...
So these times.. these experiences... these moments.... they help me to form my thoughts throughout most of the times of my day..... I am more and more aware of the fact that that which I see and feel and touch is not the end of the story... that simultaneously as I walk and wander through these days and times that at the very same moment there is so much going on.... both here and above....
I have a very practical life upon the earth and even as I write this my two year old is snuggled up upon my lap... and every now and then types her own letters.... but knowing and walking and experiencing Him as He is changes me ... it changes the girl I am... the mom I am ... the wife I am....
I am headed back towards blog posts that express some other aspects of my life again but for these days and times where I have shared with you when I have entered into the landscapes of heaven.. our truest home... I have to say my life is being changed.... those moments are so much more to me than a vision or experience... they are touch points... moments full of love and expression ... times where upon I have been so purely and fundamentally loved and have learned about the ways of our God and where He abides above...
Times where the rule and reign of Heaven so fully encompass me that I am forever made more like Him.... I don't enter into those places because I am special and have some special gifting... I enter in because I am a daughter that knows her Father's desire to be with me and believes that He desires to walk with me and lead me in whichever way draws us closer together and teaches my heart to know Him and love Him and be loved thoroughly by Him...
He is so magnificent and so amazing... and so much more than any word could ever express... so much more than any sentence full of words could ever fully communicate... in those moments of rest and assurance and affection I am made new... and that translates to walking fuller and freer here upon the moments of my life upon the earth...
So I'm transitioning back a bit to share more of my heart and my life and how these encounters have strengthened me and brought me further into the heart of the Father and how my desire.. my hunger is to convey the affections of the Father and to share how fully we all can know Him and how fully we are known by Him.....
So these times.. these experiences... these moments.... they help me to form my thoughts throughout most of the times of my day..... I am more and more aware of the fact that that which I see and feel and touch is not the end of the story... that simultaneously as I walk and wander through these days and times that at the very same moment there is so much going on.... both here and above....
I have a very practical life upon the earth and even as I write this my two year old is snuggled up upon my lap... and every now and then types her own letters.... but knowing and walking and experiencing Him as He is changes me ... it changes the girl I am... the mom I am ... the wife I am....
I am headed back towards blog posts that express some other aspects of my life again but for these days and times where I have shared with you when I have entered into the landscapes of heaven.. our truest home... I have to say my life is being changed.... those moments are so much more to me than a vision or experience... they are touch points... moments full of love and expression ... times where upon I have been so purely and fundamentally loved and have learned about the ways of our God and where He abides above...
Times where the rule and reign of Heaven so fully encompass me that I am forever made more like Him.... I don't enter into those places because I am special and have some special gifting... I enter in because I am a daughter that knows her Father's desire to be with me and believes that He desires to walk with me and lead me in whichever way draws us closer together and teaches my heart to know Him and love Him and be loved thoroughly by Him...
He is so magnificent and so amazing... and so much more than any word could ever express... so much more than any sentence full of words could ever fully communicate... in those moments of rest and assurance and affection I am made new... and that translates to walking fuller and freer here upon the moments of my life upon the earth...
So I'm transitioning back a bit to share more of my heart and my life and how these encounters have strengthened me and brought me further into the heart of the Father and how my desire.. my hunger is to convey the affections of the Father and to share how fully we all can know Him and how fully we are known by Him.....
He can't really be that good.....
waking up from a dream and all of a sudden find myself dazed and groggy walking through tall grasses that come up to my waist... rubbing my eyes and getting my equilibrium I stumble through trying to gain my balance...
When in a clearing a lion larger than life and a lamb are laying down and beckoning me to do so... it is a clearing and against the hardened chest of the lion do I lean... His breathe in and out and my body as it reclines rises and falls with each one....
I linger in this place.. closing my eyes... taking in the air and just feeling Him and being so close to Him aspects of me come alive.. my feet upon the wool of the lamb's side as I just soak in the strength and peace and rest of that place... all is complete.. all is right... and I soak in that rightness of it all...
The sky this perfect and most beautiful shade of blue bordering on purple hues and the light not coming from a sun but just reverberating from all that there is.... light just exudes from all places and in this place that light flows in and around everything .....
I lay there for what seems like minutes but is hours upon hours and hours upon hours and I just glean strength.... I must have at some time fallen asleep and when I awoke again He was there watching me and this time as my eyes opened upon Him I gently closed them again as a very deep sigh broke through my mouth and contentment to be in His presence filled me...
Keeping my eyes closed but knowing He was there I just again took deep breaths of that place and soaked within His presence... allowing it to penetrate my heart and my being in the deepest of ways...
"I am that good.." He spoke as my eyes opened and took Him in... and He said it again .. that He was that good... and His gaze penetrated all that I am ... and again He said it... "I am that good..." and in those moments answering questions that my heart had been too afraid to ask... again came the answer to the question that I was afraid to voice... and He looked at me deep and long and steady and with all the assurance of all that He is He spoke it again... "I am that good...above and beyond what you could think or imagine... I am that good..."
And yet my heart even with all that was afraid and unsure... and He knelt down to me and being so very close He knelt down and right into my eyes He looked and with a whisper that had with it the power of a shout... He spoke it again... looking so very deeply into all that I am.. He said it again and again... "I am that good..."
Uncovering places in my heart that were still so afraid that that wouldn't be so.. that I would hope and then only have it dashed upon rocks... and He was relentless... relentless with kindness without an ounce of exasperation..
"I am that good..." and He began to weep and weep and His giant tears fell upon my flesh and He held me to Himself and prayed... He prayed to our Father and rest entered my soul so very deeply... a penetrating rest that is full of trust and assurance... and goodness.... and I looked up into His face and knew... I knew His love .. I knew His love would carry me all the days of my life and that I would dwell in His house for evermore ....
It was as the most brilliant of lights was turned on and there was nothing hidden and my frame was washed in the light of that place and I rested and was strengthened in the goodness of the Lord....
His rest and His assurance held me up and I allowed myself to realize that it so did not depend upon me... upon my abilities or lack there of... that He was determined and that He was on the pursuit and that it mattered to Him.. it truly and really mattered to Him that I would with all that I am encounter His goodness....
I don't know if I was then somewhere different or if we were standing in the same place... but a cloud rolled in and covered me and within it the thunder that was present it was like He was rolling out something that I was yet aware of and yet in the rumblings there were things taking place that I would be about to see and take part in...
As the clouds rolled in the fog upon my mind lifted and rolled away and I could see.. and while I knew not exactly that which I saw... I saw His goodness and I knew that I knew that I knew we would be like those whose mouths were filled with laughter.. like those who dreamed and that we were being brought back ... we had sowed in tears and now .. now it was time to return.... return with a shout of joy....
Blessed be the Name of the Lord
When in a clearing a lion larger than life and a lamb are laying down and beckoning me to do so... it is a clearing and against the hardened chest of the lion do I lean... His breathe in and out and my body as it reclines rises and falls with each one....
I linger in this place.. closing my eyes... taking in the air and just feeling Him and being so close to Him aspects of me come alive.. my feet upon the wool of the lamb's side as I just soak in the strength and peace and rest of that place... all is complete.. all is right... and I soak in that rightness of it all...
The sky this perfect and most beautiful shade of blue bordering on purple hues and the light not coming from a sun but just reverberating from all that there is.... light just exudes from all places and in this place that light flows in and around everything .....
I lay there for what seems like minutes but is hours upon hours and hours upon hours and I just glean strength.... I must have at some time fallen asleep and when I awoke again He was there watching me and this time as my eyes opened upon Him I gently closed them again as a very deep sigh broke through my mouth and contentment to be in His presence filled me...
Keeping my eyes closed but knowing He was there I just again took deep breaths of that place and soaked within His presence... allowing it to penetrate my heart and my being in the deepest of ways...
"I am that good.." He spoke as my eyes opened and took Him in... and He said it again .. that He was that good... and His gaze penetrated all that I am ... and again He said it... "I am that good..." and in those moments answering questions that my heart had been too afraid to ask... again came the answer to the question that I was afraid to voice... and He looked at me deep and long and steady and with all the assurance of all that He is He spoke it again... "I am that good...above and beyond what you could think or imagine... I am that good..."
And yet my heart even with all that was afraid and unsure... and He knelt down to me and being so very close He knelt down and right into my eyes He looked and with a whisper that had with it the power of a shout... He spoke it again... looking so very deeply into all that I am.. He said it again and again... "I am that good..."
Uncovering places in my heart that were still so afraid that that wouldn't be so.. that I would hope and then only have it dashed upon rocks... and He was relentless... relentless with kindness without an ounce of exasperation..
"I am that good..." and He began to weep and weep and His giant tears fell upon my flesh and He held me to Himself and prayed... He prayed to our Father and rest entered my soul so very deeply... a penetrating rest that is full of trust and assurance... and goodness.... and I looked up into His face and knew... I knew His love .. I knew His love would carry me all the days of my life and that I would dwell in His house for evermore ....
It was as the most brilliant of lights was turned on and there was nothing hidden and my frame was washed in the light of that place and I rested and was strengthened in the goodness of the Lord....
His rest and His assurance held me up and I allowed myself to realize that it so did not depend upon me... upon my abilities or lack there of... that He was determined and that He was on the pursuit and that it mattered to Him.. it truly and really mattered to Him that I would with all that I am encounter His goodness....
I don't know if I was then somewhere different or if we were standing in the same place... but a cloud rolled in and covered me and within it the thunder that was present it was like He was rolling out something that I was yet aware of and yet in the rumblings there were things taking place that I would be about to see and take part in...
As the clouds rolled in the fog upon my mind lifted and rolled away and I could see.. and while I knew not exactly that which I saw... I saw His goodness and I knew that I knew that I knew we would be like those whose mouths were filled with laughter.. like those who dreamed and that we were being brought back ... we had sowed in tears and now .. now it was time to return.... return with a shout of joy....
Blessed be the Name of the Lord
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Heart Beat of the One who Looks upon you...
With so much upon my heart this morning I approached Him and upon coming towards Him I just stopped... I stopped to look at Him ... really look at Him.. and He turned and smiled... it wasn't hesitation that had me stop it was affection and admiration.... I looked upon Him and I was in love more and more ... His presence.. His face... His being... all draws every aspect of me towards Him.... and the reality that I am His.. that I belong to Him.. that He takes my life seriously upon Himself and loves me back with the most fervent ardent passions stills me in my steps.....
We were in His garden and He was tending it most beautifully and as I had watched Him His capacity to handle the most delicate of His creations and the wonderment He displayed at its beauty just spoke so much of His nature and character... the utter delight that fills His heart at the sight of just one mere flower... one simple petal...
In that picture my heart was quieted and in the picture of watching the creator of all things fuss over one small almost insignificant detail wowed and awed me and caused me to understand all the more how much I am truly and completely loved....
He called me to Himself and longed for us to walk together... and taking His hand .. we journeyed this way and that... seemingly with no planned out walk in mind.... just wandering here and there but together..... His desire to so fill my heart and strengthen it with His love and His attentiveness was almost unbearable... there were places in my heart that didn't know how to receive the affection He was pouring out upon me and I could feel my mind altering under the outpouring of His love....
And again... as He had for over a week now... turned to me and said .. I have loved you with an ever lasting love... I have drawn you with kindness that is without measure... He spoke of the desires of His heart and how when we walk together it is not just I that receives the benefit.... and He spoke of the sadness that He shares when upon my heart there is not the place for His affections to land and take hold and grow and He spoke of how determined He is and was and always will be as the keeper of my heart and the One who desires my heart to come to life fully.... that He withholds no good thing and that in Him I can so fully reside...
In these moments when it is He and I alone and all else seemingly ceases to exist I am so alive and so full and so complete.... and in these moments all makes the most perfect sense and in Him and hidden in Him and alongside of Him is life .. so abundant and so full and so amazing that I am left without breathe and left standing in awe with a heart made more and more complete... not through any work or action of my own but because He has loved me with an everlasting love and has desired me from before I drew even one breathe.. He knew me and He loved me and He called me by my name and He sung over me and desired me and longed for me .. and now we walk together and one day we will walk together all the more...
This is the heart beat of the one who looks upon you... who fashioned and formed you.. who is heart hungry after you.... this is the heart of your maker... His desire is for you... and you alone...
We were in His garden and He was tending it most beautifully and as I had watched Him His capacity to handle the most delicate of His creations and the wonderment He displayed at its beauty just spoke so much of His nature and character... the utter delight that fills His heart at the sight of just one mere flower... one simple petal...
In that picture my heart was quieted and in the picture of watching the creator of all things fuss over one small almost insignificant detail wowed and awed me and caused me to understand all the more how much I am truly and completely loved....
He called me to Himself and longed for us to walk together... and taking His hand .. we journeyed this way and that... seemingly with no planned out walk in mind.... just wandering here and there but together..... His desire to so fill my heart and strengthen it with His love and His attentiveness was almost unbearable... there were places in my heart that didn't know how to receive the affection He was pouring out upon me and I could feel my mind altering under the outpouring of His love....
And again... as He had for over a week now... turned to me and said .. I have loved you with an ever lasting love... I have drawn you with kindness that is without measure... He spoke of the desires of His heart and how when we walk together it is not just I that receives the benefit.... and He spoke of the sadness that He shares when upon my heart there is not the place for His affections to land and take hold and grow and He spoke of how determined He is and was and always will be as the keeper of my heart and the One who desires my heart to come to life fully.... that He withholds no good thing and that in Him I can so fully reside...
In these moments when it is He and I alone and all else seemingly ceases to exist I am so alive and so full and so complete.... and in these moments all makes the most perfect sense and in Him and hidden in Him and alongside of Him is life .. so abundant and so full and so amazing that I am left without breathe and left standing in awe with a heart made more and more complete... not through any work or action of my own but because He has loved me with an everlasting love and has desired me from before I drew even one breathe.. He knew me and He loved me and He called me by my name and He sung over me and desired me and longed for me .. and now we walk together and one day we will walk together all the more...
This is the heart beat of the one who looks upon you... who fashioned and formed you.. who is heart hungry after you.... this is the heart of your maker... His desire is for you... and you alone...
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Birds are birds and they fly and fish are fish and they swim....in a moment again He makes all things new
Can a fish not be a fish? Can a bird not be a bird?
And with that question I knew life was going to change... I just didn't know how much...
And He went on... a fish was created to swim and a bird to fly.... and I fashioned and formed you in my image to bare it.... and as His words washed over me... He poured forth His mercy and His grace and His affections like a bucket of paint that He was giddy about covering me with....
And He spoke again.....
I have covered you and in my love I have made all things new.... all things new.... and because He knows me and the inner most parts of all that I am and all the thoughts that I am not even fully aware of or acknowledge.. He looked me straight in my eyes and declared over me that I was His and His alone and that it wasn't only that He would never leave me nor forsake me but that He was determined to show forth His affections to me and through me....
He not only knows where I sit and where I stand and where I go ... He knows me .. He intimately is aware of all that I am and more than that He knows all I will ever be and all that I have ever been... He perfectly knows all things.... In that He was longing for me to take refuge... the confidence that comes from truly knowing His heart and His intentions towards me flourishes.. when I am assured that though all else would falter or fail He will never not only not leave me but His longing is to prosper me into the ways of His heart....
I have settled for crumbs when it was basketfuls He longed to feed me.. and I have settled for draught when He would have brought rain... I have believed lies and leaned upon the wisdom of men... and I have seen disappointment and hope deferred ... and while I do not have understanding of all those times I walk into a place where I must once again push through and walk and trust...
Birds are birds and they fly and fish are fish and they swim.. and I am a child of God and I am covered by His affections and made in His image and there is a way to walk that seems right in the eyes of man but my life is not upon that path and so I must live time and time again and though I stumble or even fall I will rise up again and continue walking... being led by the affections of the One who has always known me ... Because His beauty has ravished my soul and left me utterly His ... though I know not always where I walk or what He is doing.. I know Him... I know Him and in Him I truly trust......
And with that question I knew life was going to change... I just didn't know how much...
And He went on... a fish was created to swim and a bird to fly.... and I fashioned and formed you in my image to bare it.... and as His words washed over me... He poured forth His mercy and His grace and His affections like a bucket of paint that He was giddy about covering me with....
And He spoke again.....
I have covered you and in my love I have made all things new.... all things new.... and because He knows me and the inner most parts of all that I am and all the thoughts that I am not even fully aware of or acknowledge.. He looked me straight in my eyes and declared over me that I was His and His alone and that it wasn't only that He would never leave me nor forsake me but that He was determined to show forth His affections to me and through me....
He not only knows where I sit and where I stand and where I go ... He knows me .. He intimately is aware of all that I am and more than that He knows all I will ever be and all that I have ever been... He perfectly knows all things.... In that He was longing for me to take refuge... the confidence that comes from truly knowing His heart and His intentions towards me flourishes.. when I am assured that though all else would falter or fail He will never not only not leave me but His longing is to prosper me into the ways of His heart....
I have settled for crumbs when it was basketfuls He longed to feed me.. and I have settled for draught when He would have brought rain... I have believed lies and leaned upon the wisdom of men... and I have seen disappointment and hope deferred ... and while I do not have understanding of all those times I walk into a place where I must once again push through and walk and trust...
Birds are birds and they fly and fish are fish and they swim.. and I am a child of God and I am covered by His affections and made in His image and there is a way to walk that seems right in the eyes of man but my life is not upon that path and so I must live time and time again and though I stumble or even fall I will rise up again and continue walking... being led by the affections of the One who has always known me ... Because His beauty has ravished my soul and left me utterly His ... though I know not always where I walk or what He is doing.. I know Him... I know Him and in Him I truly trust......
I have heard Your roar... and I have laid against Your sweet wool
I guess I have felt it coming all day... I knew at one moment that the transition was happening... where my focus and faculties were seeing both places... there was here and there was there.. and I knew both places and I walked around for awhile maneuvering my way through ....
then I sat down...
I sat down and as I did I was no longer really sitting upon a chair in my house looking at a screen.... I was sitting with You and Your hand engulfed mine .... I could barely breathe in... Your goodness was so strong... so permeating every single cell of mine so that everyone felt so very alive...
tears just fell sweetly forth from my eyes... and I couldn't even look up at You... Your great goodness so saturating every part of me and I just sat there so very full ... so very complete ... and then I just needed to see You... and I lifted up my chin and there .. there was Your most beautiful face... staring at me... and as if this moment could have become anything more I was full of shock and awe...
as I looked into Your face.. and saw that You had been waiting.. just waiting ... just hungering for me to look up so that You could look into my face and see me... and those same sweet tears were in Your eyes...
How ? How does the Creator of all things care so very deeply and intimately for just one? But You do... You really really do... and I am forever and forever in awe of Your majesty.. that One like Yourself could feel so deeply and so passionately about those You created... about me....
And then I ache.. I ache for those who don't know this love... as Jesus looked upon Jerusalem and hungered for them... so I hunger that those that are hurting and lonely and afraid and outcast and distraught could know Your gentle kindnesses and Your most fervent love..
I was nothing... I was less than nothing.. I was a throw away.. I was ashes... I was bones... and You .. You are my everything .. and You pronounced life over me.. and love into me and called me beautiful and put me on my feet to become Your warrior daughter...
You spoke into bones and brought forth life... and you took a reed that was snapped with only one thread holding on and healed the bruises... and the flame of life that flickered so often You roared over so that it would not be snuffed out by my own hands or by the hands of others....
I have heard Your roar... and I have laid against Your sweet wool .... I have seen the beginning with You when the stars danced and spun and heard You sing... and one day...one day I will stand at the end of it all with You... and when we dance upon our golden streets ... You.. the glorious One and Me .. and Us.. the object of all Your affections... there will be no more tears... and there will be no more sorrow and it will be as You have always intentioned ... You and me..... nothing between.. no separations... perfect union... perfect unity...
I walk here and You walk there and we walk together always... I am the branch attached to You ... always attached.. never severed... and You .. You... glorious.. perfect.. beautiful You... Your affections arrest me... and I am so in awe of Your love....
then I sat down...
I sat down and as I did I was no longer really sitting upon a chair in my house looking at a screen.... I was sitting with You and Your hand engulfed mine .... I could barely breathe in... Your goodness was so strong... so permeating every single cell of mine so that everyone felt so very alive...
tears just fell sweetly forth from my eyes... and I couldn't even look up at You... Your great goodness so saturating every part of me and I just sat there so very full ... so very complete ... and then I just needed to see You... and I lifted up my chin and there .. there was Your most beautiful face... staring at me... and as if this moment could have become anything more I was full of shock and awe...
as I looked into Your face.. and saw that You had been waiting.. just waiting ... just hungering for me to look up so that You could look into my face and see me... and those same sweet tears were in Your eyes...
How ? How does the Creator of all things care so very deeply and intimately for just one? But You do... You really really do... and I am forever and forever in awe of Your majesty.. that One like Yourself could feel so deeply and so passionately about those You created... about me....
And then I ache.. I ache for those who don't know this love... as Jesus looked upon Jerusalem and hungered for them... so I hunger that those that are hurting and lonely and afraid and outcast and distraught could know Your gentle kindnesses and Your most fervent love..
I was nothing... I was less than nothing.. I was a throw away.. I was ashes... I was bones... and You .. You are my everything .. and You pronounced life over me.. and love into me and called me beautiful and put me on my feet to become Your warrior daughter...
You spoke into bones and brought forth life... and you took a reed that was snapped with only one thread holding on and healed the bruises... and the flame of life that flickered so often You roared over so that it would not be snuffed out by my own hands or by the hands of others....
I have heard Your roar... and I have laid against Your sweet wool .... I have seen the beginning with You when the stars danced and spun and heard You sing... and one day...one day I will stand at the end of it all with You... and when we dance upon our golden streets ... You.. the glorious One and Me .. and Us.. the object of all Your affections... there will be no more tears... and there will be no more sorrow and it will be as You have always intentioned ... You and me..... nothing between.. no separations... perfect union... perfect unity...
I walk here and You walk there and we walk together always... I am the branch attached to You ... always attached.. never severed... and You .. You... glorious.. perfect.. beautiful You... Your affections arrest me... and I am so in awe of Your love....
The girl that the Father calls daughter and so dearly loves
What a privilege it is to be called children of God.... my heart is all overwhelmed by the goodness and beauty of our Lord... Not because of things that He has done for me... nor blessings He has bestowed upon me.... the mere fact that I am His child ravishes my heart this evening and then a smile emerges upon my face as I realize how ravished His own heart.. and feels like this never ending circle of love.... where I acknowledge how very glad I am to be His and know that He sings over me how very glad He is....
His nature... His character are full of beauty and wonder and awe... and the fact that we are able to really know Him fills my being to a place where I can barely contain the goodness... I feel like I could take flight ...
You don't want to read about where I necessarily find myself... because while it is nice to hear about other's experiences and it might be a source of encouragement it is not enough... You must enter into this place... doors are wide open... and there is so much grace.....
One thing I have found out about myself in this season is that the further and further I go in... the more and more child like I feel.... a certainty ... a confidence... a boldness not full of bravado but full of wonderment at the free and rich availability and openness there is into the heart of my Father.... I guess.. no.. I know that that is what has changed so very much... is the realization of how completely I can enter into His heart and that when things would arise that would seemingly inhibit me He leads me to places where those inhibitions fall off.....
Those inhibitions or timidity or lack of confidence arise when within my heart I question the nature of the relationship that we so richly share... when doubt or fear or lies raise their ugly head and send forth their whispers as to shake my confidence.... they land upon ground that at times is at a place that receive them completely or even partially and shadows attempt to quench the light... but even that I have realized is based in lies... If nothing .. nothing can separate me from the love of God.. then not even lies nor those shadows have any power of me.... and in that realization I am set so free... I am free soar... I am free to fly.. I am free to myself... the girl that the Father calls daughter and so dearly loves....
When the lies or the shadows come and bring with them their whispers may all that would hinder you from holding steadfast to the most beautiful truths of the passions of our God fall off of your being and may your hearts and your beings be made able to hold firmly to the fact that you.. you are so dearly loved... beyond what you could ever imagine...
His nature... His character are full of beauty and wonder and awe... and the fact that we are able to really know Him fills my being to a place where I can barely contain the goodness... I feel like I could take flight ...
You don't want to read about where I necessarily find myself... because while it is nice to hear about other's experiences and it might be a source of encouragement it is not enough... You must enter into this place... doors are wide open... and there is so much grace.....
One thing I have found out about myself in this season is that the further and further I go in... the more and more child like I feel.... a certainty ... a confidence... a boldness not full of bravado but full of wonderment at the free and rich availability and openness there is into the heart of my Father.... I guess.. no.. I know that that is what has changed so very much... is the realization of how completely I can enter into His heart and that when things would arise that would seemingly inhibit me He leads me to places where those inhibitions fall off.....
Those inhibitions or timidity or lack of confidence arise when within my heart I question the nature of the relationship that we so richly share... when doubt or fear or lies raise their ugly head and send forth their whispers as to shake my confidence.... they land upon ground that at times is at a place that receive them completely or even partially and shadows attempt to quench the light... but even that I have realized is based in lies... If nothing .. nothing can separate me from the love of God.. then not even lies nor those shadows have any power of me.... and in that realization I am set so free... I am free soar... I am free to fly.. I am free to myself... the girl that the Father calls daughter and so dearly loves....
When the lies or the shadows come and bring with them their whispers may all that would hinder you from holding steadfast to the most beautiful truths of the passions of our God fall off of your being and may your hearts and your beings be made able to hold firmly to the fact that you.. you are so dearly loved... beyond what you could ever imagine...
Friday, June 10, 2011
I saw a prison gate and I was standing behind it .... But it reminded me that He came to set the captives free and now the only thing I am a captive to is His heart.....
I saw a prison gate and it reminded me of all the places in my life that He has healed... Delivered .... Brought back to life...
I saw a prison gate and I know now that there truly is nothing that can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus... Not death nor life... Not angels or demons... Not the present and not the future... Nor any powers ... Neither height nor depth... Not anything else in all creation ... Which includes myself... Could ever separate me from His most glorious... Awe inspiring... Breath taking love..
So the prison doors I saw today with me standing behind them served me only to remember that He truly holds all the keys to death, hell and the grave... And that no weapon formed against me will ever prosper ... And that there is no door He can't open and no prison gate He can't shatter
I woke up to seeing prison doors and I walked into my day .... And as the day unfolded so did the evidence that He really did come.. He really did come to set the captives free and the reality of that landed upon that gate and it was sprung wide open....
I woke up to seeing prison doors and yet I entered my day with freedom and liberty ringing in the air
I saw a prison gate and it reminded me of all the places in my life that He has healed... Delivered .... Brought back to life...
I saw a prison gate and I know now that there truly is nothing that can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus... Not death nor life... Not angels or demons... Not the present and not the future... Nor any powers ... Neither height nor depth... Not anything else in all creation ... Which includes myself... Could ever separate me from His most glorious... Awe inspiring... Breath taking love..
So the prison doors I saw today with me standing behind them served me only to remember that He truly holds all the keys to death, hell and the grave... And that no weapon formed against me will ever prosper ... And that there is no door He can't open and no prison gate He can't shatter
I woke up to seeing prison doors and I walked into my day .... And as the day unfolded so did the evidence that He really did come.. He really did come to set the captives free and the reality of that landed upon that gate and it was sprung wide open....
I woke up to seeing prison doors and yet I entered my day with freedom and liberty ringing in the air
Thursday, June 9, 2011
I saw snakes and they taught me how to war and brought me confidence
I have seen snakes today here and there... Not real ones mind you or I would not be so calm... :)
But real or in the spirit they can speak forth harm...
So yesterday it was a baby lamb amd gentleness and kindness followed me throughout my day...
Today snakes... Hhhhmmmm that baby lamb was so much nicer..
But while they can carry harm I don't have to receive it... The lies they bring ... The distortions of truth... I know more than enough to fall into the arms of the One who is so able to keep me and guard me...
The out and out lies aren't the hardest obviously to discern... I'm really beginning to get how into us our Creator is and so I do not fear... For He is loving me perfectly....
The slight distortions of truth... The push upon my soul where my heart still wonders or has questions... The whispers that try and take my confidence and my breathe away... Those are the ones I'm still learning how to fight
But I am most certainly His... His daughter and He has taught me how to war... How to believe... How to know...
His goodness and His mercy shall follow me every day... Every moment of every day... Every second of every moment of every day... I can expect that for it is what He has said...
So when it seems as though the day or the world starts to crumble under my feet I will remember that my face is already turned to Him and He always... Always carries upon Himself truth and wisdom and beauty and understanding...
So I will lean back and though I see snakes where I walk today I pray to my Father to expose the lies I would believe or receive and to bring to me His most glorious truth
But real or in the spirit they can speak forth harm...
So yesterday it was a baby lamb amd gentleness and kindness followed me throughout my day...
Today snakes... Hhhhmmmm that baby lamb was so much nicer..
But while they can carry harm I don't have to receive it... The lies they bring ... The distortions of truth... I know more than enough to fall into the arms of the One who is so able to keep me and guard me...
The out and out lies aren't the hardest obviously to discern... I'm really beginning to get how into us our Creator is and so I do not fear... For He is loving me perfectly....
The slight distortions of truth... The push upon my soul where my heart still wonders or has questions... The whispers that try and take my confidence and my breathe away... Those are the ones I'm still learning how to fight
But I am most certainly His... His daughter and He has taught me how to war... How to believe... How to know...
His goodness and His mercy shall follow me every day... Every moment of every day... Every second of every moment of every day... I can expect that for it is what He has said...
So when it seems as though the day or the world starts to crumble under my feet I will remember that my face is already turned to Him and He always... Always carries upon Himself truth and wisdom and beauty and understanding...
So I will lean back and though I see snakes where I walk today I pray to my Father to expose the lies I would believe or receive and to bring to me His most glorious truth
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Experiencing the elements leads to a conversation where the strength of joy becomes slightly more understood
My mind felt washed... It was as if all of a sudden streams of living water were flowing over and around and into my brain .... I saw as the waters penetrated deeply ... I could feel something change from behind my eyes
It continued and this water saturated my entire being pouring around and into my heart and flooding by body down to my toes...
Then the wind began ever so gently sweeping over me and it was like a gloriously awaited breeze on a hot Summer day... And I laid in it's arms and watched as it began to dance and swirl... And I got caught up into the bursts of air and before I knew it it had become a large gust of wind and was quickly turning into a cyclone...
The winds around me were violent and yet I was unharmed...
Then I was standing in another place standing by a wall of fire and there was One standing next to me bidding me to touch it... Bidding me to walk into her.... It was so completely strange standing there I felt not one bit of heat and yet I could see the effects of the fire upon my person.... I looked at my arms and I spread my right arm out and watched as the fire fell upon it... Saturating it with her flames and leaping and dancing upon my arm and upon my person ... I stood there for what felt like ages and while I understood not what or why I knew there was something transpiring ...
Then I was in another place altogether and right there waiting for me He was present... I was sitting and He desired for me to stand.. Stand and walk with Him... Take His hand and walk ... And as we did He spoke of the water and the wind and the fire....
In all honesty I treasure all He talks about but truly He could talk about nothing or anything ... It is just being with Him... Being aware of Him and learning from Him and walking with Him.... He makes everything simply and profoundly better....
In His presence there is a fullness of joy that is not giddy emotion but solid strength... And in that place I long to live every moment of my life forth from.. There are gazes and glances of affection and an understanding of the fact of how fully known and loved I really am in those minutes
It matters not what He speaks about... Just that we are together and in His abundance of affection I am both lost and found ... Lost into the delight of being loved by Him and found over and over and over again as I become who He always saw and knew me as
It continued and this water saturated my entire being pouring around and into my heart and flooding by body down to my toes...
Then the wind began ever so gently sweeping over me and it was like a gloriously awaited breeze on a hot Summer day... And I laid in it's arms and watched as it began to dance and swirl... And I got caught up into the bursts of air and before I knew it it had become a large gust of wind and was quickly turning into a cyclone...
The winds around me were violent and yet I was unharmed...
Then I was standing in another place standing by a wall of fire and there was One standing next to me bidding me to touch it... Bidding me to walk into her.... It was so completely strange standing there I felt not one bit of heat and yet I could see the effects of the fire upon my person.... I looked at my arms and I spread my right arm out and watched as the fire fell upon it... Saturating it with her flames and leaping and dancing upon my arm and upon my person ... I stood there for what felt like ages and while I understood not what or why I knew there was something transpiring ...
Then I was in another place altogether and right there waiting for me He was present... I was sitting and He desired for me to stand.. Stand and walk with Him... Take His hand and walk ... And as we did He spoke of the water and the wind and the fire....
In all honesty I treasure all He talks about but truly He could talk about nothing or anything ... It is just being with Him... Being aware of Him and learning from Him and walking with Him.... He makes everything simply and profoundly better....
In His presence there is a fullness of joy that is not giddy emotion but solid strength... And in that place I long to live every moment of my life forth from.. There are gazes and glances of affection and an understanding of the fact of how fully known and loved I really am in those minutes
It matters not what He speaks about... Just that we are together and in His abundance of affection I am both lost and found ... Lost into the delight of being loved by Him and found over and over and over again as I become who He always saw and knew me as
I saw a baby Lamb and it ordered my day
There He was.... as a baby lamb... Laying in my closet... And thus began my day...
The gentleness .... The sweetness... The softness...
That is the part of His nature and character that I believe will define this day...
I lay down on the floor next to Him and delight in Him... The sweet kindness and tender loving mercies of our God surround and envelope me.... I lean and I look at the demonstration of this aspect of my Lord and I smile with solid quiet joy...
The Lamb of God... So meek... So mild... A baby that would become the greatest sacrifice..
The ultimate kindnesses of God displayed
Walking in the gentle... Sweet.... Perfect kindness of God
The gentleness .... The sweetness... The softness...
That is the part of His nature and character that I believe will define this day...
I lay down on the floor next to Him and delight in Him... The sweet kindness and tender loving mercies of our God surround and envelope me.... I lean and I look at the demonstration of this aspect of my Lord and I smile with solid quiet joy...
The Lamb of God... So meek... So mild... A baby that would become the greatest sacrifice..
The ultimate kindnesses of God displayed
Walking in the gentle... Sweet.... Perfect kindness of God
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Lies and lack of understanding and false beliefs take their toll.. part 2.
How does a heart get reprogrammed though... how does a heart go from fear to faith... how does one step away from chains and lies and believe that one can soar... how does one use an organ that never learned how to act in the way it was created to function... how does one maneuver through and away from lack of understanding and experience.... how does one stop perishing... how does one learn to walk....
And as I sat and pondered and saw my inability even in the midst of so much grace to grab a hold of that which was being said.... the room filled even more... a stunning display of the Father's affections shattered unbelief... again I had expected discipline ... discipline for not getting it... terror and fear had grabbed a hold of my heart and would not let it free because of fear... fear of getting it wrong.. fear of not hearing it right... fear of not walking it out right... fear...again fear...
my relatives had come for a visit and as they left I realized that the fearings from Hinds feet in High Places... had come.. they had come and they had left their mark and I was trying my hardest to disregard it and not look at it.. but in not looking at it I had stepped waist deep or higher into performance and had shut down my heart.. and the most beautiful shepherd was just waiting for me to acknowledge all that happened and to stop trying to be so strong as to handle it all on my own....
Side story here.... when one of our sons found my copy of Hinds Feet in High Places he came to me and he asked why is the whole book underlined? I remember so very clearly reading the first chapter and being stunned that something came so close to the description of my life.. that I underlined and reread every single word over and over again... because even as I read the first chapter for the first time so much of the understanding escaped me because I was still so surrounded by fear...
Having tried to handle the effects of the visit alone I had come to a place of shut down and allowed the familiar lies and heaviness to have life upon my heart.... instead of reaching out quicker I had stepped into a place so well learned of just getting through.. and just getting by.. not wanting to place a burden on the Lord or anyone else... and so I walked .. trudging through... bearing up under a weight I was never called to carry... but fully convinced that it was my fault I couldn't carry it and fully convinced that I was failing as I tried to maneuver my way through.. and fully convinced of all the reasons why I should be able to handle it all...
But then our Father drew the line and stepped in and not with the condemnation I expected... I expect rebuke and He is quiet... I expect discipline and He is still... I expect to be shown every place where I walked wrongly or could have walked better and He moves in with increased presence of His reality to wash fear away....
I can't even hear .. so crazy.. I can see with all the clarity of sight being offered and yet fear had deafened my heart to His love.... the truth so elusive and yet so in my face...
And then as it has been in these days where He is being crazy generous with His affections and His opening up of His presence for me.. He bid me to believe that He was granting my soul rest ... that I could lay down in His chambers.. far far away from all of this and just rest.... rest from the torment of lies and beliefs that were contrary to His nature.. no chastisement...no rebuke.. just a bid to come and rest... rest in Him as He brought healing into my heart....
And I was in a room full of light... and life.. and the air was different and I was surrounded by Him and His ways and His thoughts... all the higher thens... and they were ministering their truths to me in a way and a fashion I had never experienced... so much grace... so much kindness... extracting roots of false beliefs that had grown oh so large... and ever so slowly as a master gardener bringing it forth with no off shoot remaining....
I walk these days in some very different places .. more than anything I am learning to be patient with myself... I am learning that I don't have to perform it correctly... I don't have to perform at all... I am learning about grace from the Father who never gives up hope .. never loses patience... and never demands for me to get it.. and get it quickly...
I want to.. I want to get it quickly and move on.. and yet these times are teaching me that it is not ok to the Father that I lack any good thing... and His patience and His kindness and His lack of rebuke is getting me there step by step...
Gregory was crying the other day.. our four year old.. because he wants a phone like his older siblings.. and he tells me that he is older and then when I don't give him the response he desires.. he asks how long will it be until he is older.. and he was weeping.. he really wants a cell phone of his own... and being older I know that it takes time.. it takes time to get older... it takes the moments that become days and become seasons.... and that it does happen.. it just takes time...
And as I sat and pondered and saw my inability even in the midst of so much grace to grab a hold of that which was being said.... the room filled even more... a stunning display of the Father's affections shattered unbelief... again I had expected discipline ... discipline for not getting it... terror and fear had grabbed a hold of my heart and would not let it free because of fear... fear of getting it wrong.. fear of not hearing it right... fear of not walking it out right... fear...again fear...
my relatives had come for a visit and as they left I realized that the fearings from Hinds feet in High Places... had come.. they had come and they had left their mark and I was trying my hardest to disregard it and not look at it.. but in not looking at it I had stepped waist deep or higher into performance and had shut down my heart.. and the most beautiful shepherd was just waiting for me to acknowledge all that happened and to stop trying to be so strong as to handle it all on my own....
Side story here.... when one of our sons found my copy of Hinds Feet in High Places he came to me and he asked why is the whole book underlined? I remember so very clearly reading the first chapter and being stunned that something came so close to the description of my life.. that I underlined and reread every single word over and over again... because even as I read the first chapter for the first time so much of the understanding escaped me because I was still so surrounded by fear...
Having tried to handle the effects of the visit alone I had come to a place of shut down and allowed the familiar lies and heaviness to have life upon my heart.... instead of reaching out quicker I had stepped into a place so well learned of just getting through.. and just getting by.. not wanting to place a burden on the Lord or anyone else... and so I walked .. trudging through... bearing up under a weight I was never called to carry... but fully convinced that it was my fault I couldn't carry it and fully convinced that I was failing as I tried to maneuver my way through.. and fully convinced of all the reasons why I should be able to handle it all...
But then our Father drew the line and stepped in and not with the condemnation I expected... I expect rebuke and He is quiet... I expect discipline and He is still... I expect to be shown every place where I walked wrongly or could have walked better and He moves in with increased presence of His reality to wash fear away....
I can't even hear .. so crazy.. I can see with all the clarity of sight being offered and yet fear had deafened my heart to His love.... the truth so elusive and yet so in my face...
And then as it has been in these days where He is being crazy generous with His affections and His opening up of His presence for me.. He bid me to believe that He was granting my soul rest ... that I could lay down in His chambers.. far far away from all of this and just rest.... rest from the torment of lies and beliefs that were contrary to His nature.. no chastisement...no rebuke.. just a bid to come and rest... rest in Him as He brought healing into my heart....
And I was in a room full of light... and life.. and the air was different and I was surrounded by Him and His ways and His thoughts... all the higher thens... and they were ministering their truths to me in a way and a fashion I had never experienced... so much grace... so much kindness... extracting roots of false beliefs that had grown oh so large... and ever so slowly as a master gardener bringing it forth with no off shoot remaining....
I walk these days in some very different places .. more than anything I am learning to be patient with myself... I am learning that I don't have to perform it correctly... I don't have to perform at all... I am learning about grace from the Father who never gives up hope .. never loses patience... and never demands for me to get it.. and get it quickly...
I want to.. I want to get it quickly and move on.. and yet these times are teaching me that it is not ok to the Father that I lack any good thing... and His patience and His kindness and His lack of rebuke is getting me there step by step...
Gregory was crying the other day.. our four year old.. because he wants a phone like his older siblings.. and he tells me that he is older and then when I don't give him the response he desires.. he asks how long will it be until he is older.. and he was weeping.. he really wants a cell phone of his own... and being older I know that it takes time.. it takes time to get older... it takes the moments that become days and become seasons.... and that it does happen.. it just takes time...
Monday, June 6, 2011
Lies and lack of understanding and false beliefs take their toll.. part 1..
I knew where it was that he stood... and yet I didn't want to look... I wonder oh so very much at what it is they see.... how they see ... They must see both the natural and spiritual world at the same time... always... without interruption... I would think that is how they see...
So I wonder what it was that was being seen... and in so doing he spoke of how I was avoiding the very reason that he was present... and he spoke of how I was afraid to acknowledge him because he had brought good news but that I was shrinking back... I didn't even realize what it was I was doing.. I knew he was in the room but I wasn't looking and I wasn't asking why he was present.. I was just letting him stand there and thinking if I didn't engage either he would or he wouldn't...
Ah and there was the issue... self protection... suring up myself against disappointment... controlling the level of hope I would allow within my heart... metering out capacity and preparing for the fall... poverty mentality slightly.. ok maybe more than slightly... rationing out my capacity to receive hope so that I wouldn't allow my hope to increase beyond a level that when it were to fall I would be shattered.... so allowing myself to only hope so much as to prepare for the fall out...
But what had I placed my hope in? and as my mind raced with all these thoughts.. he just stood there and let out a puff of what felt like exasperation and the whole you have got to be kidding me kind of thing.. but I think that is more my interpretation of the moment .... ok totally more my interpretation of it...
It wasn't like are you done yet... it truly wasn't are you done yet ... it was a desire for me to look and engage.... and then upon the scene there came a presence of Him who I have grown to know and the richness of the moment came.... I couldn't just receive from his messenger... because fear was placing a barricade ... and I was condemning myself in the moment and not walking into that which was being offered... out of fear... which in a huge regard is lack of understanding perfect love...
so what did perfect love do... it came to sit with me and woo my heart towards joy...
What a perfect Father He truly is... and while I thought chastisement was what should be upon me He came just to sit... to sit with me in my moments of uncertainty...
He spoke of how He would not ever harm me.. and I sat there head bowed and heart in my throat and sobs held back and He rolled back a curtain of fog and showed me behind the veil of situations I was walking through... to see them as He saw them and not as I had judged... I had judged so wrongly .. so harshly.. had I portrayed myself within failure.. within lack of understanding my heart had been perishing and He had come to set things right....
As I sat in His presence and as His presence increased I just wept.. I had lived the majority of my life without understanding... without understanding .. without the understanding of the whys things happen .. and in place of lacking understanding I attributed it all to the fact that I was just a bad person and made so full of error and something so completely wrong with me and had placed fault and blame at my own feet ... a ton of weight and a million lies .. all the accusations against myself made by myself of all the inadequacies that laid upon my person.. all the reasons why love was so far from me were my fault and so much lack of understanding had shattered a heart that was made to receive and give love.. .
And so as good things came I sured myself up for the times that they would go... I viewed life through a broken glass lens that didn't clearly make sense and tried to make sense of it all and came up with some very faulty notions...
Perfect love stepped into the room and fear had to leave... and light entered the room to expose the darkness of belief and action ... I had learned to not even expect the crumbs of affection .. to not even ask for them... to receive them as they would come but to prepare for them to go... and yet .. yet there had to be so much more... and I was beginning to learn that there was...
So I wonder what it was that was being seen... and in so doing he spoke of how I was avoiding the very reason that he was present... and he spoke of how I was afraid to acknowledge him because he had brought good news but that I was shrinking back... I didn't even realize what it was I was doing.. I knew he was in the room but I wasn't looking and I wasn't asking why he was present.. I was just letting him stand there and thinking if I didn't engage either he would or he wouldn't...
Ah and there was the issue... self protection... suring up myself against disappointment... controlling the level of hope I would allow within my heart... metering out capacity and preparing for the fall... poverty mentality slightly.. ok maybe more than slightly... rationing out my capacity to receive hope so that I wouldn't allow my hope to increase beyond a level that when it were to fall I would be shattered.... so allowing myself to only hope so much as to prepare for the fall out...
But what had I placed my hope in? and as my mind raced with all these thoughts.. he just stood there and let out a puff of what felt like exasperation and the whole you have got to be kidding me kind of thing.. but I think that is more my interpretation of the moment .... ok totally more my interpretation of it...
It wasn't like are you done yet... it truly wasn't are you done yet ... it was a desire for me to look and engage.... and then upon the scene there came a presence of Him who I have grown to know and the richness of the moment came.... I couldn't just receive from his messenger... because fear was placing a barricade ... and I was condemning myself in the moment and not walking into that which was being offered... out of fear... which in a huge regard is lack of understanding perfect love...
so what did perfect love do... it came to sit with me and woo my heart towards joy...
What a perfect Father He truly is... and while I thought chastisement was what should be upon me He came just to sit... to sit with me in my moments of uncertainty...
He spoke of how He would not ever harm me.. and I sat there head bowed and heart in my throat and sobs held back and He rolled back a curtain of fog and showed me behind the veil of situations I was walking through... to see them as He saw them and not as I had judged... I had judged so wrongly .. so harshly.. had I portrayed myself within failure.. within lack of understanding my heart had been perishing and He had come to set things right....
As I sat in His presence and as His presence increased I just wept.. I had lived the majority of my life without understanding... without understanding .. without the understanding of the whys things happen .. and in place of lacking understanding I attributed it all to the fact that I was just a bad person and made so full of error and something so completely wrong with me and had placed fault and blame at my own feet ... a ton of weight and a million lies .. all the accusations against myself made by myself of all the inadequacies that laid upon my person.. all the reasons why love was so far from me were my fault and so much lack of understanding had shattered a heart that was made to receive and give love.. .
And so as good things came I sured myself up for the times that they would go... I viewed life through a broken glass lens that didn't clearly make sense and tried to make sense of it all and came up with some very faulty notions...
Perfect love stepped into the room and fear had to leave... and light entered the room to expose the darkness of belief and action ... I had learned to not even expect the crumbs of affection .. to not even ask for them... to receive them as they would come but to prepare for them to go... and yet .. yet there had to be so much more... and I was beginning to learn that there was...
Sunday, June 5, 2011
the hows of how to see and hear and know spelled out for all to know.....
Sitting quietly with Him... looking at Him looking at me... leaning so close into Him that there is no space.... I even press in further... I have to... it is my life.... He is my strength.. the air I breathe ... my all in all.... I need Him and I need Him with all that is within me... there is nothing that can substitute... nothing else and nobody else knows me or fills me like He does... there are no plan Bs... He is it... His presence... His being... not the idea of Him.. or the belief of Him... but Him... the person.... Him... In Him I have been found and attached to Him I must live ...
So today... He has begun to prepare me for the online discipleship class that Jim and I do on Tuesday nights... (stirthewater.com calendar... online events 9pm est)
We haven't done so much in the nuts and bolts of how to hear and how to see .. the hows aren't truly as important as all the other questions.... mostly all the rest... know Him... love Him... focus on Him... walk with Him and hold His hand... and let Him hold yours and walk with Him and let Him love you and love Him back... and what does all that look like... love people and love God and all else will flow.... that has been and will always be my focus... our focus
But today... I knew that the Father was changing it up on me a little... withdrawing away with Him... in silence... in quiet... in intimate relationship to places where just He and I walk and there are no others and it is He and I and that is all...
I made a choice not even a month ago to live even more as He would have me live and look to Him and as I see Him doing so I try and do... and it is becoming more and more second nature... moments and days spring up and erupt with other but then placing myself back in the right place facing Him... turned towards Him... looking to Him... I recover... it is as a child who realized that they are in the deep end and can't touch bottom.. that child might freak out a bit but in the moments of being freaked the strongest arms (which were always right there) come right around... it might be days.. it might just be moments but those arms are always there and I won't ever be allowed to drown... now I just need to learn it is ok for my feet not to touch... it is ok to lay there in the water... and float... float in the depths... I am so very safe there.... I just have to remind myself sometimes just how ok it is...
So how does it work in my heart... how does knowing translate into seeing and knowing... how does it work in my life... I'll tell you this though there is a history each time... seriously each time steals my breathe away.. and I wouldn't really want it any other way... it keeps me leaning upon Him and there is no other place to be.... I can't walk where I want to walk ie only doing that which the Father is doing if I don't walk that way.... but so each time I go to pray or say what I see or speak in words that I have heard Him speak ... each time I wonder and each time I risk....
There are times it still starts as the faintest impressions... a decision can and is made to go with it and not turn it away....
to take the risk .. to believe it is Him... the faintest of impressions... pictures. words... it starts mostly every time like that...
It is an invitation into the heart beat of the Father... and that is where the relationship is so foundational... I know He will not ask me out onto a ledge where He isn't... I know that He won't have me walk where He hasn't already been... I trust Him... I love Him and I trust His love for me.... I am aware of His love and affections for me that run so deep that I have no idea the depth ... so long that the length could never be measured... height and width have no comparison.... so why do I step out... because each time regardless of the ministry there I walk with the Father... and I get to hold His hand and have Him hold mine.. and we walk and talk and the over flow of that is what comes out....
I really don't hear anything that anyone else couldn't hear or see... but in listening and seeing I walk with Him and there is no place other I want to walk... no other place I want to be... so I hear.. and I know.. and I see.. because what good Father wouldn't want that for His daughter... I belong to Him... I belong to Him .. I am His... and it is His greatest desire that I would be where He is and that I would walk with Him confident as a daughter... full of joy and full of life and full of confidence...
Much comes to shake that but He is the unshakable tower...and even when I can't place myself with those folds of His garment or under His shadow He moves and acts until I am there..... I belong to Him so of course I am going to see and to hear and to know... because I am His... He has called me His own... and our hearts are ravished... forged together by the blood of His son... the deepest affections flow and the most assured strength exists with Him... of course we are going to see and hear and know... because that is who He is... and who He has made us to be....
So today... He has begun to prepare me for the online discipleship class that Jim and I do on Tuesday nights... (stirthewater.com calendar... online events 9pm est)
We haven't done so much in the nuts and bolts of how to hear and how to see .. the hows aren't truly as important as all the other questions.... mostly all the rest... know Him... love Him... focus on Him... walk with Him and hold His hand... and let Him hold yours and walk with Him and let Him love you and love Him back... and what does all that look like... love people and love God and all else will flow.... that has been and will always be my focus... our focus
But today... I knew that the Father was changing it up on me a little... withdrawing away with Him... in silence... in quiet... in intimate relationship to places where just He and I walk and there are no others and it is He and I and that is all...
I made a choice not even a month ago to live even more as He would have me live and look to Him and as I see Him doing so I try and do... and it is becoming more and more second nature... moments and days spring up and erupt with other but then placing myself back in the right place facing Him... turned towards Him... looking to Him... I recover... it is as a child who realized that they are in the deep end and can't touch bottom.. that child might freak out a bit but in the moments of being freaked the strongest arms (which were always right there) come right around... it might be days.. it might just be moments but those arms are always there and I won't ever be allowed to drown... now I just need to learn it is ok for my feet not to touch... it is ok to lay there in the water... and float... float in the depths... I am so very safe there.... I just have to remind myself sometimes just how ok it is...
So how does it work in my heart... how does knowing translate into seeing and knowing... how does it work in my life... I'll tell you this though there is a history each time... seriously each time steals my breathe away.. and I wouldn't really want it any other way... it keeps me leaning upon Him and there is no other place to be.... I can't walk where I want to walk ie only doing that which the Father is doing if I don't walk that way.... but so each time I go to pray or say what I see or speak in words that I have heard Him speak ... each time I wonder and each time I risk....
There are times it still starts as the faintest impressions... a decision can and is made to go with it and not turn it away....
to take the risk .. to believe it is Him... the faintest of impressions... pictures. words... it starts mostly every time like that...
It is an invitation into the heart beat of the Father... and that is where the relationship is so foundational... I know He will not ask me out onto a ledge where He isn't... I know that He won't have me walk where He hasn't already been... I trust Him... I love Him and I trust His love for me.... I am aware of His love and affections for me that run so deep that I have no idea the depth ... so long that the length could never be measured... height and width have no comparison.... so why do I step out... because each time regardless of the ministry there I walk with the Father... and I get to hold His hand and have Him hold mine.. and we walk and talk and the over flow of that is what comes out....
I really don't hear anything that anyone else couldn't hear or see... but in listening and seeing I walk with Him and there is no place other I want to walk... no other place I want to be... so I hear.. and I know.. and I see.. because what good Father wouldn't want that for His daughter... I belong to Him... I belong to Him .. I am His... and it is His greatest desire that I would be where He is and that I would walk with Him confident as a daughter... full of joy and full of life and full of confidence...
Much comes to shake that but He is the unshakable tower...and even when I can't place myself with those folds of His garment or under His shadow He moves and acts until I am there..... I belong to Him so of course I am going to see and to hear and to know... because I am His... He has called me His own... and our hearts are ravished... forged together by the blood of His son... the deepest affections flow and the most assured strength exists with Him... of course we are going to see and hear and know... because that is who He is... and who He has made us to be....
As the Leper I return... screaming and shouting THANK YOU.... Thank you... THANK YOU
There are moments that I fall under such gratitude that I just wish to gather all those who are precious to me and with all the thankfulness in my heart pour out back to them the life they have poured into me....
I have always had such a fascination with the leper who went back to Jesus to say thank you ... I think of all the bible characters that exist these days I find myself relating the most to him....
There were many things I never believed I would experience in this life... and yet the Father... yet the Father... His goodness tops the list... His love and His affections poured out upon my life but that I so truly know where I would be....
Gratitude pours forth from me as I write this and I am shaken to the core of all I am as I weep at the goodness of our Father.... my Father... my Father... I say that with such joy and such delight... the fact that the term Father has glorious beauty attached to it... magnificent love beyond any description....
I was writing something last night and at one point I wrote how I had learned that at times the best warfare is rest... and as I did I heard the friend's voice who spoke that to me...
My family... my friends...the communities of believers I walk in and around.... I have to say right this moment a friend texted me and she wrote, "You are soooooo blessed!" And it blew me away... I told her I was writing this and I am even more assured that this piece is not just flowing forth from my own flesh and desire now to appreciate and pour out gratitude... it was just the right encouragement because I wanted to step into this place and very specifically pour forth gratitude but was holding back.... and now .. now I just realize all the more how much the Father has made me for this... and even now as I paused for a moment a dream I had comes flowing back ... I have been made like that one leper to return .. to return and scream forth gratitude!!!
Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan
Ah a Samaritan at that... how much more can I relate...
But I do ... I do.. praising God in a loud voice falling at Jesus' feet I return.. I return ... because I have been loved and received and loved and healed and loved and loved more and more and more...
So here it goes... To Renovatus Church.. you restored my heart to believe in corporate gatherings and in a people who could hunger and thirst for authenticity and beauty in community... my heart could spill out paragraphs just to you.. To the Martins who lead with such beauty and wonder and power you both amaze me... to the friends that I have been privileged to get to know.. you all have filled my life with hope and life and joy.. I am so truly very grateful for having walked through your doors almost one year ago... July 11, 2010... will forever be upon my heart .. when the hymn, Be Thou My Vision, played forth and truly the Lord granted to me and my family a most glorious gift....
To Dwelling Place you have given me a place to call home and every time I near your doors and walk onto your land be it on a mountain or in the valley I am loved.. I am loved... when it was landing in Roanoke and being picked up or now a three hour drive north I have a place that is full of all the things a home should be filled with... you fill my life with mercy and grace and I will never ever be the same.... Your individual names and faces are engraved into my heart and I marvel at the remembrance of each of you... Sizemores you have given to me more than I could ever express .. Rick you are truly an incredible teacher of truth full of mercy and grace and freedom
To the Stir The Water and Intrepret My Dream communities... I love dreaming with you and running after God with you... I love walking to the edge and crossing over with you.... I cherish those of you that have walked with us for years and years and years and those that have just met us and I look forward to forming those relationships with you.... your hunger and desire push me forward to know God .. and I am blessed by you and your hunger and your desire... I am so very grateful for each and everyone of you
To those I wouldn't have life without... James and children you are straight from the Father's heart to me and no amount of words or paragraphs or time could ever fully convey my affections... or my gratitude that I get to walk the world with those like you... I am privileged to be called wife and mom...
There are so many I should name individually and as the days and weeks go on I will add to this.... but for now... I must bow down before my Creator and thank Him for creating sisters and brothers who love me so incredibly well... who fill my life with laughter and joy... who have taught me to walk and made sure I knew how to do so.... who believed in me when I couldn't and cherished me beyond what anyone would think was humanly possibly.... you are my sisters and brothers... you are my family... you have done the will of God in my life and I am so changed because you have loved me so so very well..... so dearest ones as we walk remembering movies quotes together or times together... times apart... times of tears and times of triumph.... I remember you and I return to you... screaming and shouting Thank You... Thank You... Thank You....
I have always had such a fascination with the leper who went back to Jesus to say thank you ... I think of all the bible characters that exist these days I find myself relating the most to him....
There were many things I never believed I would experience in this life... and yet the Father... yet the Father... His goodness tops the list... His love and His affections poured out upon my life but that I so truly know where I would be....
Gratitude pours forth from me as I write this and I am shaken to the core of all I am as I weep at the goodness of our Father.... my Father... my Father... I say that with such joy and such delight... the fact that the term Father has glorious beauty attached to it... magnificent love beyond any description....
I was writing something last night and at one point I wrote how I had learned that at times the best warfare is rest... and as I did I heard the friend's voice who spoke that to me...
My family... my friends...the communities of believers I walk in and around.... I have to say right this moment a friend texted me and she wrote, "You are soooooo blessed!" And it blew me away... I told her I was writing this and I am even more assured that this piece is not just flowing forth from my own flesh and desire now to appreciate and pour out gratitude... it was just the right encouragement because I wanted to step into this place and very specifically pour forth gratitude but was holding back.... and now .. now I just realize all the more how much the Father has made me for this... and even now as I paused for a moment a dream I had comes flowing back ... I have been made like that one leper to return .. to return and scream forth gratitude!!!
Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan
Ah a Samaritan at that... how much more can I relate...
But I do ... I do.. praising God in a loud voice falling at Jesus' feet I return.. I return ... because I have been loved and received and loved and healed and loved and loved more and more and more...
So here it goes... To Renovatus Church.. you restored my heart to believe in corporate gatherings and in a people who could hunger and thirst for authenticity and beauty in community... my heart could spill out paragraphs just to you.. To the Martins who lead with such beauty and wonder and power you both amaze me... to the friends that I have been privileged to get to know.. you all have filled my life with hope and life and joy.. I am so truly very grateful for having walked through your doors almost one year ago... July 11, 2010... will forever be upon my heart .. when the hymn, Be Thou My Vision, played forth and truly the Lord granted to me and my family a most glorious gift....
To Dwelling Place you have given me a place to call home and every time I near your doors and walk onto your land be it on a mountain or in the valley I am loved.. I am loved... when it was landing in Roanoke and being picked up or now a three hour drive north I have a place that is full of all the things a home should be filled with... you fill my life with mercy and grace and I will never ever be the same.... Your individual names and faces are engraved into my heart and I marvel at the remembrance of each of you... Sizemores you have given to me more than I could ever express .. Rick you are truly an incredible teacher of truth full of mercy and grace and freedom
To the Stir The Water and Intrepret My Dream communities... I love dreaming with you and running after God with you... I love walking to the edge and crossing over with you.... I cherish those of you that have walked with us for years and years and years and those that have just met us and I look forward to forming those relationships with you.... your hunger and desire push me forward to know God .. and I am blessed by you and your hunger and your desire... I am so very grateful for each and everyone of you
To those I wouldn't have life without... James and children you are straight from the Father's heart to me and no amount of words or paragraphs or time could ever fully convey my affections... or my gratitude that I get to walk the world with those like you... I am privileged to be called wife and mom...
There are so many I should name individually and as the days and weeks go on I will add to this.... but for now... I must bow down before my Creator and thank Him for creating sisters and brothers who love me so incredibly well... who fill my life with laughter and joy... who have taught me to walk and made sure I knew how to do so.... who believed in me when I couldn't and cherished me beyond what anyone would think was humanly possibly.... you are my sisters and brothers... you are my family... you have done the will of God in my life and I am so changed because you have loved me so so very well..... so dearest ones as we walk remembering movies quotes together or times together... times apart... times of tears and times of triumph.... I remember you and I return to you... screaming and shouting Thank You... Thank You... Thank You....
Saturday, June 4, 2011
As tonight's sleep began to unravel the truest rest was about to enter my soul...
It was 11:55pm and yet I was able to go back to sleep... dread that I had fallen asleep too early and now I was going to be up ... then it was 2am... and the same would not be true.... I wasn't able to head back to sleep instead I lay awake and as I did the night got darker and the minutes went by seemingly slower....
All these feelings... all these emotions... all this weight... all these concerns... pounding upon my person... trying to shrug them off... trying to lay there and head back to sleep... knowing sometimes just getting more rest is the most valuable weapon...
but then.... got to love those but then moments.... truth being spoken... days of events being shown up for what they were... weights falling off and a heart able to breath....
backing up a tad to bridge the gap.... I have spent more years then naught.. sadly... condemning myself for being emotional... for being sensitive... reasons exist for all that but that isn't where I think I am going....
In condemning myself for having emotions and feeling things and being sensitive I shut myself down to a place where I existed... barely... more zombie like than anything... vacant gaze peering forth out of my head and just walking around ... barely breathing... barely surviving... longing for escape and living there instead of living.... closing down time after time.. shutting off... either too many emotions full of pain and sorrow or too much self imposed condemnation for truly feeling the reality of the situations I found myself in but feeling helpless to change any of it.... I became brilliant at shutting down... a master of closing off my heart and putting feelings behind walls and into locked away places...
But as anyone who has walked life through different seasons.. walls leak and locked away places beacon for keys...
As tonight's sleep began to unravel the truest rest was about to enter my soul... it is ok .. it is alright .. it is imperative for me to allow myself to feel... it is the very way I was knitted together.. it was the very way I was formed and fashioned...
And then it dawned on me.. it truly was the way I was formed and fashioned and then all the times I was condemned for "being too sensitive" rushed in and how shut off I had lived my life or how continually I perceived myself as bad or weak for being sensitive and having emotions filled my being....
I have had to pause in writing as I have sat here waterfalls of forceful cleansing waters have fallen upon me and carried in their waves were keys unlocking doors and closets and cells that had been where I had placed my truest heart and denied it life....
As truth flowed into my being my head felt lighter and tons of weight began to dissipate ... the conclusion of emotions were bad had come very close to destroying my life and in being liberated through the washing of the word and light of Christ I had found new freedom to soar...
Self hatred and comparison fell off of me and again I breathed freely on a whole other level ... eyes opened and not empty stare out of eye sockets... realization after realization flooded my heart and my mind... places I had laid accusation or accusations had been laid lost their grip and I could hear darkness shrieking as the light of heaven fell upon that darkness burning it away.. and bursting forth as lit up rivers of water glistening and sparkling and full of life...
Ah... and then I was breathing another air and as I landed joy filled every crevice of my being and I knew where I was and I just sat down... a friend had prayed for me for days to be able to sit in this grassy place again and yet entrance to her seemed barred.... but no longer was that so.... sitting there expectations arose that He would be walking through the grasses to my right very soon but I was wrong two dearest ones had walked the journey instead but they had come to get me and He was waiting and while I saw them come I could see where He was and I raised up to meet them and we walked together with immense joy flowing forth from our beings enjoying the music of the silence and the sound of joy... that all might sound strange but in this place silence is alive and vibrant and sound comes in many different waves... life permeates everything and everything is alive...
As we journeyed alongside each other towards Him they took my hands and and even more joy flowed between us ... an understanding that though there be moments now there would be time in the future where moments would not be moments but would be all the more and a new song full of eternal melodies swirled and danced and played around us...
Then even though seemingly miles and a journey still away I could see Him and He was standing beside a table and it was in the presence of my enemies and even while still so seemingly far away He began to speak to me and I could hear His voice as it lit up the sky... and He spoke of life and joy seemed to be the greatest theme within His being and the capacity to be able to contain it was ebbing from us all... and the temptation to enter into great laughter arose and yet there was more... there was more...
He waited for us to close the distance and when entering into His presence and being brought into His side His sweet and gentle and yet firm and declarative words flowed over me as did life and sweet sweet living waters washed away effects of years gone so very wrong and I was safe... I was safe... within His arms and within His embrace I was safe... seeing full well those that had meant harm but standing beside Him I was safe to be all that He created me to be... sensitive... radiating His warmth and His life and His peace... full of emotion not hindered or imprisoned by it but full of the life and liberty of it.... Me.. I was free to be me...
I could feel the time ebbing away but I wanted and desired just to look upon Him face to face... mouthing the words thank you and smiling and seeing His gaze I was once again more aware of my chair and my keyboard... but full and different ... full and different and aware of truly what a glorious nature our Father's Son possesses ... beautiful... amazing..
.... and as I was settling back into where I was His voice lifted the air and upon it He spoke about how ravished His heart is... we have ravished the heart of God... with one look of our eyes towards Him.. His heart is undone.. what an incredible emotional God we serve... full of life and liberty... Amen.. and amen....
All these feelings... all these emotions... all this weight... all these concerns... pounding upon my person... trying to shrug them off... trying to lay there and head back to sleep... knowing sometimes just getting more rest is the most valuable weapon...
but then.... got to love those but then moments.... truth being spoken... days of events being shown up for what they were... weights falling off and a heart able to breath....
backing up a tad to bridge the gap.... I have spent more years then naught.. sadly... condemning myself for being emotional... for being sensitive... reasons exist for all that but that isn't where I think I am going....
In condemning myself for having emotions and feeling things and being sensitive I shut myself down to a place where I existed... barely... more zombie like than anything... vacant gaze peering forth out of my head and just walking around ... barely breathing... barely surviving... longing for escape and living there instead of living.... closing down time after time.. shutting off... either too many emotions full of pain and sorrow or too much self imposed condemnation for truly feeling the reality of the situations I found myself in but feeling helpless to change any of it.... I became brilliant at shutting down... a master of closing off my heart and putting feelings behind walls and into locked away places...
But as anyone who has walked life through different seasons.. walls leak and locked away places beacon for keys...
As tonight's sleep began to unravel the truest rest was about to enter my soul... it is ok .. it is alright .. it is imperative for me to allow myself to feel... it is the very way I was knitted together.. it was the very way I was formed and fashioned...
And then it dawned on me.. it truly was the way I was formed and fashioned and then all the times I was condemned for "being too sensitive" rushed in and how shut off I had lived my life or how continually I perceived myself as bad or weak for being sensitive and having emotions filled my being....
I have had to pause in writing as I have sat here waterfalls of forceful cleansing waters have fallen upon me and carried in their waves were keys unlocking doors and closets and cells that had been where I had placed my truest heart and denied it life....
As truth flowed into my being my head felt lighter and tons of weight began to dissipate ... the conclusion of emotions were bad had come very close to destroying my life and in being liberated through the washing of the word and light of Christ I had found new freedom to soar...
Self hatred and comparison fell off of me and again I breathed freely on a whole other level ... eyes opened and not empty stare out of eye sockets... realization after realization flooded my heart and my mind... places I had laid accusation or accusations had been laid lost their grip and I could hear darkness shrieking as the light of heaven fell upon that darkness burning it away.. and bursting forth as lit up rivers of water glistening and sparkling and full of life...
Ah... and then I was breathing another air and as I landed joy filled every crevice of my being and I knew where I was and I just sat down... a friend had prayed for me for days to be able to sit in this grassy place again and yet entrance to her seemed barred.... but no longer was that so.... sitting there expectations arose that He would be walking through the grasses to my right very soon but I was wrong two dearest ones had walked the journey instead but they had come to get me and He was waiting and while I saw them come I could see where He was and I raised up to meet them and we walked together with immense joy flowing forth from our beings enjoying the music of the silence and the sound of joy... that all might sound strange but in this place silence is alive and vibrant and sound comes in many different waves... life permeates everything and everything is alive...
As we journeyed alongside each other towards Him they took my hands and and even more joy flowed between us ... an understanding that though there be moments now there would be time in the future where moments would not be moments but would be all the more and a new song full of eternal melodies swirled and danced and played around us...
Then even though seemingly miles and a journey still away I could see Him and He was standing beside a table and it was in the presence of my enemies and even while still so seemingly far away He began to speak to me and I could hear His voice as it lit up the sky... and He spoke of life and joy seemed to be the greatest theme within His being and the capacity to be able to contain it was ebbing from us all... and the temptation to enter into great laughter arose and yet there was more... there was more...
He waited for us to close the distance and when entering into His presence and being brought into His side His sweet and gentle and yet firm and declarative words flowed over me as did life and sweet sweet living waters washed away effects of years gone so very wrong and I was safe... I was safe... within His arms and within His embrace I was safe... seeing full well those that had meant harm but standing beside Him I was safe to be all that He created me to be... sensitive... radiating His warmth and His life and His peace... full of emotion not hindered or imprisoned by it but full of the life and liberty of it.... Me.. I was free to be me...
I could feel the time ebbing away but I wanted and desired just to look upon Him face to face... mouthing the words thank you and smiling and seeing His gaze I was once again more aware of my chair and my keyboard... but full and different ... full and different and aware of truly what a glorious nature our Father's Son possesses ... beautiful... amazing..
.... and as I was settling back into where I was His voice lifted the air and upon it He spoke about how ravished His heart is... we have ravished the heart of God... with one look of our eyes towards Him.. His heart is undone.. what an incredible emotional God we serve... full of life and liberty... Amen.. and amen....
Friday, June 3, 2011
I am wrecked and off into another place
Perfect white light erupting in and through and around me as I lay still before Him...
Soaking in His love and affections and strength and ministry
Gorgeous white ... Perfect ... Beautiful light acting as waves washing upon my soul saturating every fabric of my being
Breaking up and off any film from the day... Strengthening me as it pours into every pore....
In a bubble or a tube ... Breathing it in.. Feeling it all upon and within my person ....
The Father sheltering me in His affections... Strengthening me in His love... Showing me how it all can be... Showing me moments of when Jesus withdrew from crowds .. Withdrew from people... Withdrew and drew up and upon...
In oneness there is light and life and I am not just undone ... I am wrecked and off into another place...
Soaking in His love and affections and strength and ministry
Gorgeous white ... Perfect ... Beautiful light acting as waves washing upon my soul saturating every fabric of my being
Breaking up and off any film from the day... Strengthening me as it pours into every pore....
In a bubble or a tube ... Breathing it in.. Feeling it all upon and within my person ....
The Father sheltering me in His affections... Strengthening me in His love... Showing me how it all can be... Showing me moments of when Jesus withdrew from crowds .. Withdrew from people... Withdrew and drew up and upon...
In oneness there is light and life and I am not just undone ... I am wrecked and off into another place...
Days of labor bring forth moments stolen away and life is granted as deep intimacy flows
Days fade away
Plugging all of me deliberately into You
Entwined hands
One heart
Eyes closed
Landing upon most pleasant places
Laying there
Winds and gentle breezes
All I am
All I will ever be
Entwined forever
A deep settledness filters into my being
All else washes away
Until we are one...
Vine ....
Branch....
Hearts beating as one
Beings breathing as one
Rhythm and atmosphere and all swirls and all disappears and all is saturated by a most glorious life flowing love
Affections bursting forth in song and light and color... Magical explosions so vibrant ... So Him..
Plugging all of me deliberately into You
Entwined hands
One heart
Eyes closed
Landing upon most pleasant places
Laying there
Winds and gentle breezes
All I am
All I will ever be
Entwined forever
A deep settledness filters into my being
All else washes away
Until we are one...
Vine ....
Branch....
Hearts beating as one
Beings breathing as one
Rhythm and atmosphere and all swirls and all disappears and all is saturated by a most glorious life flowing love
Affections bursting forth in song and light and color... Magical explosions so vibrant ... So Him..
Thursday, June 2, 2011
What more do I ever really need to hear?
I feel her soil underneath my feet and upon her wooden trail I walked... The rich cool soil ... It lingering between my toes... It's cool nature refreshing my soul...
I hadn't remembered ever being here before but then the remembrances of times I had written off as a dream or some sort of fancy flashes before my eyes and my heart was made aware of where I was walking...
Up the trail I walked... Deep dark moist soil my floor and the trees singing their songs and standing so strong and firm surrounding the path on both sides.... All around me forest ... All around me loveliness ....
As I continued up the hill there was an embankment towards my right and before I even looked my heart leapt and a smile formed upon my face and I knew that as my eyes were drawn up that He would be standing there...
He would and was ..... And it was wonderful... I have learned to not just rush in but allow the moments of entrance into His presence to build and grow and allow time to bring forth the moment ... To enjoy and relish in the discovery... Of the place of Him
And He beaconed me to take it all in....and I did.... Most of all Him
Then He sat down and I walked over towards Him and sat down next to Him..
I placed my hand upon His knee and just looked straight ahead... Remembering other times we had sat together... Other times I had felt His hand within mine... His fingers entwined with mine... I looked where our hands met and then I looked up at Him... I thought of times and places we had walked.. How I was known... How I knew Him...
Just taking it all in.....
Just stunning... I lack for words.. In these times and places with Him all else falls away and the most of who I truly am arises and lives ... Unhindered love flows forth from me and into me and in very much like a child I am held up and held in and held ... Solidly... Permanently held....
In the silence more is communicated then one could think possible but within His presence... At Home in His affections I am Complete.... Nothing lacking...
In these moments there is nothing more full than just sitting with Him and holding His hand and remembering our times together...
And when I think it could get no better He begins to speak and His words wash over me with the flow of living waters so full and strong of life and yet so delicate upon my flesh...
And again within these more recent times He enters into speaking with declarations of His love and how He has loved me with an everlasting love... Hearing over and over again I never weary.. I know in what He speaks there is purpose and hearing Him say these things each time penetrates deeper and trust blooms in places where it has lacked...
He has loved me with an everlasting love ... Not earned or awarded but graciously given and poured out because of who He is.... What more do I ever really need to hear...
I hadn't remembered ever being here before but then the remembrances of times I had written off as a dream or some sort of fancy flashes before my eyes and my heart was made aware of where I was walking...
Up the trail I walked... Deep dark moist soil my floor and the trees singing their songs and standing so strong and firm surrounding the path on both sides.... All around me forest ... All around me loveliness ....
As I continued up the hill there was an embankment towards my right and before I even looked my heart leapt and a smile formed upon my face and I knew that as my eyes were drawn up that He would be standing there...
He would and was ..... And it was wonderful... I have learned to not just rush in but allow the moments of entrance into His presence to build and grow and allow time to bring forth the moment ... To enjoy and relish in the discovery... Of the place of Him
And He beaconed me to take it all in....and I did.... Most of all Him
Then He sat down and I walked over towards Him and sat down next to Him..
I placed my hand upon His knee and just looked straight ahead... Remembering other times we had sat together... Other times I had felt His hand within mine... His fingers entwined with mine... I looked where our hands met and then I looked up at Him... I thought of times and places we had walked.. How I was known... How I knew Him...
Just taking it all in.....
Just stunning... I lack for words.. In these times and places with Him all else falls away and the most of who I truly am arises and lives ... Unhindered love flows forth from me and into me and in very much like a child I am held up and held in and held ... Solidly... Permanently held....
In the silence more is communicated then one could think possible but within His presence... At Home in His affections I am Complete.... Nothing lacking...
In these moments there is nothing more full than just sitting with Him and holding His hand and remembering our times together...
And when I think it could get no better He begins to speak and His words wash over me with the flow of living waters so full and strong of life and yet so delicate upon my flesh...
And again within these more recent times He enters into speaking with declarations of His love and how He has loved me with an everlasting love... Hearing over and over again I never weary.. I know in what He speaks there is purpose and hearing Him say these things each time penetrates deeper and trust blooms in places where it has lacked...
He has loved me with an everlasting love ... Not earned or awarded but graciously given and poured out because of who He is.... What more do I ever really need to hear...
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