Knowing the right thing to do has killed my heart....

Maybe it is that I slept 16 hours just a couple nights ago... or maybe it is that my mind unfortunately doesn't have an off switch...  having been awake for a good portion of this evening and watching the clock tick (ok I actually don't have a clock that ticks but I'm sure there is an app for that if I really wanted) towards the hour where little feet and little voices will be arising....

Having realized I wasn't going to fall back off to sleep I came to the computer a while ago....  caught up on some work, but then just sat back and allowed myself to get lost in things I have heard lately....  felt lately....

So many words floating through my head....  so many pictures of events ... thoughts....  etc... etc...

But the one statement that keeps coming back to me is from a blog I read tonight....  A friend wrote about love and in his writing there was this statement of how it is not meant to perform but to believe....

Perform... and the weights/yoke that go along with it... my heart shuts down ... it doesn't take long ..... my mind goes blank and I switch into a mode of do... don't think... don't process just do... knowing the right thing to do and trying to do it has killed my heart and laid burdens upon myself I just wasn't meant to carry..... Instead of life I falter under the self imposed prison of ought and become a shadow of self that I don't recognize... without joy .. without delight... full of heavy silence and lacking air...

Suffocating under the weight of trying to perform this or that and be this or that all the while forgetting that I am all that I need to be in faith...

The older brother syndrome...  doing all the right things but being angry ... doing all the right things but not understanding position in Father's house..... doing... Martha....  older brother.... they have a lot in common.... What is in the heart? And out of the mouth it will eventually speak...

I have touched upon a death so cold that my heart has felt so shut down...  and then not wanting to write from this place.. waiting for it to lift but not seeing it lift I finally allowed myself to come to my sanctuary of writing and see if He would meet me here.....  only to hear words full of love but difficult to hear... Thinking I understood maturity.. thinking I understood components of leadership... I stuffed and performed what I believed was expected from me and in so doing tasted a shutting down so isolating and terrifying....

"I never asked you to be more ... I never asked you to do... I have asked you to be... be with me... believe upon me.... surrender to me...  let me do... let me act... watch as I move on your behalf....  in doing you exhaust yourself... become what you are not.. and remove yourself from my grace... " He continued speaking straight into my heart.... exposing places of doubt and fear and anger with His tender loving kindness He exploded light into dark places and where my feet were faltering He placed them back upon the path and He turned places that had become crooked straight.....

As one who hadn't breathed for days... I sat back and allowed the burdens to be lifted and watched the servant of all sevants show me what true leadership looked like....

Blessed are the hungry...... For they will be made full

This morning has been full of wonder and beauty.....  and my friends I need to express to you to allow hunger to exist in your life... allow hunger to saturate all that is within you.....  Watch and see that which you are hungry for and place it before Father.....

So many principles coursing through my mind right now fingers can't keep up nor can heart or mind... Ramblings this post may be but I will ramble away...

Hunger..... I have allowed hunger to reside within me but then gotten tired of being hungry... I have allowed hunger to reside within me but then gotten desperate... I have allowed hunger to reside within me but then gotten tired of waiting and turned to fill that hunger on my own ....

But blessed are the hungry for they will be satisfied......  hhhhmmmmm
Not just hungry for anything but for righteousness.....  Those that hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied....  You can hunger and thirst all day long for other things but satisfaction will be eluded..... But for righteousness it comes... satisfaction comes..

In the journey of my days I have known hunger...  emotional.. physical... I have known hunger....  The pain of it in each category... How it leaves you wanting...

Now as I live  I am watching as Psalm 34:10 comes to life....  The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. – Psalm 34:10

Those who hunger will be full... those who seek will not lack....

It has been hard for me at times to set my eyes solely upon Father... having at times set them on a position .. or a relationship.. it feels as if lack was all around... but once eyes were upon Him the reality of His ways so saturated my being that my confession not in faith but in the reality of His love can be I lack no good thing....

I lack no good thing... I am made full....

I learned to allow hunger to have its way within me and I found a fullness I never even dreamed possible... resist the urge to fill the hunger  and watch as He fills it and  live in awe..

The question was plain but the answer was not....

The question was plain but the answer was not....

Before I can go forward I must go back....

This morning I sat in deep awe of that which the Lord had done over the course of 24 hours... as I sat and thought about how only He could bring together pieces of a puzzle so amazingly... Almost a world away a young girl for her pastor translated a book of my husband's into spanish and shared with us that she had done so... and provided us with a copy... Forward to local Charlotte area a young man headed home to Peru where his family is interested in the subject of Dreams which provides an on road to discussions about God.

At a local meeting I just feel led to share about some of the amazing events happening in our ministry (Stir The Water) this week and what happens piece of the puzzle and piece of the puzzle converge for a God moment....

Other events this week have lined up and have just had me standing in awe of the goodness of the Lord....

So now this morning... as I reflected and sat in awe of my God … a quiet but strong question came forth....

“Would you love me?”

And then I knew every question that would follow that.....

Would you love me when I was hanging on the cross?

Would you love me when I spoke of you must eat of my flesh and drink of my blood?

Would you love me?

Yet even that wasn't the end... it was merely the bridge to get to where we were walking together...

Last night at a meeting I was sharing about the nature and character of God only to enter into another meeting where a dear friend spoke of the nature and character of God...

And it was then that we arrived... He and I

Trust..... Looking into those eyes of His and seeing His outstretched hand the question wasn't so much would you love me as it was do you trust me....

And even in that there was so much mercy and so much grace.... there was nothing to fear as He presented His question... a sincere acknowledgement that I am learning to but that there are areas where it is a struggle.... The kindness of God manifested in the room like a thousand fireworks going off at one time .. He laughed and it was the most beautiful sound I think I have ever heard...

And then I knew in places I had never known before... His goodness... His kindness... His generosity of spirit... His care of me.... and I began to breath deeper than I had ever done before....

Seeing what I see and learning to not ignore it... brings forth life

Having awoken I laid in bed unable to fall back off to sleep and into this weird place did I drift...  Not being able to pin point what it was that I was feeling and attempting to just lay there and ignore where it was that I found myself...

Do you ever do that? Just ignore where you are and what you are feeling and pretend that it isn't what you are seeing or sensing?  When I do step into a place of being willing to admit that which is going on around me He offers up confirmation that what it is is actually what I am sensing but every time that leap seems to linger....

Like the time I saw a huge buddha sitting on top of a house we were staying at come to find out that there was a buddhist who had lived there at that home...but I want to ignore those things... or I did anyway... 

Last night was different.. I couldn't pin point where the emotion was coming from and I felt unsettled. So I laid there... Even as I write this the emotions of the evening seem too familiar... and even now He appears with His gentle reminders of who He is and where it is that my eyes should be focused... and in His gentle reminder I am made different.. It truly is with one look at His gaze I am brought back and fear dissipates and I can feel courage land in my heart...

That is what transpired last night....I laid there and all of a sudden I felt as if my whole back had this beautiful scripted tattoo upon it...and then I felt His hand upon my back and His declaration that I was His... "Do you know that you are mine?" With the words came the feeling of a deep and penetrating warmth and the flow of a thick warm golden substance was upon my person...

"You are mine."  

"I've got you."

That was the declaration of the Lord upon and over and around me... and in that transaction was birthed a confidence that believed and knew that I belong to Him.. Kinsman Redeemer.. Magnificent Savior...  Almighty God...  In those moments a realization of my truest worth to Him and His amazing care of me .. A trust I hadn't felt before landed in my heart ... a trust of Him.. a trust of who He has made me to be...  something beautiful happened last night ..

I bear His markings in the spirit.. I am His daughter... think about those four words... "I" "am" "His" "daughter"...  

I know more in these moments who it is that I belong to...Who it is that I am... and What that means... The truth of those four little words hold a weight of meaning....  that I am His and He is for me.. If God is for me who can be against me... That being His and standing in that relationship is the most magnificent thought... the most amazing reality...

Remind one another...

"Shine like the beautiful lamp you are!"

"Do you remember that not even two years ago you so desired a church home? And now .. now see all that the Lord has done!"

Two friends speaking life into my being... taking the time to remind me of who I am and where I have been and the faithfulness, character and nature of my God...

Another friend is always speaking truth.... walking around as if he was an actual concordance... full of life.. full of truth... full of the way God sees and knows .. confronting lies with the outrageous and extravagant love of Father...

They are beautiful to me... they are life to me.... they remind me of that which is important....

Remind one another ... Hebrews 3:13 speaks it.. and I would yell it out at the top of my lungs...

"But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness."

Encourage one another daily... do it... say those words that might be awkward and corny but say them any way.... speak life into one another... speak truth into one another... bless one another...

Ah I feel myself turning one at even the thoughts of this... I love this.... I love how words come together and form encouragement and I love seeing people as He sees them and holding up a mirror and saying, "this is you... this is you... this is really who you are..."

You are altogether beautiful..... and your worth is far above rubies..... it's truth!!!! There is nothing better 

The First 18 hours of 2012..... If this is what the year is going to be like... it most certainly will be interesting

Not too sure where the Lord is leading with this blog post but I have words floating through my head and a picture and so off leaping into places I know not ...

Well.. the words.... "the things that we aren't saying that are killing us." And the picture... the day I walked on Elizabeth Hall and the doors locked behind me....

So I'll start with the picture... It isn't something I haven't written about before and actually for what it was I look back upon those moments on that hallway as some of the most beautiful of my life....  I learned so very much on that hallway.....  Elizabeth Hall is found within the confines of a private counseling facility and the day I walked onto that hallway and heard the doors lock behind me was the first day of my life that I felt truly safe.....

There was a chapel at the center and I went there every day... I would sit facing the stain glass windows and sit on the wooden pew and I would sing... sing for hours.. sing my heart out... words having failed me I would sit and I would sing and I would place my life before my Lord... so much unknown... so much needing to be walked out... so much lingering... so much doubt...

As my time living at the center would come to an end I would enter out patient treatment... oh what had brought me there...  oh friend...  that will be another time.. but those times are coming where those stories will be shared.....  At the completion of my out patient time the leader turned to me and shared her heart about how in my willingness to share with the other women and men of the program I had changed lives.. her included... in my willingness to talk about things that people don't like talking about I opened an on ramp for others to be able to do the same thing....

And that takes me to the present......  I stood in church and watched... I watched the room explode as a cloud of the presence of the Lord filled the front.. I looked at a man sitting across the aisle and watched as the Lord ministered to him... I felt the Lord in the room as He moved from person to person and I listened as the pastor spoke words of freedom and healing...... There were times where I would have closed my eyes and not wanted to have seen these things.... but today ... today was different... today was continuing a process of me embracing that which I am... a child of God... a child of God who delights in the unseen reality that surrounds us ....

I saw a distance in front of me one that I probably needed to talk to but how.... how to bring about a conversation that might be awkward and might be hard....  isn't it better to walk the status quo and keep the peace... so much of that thinking had kept me in a prison of a different kind and took the locked hallway named Elizabeth to set me free.... Ironic isn't it?

So I sat there and realized that authentic living is full of truth and grace and love..... and then prayed for an opportunity to speak to the gentleman that I needed to.... awaiting that opportunity but knowing that it will happen I put my trust in Father....

Now to the last point....  as the evening settles upon me .. this first evening of the new year I thought through the day.... I love my church ... Renovatus Church in Charlotte, NC and Fort Mill, SC has been an extraordinary place of life and hope and nurturing...  Today concluded a visit with my husband's parents who are very genuine and kind people who I love very much, today also concluded the visit of one of my dearest friends and her daughter .. their presence brings great life to me.... today we had lunch with friends who encompass a vision and desire for ministry and life in God that is more beautiful than words could ever fully express...

 Today has been a day... and sitting at the end of it...  I realize that I am becoming more of who I was always made to become... Seeing the majesty of God move about a room and willing to step into it and partner with it and watch and acknowledge the unseen realities that surround us....  authentically enter in and live within relationships... expressing weaknesses (not being afraid of them) and acknowledging strengths (without becoming puffed up or proud) ...being that which I am and acknowledging that which I am not....

2012 ... well, the 18 hours of her has been so very interesting.... people, times, pictures of past things and the Lord .... Feeling like the journey of 2012 will be one of becoming more and more of who I am... looking back and stepping forward I acknowledge where I stand .... and this place... this place is a place of wonder and excitement and joy.....  Delighting in who I am and who the Lord has made me to be in ways I have not been able to embrace I want to encourage you to step into life.... speak.... act... be bold... be brave... be you..... and live... live life.... live your day.... live your day the way you would live it.. not as others would have you .... or as you would think you should.... discover yourself.... it is a most beautiful discovery.....