While the Residue Remains..... Once again I Come Face to Face with How Wrong I Have Been

I think one of the things I most like about myself in these days and times that I walk is my capacity to admit wrong.......... and I was woken up tonight and I could feel like there was something on my left back shoulder blade.... To the point where I went to touch it.... Then I realized what it was as I felt the presence of His words upon my heart.....

I have relished a new strength and a new song that has entered my life within the last few years... it has only grown stronger and sweeter and louder in my ear...... because of that and because of some moments that I have encountered lately I truly felt like even the residue of that which had been my life had been washed away completely.... and while in some ways that is true in other ways I was wrong...........

Nightmares and moments of flashbacks and sounds of yesterdays no longer filter their way into my soul as to lay claim................ however I felt the Lord's heart tonight and in no way .. shape or form ever meant to diminish the work of His grace into my life by any comment I would ever make......

So let me get back to that which bears itself upon my person..... my right hand reached over to touch the top of my left shoulder and as if possible felt a branding there........ as if skin had been affected once upon a time with a hot iron......... and at the same time I felt His words..... and His affections....

I realized that that which I am and who I am to continue to become and who I was ... well, the journey of all of that is who I am...... and while I love the distance from the days gone by to think that they don't still shape me and have their influence would be wrong... and I guess because I so wanted to divorce myself from them I wanted even the residue washed away......

But I learned something about the brand upon my shoulder or the proverbial residues that remains
upon my person and so as not to ever diminish the work of God that flows into my life I learned that they are there to remind now and to the service of God..... As I lay in my bed feeling my back and absorbing that which was being spoken I realized that there are aspects of my nature that the Lord now uses for His good but that where birthed upon paths long forgotten..... and to say that the affects no longer remain would be a lie.......

I don't walk broken and shattered but there are the scars that remain... healed... and faded but they are there ....... they are within the very fabric of who I am... the way I see things, the way I experience life, the value I place upon community and people.... my passions... my hopes... my dreams... my thoughts....

To say that the residue had even been washed away is to say that for the most part the ill effects are gone... but even in that when the graces that surround me lift or I am tired... or its been a long day.... or any multiple wording of life and what it holds thrusts its weight towards me I falter and watch as fear and insecurity and questions find their way into my soul...... I guess what I say is that even upon that terrain I am amazed that I stand... and ever so appreciative that even amidst the normalcy of life and this world He has added strength into my bones and the capacity to not just have found my legs to walk but to truly live....

To say that there is no residue left is the equivalent to saying there weren't dry bones... and just out of a desire to have it be so doesn't make it so..... instead I realize that under the gaze of a most loving Father I can walk... upon what is and has been my life I journey..... and while the residue remains it services me well..... a tenacity and compassion pulsate within the fabric of who I am because I wear the residue ........... only through His grace do I stand... only through His grace is my life not just a pile of bones...

Tonight as I awoke from the lie that my heart had wanted to hold onto..... as I received His truth into my inner most parts.... as I wrote this piece.... Came the words.... came the beckoning of my Father.... Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ...... that they may live... that others can glean from whatever I have to offer.... so that the Father can have a living army ...... that is also why the residue remains... may I wear it well...........