Arise my darling, my beautiful one, and follow Me.

-Song of Songs 2:10














Monday, August 29, 2011

Reply To Me




Then call, and I will answer;
Or let me speak, then reply to me.
-Job 13:22



My voice is an echo that reverberates into the abyss. I strain to speak and folly falls from my lips. Pride seeps from my pores; I say I want Your will but do I truly? Am I willing to lose myself to gain life?

You are close, yet I stretch to touch You. I spin myself in circles deciphering Your direction. A thousand nights I search the sky to catch Your eye upon me. Each star blinks, coolly, secrets veiled in an inky canvas.

I know my prayers get caught in jet streams on their way up to You, a little muddled and twisted when they finally reach Your ear. Words are crossed, punctuation forgotten, it is a jumbled mess. Sometimes, I don’t even know what I’m saying when I begin my message.

Then I wait with pensive anticipation. Hoping for a response, afraid I will be left standing in my solitude. Day after day, I send my secrets in exchange for forgiveness, yet when I construct a note for You to notice me, I create it out of crystal and am afraid the edges will brush against the dust of destruction and shatter and scatter back at my feet.

You hear. You receive my words but do not give response and I continue to swell in a tide of torment.

Once. That’s all I ask. For You to roll Your voice against this tempest raging inside me and speak sanity to my soul. For an answer. Just a clue. Something to tell me I am not sailing this sea blindfolded.

The heavens cannot contain You. You give borders to unending galaxies and the angels sing of Your great glory. You are seated on Your throne, mighty, above all. How dare I demand Your presence, offering you every scraped and patched hole in my heart, digging to uncover Your depth? I am selfish, believing I deserve Your conversation. But I linger, still waiting for Your mouth to turn to me with wisdom.

The storm grows stronger in Your silence. Do not let me toss about the waves much longer, for my legs grow weary and my soul faint.


Prayer:
I know You hear me when I pray, but I feel that You are answering in silence. I know I have no right to question why You answer this way, but still I get confused. Grant me patience to wait a while You work Your will. And let me realize that even silence is communication from You, and I should be thankful. Amen.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

With Me





And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
-Matthew 28:20



You are with me.

I am in silence, in a silky black realm of reality that reaches with needy fingers for my soul. A heaviness presses against my chest, squeezing out my air of expectancy. Who am I to fight this battle, to strike out with soft palms and slap at translucent taunts that laugh when I come up empty?

I squint my eyes to see movement, any sign that I am not alone with this confusion, but my vision is muddied and outlines carve my sight. In the blur, I am begging for breakthrough.

With faltering feet, I wander deeper into my shaded hope and uncertainty prickles my skin. I am surrounded by a ripping feeling that something stirs beneath the earth.

You tell me that You are here with me, tightly tucked to my side. My hand moves to feel You but I grasp at air. Just a fistful of particles that slip between the slivers of my nails. The sky gives no light, no assurance that when I place one foot in front of the other, I will walk with stable support beneath me. You see me standing, see me claw my way through the caverns of this mystery I have tied myself to. I am looking for answers and instead find silence. I reach my voice across the slipping sounds of night, praying they do not tangle with the pleas and prayers of every other enchantment inhabiting this blue space beyond my rational mind.

You are the One who first told me to open my eyes, to dream wide awake and decipher the stars. You brushed my heart with belief and curved my course to Your sails. Walk with Me, You whispered into my ear. Talk with Me and let Me teach you how to come alive.

So I soared into starlight, colored the cosmos with Your hues and floated in fantasy. I walked through waterfalls and slept in beds of beauty untouched by mere mortal magic. You spun me golden blankets of grace; I slept peacefully in their warmth and woke with Your breath in my lungs. Somewhere along my revelry I slipped from Your strength and weakened my will with a course of my own.

Navigate me. I am directionless in this circle of solitude. You say You are here with me, have always been beneath my heart, the key to my unsteady compass. Show me. Inhabit the wind and whisper the way to my craving soul so I will feel the brush of Your mouth on my face, ruby ribbons rushing through this damp and diminishing maze of my mind.

You are with me. Deliberately cupping my heart and leading it to the dawn of dreams once again. My hands may not be able to touch You, but my soul speaks in upturned secrets that spill out from the overwhelming presence of Your map unfolding in my memory.


Prayer:
Lord, I am in a void and uncertain of where You are leading. But I remember Your promise that You are with me, that You are always with me and will never let me go. I may see patches of my path, but You hold the entire puzzle pieced together in Your eyes. You know the plan You have for me and You are watching me pursue it. Please let me stick with You, hold to the promise that if I trust, You take care of me. I am in Your arms, I am in Your will, and I know that You walk beside me, even if I cannot see Your footprints. Amen.

Monday, August 22, 2011

No Fear




There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
-1 John 4:18



Fear.

It’s a dirty word that pollutes your mind and corrodes your heart. It sticks to the bottom of your soul and lingers long after panic sets in. This is one emotion you don’t want to face head on.

But you must. You must strike it at full force, no thinking, all action. Use every ounce of confidence and say to yourself, “I am better than this.” We do, after all, have love on our side. The love of our Heavenly Father, who has conquered everything attempting to invade our hearts. He is perfect, and by His Son we, too, are made in His image. And doesn’t perfect love cast out fear? Thought so.

But here, I’ll admit something. I’m a coward. I am trapped by this tyranny and scratching at the chains binding me. I have been fearful. A lot. And it’s been building throughout the last few weeks. I’ve taken great strides in admitting out loud that I’ve been scared of a certain situation, but the heavy heart and pulsing panic still remains. It’s one thing to say I’m struggling; it’s a completely different notion to trust God to help me conquer the issue. To take the one thing that paralyzes me with cold shock and place it into His hands and say, “Ok Lord, I give it to You; teach me how to handle this,” is daunting and feels unnatural, to hope in someone else coming to my rescue.

Yet I’ve found out this beautifully complicated breath of life is a process. Where we are not merely placed at point A to point B, but along the way we are formed. Refined, forged into who we are meant to be. And this means turning our trust and faith to Him who directs our steps.

I still have the feeling that God is doing something with this fear, far beyond anything I could imagine. I know that He is pulling me closer to Him when I pull away from what has been bogging me down. Something is brewing from this drop of doubt and pouring into a beautiful blend of belief. And when it finally takes form, I’ll look at the trail this tale has taken and see nothing but God’s beautiful fingerprints along the way.


Prayer:
Father, I am fearful. There are thoughts I cling to when I should release them to You. You tell me to place everything in Your hands, yet I hold tight to the poison that will consume me if I keep letting it grow. Please take it away. Take it from me and let me put my trust in You. There is a purpose for this fear welling up inside me. There is reasoning I can’t understand but I am believing You are working for good. I turn my fear over to You. Amen.

Friday, August 12, 2011

This Weekend's Gift




Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!
-2 Corinthians 9:15



I seem to be having an out of body experience. Physically, I’m at my apartment, charged from a run and preparing for the rest of the afternoon. Mentally, however, I am sitting on a dock, looking out at a sparkling blue bay that eventually turns into the vast currents of Lake Michigan. There are sunrays staining my skin and two swans gliding through the water on the other end of the bay. The wind is singing gently through the tall grass, which sways to the tune.

There is great mystery in the music of the island, a lifestyle straight out of a movie no one believes until they experience it themselves. This weekend, I was taken captive by its magic. A friend of mine lives on Washington Island, this picturesque place in Door County you can only access by ferry boat. It’s the kind of world where everyone knows everyone, where you see someone working in one of the local restaurants, the kind that have lights strung around the room and carved wooden seats, and they ask how your family is doing. You carry on a conversation throughout your meal, and then you see them singing in the church choir the next day. Regulars who visit for the weekend or week make friendships with each other and swap stories of old, peppered with relatives who first inhabited the island. And when they depart to their lives on the mainland, there is much laughter and hugs and arms outstretched through the window in final farewell.

It’s the land of winding roads, twisting through open fields and between thickets of trees, the blue of the lake dancing around branches. Driving in the cab of my friend’s truck, knees tucked under my chin and the hum of guitar breezing through the stereo, I watched this world roll on before me while our other friend spoke of God’s beauty in the seat behind me.

We were on an exploration, a great adventure across the island and I imagined myself there, at the end of our journey, curled up on the smooth lime stones at the beach, galaxies of stars above me, deliriously happy.

And that night, as the Northern Lights twirled and stretched to Heaven, I was.

My weekend was a gift. A dreamy delight wrapped in sun and stars and crystal blues, handed to me by God. He watched me smile the whole time, the marvel in my heart and the soothing of my soul that I so desperately needed. He saw my happiness and took great joy in my revelry. This trip was where I felt God’s presence most prevalent, where each morning I sat out on the pier and quieted myself in the silence, and I thanked Him for this breathtaking treasure hunt He brought me on.

He longs to speak to you, too. To give you a personal gift that fits into the perfect spot in your heart. He wants to see you smile, see you joyfully overflowing in awe and thankfulness for the special time the two of you spend together. He wants you happy, He wants to find something that will make you feel alive, feel rested, feel completely wrapped up in a beautiful dream. You can have Him in your heart, you can listen for the quiet words He whispers when you think you’re crossed in static. And you can see the tiny, stolen moments of beauty as a present from the One through whom all gifts are made. Open up this gift, Beloved. See how it’s exactly what you’ve always wanted.

Prayer:
Father, I thank You that You take care of me and know exactly what I need, when I need it. Thank You that You restore my soul and surprise me with beauty beyond anything I could have imagined. Let me look for those magic moments when You reveal Yourself to me, and when they come my way, let me hold them lovingly in my hand and never let them go. Amen.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Worth the Wait





“What strength do I have, that I should still hope? What prospects, that I should be patient?”
-Job 6:11



Waiting.

We are waiting for an adventure, to be swept up in a swirl of story, a fairy tale with singing animals and a dashing prince to claim us as his own.

But we are timid. Afraid of all that pulses beneath our veins and afraid to want too much. When we find we are tumbling down a hill of hope, we tilt our head to the sky and watch the clouds spin together. We are childlike, barely breathing for fear one loud exhale might send the whole glass house we’re living in shattering to the ground.

So we step cautiously over the line, crossing into our vulnerability and exposing the underbelly shadows of belief. Sometimes, it is beautiful. A rainbow across the air, a smile sewn on our face. And other times, we are broken, defeated, torn with a realization that there is no happy ending in this fantasy. And we crawl under covers in the secret of our room, turn our face into the soft scent of sadness and mourn for the loss of our heart.

Why are we wired so? To long for love and seek it in the tiniest cracks of our shaking hearts? Our bodies are cool with a yearning for fire.

Yet there is a burning in us all. A raw, ripping desire to be found, taken up in strong arms and never released. To know that someone sees our faults, our quirks, the bruises beneath our skin, and turns them beautiful. Unique. Befitting to us, and only us.

We wait. Wait when the world tells us it is foolish to wish on wings of angels for something heavenly. Our expectations are too high, and if we stack them up again the weight will bring them barreling down. But the tiny torch within won’t falter, won’t lose its oxygen and fold into itself, into darkness. Because somehow, against all odds, against all reason, we are dreamers. And we sit in our towers, hair blown about the wind and belief on our breath, facing the horizon, watching for that prince in the distance, for his galloping horse rushing closer and closer. And when he dismounts, eyes upward and tangled in ours, we will know that our time in the tower is up. That it’s time to fly, feel the flush of forever on our face.

There is reality in this undaunted delight. A true castle in the sky, where a dashing Prince is preparing to profess His devotion to His bride to be.

Let’s hold hope. Hold on to the promise that the best is yet to come. There is a Man who will wait for us, who will always be captivated by our softly breathing heartstrings and the connecting corners of our soul. Who will fight for us and draw us to His side. For He desires His Beloved, and no other will do. Because He knows we are worth it.


Prayer:
Lord in Heaven, I am human. I am woman. I long to be desired and taken under the strong arms of another. My heart is hopeful, yet feebly frail. If I open it up again it just may break beyond repair. But You say that You love me. With a blaze, a fire, a forever kind of love. Please show me that You do, that You want me, specifically, personally. And let me lean on You for strength, for the love I so long for. You are beautiful, and all I ever need. Amen.

What I've Been Missing




May Your unfailing love be my comfort, according to Your promise to Your servant.
-Psalm 119:76



It’s You I’ve been missing.

I have been wanting someone to want me, care for me, love me and see me as special, and all along it has been You singing these words straight back to me.

You have been patient, endlessly patient. My mind has strayed too many times on names that never last. Though through my wandering, You’ve whispered to me a name. A Name above all names, a beautiful symphony I’d turned down the volume to.

I’ve been out of focus, focusing on someone to fill the longing in my heart that brings refreshment for a moment but never fully satisfies.

I am weak. I don’t know which crumbles quicker, my head or my heart. I am wrapped in flesh and fueled by the desire to be desired.

Yet here You’ve been, breathing on my face a promising fragrance that blooms inside my soul. You long for me to release my hopes and delicately place them in Your hands. Like a lover who has bolted out of fear, my feet have carried me far from You. Yet You pursue me through the valley and into a thicket of thoughtlessness. You untangle me from the thorns I’ve lodged into my skin and sweep up the strength dangling by the last chord of stubbornness hanging inside so I fall soundly in Your embrace.

You carry me back to where You reside, a fortress built with sturdy promises. And as I drift into a serene slumber, You brush away the dust in my heart and press Your palm into the softened space. Your imprint entwines inside me, and I gladly bear the brand of One who loves me with an all-consuming blaze.


Prayer:
Lord, You have been the missing piece to my puzzle. There is a hole in my heart that only You can fill. Please, come and consume me. Set me ablaze in Your love and surround me with the promise that You will never let me go. Amen.