Regret is too light a word.

Sometimes I just wonder if I've made all the wrong decisions all this time. I feel like I've lost everything. Everything I barely had. I don't know what to do.

Yet I know that You work all things for my good. Because I do love You..and I am called according to Your purpose. You will finish the work You have begun. You are true to Your promises. Nothing can thwart Your purposes in my life. Nothing can separate me from Your love. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. Oh keep my eyes on You...keep my heart and mind steadfast on You and wrap my heart in Your peace. Give me faith to trust what You say. Let Your words loom larger than my circumstances. Let me find rest in You. Saturate me in Your presence and fill me with Your Spirit. I need You.

maranatha

Jesus...You said you would come back again one day. Today would be good. Or any day shortly hereafter.

The edge of the Jordan

That day in September did end in joy somewhat. Not what I wanted it to be, but something nonetheless. I left with peace. Since then, I've thought it was hopeless and over so many times yet it came back and forth. I've continued to pray for restoration. I've waited and made my decision to step out in faith and move based on Your promise. For a while, nothing happened and I thought that maybe I wasn't supposed to be there...maybe I would go back to Egypt. And then, all of a sudden, You begin to open doors. Although, the words have been spoken that what I long for will never happen...yet whose word should I believe? Your promise or the faulty word of man? Take my actions in moving as faith in Your promise. Help my unbelief.

 I feel as though I was in captivity in Louisiana. I spent so long feeling stuck there. Yet, during that time, I grew so much in knowledge of You. I grew so much in trusting You and following Your voice. It was my Egypt. Like Israel growing in numbers....my faith and spiritual maturity grew larger. Then my Promised Land became known....I was ready to go! Ready to take it and inhabit it. But like Joshua and Caleb...I discovered that my readiness wasn't matched by the other party. So I've been in the wilderness. Halfway between Egypt and the Promised Land. You've sustained me with manna in this wilderness. I've grown even closer and deeper in understanding and dependence on Your provision. Now the time has come to cross Jordan and begin taking Jericho. You led Your people in...You didn't leave them in the wilderness forever....You never change. Come bring me into my Promised Land. Bring me in to take it and inhabit it. Fulfill the promises You've made. Bring to pass the visions You've given me. Don't delay. Bring me home.

Agony of hope

I hear the word never. I see the impossible circumstances. Yet, I feel confidence in Your word of restoration. I'm afraid to believe because I'm so afraid of hoping and believing in something that I want to be true and afraid I'm reading into something. Yet, when You've spoken it hasn't been something I've been looking for...it's been something from an outside source that has nothing to do with my situation. Last night, Mark reminded me what it was like to hear the word of the Spirit..that as you grow in Christ you begin to recognize His voice. You know when He highlights something in your spirit. Then this morning, as I loaded the truck to leave, I was playing the worship podcasts on shuffle and I said, it would be nice to come back in with a word from You playing, and the minute I stepped back in the door, what Kevin was saying was that God will fulfill every word He's spoken. "The things that You have spoken WILL come to pass." Double restoration when I have prayed for my friends? The next one will be the one? Everything is about to change? You will bring me into my own land? You will clean me from my rebellion? You will sprinkle me with clean water? You will put Your Spirit in me in greater measure? For me to aim for restoration? Indeed many of these things You have already begun to accomplish. Father, let this day end in joy. Restore and rebuild and reconcile today, Lord.

John 6

Jesus You walk upon the stormy sea of life. Would you come and walk in the midst of my storm? Jesus, come put Your feet everywhere there is tragedy and grief and calamity and anxiety and uncertainty and fear. Speak Your words in my storm..."it is I, do not be afraid."

The Blood

Nothing but the blood of Christ can make us whole again. Not just from our sin and our failures but make us whole from the sin of those who have failed us. The healing in His wounds covers all sin in my life. It heals all scars...the self-inflicted ones and those I have no control over..that others have done against me.

Angry

May this weekend pass quickly.

Pruning, Acceptance, Rejection

I feel as though the Lord has been pruning and disciplining. In this relationship I have treasured, He has cut back what has grown in the last year. Pruning is difficult. It is painful. I feel the weight of that. When you are in the midst of the pruning and the discipline it looks as though you are being killed and destroyed. It feels like God is taking away the very thing that is valuable and worth something in your life. Yet, the word says that He prunes away in order that you may produce more fruit. So I pray that He would bring a greater harvest and restoration in the very place that He has cut and torn away.

Part of the pruning has shown me how I have grown attached and fed on the acceptance I’ve experienced in this relationship. I must find my acceptance only in Him. When we seek acceptance from someone and don’t get it, then we feel rejection. When I am seeking acceptance all the time I end up on a rollercoaster of emotions…when I get some acceptance I am happy and hopeful…then I experience either rejection or simply a lack of affirmation and I am depressed and discouraged.

 Jesus never entrusted Himself to man’s opinions or acceptance….and He was emotionally stable and steadfast. He knew and completely relied on the Father’s acceptance and love. I want that. Jesus withdrew many times to be alone in desert places and there He was renewed. There He got direction and confirmation on what He should do. There lies the secret. Abiding…keeping that relationship at all costs.

I read in My Utmost about how self-consciousness upsets the completeness of the life in God. “It is never God’s will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs rest in Him must be cured at once, and it is not cured by being ignored, but by coming to Jesus Christ. If we come to Him and ask Him to produce Christ-consciousness, He will always do it until we learn to abide in Him.”  -Oswald Chambers

I long for this Christ-consciousness! I long for Your acceptance and love to be what rules my heart and my emotions. Keep my eyes on You so I can relate to everyone around me with confidence and with Your love.

Pearls

I started re-reading Dealing With The Rejection And Praise Of Men by Bob Sorge. Already, being reminded of so much!

First of all, how pearls are formed. Something that creates irritation and trouble becomes something of great value. In James 1, the author talks about how trials lead to maturity and completeness. In 1 Peter it speaks of how trials are producing in us a treasure more precious than gold. So, we can let God use the pains of this life to produce in us a treasure beyond our imaginations. The pain is an opportunity!

In Acts 14 the apostles teach how we must enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations. And in Revelation, the holy city's gates are made of pearls. Interesting that that was the choice of material is it not?
Finally, in Matthew 13 Jesus compares the kingdom to a merchant who finds a pearl of great value and sells everything he has to purchase this one pearl.

There are two parables right there....one saying that kingdom is like treasure in a field that someone finds and then sells everything he has to buy the field where the treasure is hidden. Followed by the one about the pearl if great price. One says the kingdom is like treasure in a field...one says the kingdom is like a merchant...Because on the one hand we discover that Jesus is a wonderful treasure and we give everything to have Him. And on the other hand, He values us like this pearl. And He gave everything to have us.

Rapture

I find myself constantly aware of the door. I know a surprise visit is very unlikely. A visit at all is not terribly likely. But my heart refuses to accept it. I may not sit at the door and watch but I am constantly thinking about what could be. I realized that is how we should be with Jesus' return. To be the lovesick Bride of Christ...with the constant awareness in the back of our minds and a longing in our hearts for Him to step through those clouds and take us to be with Him. But with Him...we KNOW He is coming because He said so. It is a great instruction to my heart...this is how ready our hearts should be for His return. Continuing with our daily work as we go about our lives, but always ready to drop everything and run to Him.

Faithful is the Lord

http://thegatheringplace.podbean.com/2012/06/25/worship-6-24-12/

Every song spoke to me today. The Lord is faithful.

Fortunes and walking without fainting

The Lord has fulfilled His word and promises...Or at least I see the beginning of the fulfillment. This morning as I return to sitting before the Lord as is my custom...I've some thought of how when I'm not in such pain and dire need that I might not seek the Lord as passionately. But that is what walking and not fainting is about. When the pain is so consuming that you can do nothing else but fall upon the Lord and cling desperately to Him...it's almost easy to be focused on Him. You have to for survival. It's on the days when you are emotionally okay that you have to do the walking and not fainting...where you put yourself back in the secret place and seek His face just as passionately. It's in the times of the mundane and the routine that you prove what you learned in the crucible...how desperately you need Him and how satsfying His presence is. When you are in the fire, sometimes you can't do anything else but sit before Him. When you are okay, coming back to sit before Him is proof of your love for Him. That you treasure the moments when you had nothing else and He is everything. And now you willingly put away everything to just be with Him.

Taste and see that the Lord is good!

Only a season

Well...The battle was not mine. I felt like I did the right thing. Now I'm miserable. But I'm not alone in it. This will only be a season I pray. I must let go and let God choose.

Where do I find my joy?

A text from someone I used to find great joy in. I wasn't expecting it so at first my heart wants to be excited or happy...to feel some positive feeling. But I immediately turned to worship. To singing about who God is and that He is for me. I don't want to put any of my joy or happiness in hearing from this person. Or any person...or any hope for the future other than hope in my Father's plan. The only one who will never leave, never forsake, never break a promise, never change His mind, never turn away...is my Lord. The only one truly safe to trust is Him. My heart is fragile right now especially. I can't survive and find joy in anything else. Because everything else will disappear at some point. Only my Father stays forever.

Identity

Struggling with the judgment of men. They would say whether or not I am righteous..whether or not I am in the Lord...whether or not I am light rather than darkness. Their judgment is based on things they can see. The Lord looks at the heart. I definitely believe that the heart will work its way out and affect the outward life as well. No question about that. There must be good fruit if the tree is good. The problem I have is with a checklist on a decision card. Putting God into a religious box of your making and saying whether or not there is any validity to a spiritual life based on your human perception. I dare you to ask the Lord what He thinks of me. I dare you to ask the Spirit if He makes His home in me. And I challenge myself by the same token...when I come to a person...do I go to God first and get His opinion on who the person is? Do I look at them through the lens of who God says they are? God sees and knows all. The inner motivations...the heart desires..the weakness and frailty...the inner core strength that we only see proven in the worst of fires...and even then, oftentimes we don't know everything. So I both challenge others in how they judge me and I challenge myself. Make your judgments based on the wisdom and insight given by the Spirit.

Jehoshaphat

I've felt so strongly about making this particular trip since Sunday...I really wanted to hear the word of the Lord on what I should do this morning. I went to the Word...then went to listen to the podcast of daily worship....Kevin read the story of Jehoshaphat. He spoke of how dire the situation was. What a mighty army they were up against that they had no hope of beating on their own. And they gathered and said...we don't know what to do..but our eyes are on You. Which is my heart cry today. And as they gathered together to pray and seek the Lord...a prophet spoke up and said from the Lord..to not be afraid of this vast army. Because the battle is not yours but the Lord's. Tomorrow go down against them and take your stand and see the deliverance of the Lord. To be still and see that He will fight for you. And the next morning there was a mighty deliverance. As they went out though they sent the worshippers ahead of them...so I am spending my day strictly praising you...not working out arguments in my head. Not even asking God to move. Simply praising You and trusting that You will fight for me. This word is so specific. I don't know how else to take it. Please continue to speak.

Caught between two seasons...or two storms...

Tears. Grief. Desperate prayers. A plan forms. Not a hard and fast plan...just a general construct. Waiting on many variables. I can't know the future. No way of telling what will happen. God give me clarity in this moment. Make my steps clear! There are two very different paths. I feel as though I'm sitting back and letting God decide. Which one opens to me... I don't want to lose one. Yet maybe I already have. I don't want to run to the other unless it's right. Either way, I won't be staying here forever. Or even much longer at all.

I've prayed for my friends. Now for the promise. Double? Twice as much? How will it come? What will it look like? I need your wisdom and clarity. You choose, God. I don't know my way forward. Just give me your best. Just give me You.

Moments of beautiful

The creek behind me full of water from the rains we've had. The path cut through the tall grasses. Tall trees on 3 sides and a house on a hill barely seen through the branches. Above me the sky is gray and overcast...barely seen flecks of blue. It's not at all dreary. The intricacy and variety of nature...the multi-shaded bark of a nearby tree...the constantly changing sky....My heart is captured by the wonder of Your creation. As I stand surrounded by the things You have dreamed up and spoke into being...I am caught by the fact that you know every leaf. You know every blade of grass. You know the tiniest grain of sand caught by the flood waters and spun downstream. My heart is lifted to You...

And I call You Maker...This beautiful creation. You crafted it. You spoke it into being. I will never understand or be able to learn everything there is to know about it and You know it all intimately. Everything the smartest among us will forget. And it came from You! You are the Source of all Life. And if this fallen creation is so captivating...what must the garden have been like?

And I call You Savior....What we destroyed...the perfect harmony You created..Yet You have made a way for us to be restored. Not just us as humans to be made right with You..but You will restore creation! What delight is in store for those who take delight in You!

And I call You Mighty...standing beneath the expanse of sky I am in awe of Your power. You are vast. I limit You by my human imagination.

And I call You God

I call You Father... As vast and incredible as You are...as awe-inspiring as Your creation...as small as I feel when considering Your wonders...You did not just make me. You are not just my creator. You are my Father. You have a loving relationship with me. You care for me. You give me good gifts. You listen to me. You hear me when I cry and come to my rescue. You are intimately acquainted with all my fears and hurts and You are patient with me. You have compassion like a good father has compassion on his fearful children. Your intimate love captivates my heart

And I call You faithful...You will never change. You are my constant. When people fail me. When they turn away. When they break faith. When they break their promises. When they are untrue. You are faithful. You never fail. You never leave. I can trust You.

I call You everything that I've got...And because I am Your child..everything of Yours is mine! I am a co-heir with Christ! What a marvelous mystery. I have been adopted! You have made me Your own. I am not a slave in Your house..I am a daughter of God! A daughter of the Creator God!

And I call You Jesus...No other name saves. No other name is sweeter than my Beloved. He is more lovely than all who surround Him. As lovely as this creation, You are far more beautiful.

And I call You healer...even in this moment...the hurts of the recent weeks are dimmed compared to Your revealed beauty. Your presence is my healing.

I call You Mercy...I am so insignificant. But You have mercy on me. I don't deserve Your revelation. I don't deserve the breath in my lungs. But You breathe into me and You call me closer.

I call You mine...You are everything I need. You are the only thing that truly satisfies. Every thing I could want is just a reflection of what I need in You. My desire to be loved...Your love is greater than all! My desire for security...no one could make me more secure than to be in the palm of the Creator God who is also my Father! My desire for companionship and community...You are the friend who cannot even be separated from me by death!

And I call You One who always will come through...I stand with all my prayers and fears and requests. I bring them to You because You are my Father and You want to hear them. You want to hear from me. In this moment I'm not even worried about how things will turn out. I just know that You know..and You will do what is good. You will do what is perfect. Because You are perfect. You are good. You will always come through. Your promises are Yes and Amen in Christ. Every promise You've given me is assured.

You are the Lord who captures my heart....Yes. My heart is truly captured. I stand surrounded by Your creation. My heart set on You. My arms lifted to the sky. And I sing...

Inspiration and lyrics from I Call You by Rita Springer

Fallen Eden

Since God has said the restoration will come after I pray for my friends...I've been praying. Going through my fb list and praying. Especially for marriages and relationships and families. For parents to be spiritual leaders and impart a godly heritage. For guards to be set around marriages. That they would not just be faithful to each other but would truly have the fulfilling and satisfying marriages that God intended. For families to reflect Christ.
There are so many of my friends who are newly married or engaged or welcoming new babies to their families. But I'm discovering more than I thought who were married but now those relationships appear broken. I don't know how or why...they're just single again. It just completely broke my heart. It should not be this way! Love is supposed to be faithful! It is not supposed to lie. Or to leave. It is not supposed to turn to another.

I feel so broken for the brokenness of this fallen world. Marriage is to reflect the faithfulness and mystery of the love between Christ and the church. But it does not. Fathers are supposed to reflect their heavenly father as they love their children. But so many do not. It burdens my heart. For all the lonely and broken lives. It was not meant to be this way! I've never felt such a burden to cry out for God to bring His kingdom to bear in our lives. To bring His kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Not just for my own brokenness. But for the lonely and rejected. For the orphan. For the widow and the divorced. For all the abused and broken. Who trusted and were betrayed. How can they know the faithful love of the Lord if they don't see faithful love in us? How can they trust the Trustworthy One when we can't be trusted and we bear His name? God forgive us. For taking love so lightly. For taking our word so lightly.

Journeys and novels

I've been on quite the quest lately. In a new place this morning....I was so claustrophobic around people. I just had to get away. Put on some worship and teaching from the Gathering Place in Pineville, LA and had a little end of Redeeming Love moment. I think I just felt such an overpowering of religion and religious things and pretense and works that I wanted to strip everything away and just find Jesus. Just feel the Comforter. When I was back home before I made the career moves of last year that took me away from home...I remember thinking how much I would miss the leadership of my church family. God spoke to me through a song..

No sweeter name than the name of Jesus...
No sweeter name have I ever known...
No sweeter name than the name of Jesus..
You are the light to my heart and my soul...
You are the light to the darkness around me..
You are the hope to the hopeless and broken...
You are the only truth and the way...

And the Lord said...I am the light...I am the hope...I am the same everywhere. It's not the people. It's Me.
As much as I miss the sweet fellowship..today especially...I know that what I really need is still available to me..He is here.

Just another day...

When I was back home in Dry Creek...I still felt isolated. Alone in the woods without the prospect of a prince charming or a career doing horsie things. I learned to breathe and to live. I learned to worship You in my pain. I learned to declare truth over my soul. Then my prince charming reached out to me from 17 hours away...You told me he would come. And that everything was about to change. Now it feels like nothing has changed. You used him and my lost job and my desire to work with horses again to get me here. 10 hours away from my beloved animals and family and friends. 6 hours that might as well be a lifetime from my best friend. As I read about Job and the trials Bob has walked through and what he has learned....I see how You have possibly brought me here to bring me to a new level of dependence. Job became isolated in his trials. No one understood what he was going through. No one could relate. No one could make it better. But through that isolation You prepared him for a revelation of You that changed him forever. I still have great hope when I read the end of the story. You restored his fortunes in this life. I am desperately clinging to You...until You heal me. Then I know You will bless me and change my name. Give me a new identity even. You have told me twice that You will restore to me double. The second time You said this would happen once I had prayed for my friends...You intercede for us Jesus...teach me how to do the same.

I'm tired. I'm impatient. Life doesn't go the way I want. Even while I complain about it, I know my dreams aren't over. I know that my present situation is going to be okay. Just right now I'm miserable.

I feel my pride and stubbornness forming a wall in my heart. I don't want that. If there is more of God for me to experience, and of course there is since He is infinite....then I don't want to limit it to a box of my own making. Or of my own heritage. Jesus is above and beyond what I can conceive. I pray God tears down the walls of pride in my heart.

I'm open. I don't know what to do...besides keep my face towards Him and ask Him to show me more.

Just as soon as I finished writing the previous post, I went to listen to the podcast from my family back in Louisiana....incredible

From Isaiah 64:

"Oh that You would rend the heavens and come down....
When You did awesome things that we did not look for, You came down...
No eye has seen a God besides You,
who acts for those who wait for Him"

"He does act on behalf of those who wait for Him"

"waiting on the Lord is always intimately connected with faith"

"an expectation or a longing for God to bring something He has promised"

from 2 Corinthians 1

"for all the promises of God find their Yes in Him.."

"Whatever is a burden on your heart...God is faithful and He DOES act for those who wait for Him..."

He is faithful to complete His work in us...

Rejoice in hope!
Be patient in tribulation!
Be constant in prayer!

Jesus thank you for faithfully speaking to me! Confirming Your promises and Your care.

If faith can move the mountains...let the mountains move...
We come with expectaion...waiting here for You....
You are everything You promised...Your faithfulness is true...
We're desperate for Your presence...all we need is You...

A couple years ago God gave me a word about someone I was (and still am really) praying for. I had such a burden and deep desire to see this friend come to know the Lord. He was going into harm's way as well and it struck me how he was already in the way of the wrath of God by not responding to the Father's love shown in Jesus. This terrified me. I found myself wishing that I could somehow step between the wrath of God and him and begging God to have mercy. Zechariah 9 came to me during that time. I didn't go looking for it. I just happened to read it. And it was one of those neon light moments, you know? One verse says "Because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will release your prisoners from their waterless pit." It was so clear. It still resonates with me today. The next verse says "Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double." Sunday during church, before this storm had really hit, I read this passage in Zechariah again. So it was fresh on my mind.

 Fast forward to now...A different agony is gripping my heart. I've learned so much over the years about waiting, about being patient with things that seem to be withheld. About trusting God when I don't see the way and I don't have any hope left. When I am so afraid of disappointments. I know I'm more like Him now, but I'm still frustrated with the present setbacks. 

My heart has been wanting to just abandon the situation I'm in and go somewhere else. I'm so tired of fighting this same battle. Those thoughts have crossed my mind before but not for a while. At those times some lyrics from Sara Groves' "Painting Pictures of Egypt" has crossed my mind.

I don't want to stay here.
I don't want to leave.
It feels like pinching to me either way.
And the place I was wasn't perfect, but I had found a way to live.
And it wasn't milk or honey, but then neither is this.
I've been painting pictures of Egypt.
Leaving out what it lacks
The future feels so hard and I wanna go back..

So when I came to the word the other day, I was in Jeremiah. And I read in chapter 42:

"Do not fear him, declares the Lord, for I am with you to save you and to deliver you...
I will grant you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and let you remain in your own land. But if you say, 'We will not remain in this land,' disobeying the voice of the Lord your God and saying, 'No, we will go to the land of Egypt, where we shall not see war or hear the sound of the trumpet or be hungry for bread, and we will dwell there'...
If you set your faces to enter Egypt and go to live there, then the sword that you fear shall overtake you there...the famine of which you are afraid shall follow close after you...."

Pretty sure that means I am not supposed to change things right now. But wait. Trust. Believe what He has said.

What adds to the frustration lately, is the fact that every time I get on fb it seems like someone else is engaged or married. Or wishing their spouse a happy birthday or anniversary. Or welcoming a new baby.

Then I read Job 42:

"I know that You can do all things,
and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted....
the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before..."

I felt like specifically I should be praying for those friends that are newly engaged and married. Twice as much? Sounds a lot like that promise of restoring double that I received a couple years ago. I love the way the Lord speaks consistently and clearly. I cling to Him for sanity and clarity. Otherwise I would never make it in this wait.

Obviously I am not good at keeping up with this yet. :)

I was thinking the other day about a priniciple I remembering learning on a kids show years ago. They talked about how a family or group of people draw closer to each other when they draw closer to Christ. The illustration was of a family being represented by dots on a circle and Jesus being in the middle. As each person on the circle moved closer to Jesus it made the circle smaller and therefore they became closer to each other. Today when I was thinking about this...I thought about how when you are all the way up to the center of the circle you kind of look through the middle, through Jesus in this illustration, when you look at the person on the other side. Doesn't it change how you view someone when you look at them through Jesus? It does. If I filtered everything I thought about someone through who Jesus is and what He has done, it would change how I treated that person. Then I thought about the people even closer to you on the circle. The ones right on either side. Sometimes we can show greater impatience and less Christ-likeness to the people closest to us. Maybe because we are so close to them that we have to lean in to Christ a little bit more to look at them through His eyes. Just a thought. Probably a silly illustration. But why not? I'm sure sillier things than that have been posted today.

And so it begins...

It's been a while since I've had a blog so I have yet to see whether I will actually keep it up. I'm not advertising this or hoping for comments, views, or readers. This is an outlet more than anything. Recently my boyfriend told me that He felt the Lord say He shouldn't be in this relationship. I know we haven't been honoring Him in everything and so I feel as though we need to reset our relationship and refocus it on the foundation of Jesus. But as of now, I am single and away from family and friends. I looked forward to telling my man about my day. All of my friends are married with kids and I can't really call them every night to be like hey what's up can I tell you about my day? Kinda awkward eh? (I've been hanging out with a cool Canadian chick...it's rubbing off a tad) I speak to the Lord all day as things are happening so I want some other way to capture and reflect on my day. I journal but this will be something different I think. I tend to just write as I think so no one should read this and expect great literature. :) Anyway, that will do as my introduction and beginning. Here goes nothing...