Kings

Kings

The wildness of God beckons to the places in me that cause me at times to grip the sides of life with white knuckles. For to the depth of his calm and tenderness there is a side to Him that is just as much wild, dangerous and cunning. 

My husband and I have been parented by the church. You could say that God has given us such a wonderful gift in life as to have put us into a couple glorious churches where the light and life of God is being tapped into, where  the way to pure water has been found. Where God abounds and religion begins to fade away. 

We were called away from our homeland to come and love a people that was hard for us to love. Of course when God calls us into something we nearly always picture something far less circumcising, and much smaller scope then that of God. In this case the vastness of God has me humbled and on my face in this great love he has for us, for me. 

Our paster at the church where we were first being raised in has been so generous with his time with me. Last week I poured out my heart to him on the phone for we are 1500 miles apart. The battle wounds are for curtain, deep and painful. It was like talking to a father, and as close to a conversation as an earthly father can get.  I realized in the midst of our conversation the sovereignty of Gods hand in all of this. 

It seems when God delivered me from the grip of this world, He placed me in the midst of the most tenderhearted family to heal, to be loved and looked at from my destiny not my history. Our Pastor is a good king. What we had know thus far was the leadership of a good king. A king that we could not help but love. For this king is a gift from God and because of his heart it made me want to server him all the more. So when God called us to move over 1500 miles away to serve and love another king it broke me heart. 

Our new king was a different king. His heart is broken. We were not received in the arms of a father king, the arms that we had known so well. So out of the only way we knew how to, we loved him, we began our of obedience to the Lord who called us to serve him they way we served and loved our good king. When months had passed and God began closing the doors there. My heart was so confused. Why would God call us away from our good king in the first place. It seemed like a bogus mission. 

God had began the steps long before we came to make ready our new home. God was preparing our hearts for a good king again and preparing a good king for us! There is no greater love then that of God. I was spending time with God talking to him about where I had possibly handled our mission in pride when, it was as if God allowed some fog to lift so that I could see. 

It was a dark time serving our hurting king, but it was God who guided us. His hand of sovereignty has been over under and through every move and circumstance. In the much smaller scale could I have excepted our new king with such warmth and desire for his leadership if we had not been called to serve a hurting king first? I don't think so. It was the desert that caused us to realize our deep thirst. It is the desert where we have been carried through the battle and even though we have been hit, what my heavenly father took for us was so much more.  painful. 

The kings that God has chosen for me in my life serve a deeper purpose then my understand goes. The understand of the way God loves me and his deep affection for me is what provides wisdom in how to believe and see, and his clarity provided in his perfect time tells me where to move and how to be. It is as if my King of Kings and Lord of Lords is teaching me to move and dance to the rhythm and heart beat of heaven.

Divine Lover

Divine Lover

I have herd it said that to be born is to be born into a world that was not intended for us and that is why the baby cries. I myself understand this, as many of you do as well. I was born into what would become the middle of nine children. Raised for most of my childhood in a cult and abused till I was 16. I was well aware of pain of my heart by the age of five. Where my innocents was place on the alter of hell and Satan used those closest to me to ravage what should be the beginnings of life.

Through the years of working through my broken heart I struggled to find joy in my story. I hated going to social gatherings where people would go around the table to tell sweet memories of childhood times. I always was silent for those conversations and when it came to my turn I would gracefully say that I do not have any story to share with you and gracefully bow out. Al-the while hoping that no one would pry and dig. I felt at core that I was the downer to the party the sad story to be told and the tragedy waiting to be discovered. 

For the last five years I have been asking God to restore to me what I had yet to feel "Joy ". Sure, I had moments of joy like when my children were born, and the day I was introduced as the wife of the most incredible man. But, those things were only momentarily discovered, as if heaven was calling to me telling me of a greater feeling a glorious discovery that I had yet to find. Of course like any nasty beast the enemy has been waiting ready to pounce on every signal opportunity God has ordained for me to discover his satisfying and tantalizing joy. Most of the time I would retreat to the voice that I have not reached some platform of magnificent healing, a restorative glory where breathing in and out is the echo in its self of worship. I plunged back into the darkness trudging through the pit looking for what I had not released to my beloved God that kept me from his divine gift his divine Joy. The scary and dangerous way of thinking about how joy is discovered the way I had for so many years, is there is a hidden message of that God is really holding out on you. For that one thing in your pit alludes you and thus if God really loved me he would show me and set me free to feel unending joy.

This last year had been a roller coster of unthinkable circumstances and I needed joy. I know that God loves me and his faithfulness and grace has me called blessed by my beloved Lord. But, even knowing that I am his bride, beloved glorious daughter, hare to the thrown, my joy, deep joy alluded me. I began to look at the joy meter in my home and it was below empty. I started thinking of that verse that his yoke is easy and his burned is light. I found myself thinking, "boy, I feel like I have been lugging around a brick house". I began to unload on my father. On my face one day I poured out my desire to see my family have fun. That even while in the desert we could experience the joy of God. I asked the Lord for a job to make a little fun money. I became miraculously employed as an after school art teacher. I began to make plans on how to bless my family with joy through this job that God gave me and my heart began to fill with joy. It tasted like a familiar breeze that danced on the tapestry of my heart. An echo of times gone and distance memories carved in the depths of my soul. 

God started to bring things from long ago up into my heart through my husband reading to me, or the way little children would ask me if I liked their drawing. I am beginning to remember the way God was softly and tenderly romancing me in the midst of tragedies as a little girl. 

I had blond nearly white hair growing up. Straggly because I would have rather been outside than primping and brushing my hair. I had earned enough money from weeding flower beds to buy my first bike. It was orange and had blue banana seat and a basket up front and a bell to ring. I loved this bike, for it bore for me freedom. So many times I would ride it with the wind in my hair dreaming that this was the most beautiful horse ever and that I was on my way to deliver a very important message for the king and in this journey I would be rescued by the most amazing prince who would ride with me forever. The fair tale began before I even climbed on my two wheeled steed. At the end of our street was a beautiful park where the Willamette River ran under the canopy of majestic maples thats history guarded its river banks for hundreds of years before. There its rock bank was perfect for my bare feet to cradle each stone. The evening bugs danced teasingly for the river trout that eagerly awaited there perfect meal. I dreamed of the dense woods that laid its thick mossy logs opposite my majestic beach. I dreamed of a river ferry that could take me to the castle on the other side. 

Somewhere in the battle over my heart I lost the whispers of enchanting truths that God was whispering on my heart. All along he has be calling me to a deeper story a truer identity and the desire to ride along with me. My beloved Lord has been restoring to me the joy in his romancing me in the most enchanting ways. 

So often I "we", fall victim to our circumstantial joy, romance and the longing that God has for us becomes a hidden echo of a breeze more then a longing of our heart. We at sometime in our lives decide to leave the river bank because we become convinced that there will never be a ferry boat that will take us to the castle on the other side. In the same way we shut down our heart and its call to and authentic love. We fade into the belief that if God really loved us then joy would not be so hard to find and that if we were somehow not so broken, more beautiful, smart, spiritual then all the blessings that God has stored up for us would be ours and we could breath again. 

Could it be that our God our beloved is waiting on his ferry boat on the shore of the river saying

Come my lover, let us go to the countryside,

let us spend the night in the villages

Let us go early to the vineyards

to see if the vines have budded, if there 

blossoms have opened and if the 

pomegranates are in bloom

There I will give you my love

The mandrakes send out their fragrance,

and at the door is every delicacy

both new and old

that I have stored up for you, my lover

Can you see with me? Our beloved Lord grabbing our ash stained hands wiping the tears from our face, placing on our heads a crown of forgiveness and and placing on us robes of righteousness and shoes of peace while saying: How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, Your God reigns. Calling us by a new name and bringing us to the wedding feast. While on our way he says: You were sold for nothing and without money you will be redeemed. For your maker is your husband the Lord Almighty is his name - the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer:

My heart if filled with joy at the possibilities of this romance that God has for me. This romance for you. What a glorious God that he would love us from the shore to the pit from the pit to the desert to the shore again. Where the ancient oaks guard its banks and give shade to the broken hearted thirsty travelers that are looking for joy.