Beyond Hopeful Dreams

I was 15 my first Christmas. For my family twinkle lights and christmas trees were out of reach. Then at 15 we began to brake free from the cult that we were raised in. My father was in prison and our family had been broken beyond our own understanding, we needed some twinkle in our lives. So I believe out of survival of our hearts my mother decided that this would be the year that we'd celebrate with a Christmas tree.  I had never seen something so beautiful before. It was covered from top to bottom with twinkle lights. Today the tree would be almost considered naked as we did not have one orgimant. To me our tree was so full of beauty. It was Christmas eve and I could not sleep for this was the first magical thing that had happened in my life that seemed so breathe taking. So with my blanket I slept under our first tree. Because of this,Twinkle trees have always carried such a special meaning for me. I can hardly wait to put one up and I am alway sad to see it come down. It is as in the moment our christmas tree goes up my heart takes flight in a beautiful hope that there is freedom in beauty, in the belief that even when all the lights goes out there is this twinkle of hope. If I could have it all my way I would have a tree up all year around, but my husband does not share in its same sentiment as I. So every year we share the same discussion of my wish and his instruction and the tree comes down. 

Last year was the first time I didn't have a twinkle tree sense I was a young lady. My heart struggled with that. We moved 1500 miles from our home just a few short days after christmas, so it was unpractical to put up a tree. Just less then a week ago God has blessed us with this beautiful home. Our first night here I looked out our bedroom window and across the expansion of dark desert lay the twinkle lights of the city. It took my breath away. There was my twinkle lights all year around. Gods pure love for me and knowing my heart so well gave me such an intimate gift. It is as if I am sleeping beneath His tree every night. My heart is in  pause of his unfettered and complete romancing of my heart. It amazes me even more that he moved us to a place where there is more clear nights and mornings then I've seen before. For as I sleep under His tree of lights at night I wake to the sun coming up over the Superstition Mountains in the morning. They lay across the whole of my bedroom window, where the sun kisses the sky with hews of peach and blue and then in the evening the sun dances ribbons of rose and purple and gold as far as the eyes can see. Yet still in the noon of the day it is quail and bunnies that play in the desert between us and the city. What a romantic playful God that he would love me so much to play on my heart his music of life and romance, freedom and blessing.

I could have never seen this beauty from where my beloved live. For this beauty is from only God who has called us according to His good plans. It is in the desert where he is making me free. I feel so unworthy, or better yet a loss of words. There seems no words that can carry the depths of his love for me across the pages to the core of your being. I just know that my Lord loves us and I love the way that he loves me. 

He Loves Me

 He Loves me 

I do not have a worldly father example of a daddies love so the journey of being fathered by God has been somewhat challenging. I feel as though it's safe to say that most of the world is lacking in being fathered. This has become a rare thing indeed to be fathered the way God designed it to be. Although I have had the privilege to see wonderful fathers at work with there own children and so from watching and desiring, how Jesus loves me is being revealed. 

It started first for me the deeper truer call of the father through the way I played. He'd call me to the edge of reality through mystery of my soul unveiling each fairly tale dream. The constant themes through out my play consisted of being wanted my by good Daddy my King father which made me a princess. But, of coarse there is never a good tale without an adventure. I wanted to be a heart a missionary who spoke to people around the world who started orphanages for children with out mommies and daddies and for little girls who needed good mommies and daddies like me. 

It was in the fair tales where Jesus fathered me. The dust devils made the perfect dance partners where the leaves would swirl around me at the end of our street. My hand sown dresses made perfect cones shapes. There I would twirl for my daddy and he'd twirl with me. I loved the clovers in the open fields. Each suckle taste of honey and it was there I make my crown and put is on my straggly bleach blond hair, I would catch the honey bees that danced from one clover blossom to the next. Then with out one sting Jesus would keep the honey bee still on my finger while I touched the pollen collected on its back legs. How He helped me discover the most beautiful fish ever. There in the Willamette River I saw the biggest fish I'd ever seen. It had been hooked but gotten away. The sun filtered through the biggest oak trees to shed just enough light in the rock cove where the light danced off it's silvery gills. I lay in my dress reaching down as far as I could go and lightly smoothed the back of this amazing fish and it did not move. There I talked to this fish for what seemed hours, where I imagined it telling me stories of it river journey.  Then with out a fright this beautiful fish swam away as if to say thank you and goodbye! He fathered me in the blades of tall prairie grass, where I learned how to call to the ducks that would fly out of the fields. I'd blow, then the ducks would call. I'd blow again then the ducks would call. This went on and on till the seasons would change. We dodged the giant blue barrie bushes where we picked for the orphans who had no food, and there we'd each eat one for my father one for me, one for my father one for me. There in my salt water sandals and my knee length dress where my toes sat on the edge of the slue, I'd share my bushel of blue berries with Him. Little did I know he was with me each and every time. He was there in the wind after I brushed my hair as if to rub the top of my head and brush my cheek with a gentle breeze, a kiss from the father. He was also with me on the play ground at school where I often played alone. We'd swing together long after the bell would ring. It was on the wooden castle he would call me down to come with him to the house on the other side. This was where I'd hide out and sing songs. This is where I first memorized a bible verse. The funny smelling woman with felt boards and red velvet everywhere had a mat waiting just for me. And, every time I missed the bus he was with me on my five mile walk home, where we'd kick the smallest rock the whole way home knowing that I would not be going to the river today. When I was so sad that the breeze did not land with its kisses, He was in the dandelion puff that made for all the wishes to come. On the long scary nights He was the father in the corner that I would see till I fell asleep. 

It has been in every single moment of my days that I know now, yet only today where Jesus was fathering me in the places where my daddy ruined how he looked at me. Jesus it still in every moment in every kiss in the breeze and in every playful imaginary thing. 

The Windows Of My Heart

The Windows Of My Heart

Through my brokenness I find myself boarding up my heart fast. For so long I lived from a place where the only way to see or hear from me was through a tiny peephole in which a single beam from the outside world would trickle in. It was through this tiny hole God chose to faithfully visit me. It was from this tiny hole I experienced Jesus. Every once in a while I'd hear his voice and I'd know it was him on the other side. For he was the only one who would speak to me that way. Although I saw him far less then I desired in my life. The longer I stayed in my home of brokenness the more I viewed Jesus and the world through this very small perspective. Thus my view and experience of Jesus was as small as my peephole. Yet the tenderness of God only allowed me to stay this way for a little while. My understanding that Jesus faithfully visited every once in a while was incorrect in its furthest truths. There just next to my opening He'd sit waiting for me to draw near. For me this took years and he waited and waited.

As He has began to heal me through his love for me I have only started to unbind places for the Lord to enter. But, as I took down the barriers It also made away for others to enter in. There God had a community of people that are close to his heart. Never once did they look at me as broken but, rather so lovingly for the first time. This love made me want to remove more barriers then before. 

Time went by and God began to rebuild my house. Through this process I've found  that in times of deep rooted pain I frantically try to cover all the places where I'm exposed. There is no way I can board up this house for it no longer is the same. I find that I am angry, afraid, more like terrified, and hurt. Then like a depression the thought travels through my mind effortlessly saying "You idiot you should have know it all would end this way". Uh, the tug a war of the soul for the prize of my heart. Of course freedom is worth the price, but the price at times feels more then my heart can bare. 

So all this really says is that I am so small in my faith, that my understanding of Gods heart for me is limited to my exposer to him, my perception of him.  The past few weeks I've been hiding like a beaten child in the dark rooms of my heart. There through the key hole a familiar voice and light talks to me from the other side. So softly and tenderly as before He ask if he can come in again. It is not that I have chose to just shut Him out but it is everyone that I am wanting to shut out. My heart is broken and the grief is crushing me. I know that to my heart again means restoration and healing and thats what I long for. This also means that others have access to my heart. 

Not long ago a friend reminded me of the story of Peter when he denied Jesus at the time of his greatest need. The utter brokenness that Peter must have felt was tremendous indeed. I cannot help but feel that after Jesus has risen from the grave He calls from the shore to the disciples who are fishing for the sole purpose of Peters redemption. For it was Peter who said, Its the Lord and jumped in the water and swam desperately to the shore. It was on the shore that the risen Lord receives Peter and he is redeemed. 

Just the very thought that he rises from the dead and sits at the door of my broken heart time and time again waiting and calling so lovingly to me to let him in again is purely because he is in love with me. That his great love for me could not be quenched through death and fire, sorrow or time. But that he will wait only so long before he reaches in out of pure love to redeem what has been so desperately lost. It is this time of sorrow that I discover my ever living need and find that my redemption cannot happen out of my strength but through my realization of my need utter need for my fiercely devoted God who has loved me to faithfully. 

The cowering prisoners will soon be set free;

they will not die in their dungeon

nor will they lack bread

For I am the Lord you God,

who churns up the sea so that its waves roar

the Lord Almighty is his name.

I have put my words in your mouth and 

covered you with the shadow of my hand

I who set the heavens in place,

who laid the foundations of the earth,

and who say to Zion, you are my people

Isaiah 51:14-16 NIV

The Promise Of Healing

The Promise Of Healing

Last year at this time my heart grew in this weighty heaviness. As though I was standing on the edge of winter in my life. It seemed as if there was a promise of danger an understanding of danger that was lurking in the frigid icy winters. 

I set in my sanctuary room where I asked my father what it was that he wanted to talk with me about. I do not know why it is that when we hear God speak to us we think of it in small terms with out a moving epic power. I know that his words heal and raise people from the dead but, to transfer this power into my life in this real time has seemed somewhat different then the stoic testimonies of scripture. 

Good morning Lord! What do you want to say to me?

My beloved be eager in seeking me like a new love. I want to be wanted by you. 

Lord I said, show me how to love you. 

My beloved He said, you do love me.  You have boundaries on your love. 

Lord I replied, what are those?

Oh, Gloria they are your gates of fear, let down your fear and let me love you there. 

Lord, my heart knows of this place. I fear tragedy and being homeless, and loosing my child. Lord, its more then those things its the feelings and beliefs that have rode on the hems of those circumstances. The fear that I may have not herd from you and that I lead my family astray. Lord, you are the only one who can relieve my fear. What do you have for me to hear and understand? 

From your fear He said you do not know me. Have I not brought your needs thus far and loved you tenderly. When did you believe that I stopped loving you through your need. Remember stand in how I love you. I will never leave you. Glorious you are my beloved so let down the gates of fear. 

Lord I said, I give you my fear and I set it at your feet. Consume all of me Lord leaving nothing for the enemy. I believe you love and I choose to love you the way you love me. I give you my fears, my joys, my sorrows, and my delight. I take my place as the bride of your heart. Lord I love you. 

I began to write down the different ways that God has loved me and the more I wrote the more this fear began to evaporate like the warm sun shining of the chill of fog. Over 35 different way I wrote down and then I stopped. Showing it to the Lord he has said as gentle a loving father. 

Write more and more. So after many many hours of writing I asked him if that is was good and he said to keep writing. I felt confused. I opened my bible to Malachi 4:6. It was there that God commissioned a scroll of remembrance to be written. It was there that this book of the way He loves me was birthed. Could be that as we all read this that we use the power of God to trample out fear in our lives. 

It is nearly a year later and my oldest daughter who is 14 is moving away from me to live with her father. My heart broken under this crushing weight of that which is the desire of her heart. Could I let her have this redeemed man that God ordained to be her father bestow on her the eyes of a father that I never have seen. I could not keep her to my self for fear.  So with all the power of the Holy Spirit of God I release her to her father to experience the love of an earthy father. All the while this book is nearly finished. We have been just a breath all along from homelessness and God has never left us alone Just like he promised!

Come to me all you who are weary and burned and I will give you rest

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me

For I am gentle and humble in heart

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me

"You will find rest for you souls 

You will find rest for you souls~Aaron Shust