Monday, January 5, 2015

The Answer of a Continued-Asking {{a soul's communing}}

They were so hopeful-
hearing of just how low the wind was going to plunge our temps this 
morning...

"can you check again, Mom?"
"We'll have a snow day, I just know it," 
"Another day off school would be so epic" 
{ "epic" the word of the month with one of our people.  
It weaves itself into literally any conversation and is used generously. 
Could he be my child? 
His fascination with these letter-groupings which make up our language; 
welcoming each new one as a well-studied friend, 
bringing it out into use with the flourish of a treasure displayed?  
yes. this small amazing person is mine.}

The temps dropped far, but not far enough, 
and we all bundled into this morning {early ....very early}, backpacks and lunch bags in tow. 

We took the plunge back into routine with all of these happy memories floating fresh. 
Perhaps it is in the very crook of recent rest and rythms resumed that the answers flash, 
and light shines into new places. My Father works that way.... He does.

I've been praying, asking, softly repeating my query... 
"What am I to ask You for?"
"How do you want me to pray?"
"I want to be in the place of your will with the bend of my heart, and the pulse of my soul....
Show me?"

Silence. 

His voice always comes, 
but I find He often first gives me room to simply know His presence.
He desires my communion with Him far above my doing for Him. 
Communion is conversational, a lingering. 
I know this....
I am learning this...
{Like the surprise of vibrant jungle flowers blooming under a glass roof here in frozen Milwaukee.}


Waiting.

Its is both preparatory and expectant.  

Anticipation is often the missed and hidden blessing when we clamor for answers. 

I will not hide myself behind the words typed here in this place.
I will be real with you.
I am a clamor-er.  
A veritable expert in the non-waiting posture and all associated attitudes and activities. 
I like to know where I'm headed, when and with what. 

Waiting.

It is a swim up against the strong currents of what comes easy to me, 
but who ever said easy is happy or good or best?  
Who said we were even created for easy?
Was it some slimy voice back there in the garden? - 

with a message now clinging to every human heart like an old skin that needs shedding...

And shed it does when touched by His life-giving Light.

Explore this with me for a moment:

Can you imagine that exhilarating feel of water rushing past your legs as you wade into a stream, or running through your fingers as you lean over the boat's edge? 
My daughter loves for her daddy to hold her in place 
at the bottom of our gym's water slide, "just so I can feel the waves on me"....
Imagine that.... 
or what about wind in your hair? 
 {Let's all have a Titanic movie moment here?}

Can we not learn from our own thrill-seeking selves to free fall into trust? 

This is the feel of the Holy Spirit moving us up and out and against the current of easy.
Intimidating at first, and sometimes hard, but oh always the thrill as we allow our Father to move us cross-current where all of the easy, normal, grace-missing stuff rushes past and our souls are filled, happy, ecstatic with knowing Him. 


And so I've waited against my urges to have something written in my journal. 
The birth of January 2015 came and passed smoothly.  
I asked and I waited.  
Was I listening close enough?
What was He going to lead me to?
Something solid that I could articulate to another....
The focus for this year? A scripture? A word?
{Double points for one of each corresponding to the other right? }

This morning, His answer came....
...or began to come. 

As I formed playdoh-snowballs and counted out numbers with my favorite K4 Class; Shining eyes and smiles over new knowledge grasped. Such little tiny hands....

As I picked my way over brightly crystallized rural roads, stopping at home for yoga pants and to start another load of laundry.
{It's a plunge back into routine remember...}

There were the songs in my earbuds at the gym followed by the smiles shared with strangers over fresh produce and meats at the grocery.
 {I am predictably post-Christmas-inspired towards clean eating. Can I get an Amen?}

In all of these places: these moments strung out because time envelopes me....
The One who is outside of time, but Who willingly came into time, and Who ultimately uses time for His glory...
He began to speak. 
A gentle, surprising answer to my questioning over a New Year's focus. 

He told me...
There wouldn't be one scripture, or one word. 
There will be many.  
Many words of His and from Him that will interweave the tapestry of my year. 

This year it's not about the words themselves, but about Him as The WORD, 
And about my hearing.... simply. to . hear.

That I receive, and that I record His speaking faithfulness. 
This is what He has begun to spell out in my soul.
This is His invitation into a newness of relationship with Himself where former methods of spiritual focus are no longer needed.  He is teaching me to BE with HIM.
He is that loving and good!


I have been asking, and the answer is that I will continue asking 
like a breathing in and out; 
bending my heart as the pulse of my soul presses hard into hearing. 

This is what I long for.
Communion. 
With all of it's messy realness, up-stream swimming, clamoring-prohibited-waiting...

This is what I long for....with a certainty as crystallized as the ice covering our road.
This is what I long for.... with the pounding beat of a great work-out tune.
This is what I long for.... with unfading inspiration towards clean-eating for the soul. 

Communion.
And in the very asking for it; pressing after it; leaning into it...
I hear Him.

He is giving it to me....it's right here, in the asking.

"Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.”
Hosea 6:3













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