Your Heartbeat

The winter is past;
the rains are over and gone.
Flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come.
Song of Solomon 2:11

The strain of winter had me almost paralyzed. It was the longest winter of my life. The snow drifts lurked overhead and even blue skies couldn't be found. My heart had been driven into the cold hard embankment. I sought Your face and Your face I could not see. All hopes and dreams had vanished in the blizzard. The silence of the fallen snow was deafening. But I knew I was not alone. You had never abandoned me in winters past. I had learned to trust Your heart with yesterday’s heartaches. So I listened intently, one more time, for Your heartbeat once again. In the midst of heavy solitude I began to hear its faint rhythm. I know You. I know Your heartbeat. You would never leave me alone. No matter how abandoned I felt.

How many times had Your heart rescued me before? Countless, I suppose. Only You could keep record. I hate the winter! All signs of life removed and kept from sight. Where do You store the flowers of summer days gone? Where do You store a little girls dreams when winter pries them out of her hand? Dreams of a Knight in shining armor and children happy and whole playing around her apron. Her hopes for life full and joy within reach. Where do they vanish?

I heard your heartbeat in the depths of the silence, and I was reminded it beats in communion with mine. Memories of Your faithfulness begin to surface and heartbeat speeds and oxygen is deeply breathed in. Out of the deepness of soul my heart gives way and sound presses forth until lips are singing. Melodies of trust and notes of surrender are once again released into the atmosphere of bitter cold. Faith again emerges and I am left undone, standing before The One who is unseen. No longer am I going against the grain of the universe, but rather, I begin to sing wildly in unison! It is You who stores the dreams of little girls. It is You that pries them out of old man winter's hand!

Winter has served its purpose and hard lessons are learned through the drudging of snow. White powder melts into streams of living waters and winters bareness gives way to springs meadow. As I surrender myself to the strain of winter blast, I am allowed to harmonize with heaven's keynotes. It takes eleven tons of pressure to tune a piano. It takes remembering Your heart to tune mine also. Faith requires tension. It is the tension of faith that releases the melodies of heaven. When I surrender to the memories of You a melody of heaven's finest fragrances are unleashed. Alluring raptures and earths flowers burst forth wild with harmony.

The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the time for singing has come! The time for singing has come!

Dew of Heaven

It's always darkest before the dawn. So the suggestion, is to hang on... the break of day is coming. Sometimes it's the longest wait. The hands on the clock have broken but not as severely as the fissure across the heart. It's a desert type of fissure. One with bareness and dreams all having bled out. One that gave up hope back in Egypt somewhere.

Sitting in the darkness, begging light be...I hear the song of birds. Have they lost their senses? It's not even daylight for heavens sake. Why do they sing in the dark...let alone in the darkest of darks? Man discovered the answer. It is referred to as Sonic Bloom. It's in those pre-dawn moments God created the birds to sing. As our feathered friends release their melodies upon the earth all of earths vegetation opens it's mouth wide and heaven drops in an extra measure of nutrients and moisture to sustain it through the trials of a new day. Where birds do not sing, vegetation is anemic. The more the melody... the more extravagant the fruit.

Is it not the same for you and I? In the midst of the blackness, with darkest shadows over heart, is it not here we "know" we should be singing? Count it all joy when you face dire troubles? In everything, give thanks? Even in the darkness, give thanks, making melody in your heart. The choice is ours. The choice is ALWAYS ours! I choose to open wide my mouth and let my praises float heavenward. As the notes rise from an offering of sacrifice I feel a strange sensation run across my heart. The desert fissures are ministered to by the Great Physician as he drops in an extra measure of moisture and nutrients so desperately needed for my healing.

As I choose to sing, even in the darkest hour, my soul is nourished with the dew of Heaven and the fruit of my life develops a sweetness it has never known. The more the melody...the more extravagant the fruit!

Full Circle

I wake to a quiet and still hallway this morning. The rooms are empty of life and movement. Only me here. The first season of "quiet" I have had in over 24 years. The last season I wore pregnancy like a canvas. Shoe size went from a 7 to a 10. The blistering Dallas heat had every cell of my being swollen beyond recognition. It was August of 1987 and my first born made her debut. Soon to follow were her two younger sisters. Hallways became full of life and movement and giggles.

When I readied to leave our home of daughters and babies, I caught my youngest fighting back tears. She holds in her arms our 10 week old boy of blue. We have never done blue before. He is a treasure! He will no longer be found in my arms in the evenings...but rather 2 hours down the road, further than my arms will reach.She is happy that her dad and I will be reunited after having lived apart for 7 months. But she grieves the distance between my eyes and her boy's eyes of blue.

As I drive down the turnpike that separates our homes I reflect on the sense of deepest satisfaction, when I too held my newborn up to my mother's gaze. There was something stirred deeply within me as I watched the eyes of my mother take in the beauty of what I had created. I delighted in her delight of my little miracle. I was her miracle and now I invited her to partake of mine. It was a divine completeness, we had come full circle.

As I drove past the toll booth is when it hit me. How You magically overlay all of life with pictures of Your love and the gospel. The deep sense of truest LIFE must be as You watch those that you have created find delight in Your Eternal Boy of Blue. Our eyes lock His and we are undone with His beauty. There is divine completion...divine wholeness. As one miracle becomes overcome by The Other the divine circle of life is complete. Your eternal purpose for having created the cross is satisfied. Nothing more delights Your heart than for mine to be raptured by His! There could never be a greater miracle!

As you watch my eyes fill with liquid pools and I try to articulate this overwhelming state of gratitude for having been given the undeserving invitation to gaze into His crystal blues..I am undone! Words are futile...and it's when my eyes catch Yours...I realize they aren't even necessary. Your eyes are satisfied. The divine has come full circle.