Loves Best

When I quiet myself, I can hear it. There is music coming from distant shores. The land is right past my ability to see. But the sounds of heaven that billow between there and here invite me to try harder to focus. Waves separate that shoreline from mine. But, I can hear the celebration drifting across the incoming waves, as they splash and dance over liquid blue. I feel the invitation beckoning me there.

There is one. She is my hero. I have known her heartbeat up close. For countless seasons I have loved her and love her still. She too, has listened and dreamt about the music and laughter she hears from that distant land. She has stood on this same sand and listened with mystery and delight. The angelic sounds have called to her, stirring something deep within.

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but without saying a word, she has decided it is time to start making progress in that direction. I see it in her eyes when I look deep. She is hearing the music more easily from distant shores than from here where sands seem deep. I am slowly losing her as she begins to drift from here to there. How will I breathe if I can’t see her on my horizon? How will I be whole if she is just beyond my reach?

I look miles above me searching frantically, the galaxies, for something big enough to hold onto. But, the Milky Way is way beyond reach. As I try to hold in waters pouring out of eyes splashing down into liquid covered toes I see a bottle enclosed with note. It has drifted in from those distant shores. It comes with tenderness from my heroes Lover of Soul.

He is reminding me that she is on her way to home. He is wooing her to come closer to His throne. It is the invitation of a lifetime. The One she has been waiting for. The sounds that we hear drifting upon the waves cannot begin to do this far land justice. Even He finds it hard to choose words fit to describe…a land where milk and honey flow...a land where only love and joy are known… a shore where she can rest with the Lover of her soul.

It would be selfish to not want her to go. I cannot hold tight, her rope from this shoreline as it drifts out of sight. I will choose “Loves best” for her. I will not choose mine. I will choose “Loves best” for her as she slowly drifts from my shoreline. In the future I will hear more laughter as it dances on waves from the other side. I will hear her laughter louder...and through my tears I will find delight.

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.

Mending Wounds

Sitting as a professional behind my desk I simply ask for detailed information on a denied claim. The shortness from the woman on the other end is more than evident. And she is from Texas no less. I thought we might have some kindred spirit or something. But as she responds to my questions with more aggression than courtesy I feel my adrenaline kick in and before I know it I want to clarify who is the one who carries the title "Customer Service".

I pose the question with a smile and a reserve from how I truly want to respond and ask her if she is having a bad day. Immediately, her disposition changes...maybe reminded that her phone calls are recorded for training purposes. All ends well...except the conviction of why her rudeness threatens me? You have been pressing the point lately that I am to be healed in all areas.It is her wound that has pressed against mine. The wound of rejection. The bruise of not being smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, enough-enough.

The enemy specializes in using us against one another. He takes her wound of the day and uses it to strike a chord with mine..and music it did not make! I repent and remind myself that I am loved with an everlasting love and underneath are the everlasting arms. I'm called to live higher than the chords of disharmony. I'm called to be whole...to be enough. I might not understand the world of insurance claims, but I understand the Kingdom. I am the opposite of rejected. I have been bought with a price. A great price. I am valuable. I am enough.

I choose to love. I long to respond out of You and not old wounds. I choose to take the ugly moments when life pokes at those old wounds and offer them up to You once again for healing...for music.

A Window to the Soul

My mind keeps turning to Crystal. His real name is Neil, but he goes by Crystal. I think it must be his eyes. There is something very special about his eyes. It's more than just that they are crystal blue...they are inviting, mysterious and ever so gentle. Not what you would expect from someone who lives on the streets. His clothes and hygiene aren't quite as inviting. His skin and nails show lengthy neglect. But, his eyes tell another story.

I can't help but wonder how anyone who must be treated so harshly, as one who lives on a sidewalk of neglect, could still see through such tender eyes? A persons eyes are said to be a window into one's soul. I was taught that when you speak to someone it is a sign of respect to look them in the eyes. That is usually very easy for me to do. But there have been times in my life, when my heart was breaking or fogged in by a spirit of depression, that I feared to look straight into anyones eyes. I was afraid that they would see the depth of my depravity. My heart was too weary and I was much too vulnerable to let anyone peer into my brokeness. Yet Crystal looks into my eyes when I engage him in conversation. Somehow, I find myself invited into the peace and tenderness that flow from his crystal blues.

I know it's silly. But, what if Crystal isn't just a homeless person? What if we pass him by, while we scurry on our way to accomplish our to do list, and in the hurry we fly by a portal, if you will, into the Kingdom of Heaven. What if his eyes really do reflect the window to his soul? There is no reason to believe that someone who must feel so neglected by God or His children would have such a peaceful and heavenly soul. So where does that tenderness come from? What if Crystal is an angel in disguise? Or even more miraculous, one of God's children, who has been rejected by the world and it's social systems, and has yet maintained an open door into the Father's presence which overflows into his soul as peace and love.

Either way, it is a mystery indeed! Even though Crystal responds to my conversation with timidity, when he looks into my eyes I see a glimpse into eternity. I am drawn to him. I am grateful for him. I long to see what he sees.

My sweet little Millie has been in my home for over a week now. What a gift! She is now 2 months old and has brought me such delight! But tomorrow, I put her and her precious mommie on a plane, to travel back to the far side of the country.

Not exactly how I would have written the script...had I been given the chance. Actually, there wouldn't be much resemblance of my life and what would have been written in that script. In the most recent years, I have found myself, more than once, asking "who's life is this?" I suppose it would have been a funny question, had I asked it with a smile. I didn't.

I remember a few years ago having a discussion with the Lord about why my life looked and felt nothing like I had always thought it would. Don't get me wrong. I have had blessings in abundance! God has never failed me. But, many of the "key elements" of my story line, have just not been what I had hoped for, nor expected. There is something inside of me that longs for a 'do-over'.

The Lord has repeatedly reminded me that He is the master painter. I am not. It is His canvas that the picture of my life is painted on. He gets to choose the colors and textures, the shadows and the light. I heard an artist say once that he uses his imagination to come up with his creations. Then he simply paints what he imagined. I think it is the same with God. He sees the end from the beginning. I look at the canvas and can't make heads or tails of all of the various details because the canvas isn't finished yet. The colors that He has chosen seem chaotic and harsh. The strokes are haphazard and choppy. What I feel should have clarity appears to have been a wash. Where I would have drawn a border, He has drawn outside the lines.

I have been struck lately with the reality that I have spent too much of my life resisting where I am, resisting the canvas as my own. The resistance has not been intentional...but resistance, nonetheless. Without words, I have been voicing my doubt that the Father has my 'best interest' at heart. It's the same lie that has echoed through the hallway of time since the garden of Eden. The enemy doesn't have to come up with new strategies when his old ones still work so well for him.

It's not as if the Father was glancing at Mars when my canvas was selected. He was not distracted and satan got one in on Him. No...my life is no surprise to Him. It is to me. But not to the Lord of Host. The circumstances of my life have been known to Him from before creation began. He has great purpose and design and He watches with great tenderness and devotion as the details unfold. One day, I too, will see what He has seen from eternities view. I too, will see and know as I have been seen and known.

So today, I choose to embrace my canvas. I choose to trust the colors and techniques He chooses for me. I choose to believe that His heart is always centered on 'my best'. I choose to quieten my noisy soul. I choose to poise myself and lie in total trust and stillness as He paints the rest of my story. And one day, with Him, I will see the finished product...exactly like He had imagined! I know I will not be disappointed!

And tomorrow, I will put baby Millie and Jenna on that plane. As I wipe away the tears...I will be trusting that they were needed on my canvas to create just the right shade...just the right detail for what, will one day, be considered a masterpiece.