God, Help Me Love Me...!

Good morning my Savior, I would love to just take a moment to thank You for Your Safe Keeping and Your unmerited Favor towards me. 

Read a little note this morning on a card from an unexpected source that I was ‘missed’ at a recent event.  Funny how that causes that something on the inside to explode with a song of gratitude!  Hard to describe or even understand but it’s like it shoots down all the little armies in your head that your not accepted or your not wanted.  You are a misfit and don’t belong to this part of the country.  Your name has a label attached to it that screams MISFIT. 

How easily we box our self up, secure the lid with layered folds and take ourselves to the storage room where we keep all the maybe need or want someday rather than in the family room where its use is loved and needed most every day.  My Great God, I hate when I do that to myself.  At times this behavior is such a normal response that I rarely catch when I’ve done it; I only wake up boxed in and unable to find my way out.  But today I am throwing open the box, AGAIN, and taking hold of This Love from You, my Savior, with Your Strength that has come from a sister of character.  And as her example of Your Love I want to pass on the Love found  to those I am in contact with.  Loving You with all my heart and others as myself. 

^{Matthew 22:36} Teacher, which ^[e]kind of commandment is great and important (the principal kind) in the Law? [Some commandments are light--which are heavy?]

    ³⁷And He replied to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect).^(C)

    ³⁸This is the great (most important, principal) and first commandment.

    ³⁹And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself.^(D)

    ⁴⁰These two commandments ^[f]sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets.

What a tremendously complicated action You have asked of us!  For so often I do not love myself so how can I love another? 

I listened to a heart crying the other day of one telling me she could not handle the pain given her heart so she produced her own pain by cutting herself as then she was able to deal with its pain.  She could clean it up, bandage the wound, and even watch as the wound began to heal to completion; unlike the pain coming from a source outside her that was overpowering her mind.  She was struggling with another’s opinion of her again with great difficulty.  Are they accurate in their opinion?  How do I pull away from this loud sound of one who screamed its thoughts at me and now no longer alive for me to return my fight.  Loss was knocking her down and fear of tomorrow had her steps ordered.  

I know hardly what to do but cry with her.  Direct her to my Source that I find when I am hurting of opinions of my own or that of another.  I did not know how to tell her that it will not happen, only that when it does there is One that Cares beyond my understanding.  How Often You have come to my side while I tearfully sobbed my worthlessness. 

So God, I am asking…please Help me Love myself today.  Please Give me Your Guidance and Truth so that I may Love others as myself.  Where my feet travel, please let me hear You Sing with me as I Dance the day for You.  I am in need, great need; for I want to love others as myself.  Show them Your Love Works even when I stumble myself.  My voice has tremors and needs tuned to Your Opinions.  My ground is muddy and needs Roots of Grass that Soften and allow bare feet to Walk in the Open Garden of Your Love. 

I rise up now to accept the Glow of Your Love that Carries me beyond my self opinions.  For I am Your Favorite Created by You, the only one of my kind…. What are You Thinking, What are You Saying… I have to know!!!  In Jesus, the Name Given Above, Amen.

How Bad Does It Hurt to go Deeper?

Have you ever looked back at a prayer and thought... I sure didn't realize His Answer would come this Way!  Today I found this prayer that I prayed about a year ago and I sink as I realize even greater the need to continue deeper. But with a year further into my journey, I have even more knowledge of how needy my heart is, for with every Touch and Visit from on High I have to see the difference between my flesh and His Spirit and this sight sometimes is ADULT CONTENT ONLY.  It feels like I've stepped out on Hot Coals as the blisters swell and the mind crashes.  God is my Rescue as I again pray this same prayer but this time with His Knowledge that trials and pursecution, as well as the Manifestation of His Love, is what makes this happen.  For what do you do when His Spirit begins to reveal the flesh so cold...?  Oh so so easy... you surrender to the Love that Breaks the wall and Soak in His Abundance of Correction and Beauty.  So, what do you do when you see the flesh of your brother or sister or when they see the flesh in me that I may be blinded to?  Oh my God...what do you do?  So far to go... so far to go to understand and be Like my God.  How do You Look upon me with such Eyes of Passion while I continue in my sins?  Do You pat me on the back and Kiss the sin.  No, I see You Speaking and Stretching Your Love towards me in Warnings and Pleas while Holding my Hand if I chose the fall.  So Ready to be with me and Help me get back up.  Promising NEVER to leave me nor forsake me. Oh God, Continue to Teach me a better Way, a different Route, a Greater Escape to Find the Complete You.   Oh God, Take me There... For how bad will it hurt to go deeper.  I cannot let that scare me for there is but One Way... Your Will be done... NOT mine.  Again I pray..!!!!

December 14, 2009 – Take Me Higher

Dearest Father I am so humbled today and taking deep thought of my destiny in You.  Basically, I acknowledge that my present state of contentment in You is so minor to Your true place You would have me to be.  I am so sorry.  I have laid in the Arms of Love and found myself falling into contentment and consumption of it all; failing to carry on with the Work that has been assigned.  I am desperate in all of my ways.  I am sinking so often while struggling to climb.  I find an edge and look out over the land and make camp when it would be best to move on higher.  My goals are weak and small.  My arms are weak from laziness and contentment.  I am wondering in a wilderness with too much time on my hands.  Finding my own enjoyments rather than seeking the Kingdom.  I have asked for Your help but with pleasure only in mind.  I have walked in Your Garden and have stopped to play in the field while brisk winds blow outside. I have refused to put on the armor so to fight the Storm of Your Work.  I have seen battle grounds and have become scared as I find only my own strength to fight and know I will be devoured.  I see with eyes of mercy but respond with a heart of coldness.  I cannot lift my head in the crowd of Your weary soldiers.  The trumpet has sounded and I stand behind a rock in fear.  Oh my God, my deliverer… You must strengthen my feet for war.  You must trouble my waters so that I move on in the path of Your Righteousness. I have fixed my eyes on the beauty in this land rather than the Heavenly Purpose I was designed for.  My destiny has been for such a short focus rather than for a long run.  I search for places to rest and not places to bring Your Kingdom to this earth.  With the Power of Your Holy Spirit as my strength, I know ALL land can be taken but I fearfully see giants and I shrink.  You must give me the eyes of Your Power and Might.  I must be taken to the Place that builds Faith and washes out the grim of complacency.   My heart cries for this change but my flesh runs and hide in fear.  Not my will but Yours be done, oh my God.  Take my heart and renew it in me.  Trouble my flesh in Your Love.  Walking in Your Will has become the drink I crave from morning to night.  Basking in the warmth of Your Love is the refreshment that everything within me finds pleasure.  Forgive me for taking my time to move on.  Forgive me for having such a small focus and react as a child with gimme-gimme all the time.  I have only this life to work with and I do not want to waste it.  Time has become so short and the work so large.  Within Your Arms I know I can travel but waiting to step out has been my downfall.  Take away this fear; show me again the Purpose and Plan.  Give me more chances.  Finish the work You started in my mother and father that has been past on to me so that I can give a strong and powerful Work on to my own children.  What has been taught of You cannot be taken.  With Mercy and Goodness following me, I give my heart to Your Call.  I repent for seeing You so small and I purpose to watch for Your Mightiness and Power.  By the teaching of Your Sweet Holy Spirit, I will take hold and run.  Catch me, oh my Lord, when I fall.  Strengthen me each time.  Save me continually and I will fight for Your Kingdom to Come.  Send the Might of Your Angelic Host around me and my family.  Tear down the strongholds that fight for my attention.  Clear my eyes and heart of evil so that I become aware of Your Victories.  Bind me and my husband tight so that ‘one’ together has the strength of Your Mighty Unspeakable Army.  Seal Your Work upon our foreheads as we run and not walk.  I stand at another door with Your Name written solid in blood and I run in with the safety of It’s Freedoms and Walls of protection.  I am Yours.  May Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven in this world created by You.  I am Yours..!!!

Oh God, How Do You Do It?

Oh God, You must often look upon Your children and break under the ignorance of our ways when we accept lies that we cannot make this world work for us. We are suffocated by day after days’ pressures and find only arms waving as if drowning in a sea, never to be known or rescued again.  My God, I experience the Mercy and Grace that follows me.  I experience the turmoil and then the Catching of Your Love’s Hand in abundance while awakening each day by the Knowledge of Your Blessings for my Assigned Duties from on High.  I have learned to find the Smile of Your Holiness upon me even when the dark has bombarded my mind with attempts to trap me in its lie. 

But God, my children… those of the utmost under my name that was given to me as jewels in a crown worn as a mother, grandmother, great grandmother.  Those adopted in under my heart beat of existence.  All Designed to be of my line as I am awake on earth to See You for who You are and walk according to Your Purpose Fulfilled.  I cry, oh God, I cry this morning for I feel burdened and broken while I watch the tearing of a life given me to enjoy.  How do You do it?  Oh GOD… HOW DO YOU DO IT…?  Help me oh God..!  A heart has been ripped as circumstances splashes its mud upon their soul.  Choking of too much traffic has made weakness in their steps and heaviness in their eyes.  God, I cry… Oh God, I cry.  My children, oh God..!  Come bring Your Armies and Burst through this darkness.  Come bring Your Power to Show the Explosion of Your Ways.  Wake up sleepiness and Arouse the Glory of Your Wonders in them.  Take my hand as I see things I cannot bear to see and Give Light to my eyes so that I am not weighed under its pain as You Cause me to focus on the Triumph of Your Victory over them.   Forgive me for seeing the dark and not looking for the Light.  Your Love is the Banner over them which will Succeed all battles they fall.   I am not their Creator… You are their Creator and today as my heart cries before Your Throne, I give thanks that You See what I see but Your Plan is much Bigger and takes them Across this river with Dance as the outcome.  You are All Knowing, All Seeing…. You are the I AM…!!!  I rejoice that all my children are under Your Wings of Grace and Mercy … just as Close and just as Loved as I.  Jesus Showed me this and I choose to believe…!  Amen.

How Do You 'Taste' the Lord...?

Sometimes I chase the things that this world has to offer with strong desires. 

So many things can be of so much pleasure.  Just the very thought of taste and flavors found on earth is delightful.  My mind usually always goes to ice cream which has always been my favorite delight. There is a song that the group I praise Him with sings that says, ‘oh taste and see that the Lord is Good…’  Sort of a strange expression and some may even ask, ‘how can you taste the Lord?’ But the Truth is... there is nothing of greater pleasure, NOTHING!  We've all tasted the Lord if we know Him, but I like to think that I have tasted the Lord many times when His Presence fills me inside-out.  I just take my heart and surrender to him.  That’s it…!  That is all there is to it…! THEN... all the unexplored Flavors of the unknown begin to Gather and Form to Make something Special just for me…! 

Lord, You are the Breath that I breathe; Air that fills my being with Your Wonder, for I seek deeper than my own wonders could ever go.  I knock upon the Creation of Your Kindness today and find my whole being in want; to come to You for a Treasured Visit.  May I see the Wonders of You as I express my desire to be with You.  I acknowledge that You are the Floor beneath my feet and the Ceiling above my head.  I declare that You are the sides that hold me together while I walk in and out and about.  I run and know my entire journey is in Your Love, Poured upon my Life as a Constant Place in time by Your Purpose.  I was Given a birth in Your Universe and then Shaken into the Form of You to Enjoy such far further Pleasures than my own ability has to find.  I am Held by Gravity of Your Power for Work of the Kingdom that has Come to my heart and Filled my soul.  I open the eyes of beyond me and reach out to see More, Your More, Your Obvious, Your Radiant Colors and Flavors as I set my thoughts into motion of praise and release the Seeds of Love's Passion.  A smile breaks across the skies of my countenance as the Warmth and Blanket of Your Existence Shines past all barriers I had of fear coming before You.  As I come Dance with my heart to Notes of Your Joys, I am overcome with Aromas that tell me there is an abundance of Flavors of Your Divine Existance for me.  Now my house, my temple, my body, is filled with the Smell of what You have Cooking and my attention is set on You.  No longer am I satisfied with such notions of earth offerings.  Now I am Moved by Your Insistence into a Kingdom of Higher Requirements and I sit in Your Waiting Room with my name upon Your Registry Book.  For One went before me to Make my Reservations and so I come simply because I was Called His.  I have only my surrendered heart as offering which is Your only requirement; all fees were paid before I got Here.  With Passion from You I am Encouraged to Feast on Pure Flavors passed Gates of Eternity.  Now and forever I am caught in thought over my next return to this Place where the Eminence of Smells and Flavors are of Greatest Spender!  Oh I Taste and I see… You are of the Grandest of Holiness which has no fault.  This now Owns the Guiding of my eyes for I Taste Your Love as I share Hearts with You, and it is Unsurpassed. Your Love fills the entrance of my soul with Flavors and Completes me.  Completes and Satisfies.  Oh I taste of You as I simply come before You and Your Table is Spread.  I offer my thanks and take pleasure in feasting with You today.  My cry will ALWAYS be... May I come again and again and again? 

Air I Breathe

Yesterday morning I started my morning by singing a song called Breathe.  Love the song.  It talks about God being the Air I breathe.  So, so powerful!  Today I begin thinking…in the natural we take a breath, then another breath, and yet another breath… all day long we inhaul this oxygen that keeps us alive; what an intriguing design God formed in Adam BEFORE He Breathed that Breath of Life in him that CHANGED a dormant lifeless body of clay into this obedient instrument that follows its brilliant mind given.  I can only imagine as we are still discovering the details of this complicated machine we call our body.  I took a little side thought about the Holy Spirit and its Breath of Life within me, its Work or Air that keeps me alive and CHANGED when I became ‘born again’ as His Breath was Breathed in me for new eternal Life.  Now Breathing within me all day long; and not only for the purpose of keeping me alive while on earth but to renew my mind/soul/heart through eternity.  WOW….! This Air brings Light to my path, His Oxygen (Power) to my mind that is becoming the image of Him.  Oh how awesome to think…. ‘Greater is He that is within me (His Air/Life/Breath) than he that is in the world.’   For in this world I breath the natural air to keep my body from decomposing but how marvelous and grateful for the Life (Breath/Air) of God that is my Source.  Today I take a DEEP Breath…. Not of this natural worlds, but of the supernatural… His Word and Spirit Forming and causing my heart to take on His Likeness.  Pumping His Blood throughout my whole being so that I see past the visual of a clay body’s ability but through His Eyes that resides in Fullness of Christ so that I can do all things today by His Name.  The body I have… just a shell, but the Spirit that Breathes in me…. oh my, the Temple of the Most High.  Father, I acknowledge Your Presence and Air within and I pray that my steps today honor what has been given me.  I give my thanks with a heart full of Your Love…!

Anxiety Might Surface, But I Am Protected

The weight of the world upon my shoulders…? Hum!  What a funny thought and yet how often I try to put that impossibility upon myself.  Yesterday’s anxiety attack has left me weakened as I search my Father’s Hand to continue His Will and Love designed to Carry me further into the Kingdom of His Purposes.  Fear had overtaken me as I swallowed a reaction to WHERE IS MICHAEL, my beloved husband?  I felt so sure he was in the house but I could not find him.  Safely on down the road he was traveling back to work.  In January of this year I found him at the bottom of a stairway, unconscious and body twisted.  Now life is complicated with changes but never deserted of God’s Love.  At times it feels like this accident happened yesterday and other times it feels like years and years ago.   

I have a son, well, I actually have three beautiful sons; but my middle child has this quality about him that somehow insists on things around him remain calm.  I can be ‘swimming with sharks’ as I recently described my feelings and he will come in and put a barrier around me and give me room to once again just enjoy the water while observing the sharks now on the outer side of my domain.  What a wonderful description of my Creator as we have been place ‘in the world but we are not of this world’.  I love Jesus’ prayer to His Father for “us” whom Jesus gave Him Self completely for, in John 17:

¹⁵I do not ask that You will take them out of the world, but that You will keep and protect them from the evil one. …

²⁰Neither for these alone do I pray [it is not for their sake only that I make this request], but also for all those who will ever come to believe in (trust in, cling to, rely on) Me through their word and teaching, (The Amplified Bible)

I am that one..!  The one that believes and trust in and CLINGS TO Him through His Word and His teachings!  And I will admit… this prayer is much needed in my life.  My eyes get all caught up in the confusion and fear of today’s event or even reach out to the tomorrow and respond to the ‘what ifs’ it might bring sometimes.  But with the burden I put upon myself, today I remind myself that Jesus prayed over me for this moment… when I find myself thinking I have been caught by this worlds trauma and it is my responsibility, He is protecting me and will romance me back to His Place to lay all burdens at His Feet and Dance with Him, for I am unable to carry the world or my own anxiety of this world.  The Barrier is Up around me by answered prayers of Him Who Loved me before I was born and I am released to Float in His Substance again.  For I have been placed ‘in’ this world but Jesus Prayed a barrier around me to stop the enemy’s bite for he no longer can come into my domain.  No wonder the soul dances as the Protection of His Goodness Lifts us to Sing once again.  How outrageous is His Love that has no end for my behalf.  I am Safe as I stay in His Word of Promise over me.  I am Protected, I am Free….!  I give my thanks with a heart sold out to Him, for His Safety…!  I accept the Prayer Jesus Prayed as He Lives in my heart.

Tears

Amazing Grace, I’ve been set free.  It rolls over and over and over in my head.  It amazes me how I can be so caught in drama and pain that I will allow it to suffocate the Grace that Pours within my spirit to Revive and Move me to the Mountain of God’s Grace.   When I find His Grace something inside begins to make a fresh Melody and this Substance hits dead center in my heart and seeps its Power to every pour of my body.  My eyes begin to open and my feet begin to take me.  Take me where He is and there I find once again the Intimacy I left to follow my own love.  As I open the door of my heart once again I wonder why I left.  What took me away from His Embrace?  I shake as I tremble in His Arms.  I call out that I will never leave again, never in ten million, million years.  His Eyes catch my tear and He Gives me a Smile that Melts all thoughts of my own ability to stay.  I know not what to say next so I just lay in this Presence for I find Safety Wrapped all around me.  I hear His Voice and I must weep again for over and over He Shares with His Warmth that His Love has followed my steps and watched as I painfully fell from sensing His Love.  I look into His Being for I do not understand this sort of Love.  Why watch me fall, oh why Lord, do You Watch a fall.  He Lifts me Closer so I can hear Him Whisper.  ‘Child, falling is but a lie received; you were never out of sight.’  I again realize I don’t understand so I just cover up with His Blanket of Love and snuggle in this Place.  I just want to talk for awhile.  I open my heart and take a breath to share.  My Lord, I have felt so lost as I listened to that which enticed me.  Why would I follow it?  What would I even think it would bring?  I took it to sleep with me and I listened as it devoured my joy.  I was awakened with its voice screeching its claws in to my heart.  And then before I knew it, I was lost in its grip.  I searched for a door and could not find it for once it had me outside it vanished to leave me alone.  I could not escape.  Where were You?  Were You screaming at me yet my ears failed to hear?  Was You Holding me while I ran?  Again, He Gently takes His Hands and Cups my face, Lifts my chin, and now I see a Tear in His Eyes.  I do not understand, my Lord, why are You Crying?  I see His Forehead rise as He tilts His Head as if He Knows what He wants to say but wonders if I will hear.  I ask again… why, my Lord, are You Crying?  He leans forward and gives me a Kiss on my forehead and then He Speaks.  ‘My child, before you were born I Painted the sky for you.  Before you were born, I Designed a Room to Exist in Time for your walk with Me.  I put Detail in your form that would Show you I Am.  I Cover your life with Protection and Safety with no void or failure.  I Raise heavens Song over each breath you take as your importance to me runs delightfully beautiful.  I Am for you.  I Am with Constance.  I Am with Eternity for you.’  I am speechless and I reach to take the Tear from His Eye. As I feel its Dampness on my finger I remain wondering… wondering… how can I understand this Love?