NOTE: What a cliffhanger! My last post ended with a phrase encouraging you to look for updates soon. Goodness me. A lot has happened... and I could not for the life of me tell you what we had been so busy with around this time ten years ago.
I'll do a quick catch up in a different post, very soon!
Over the past couple of days, God has been bringing my attention to a blog that I wrote many years ago. This one. I had not been entirely sure why, except that I had been walking my way back to walking in a more dependent relationship with Jesus lately. This morning, at 5:30 I woke up to a part of a song we sang at church recently. The words coursing through my head and heart, even before I could put a coherent thought together were these:
You won't let go, You won't let go
You won't let go of my hand
And even in the battle, You are with me
And I will not be broken in the fight
And You'll go before me and behind me
You'll never let me go, You'll never let me go
These six lines kept playing in my head in a loop, slowly becoming louder. Now, I went to bed late last night - it was after 1 this morning before I was able to fall asleep. Yesterday was a major blessing to my heart and mind and between that and other things happening in our home I had a hard time settling down for sleep. So, when I woke up this morning and saw it was only 5:30 the LAST thing I wanted to do was give up my morning to sleep in because I could not silence the noise in my head. However, a pastor once said to me, well... not to me, but to the entire congregation "If you are awakened from a dead sleep with praise songs or scripture going through your head, you'd best get up. The Lord is calling for you to spend time with Him!" So... I got up.
I am not a morning person, y'all. I stumble around with cobwebs in my brain until I'm mostly through one cup of coffee. Cory makes the coffee... do you see the problem? I could not just wake him up to make coffee, or to remind me how to make coffee, because Jesus was calling for my time.
Little did I know, I wouldn't need any coffee! I made it out to the kitchen and sat down to start spending time with Him. I listened to the song You Won't Let Go because it was still tumbling around in my head and also, I figured if it was what God chose to wake me up with then I should probably turn it on and really listen to it. When it got to the part of the song that had been resounding inside of me, something happened. It was like everything went dark around me, and this bright white fluff that looked like both cloud and smoke simultaneously settled over me and and then made a loud "whoosh!" as it flew down covering me from my head to my toes. It was all around me and through me and I instantly had these thoughts - "This is like that verse!! The cloud coming and filling up the temple verse!!! The one in that post that God keeps bringing to my mind. Ugh! I have to find that blog post... like right now!"
And I sat in awe and gratitude... that even though I am nowhere near as strong in my faith as I was eleven years ago God took the cry of my heart then - for God's glorious presence to fill me up like it had that temple - and answered it all these years later as I am more broken and more confused and He chose this moment to grant it!
On the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works I will meditate.
Thank You, Jesus, for this amazing experience. Thank You, God for all of the blessings that You provide every day for us, for calling my attention to you even when it seems like I don't have time to do more than I am already doing in a day. Thank You for dismantling my writer's block, and thank You for coffee!!! Help me to walk with You, today and every day. Help me to hold fast to Your hand, Your Word, and Your Way. Teach me how to lead and how to follow. I believe Lord, help my unbelief. Amen.
