Musings

Longing for a fullness, a hope... but blindly searching the dark. Through a crack in my broken blacked out window I feel a breeze, my eyes catch a stream of light and a comfort wells within me. In that light I will find my wholeness. My finger tips play with the light that glimmers.. a tingling washes over me, a response to an entity my soul already knows. An entity that has the power to save me. To love me. To fill me with the love I’ve been unconsciously searching for. The darkness calls me, tricks me, it is full of fear and anxiety but the power this stream of light has draws me closer. I’ve exhausted all options in the dark, there has to be more... there is more... could this be it? What is this light that holds such beauty, raw, honest truth. Why has this been hidden from my view, kept from me? Although my chains exist, each step I take towards the dancing light loosens them. With each step I feel a strength Ive never experienced build within me. My eyes are fixed on this light that whispers to me, the most beautiful whisper, a comforting whisper. Not like a trance but truth. I feel it in my heart, I don’t look over my shoulder as I have done in the past, waiting, expecting to be pulled down, locked away. I am fixed entirely on this shard of light and I look forward. I have no questions, just an unwavering trust, a faith. This is what holds my completeness. This light and who it comes from will save me. I’m not scared, I’m strong. I’m not worried, I’m calm. I’m not lost, I am saved. And at this realisation, this complete awareness that I am loved and saved... I know I have found what was always missing from me. For the first time I can see... my eyes are open and I look around. What was once a consuming darkness now illuminates with light streaming through broken windows. A glorious light that showers me in grace! And it’s in THIS moment, after living a life in darkness and finding nothing there, I FINALLY surrender to my Jesus, my LORD, my saviour, my creator, the one who loves me above all others, the one who fought for me, the one who loves me after everything, the one who never gave up on me. You were the missing piece to this broken puzzle, now I am complete. I am whole, I am beautiful thanks to your love and your grace. With my faith and trust I honour you... completely, outwardly, inwardly... in ALL ways. The broken glass in these windows are shattering with every second that your presence fills me. I was so blind but now I see, your brilliance, it wraps me up and lifts me. My arms are open and I face the heavens, I dance in your radiance and I smile like I’ve never smiled before. All these walls disappear and I’m free, freed by you! My God I run to you, I will run to you all my days and along the way I’ll bring others with me. I will throw rocks at their blackened out windows. As their windows crack, your holy light will stream through into the darkness of those that need you, want you, search for you... just as I did. Your love and strength is all I need, my faith and obedience is all you ask for. I give it... it is yours... it is all for you.

And your rising from the ground.

There is a garden, a garden where the clash of wills comes to a head. The will of God and the will of man. The profound arena of such a garden is rife with struggles, throught with sufffering and steeped in agony. It’s in this garden we find ourselves being pressed, quite easily mistaken as overwhelming burden, it’s the feeling of this burden that leads us purposefully into this garden. That burden of the will of God in our life. One persons burden can look vastly different to another’s but the common thread is it is Gods will for the individual. And God in all His love and grace and mercy takes the hand of His child and leads them to this garden. Because it is in this place where all the heaviness of His will can be laid down before Him, where one can safely find themselves wrestling with the acceptance of the task at hand. It’s in this garden that God graciously ensures the fighting of our fleshly will with His spiritual will. And the encouragement is that he is there. When agony and overwhelming distress overcome us in the context of Gods purposed plan for us, He leads us to this garden where He lovingly sits with us, while we battle internally with our will and the spirits will in us. In all His mercy and love towards us He strengthens us with the touch of an angel. We find ourselves overcome with strength and ironically with agony. Is this not the spirit and the flesh encompassed in one package? Our garden is the safe place to wrestle with God. The pressing that’s felt and often mistaken as the heaviness of the burden, is actually the pressing of God to squeeze our will and our desires that are driven by the flesh so that He can anoint us with the oil to accomplish His will, the very will we were drawn into the garden to wrestle with. Through our wrestling and Gods pressing the only thing that’s left is an empty vessel for Him to pour His oil into. We need this process to be able to receive the anointing to accomplish His will that He purposed for us. It’s only then do we stand, accept Gods will and walk it out.

My heads above the water, I’m looking all around. The edges of the earth appear to drop out of sight. It’s vast, it’s endless.... and I’m not afraid. The pitch blackness of the water my body is floating in is still. There is no current pulling me one way, no waves crashing me another. Just still. I’m not cold. I’m not shaking. I am real, this is real, and everything from my past would tell me to panic, would tell me now is the time to believe I am lost and alone and doomed. And even though the darkness that I am submerged in is vast, the light that my eyes can see is infinite. The brightness, although blinding, holds so much more power than my heart has ever felt, it’s overwhelming in an intensely loving way. I’m no longer a person of the masses, drowning in this sea, but a being with a purpose to fulfill. With my head above the water, my ears no longer fill with the haunting noises that swim in this physical world, my eyes are no longer tightly shut keeping out the truth, my breath is no longer being held.... my senses were locked from me but little did I know they were actually just in front of me. I only had to open my arms, reach out my hand and brush my fingertips over them... only once I realised I had nothing to lose, only once I felt there was more to me, more to this... only once I was given an extra bit of strength to reach out, did I know I could hear without feeling sad. I could see without feeling scared. I could breathe, knowing this life is purposeful. That every breath I am given, is an ongoing gift tailored just for me. Just as your breath is tailored just for you. The deep deep calmness that wraps around and the smile that spreads across my face is not foreign, not like the sea I am in. I can feel what it’s like to be in the arms of someone who loves me despite everything. And now I’m here I never want to leave. I’m floating and I can feel hands reach out all around me in the dark sea below. Fingertips brush against me and I smile. I know they are searching you too. My purpose washes over me, it anchors itself in my soul and I know. I know what I am doing here, why I’m still just floating in this ocean, why only my head is submerged. I dedicate myself to my purpose. My hand opens up and I feel a grasp, a clinging, a desperation and I witness another soul being guided from the water, by my hand through God’s will, as they break the surface. Their first breath of freedom and the tears that roll down their cheeks as they bare witness to a world they were being kept from. What desperation I felt in their grasp only moments ago, I can see in their eyes they are washed free of. Just as I was saved, just as I am loved, just as I was given the gift of God’s grace, so was this soul. And in a rejoicing we praise the one who never gave up on us. Just as we, and the other heads above the water, will not give up on the masses drowning below. We will float with our heads in the truth and our bodies in the world and hold our hands out, as hand after hand fiercely clutches at ours. We will guide them to the truth and when we don’t feel the movements around us in the darkness, then we will search for them. We will find them and we will bring them into the light, we will bring your people home to you.

With love and great joy, the artist labours over His children. Each brush stroke adds depth and beauty. Each moulding and shaping creates a being in His image. Night and day don’t cease and He doesn’t rest until He is sure the masterpiece before Him is complete. He plants the fire inside you to search Him and He knows that fire will burn until your last breath. The artist cherishes and takes great pride in every piece of art because it is His child. The artist looks out over every work of art and sees His children. He writes on the arms, the chest, the face, the legs... he etches in the palm of every hand the traits that make each of His children unique. Then He places his lips on each palm and seals it in. With pride He looks into the eyes, purposefully, of His masterpiece and knows the soul waiting to come alive in them will shine through those windows. He rejoices over that glorious day those eyes would open to the world with purpose.

There’s no breath worth breathing, than one filled with a declaration of the love gifted to me through the last breath of another.

Only hope...

A spiritual army in broken pitched unison, the drums beat, the harmony resonates, the ground thumps beneath their praises. Their war cry rises up as the ground breaks beneath them. The earth rises in platforms as they scream their Hallelujahs. The volcanic underbelly of earth is seen, the Holy Spirit fire is raging. Soldiers fall to their knees in decreeing praise. On the banks and cliffs are more soldiers yelling their Hallelujah. The valley of darkness is disrupted with the raw hearts of warring saints. Hallelujah is their weapon. Their raised Hallelujah moves in sound waves and sends shock waves. This is the spiritual war and this is His victory.