Come Awake.

I'm learning more and more that walking with God isn't so much about getting questions answered, or receiving prophetic messages to follow, as much as it is simply partaking in moments. Some as a fruit of intentional time set apart for them, others that sweep you up in the middle of the day without warning.

I'm learning more and more that His gifts mean nothing without His presence. No gift of His could ever replace His absence.

I'm learning more and more that I know I am experiencing His presence when my brain feels as alive as it does when I am in another human's presence...neuron synapses firing away as I gaze upon their face, watch their eyes, notice their quirks. I know when He shows Himself to me, and I sense that I truly know that beautiful face.

I'm learning that Jesus hungered for Him while on this Earth. Not even the Son of God could feel a satisfying amount of His presence here. I'm learning that there is a definitive correlation between hunger, desperation, and risk, and His presence within me.

I'm learning that I need His power. I can't survive without it. Only God dwelling within me can follow God; I don't have the strength for it, my flesh has no consequence. I can only run on batteries for so long. I can only run on memories for so long. I need His power for every breath.

I'm learning that I need His affirmation, just like Jesus did at his baptism before he took a single step into his ministry. I need to know God is satisfied with me before I feebly attempt at being satisfactory. I need to know that I have already won what I foolishly try to earn.

These warm blankets of truth are a "moment" in and of themselves for me. Because I am coming out of what I believe to be a time of dormancy, darkness, and absence...a perceived absence of Him and even an absence of myself.

I'd say that time frame has been about five years, if I am being brutally honest with myself. Even before then, I'd say that darkness was on the horizon creeping in.

I think of those vast, elaborate English estates with around six levels of rooms and entire wings for all sorts of uses. Libraries, drawing rooms, ball rooms, parlors; even little secret nooks and hiding places. Then fields and fields of land with lakes and streams for even more adventures to be had. That's what I see when I think of the set-up of my heart, with all its passions and desires and movements.

And I'd say the past five years I effectively closed off room by room as time chipped away at my resolve, and some rooms felt haunted with painful ghosts, and others seemed useless despite being dear to me. Slowly but surely, I'd cover the furnishings and close the door, trying my best not to be sad. Trying my best to believe that maybe God never planned on using my whole heart anyway. Maybe some rooms weren't meant for me, even if I'd made space for them.

I think it was that thought...the thought of a God who did not affirm all of me, the thought of a life lived with empty beloved rooms, the thought of needing to be "less than" who I am to be acceptable...

Man, those thoughts knocked the wind out of me.

Defeated.

That's the truest word for the feeling of it all.

Tonight at church, the guest pastor John asked, "If the presence of God was subtracted from my life, what would stop working?"

I think the last five years have been an ebb and flow experience of what would stop working in me; I would stop working altogether.

There are so many elements, known and unknown to me, that went into how I got to that place in life.

Likewise, there are so many elements, known and unknown to me, that went into getting me out of that place in life.

Little nuggets of truth falling into place, making a small piece of the puzzle make more sense.

Something catching my attention that never had before, illuminating elements of my past and my present.

Beautiful moments that felt like sunlight peaking through boarded up windows, finding the weak spots in the defenses, warmth slowly melting the ice.

The births of my niece and nephew, and their painfully beautiful souls revealing themselves with age.

So many things. Big and small. But in the end, it was all the same process: I was waking up.

A room here, a room there. Door opening. Coverings thrown off. Curtains opened to let the sun in. A walk-through recalling how happy I had been here and how sad I was to have had it out of my life for so long.

Tonight, in all of its elements, felt like the grand opening of my heart. No room or hall or wing left unprepared for Presence, for Affirmation, for Power, for Love. The revelation that I have never been called to be less than myself, but in fact to be used for purposes greater than I can even comprehend. The estate of my heart is meant to be filled up to every square inch. Even farther: to overflow.

If that wasn't enough, we sang this song tonight in that huge sanctuary and I about died with life, haha. The chorus was my soul, begging God to do what He has been in the process of doing the past five years in my pain...to awake me from my sleep.

Spirit of the living God, come fall afresh on me

Come awake me from my sleep

Blow through the caverns of my soul

Pour in me to overflow

Hi.

Or, should I say, Good Morning. :)

Who Knows What the Tide Could Bring

In the process of packing up my room to move in with some friends in Vancouver, I came across my old one-subject notebook I used to journal in. I started it about two years ago and have jotted lyrics and letters down anytime I've felt like it since then.

I can tell what every single entry is about.

And I remember how I felt writing every single one.

The pattern I find the most in my cries to God is the underlying assumption that all the pieces of the puzzle were in front of me...that everything I've ever known or will know is right in front of me.

It made my entries rather hopeless, frustrated, and defeated. All my logic said that this, whatever "this" was going on at the time, was the end. It will be this way for the rest of my life. I will always hurt this way, always long for these things, always feel like something is missing.

I read these now and hurt for my younger heart. So many pieces of the puzzle have surfaced since then, things I never could have anticipated or imagined. Yet something told me in those moments to hold on, to keep moving, to hope in the hopelessness.

We never "arrive". Things never get "easier". But there are some hurts that don't last forever, and some hungers that eventually die away. There is a resolve in the future that can hardly be comprehended in the present. I can see that now as I skim through the words of my past.

I don't know where you're at. But if all your logic tells you that nothing in your life will ever resolve, let my words and this tear-jerker scene from Cast Away encourage you. Keep breathing. Search the shorelines of your life for the sail that could change everything if you used it. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?