Last Night; Sharing a Prayer

Fluid falling, the yard is fresh and wet and cold;  bare feet and 2:57 a.m.  Puppy was sniper crawling under my bed, awakened by the need for his nightly puddle break, and it’s raining puddles too.

I’m beginning to like these nighttime wakings.  They are launchpads into thinking and thanking. Haze and clouds keep a full moon from shining in tonight, so unlike other recent nights, the light of the screen is all I see.

Its falling hard outside.  Barely perceivable before, and now a heavy sound, the kind that tucks you in cozy and rouses sudden awareness for soft beds, warm covers and dry rooms, and forever present Poppa always waiting for more time with me.  Yes, I am thankful, blessed beyond measure even before all my spiritual inheritance is fully seen and known. Let it rain.

I’m YOUR daughter, a rousing thought for nighttimes. Isn’t this the most amazing thing of all? Yours! You’ve had loads and loads of other daughters and sons awake under this same moon hung to mark loads and loads of night times, but now I’m here in this one, and I want to rejoice in YOU and thank YOU and make a mark on Your heart that I am here loving You. Is there a mark yet, Lord?

I want to do something for You, to affect You and make You glad on account of me. Maybe I want to shout like no other, leap up like no other, lay myself down in regal devotion like no other.  I want to give to You, not the best above others because I'm not sure I could, but the best of me that I can give.  This is what You've given me to offer back.  Thank you for giving me to me and a chance to fulfill Your dreams in creating me like this.  We, each dear one, can touch You, God, in our own uniquely given way.  May it always be. 😊 

It says, "Rhonda Drain" on my shoe.

And I'm sitting on top of a mountain like daughters can do.

Only I can make my own mark on Your dear heart!  No one else can fully fill the place that is mine to fill in Your heart and only I can be the me-stone in Your building of living stones.  So, here I am. We are all here, side by side, arm in arm, sons and daughters headed toward "home", inviting all into the sweet assurance of Your love. 

I love the nighttime waking hour.

John 14:23

Hope Cannot

Hope cannot forsake me, not this hope that comes in the night time waking hour.  The house is fast asleep and me, awake in an unsettled state.  I pray.

I fumble to find a way through the feelings that seem held close by the dark room and the uneasiness in my mind.  But I am learning to hope, and to hope quickly.  Hope cannot leave me alone.

Then my slow and timid prayers feel the whoosh of His presence, find the WAY through to that familiar flow who fills my feeble sounds like the hand fills the glove.  I hope-- and He carries my prayer up and up and up.  I abandon my own then and get carried away in the power of His--loftier, better, higher hopes and prayer. Hope cannot leave me alone.

  

What is the fear of the night compared to His presence?  It is a wisp and a mere moment, a fleck of dimness chased away with sudden light.  

Hope cannot disappoint when we hope in God.

In the midnight hour I hear from God of a hope sublime, so I look it up.  Sublime hope is grand hope.  Sublime hope is lofty, exalted in thought, expression, or manner.  Sublime hope is of outstanding spiritual, intellectual and moral worth.  Sublime hope inspires awe  usually because of elevated quality or transcendent excellence, says Merriam-Webster, and they are never wrong with words.  😉

Now the darkness must fear, and the daughter goes free to hope in God sublimely.  

Sublime: (lofty, grand, or exalted in thought, expression, or manner

b: of outstanding spiritual, intellectual, or moral worth

c: tending to inspire awe usually because of elevated quality (as of beauty, nobility, or grandeur) or transcendent excellence

2aarchaic : high in place

What the Water Said

Holiness:  What the Water Said.

A Testimony

I slipped down under the clear, morning waters of the community pool and pushed away from the side.  With eyes open I can see straight through, so I probe deeper, leveraging the cool drink with swimming arms and legs.  I'm pushing through waters to hear a word from You, God, to understand.  In the depths I know the holy hush.  I've felt it before.  And I hear "Holy" as the water touches all of me--while bubbles rise from my lungs.  Is this a glimpse of "Holy"?

Once I heard the hush of mother's womb.  Conceived in her earthen baptismal, her watery vessel of femininity where she carried me, held me as if there was nothing between her and I.  I was hers and she was mine.  The thrum of her flowing blood soothed me, the strength of her body grew me until through her sure hips and her busted waters I burst into light.  It was like a giddy foreshadowing of things yet to come.  (.....unless one is born of water and the Spirit.....John 3:5)

I dove down into the morning waters again and again encasing all of me.  And like mother's waters, I saw there was no impurity.  And I thought of those standing walls of salty sea, churning and cheering--Moses and the rescued walking free.  And I thought of you and thought of me.  Baptized in the cloud and baptized in the sea--a picture of what walking Holy could be--a perfect surrender to God filling me.

I thought of piled up waters by Jordan's banks, all fluid and foam and our people marching through, Joshua standing bare on Holy ground, receiving the word how Jericho would fall.

"Be Holy", it's like a saturated surrender.  It's like baring down soles to His path while holding all of Him and Him holding all of me.  It's kind of like mother and me.  All soaked in saturated surrender---just might lead us between our own seas.

So, under the waters I swam day after day and pondered sins and rules, commandments and alters and lambs -- and being "holy".  I thought of the Garden, the Promise and the King, and being "holy".  And as I stand overwhelmed by all that this means I can hear the Water speaking to me, and He says,

 "I will gush forth in your wilderness! (new birth) and I will flow like streams in your desert.  Your burning sand will become a pool and your thirsty ground bubbling springs!"  Isaiah 35:7-8 NIVRA

Isaiah 35:1-4 Imagine the wilderness whooping for joy, the desert's unbridled happiness with its spring flowers.  It will happen!  The deserts will come alive with new growth budding and blooming, singing and celebrating with sheer delight. (The Voice translation)

So, with confidence and hope in this message, strengthen those with feeble hands, shore up the weak-kneed and weary.  Tell those who worry, the anxious and fearful, "Take strength; have courage!  There's nothing to fear.  Look, here--your God!  Right hear is your God! The balance is shifting; God will right all wrongs.  None other than God will give you success.  He is coming to make you safe." (The Voice translation)

verse 8-10  A thoroughfare will be there-it will be called the WAY OF HOLINESS.  Those delivered from bondage will travel on it, those whom the Lord has ransomed will return that way. (New English translation)

They will enter Zion with a happy shout!  Unending joy will crown them.  Happiness and joy will overwhelm them; grief and suffering will disappear. (New English)

💗💗💗💗Be Holy.  (Leviticus 19:2)