How it Always is

This is how it always is; eyes open, the dark room, socked-up feet walking the cool hall to the cup of coffee, the open journal, the open Word, and then my words-- the words and the working out a life before a “Person” attending to me in those early morning hours. While a dog snores at my feet, there is a conversation, a qualifying prayer, a life that has become one long prayer.  Ever may it be. This is not my story, but OUR story and how it always is. I’m saying it because I want to, and because we often want to say this and can’t find the words for each other to hear us.

This is how it always is and how it forever will be;  our lives taken into the bosom of, NOT “the universe”, but the One who flings universes into place, and meets waking loved ones like this. And the comfort of this has changed our lives of questions and fear to something more.  He’s ever changing our lives to “more”.

This is how it always is, a daily learning that He is there; not scolding, not anxious to point out a flaw, a mistake, a misjudgment, a fault.  But anxious to delve deep into love with us so that all those things can be carried away one by one, liberation by liberation, step by step, freedom to freedom, and glory to glory as it has long been called. All the while, He's showing us how to love one another like this.

This is how it always is; fingers to keys, pencils to paper, or voices in our rooms to say thank yous, and why we are so-- to ask questions with golden letters because He said our questions are golden to Him. When He says things to me, they are clickedy-clicked out in red, as I like to remind myself that red is the color He chose to free us in, hung up and held by the punishment of someone else’s sins—every- “someone” - ever. 

This is how it always is, every day sitting, standing, walking in the never-ending invitation to come closer, but not always seeing it for ourselves.  Waking to learn how good He is, just how great, how kind and there.  This is how it always is because HE IS and always will be.

Come and See

He’s prepared a table, come and see.

In the presence of the enemy, all you can eat

He’s made a way with a plan and means

Come and see, oh come and see.

His robe draped round your frame

The grip of sin blew apart at the seams

And we step into what seems like a dream.

Come and see. Oh, come and see.

Remember when He gave you His ring

As if you hadn’t squandered everything

Welcomed like you'd always belonged
Come and see. Oh, come and see.

The way is lit, just press your steps
And watch a desert turn to spring 
You'll hear yourself both laugh and sing
Come and see.  Oh, come and see

Cause you are free, you are free.

Oh, come and see! Oh, come and see!

(A song)

. 

Psalms 23:5
Jeremiah 29:11
Luke 15:11-22
Psalms 126
2 Corinthians 3:17
Isaih 35

The Eve of a New Year

A crisp white page and a crisp new year right around the clock's corner.  From a rickety leather recliner in the spot by the window, sitting so aware of the last hours of the year I want to render something meaningful and true before I must let it go.  

I get a snack, a drink, look out a window, change the wet laundry to the drier and then sit down to carry on. Lively Wheatens wrestle one another next to me on my chair. The warm bodies crowding me, getting out of control.  One sits proudly right down on my resting right arm then ignites off the chair, raucously into play. :)  

 A realization has come over me and I don't have to try in order to sit grateful to the core in the eve of a new year.  I just am.  And I see why we're invited, called really, and directed into thankfulness. 
I think it is where the human heart was created to be, where we would be most alive. Gratefulness is a perfect fit for us, a sweet spot for the soul.  

 Morning by morning, like a safe shelter one can run to, or a life raft for one's heart no matter the depths of what could be despair. How deep no longer matters when always buoyed right up to where the sun shines--this has been the power of thankfulness to me. It has caused me to survey the passing year with such fondness (though full of trial and pain), as if it were the best year, but maybe what I'm saying is it was my most grateful year and that has colored everything in a rosy glow.   

The Precious Black and White

The precious black and white that communicates

Splendid words, arranged to perfection 

Tales of a pounding heart for people

A love that runs into hell to rescue them

The precious black and white lit up before the sun

The tab on the screen is my friend

The black and white comfort

The black and white hope

On the white screen lies the best words for free

I gobble them in the quiet

As they lift up from the white screen

And I am filled full again and again

Open a tab into the place, the space for a human race

Click the portal of beauty and truth

It's free, it's free

Push the tab and see

Redemption plan, mercy for man 

What a lucky girl I am

The black and white

the dark, the light

And me entwined in a story that started "in the beginning"

I saw you there too

It's true.  It's all true

There's a Father, a family waiting for you

The precious black and white that communicates

Splendid words arranged to perfection

A click on the link, and before you can blink

You're served a feast before the sun comes up today

Click and find a Gateway to The Precious Black and White

Pictures in a Closet

Pictures in a closet, lend me a hand, 

 deliver warm delights of my bygone days.

Turning back pages, tearing away hard edges from me.

 I have been so hard on her all these years, but staring into her eyes now, I am wondering a long and deeply felt "why"? 

She didn't try... she simply was.  Flipping the old pages shook her awake in me.  She's sharing some nice things with 52 year old me.  I wish I had ran into her before.

Her small, yet powerful pose powerfully points the way forward to me in an easy, childish sort of way.


And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3

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)