A room all his own

After a warm playful bath time, we cozy'd into our jammy's and crawled into bed, snuggled closely together. I began to read from The Rhyme Bible my sister had just given me.  After reading most of the New Testament of Jesus life and miracles, I came to the end where Jesus tells the disciples He will send His Holy Spirit after He leaves them, where He then ascends into Heaven.  Just then a quiet sadness washed over Seth.  

As I closed the bible I heard his longing voice say, "Mommy, me".   What is it honey", I asked.  "His body", he replied tenderly.   "Did you want to see Jesus too?" I asked.  "Yes" he replied.  "Oh sweetheart, I so understand your longing to see Jesus face to face.  It's hard to not be able to see him like you see me isn't it honey", I replied.  Slivering my hands gently through his hair he turned himself on his side, making the sounds he makes when wanting to snuggle closely.  Wrapping my arm around him and pulling ourselves close as if in a cocoon, I said "you know what Seth?  Do you know where Jesus went when he left his disciples?  He went to Heaven.  

And you know what he is doing there for you?  He's making a very special room just for you!  What do you think Jesus might be putting in your very special room?"  I asked him.   "Toys", he replied curiously.  "Y-e-e-e-e-s", I replied slowly.  "But do you know what else I think Jesus is preparing in your room for you?...a great big waterfall, near a beautiful big lake with the most amazing colored rocks laying on the beach.  And, sitting right next to you on the beach are these really cool pails for you to fill up...as many as you want.  In that very moment Seth turned his head looking to me with abandoned longing and yearning, while the wonder and smile in his face slowly emerged.  It was as if he felt in that moment a deep unsurpassed sense of surprise, being truly known and held as incredibly special to Jesus.  He didn't say anymore, but turned his head into his pillow in a peaceful sense of calm and assurance.  He was known.

In the blink of his wonder, a whispering thought arose within me- "I'm preparing a room for you too Dawn". As I pondered that, tears began to fall.  I too, in that moment, felt not only did I impart a truth that Seth is known fully by his creator, but that I too am fully known.  I too will be found by Him fully one day, with surprise, wonder and a joy to deep for anything less than abandoned worship before His feet.  But as I considered all that I might say in that moment, sitting at the beach, sifting through rocks that take my breath away in their beauty...it takes my breath away even more, that He knows the deepest part of me, and that He himself created the very things that I love.  Water, Rocks, and all created beauty...and sees me yet, more beautiful. So much so, that He shed his bloody death on a cross for me.

In that moment I began to pray, inviting the Holy Spirit to come and fill the heart of Seth with a deep faith, hope and knowing that Jesus really does knows his heart, and loves him deeply.  That he would fill his dreams this night, with such hope and wonder....all while sitting on a very special beach, in a very special place, created just for him.  All on the shores made pure, in Heaven with Jesus, in a room all his own.

I feel my soul Awakening!

Chris Tomlin sings ...."Like the rising sun that shines, awake my soul, awake my soul and sing, Only You can raise a life, Awake my Soul and sing..."  I've been in love with this song and singing this song for months on end now....perhaps the prayer is springing forth it's fruit.

I'm beginning to sing from a place of Awakening...Dormancy is good for a season, for it renews, reveals, refines... but when new healing springs forth, His awakening cannot be held back...for only Jesus Christ can truly awaken every soul. What is God wanting to awaken in your soul?  Is it a place of comfort; or is it from a place where He has hidden you in the cleft of His leading and freedom?  Maybe it's a place you've never really been, fully? 


Sometimes the comfort we need is not one of human making, but rather of heaven's raining presence amidst a Kerith Ravine.  A place where a stripping and cutting away of broken places inside are being called forth.  Or like a peeler on the skin of an apple. Your ways of what you once knew are being peeled back, so that you are able to awaken into whom He has already seen you to be.  

Are you leaning into the wind of His Holy Spirit's leading?  Are you seeking discernment? Are you searching for what it looks like to walk in unwaivering obedience?  These are the questions I am asking myself? 


A stripping of control is at the root of this awakening.  A cutting away from the lies that, I'm responsible for others feelings, actions and choices, attitudes, values.  It's a hard place to be; when all you've been used to doing, begins this process of cutting.  Especially for a heart that loves to be involved in the healing process.  


But maybe it is just that, my season for healing.  Season for stepping into the right boundary's, so that what needs cutting is cut.  So that the soul in me longing to vibrantly move and sing and worship, in life, word and deed, can truly do so, all in a more healthy way.  

I'm learning real healing and change starts when I repent.  Changing from the way one once did things, to the way God says one should do things.  That's a cutting!  But, like a Pineapple, the outside is firm, hard, tough and very much like a pricker bush....just the wrong rub against your skin and it's going to hurt.  It's a pretty tough exterior!  But oh the sweetness of it's intended purpose inside, at it's core...divine!  But, to get to that core, a major cutting must occur.  There is no way around that!  So many times, people don't want the journey of that cutting.  They try and be what they claim to be on the inside, on the outside, all the while living differently.  Life then becomes a bloody mess, hidden behind outter layer's of hardened life experiences.  

Awakening...so much I could share on that word, but for now, I will let this be enough to ponder.  It has been for me. But as my little boy Seth would say....'one more thing mommy".....

Are you willing to go to the Kerith Ravine?

"Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah:  "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan.  You will drink form the brook and I have ordered the ravens to feed you THERE.  So he did what the Lord had told him to do.  He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed THERE." 
 1 Kings 17:2-5

"Have you considered my servant Job"...

There lived a man named Job.  Job was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.  He has seven sons and three daughters, and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants.  He was the greatest man among all the people of the East. Job 1:1-3


I began reading Job one night, and began to be struck by many things.  Some of these things I have read much in the past and so was well familiar with.  Such as his being blameless, upright, and all the blessing and wealth of which he had.  But as I continued to read, I began to be just overwhelmed by some of the realities of this story.  And so, I invite you to join me in sharing about Job.


Verse 6-  One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.  


First, if you know anything about Satan biblically speaking, he was the highest angel in heaven created by God Himself.  But, as we read in Isaiah 14, we see his pride and fall from Heaven.  I am just struck by a few things here.  First, all the angels come and present themselves before God, and along comes Satan to join them.  It's amazing to me that the very one who was cast from the presence of God, wanted to be God himself, decides to come into the presence of God with all the other angels who did not fall.  It begged right away for me, why?  


Verse 7
The Lord said to Satan, "Where have you come from?"  (thought, God is all knowing, yet he asked this question of Satan.  God knows where Satan came from both by way of his creation and therefore knows always his whereabouts.)  Satan answered the Lord, "From roaming throughout the earth and going back and forth in it."


When I read this reply of Satan, it was the most uncanny feeling and idea in me.  Like Satan is saying, well, I was wandering around, looking for my next attack and well, I just thought I would come and inquire with you God, why do you ask?  Or, maybe, Satan knew exactly where and who he was planning his next attack on, but was so aware of the power and hand of God on Job, ...decided to talk with God first about the matter.  Or, just the mere thought of one sooooo evil, making a point to enter into the presence of not just His creator, but the very one in whom all things were created and the very one who holds ultimate and complete power.  It is unreal to me to think of having such evil and still coming into the presence of God, being Satan himself, to inquire with God.  I'm struck too at the idea of how Satan was just roaming...looking, calculating for his next victim.


But then we read this:
Verse 8
"Then the Lord"....wo wo wo, stop right there, who?  The Lord????  "said to Satan, "Have you - considered - my - servant - Job?"  Look at that verse...what is one to do with that????


I must say right here, I am not about to tackle in a way that claims to know or have the answer to some of the hard questions about God...I have not His wisdom to the ways He brings about His purposes...for we read in Isaiah 55:7-9 "Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. For My thoughts are not your thoughts and My ways are not your ways declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."


However, God is volunteering Job to Satan, almost as if to say, why Satan, why haven't you considered my servant Job?.  God shows us clearly too that Job is "My servant".  God's servant.  Have you ever felt like or wondered if maybe Satan got permission to mess with your life?  I surely have.  And then, what do I do with such wondering's?  


But that is not all God tells Satan...He doesn't just ask him if he has considered, but then gives him even more reason for that considering, listen:
..."There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."  It's like God is giving Satan a sales pitch...or like he's giving a closing statement at an election ceremony, as to why you should pick "that guy".  He is completely singling Job out amongst all of mankind living on the earth at this point....I mean what is God thinking here...?  What is going on?  Huge pondering moment for me here...


But then, we get Satan's reply...listen:
"Does Job fear you for nothing?  Have you not put a hedge of protection around him and his household and everything he has?  You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.  But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."


So, here we have what seems/sounds like a literal debate, once again, all in the presence of the Creator of all things, in the Holy of Holy places...over one man's livelihood and wellbeing.  It is interesting to me what Satan is aware of..."have you not put"....  Satan sees the source of all that Job is and has.  He sees that there is a mighty hand of God's blessing and protection all around Job's life and family and wealth.  He sees that there is something surrounding Job of which he has no access.  Perhaps this is in part why Satan comes to God, makes a trip into His presence.  He sees a man of which he want's to bring down, the best of the best,....but has no access, and seeks out the source of that hedge ....but still, it is God who suggests Job to Satan.  Satan if fully aware of where the source of all good and perfect gifts comes from...and it is Satan's very threat to all his schemes...the reality that he knows he has not the full and final control, yet he continues to play the warfare of trying to win as many to himself as he can.  There is such a supernatural battle of which we see not, 90% of the time.  I also wonder, how desperate Satan had to be to even consider entering into the presence of God...and then it is God who throws the first question.  We don't even really hear Satan give us a reason as to why he is there, but only that he is roaming to and fro...implying he is desperately looking for the next victim.  So much so that he comes to talk with the ultimate King in the story, of which he knows, will win in the end.  


But, Satan stills plows forward with a challenge, a ultimatum if you will.  Verse 11- "but, stretch out Your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."  So we hear Satan basically throw out what he himself wants to do to Job...but it is God he asks to do so...not himself, but God strike Job.  (Pondering....)  Satan knows his limits...knows he has no power beyond that which is given him...and even more, he knows he has not full power nor authority ...but that only if God lifts that hedge off of Job, and God himself...afflict Job.  I can't even wrap my head around how much evil must be in a created being, to come before the very creator and ask for suffering such as Job endured to come against him....like do you really understand the depth of depravity and pride at work in Satan to have the '....' you know...to ask God to do such things?


Then....then....then....
Verse 12
"The Lord - said - to Satan; "Very well, then,..."  Ok stop right there...H-A-L-T....what did I just read?????  Um, how does one swallow that pill?  Very well then.....are you kidding me, that easily, like, uh, Ok, sure Satan, whatever you want....and God continues to say, "everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger."  Did I just read God gave everything into the hand of Satan, but his life itself?  What is up with that, I ask?  So, what is up with that....


And then that verse ends by saying..."Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord".
I don't know about you, Christian or not, but to go out of the presence of the Lord with that much evil interchanged...that much conversation of how to destroy and attack ones life....I can't imagine personally going where Satan did, 'into the presence of the Lord with all the angels"....and leaving at all.  Let alone leaving with having had that conversation and agenda planned out.  Whew....could you imagine this story made into a Hollywood movie...bring it on Mel!  It would be quite a story to see, be it put into the right producer.


Maybe you are wondering, asking, pondering, considering, is this my life?  I think many of us would be surprised at the amount of attack and how much really does go on in the supernatural of our life.  What is happening that we cannot see.  That we really do have a foe, Satan, who is roaming to and fro looking for one, as a lion, to which he will devour.  But I think the harder question for many is the one that is most difficult to answer...
Why did God do this?  Why does God allow this?  What is up with all of this talk about, 'have you considered my servant Job'?  How often is this same conversation happening even now?  What are the reasons for God's response/questions?  


Perhaps, this is the very place some of us might begin to be drawn into a deep study of who God is and isn't.  Perhaps, this tugs at the strings of your own experiences and makes you cry out in anger at God....is this what happened to me?!!!  What kind of God does this anyway?  


I invite you to ponder, as you begin perhaps your own digging- into the life of Job.

Again

Verse 1:

You feel all alone.

Heart's dry as a bone.
And it keeps on breaking.
Jagged edges like glass.
Piercing deep from your past.
Dreams left for the taking.

Chorus:

You wonder why

Should tides turn back the time 

Such sad goodbyes, 

Longing to leave my

Sin behind-

Again...again....again

Verse: 2

Far too many roads.

Beckon for my soul.

They reach for the taking. 

Life can be very crass.

Seen only in my past.

While wounds cry out aching.

Chorus:

You wonder why,
Should tides turn back the time,

Such sad goodbyes.

Longing to leave my 

Sin behind-

Again, again, again

Bridge:

You see my condition.

Dark side to addiction.

Yet, still You come to me.

Embracing, Enfolding,

all Encompassing.

Healing even me....

Again, again, again...

Chorus:

You long this time,

Should you turn back the tide,

To say goodbye.

Move far away from 

Severed ties-

Again...again...again.

Dawn Shape
Embrace The Dance Publishing
Copyright 2011

Until It Rains

I haven't written again in so long.  It's been a hard way of trying to figure out my life as a Mom, and my life as Me.  Finding the time, without being so tired, having more to do than can be finished, before I am able to even pen the ocean of thoughts living inside me. 


I have found myself sitting silently while the same song washes over and over again.  Songs of worship mostly.  Lately, it seems that I hear a new song weekly that I just can't get enough of.  And, no matter how tired I am...it feels sad to have to turn it off.  I don't know many souls that love to sit and let the same song wash over their spirit over and over again.  My son, Seth, he does.  But then he is wired like me and so that is not a surprise - but a fresh wind of comfort.


There is a comfort when you find a song that you want to have washing over you and over you...  The kind of moment where you immediately put the settings on "loop song".  For me I think it's about intimacy.  Do you ever long to just know that you are fully known?  It's why I love worship.  I am brought into this intimate place with my creator.  The One Who created all of me.  Who looks at what He has created and proclaims, "You were fearfully and wonderfully made."  


I'm humbled at that truth.


I sit in a quiet stillness, while my soul is raging and yet frozen still before His presence.  And then it happens...the moment when my voice opens up, in harmony with my soul that is opening at that same moment, and I cry up with all abandon, and pour out- my song.  My voice.  My longings filled with all of who I am that so many never see.  But He sees, all the time.  


I am so captivated by how my heart and soul can be raging in passionate desire for longings so longing to be filled, and yet my soul can be paralyzed in a sacred holiness, filled with awe and wonder at His enormous and most beautiful exchange of love for me.  

And I am brought to tears when I see the wounds that long to be Healed in the midst of this presence.  


There is so much, regarding the issue of healing.  Not intended to be written about here...but couldn't ignore the direction this is going. 


I'm learning and finding a peace before His presence.  While welcoming my quiet- raging longings.  The paradox is of ones inevitable, inescapable reality of feeling as though the very seams of ones seemingly intense reality, is constant; while the very stillness that comes in the Holy presence of majesty, humbles and stills me in a quiet love that just paralyzes my very self to almost nothing--- but a voice and heart held vertical while at the same time, hung on nothing of myself, and hung on the reality of His death and resurrection.


I am struck by something of being in the presence of worship.  I never want to leave.  I never get enough.  I always want more.  I don't know many things in my life that have that powerful of a dynamic working all simultaneously. 


What is my point of writing tonight...I think just to get my thoughts out.  I am struggling with a lot of sadness and longing for things that are not in my reach or control.  Things that involve in some real ways, resignation.  A place for which I have walked all too often.  And so, I sit here listening to the song "Let It Rain" being sung by Jesus Culture and I just want to sit all night long and give myself permission to write and talk as though someone who really gets my soul, is listening.  


The truth is, He is always listening...If I could only just absorb that comfort fully.


I don't know what my life has ahead for it.  But, I hear the cry of this song, "Let it rain, Let it rain, open the floodgates of heaven, Let it rain...


I feel a kindred echoing from inside me that sings this with such intensity and abandon....that I'm waiting for that rain to just shower me, gush over me, consume and capture me into a place of unstoppable healing...


Let it rain, let it rain, open the floodgates of heaven...

I will keep singing.  I will keep longing ...for more of His rain.

Listening for the Miraculous


There are days when all has finally quieted, that the silence creates the space to finally be still.  That stillness can feel anything but silent.  This night is one of them nights.  Like a tsunami, the rush of unattended matters of the heart, come rushing forth.  Questions...prayers, dreams, unknowns still hanging from jagged edges of circumstances, seemingly so uncontrollable.  Then, the words, "Be still and know - that I am -God." slowly rise like yeast, permeating the whole of my soul.  The stillness, becomes a bit more silent.  The sifting through emotions, like flour being sifted for a purpose, seems not as important as...listening.


Listening, when not understood for it's intended purpose, can swell into feelings of wasted time.  Nothing accomplished.  However, when done often enough, even the smallest moment of time spent listening, can garner jewels of wisdom that carry them days, when it seems there is not a moment of silence to be heard, stillness to be seen.

In a recent conversation, listening, has been a gift of miraculous magnitude.  Perspective; one of my best companions, keeps me searching for the healing I long for.  It was a conversation of what God didn't do.  Could have done, and didn't.  It was a conversation revealing a time in which had reconciliation happened then, the relationship could not have gone back to where it came from, but at the same time, would have failed more, going forward.  It was a miraculous choice on God's part, to withhold reconciliation.  It would be 28 years later, this would even be known, by way of His miraculous reconciliation.  


While we open windows every day, it is not every day, we see in them windows; the divine.  The supernatural - happening naturally.  Risk is always present, in the opening of windows; because we never know what might blow in.  Winds rising up from the west, blowing easterly into the moment of our days...can wreak havoc, to our seemingly nicely dusted lives...until we see the dust is only growing thicker.  We forget how much of the past, unresolved, has settled on the table of our soul, like dust floating in the air unseen until the rays of sun reveal what is really there in the air.  We go along breathing as if nothing is wrong, yet all the while inhaling particle after particle, collecting in our souls.  Then...it happens.  The unexpected, unannounced, uninvited moments we conveniently turned away from...rush in.  


Listening... listening...  listening...


In a moment like this, we can listen or we can begin uttering all the reasons why, or how, or what and when, keeps us, and shuts us out of letting such windows open.  But how many of them slammed windows, were we slamming the supernatural from naturally happening?  How many, "But God"; moments- did we detour for a season, if that?  


I'm learning that in the chaos, as the pace of life gets ahead of my heart quicker than I can resolve; that listening is prayer.  And prayer is a way for the God of the universe to intimately know me...and I Him.  I am learning that He speaks a word to my parched soul, before I ever speak it...and it be my prayer unspoken,  that is now answered.  I'm learning that listening, gives me perspective that may not change my circumstances, but change my character.  I'm learning that listening...can bring healing.  I'm learning that listening; is learning.  Learning is growing.  Growing means there is life inside.  Though, when it feels like life, is not inside me; I listen...and I find that yes, it is good to be still.  It is good to listen...and in that place...




"Be still and know - that He is - God.






Dawn Shape
Embrace The Dance publishing
copy write 2011

So often we look at moments of pain in a story...
and therefore see that pain- as the story. 

In doing so, we miss the story alltogether. 

We fail to see beyond...and see after. 

The real story, lies not within the tragedy...
but rather in the glorious redemptions;
transformations;
that despite them...
 could not be held back.