Lament for hope to an orphan

 Silence


steady's my sad face.


Sorrow's rest my gaze
merely to sit still 
long enough ...have I






looked on; past many
moving motionless
faces I muse 
over, 
the cold chill.

Do they know, winter...
-will kill...the surface






of time; where all looks 
lost, yet who can say 
when spring will come forth?








After such lonely 
nights leave- the desert
 


















rose up, desolate 
dry lands- alive once 
more,
 I asked silently
in a whispered prayer.

I'm glad you're with me....

In the movie, "The Fellowship Of The Ring" we see Frodo determined to sojourn the quest to Mordor to destroy the Ring alone.  He is at the edge of the shore as he pushes a boat into the river, jumping in.  Just then, Sam running from out of the woods, sees Frodo paddling away while running towards him.  Listen to what happens:

Sam: Frodo, no!  Mr. Frodo!

Frodo (quietly): No, Sam (and continues to paddle away)
Sam runs into the river after Frodo.  Frodo, hearing the splashing, looks back at Sam.

Frodo:  Go back, Sam!  I'm going to Mordor alone.

Sam: Of course you are, and I'm coming with you!

Frodo: You can't swim! Sam!

Sam struggles to swim then sinks down into the water.

Frodo: Sam!!!

Sam continues sinking deeper.  He sees the sun shimmering at the surface while his arm floats descending into the water.  Suddenly Frodo reaches his hand down to grab Sam's wrist.  Tightening his grip, Sam holds on to Frodo.  Frodo pulls him up out of the water as Sam plunges into the boat.

Sam (dripping wet): I made a promise, Mr. Frodo.  A promise!  "Don't you leave him Samwise Gamgee."  And I don't mean to!  I don't mean to.

Frodo: Oh, Sam! (they hug) Come on.

Frodo and Sam paddle towards the eastern shore.

Frodo and Sam are standing on a high hill beside a reflecting pool of water.  The dark sky in the horizon is before them, while light illuminates beneath it.

Frodo: Mordor.  I hope the others find a safer route.

Sam: Strider will look after them.

Frodo: I don't suppose we'll ever see them again.

Sam:  We may yet, Mr. Frodo.  We may.

Frodo (turns, smiling) : Sam, I'm glad you're with me.

Frodo walks onward.  Sam stands for a moment, and then follows.  And they head down into the rocky plates of mist beneath the illuminated mountains ahead, in hopes to fulfill their call.  

It was a brutally cold night.  -22 in the Shire of the Northwoods of Wisconsin.  I was handed a ring of power that I had never expected to hold.  I was handed a truth, I never dreamed I would see.  In a very real way, it held me.  For 22 yrs. it held me.  But, not the same way it did now.  Now, there were different questions.  Different choices.  And with them choices, different outcomes to consider.  Each of us in this life, if lived long enough, will be given such a ring to hold.  And, we will be given a choice of how it is we will carry it.  To where we will carry and how we will carry, such a weight for which it will surely be.  


I stood, as Frodo did, asking myself, why?  Why did such a ring come to me?  Wishing none of it had ever happened.  But, as I was learning it was not for me to decide what happened to me, I was learning it was up to me to decide what to do with that time, given me.  And like Frodo, I needed to decide whether I would get into the deep, on a boat that felt not nearly strong or big enough to carry the weight of this ring.  But, a boat that would have to carry me to the next shoreline of decision.  Facing that shoreline itself...carried a weight I had not expected to lift.  But, in that -22 degree night, a brutal truth was cracked open for me, just as the snow cold sound of each step in that moment crunched beneath my feet, as I entered the room from which this ring presented itself.


The news came to me, on Christmas.  Not in a manger.  But in a coffin of information, that death attempted to conceal for 22years; and could not.  My sister carried the ring of this truth for a couple months, before revealing it to me that brutally cold night.  She, was like Sam to me.  At times, I would be like Sam, to her. But I had to choose that, just as Sam had to choose to be with Frodo.  For we were both like Frodo and Sam, at the same time, at one time or another.  We both carried the weight of the ring we were given.  In some ways, the same.  Yet in other ways, tragically different.  We however, had to decide...what to do with this time given to us.


We both at times felt...we were going it alone.  While at the same time, we were both saying, 'You can't swim'.  See, 22 yrs. ago, we learned to swim through currents that well, cast us into the deep of defense.  The defense for innocence.  We learned how to stay close, in the deep end of life and death.  We learned how to hold each other up, in the currents of crashing circumstances.  We learned how to survive what otherwise was meant to sever. We learned how to conceal, all the while believing we were transparently telling the truth.  We learned how to keep our stories concise, while creating alibis, we had no idea we were creating.  We learned much, well.  We had no idea until now, what we learned.


But neither of us had ever swam such unwieldy waters. Currents cascading us into chasms and crevices, created by an evil, that walked in our very home itself.  We were not given that, before.  OR were we? 


For the first time, the truth of what we didn't know, revealed itself in a ring so big...we were no longer able to just travail tragedy with the defense of the innocent.  For we would now have to betray the very man for which we fought for, as innocent.  For his guilt was now, the very ring in which we carried.  And it was that ring, that truth, we needed to bring to Mordor.  We needed to decide, were we going to allow, the Middle Earth of our home, family and life, continue on in a shire where life was allowed to continue on, after one life was bludgeoned and brutally shattered?  All the while appearing nestled in the noble guise of a mans innocence?


In our heads, the answer was a resounding, NO!  We could not allow this noble guise of innocence go, unanswered.  At the same time, our hearts felt the weight of the ring.  It was getting heavier, as Sam poignantly asks Frodo throughout the movie.  Could we walk; scale the precipice of which we were facing?  The Everest of decision before us?   Emphatically we knew...our choice could be nothing less than embarking fully upon the truth, so that the truth would indeed then, set us free.


And so we did...


There were times, that night, I sunk.  My sister would lovingly, courageously, reach down her hand into the abyss of my reflecting horror, and shine a beam of illuminating truth surrounded by the light of her intense love and loyalty to me.  She was my bullet proof shield, of which I would no longer be for ...him.  She pulled me into the boat that night...as I flangled into it with fear and trembling.  I like Sam, can't swim.  Growing up in the Shire like I did, I should be able.  But, she can.  And that night, she was my Frodo.  There would be nights to come, when I would be hers.  

Then there were them words, "I'm glad you're with me, Sam".  Peering into such perilous portraits of the past that night, holding them up to the darkroom of portraits yet to be developed, we sat.  We sat without sleep.  We sat without answers.  We sat with new answers.  Pictures of the past, present and looming and uncertain future, presented themselves  more clearly than ever.  Yet with more darkness than ever, as well.  We both knew...we were going to a Mordor, we never thought- we'd have to go.  But, it was our choice.  No one else could do it for us.  And as we sat, frigid in our findings...we said to each other,...
"I'm glad you're with me, sis."


Dear Savior whose gone to Mordor,


It was the darkest of nights.  And you, 
were with us.  Thank you!  


Some, my Lord, do not have you 
with them.  They do not know 
who you are even. 
 I pray now for ___________ 
that they might simply say, 
Come in to my life, Jesus.  I'm in need 
of knowing you are with me.  Other's, 
know You, but don't know where 
You are.  You simply are not
 seen 
along the road to their Mordor. 
 Show Yourself to them now.  


Lord...sometimes, I still
 feel, like I'm
    drowning.  
Help me remember to
 keep my hands raised, even 
if 
just 
    floating
      as 
        Sam
         did...


that you might grab hold, 
and pull me up. 


Help me see, when I'm being
 pulled up, 
that it is you pulling 
me.  Help me to see 
the illumination of
 Your love, shining forth upon
 what otherwise seems, 
all said and done.  


I don't always 
understand Lord, why 
some have to go
 to Mordor, and others
 seem to            escape it all together. 


 But, Lord Jesus, 
give me courage to 
choose,
 to carry the ring, 
however heavy
 it may be or become... to that place from whence it must be destroyed. 

 Help me carry it
 to the cross of-
 truth 


-justice


 and redemptive healing. 

 Help me in that
 perilous path, to look 
to my side, and see those
 who you have given me-
 to go the road with me.  
And most of all, 
help me to see
 and know, 
and ultimately be able to say,


"I'm glad you're with me."








(I have traveled far, for only 43yrs. old.  And I want to dedicate this writing, to my sister; Christy.  She has been my companion through many wars.  I want to also dedicate this writing to a few who, had it not been for them, i would not have known, Jesus was with me.  Many times, Jesus shows Himself with me, through those who have traveled with me.  There are a few however I want to mention by name: Steve, Ed, Diana, Brad & Lynette, Mark, Ken, Linda, and all my family.  They...are the sacred souls, of whom God used to sustain me...when I otherwise would have drowned.  Thank you, eternally for your gift.)

The Time That Is Given You

Standing at the edge of the shore, Frodo realizes, he is standing at the edge of decision.  The edges of war have already begun full pursuit against all that used to be.  Contemplative, he remembers in a moments pause-  the echo of Gandalph's wise words, spoken to him midst the darkness of a mine.  Though Gandalph has fallen into the depths of shadow, his words have not. A distinct echo of a moment in a mine; between the two of them, awakens to life within Frodo. 

"I wish the ring would have never come to me.  I wish none of this had ever happened." said Frodo.  "So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide.  All you have to decide- is what to do with the time that is given you." replied Gandalph. - Lord of the Rings- The Fellowship of the Ring.

Frodo stands with his gaze, against the waters edge. Seeing only in part, the depth of what lies before him; his tear filled eyes stream with fortitude as he resolutely steps into the path laid out before him.  It was no longer a moment for wishing what had never happened.  It was no longer a moment for wishing he had not, the ring.  He did.  And he was the only one, who was meant to have it.  It was a calling only he could complete.  An encroaching enemy, would not relinquish its quest against him.  All he had in that moment, was the echo of a word.  The echo of a reply, from a friend whom he had broken bread with.  And like a tatoo on his soul, those words branded him with bravery.  He was the only one who could decide what to do with the time that was given him.

As tears of fear and conviction fell from his eyes, so did my tears fall.  I was going through a time in my life, where I was carrying a ring, all too similar, as Frodo.  It encompassed an enormity of evil.  As Frodo, I was standing at the edge of a shore that would lead and take me over much unknown terrain.  Terrain that would be filled with, much darkness.  Weakness.  Challenges to scale, much as Frodo scaled on his journey to Mordor.  I would encounter cliffs of emotions that would tempt me, to turn back.  Bogs of depression, that would tempt me to, despair, with out return.  Frigid, trembling tones of one's voice- once safe...would now haunt me.  Words I wanted to trust, filled with deceit.  Words from a person, where safety should be found, were now death and evil to my spirit.  The emotional suicide was on far too many levels of loved ones.  And now, the pursuit of such a death, was pursuing me.


We don't know; when such a moment will face us.  Life does not sit back and say, "now, for our next act....". It does not even always give us, warning.  And if it does,...well, sometimes, the evil is so covered in 'light', that we don't see it coming.  Until, all of a sudden, one sunny day in the shire of our life, we are being both pursued and pursuing.  We find ourselves...carrying the breadth and width of evil around our neck, while it is hanging at the heart of all we treasure, within.  WE are now, at the center of a war.

Frodo, feels the ring's heaviness.  He holds it in his hand.  It hangs close to his heart.  When he puts the ring on...he disappear's from the view of everyone around him.  However, he appears in clear view to the very realm of evil pursuing his life.  He is found by that evil, when he wears the ring.  The wearing of that ring, both helps him escape the present evil in front of him, yet, sets him before the center of the eye, ordering the very pursuit of his life.  


Have you ever been touched by evil in such a way that- what you thought was, no longer is?  Where, everything that was once said, is now being filtered through a lens where, you have to question intentions.  Question motives.  Question reasons.  Every single thing ever said you thought was true, feels like it's coming, untrue?  And it is happening in your very home?   


Have you ever been around something that, it felt easier to just ...like Frodo, 'put the ring on', because then, at least for a moment everything sort of "went away"?  But, at the same time, put you right in view of the very evil ordaining such pursuits?


For me, it was putting on the idea that, 'this didn't really happen'.  Then, I could still talk about him, and it...didn't seem like so much death really occurred.  OR, if I just considered all the good that I had experienced, that somehow made what happened, well, easier to understand.  OR, maybe if I just thought about his upbringing, then it made it easier to "psychologise' about what happened, and not really see him as having done it.  We find ways, do we not, to try and 'wear the ring'...so that somehow, it just goes away?  Rather than carry around our neck the reality of what it is that has been, is, and could be happening.  Don't we really try hard ...for years, to just not see the truth, sometimes?  


But then; -that- moment comes.  That moment when the enemy has encroached so closely, we are thrust into a place where we have been given the truth of the ring.  And in that moment, we have been given the assignment to make a choice...who will carry this ring to Mordor?  Who will carry it to that place from whence it came and destroy it?  Who will stop the generations of silent sins, washed beneath the bread of convenience?  So that, our next meal is not one of the alternative's? 


Oh...the sorrow, washing in a way that feels so, unwieldy! The weight of suffering, wrenching against our weary soul.  The unimaginable, unlocking, unfolding events, seemingly impossible to tread. 


But then...we hear the echo.  "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide.  All they have to decide, is what to do with the time given them."


And it's there...


we pause.


It's there...


we listen.


It's there...


we find something ....


greater than ourselves...


beckoning us to a greater story, 


than what has already been.


A greater purpose...


than we have ever imagined possible.


A greater hope...


than we ever once believed.


A greater strength...


than we had before this moments edge faced us.


We decide.


We decide to carry the ring, 


to Mordor.  To the truth of whence it came...from the very pit of evil itself.


We decide to stop...


doing what generations have done.


We decide, to believe...


in a God where all things are possible.


We decide, to lean...


not on our own understanding...


but on The ONE who has the ring of all knowledge, 
past, present and future, 
in the ring formed by thorns...
formed by a cross...

Jesus.


Who on that cross, wearing a ring of thorns, enduring all that evil could encroach, defeated the very core of evil itself,
Satan.


We lean on that truth...as we decide;
 what to do with the time that is given us.




And when we do, 
we will find...
Jesus.


Dear King Jesus,


For many years, 
the ring of power has ruled.  
But, not any more!  
Jesus, so many hearts, with lives, are standing 
at the very same 
     edges, 
Frodo was.  


At the edge of many decisions, 
that simply overwhelm.  
Holy Spirit...embrace them now, 
in that place of great trial and pain.  


As tears pour down...
falling like rain, 
with great echo's as Frodo,
 wishing the ring had never come...
find them in that very place. 


Meet them. 


Wash over them 
with Your presence, 
that it might distinguish
 the presence of the evil one 
around them. 


 As they feel the great awareness
 of the encroaching enemy...
come now Holy Spirit.

And like Gandalph said in the mines, we say to the enemy encroaching upon them..."You (Satan), Shall NOT PASS!".  


No matter what cliffs
 of emotion, 
bogs of depression and despair
 surround them...
Jesus by your Holy Spirit now...
surround them with your Hope.  Surround them


with Your Peace, 
 Your comfort 
that surpasses all understanding... 


 Help them to see, Lord...
what to do 
with the time 
given them. 


 Help them remember 
            echo's of Your Word 
in their spirit.  


Lead them to Your words, 
that they might echo as they take their ring...
into their Mordor.  


Help them in temptation...
to remember, You are their way out. 


Help them to see...
the bread of convenience 
is not satisfying, 


as the bread of Your life is.  


In the midst of sorrow that finds
 itself, 
unwieldy,
 help them remember in Your sorrow,


 You too...
    dripped 
       drops 
         of blood...crying out to the Father, 
"please take this cup from me".  


Help them, find a way to love, 
even when they don't feel love.  


Help them find a way to choose, 
even when they feel they can't choose.  

And help them believe, 
  You are with them, 
   every where they go...
    
Amen.

Muse - Part 2; Remembering the Rainbow

Psalm 77:4-9


"You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.  
I thought about the former days, 
       the years ago;
I remembered my songs in the 
       night.  
My heart mused and my spirit
       inquired:


"Will the Lord reject forever?  
    Will he never show his favor
       again?
Has his unfailing love vanished 
       forever?
    Has His promise failed for all 
       time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
   Has he in anger withheld His
       compassion?"                         Selah

Many of us know how it is to....loose sleep.  Many as well know...the kind of sleep that is lost due to the eyes being kept open.  It's them nights, that we find the most difficult to endure.  Personally for me it goes from one extreme to the other.  I have had seasons where all I wanted to do is sleep.  And sleep.  And sleep some more.  Then, there have been nights, where I've not been able to sleep.  On both sides, it's hard.  I love though how much the Psalm's speak with such a real experience of which we can easily relate.  "I was too troubled to speak".  Being troubled to the point of loosing sleep and being speechless.  It's a wrestling...a place of screaming silence in the midst of sometimes the loudest and longest laments of lingering adversity.  We spend them nights just agonizingly - going over and over, meditatively musing the events of which are catastrophically out of our control.  Looking for something...to reveal a window ...where we just might regain control.  

In such a night - I remember myself literally as the Psalmist writes, "remembering my songs in the night..."  I not only like to write meditatively, but also, poetry and lyrics.  I have a chest of lyrics laced around the legacy's left behind by my father.  Many of which were written in "the night'.  Songs have been sung over and over, while traveling miles on the road making trips from here to there...all while in the midst of such nights.  Songs that have carried me through the desolate desert of betrayal, murder, rape, addictions, socio-pathic behaviors, and the like.  Longing to become a rose...in a dry and barren land, I was.  As I would muse...the questions were easily found flowing freely from my fragile fragmented heart...and they sounded much like the Psalmist writes here.  Listen again...he holds nothing back- of the human hearts hungry; haunting cry for answers:
    
     "Will the Lord reject forever?  
        Will he never show his favor
                         again?
       Has His promise failed for all
                         time? 
       Has God forgotten to be merciful?

            Has He in anger withheld his compassion?"    Selah     


What are the themes in this pouring out; this posture and position of his heart?  
Rejection.
Loss of Favor.
Promises - Lost.
Forgotten.
Merciless.
Anger instead of Compassion.


I asked in the first part of this Muse....What kind of relationship does one have, with one who can ask and pose such statements?  I would say...a very intimate one.  Otherwise, where and what kind of relationship really contains such things- lost?  I adore the writing God has given in the Psalms...because it gives us both affirmation and permission to be fully authentic, fully transparent before our God.  Is that not the kind of relationship we are all longing for?  If we aren't...then we aren't going to find relationship fully alive!  




I can remember so very much all the desolation, I have come through.  I remember so many tears.  So many feelings.  So many memories.  We remember much...when we have been through.  Through and through; we have been, many of us.  We're not alone.  Not in the going through.  Not ever.  But, if we don't ask the questions, if we don't muse and meditate, if we don't as it said in the first verses I talk about from Psalm 77 of my writing; "Muse part 1",  - "Yell out to God....Cry out", and pour out our soul....but instead, let it stay inside- we'll find ourselves purging it out in some fragmented way or another.  And we never fully find we indeed are - not alone.  He is always with us.  But...

we won't always feel that way, or feel that we aren't.  WE WILL  feel alone.  To say otherwise, is to deny the truth.  Even Jesus Himself, felt abandoned by His Father, while taking upon Him the worst of all suffering of mankind ever.  The sins of all, once and for all.  HE not only felt it, but yelled it out from the depths of the most hellish experience anyone has ever endured; "My God!!!! MY GOD!!!! WHY!!! have you FORSAKEN ME????  


I'm pondering right now, a thought-....  Until we feel we have lost something or are missing something, might we not go looking for it?  Or, ask it this way; until we find ourselves, without something, will we recognize our need, the vacancy of what it is we don't have?  What does it take for us to have a need to- Remember?  What causes one to have any thought to Remember?  Why Remember?  What causes us the need to Remember?  

The knowledge of something; having been.


And so where does one begin to remember from?  How far back does one go; in remembering?  Well, I guess that would depend on, what it is you are trying to recall?  Or perhaps, why you are trying to remember.  


Are you good, at Remembering?





The Psalmist goes on after this pouring out,...and begins again to write about what he will do; 


Verse 10 - 12:
 ..."To this I will appeal:
 the Years of the right hand of the Most High. "
  "I will remember the deeds of the Lord...
    Your miracles of long ago...
           mediate on all your works, consider all your mighty deeds.  
Your ways are....Holy, ...great, ...miraculous...powerful...mighty...redemptive, ...."


and he writes more going on about the amazing and miraculous ways God delivers His people out of slavery and bondage from Egypt.  I encourage you to go and read the whole Psalm.  

I see often in the Psalms, the writer will pour out his soul...and all that it contains.  He will unveil the real struggle, the perspectives of his situation from his angle of agony.  Oh...how thankful I am for this.  It's the quote I love from Shadowlands, "We read to know we're not alone"; that resonates as I read the Psalms.  And what I love more than anything...in all the recounting and revealing of the reality of his soul, peril and all....the writer does this....he Remembers.  And it's in this remembering...that we are once again, seeing what we began to see in the beginning, differently.  It's that beautiful rainbow that comes after the storm...full of color and radiance that can only be seen after, but longed for, leaned upon, and lived within...in the remembering.


Dear Savior, of whom has suffered and agonized;
for me,


Thank you...for opening through your Holy Spirit;
 windows of pain- 
    the writer's of the Psalms; have given us.  


I love Lord, that many nights... 
these Psalms have not just spoken the tears of David and other's,
                       but have dripped with my tears; 
                          trailing through the tragic, 
threads of time.  


Oh Savior...how I have found comfort in these times. 
How I have been able to remember...
       "I read to know I am not ...alone".  But, Savior, ...


there are those times too, where the remembering has not come so easily. 


 Yes, I have remembered.  


But, not those threads of the story...
where You, held it all together for me. 


 Where the time lines of all that took place, 
            were tenderly tasseled 
in the torrents of Your Grace.  


Oh, how if I had not taken time to remember...
            I'd not have seen; just a glimpse; of such sovereign scenes.  Help me Savior,...


to remember more often, 
You too, felt-


 alone.  


Forsaken.  


Abandoned. 


 And in that truth alone, 
I can take the comfort of those words,

         as companions traveling alongside me.  

Thank you for the songs, in the night. 
                           And help me see beyond, the storms; 


that I might see more quickly...
                the rainbow of the miraculous-
    moving amongst...


the remembering.

"Can You Even Believe It!"

"Look Mommy, an Excavator, a Bulldozer, and a Backhoe, Mommy.  Can you even believe it Mommy!" stated Seth in a jubilant exaltation!  


My little boy is very much, all about Construction Trucks these days.  Every where we go, we are seeing them.  You know how it is when you get a new car, you suddenly see "your" car, everywhere.  


I was on my way to an appointment, alone.  Though not often do I go anywhere alone, when I do - it's a time of uninterrupted thought, reflection, and worship.  A time where; a deep breath- is good for the soul.  


I had been breathing in a deep breath of worship, playing a song on repeat by Mathew West called, "The Reason For The World".  It's an amazing song about just that, making sense of the things that happen in the world we live.  Leading us ultimately into a realization that, we long for Home.  Home being Heaven.  I was pondering how much I have longed for Heaven; decades now.  How tragedy's have a way of setting your perspectives on higher ground.  How just as quickly as the traffic raced past me, fading into my rear view mirror, so memories raced by my minds eye. However, I wish memories disappeared just as quickly.

Though the sky was that of a summer blue, the air outside was clearly not that of summer, but rather seeking permission for the arrival of winter, as it lay at the edge of it's coming.  Life...does not take such steps.  It does not slowly emerge.  It just comes.  It waits not- for you to gently ease into such things.  It simply ...arrives.  


As I considered the destination of which I was going to arrive at this morning, I began to notice many Construction Trucks all around me.  Echoing in my heart, "Can you even believe it Mommy!".  And in that quiet moment of reflection, I heard it again, only it wasn't my little boys voice I heard, but rather the voice of the Holy Spirit..."Can you even believe it, Dawn?  Look, ...that is what I say when I see the construction work of my children going on.  When I see the 'trucks' of life coming at them, the Excavator of eradication and all that hinders one from fully coming alive.  The Front End Loader coming to scoop away that which has been chisled, after the Bulldozer first did it's job of plowing out all that was destroying me.  Friendships that were unhealthy. The dirt of derailed and daunting decisions left behind.  The Crane Truck of which had the wrecking ball effects of poor discernment.  Can you even believe it, Dawn!  Because, what I see Dawn...is not the torn up Construction site, but rather the restored site.  The fully alive, breathing life site, that has come to it's fullest potential."


 And then, just as Seth asks; the Holy Spirit asks me, "See it Dawn, see it!"  Like my little boy, with longing- Jesus looks and asks, do you see it? Really see it?  


And then I felt the Holy Spirit ask, like when you buy that new car... do you see it everywhere?  Not just in your own life, but in the life of others too? Do you see the beauty of the construction in the lives around you?  Do you see beyond the trucks of tragic trauma, into the places where, foundations are laid, cemented in, like a Cement Truck pours cement,...firming up that which cannot be shaken?  Do you see... the way I am forming and making what seems like an excavation of enormous magnitude of the enemy's making, and taking what was stolen and giving it back, miraculously beyond what could or would have been before?  Do you see Dawn, how with great joy, delight and freedom, I AM?  That I too, am moving among this construction site of your life, with immeasurable longing, patience, pursuit, that none would perish, so that my healing, deliverance and redemptive restoration might fall forward to all who hear, see, listen...?  


Then He asks me,"Do you want to see more?  Be a player in the in the story of all that I am doing not just around you but through you as well?  I don't need you, true!  But oh...how I love to use my creation, to reveal all of who I AM!  Can you even believe it, Dawn?" 

As I sat there just about to get out of my car, having arrived to my destination, I mused a moment...what will I have to go through, before I arrive at my eternal destination?  Can I see it through the lens of; all I've been given in this short drive today?  Can I say it with the jubilation that Seth did?  See, the thing is...we don't always get the blueprints of what the site is being torn up for...what is being built.  Unless we look...eternally.  And it's this view...that I long for more of.


Dear Holy Spirit,


Wow...you really do know me don't you.  I did not expect such an intimate moment, on such a normal kind of day.  But, you don't see as I do.  You see perfectly, while I see...dimly.  You see what I can't see.  And yet; you invite me to come close,...you invite me to see, listen, hear, all that You are doing. You invite me to also, play a role...in the work that you are doing in others.  This is nothing less than humbling for me.


I have had some pretty major construction work going on for a long time now.  I'm humbled all the time, that you are continuing your promise, fulfilling it..."I will bring to completion, the good work which I begun".  Thank you. Thank you for Your patience with me. 

And Father, please draw near to ___________ who is going through a very intense excavating experience, as well.  Show me, how I can be used in that site.  Help me rightly usher in the privilege of what you want to do, to help them come fully alive through it.

I pray Holy Spirit, while in the midst of my own
construction; 

I would not be concerned with how long it will take,

or what I can't control,

or what I see as it's happening. 

But rather remember...every truck of transformation has a role to play.
Just as I have a role to play.  

When all the digging, pushing, scraping, and excavating is going on, I pray I would be enveloped by Your intimate presence.  And help me most, while standing in a world longing for home, 

to see the eternal.

So that I can say in response; "Can you even believe it!" and rest in all around me, coming fully alive.