Enfolded in His love

"Unfailing love enfolds him who trusts in the Lord." -Psalm 32:10

If those words say anything to me it's,

"Daughter, I've got you. I'm wrapping you up in more love than you can imagine if you'll just trust me."

Sometimes I really do feel like a little girl curled up in her father's lap. I'm protected and safe even when I forget I'm in the arms of the Almighty. Strange how our earthly minds can forget such a thing and worldly matters can consume. Father, help me to remember that I'm enfolded in your love, literally wrapped in it for safe keeping and I do not need to worry.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." James 1:2-4

You intended to harm me..but

Where there were stains from my poor attempts to clean myself, Your blood covered all. I woke up the other day with an ear full from the devil. His best weapons loaded and launched from the moment my eyes fluttered open. I began to feel dirty, unworthy, not good enough. It was as if my past decisions had built some army and I was Pearl Harbor. I sat through my three hour upper-division social work class and the girl beside me kept asking if I were about to cry. I couldn't even look at her. I left and drove straight to my boyfriends house. I needed him to know everything. I needed him to know I'd dated the wrong guys before him and he definitely wasn't my first kiss. Being his first really serious girlfriend, the devil kept saying,

"It's too bad he waited all this time for this, you aren't exactly rapped in plastic off the shelf. You're used. You're never going to be on his level. You might as well get this over with. You'll be glad you ended things so early this time."

I sat across from him on his bed. I couldn't look at him. Instead I fixed my eyes on the different shades of blue strips that make up his bed spread. Once I'd finished explaining I waited to hear confirmation so I could leave and it could be over. I heard him clear his throat and say, "that's it?" and before he'd let me respond, he said with complete confidence, "I love you. Don't you dare let the devil get in your head like that again. Everything is fine, I'm not going anywhere."

All I could murmor was, "I was expecting you to make me feel bad, or dirty or something."

His reply was perfect. "You are clean and you know it." That was the end of the discussion.

I got baptized recently, and there was this divine moment right after. After I stepped out of the pool I had to go around the side of the building and come in by the bathrooms where my change of clothes were. As I left my family and friends briefly, I rounded the corner to the empty all hallway were Stephen had run to meet me. He wrapped me up in his arms (me soaking wet, him still dressed in his church attire) and told me how proud he was of me. I'd been waiting for a moment like that. Praying that such a moment existed for me. Where I felt renewed and on track with God's divine direction, and there dripping wet, I knew. So when he said, "You're clean and you know it." He meant it. He meant that I am washed by the blood, and there's not a stain left on me. I'm thankful for those words of life and for someone who never lets me forget them.

‎"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done..." -Genesis 50:20

Thankful for Him and him

"No human relation gives one possession in another… every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone."
Khalil Gibran

The extending tingle of a first kiss

I had an interesting dream the other night. I dreamt I was walking barefoot down a warm pavement path, I am not sure where I was but it looked an awful lot like a cemetery, except I don't remember seeing any actual graves. The air was thick from the heat of the sun that was nearly done setting. It seemed like only seconds before the beautiful shades of pink and orange that danced across the sky deepened to fierce shades of puffy black and gray. Somehow before I could understand the weather change, I found myself in the labor pains of a coming storm. Before my brain could tell my legs to run, I felt a sting of pain and a flash of light. I had somehow been struck by lightening and was laying face down on the now cold pavement. My lower body seemed paralyzed as I opened my eyes to assess the damage, I noticed a old newspaper on the ground next to me. To my surprise, my curiosity enabled my hands to reach out and grab it. As I opened the newspaper which, seemed to be from a few years back, old pictures of myself from high school fell out in slow motion as if they were suspended in the air just long enough for me to see my past swoosh by then they were gone and I woke up.

The morning after I had this dream I couldn't stop thinking about how vivid it all had been. Finally after a couple hours I decided to look up what it means to be struck by lightening in your dreams. I know, how original, however what I read, I found to be spot on, so I will share it with you. According to the dream translator, "to dream that you are struck by lightning, symbolizes irreversible changes occurring in your life. You are undergoing a permanent transformation."

This ladies and gentleman, is absolutely true of my life right now. The grace and renewal I've experienced over the last four months has been life transforming. The habits and memories I thought I could never rid my mind of seemed to flash past me as fast as the pictures in my dream and simply disintegrate. I finally feel as though fresh tracks have been laid for me and I've already boarded a new train that never takes me down the old roads I used to roam and that has been extraordinarily freeing. Walking in freedom has equipped me to take on the life God originally planned for me. Like a first kiss I can still feel the tingle of the unknown rising the hairs on my skin, but it the lack of fear has sent me shooting forward in faith. God's never left my side, and that, I have learned is always true.

"From the ends of the earth I call to you, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I."
Psalm 61:2

I am humbled indefinitely

Well friends, it's 3:36AM. I went to bed at 10:30PM and woke up a few minutes ago like I'd met my sleeping quota for a year. Wide awake is my current state, but not that miserable wide awake, I'm in this weird serene, rested confidence. I've been too busy to write or so I've been telling myself for the last three months. Apparently God has other plans, if the middle of the night is when He wants me to write, then so be it. Here's the deal, the girl inside me says, "tell them about your new man" but other than he is absolutely wonderful, I'm not entirely sure what I'm about to write. From the aspect of believer I ought to have known my expectations would be far surpassed and yet I could not have imagined feeling so graciously loved and so indubitably valued by another person.

The way he cares for me has taught me only a small ounce of the love of my Abba and everyday that I let Stephen love me, is another day I fall deeper in love with the original Lover of my soul. The way Stephen approaches life is unique in the sense that he sees it as a privilege to serve people. No matter what he's doing for me, he does it as though he couldn't be happier to get to be the guy who takes care of me. I've never had someone paint such a perfect picture of humble servant hood as much as just being around this boy has shown me.That's how I know things are different. I get the butterflies every time I'm reminded of how precious love is when it's done with the Lord as ground we walk on. Have there been times where things weren't perfect or easy, yes, but when your hearts are set on serving and others, somehow the rest just works itself out. I am humbled indefinitely by God's blessings and the reality of his goodness reflected all around me.