Unfathomable, Beautiful, Saviour Joy

 Father, you are my blessed Lord.  Today I went to North Carolina and He did amazing things.  I could try to sum up all that He taught me through this day, but let me instead describe my train of thought when I returned.

I climbed the stairs to my dorm room and turned down the hall, a little dingy compared to the bright sunshine outside.  My bag slipped from my shoulder to the floor and I stood with my head in my hands, emotions overwhelming me, and I knew I needed to go back outside.

I wasn't sad though, nor worried, nor fearful, it simply was the depth of joy and brimming over of emotion that could only take its expression in the context of God's great creation.  Today was amazing, beautiful, wonderful, but really, today God simply showed me all that He has done this semester--this year!  It was a day of serving and being filled.

As I wandered out the doors trailing memories and joys with every footstep, I found myself caught up in a trail of thankfulness and praise to my Jesus.  The pale greens, the tiny blossoms, the sounds of the birds in the trees, all capturing my attention.  I found myself mentally retracing the steps of this year, the work God has done, the changes He has made in me, and the maturing and yet... deep within me I am still the me that He created from the start.  He has let me keep my wonder.

I came to a big, glorious tree and pulled off my sandals and flung down my things, happy for the feeling of life in that tree, and as I spoke to Jesus, I began to weep.  Down my face tumbled tears of utter joy--He is so faithful!  Yes today was grand, and pointed to the absolute hardest times in my life and said "There!  There you learned grace!  There you learned joy!  There you learned rest!  There you learned dependence.  There I taught you." and I realize it's the voice of the Lord speaking to my heart.

To know that He has given me victory and purity and triumph and rest in the midst of the storms--that is success in His eyes!  He graces us with opportunities:  Opportunities to suffer, opportunities to serve, opportunities to fall back on His faithfulness, opportunities to observe His best in the relationships of others, opportunities to learn and blossom.

So why today?  Why so much?  (and so much more within my heart that would fill ten thousand books!)

Simply because God chose today.  And I can rest in the peace that comes with knowing that His way is best.   Psalm 139:5-6 say

You have enclosed me behind and before,

And laid Your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

It is too high, I cannot attain to it.

That is exactly how I feel right now.  He has perfectly planned out my days in His infinite-ness and I am so so so very privileged to have a tiny glimpse of His greatness.  To wonder in all the He is and all that He does and has done is truly a marvel indeed.

Praise Jesus!  Thank you Father!

~Sheila

An Artist of the Heart - Seeking out Beauty

The more I learn about the body and see the art inside, the more I realize I'm an artist.  You can be a science lover and an artist, right?  You can mine the depths of the workings of the human body and be an artist, right?

Maybe I'm not the artist majoring in paintbrushes or bowstrings, vocal cords or clay, but I know deep down inside me, in the part of me that reaches for the tiny fingers of the newborn barely birthed, there is poetry.  And poetry makes my heart sing!

Look at those textures and marvel with me at the amazing genius and creative majesty of our Saviour and Creator!  What a joy to serve the one who designed this stuff!

Tomorrow I have a giant Anatomy and Physiology test, and sometimes my brain doesn't want to absorb all the information.  Sometimes I feel bogged down, overwhelmed, overworked.  And then I look up.  I see this beauty.  I see through my own eyes and my own soul, and I am overjoyed.  Overwhelmed by His sovereignty.  How can I worry or fear or dread?

I need to sing more, to revel more, to wait patiently more.  God has put me in an amazing place where I walk into my classroom and am greeted by the warmth of another heart that loves Jesus, and am subsequently taught from that heart!  What a privilege!

So I stop, in spring, to enjoy the flowers.  To drink in the scents.  To revel in the downpour and the days of cold, misty wetness, knowing that even then, the flowers still bloom, drinking deep for tomorrow when the sun shines.

~Sheila

Here I am!

I'm at the beginning of the end of the beginning.  Life is beginning to feel grandly small, insignificantly large, and terribly wonderful.

I wonder, sometimes, at these inconsistencies, and how I am to show my praise to God through them all.  How many times have I wondered how to continue, why my life has been so fragmented, why I have so little to show for all that the Lord has brought me through, and yet there's that age old phrase that He won't let me let go of:

"You're right where you're supposed to be."

Outside the blossoms are blooming and the sun is shining, and even in the places where the rain is falling and the skies are darkening, God is at work.  He has not forgotten us.  He has not let us go.  He is the God of time, who can stretch or shorten each individual's time as He sees fit--just this week I was reminded of that by two separate people, and in the midst of literally not having enough time, He stretched, lengthened my time to an amount that I cannot understand.  To serve a sovereign God is just mind boggling.

And so in the midst of that awe-inspiring beauty and glory and power, I must respond with these words that have been ringing through my head since hearing other's sing it at the nursing home where I serve every Saturday morning:

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard My people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin,
My hand will save.

I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear My light to them?
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.

I, the Lord of snow and rain,
I have born my peoples pain.
I have wept for love of them, They turn away.
I will break their hearts of stone,
Give them hearts for love alone.
I will speak My word to them,
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.

I, the Lord of wind and flame,
I will tend the poor and lame.
I will set a feast for them,
My hand will save
Finest bread I will provide,
Till their hearts be satisfied.
I will give My life to them,
Whom shall I send?

Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night.
I will go Lord, if You lead me.
I will hold Your people in my heart.


And I know that I, too, am in the palm of His hand, feasting on His peace, and rest, and joy in the midst of a crazy world.

Sheila

Waiting Expectantly, Joy Fulfilled - a paradox

Writing again. Or trying to.  Today's just been one of those ethereal days where I can't help repeating myself at the wonder of the poetry declared for all to see in the sky above me.  The setting sun touching pinkness on the edge of glowing clouds behind silhouetted, spindly winter trees.  The softness of the cool-tinged wind across my face and hands, exposed beyond my sweater.  The dance of eyes filled with delight and freedom because of a voice that can sing and express its soul's yearning to praise the Maker of all.

Why should I be given so much?  It isn't that I'm searching for more... or is it?  Perhaps that's the key.  I have been searching for more, but when I've given it up, those moments where I've followed Christ's footsteps as I ought, those are the times I am gifted richly with these things.  Or perhaps those gifts are always there, laid out in the open hand of my Saviour, yet my inward, prideful focus keeps me from noticing.

There's always so much to do.  I'm never bored, nor find myself at a loss for what to occupy my mind with.  If anything, it's the opposite.  I must choose rest sometimes, and come scrambling back to my Saviour for completeness and joy.  In conversation with others I find myself handing out freely the answers I need most myself, and as the Spirit reminds me, I look inside and find a dirty fist clutching ragged treasures, and hesitantly, then haphazardly, I fling them at His feet.  It is when I come to the lowest point that He raises me up to my most brilliant--not because of my own glowing form, but because of the righteousness of Christ with which He has, in His great mercy, robed me.

And as I tear at the dream of a future with hopes as yet unfulfilled, I find myself joying at the perfect peace I have in God's perfect plan.   I look back with vivid memory of the dreams that then were unfulfilled, the pools I filled with saltwater drops over hopes, and the little dirty fist, opened, opened, opened, treasures tossed, tossed, tossed.  Now my soul cries those tears backwards, laughing as I REJOICE over His deigning to choose this time--this short time--to fulfill that hope.

Stretched beyond belief and broken yet again, yet more whole than ever before.

The beautiful paradox of the Christian Life.

~Sheila

Fingerprints

Today I'm reflecting on the past and my life in Christ.  There are some moments when you come right to the end of yourself and have to wonder why.  Why this story?  Why her story?  Why his story?  Why such hurt? Yet as as I meditate upon my life and others, I am struck by the incredible beauty of the fingerprints of God. Everywhere I look, He is in control.  Through the deepest valleys, and the roughest storms, He has been carefully crafting our lives.  As I get older I start to realize just how much pain and hurt there is in the world, and I wonder how God deals with it all.  The sobbing faces I see before me are only a tiny, tiny sample of the wounded hearts and burdened souls that brush past me each day with plastered smiles or downcast eyes.

Can you imagine the grandeur of God?  Can you fathom His infinite character or the vastness of His love?  He brings us through the wildest storms, just to prepare us for something much greater.  His sovereignty is unchanging.

And when we pray, He listens.  These tiny, floundering souls that hurry and scatter across the globe each day in pursuit of vain dreams--He listens to us.  Those unspoken prayers, those deep, wordless thoughts--He hears them!  And what am I to the world?

Yet His fingerprints are continually evident.  Every day.  Every hour.  Every minute.

Every life.

Praising Him,
Sheila