Redemption

 

I remember when I first moved to Knoxville. The thrill of a brand new start was clouded by some struggles I was having. The sound of the mourning doves haunted me night and day. I would sit in my prayer room or on the screened-in porch I was so thrilled to finally have and their plaintive, mournful cries would cut right to my broken heart. It was awful. I couldn't get away from them. They were always there. In the evening, just before night fell, was when their voices rattled me most. Dark was a sad and scary time for me. It was easier to be hopeful as a new day began than in the evening when physical gloom was crowding in. "What a lack of faith," some of you may be thinking, shaking your collective head. Yep. It was. New trials showcase our built-in weaknesses quickly. They cut us behind the knees and we stumble. The sound those doves made sounded like the death of some of my closely-held dreams. Those jokers are aptly named. They sound sad.

There's nothing like redemption. Today, they crowd all of my feeders, and, along with the cheerily-colored cardinals, are the most plentiful bird in my backyard. I don't dread their calls anymore. They simply remind me that nature is close at hand for me to enjoy. What a change! A blessed paradigm shift. 

I am thankful to God for His many acts of redemption. If it were not for His unbroken chain of grace over my life, I would not be here. I would have died of a broken heart a long, long time ago. Oddly enough, I was eager to move here to escape sad memories in my former home and the waters we have waded through here were far, far deeper, the current so much stronger it makes me laugh in comparison. One thing I am absolutely sure of; those waters made me a stronger swimmer. I know now what God is capable of carrying me through. He has never left my side, even when fear choked my reason and my faith seemed locked behind plexiglass, my fingernails scratching the surface, clawing for it. He never judged me, He just kept walking with me. He used many, many people to help me to, first, my knees, and then my feet. The challenges have not all dissipated, but my ability to understand that God is guiding me and He will protect me as I make all of the very best choices I can, listening for His direction in all things, has become so much stronger that I hardly recognize myself. The only thing that builds this kind of strength is swimming against the undertow with the God of the Universe holding you up and showing you the way out.

The other day I wrote out a battle plan for times of challenge and spiritual warfare. You won't be surprised to know that fixing my gaze on Jesus, meditating on key bible verses and remembering that I'm deeply loved by God are in the plan. Don't laugh at me for having a written plan. If the enemy of my soul has a plan for my destruction, then I'll have a better one for walking on his head, right out of the shards of my own dreams and into the stunningly beautiful dreams God the Father Himself has for me! The last chapter of my life will be so much better than the first.

Along the Way

I recently read somewhere that journal-style blogging is a thing of the past. Here I am, living squarely in yesteryear, rather enjoying every yellowed minute of it! Thanks for joining me in the dusty halls of bottom-rung-self-publishing. Apparently I am a dinosaur, swinging my way through the forest! (That's not the reason for the photo I've included above.) Before I move further through the jungle, I'll stop to add that I also read real paper and ink books, the kind you can hold, the kind that fall from your hand as you nod off to sleep. Yes, yes I do. I still make notes on paper, too. All of these practices are satisfying to me, however inefficient you may deem them. You don't have to understand.

Nature speaks to me. I recognize that I'm not the first creative type to nobly assert this. I get that every wannabe writer in the universe claims the sun, moon, stars, the veritable expanse of the universe is his or her muse. We all gush about the messages shouted by the waves, the tender song of the sparrow, the twisted path of the tornado. Why? Simple fact is that God himself is visible in creation. If we were always in it and never learning, never seeing Him, we would have to have closed our eyes and stopped our ears. Even then we'd feel the wind, the sun, the rain. We'd understand his power and we would somehow sense his genius. Even without the sight of the delicately-painted butterfly's wing, the red-streaked horizon at sunset, the myriad calls from a tree line filled with birds, we'd be conscious of him.

Today as I was out walking the short path behind our subdivision, I was praying. I was pleading with the Holy Spirit to help me. I saw a break in the trees where a creek trickles through. I don't know where it comes from or where it goes. Might have its genesis in a mighty river, or it could be runoff from our homes. The break in the trees is like a crack in the heavens where the Holy Spirit seeps through, coming into my heart and life and effecting change. I took the above photo a little further downstream. It was more picturesque. It looked like more of a substantial promise from Him to head into my life with some living water. To take my heart on another course, some direction I may never have thought of before. A friend recently told me that God will show me what to do and that it may be something that has never occurred to me before. I liked that idea with an intensity I can't put into words. I am perpetually bored and God is endlessly fascinating so it makes sense that to cure my emptiness I would seek and seek and seek and, when spent to the core, seek some more. All of the way to the finish line.