Well, I’d first like to apologize for my complete disregard for finishing my blog… I’ve always known I wasn’t great at technology communication, but I didn’t realize HOW bad I am at it. The end of the race was AMAZING. As always, God shows up in cool ways, loves us, teaches us, molds and changes us and leads us into more of His plan for the Kingdom. He really has the whole world in His hands. I’m challenging myself to finish a couple blogs from the race and post some ending pictures- more for my own sake really- but those will be up soon.
As of now, I’m sure some of you are wondering what I’m doing. Home for a month, and there has to be something next. Right?
Nope.
That’s not entirely true. I know what I’m doing. It’s just that what I’m doing doesn’t require me to “do” a lot, as we would classify it in our society today. I begged the Lord for answers, I waited for His calling and lead, and I heard, clear as day,
“Kaylaynn, Come away with me. Do nothing and learn what it’s like to seek My Presence in the still and quiet so you won’t forget me in the noise someday.”
Essentially, the Lord is asking me to do nothing- nothing but seek Him. No job, no volunteer work, no normal everyday household things. Just spend the greater portion of my day with Him.
To those, like myself, who once thought “How nice would it be to have nothing to do all day but sit around, sip hot tea, read my bible, pray, listen to worship music, sing my heart out and dance frolicking in flower fields with Jesus”. Let me tell you… it’s not that nice.
Sure, I love Jesus. And I LOVE spending time with Him. And when I am in the midst of intentional time with Him, there is nowhere I’d rather be and none I’d rather be with. But when I read my bible, and then listen to some music, pray quietly, journal, all within 2 hours and I have to start over AGAIN for another 6 hours… I start to go a little stir crazy! And then in the midst of it all I remember I have to do this again tomorrow, and every day all week- well, you get the idea.
I want to know the Lord, I want to be like a priestess, a temple prophet or nun- those people who are so wrapped up in the love and Presence of the Lord they’re like Holy Spirit Space Cadets who live on another planet with Jesus. (Well maybe I don’t want to be that far gone, but you know what I mean). I want to be a woman of His character, who knows Him, loves Him and walks with Him minutely. But this kind of love takes time, a lot of time, and effort- sweat, blood and tears as I’ve come to realize.
Hosea 2: 14-16
Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her.There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor (trouble) a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.“In that day,” declares the Lord, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.”
This is the kind of love I want with the Father- not the dutiful servant-hearted daughter heart I’ve had, but the kind that knows Him so intimately He has become my husband, the Lord of my heart.
In this moment on my journey through the wilderness, it has become harder to hear Him speaking to me. It’s not that I feel He isn’t there- I feel Him sustaining my very existence like He did for the Israelites in the desert (Deuteronomy). It’s simply that in the midst of my “desert” there are so many distracting things, difficult annoyances, and hard times to overcome- I guess that’s why it’s called the desert. This journey wasn’t mean to be easy, He simply said He’d be with me the whole time, that He would carry me, love me and turn my valleys of trouble into doorways of hope. A pretty huge transformation since my troubles seem to be rising against me more each day.
It’s like learning to swim. Sometimes we learn in the shallow end, by the stairs where the water is calm and we’re always in the arms of someone who can stand feet firmly planted. We might get splashed, we might even go under, but there are always arms at our sides to carry us through. Other times we learn by getting thrown in the deep end, flailing about while our teacher stands on the side commanding us to swim- the reality and fear of going under water is more relevant here, but we are never alone and the side of the pool is only a few feet away. And far less often, we are taught to swim by being paddled out from the shore to the middle of the wild ocean, dropped over the side and left to flail about in the crashing waves while our instructor slowly begins to paddle back to shore, commanding over my drowning “swim!”.
This is me. I’m drowning, or at least I seem to think so. Surrounded by a mile of ocean on every side, with waves far more powerful than me crashing over my head. I’m dunked under water every second, with only a gasp at small pockets of air into my water filled lungs. The waves knock me under and I can’t see anything but black, but when they part for a split second I can see my teacher in the boat a few yards off. A beacon guiding me, calling to me to swim. And so I continue flailing, doing more drowning than swimming but trying none the less. And though the waves don’t let up, and the water never stops filling my breaths, and it gets harder and harder to see, I keep trying because I realize all I have between myself and death is my will to not give up.
I am not swimming, but I will not drown.
As I catch more glimpses of the boat carrying my teacher back towards shore, I realize I can see Him a bit clearer. He is smiling at me, at my hilarious attempts at keeping my head above water. But he smiles not in a condescending way, but a simple proud smile. The smile that says, “you’re doing it, don’t give up.” And I glance a bit past Him and realize shore isn’t as far away as it once was.
It’s at this time, where learning to seek the Lord with my everything feels more like drowning than swimming is becoming my life. But I will not give up, because I know what He has asked of me, and He believes in my will to do it because I hold onto His promises of hope…
“The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
Isaiah 58:11
