remember things. I’m struggling with feeling like the past year was
even real, and because of that I want to work harder to remember the
stories. Ones that are so simple and easy and sweet that they should
not be forgotten. I want to remember them as if reminiscing with those
I experienced them with, and to feel the flavor and touch of God
through them.
It’s harder than I thought being back, though not in the way I thought. Rather
than feeling misplaced and misunderstood, I feel too comfortable, too
the same. If Satan is going to reach me in these next few months it’s
going to be by siphoning my Race experience away into oblivion. Did it
happen? Have I already left? Or will I wake up tomorrow and travel to
the airport to begin the whole experience?
The Race is only supposed to be 11 months. I have no doubt of that. No doubt of the importance of coming home for a season. After
all, my heart was made to be romanced, and if it had continued the Race
would have had the opportunity to become my romancer. I loved
it. I loved the cultures that I witnessed, experienced, slept in and
smelled of. I loved the ministry, and have never felt more alive than
when on my knees in the dirt before someone, receiving a word from the
Lord just for them. I miss my brothers and sisters with an ache I
didn’t think possible.
In
time, the Race could have become the way I experienced the Lord. Some
people require a good book, or an inspirational teaching or a
heartbreaking experience to put longing in their heart. I required the unfamilar, the challenge, to discover more of God and, inadvertently, more of me. And
now I’m in an environment that is familiarly me. People who have known
me when I was pooping my diapers. A house I can navigate with my eyes
closed. And a past that speaks of more years without the Lord then
knowing Him. And Satan whispers, this is who you are, nothing has changed.
And in some ways it hasn’t. I’m
still a girl who loves floating out to the middle of the lake, or
spending an hour serving tennis balls. I can still get so lost in a
book I don’t hear my name called, and ice cream is my food group of
choice. But at the same time, everything has changed. The
Nations whisper my name with a familiarity and I will return to them in
time. The kingdom of God beckons at my doorstep and I anoint my house
in His love. I pray in tongues when driving my car and prophesy life
and truth into those I know. And I remember what has been prophesied
over me.
remember without living in the past. I remember so I can share with
others, and to pour out the thousands of blessings from the past as an
offering to God.
“You
can never set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to
achieve your own satisfaction. If you try to satisfy yourself with a
blessing from God, it will corrupt you. You must sacrifice it, pouring
it out to God-something that your common sense says is an absurd
waste… we can be lustful in things that are not sordid and vile… if
you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour
out anything “to the Lord,” other people will never have their vision
of God expanded through you.” –Oswald Chambers (9/3)
Be
careful of what you hold too tightly to. God is the only thing we
should cling to. And even then we must be willing to let our vision and
understanding of Him to be transformed, as He is a living and active
God.
