I wish you could be here with me. Well, that is not entirely true. I wish you could be somewhere like I am able to be right now. But, honestly, I am really enjoying my time alone. It is 65 degrees. The sun is out - with a few clouds - and the breeze is cool. Birds are singing all around me and I am sitting on a balcony overlooking beautiful trees - and in the distance - a quiet lake. There is a hush in the air. A stillness, a peacefulness that I rarely partake of at home.
I had hours this morning of worship. Sometimes singing... sometimes praying... sometimes just sitting in stillness before the Lord, and sometimes trying to erase the billion thoughts jumbled in my head. We sang a song that moved my heart. I want to sing it out loud - I want to play it on the piano. “All I want is you and all I need is found only in your heart.” The melody is almost haunting... it is so beautiful. It is as if it grips your heart and pulls you toward something you know to be true, but you rarely acknowledge as the truth by your actions.
Why it is easier here to skip a nap and study I am not fully sure of. The weather is perfect. The balcony doesn’t hurt anything, nor do the trees and birds. It is easy to see a stillness that exists in the earth. A quiet restfulness that isn’t sleep, but is as restful as if I had taken a long nap. My precious baby girl is sleeping peacefully downstairs. She has been a delight.
I am so aware of the sin in my life right now. Though it isn’t as if the Lord is bringing it all to light to slay me with it. It just breaks my heart that it is keeping me from intimacy with Him. I have been eating like a crazy woman. I am constantly craving sweets and things that are not necessarily healthy for my body. And I am giving in a lot to those cravings of my flesh. I have given in to the desire for sleep and the desire to feed my flesh so often. It is like I am given over to desires that Jesus came to free me from. It isn’t that He doesn’t want me to have sweets, or to get sleep... He commands us to rest - to take a Sabbath... and yet, I am so unbalanced in the way that I choose to live in these areas. I have always been quite the extremist. One day completely abstaining from the things that numb my heart and the next indulging until I am almost sick from the emptiness gained from the filling of my flesh.
I am reminded of (and thankful for) Paul’s words in Romans “who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Yes, praise be to God for Jesus who made atonement for all of the sin of the earth. So that if we but receive the gift of Grace given to us - we can be free from this sin that easily entangles! This is beautiful in Hebrews.. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak Samson, David...) let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith...” He did it all for the joy set before Him. And do you know what that joy is? He is now at the right hand of the Father - for eternity! And because of His sacrifice, we will one day join Him in Heaven. Why is it so hard to live this life as if it is as temporary as it really is? We will be here just a moment, and then it will all pass away and only the things done for eternity will last! I want to get this!!! Well, I am off to spend more time in the scriptures. What an amazing day! I am so thankful for my husband who allows me this time... this time to get away and be still with the Lord. What a precious gift he is to me. What a precious gift he has given me!
