let me stay here a little longer....

I was blessed to have nine days off in a row.  9 beautiful days.  No vacation taken.  No vacation planned.  Just 9 days in a row.  I did ask for the next three days off but the previous 6 days were just a lovely addition.  And it’s amazing how you don’t realize how much you may actually need something more than you know.  The past several days have been this subconscious preparation for the endurance of these three days.  A time to find comfort in God, seek His shelter and lean on Him.  This past week He has continued to point me toward Bethel Music as I have just continued to listen over and over.   Sunday after church, the words played again and again.  Crying out to God and missing my son.  Thinking about that beautiful time that I will see him again, wrapped in the glory of Christ.  Then these words played out; they echoed a chorus my soul was already playing...

      “And I will lock eyes

    With the One who's ransomed me

The One who gave me joy for mourning

And I will lock eyes

With the One who's chosen me

The One who set my feet to dancing.”

I will be overcome by that glory and power of Christ.  The one who gives me joy.  The one who continues to set my feet to dancing.  Every year, several times a year, I become so focused on Gideon.  I mean tunnel vision on Gideon.  And God so kindly in one way or another turns my focus back to him.  It will be a glorious time when I get to see that blue eyed boy again but the real beauty of it all comes from the beauty that is Christ.  He makes it possible. 

So as we get great news that we have this growing girl who is being intricately made within me, or when it’s 11PM  in the middle of a rainstorm the night before the anniversary of the biggest fight of our life, we will be filled with the same joy.  The joy that only comes from God.  

Better words than I could write:

“You steady me

Slow and sweet, we sway

Take the lead and I will follow

Finally ready now

To close my eyes and just believe

That You won't lead me

Where You don't go

When my faith gets tired

And my hope seems lost

You spin me round and round

And remind me of that song

The one You wrote for me

And we dance.”

Lord, your love has broken every chain.  You free me.  You heal me.  You guide me.  Though my flesh deters, my flesh caves, you spin me back around.   I am continuously pointed back to you.  And I can’t thank you enough.  Like those words I cried out, those words I screamed out; I can’t thank you enough.  And though I ask you, what it is you would have me to do.  You simply reply with not a list of do’s and don’t’s.  You don’t condemn me for focusing on Gideon and planting my feet in the muck of sorrow.  But you simply love on me and call me to love you so that I can feel that joy that overcomes all of my mourning.  You are glorious, Lord.   You are glorious.