A word from my Hosea

I had a battle with the enemy Sunday morning. I found myself feeling alone as I prepared to teach a lesson on God's unfailing love.
My prior week included a few days of isolation sprinkled with a few attempts to reach out but nothing authentic; I was hiding. The gift I'd receive to truly and intimately receive the Lord suddenly felt too close and I began to turn it off. Before I knew it, Sunday was coming and I had nothing left to offer. Several days of turning away from the gift I'd received, several days of running from what had become intensly intimate, several days of living on my own strength left me empty and in fear on the day I needed Him the most. I spent all day Sunday in fear and shame.
I knew the truth but could only heard the lies, a battle to replace one for the other is not won in a day or a week but in extended time alone with Him. Just this morning God led me to this

I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places-firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again. [The Message, Isaiah 58 11-12]

In fear I turned away from my new deeper intimacy of our relationship and He pursued me. He tells me "I will always show you where to go" and He satisfies me "I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places" and He protects my future with "firm muscles, strong bones." He gives encouragement to what I know He's called me to do "You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. "

I admit I crave His love for me and I fear His love for me. Its intensity is refreshing, its availability is unfailing and its condition is limitless...it is the purest of love. When I found myself empty, alone and without the One that so freely gives to me I feel lost. God, on the other hand found a great opportunity to show me His wisdom, unconditional love and understanding in the place I hid, in the wisdom I lacked.

I fell deaf, He spoke louder

I left, He followed

I cowered, He sent a friend

I returned, He embraced

I complained, He listened

I felt shame, He washed me

I received, He annointed

He knows what I need to hear, I just have to listen when He is speaking. I have found stability in the fact that I dont deserve God's unfailing love, His embrace, the comfort of His affection and therefore I can NEVER do anything to lose it.

Receiving is the hardest thing for me to learn. However, it doesn't seem to matter how many times I push Him away, He continues to run after me as if I am the only one He loves. I dont get it but I am getting that I dont have to 'get it' just 'receive it.'

yours truly, Gomer

Out of the kitchen...at His feet

It has been almost a year since I've blogged the evidence of God's grace in my fumbling; its not that it hasn't continued but the rate in which God has called me close leaves little room for pause/writing. I am a growing soul in His ripe soil!
Anything that blocks our hearts from freedom to respond to Him breaks His heart; it doesn't set well with Him. All the Lord desires is our response. He delights when His children respond to Him. Most times we aren't taught how to truly and deeply respond to the intimacy of others. We add surfaced emotions, acceptable expressions and religious behavior to make up for what lacks in the deepest parts of our soul; the ability to be our true selves. Fortunately because God is God He requires little of me.
Response requires vulnerability, receipt of one’s initiation and allows for control. Even in my Christian culture a woman's ability to do is valued over receiving, being and responding. We are given our sense of worth and value before we can even speak - it is a gift from our Mother's response to our needs and wants. Somewhere in the midst of an incredibly attentive and affectionate mother I missed this. I learned that my value (as a woman) came not from receiving but from performing. I became an aggressive initiator instead of an open receiver.
I struggle as a Christian woman and leader. I struggle with the false truth that I am worthy because I serve others. The "you are worthy" message I long to hear hasn't been coming from the Lord in the past its come from doing. However, I serve a God much larger than my brokenness.
Why is it that He is always with us, knows everything about us and never leaves us? Because He created us and He responds to us. Psalm 139 reminds us of who we are - not the sum of who we are. The fact that I am wonderfully and fearfully made brings me delight because I receive it. I have wrestled with God enough to have come to believe it in the deepest places of my being. He wants to restore in us the ability to receive and to give by being.
Coming to this place has taken me out of the kitchen and put me at the feet of my Savior. I am aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit....because I am able to receive. I no longer need to call on the Lord and run to Him, I just know He is always here. I am quicker to love because His healing hand gives me a foundation in which receiving and responding has been practiced and affirmed. I am now able to respond to the Father as the woman He created me to be.

A beautiful picture of a confident woman of God responding to His spirit. The flags allowing her to capture more of Him through the wind that breathes life into the creation around her. He exhales and she inhales. He gives and she responds. He creates and she receives.