Stop Chasing God

Today I just want to share some tender heart thoughts.  These are fresh, uncensored journalings.  The kind that are almost too private to share.  But I will because I have found a breath of freedom today.  And I want to extend it to you, whoever you are, taking the time to stop in on my musings in this moment.  I will not attempt to analyze or explain.  This is not a sermon or a well thought out message.  Just a heart-flow.  Take it for whatever it speaks to you.

I am the harlot.

You are the relentless Lover.  The reckless Lover spilling all of Himself.  The scandalous Lover who will stop at nothing to bring the harlot back to His embrace, to endless intimacy.  Taking her to a place she never dreamed existed.  To make her the Beauty she has spent her lifetime longing to be, trying to be, failing to be...yes, to make her even more than that image....to be the Beauty who ravishes You!

The utterly worthless becomes a pearl of surpassing value over which You dance and sing.  The hopelessly broken transformed into unspeakable glory.

Recreated.  Cherished.  Wanted.

Thank You.  For wanting me.  That I don't have to chase You.  That's it's not about me wanting You badly enough....because You want me with an otherworldly desire.  Enough to create me.  Enough to rescue me.  Enough to win the heart of this harlot.  Relentless Grace.

I am the harlot.  I am both the beauty and the beast.  I am Cinderella.  Rags to Happily Ever After.  I am the sought-after, fought for, hard-won heroine to Your Hero in the Greatest Romance of Time and Eternity!

Charis.  Eucharisteo.  Chara.

Grace.  Thanksgiving.  Joy.

The whisper of hope in all this pain.  The clue that all is not as it seems.  The rush of air into gasping lungs, smothered by earth's smog.  The literal breath of life.  Bread sustaining my soul.  These could turn a whole day.  A week.  A life.  They could turn a world upside down.  Or right side up.

Breathe in.  Grace.  Breathe out.  Thanksgiving.  Feel the life flood this body, rush through these veins, awaken these dry bones.  Joy.  Dance to the soundless melody.  Reach out and touch the invisible.  Gaze on the unseen reality surrounding you like an ocean.  Walk on thin air.

Faith.  SUBSTANCE of things hoped for.  PROOF of things unseen.  To know that what I do not yet hold in my hand is MINE just as surely and solidly as the ground I walk on.

God. Is. Here.