Wording

I’ve missed my friend. We used to be so close...intricately woven, bonded together in Love. Separate yet cleaved...we were one. The separation has been understandable. The reasoning logical and expected. But the hole in my heart remains.

Writing for me began as a way to work through issues I was experiencing with God, never to present myself as an expert on any single thing. I would ruminate on something for days, then suddenly would feel an inexplicable urge to write about it. During the writing process, God and I would weave together - my writing became my prayer, my conversation...and His response would show up in the process. I ended every entry in tears, touched by Him, my struggle answered in the only way He could answer it. Sometimes with a tangible answer, sometimes with a loving response...always with peace.

I’ve tried to fill the void of this unique relationship by daily blogging. I’ve missed the devotional relationship so...but daily life with kids, work and moving so often has made it difficult to find the quiet places where He and I can explore together. I know...excuses. But so much of that relationship involved quietness and stillness. So I’ve filled the void with blogging about daily life, funny things, family things...good things, but not God things. It hasn’t filled what’s missing.

What’s missing is this. This process we explore together. This courtship we have when words meet the page and we discuss. It’s koinonia at it’s purest for me.

I had forgotten about the power of words. I had forgotten the encouragement they can bring to someone who’s desperate for hope; the conviction they bring when someone’s hiding secret sin; the love they pour out when someone’s feeling lonely. As the events of this weekend unfolded, and as I read about the series of letters at A Holy Experience, I remembered. And I was humbled.

This past Friday, a website published something I wrote a couple of years ago. It was written during a time when God and I were courting on the page quite regularly. He had responded to a struggle I was experiencing with some pretty direct words: “Stop telling me what to do.” Pretty intense response, but exactly what I needed to hear.

Evidently it was exactly what a select group of others needed to hear as well. And as I read the comments these strangers-yet-sisters left, I was humbled again and again at how God used the personal exchange between He and I to bring encouragement to His other children. To bring conviction. To bring Love. His Love. His perfect Love:

One sister had just been through tests at the hospital and was awaiting the results.

Another had experienced four miscarriages and was pregnant for a fifth time, waiting to know if this would be The One.

Yet another was convicted that yes indeed, God was telling her to let go of control.

Please don’t misunderstand...I’m not trying to pat myself on the back one single bit. How He does this baffles me. Why He does it baffles me even more. I just share, and He does the rest.

And now, once again, the longing in my heart has grown deeper and wider until the inexplicable urge came and I had to write again. To tell Him I’ve missed Him. To tell Him I’ve missed this. To ask Him to create the opportunities for He and I to resume our courtship...where we laugh and cry and process together all at the same time. Praying that along the way, He will use it to bless others, to woo them unto Himself only the way He can.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

Jeremiah 31:3