At the time, our hearts were being prepared to celebrate the second Christmas missing our beloved Mum and Grandma, who went home to Jesus on April 8th 2014 after a five month battle with the terminal brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme.
This field, its backdrop of a mountain covered in lush green trees and the gift of my little sister (who we will soon be hugging in person – together with her husband and my little niece
and nephew – after 4.5 years apart – thank You, Jesus!!!), remind me so much of Psalm 18:19 “He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”
For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to desire and to work out His good purpose.
Philippians 2:13 HCSB
A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”
Isaiah 40:6-8 NIV
And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.”
Ezekiel 47:12 ESV
May we see the delight of our God in us and the spacious places of His grace for us today and every day. I bless us to recognize and delight in the birthing of Jesus, our Shalom, in and through us, each new day as His living Word arises in us, for us and through us. I bless us to stand firmly upon the Rock of Jesus, who has promised to uphold us through the winds sent to prove the power of His living Word in us, for us and through us.
I bless us in our weakness and need to cry out and drink deeply of the living well of water. May that living well of Jesus perfect His power in us each day afresh. May He now propel others through our living testimony to His mighty Word to get up with us, pick up their mats with us and to join us, as together, hand in hand with Jesus, our Shalom, we walk into the peace of God for us all.
I bless us to daily put on our feet the preparation of the Gospel of Peace, that we might walk with steadfast assurance and confidence into the eternal plans and purposes of our God. I bless us to hear and obey the Word of our God in fear and trembling, in absolute awe of the majesty, glory and power of our LORD. May our hearts be filled with praise and great expectation, as we overflow in Shalom. I bless our eyes to see our LORD and Savior, our knees to bend before Him and our hearts and lips to declare the coming of the Son of God in glory.
Birthing Shalom
Grief waits upon no one
It swells and breaks
Our placid perfect life alive
All buried doubts
To spit and foam.
The questions we
Have laid aside
Come spitting, foaming
Back to Life
Where were You, then?
Where are You now, LORD?
His ways above our own,
His Word we know
And so our doubts too dark
Have hid away in drawers
And fastened shut.
But as the waves here
Swell and break
The fastened drawers
Break forth now loosed
And questions buried, breathe alive.
Our self-sufficient strength
Now breaks
Our bodies, minds and souls
To spit and foam
From strength, undone.
But as He calls us
Songs to raise
His Face to seek
Spit and foam unhid
A deep begins to rise.
His deep has called
Our depths alive
Not there our own, but His.
Our Living God writes death to life
On tablets of these human hearts.
Each wave that breaks
Leads death to life
Our questions hid to spit and foam
Released to die and
In our Sovereign God we rise
Our burdens loosed
Into the light we walk
Now, hand in hand with Jesus.
All hearts once shut
Our Messiah opens wide
His breath raises
All dead to life
For us to know
We are not alone
He was with us then
He is with us now
And will be our Shalom
Into all eternity.
No, not one can lay
A foundation
Other than that
Which is laid
Which is Christ Jesus
Our Lord.
Unless
The LORD
Builds the house
The builders
Build
In vain.
We ourselves
With our hearts
In Spirit and truth
Now laid bare
Like living stones
Are being
Built up
As a
Spiritual house.
To be a
Holy priesthood
To offer
Spiritual sacrifices
Acceptable to God
Not in our might
But through Jesus Christ
Alone.
For all in Christ
Hear the Word speak
And do what
He says
Building their house
On the rock.
Yes, that House
That Holy Temple of God
Cannot fall
Because it's
No longer we
But Christ in us
Who lives
Daily in Christ we die
To be born again
In the Gospel of peace
Into Shalom: Christ with us
Joining all together
In God the Father, Son
And Holy Spirit
Building His House
Upon the Rock of our salvation
In glory to us all
The Son of God revealing.
Shalom Aleh 