Monday August 13th, 2012

I am reading "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp and through her words, through the pictures that she paints with words, through the cry of her heart that I hear in her words, I feel an echoing cry in my own.

I long for beauty, to merge with it.  To live a life of grace, faith and compassion.  But how do we go about that in this, a very broken world?

Let me try to begin: Lord, I thank you and I praise you! For you heard my cry.  You answered me, in my worry you have given me peace.  For I know that you led me to where you wanted me.  That you have guided my steps.  Forgive my worry and doubts, Lord.

I know, in my head that you have had my good in the palm of your hand my entire life.  Even what I would have called Ugly, you have made Beautiful!

And now you have called me to work in a place that is beautiful, a place where I seem to be better able to hear you, a place that I have grown to love and appreciate over the last three months.  I thank you Lord, for you have (once again) dealt abundantly with me.

Even just reading Ann's book has evoked in me a response of longing.  A recording of gifts, of blessings from you.  (I am currently on 100.  I will continue to 1,000 and beyond).

So very much has happened in my life, and yet you have so much more, and so much greater, planned for me in the coming years.  O Lord, continue to draw me to you.  I want to seek the Beauty that is you!  As Ann chased after a Harvest moon, Lord I would chase after you.

Grant me the fortitude to make good this claim, made in an hour of quiet with few distractions.  As I move into this, a new chapter in my life, help me to make the choices, to make the right decisions to follow after you.

Last night in our staff Bible Study, Michael Lane was speaking about "Devotional Amplification," Lord, help me to find the place where I can come to you, a place that is Consecrated between us.  Both for while I am here and for the future.

For you love me.  "You have searched me and you know me, you knwo when I sit downa nd when I rise up; you search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways." (Psalm 139:1-3)

But, Lord, I don't know you nearly as well as I could.  Help me to be All Eyes.  To see through your lens.  Not my own.