Like sunlight burning at midnight
Making my life so
Beautiful, beautiful
Mercy reaching to save me
All that I need
You are so
Beautiful, beautiful ~Francesca Battistelli
Photos speak a thousand words and capture memories of the heart. Summer is gone and my words have been few, but my camera and I have been busy capturing the intense beauty all around me.
There’s so much, so, so, much.
What words should I even start with. How do I organize into coherent thoughts all that I have experienced?
When God calls you out to follow Him and He asks you to toss all logic and religious caution to the wind, how do you capture that in words?
Over eight months ago God showed me a picture of myself. It was just a quick snapshot, like one of my own photos except I was the subject. I was standing in the middle of a grassy field, up on a small knoll that over looked billowing fields and a woods that stretched out as far as my eye could see. The grasses and prairie flowers were bending in undulating waves all around me. I had a basket full of grain on my hip. I had taken a handful and tossed it into the air. The wind which I was facing lifted my hair up and away from my face. Chaff floated up and around me carried away by the steady flow that blew past me. The grain dropped free and clear, unhindered by the chaff, ready for use.
At that time I only had a miniscule thought of what God was calling me to, but as the months advanced and the chaff became so thick that it almost took my breath away, I began to see that God had showed me in advance what He was going to lead me through.
It has been a journey. A journey of heart ache. A journey of questions. A journey of renewal. A journey of new Life. Above all it has been a journey of seeking God above all else.
As I think again on the vision God gave me of myself in that field. My face was never down looking at where my feet were or focusing on my hands reaching for the grain. My chin was up. My eyes were lifted to the heavens, seeking my Father, who desires an intimate relationship with me.
As I lift my eyes to seek God’s face I am learning first hand of His intense and all consuming love. I am getting more and more glimpses of His majesty, His compassion, His power, His glory, His beauty. He is teaching me to separate the unneeded, the unnecessary, the cumbersome, the hindrances from my every day. In place of the chaff He is filling me with His Holy Spirit, full to overflowing, so that every part of me, every single pore is spilling forth His reflection.
It’s a process, this becoming more like Christ. At times it is so hard, hard enough to bring the tears and the almost giving up, but on the other side there is such joy. I am learning this joy, hungering for more and more of this God-given gift.
Through it all I just want to REFLECT Him, so that I carry Him into every situation. Into every place I step may His LIGHT shine chasing away all darkness and confusion.
Jesus in me and nothing else!
