+ Sit tight precious one. Let nothing shake your confidence in Me. I have “hardened you to difficulty”. Doesn't freedom feel good? When I say, “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard” the wonders of my love, that applies to you, because you, my beloved girl, are dear to my heart- you are! This is not a figment of your imagination, this is Truth. So…because you are so loved…so valued…so covered by the mighty Hand of your adoring Papa, you're free. It's that simple. Say ‘yes’ to the love that is offered to you constantly. Say ‘yes’ and watch the glories unfold (not because of what you've done, but because of the magnitude of your Father's Love). Your ‘yes’ to Him is the answer He sought when He sent Me to Calvary. So now, permeated by the Love that set the world in motion, can you not see how radically your life is impacted by this ‘yes’? Every problem now becomes a chance to see your Papa’s Love set in play. Fill your mind and heart with Hope. Never let the enemy distract you from the ‘yes’ that is always yours in Me. He would have you believe that the Father is “yes and no." That lie gives him entry into the ways you think about everything that happens. Stop! Refocus! Remember, you have been redeemed. It is finished… done…irrefutable… never to be taken away. Only you can walk away from all the hope and fulfillment and love that have been purchased for you. But my love, this will never happen. Indeed, as you have so often said, “I have you - you don't have Me”!  Nothing will ever, ever separate you from this Love - nothing – ever! And so, as you bring me your deepest hopes for your children and husband, I respond with encouragement. Leave all to the care of your Holy Spirit… your Comforter and Advocate. The Father’s Love has completely overshadowed your beloved ones. He will never, never let them go. "All your sons will be taught by the Lord”. This word will never come back void.  Rest in Truth. Rejoice. Give thanks. Be glad.

 

+  You are at a ball…an outdoor ball, with a glass dancefloor that is in front of a lake which is backed by lush, green mountains. The whole setting is filled with flowers...a warm breeze….dazzling sun and gorgeous music that fills the air. You are in a ball gown made of grace…shimmering and twirling light as you move. You feel beautiful,  loved and free. Someone approaches you and tells you that there is a little dark cloud with a bit of rain on the perimeter of the estate waiting to come in and get you wet. You take a spin to the joyous music and say, “Send the cloud to my little triumph garden of overpowered weeds growing out in the back.” It isn’t invited to the party and it is not given entrance! You forget all about the dark cloud as it disappears from view. You are too full of Joy and Exuberance and Expansiveness to even notice its disappearance!

 -  The Lord told me that the above is a great picture of my secret place. It is the best place to live out of!

   +  Beloved…as you contemplate this picture of your secret place where you can experience how loved you are…how I am in you and you are in Me, I am now expanding your vision to include a wider lens, and yet, a more intimate shot …a close up! This dancefloor is an image of You living in/with Me. It is an image of you being held and guided by your best Partner.  Now, I tell you there is another place I want to share with you and, as I take you away from the dancefloor, the music fades into the background. (It never totally fades because it is the singing of worshipping angels that is ever present.) Now…. we are still together in this new quiet place and you are able to pour out any and all disappointments, discouragements, hurts and sins on to Me. They come freely because you are unselfconscious. You know that I know and love everything about you. There is nothing to hide. It is here…in this deep quiet warm glen (the cleft in the rock) where I speak tenderly and to your heart. It is here where I exchange all weakness into strength…all sorrow into joy…all disappointments into satisfaction.  Here is another secret place of freedom and healing where you can be filled and freed as you are meant to be. Here, you hear the love in my voice and you know it is forever. I want you to come here often. I wait with open arms for your seeking heart. Healing and Joy and Freedom are yours for the taking. So come, My bride. Come and let Me show you the love that I won for you.  This is the Joy that was set before Me…I long for you to fully enter into it.

 -  Here I am... restrained by this time of enforced rest... shattered knee cap keeping me down. Speak Lord, your servant is listening.  What is it you want me to learn?

 

+ The leg brace is cumbersome. It is uncomfortable. It constricts you and creates residual added pain (your calf, your back). It is heavy and yet it is an instrument of healing. This brace is required for your safety, designed to surround your broken knee cap and keep it as straight and unmoving as possible. Despite the discomfort, it gives you a security you wouldn’t have without it.

You love analogies, so it’s no surprise you are looking for the meaning inherent in this brace. Your Teacher loves your desire to learn the lesson He has for you.

It is ironic that constraint can lead to freedom. It is revealed everywhere... cement has to be poured into rigid footers to provide strength and endurance to the foundation of a building project: vines need to be tied to a trellis to direct and limit their growth: musicians need to practice scales to train their fingers for strength and agility.... so many types of constriction.

The Holy Spirit is training you in Praise and Thanksgiving. You recognize this is the purpose in this season because He has revealed it to your spirit. He has filled you with the desire to praise, showing you how thanksgiving truly opens the gates of the kingdom. Your Father only gives good gifts. So, what are the good gifts here? What have you learned that you wouldn’t have learned without this time of enforced rest and lack of independence?

You can’t be as busy as you tend to be. You are able to slowly observe and appreciate many little moments that could slip by unnoticed. *The glorious panoramic view outside your bedroom windows has thrilled you throughout the day...the sun pouring in...the new leaves dancing in the slightest breeze (responsive the way you want to be responsive to the Spirit’s slightest breath upon you). *The beauty and generosity of your husband, who has anticipated so many needs...has loved you unconditionally...made you feel beautiful no matter how you looked! He is a gift worth all the thanksgiving you can express. I know you never want to take him for granted. *In late afternoon, the sun pours into the once dark kitchen...sparkling like so many Hosannas. So many moments you just sit or lie with your braced leg stretched out and you SEE! The eyes of your heart have been opened so that you see the hope to which you have been called. It fills your heart with praise.

And so, you are being healed in many ways You have prayed for much of your life to have an undivided heart...that all the ways you’ve been shattered by disappointment would indeed be woven into the beauty of God’s perfect plan for your life. When you trust that your Abba’s plan is always for good, you then receive every seeming “brace” with praise. You can’t see the ways you are being strengthened, mended,  but you know your Papa only gives good gifts. You know healing is in His wings. And so, you not resist the constraint of the brace. You receive it and look beyond for what it is your Father is working to achieve.

Soon, you will look back on this time and you will see that something beautiful has been accomplished in your spirit.                                                                                              - Your trust has increased. Because you have submitted to the brace and chosen to look for the good all around you, the things to be thankful for, a new level of trust has emerged. You don’t have to know exactly what your Father is doing to answer your prayers (regarding everything about your life...your kids...your music etc). You simply trust that He hears and has plans for every one of your prayers...especially those of thanksgiving.                              - You are learning to cast your cares on Him and in turn are becoming freer from moment to moment.                                                                                                                           - You see more and more to be thankful for. It’s true that we find what we look for. By God’s special grace, you have searched for joy at every turn and silenced the voices of complaint trying to cover over you. This has strengthened you in the power of the Spirit. Praise has acted as a brace to set your heart in the healing Heart of your Papa. When this time of constraint is over, you will be changed. You will have experienced that indeed, where you are weak, you are strong in Me.                                                                        - You appreciate the enormous gift that your husband is in your life. You are overwhelmed by him. You never want to take him for granted. You won’t!                                               - You know without a shadow of a doubt that you are loved perfectly by the One Who is Love! This knowledge will keep you safe and secure the rest of your life.

So much to be grateful for! So much rejoicing! This is the Kingdom...as it is in Heaven...  right here... right now! This is a taste, My love, of what Home will feel like. Enjoy!

Soon the brace will be off, but the lessons you are learning will be with you forever!

+This is what you must always remember. I want you to know Me. I want to reveal Myself to you. It is the joy of the Father to give you revelation so that indeed, you can know the great Hope to which He has called you. I am never distant. I am always knowable... approachable...  despite the great light that could blind...despite My Power that can leave you injured like Jacob. Understand that it is the Spirit Who motivates your heart to yearn for the intimacy of union with the Father. It is the Spirit Who initiates and it is the Spirit Who completes. He Who began a good work (that work being the forming of the Love of God Incarnate – Me – in - you) will be faithful to complete it. So, it is never about your ability to be still, the depth of your prayer life, or the discipline of your mind. I came because you have no ability to go from strength to strength outside of the Spirit’s Power. The plan of the Father, Who knows you to your core, is to take the little mustard seed of love you plant in faith by even trying to have quiet time with Me... the Spirit takes this tiny act of faith and multiplies it...moving the mountains of unbelief and unworthiness and countering the failures and weaknesses of your attempts to belong to the Father. Never forget it is for the weak that I came...not that you use your weakness as an excuse. You are called to obedience and surrender. You are called to be strong in the Lord. But the Father never wants your weakness to be a barrier that blocks your way to the Throne room.

Be still in your heart this day. Your Advocate and Comforter will aid you in this endeavor. Remember in Me you can do all things. Nothing, (No one) is impossible with God. This colors every situation you encounter. Suddenly, your next-door neighbor, who is abrupt and cold, is no longer an impossible person to reach, but someone to pray for with faith. All impossible situations melt into the possibility of God’s irresistible, transforming Love. It is all about this perfect Love. This is the “strength to strength” that breaks down the barriers of impossibility. It starts in your heart...destroying any area of lovelessness...so that you can be a vessel of Love and Hope. Thus armed, you can defeat the giants of hopelessness and pain that have so many people imprisoned...held captive.

So, as you look to the weak and the hurting and come as a light into their darkness, you live in My Presence and you magnify My Life in this world. I hear your prayers. I know your heart. I am for you... never in any way shape or form against you! All my Love for you is Yes and Amen. All my promises...true. You have been given the power, strength, beauty and love of the Spirit of God. This is the Father’s gift to His little child. This is what His smile feels like. Enjoy this day in the sanctuary of His enormous Heart of perfect Love.

"Earth is drenched in God's affectionate satisfaction." Psalm 33:5 ~ The Message

+ You hear my precious bird outside your window, her song riding on the soft breeze. The earth is filled with My Presence, making itself known to you. The way you stay in Me...aware as you so desire..is to open your ears...open your eyes...see in the Spirit how much your Father loves you and cares for you. Give with abandon all you have to give. Look for ways to give. Look for ways to love. Set out this day to be My vessel - to make My Presence known like that glorious bird's song. Open your mouth and I will fill it. Rejoice. Be filled with thanks. Keep attentive to all the ways your Papa makes the rough places smooth. Lift up your heart to Me throughout this day and know that it is My Love that sustains you...heals you....frees you...fills you. Come My little one into the sanctuary of My Presence. The Kingdom of Heaven is for children. Be a child! Don't try to figure things out. Just love, love, love and hold tight to My Hand. I will show you the way, one step at a time. It is for life that I came. It is for loving the unlovable...for feeding the hungry (this includes those who are emotionally hungry)…for healing the sick. Let Me be your Guide. No one else knows you like I do. Let Me be the One Who sets the course of your day. Do not respond to guilt. I will never lead you by guilt. The Power of the Spirit in you is all about Freedom. God loved you and the broken world so much that He gave His only Son to set you free. Do not submit to a yoke of slavery again. Submitting to what others think is slavery. Operating out of guilt is slavery. Oh My honey...she who the Son sets free is free indeed. Be free this day and sing. Love. Give. Sing. Let your mouth be filled with praise. Hold nothing back. Release all unforgiveness (the Holy Spirit will show you any remnant that remains). This is forever and it is now. You, My dear, have been given the Kingdom. Give it away. Freely you have received. Freely give.

  -  I've been thinking about Abraham... how he was so aware of God's personality and faithfulness... so sure of His ability to invade the natural world with His Power... so full of absolute, undaunted trust in His God... that somehow, someway, he knew that God would fulfill His promise, even if Isaac was sacrificed. This seems like such a harsh test, Lord... such a seemingly unloving thing to ask of any parent. But, hidden in this test, I think the Father of all Fathers was displaying what abandoned trust looks like. I think the Father was actually showing Abraham off, immortalizing him in scripture forever. God wanted all the world to see that Abraham's heart could not be moved to distrust Who God was! Adam and Eve were led down the path of deception, where they chose to believe a lie about their God and Creator. Ah, but Abraham, the Father of our faith, didn't waver; rather, he embraced the mystery of this command to give up his son of the promise because he believed in and trusted Who he knew God to be, even in this horrible and unfathomable request. Speak to me, Lord, about this mystery. 

+ It's often been said, "My ways are not your ways." This isn't meant to make you feel helpless and small but to let you REST...knowing without a shadow of a doubt that My plans are perfect and born out of love for My wayward world. Through Abraham, I wanted to show what real trust looks like. Oh, how Abraham loved and celebrated his beloved son! Could he have heard God right? Didn't he doubt his ability to hear God's voice? Couldn't he have withdrawn and held Isaac to himself, unable to even believe, let alone obey such a request? But remember this is the man who set out to an unknown destination at God's request. This is the man who waited for the promise until all natural hope was gone. He was too old. Sarah was well past childbearing age. He knew what a miracle Isaac was and how God had managed to fulfill His promise against all odds. He knew His Father could call things that are not as though they are and His Word could become flesh. So, when the word came to take this cherished son and sacrifice him, he obeyed completely because he knew His God was no ordinary God. Abraham overruled his emotions and his reasoning and stepped out into eternity simply because he knew Who God was - Love incarnate - Faithful and All-Powerful. His obedience gave him freedom!

Beloved, I want you to take all that is precious to you... everything that you hold as dear - your husband, your children, your music, your destiny, even your understanding of who you've been created to be - bring it ALL to the Father in full trust. Believe that He wants to fill you with revelation and faith. He wants you to know that everything about you is HIS... that all that you hold dear is only a reflection of His Love manifested in your life. Bring your offering... everything that is "you". Set it on the altar and look to Me. When you trust Me enough to give Me your all, you will be lifted into a new understanding of "She who the Son sets free is free indeed!" Your trust in My unfailing Love will soar! All you contemplate will be shining with a new understanding... a faith that explodes in your entire being and sets you in that place of perfect Peace. Nothing can touch you now! Your life and all you love have been covered over. Your offering has been received. You can rest that everything about you... all you love... are safe in My Embrace. Your gift, freely given, is then given back to you. This exchange transforms the power these once had over you. All fear of things not working out... of disappointment and loss...melts away like morning fog. You have risen up and put your face in the sun. Your Father's bright Glory has risen on you! Rejoice! You will never be the same!   

 -  I feel the closing of my days coming upon me. Even if I have twenty years left, it's nothing ...a blink. So, Lord, I want to use my time well. I want to hear Your Voice saying: "This is the way. Walk in it." Show me, Lord, where You want me to put my energy. I sense it has to do with "Going after a life of love." What does that look like, Lord? 

+ Think of the Last Supper. Think of Me surrounded by My friends ...those I had poured so much into ...those who had glimpses of My true identity. How I loved them, despite the fact that I knew one would betray Me, literally sell me out for a few pieces of silver and the others (all but one) would scatter and run to save their necks. My beloved leader of the pack would deny that he even knew Me. He who saw My Glory with his own eyes! So, there we were together, on the cusp of the moment of truth ...the manifestation of the Father's Love-poured out in response to His plan. On that dark night, knowing all the betrayal and fear in My friends' hearts, I invited them to feast with Me ... to celebrate the last Passover of the Old Covenant ...the leaving of Egypt forever. I gave them all the Love I had ...knelt before each one (including Judas, whose hard heart could not be melted by My Love) and washed their feet like a slave. I showed them what it looked like to follow the Father's ways. Then I fed them the celebratory meal, the thanksgiving offering that they were to understand more fully in time ... that I was the Lamb to be sacrificed and that it would be My Blood that would be their protection ...their salvation. Love empowered Me every step of that fateful night. Again and again, I revealed the heart of a Father Whose Love was willing to suffer so that all could be saved. 

You long to love well ...to be a good representative of the Father's heart. I am answering this prayer, right here, right now, with all the people in your life who you find difficult to love.  Trust Me. They are My instruments of training. When a boxer is in training, he lifts weights and does increasingly more difficult work-outs to empower him when he faces his challenger. He even is put in the ring with practice opponents, who test him for strengths and weaknesses. He needs to understand and shore up his vulnerabilities. If you can view your life as your training ground in the fight to love like I love, then every challenging person/scenario can be used by your Trainer, the Holy Spirit, to strengthen you ("harden you to difficulties" Isaiah 41: 10). As you grow in these workouts, He brings tougher and tougher challengers into the ring. And, unlike the boxer who must depend solely on his own strength, you have been promised that where you are weak - I am strong! You are not in the ring alone! The key in this training exercise is to choose to not view your opponent (the one who challenges your capacity to love) as someone to resist...but actually, as someone to embrace! You learn to disarm hostility with peace ...to overcome insults with kindness ...and to extinguish hatred with love! The Kingdom turns worldly wisdom upside down! So yes, you are in the ring and you will have opponents who magnify your inability to love the way you want to, but your goal is to have the strength to love your enemies as I did. If you can climb into every scenario, viewing it as a supernatural boxing ring, and face these challengers not as those who will take you down (into hated and judgment) but as God's trainers, put there to teach your spirit the Power and Strength of My Love, then, despite your weakness, you WILL be Strong in Me! You will be still, in wonder at who you can be in Me, and know that I am God. I am Your God ...Who is eager to empower you to love in and through My Gentle, Unfailing Love.