One of my very favorite chapters in the Bible is Psalm 139. I just love it because it speaks of how closely and intimately God is acquainted with us. He sees, hears and knows everything that’s going on in and around us…every movement, every word, every day…before any of them came to be. Isn’t that mind blowing? God has all of our days written in His book before the sun came up in a single one of them. Not one second of our lives is unaccounted for or wasted. They are carefully planned with loving purpose. I know MY heart cried, “God, enable ME to fulfill MY purpose! I want to be able to share in both word and song all that you have done for me.” I longed for the day of my healing and release from this prison of “Fibromyalgia” that stole my ability to move and express emotion. I KNEW it was coming. I just did not know that it was going to take 19 years! I would not have chosen that. Honestly, books and books could be written to contain it all!

In last week’s post, we considered the life of Job as he went through tremendous affliction. I love this scripture written in Job 36:16; “But those who suffer, He delivers in their suffering, He speaks to them in their affliction. He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction to the comfort of your table spread with choice foods.” Can you see that picture? I could see it vividly in my time of waiting.

I took a trip back in my memory, clearly recalling the opening to a huge field near my first home in an affluent little country town where we roamed and rambled without worry. The wind would blow through the trees and across the wide open pasture like wild waves in the sea. My ears were filled with classical pieces that my mother played as my introduction to music. These are my first memories of life, along with the smells of my mother making Sunday dinner. Even now my heart longs to move back to that quaint town, to that very country road, as if I could recapture all of the sights, sounds and smells that filled me with rest, peace and joy. It is a lovely place that remains untainted within me. But sadly, there was much unrest within the walls of our home that took us from the pastures, down the road, outside of the town and up to another state. Though we had moved north, everything for us began to go….south!(I talk about some of those darker years in my “Where Was My Voice?” posts.)

My field on the little country road is what I pictured when I read the scripture in Job 36. Remember that “wide open spacious place, free from restriction?” That place where there is “comfort at the table spread with choice foods?” I surely, surely did. Because I was too little, I was not allowed to go past the opening to the field. But I used to stand there and stare at the vast scope longing with everything within me to just take off and run the expanse of the land. To this day, my favorite place to be is out in the green countryside with the sound of the breeze in the trees. Laying in my bed, reading these verses and others like them, I imagined my spacious open place, free from restriction. I knew the day was coming when my life was going to break open and I would tear out of the gate and across into freedom. In some ways, it seemed a life long dream. (See photo. This is my field!)

I remember one day in particular, during my horrible captivity in disease, I asked the Lord if I would ever speak publicly again. “Please let me know if I should hang on to this dream, Lord, or just let it go!” I’d hardly been able to walk, barely making it to church to lead worship during those horrendous years of pain. Id been put on heavy medications that caused my mind to be in a quagmire. One knocked me out, sending me crashing to the floor late one night. I hated them! I took as little as I could possibly get away with. I could not clearly express myself or move without great labor. I was “mind and heart alive” within a broken body. When I was able, I would sit up and write down the beautiful truths that God was teaching me. In my prison, I’d think and think on them, turning them over and over again in my mind and heart like gems in a treasure box. I had continuous dialog with the Lord. But, I longed to be able to sing and speak with passion once again. My heart inquired. Before the end of that very day, the phone rang. It was someone calling from a Woman’s Ministry group.

The woman on the line explained that they had been praying about their upcoming speakers and the Lord brought my name to mind. They all felt to call me. She explained that one of the ladies had my CD. Would I come to sing and speak at an upcoming meeting? I was stunned beyond belief. Here was an answer to the very question I’d asked the Lord just that day! I had no idea how I would be able do it but I KNEW it was of the Lord’s arranging so I responded “Yes!” It was extremely hard on me physically, but it was such a powerful time in God’s presence. I saw and heard a different “me”. I felt a powerfully growing dynamite expression of excitement that I had not experienced before….not in all of the years of singing or speaking. It was that seed of faith that had been growing within me in that place of refining fire. I began to seek God with all of my heart for release from this captivity and in Fall of 2009, the sound of chains falling to the ground could be heard in both heaven and earth. What was deemed impossible with man and medical science was accomplished miraculously by the God who declares,”Is anything too hard for me?” With God, ALL things are possible!

Be encouraged today, my friend. You may be weary in the waiting and wonder what it’s all about. God’s got His hands securely on you like a skilled potter working on a masterpiece of His own original design. Remember the extreme cost He paid to have you as His treasure. He’s got the blueprints in front of Him, every day’s plans written down in His book in great detail.

So, with confidence I’d like to say to you today what the Apostle Paul said to the Philippians; “Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God’s Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears. It’s not at all fanciful for me to think this way about you. My prayers and hopes have deep roots in reality.”
(Philippians 1:3-8 MSG)
“Ask and keep on asking and it will be given to you; seek and keep on seeking and you will find; knock and keep on knocking and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps on asking receives, and he who keeps on seeking finds, and to him who keeps on knocking, it will be opened.”
(Matthew 7:7-8 AMP)

Keep your nose to the wind, friend, for the scent of Spring rains are coming! “At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. It’s roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, YET at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant. (Job 14:7-9 NIV)

….And the story continues! See you soon!