Did you know that Holy places are not about the place?
No, they are all about who’s In the place. Who is present there.
Not just any
Who.
The Who in a Holy place is God almighty.
Well, God is everywhere, duh!
Present
Holy
Loving

Beyond our understanding

But when we invite the Holy spirit, one part of the three in one, to be present, to show us who we are and how much greater He is,
He will do it.

I’ve been listening to this song today and the truth of it is living and breathing in my soul.

Sit yourself down, in a quiet five minutes. Listen! Think and listen.

I have a story here, in my heart  and I’ve been sitting on parts of it and yesterday there was a new chapter added and today there’s no containing and no stifling or waiting.

As a child I was uprooted and moved around and all for the sake of God’s directing. It was a Matter of Fact event when we would pack the boxes and settle into the car for yet another drive to a new town and a new church and a new group of people who would become our friends.
Change, of faces and homes and teachers and people all around, was the fabric into which was woven the experiences that would make us into the people we are.

When I was 23 I became a wife and a pilgrim to a foreign land. Sure, the land was here in Canada and still it was far and the adjustment hard.
There was one prayer that I prayed over and over and over and it went like this.
Dear God
you see me and you know me.
You made me and you love me.
Now that I’m here in this place, this foreign city
would you please give me a friend?
Just one friend.
a kindred spirit.

It’s thirty five years later and I’m still a wife and still living in this land. It stopped being foreign just a few years after we arrived and
God heard my prayer and He brought me friends, many friends.
Through the years he has taught me how to be a friend. He heard me and blessed me, with people who have been family with different blood and genes.

Three years after the initial wrenching by God, from West to East, He dropped a new friend right onto my street and into the center of my heart. Our children were friends and she and I were kindred.
We were both young and she was younger. We talked and drank tea and nurtured children and lived our lives
close.
We cried together and admonished one another and learned from each other and
she gave me bushels of peaches from her father’s farm and taught me about
living simply and deeply and I grew, in knowledge and understanding.

I moved away and she moved away and we hardly saw each other and rarely spoke.
They moved to Africa and their hearts became one with the people they lived and breathed next to.
They came back. Not to the same street and how many times did she say she had found a house for me. One was just down the street and past two orchards and next to the river, another was around the bend and behind that fence and if I came we would pick fruit and can it together and we would keep learning from each other and we would be family
with different blood and different genes, and kindred.

Sometimes I take the two hour drive and land on her step and she serves me fresh chicken, grown and raised in the back yard next to the pond. We talk and talk and her husband comes and sits and we talk and talk and
we
listen to each other and learn and grow.

And they were wise and they are wise.
They encourage and teach and nurture and I think maybe they don’t know how much.
I tell them I love them and that they are God’s gift to me. I tell them I can’t get enough of the beauty of Jesus that lives in them and shines out all around and rests on me.
I tell them that their lives have made mine abundant.
I sit and rest with them and the loveliness of it is more than I can tell you.

She has cancer.  

Two months ago she said she had something to tell me and she told me.
I told her
No! No, I am not going to hear that from you. You are not allowed to have cancer.
We both know the choosing is not up to us.
God
for some reason has chosen her, this friend, to do this thing.
I have told Him, God,
clearly
that He mustn’t take her to Heaven. It’s okay to stretch her and teach her more
about Him.
It is not okay however, to take her away.

I won’t Have It!

Yesterday I went there, to that house by the pond and we talked and drank tea and a friend had made fresh cabbage rolls and when she told me the day before that the cabbage rolls were coming and I HAD to stay for dinner when I came,
I told her I would OF COURSE stay for dinner and
boy were they worth staying for.

For three hours, before the cabbage rolls arrived, we sat and talked and she talked and I listened and
drank
in
the
words that she said to me

and
that sitting room with the worn and comfy couch and the beehives outside and the honey in my tea

was a Holy place.

It wasn’t Holy because she and I were sitting there. It was Holy because in the words she spoke to me,
words about trusting Him with her life and worshipping Him and seeing the miraculous works that He is doing in people all around,
He was there.

When she told me how she had been craving cabbage rolls and someone called her up, out of the blue and said there were cabbage rolls coming, I saw Jesus in action. She was animated and excited and we experienced that moment in time
together.

When she told me how people had gathered around her on different occasions and prayed that God would heal her and how she sits on her couch some days and does nothing but sit and wait and listen and that’s all,
God was there. His spirit was among us, the two of us and then the three of us as we sat at the table.

It was a Holy time in a Holy place and if I lived down the road and around the bend and next to that river, I can tell you I would be there today.
I want to be there for her and yet

really

I want to be there for me. I’m just selfish enough that in the midst of the uncertainty of her future, I want the presence that is so all powerful in her, to flow out over me. I want her to bear witness to the faithfulness of God almighty because it gives me life. It gives me hope.

Once we have experienced beauty that can come only from God Himself, nothing, no nothing else, is ever the same
again.
The beauty of the presence of God is irreplaceable and of great value.

She, this friend of mine, is doing all the right things. She is eating and sleeping and drinking and listening to doctors and her faith is unwavering.
There is calm in that house. There is peace that passes understanding. With my own ears I heard them say that they are not searching for answers and frantically looking for something that will cure her. They are taking one steady step at a time and are doing what they need to do, one day before the other.  In the midst of those steps, they are trusting and leaning, heavy,  on God, to show them what and when.  Perfect Love casts out fear and they know that God loves them perfectly.  They are in His hands and in those hands they rest safely, faithfully.

Walk across the threshold and you will know that God is alive and active.

My friend Sharon, has faith greater than any mustard seed and I am waiting and watching and expecting God to do what only He can do.
He is the giver of life.

She believes it, that’s for sure.

I believe it!

We believe it together.