Safe

I am sitting here.
In  unfamiliar surroundings.
But I feel called to be here.
Among interesting people.
With people milling about. Looking. Wandering.
Seeking.

So much like me.

And all around me there are books.
Books upon books.
Stacks of them.

I love books.
I love the smell of them.
The feel of them.
The look of them.

I have loved them too much... for too long.
Finding myself in them.
Hiding in the pages and depth of the security they have often offered me.
Anonymity.
Retreat.
A place to hide.
A place that I can get lost into and not worry about anyone else.
Just me. And the words. And my own imagination.

Safe.

A world that can be trusted.
A world that I can control.

That I can control.....

No chances.
No gambles.
No insecurities.
No opportunities for disappointments.
And if I don't like what I see.... well, I just shut the pages. And walk away.

There is no risk involved.

None.

And here I am.
Among so many of them.
And so heavy and strong I have heard.... "You are not to touch them. Read them. Or turn to them any longer."

They are not safe.

Not anymore.

Not here.
Not now.

Maybe not ever again.

I don't know how to really express how I feel about that.
How I want to respond to this.... this command.
One that I have every opportunity to obey... or not.

I don't want to lose.
I don't want to miss the connection.
The one that is so undefinable between me and Him.
Between the One who has been so close... watching me run... so often. And has been waiting.

Waiting.
For me.

I have so much to say.
So many things that are bursting... wanting to get out.
I don't know which ones to choose first.

I felt the pull, the tug to come here.
To a place where it would seem would be the last place that I should be.
A place that holds the very thing that has been set apart as forbidden for me right now.
I have to laugh. Really. Isn't God funny? And not in the comical sense.

He knows.
He knows us so well.
He knows me so well.
So well.

Here the words just flow.
I am surrounded by them... they are swirling all around me.
I can almost see them.
I can almost bat at them with my hands.
But these are not the words that I am to say.
Not these. Not the ones already said. Already written.

I am to form my own.
His own.
From His well spring.
To say what He wants to say.
To proclaim what He is calling me to proclaim.

He is near.
So near.
And He wants us all to hear. To know. To feel.
He wants us all.
And I feel so deeply that He doesn't want not one to miss it.

I have always tried to play it safe.
Always.
And yet if you look back... just even take a glimpse back at my life.
Nothing has been safe.
None of  it.

So much hurt. So much pain. So many disappointments.

And now I have been dropped into this place of vast possibilities.
A wide open playing field.
I want to open my arms wide.
To spin around and turn my face up. Letting the air hit me, allowing myself to just feel it all.
Letting myself go. I want so badly to run free. To explore this new place.
It is so unfamiliar. So foreign.
So risky.

Is it safe?

Lord are you there?
I can feel you faintly.... and yet so strongly.
How am I to proceed?
Where do you want me to go next?

I have been hiding for so long.
Uncertain and so untrusting.
Nothing has been safe for me.
Not anyone I really could trust.
Not anyone I wanted to trust. Not really.

Not even God.

And now He has... is giving me so much.
He is offering me so much.....
And I am afraid to take it.
Is it real?
Can He be trusted?
With me?
With all that I hold so close?

With my heart?
The most important part of me?

"You've seen it all God."
The huge amounts of deep searing pain.
The reason that I run as fast and as far as I can from anything that even remotely resembles risk for me.
"You are asking me to risk so much.... so much."

Am I brave enough?
So many people think I am brave.
Oh gosh. Are they ever wrong.

He wants us all.
Whether you are at the place that you are ready to acknowledge that or not.... it is the truth.
All of you.
With no exception.
Not your left overs.
Not even your best, and your worst left for any other.
He wants it all.

ALL.
OF.
IT.

From the inside out.
Turned inside out.
Shaken out, and completely......

emptied.

Do you understand this?
Do you get it?
Really?

Because I feel that if we don't we will miss it.
All of it.
And what He is wanting to do.
What He is ready to do.
In all of us.

To eradicate our thinking.
To blow our boxes wide open.
To bust open our "religion".
To make us uncomfortable so much so that we leap and jump out of our seats.....
And run.
To the only place that makes sense. To the only place that we can lay anything..... ourselves, our misconceptions down.
The place where He is waiting to meet  us.
A place that vulnerability is a must and surrender is the natural flow.


It is not safe.
It is a place of radical living.
A place of refinement and subsequent living.
It is the only place where we can go.
No where else is safe any longer.
You need to know that.
We need to know that . And really fully understand it.

When are we going to fully open up?
To let go?
It is beginning.
And I feel and think, just getting started.
We are only beginning to see.....we are barely glimpsing what I feel God is wanting to give us.
He is promising..... has promised for so long. All along.
Are we ready?

He is ready.
HE IS READY.

Get ready.
Prepare yourself.
He isn't playing.
And we need to understand and take seriously the place He is calling us all to.

We need to wake up.
And we need to respond.

How are we going to respond?

A call has gone out.
It is wringing loud..... and the earth is reverberating with its sound.

I want to be in that place that I referred to.
At the front.
At the foot of what we know to be the place of surrender.
The place of breaking down and being broken.
And the place where we are re-built again.
Repaired, mended, and healed.
A place of being able to stand again.
A place where we will raise our heads again, look out, and see more clearly than we have ever seen before.

It is the only place.
The only place of real and complete safety.

It is at His feet.

Will you be there?

.... untiil another tomorrow.

~m.

Here is a link to a song that expresses the heart struggle that I have gone through for so much of my life..... and the one that God is calling an end to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-oz9syWyuM&feature=fvw