I will sing of your love forever

Afternoon, God.

I've been struggling, lately. It's all gone wrong. Lots of things have been crowding in and leaving me miserable and anxious and so discouraged. Old worries and problems have come back with a vengeance; new insights full of potential but leading nowhere and most upsetting, a sense that I have no idea where you are. 

I thought I knew where to find you and suddenly I'm looking in the same places, and you're not there. 

Or if you are, I don't have the vision to see you. 

Lord, the last few weeks have been a tangled knot of confusion, apprehension, tension and resentment. Last week I thought I had a breakthrough - sensed a new dawn; it seemed so dramatically important, but I'm still waiting for some light. And yes, to be honest I've been disappointed and cross and I've wondered why you seem open handed with other people and not with me. 

I know that's possibly not the way I should be talking to you, but you've always encouraged me to be honest. 

I'm needing a little something. Just one touch from the King - changes everything, as they say. I could do with a pick me up. A heavenly hug. Just some encouragement, Father, something to keep me going. Please? And yet there's nothing. 

I've been reading about belonging, about being not only forgiven and justified, but being a precious daughter, a cherished child, and yet more than ever I've been feeling on the outside looking in. I know in my head that I am your girl, and I know in my head that you're my Daddy, my Abba, not only my Lord and my Saviour and my King, and yet I've started to feel that there's something missing, something wrong with me, something not good enough.

All the old stuff, the long-buried stuff. All that, right here again, piling up and obscuring my view. 

No co-incidence, I suppose. The darkest hour is just before dawn... and yet those morning rays are refusing to come. 

I've been asking for healing. Old wounds, long buried and ignored, but open again. My 'One Word' for the year is 'HEAL' and I've been so sure that you're at work doing something amazing that will make all the difference. I've been asking for freedom, because I don't feel free. I've been asking for a new revelation of you, because my current one is incomplete.

I've been very close to giving up. Closer than I've ever been, in fact. I've been writing to you here for more than two and a half years and suddenly I just don't want to any more. I have nothing to say (that anyone will want to read) and all the politics of page rankings and statistics and platforms and whether people like what I say is far, far too much. I'm tired and overwhelmed and I just don't want to do it any more. 

I wonder if I'm having a tantrum, or if you're guiding me into a better sense of what's important. Because however much I've told myself for the last year or so that the daily statistics of who's reading don't matter, they always have mattered to me. Maybe it matters too much. Maybe you're telling me that if I take a break and my little readership trickles away to nothing, then that's ok. That's not important. 

Summer is a hard time to keep writing. The children are on holiday and my husband is working from home and needs space and quiet to concentrate. I need to be available - both for the little ones and for him when he wants to relax in the evenings. Writing takes more out of me than it used to and I can't fit it into the small spaces in my mind between outings and tooth brushing and meal preparation. I don't know why. Maybe I am taking it more seriously, or too seriously? Or maybe I'm too close to it, too anxious. 

Maybe I need a break. 

I don't know. I've asked you, because I know that you do know the answers, but you're not telling, are you?

I looked for you at a brilliantly planned and led women's event at church on Friday night. The River. All about the water of life, the tree of life on the banks of the waters flowing from the temple, about never being thirsty. Parched, I thought I'd find you there - I hoped, no, expected to meet with you, but I looked around me and saw ladies of all ages moved and touched by the Holy Spirit, yet I couldn't connect. There were people speaking in tongues, there were words of knowledge, there was prophecy, there was peace and joy, but I was lost, even though I know that I am found. 

You can feel so lonely in a crowd.

And then, in church this morning, which was an act of will, we sang a song that I've not heard for years.  

Over the mountains and the sea

Your river runs with love for me

and I will open up my heart

and let the Healer set me free

I'm happy to be in the truth

and I will daily lift my hands

For I will always sing 

of when your love came down*

You spoke. You didn't address any of the things I've been wanting you to address. You didn't answer any of my questions. You didn't reach down and touch me. No drama, just a few tears sliding down my cheeks. 

Your river - the same river that ran through our worship on Friday night - that river runs with love for me. 

You are The Healer, and if I open my heart (how do I open it further than it's already open?) then you will set me free.

I am indeed in The Truth. I am found in you. I belong to you. 

It's my breath prayer: Abba, I belong to you. 

When I have nothing to say, I can sing of your love.

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I found myself changing the words of the chorus from 'I could...' to 'I will..'  I will sing of your love, forever.

If you never do anything more for me than you have already done, then I am blessed beyond measure. 

I am sorry, Father, that I am so dissatisfied with all that I have, and all that I am. I'm sorry that I try to manipulate you and then I get all stampy and cross when you don't perform on demand.

I'm sorry. 

Lord God, I will sing of your love forever. When I have nothing to say, I can always come back to the basic foundation of our relationship. The fundamental thing: your love came down, and saved me. All else is detail, and I know that you will sort out the important and address it when the time is right.

I am loved. 

I will sing of your love forever

I will sing of your love forever

I don't know what happens next. I'm still feeling in limbo about things that have come to the surface recently and I think that they need dealing with - and I still don't feel equipped to deal with them. I'm still short of time, sleep, energy, inspiration. I still don't know about writing, about resting, about stepping out in faith. 

I still need The Healer to set me free.

But I do know that you love me, and that's the bottom line. My default position. If I have no words of my own, if I need to say anything at all, I will speak of your love. If the only words I ever write are my testimony of how my Abba loves me, then that's a message worth bringing. 

I am loved. There's a plan, and your timing is perfect. 

I will sing of your love forever. 

Amen.

*Martin Smith 1995 Furious? Records
'My One Word: Change your life with just one word', Mike Ashcraft and Rachel Olsen, Zondervan, 2012