Long Lasting Love

Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good,
for His Steadfast love endures forever.
Psalm 136

Some time has passed since I last posted here. I write blog after blog and they just sit there unfinished. When asked, I describe what I am doing right now as "working and living". It really sounds riveting. But the last six months or so have been just that. There have been high's and lo's of course and 'working and living' is never really as simple as it sounds, however my life has been fairly steady for a while.

When I first met Christ and really gave Him my life, I was awakened and revived. I had been stuck in my walk with the Lord before He rescued me. Stuck in my life in many ways. Relatively hopeless. I pretty much gave up on ever really knowing God. So when He found me, it was a 180 degree turn around. My life held such contrast and change. Everyday was a revelation and I couldn't write down my thoughts and feelings fast enough. Scripture was food to me. There was so much in my life that was out of order and off track. My past was being dealt with, my sin removed, addiction overcome, and my broken heart was being mended. It was a season of knowing Him and being known by Him for the first time. I love looking back at this 'first-love' journey. My whole world collided with His Kingdom and it was a bit of a whirlwind. My journey was anything but neat and tidy. For me entering into an intimate close relationship with the Lord was the hardest thing I have done. And obviously the most satisfying. Knowing Him meant unknowing a lot of other things. It was messy and chaotic and everything in my life was shaken. My mistakes were many and it was anything but smooth. God took things from me that were causing me pain and He filled me with new life. I'm not exaggerating, if someone even said the name Jesus, I would feel it in my heart. It was the falling in love kind of time. If you asked me, I would have told you; I don't think I'll be a nurse...work? no way! I think I will do something crazy. I will probably move somewhere dangerous. I wanted to please God with a life not normal. I wanted to be brave and just jump into this life of faith head first, no looking back. I would have days of such restlessness and be just about ready to leave nursing school and become a single pastor in Africa or anything reckless. I could say now that it was all just emotion and immaturity, but really, I was just in love. Jesus was becoming the center of my life. His love was taking over me and I wanted my life on the outside to display His worth and the love I felt for Him on the inside. There were days I just felt like I would explode if I had to do things like study for an exam or empty the dishwasher. Unless it had Jesus written on it I was bored. I had my heart set on radical living and the practical routine side of things made me cringe.

So when I say now that I'm just 'wokring and living' it isn't casual to me. It has been quite a process to become okay with that. I haven't felt radical or insanely courageous, and I am not walking the streets of poverty proclaiming the gospel. I wake up, and I go to work. Full time. More often than not I am packing a lunch, cleaning my room, driving to town and working. I love my friends and I just live. I could make it sound really boring, and then there are days with a lot of excitment, but overall, my life on the outside is just life right now.

After my initial season of growth and falling in love with the Lord, I was challenged in many areas. The past few years were not tragic, but they were far from smooth sailing. I had a few significant relational loses and many of the things I had felt the Lord was really doing in my life changed or ended. It felt at the time like the main areas I had invested my newly healed, passionate heart, had ended in just more breaking. I spent months wrestling with doubt and anxiety. Anxiety that made me not want to leave my room. Anxiety that woke me with a thumping in my chest that said today is already a fail. Confusion made reading my Bible a challenge. Fear to try again in any capacity was tangible, I could feel it in my stomach. I felt like I had my name written down with one failed attempt at whole hearted living for Jesus. I worried that my love for Him was fading, or that my life was not going to be worthy of His calling. I felt that no matter how I lived my day it was just not going to be enough. I worried that I was just being selfish and inward, or that I just hadn't been diligent enough in searching out my own weaknesses. Things were grey to me and meaningless. Decisions were such a struggle and I constantly had this nagging fear that I was going to become complacent and slip back into my old life. Spiritually, I was crippled, I was paralyzed. I replayed scenarios in my head and analyzed them inside and out to see where I had gone off track. I kept doing the things I knew I should do spiritually, but I felt so lost. I felt like I was wrestling with God and growing tired. I feared I would give up. After a season when He had been speaking to me all the time, I found myself hearing nothing. I graduated, got a job and moved. I was thankful and somewhat excited but I had no real sense of being in His will. I felt impartial to where I worked. I was so worried that my love and faith was going to run out, or that His patience would come to an end. I felt passion fading and what I spent so much time avoiding became my life.

The mundane.

I hated it at first. I resisted it. I squirmed and questioned. I listened to every intense motivational sermon I could find. Destiny, intersession, 24hr prayer, missions, evangelism, and on and on. I condemned myself in every way possible, I tossed and turned anxiously and tried to will my life to be different. I didn't like the path I was on, it was so plain and dim to me. I missed passion and love and learning and growing. The love and passion for Christ I had built my life on was being tested. I worried that my faith would not stand. I searched my heart day and night for what I was doing wrong, I confessed sins that I don't even think I committed! I was desperate to be out of the fog. I would get myself so distraught. Anxiety took the place of joy. I tried everything I had ever heard of to get myself right again with this silent God and I was tired. I came to the end of my solutions and efforts. After like six months.

Day by day, with the months passing, I just kept living. That's it. I had no supernatural light bulb moment, no one spoke over me in a crowd. I didn't hear a voice in my dream. I didn't wake up one day and just feel better. I just kept working and living. I read some good books, had some good prayer times. Over and over. I grew tired of trying to change God's will. I put aside all the convicting sermons and started to just read His Words. The basics only. I chose to become clay. I stopped screaming at the Potter and anxiously clutching what I thought I should be. And slowly, really slowly, my white knuckled fists began to open. It wasn't magical, it wasn't instant. Time passed, and I lived.

Anxiety haunted me by times, but I found myself picturing that clay, and seeing my hands open. I found myself submitting to Him in surrender and receiving whatever the day would hold. I stopped hoping for big crazy things, and started to just hope for Him. I stopped looking at the outer things of my day, and started laying myself before Him in abandonment and just saying 'whatever you want, You are the One who made me, I am Yours'. I stopped putting pressure on myself to be more and slowly opened up my closed off heart again to let Him be all. I learned slowly, one moment at a time that He had never left, that I was in His perfect will by surrender not by effort. By letting go not by striving. He told me again of His love and gentleness towards me. His mercy. His grace. He spoke quietly, in small things, He spoke healing instead of condemnation. He was the same One I had known at first. I forgot. He reminded me daily and I began to let go.

I cannot explain the sweetness of surrender and how it soothed my anxiety. The way His sovereignty gave me peace that let me breathe deep again. And what I found incredible was that time had passed, I had done nothing insane with my life for God, I had nothing really to give Him but my fears and weaknesses, and as I just kept living, He kept loving. 

You know the word enduring means continuing, or long lasting. The synonyms strike me too: remain, abide, stay, to persist, to continue, to suffer-long. 

To live on.

The opposite of short-lived or fading. To live on forever.

In Psalm 136 the writer gets it. Twenty six times he writes. His love endures. His steadfast love endures. Forever. Over and over He endures.

His enduring, steady love slowly changed my heart again. Freedom came soft and sweet. Time passed. He taught me about the mundane and how to live it with thanksgiving while pursuing excellence. He spoke of the value of the unseen things. Of character worthy of calling. He is breathing meaning into work and lunch making. He is making the small things matter and showing me that all is eternal in His eyes. Time keeps passing here. He is breathing meaning into everything. Dry bones coming back to life. He is reminding me of the numbered hairs on my head, and how to be present. How to receive His will for me today open handed, without protesting and without fear of missing His purposes. Or fear of being too dark for Him to fix. He reminds me of simplicity and worship. He reminds me of His love that started everything and He takes me back to a place where He is enough, and He says that I am too because I have Him.

Each day the sun rises and some days I wake with anxiety and some days I wake full of joy, and He whispers to my heart that He is faithful like the sun. That He endures through the winter. That sometimes the trial is not obvious and drastic like I picture it to be, sometimes the trial is just time. And the answer is not super-spiritual, the answer is to live on. Because my life is hidden in Him now. And He lives on and on. He never quits. He never quits in the valleys and the mountains, and He never quits in the day to day level walking either. He can make the straight and plain full of meaning and color.

If you want to test His enduring love, keep living. Live your life just as it is today, keep going. Don't long for what is different until you see His enduring love in today. Paul says "continue in what you have heard". See if there is ever a day that His love stops. Twenty six times they write it in this Psalm. I used to skim it and say I get the point. But I read it slow now because each morning He is there in the faithful sun rising. We keep living and it keeps rising. We live and His love lives on. Forever.

The flame of love in my heart for Jesus has not gone out, it has not flickered or grown dim. The light maybe doesn't show itself in loud obvious 'africa' dreams like it has before. The flame in my heart has just kept on because His love for me has kept on. The flame of His love dances in me and you now with a story of a life lived out on earth and a Life laid down into the earth. It amazes me, I wake and He loves. The sun sets and rises. He rises. Time keeps passing and my life is small but His love still shines like the sun, in brilliance and power. The mundane becomes weighty glory, a testimony of enduring, long-suffering love.

Love that lasts and lasts and lasts.

Martina 

Tattoos and Fearless Love

On my 18th birthday I ventured to a tattoo shop. I drew a heart on my foot with permanent marker forever and I knew what I wanted. I knew a lot of things then.

The heart means nothing at first glance, just a simple black outline, but to me it has layers and layers of truth.

As a die hard Taylor Swift fan I saw it once drawn on her foot and couldn't help but love it. Like the curls in my hair and posters on my wall I copied her. I strummed her songs spent time dwelling on small heart breaks and I wrote her lyrics on my mirror. I am thankful for the ways I have grown up and out grown many things! I would be embarrassed to know how many hours I spent on YouTube and how many times I have listened to all of her songs. I still remember the day I clicked "select all" and closed my eyes tightly while I pressed delete. I let go of an obsession, an idol, and a distraction but, there was something that Taylor Swift used to say that always resonated with me, and until now I thought I had let it go with the music. She said it and sang it and the tattoo for me was a symbol of it.

Love is fearless. 

Stay with me and pretend it doesn't sounds cliche. I am starting to think it might be one of the most profound things I know in my heart.

Last week I got stuck in my grade 12 year book and searched the pages to find my picture. The quote under my picture that I chose to summarize my 12 years of public school and who I thought I was, was this:

"Letting go is fearless, then moving on and being alright, that's fearless too."

I honestly can't remember what I had on my heart in grade 12 to let go of or what I was thinking then. But I understand it now. Taylor Swift and her hundreds of breakup/love songs taught me at least one real valuable truth. True love is fearless.

I look at my tattoo and think of being immature and young and obsessed with girly music and pretty hair. But what I was really thinking when I let a stranger engrave it into my skin was this: that love is fearless.

She meant it different maybe. But to me it meant that love doesn't stop for fear. And that love keeps on when it shouldn't. Past brokenness. That even when crushed and bruised love gets up and goes again. To love after being hurt by love is to live without fear. To let go of wounds and to move on in freedom is fearless. I remember all this. I used to be so passionate about this idea of always living with my whole heart even after being broken or tainted or disappointed.

But I gave Taylor Swift way too much credit for this little lyric.

He said it first when He promised that perfect love casts out all fear. It is the same truth.

I think I knew more at 18 than I do now. Not knowledge or wisdom really, but I had a real desire to love regardless of anytime love had torn me.

Life is full of aches and disappointments, but life is full of love too. And when love rises up to love again, fear bows. I used to really know this. And maybe I am starting to know it deeper. This year, my heart has retreated in fear. Because to avoid hurt, the heart can lock itself away and with no risk it can be safe and whole. Without trusting fully and wholly, the heart can't be shattered.

My heart hides. And safe and whole and comfortable is fearful.

I didn't know about the tattoo yesterday and I had forgotten about my 18 year old self but when I quiet down my soul at bedtime and whisper to Him, I ask Him what the remedy is for a heart that is afraid. I ask Him if a fragile heart afraid of breaking can be any use at all to him. I ask him how I can put my whole heart into anything if it is still so fragmented. I ask him how I can trust fully without risk. I ask him to release my heart that is caged and to show me how to live with eyes wide open full again.

I stare at my foot.

My Love for you is fearless. My perfect love actually casts out all fear. My love for you did not back down when faced with death by a cross. When faced with pain and heartbreak my love endured. When your heart is afraid, when you cannot trust, when fear is crippling, even then my Love is not afraid. I was broken for you, I bled for you, I let my heart break for you and even still my love lives on wthout fear. Free yourself from fear by receiving my fearless love. 

Fear lost power when He spoke.


One by one I lay them down at his feet. The fear of failure. Fear of shame. The fear of not being enough, or being too much. The fear of hurting the people around me. The fear of being abandoned. The fear of rejection. The fear of man. The fear of a bad reputation. Fear of not being loved, accepted. Fear of change. The fear of instability. The fear of moving. The fear of shaking. The fear of trusting. The fear of letting someone in. The fear of being seen. The fear of being known. The fear of knowing who I really am. The fear of my own nature. The fear of seeing myself. The fear of my own unfaithfulness. The fear of falling away. The fear of loving fully.

Crashing down heavy these fears are overcome by just a simple phrase that I have known before.

Love is fearless. His love for me is fearless.

I have been broken already, and I have already been hurt by love, and hurt others by my love and yet in the breaking I was okay. And they are okay too. His hands are steadfast and never once was I alone. The things I fear so much never really had any power to destroy me. The power they had came from me. I had given fear permission to keep me caged from whole-hearted love. No more. I shed this lie like the cold of winter and I let fearless love come to life in me.

There is a seed inside somewhere and in this shaking something is coming up from the ground. This caged heart will have wings again and with eyes wide open it will soar in freedom. The freedom is this: His perfect love casts out all fear. I play the song again and breathe it in deep.

You make me brave
You make me brave
You call me out beyond the shore 
Into the waves 

You make me brave
You make me brave
No fear can hinder now
The Love that made a way

Let His fearless love for you make your heart brave. Lay down your fears at His feet and speak over yourself of the enduring love of Christ. We are called to be brave. We are called to love fully. We are made to fearlessly love the One who loved us first, and to love the ones He made. Throw off the fears that have no real power and lay hold of the power of His whole hearted love for you. He makes us brave. Our hearts are aching to live brave, and the world is groaning for the Church to demonstrate this enduring fearless love.

Get a tattoo, write it on paper, write in on your heart, just know it. Make sure you know it deep. His love for you is fearless. And His perfect love casts out all fear.

Martina Sobey

Unshakable Trust

Sitting in Starbucks, where I admit to enjoy the odd latte and perhaps do my best studying, I find myself peering out the window instead of at my notes. I look out at sun bright hope and people on street corners breathing in light and I almost see the weight of winter falling from shoulders that stood heavy for months. Spring air has transferred into our steps and we bounce down the street with this sense of newness and joy. From behind the glass, in this way too expense coffee shop that I love, I hear a siren. An ambulance zooms by and here holding my expensive drink I see what happens, if I look close enough. The spring air fooled us, because as the lights go by flashing the street corners are full of people who thawed so quickly yet become instantly frozen. A lady holding a toddler, a man in a suit, an older woman asking for spare change, and a few junior high girls in jean jackets. We all become still and whatever made us walk with our heads held high is shaken and for just a brief moment we all become the same. The ambulance blares and the cars pull over and that could be someone we know, someone we love, someone we need. Or it could be us. Spring attire and fresh air masks the fear like the paper-thin clouds screen the sunlight and we all pretend we are secure. We call ourselves equipped and how well we hide the fear, yet how easily our defenses become ineffective when outcomes are beyond our realm of control. Like a house of cards we crumble inside. But the siren fades into the street noise and the man in the suit walks by the lady looking for change and I continue to fake study but what if the siren didn't fade away? What if it got closer? What happens when the siren comes to our house and the noise only gets loader and the rescue vehicle is really for us? Does our thin layer mask hold up against the fear any better than the house of cards in the wind?

Some of us claim that Christ is enough, that God is our anchor, and I believe He is. With no intention to quench faith but rather to fan the flame, I wonder to myself many things. Is He enough? Is He enough if the earthquake shakes my country, if the siren arrives to my house? The question is not whether or not He is, rather whether or not I will let Him be. Will I put my trust in Him?

The world is so fragile. Our lives are so fragile. Yet we run around and so desperately hold together the broken pieces and tightly aim to control what really cannot be contained. But our world so easily shaken is longing for Christ to be revealed. For the name of the unshakable One to be made known. The business man and the jean jacket girls they are longing too. We are all longing and aching for something truly steadfast, something to trust in.

If we believe in Him then we know what He tells us, that to find our lives we must lose them. When trials come and suffering burns at our faith like the fire and gold we lose our lives and in His death we are united and He reveals True Life. The siren is still load and we have ears that ring and hearts that break and we are not numb to the pain around us, neither is He. But if He is enough, if the songs we sing are true, if the Word we have surrendered to is really from His mouth then when the news broadcasts the corruption and the media feeds off the insecurity, what happens within us? What is the purpose in the chaos and what is He doing when all we can see is the shaking ground?

I have not experienced death, only watched as other families have, but I have been shaken. I have been in the heat of the fire when everything within me burns and cries for something better and something easier and a way that is not painful. I have been ashamed and bound by the pain of my mistakes and my heart has been torn and stretched. I have certainly felt the earthquakes moving beneath me. I have heard the siren in my own life and have crumbled like the cards and have come crashing down under disappointment.Yet I can't help but know that in those moments of laying bare before Him and crying out in utter weakness, those are the moments I have seen Him, the moments that allow me to know Him. In those moments of beholding Him, something happened and I was changed. He has made a covenant of love with us that He cannot break, and our Father, the great Vinedresser has said that as we behold like in a mirror the glory of God we will be transformed into His image. Christ is the image of the invisible God. He is making us new in the image of His glory. And the earth is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. We know the verses, we hear the sermons. And sometimes we hear the sirens. How do the sounds become one?

This siren means something, maybe a call to the saints to persevere, a call to the lost to come find refuge in the One who cannot fail. Whatever its meaning may be, I often miss it. This siren blaring all day somewhere in the world, screaming of its frailty, groaning for redemption. 

I think what the siren becomes is a song. Not a melody. Because I know what is going on inside that vehicle and it isn't peaceful and it doesn't look like beauty. But this song is bold. It is a compilation of notes and beats that challenge and test what is within us. It is a song that is being sung over this earth that does not cry out to idols and to what can be so easily shifted. This song is bigger than that. This song is the song of the multitudes, the song of all creation, the song of the Spirit and the Bride. They sing, and we sing, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come". If we listen to the song we will hear that it is rising up from the ashes and from the places where the earthquake has shaken the dust and where the earth is wounded. If we will still ourselves we will hear this war-song rising and declaring over our lives of the faithfulness of God. I am wondering if that song becomes loader in the shaking, or maybe our ears become more sensitive. But I hear it rising and seeping through the cracks of insufficiency of this life and it brings with it power and strength. If we will hear it, and believe it, maybe this song of praise to our Jesus who cannot be changed will actually transform us into His image. Maybe we will become who we really are, which is a people who cannot be moved. 

I see here on the street corners a deeper truth. In the trials and in the suffering, God is. He is. And He always will be. In His great wisdom as vinedresser He is transforming us into the very image of Christ. So from the ashes, when the fire dies down, when the waves settle, and when the shaking subsides, we are not ruined, we are not down cast, and we are not dead. We instead rise from the earth to the sound of a song of worship to the King of all kings. We rise as the sons of God and we are clothed in white, spotless before the throne of all grace, perfect and purified.

Deep within us there lies faith that has been refined, hope that has not disappointed us, love that overcame the grave, and an unshakable trust.

Martina Sobey

Intimacy

And here is what I am going to do, I'm going to start all over again. I'm taking her back out into the wilderness where we had our first date, and I'll court her. I'll give her bouquets of roses, I'll turn heartbreak valley into acres of hope. She'll respond like she did as a young girl, those days when she was fresh out of Egypt. At that time, you'll address me 'Dear Husband'! Never again will you address me, 'My- Slave Master'. I'll wash your mouth out with soap, get rid of all the dirty false god names, not so much as a whisper of those names again. Hosea 2 The Message

Marriage, we know is a picture of Christ the Bridegroom and the church, His Bride. I believe that to be true. I have heard the sermons and I have analyzed the scriptures and I get it. Christ as Husband, me as Bride. Sounds great to me in theory. Who wouldn't want to be that precious and prized to be the Bride of Jesus! Who wouldn't want to be that intimately associated with Him! I sing the songs about being His beloved, and I journal all these deep womanly prayers about being His beautiful Bride, and until now, I was hiding. My heart was pretending to be okay with it, avoiding the shaking truth of what I really feel.

Because to me marriage is not a picture of me and my Jesus. Marriage is not the perfect picture of intimacy, and covenant love. To me, and many others I am sure, marriage is a source of heartbreak. Not beauty. Marriage means fighting and screaming and hating and piercing words and division and heart scarred and deep scar wounds.

Marriage to me means cheating and lying and stealing and breaking. Marriage means loss. It means shame. Marriage to me means broken promises, failed attempts, and love fake, easily shaken.

In a world of pretty close to 50/50 chances of survival,  the let down is so common that it is almost not allowed to hurt. If the majority of us are touched by the tearing of families and the dividing walls and paperwork and money and two Christmas trees, we can't all react the way we want to or our world would crumble. So we say we are fortunate, we are privileged, we are living first world, we are fine.

Two years now of inner healing, and layers peeling back and water washing darkness and wounds healing slow. Yet only now could my heart open enough to see it. Only now am I made strong enough to let the wave of truth hit me. Only now is my heart ready to handle what it means for me to be called a Bride and to be joined as one to someone else, even if that is Our Perfect Jesus.

I am sure that each day I spend in the secret place with Him only breaks me down deeper, but this breaking and tearing is for healing. It is for refining and perfection and redemption. Deeper into the secret place with Him than ever before, I feel weaker still. Two years of crying out for the filling of His Spirit, two years of calling out closer, deeper, more. Two years of stones removed, roots pulled out, and new roots going deep. Two years of wondering what was left standing between me and Him. Here it is.

Fear.

Bowed low in a room of 3000 people, He sends a woman to me with His message. She sits, her spirit sings over me, I weep and she somehow reads deeper into my being than I ever seemed to. Her eyes became His and when she spoke I knew it was directly from Him. Without me saying anything she answered my prayers. Then she looked at me and point blank said "Go ask the Holy Spirit to show you why you are afraid to receive from Him, intimacy is not something to be afraid of ".

God is good, but He lets me get away with no nonsense. So I sit crying with my head bowed, journal opened. "Holy Spirit, why am I afraid?" Almost before I can think the words I know the truth. Infused from His Spirit to my inner being, now rising to my soul. Striving fades and from the dust, I am standing up, ready now to face the fight. The fight of intimacy.

Intimacy to me has meant invasion. Regret, nightmares, it meant divorce, adultery, it meant impurity, it meant violation and young hearts broken. It meant saying yes and allowing the destruction of soul, the ties of darkness and the mark of shame. No one to blame but self, yet somehow feeling like a victimm not of the face next to mine, but a victim of the Enemy and his schemes to steal anything pure.

I hear the words now that I heard in a sermon once "The Holy Spirit is the most intimate part of God, He comes to consecrate us to the Bridegroom". At the time I thought nothing of these words but now they are a sword tearing down high strongholds I have carefully built stone by stone. 

All this time, loving the concept of being a Bride, yet never seeing how it came against every day I have lived in fear of consecration, fear of being truly seen by someone else. I break again. I can almost feel an ache inside that is stretching my heart and making more room for Him.

Memories flood and I feel the weight of sin and pain weighing heavy on my heart. But without a word, without even a prayer, I lift my hands, palms up.

I see the threat of that closeness, the risk of being seen again and denied, I feel the pain fresh and searing, I remember the regret. But God, my God, He is not a man that He should lie. He is God. He is Jesus. I brave the storm, and I take the risk. I open my hands to receive now anything that the Spirit wants to give. I feel I am flying now in freedom.

Out of my mouth bursts forth a new language. A language between my spirit and His. A channel has opened. It is a channel of intimacy. And the cost is great. It means letting go. It means fear falling down hard, and it means nakedness of soul.

This intimacy means courage. It means stripping myself bare before the King of Kings, in my weakness, in my sin and shame, it means coming to Him with no covering and letting Him truly see me, over and over again until every part of me belongs wholly to Him.

I remember now the vision last year in this same room, in this same church, at a conference like this one, with a different set of worshipers, I remember what row I stood in,and the worship band that was playing when He showed me myself dressed as the Bride at the Marriage supper. I remember the way my heart broke in half when I realized one year ago that He loved me, deep. I had no idea what was underneath, or what comes after the celebration and supper. Consummation. From the marriage supper to the inner chambers. Weird, bizarre, new. Yet biblical and pure. The cloud of witnesses before us always have this in common, they experience intimacy with the Divine. I forget sometimes the He died to unite us to God in Oneness. Nothing is closer than Oneness. And nothing represents that in our world better than marriage. Do we ever really open our hearts to believe that God wants that with us?

Only now one year later can my heart even allow for that to be true. How gentle and kind and slow and loving is my King. Never forcefully, always invited in. I love my God. And I am sure I have never loved anything or anyone as deeply as I love Him now. Yet next year I hope it is new again, and each year the love goes deeper and the intimacy grows more precious and the moments together in prayer and worship are moments that define my life and who I am. This moment of breakthrough is one I will remember.

He washed my mouth of false god fears and left my heart beating bare before Him. He did what He promised. He brought me back to Toronto where me and the Bridegroom had our first date, and He gently allured my heart. He again captured my attention, and my mouth no longer cries out with the names of shame and mistakes and falsehood. My voice cries from deep within, in a new language, pure, desperate, in love, "My Husband"!

Martina Sobey

Seeing God

I walk-run down the hallway and I can hear the beeping. I go fast not wanting to miss the best parts. I feel myself almost excited to watch someone be fixed and to be a part of the gore. Hospital has become a place of rush and thrill. Alarming noises that ring in my ears for hours now ring sometimes in my sleep. That beeping I hear means something. A heart is beating too fast, or too slow, breathing is stopping, blood pressure rising or falling. An inside world being monitored by outside machines. Beeping and beeping and body failing and failing. Poking and sticking. Taking blood and pushing fluid. More beeping. Routine. Silence becomes abnormal. I look around and in a room of wires and machines and needles and drugs, bodies blend with the machinery and we make ourselves fit into to the list of steps. Could it be that I blend here too? Pain, blood, medicine and gauze. Normal. But the beeping in my ears has made me deaf. My ears long to hear again.

Leaning slight on tip toes I find myself eager to see. Always getting closer, moving one step to the left, I want the best view. Head wound ripped open, ugly, torn, bleeding. Hair matted with blood and skull peeking through broken layers of skin. I see but sometimes long to un-see, and  I secretly close my eyes or squint. But can we ever half-see? The eye, even if squinting is either open or closed. Now opened wide I see gore and mess and I am fine. I blend. But at home before I sleep I cry out for true vision and feel the sting of this man's head wound. Here in this room of professionals I suppress and push down the Compassionate One inside me in order to be like them. Blue scrubs all the same, we are just a part of the room, a part of the procedure. We are following steps and completing tasks and chatting about lunch. Does anyone see the broken skin wide open? Beneath this skin is a soul and while his head is broken and his body is failing his soul must be searching. The ears deaf to the beeping now eyes blinded to pain. Why can't I just be quiet and interested in this room full of eyes all amused by the intensity? Why can I not stand and watch and feel nothing, why am I making it personal? It is not my head torn open or my skin being poked. It is not my heart making the machine beep. But 12 hours of holding sharp instruments pinching skin, writing numbers on a page and talking science I become blind too. I try to cover my inner eye. Maybe I am torn open, and maybe I close my eyes afraid that in the mirror I will see the same gore and mess I see here now. Maybe the layers of gauze I opened for this procedure have somehow been packed into my own heart wounds. Covered up means no sight. Blinded by self-protection. Sometimes the dressing meant to keep a wound clean causes infection. Sometimes new skin must be exposed to air to breathe and heal. I cover the wound in front of me and I cover myself too. The skin of my soul heals fast to the gauze meant to protect me. But if ever true healing is to come that gauze needs to be torn away. I can't live blind.

I drive home and the sun looks like fire and His glory pierces my heart. My eyes close squinty and water to protect themselves from light. But driving now I fling eyelids open. Four weeks of beeping and watching their pain and guarding myself from feeling it comes now as a wave hard against my chest. I didn't even realize I had closed my eyes and covered my ears but now tears well and my eyes sting and loud noise causes my sensitive ears to ache. Patients become people and my blindness becomes sight.  My ears that had dulled now hear too loud. I break and their pain becomes my pain. Instead of medication and band aids my heart groans for true healing. So the Healer whispers soft:

Open your eyes, open your ears. Hear my voice and behold my glory. Take down the shield you are using to cover your afraid eyes, open wide, see them the way I do, and then you will see me.

He has been drawing and tugging and now even in His gentleness something has snapped. His hands are slow and He waits for me to be ready yet I feel it, a piercing of my defenses. I have been living with eyes closed and ears plugged because to see and hear means to know the suffering. To live opened up means to stand close enough to see it all and hear the breaking. To be present in the trauma means to be stained by blood and soiled by the mess. I have been there physically, I have been looking and listening and learning. I am a hungry student wanting to see it all. But inside I have been moving with eyes squinty and ears plugged and hands covered safe in gloves. Numbness and sameness make me blend and I too talk about my lunch while a wife cries and a little brother holds pudgy hands that shake.

I feel the invitation now because I am drowning in the darkness of blindness. He is light. I have been pleading to see His face and behold His glory and hear His voice during this semester of school in the hospital but I've closed my senses. To see Him I have to be willing to see it all. To be filled with Him fully I can't live closed shut. I have to be torn open with rended flesh. But won't I break open if I feel it all the time? Won't I be wounded and crazy and burnt out if I am really that opened to the pain of every person I meet? What about boundaries and safety? They teach us empathy in school, but we all demonstrate distance and protection. We claim compassion but only from behind the glass with hands in gloves and mask over mouth. But He teaches death to self and washing dirty feet and cross over shoulder and life laid to be slaughtered. And I want to see Him. I want to see Him if it means only being blinded again by glory like Paul.

It will look weak in a world of speed and intensity. It may mean I go slow while everyone else moves fast, patients in and out. I will look broken and my tears might be awkward falling to the ground as people work. But He wept. And His tears made the dead come to life. His willingness to live wide opened and to be wounded by love was so powerful that the thief went to paradise and the prostitute fell at His feet restored. He reached down to the leper with an un-gloved hand. His compassion made dead people walk out of graves.

With eyes opened there is risk. I will see things that traumatize and the pain of other people will touch me and I will feel it. But to live blind is loss. I might be safe from seeing them, but then I don't see Him. And if I don't see Him I am dead, and my heart fades slower and the machines beep and the alarms go off and I too will blend in with the noise. I don't know what it will look like to see everything through teary eyes all the time but I can't live under wrapped gauze and self-protection. I can't be His hands and feet if I am numb to the ground I walk on. I want to feel intensely the way He does. I want the dead around me to be raised up because of the One who lives in me, I want their wounds to be healed by His stripes. I want to see His power and His glory fill our hospital. And if I want to see Him, I will have to open my eyes wide and bare myself to see everything.

Driving home I let out a sigh and let go of the bandage I've been holding firm against my own wounds. I release the images of people suffering and the stories of death and dying. I let the tears ruin my makeup. I make a silent vow to the One I am chasing after. I tell Him I will live with eyes wide open and I repent of all the self-protecting fear. I cry out to Him and He cleanses my heart and reminds me of the promise He gave for all of us:

And you all, with unveiled faces will behold me as in a mirror. As you behold me, you are being transformed yourselves into My very image from glory to glory. Blessed are the pure at heart for they will see Me. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart. 

With eyes covered by self-protection I look in the mirror and I see the reflection of brokenness in this world. But with a face unveiled I behold Him in all His glory and am transformed into His very image. With eyes opened brave to peer into the broken hearts I will feel weak and vulnerable with them but I will not be stained and ruined by their pain, instead I will look more and more like Him. The drive home from another day at work is almost over and I roll down my windows and blast the heat. Exposed to the cold and icy wind I can breathe deep the fresh air and let the tears on my face dry. I missed the feeling of fresh air this winter because I was afraid of the cold. Freedom comes and windows are rolled down just in time for spirng.

Martina Sobey 

Abba's Arms

I have this dream sometimes, the faces change and the situation is different but the dream is always the same. It is a dream of shame, of falling into the same situation over and over again and being found out, usually by people I feel have it more together than I do. In this dream I am exposed and wrong and dirty and often feel like I cannot face myself in the mirror, let alone look upon His glory. I never know where the dream comes from, or what it means but I assume it comes from some fear I have buried deep inside that I am not pure, or that I am a disappointment to Father. However it happens, every time I wake up feeling like the day is tainted, already stained red. I usually feel my heart pounding with shame and see myself hiding like Eve in the garden, the fear of Him knowing my every thought just makes my heart go hard, like a stone.

This time it was different though, I laid in bed and was immediately reminded of something.

I flashed back to a few days ago when He gave me a picture of His love for me. It had been a while since I felt Him close and I knew it was because my striving and desire to earn His grace was in the way of His goodness. But when I threw up my hands and laid down my efforts, He was closer than my breath. His arms always opened. He filled and flooded my imagination and I saw Jesus sitting in a garden, much like the secret garden, on a marble bench. The gate to the garden was open just enough to peek in and see Him sitting there, waiting. It seemed to me like He had been there a while. I wondered if I was interrupting something but He glanced over at me and locked eyes with mine and motioned for me to come. Some time passed as I paced outside the garden gates. I considered not going in, but something about the way He looked at me I knew I wouldn't be whole until I did.

I looked down at my white garment and saw the right arm of it was stained red, suddenly I was afraid that He would notice, afraid I was too unclean. But again He looked and His eyes beckoned, so I shoved my arm behind me and ventured into the lush garden. When I got closer, I knelt down and with my head facing the ground I rested against His knees. It felt safer down there and I knew I could keep my arm hidden in hopes He would not see the stain. My shame could remain a secret. I felt a hand against my chin and He lifted my head up, gazing upon Him I knew He must see everything. His expression was one inviting me to bare my shame and trust Him. After a while I lifted my arm to show Him, unsure of what else to do. I saw the garment was white again. I removed the sleeve and my arm too, was perfect. The black and red wound I was trying so hard to hide was actually gone. Frantically I looked at my other arm thinking I must be mistaken, but as I looked up to Him I saw the stains slowly disappear from the right side of His garment.

He took it.

When I realized the shame I was so afraid to show Him was actually already paid for, already taken, I was somewhat lost. I wondered what people do in the garden with Him when they are truly free. He didn't ask me of anything, He just sat quietly with me. The desire came over me to dance. I was always afraid knowing my garment would slip and anyone watching would see my wound, my shame. But now I am truly free to be seen.

In this secret garden I danced before Him effortlessly. I felt freedom for what must have been the first time. While spinning around Him I saw His eyes and the moment ended as I looked and saw He was weeping. 

I play through this image over and over in light of this recurring dream, wondering how they connect. Remembering also the woman with the bleeding who pressed into the crowd to touch Jesus' garment, knowing she would be healed instantly. I considered her shame. Bleeding for twelve years, all her money spent on doctors, the law of Moses calls her unclean, stained garment, shame. I feel my heart and hers becoming one. Reading the familiar Gospel story of her healing once again I read what Jesus said to her. He said "Daughter, your faith has made you well, go in peace."

Daughter?

Why did the Son, the middle aged man, call this woman daughter? She very well could have been older than Him. The words come to mind and repeat from Colossians, Jesus is the exact representation of the Father. He called her daughter because He came to earth to reveal the Father's heart. I see pieces coming together and I feel I am about to be overwhelmed again by His goodness.

The dream, the picture of the wound, dancing before Him, being called daughter. I see it. My heart knows it. My shame has been a thick barrier keeping me from trusting the goodness of the Father's love. Jesus, always leading us to the Father, took me to the garden to remove my shame so that I could hear the Father say, "Daughter". 

Now for the first time this dream does not scare me. Instead of hiding the red stain and letting shame hold me captive, I take my fears and failures and I run. I run into arms that are huge and strong and stretched wide. I feel I am five years old again running to my dad. As soon as my heart reaches His arms my shame crumbles. The darkness cannot overcome His light. I see light wash over my mind and He makes me forget the images of the dream that haunt me. I feel I am falling apart and He alone is holding me together.

What was meant to keep me away from Him just became a force that drove me deeper into His embrace.

My head buried in His chest, my shame overcome by His love. His heart revealed in His Son. This is Our God.

I hear Him say daughter and my heart fuses to His. Perfect freedom, free to dance, in my Abba's arms.

Martina Sobey

He is the Great I AM

I hear the opening of cupboards and the bathroom door shut in the hotel room. She is awake, the Prophet. I know it is morning, time to wake up. My eyes stay shut while I move slowly, upright. I whisper surrendering thoughts to Him, fresh mercies come with the morning. I wonder what He can show us today during this time set apart to soak up His beauty through His creation in Maine, US. That thought compels me to put on my sneakers and pack my journal. It is still dark outside which reminds me the sun is on its way, the reason I am awake.

We walk side by side to the waterside Him, me and her, we tread through the dark of the morning with our minds fixed on the sunrise, our eyes shine light.The sky in the distance is dark, but less dark than before. Hope is rising. The chains are being opened, the fetter smashed. Our hearts are getting more free each moment.

We sit apart, quiet, she and I. Two hearts, hungry for His beauty. We agree, we are part of One Body and therefore what we ask will be done. Show us Your glory; our heart's cry.

We sit against the cold stone and hold back shivers, faith in the sun that shall soon warm our cold bones from their slumber. Faithful like the sunrise, I tell Him who He is to me and He reminds me of the mountain tops and the heights He is calling us to walk on. Minutes of anticipation feel like hours, time is multiplied and peace floods like a river, anxiety holds no power and He rules over the water, waves calmed by His outstretched hand.

Then the dark was invaded with pink, beauty of places above reflected before my eyes as they scanned to see, slow to take it in, unable to keep up with the splendor. Orange like fire rises parting the clouds and consuming the remnant. Darkness defeated, corners invaded. Chains falling off and hitting the ground, the sound of freedom beams from the Sun. Like a burning coal of a long flaming fire You rise over the horizon. I stare right at You and feel my retinas burn, marked by Your light. I am small. Still able to stand in the midst of such glory, how can that be? I am amazed, yet I know I should be even more so. Your fire burns, clears the sky, clouds flee, so does the enemy and the fog over my heart. I am restless now and I know I cannot stay here on level ground. I am moved and stirred, muscles ready to burst forth and propel me upward, to the heights.Your power ready to explode.

Today is Yours, and I am Yours. Everything is. Your name called the light into existence, and I become a faded memory, all I see is You. Let Your storm crash over me in power and shake me until all that remains is You in me. Let only that which comes from you be left standing.

I ask now boldly, Father show me Your heart. You declare over me "I am the great I AM". Yes You are, I cry, wonder struck, captivated. How can I be silent, my lungs are longing to cry out worship, voice waiting to cry Holy. All the hosts of heaven have beat me to it, and creation itself is groaning.

Take me higher, deeper, stir up reverence. Holy Spirit I am Yours. I am after Your heart. Complete death of flesh and utter abandonment of self is the only logical response. I am sold.

I can only imagine what the Prophet is seeing right now and I realize the joy of the Body, of being a part of a corporate Bride. This may be the first time I've said that and not felt tied to a dead corpse of 'the church'. For once that bond makes me feel alive, I see her eyes are transparent, she smiles freedom and so do I.

After breakfast we come together, this time as four. We pray for our day, for mountains to move, for miracles, for Your protection. One prays for those being persecuted and we cry out for our brothers and sisters being tortured. In power we stand in gap. Your Spirit has arrested our hearts and told us to pray. Moved by Your might we stand silent. Hearts in awe. Ready for the day now, confident we will see You.

Walking paths through trees, we walk in Him, completely unified and marred by Your beauty, we are fearless. Trees look like an army, limbs raised high in worship, calling out Your name. We walk righteous in Christ knowing our every step is established in Him. We walk as planted trees, rooted and abiding, the fruit is bursting and Your glory calls it out.

I ask for an eagle to fly overhead, knowing you hear my every prayer.

We stop abruptly at the beauty, the sight of You. Immovable mountain raised before our eyes. No one speaks because our hearts are stilled by Your majesty. An eagle soars over the mountain top and I am beside myself. My eyes well up with tears. Who can measure Your worth? I set my sights to the top of that mountain and I can see it, I imagine a mountain gazelle swiftly reaching unheard of places. I see the legs so steady and quick to reach those high places. I recall the Prophet reading Your Word to me, that I will have hinds feet and reach those high dangerous places, that You will make me able to walk up there. It all comes together and I weep. How can I be called higher, how can I go, I am so weak. But You have laid Your promises all around me so I will walk by faith.

Our faith releases power to move the mountains and I imagine that power being poured out of our hands. You give the picture of the mountain the rocks, the calloused hearts being broken by the seeds we plant. That as we sow into the kingdom the trees will grow and their roots will crack open the hardened hearts. Revival. I cannot help but feel now as one fighter in the army of God. Victory beats my heart and runs in my veins. I feel it rising. Again today, I am sold.

Love like wind blows, power. Love like the sparkling sea up ahead, extravagant. Love like the shocking cool water on our bare feet, refreshing. Love like the burning sun overhead, consuming fire. Love like the sail of the boat moving slowly, patience. Love like the immovable, strong rocks, it bears all things. Love like the eagle that flies overhead again, freedom.

In Your Presence is the fullness of joy. Every single moment of this day was absolutely filled with your power, your voice, your miracles. You were everywhere. You always are.

Tomorrow I will set my standards that high: to see You in everything I do. You are the objective of every action, the goal of every effort. You are the prize of every test. You are always that present. I open my heart, my eyes, my ears to You. Make yourself known.

You are the Great I AM, and I am Yours.

Martina Sobey 

And Give Him No Rest

When I stand up I can feel the blood drain from my head to my feet and the room spins. My knees are shaking and the pins and needles cause me to wonder how long I was down. Maybe an hour, maybe only minutes. Likely minutes. It doesn't take long for nothing to be the same.

I saw him for the first time as a spirit today, not as a young man stranger, but as a small child spirit, lost. I see his grey garments and his eyes look the same way they looked when he was small, when his lip would quiver and his eyes would fill with tears.  I remember when a bee stung his lip and his tears broke my heart and at 9 years old I could not hold my heart together if his was breaking. What has happened to my heart? Now that he looks stronger and speaks harsh words and frustrates my flesh have I lost all compassion? Why now does his broken heart not break mine?

I am suddenly overwhelmed with how small he is. I see him outside the walls of Zion and all his defenses are laid down, I see him now as the 3 year old child and my heart aches to remember it all. In his grey shorts and t-shirt I am suddenly so aware of the white garment I am clothed in. His aimless wandering, and hopeless stare is making my salvation beam and the contrast breaks my heart. The teenage hardened heart, and adolescent-anger fade away and I see now a broken child. Friendless, lifeless, Fatherless. How can this small boy, this little child be left alone here? Who walked away from him, what is he doing here all alone, it isn't safe! I am filled with questions and somewhere in my heart I know I am among those to blame for his helpless state. Maybe this guilt inside is what has manifested as physical heaviness keeping me on my knees for his soul. All I know is this is dangerous ground, a battlefield, and this child is defenseless. I hear those words again "I looked for a man who would build up the wall and stand before Me in the gap on behalf of the land.". Intercession.

I am brought back to last week when I myself felt like the small boy in grey. Your grace brought me back to the cross, my pride had swelled and you in all your mercy caused me to repent. The week of darkness opened my eyes again to the reality of your justice, your law, and your saving grace. How am I now clothed in glory when last week I felt so cast off, sinful, and unable to approach the throne. Now here I am boldly at the throne of grace where I cry out with a conviction and confidence that is entirely new, the result of an assurance that only comes from the blood of the Lamb. I feel now for certain that you brought me low to save me from my flesh, my pride, myself and you brought me low, tore me open, broke me down, so that you could raise me up to this new place where I can be heard by you, for him. All is grace. Your grace over me, and your grace over him, the small white haired boy.

I remember how I stood in the same place as him once too and you bring me back to the agony and the feelings of abandonment, feelings of utter disappointment, and loneliness. The same things that broke my heart and alienated me from any sense of family are his scars too. Am I so selfish and blind to the fact that he too has been ripped apart by the inadequacy of the world, the drawn out throbbing caused by divorce, and the loneliness of being tossed between two worlds, torn by the waves of inconsistency.Why have I failed to see that this boy I aged with is also broken hearted and scarred like me? Have I like everyone else let his mask fool me? He may be a better faker than me, but he too is deeply wounded.

I see now the shadow of a boy is wandering and the paths that surround him all look the same. They are all wide and grey. There is one path though that is golden light and narrow. The boy longs to go there, the golden light calls him. I am outraged to see a man in black seated at the fork in the road trying to cause the lost boy to take another way. I label the dark man as fear and I hate him. I come against him and the Name causes him to pack up and leave but he wanders still outside the gates. He waits to steal, kill and destroy this boy and I cannot sit still. Oh Great Shepherd, come in power! He wanders and prowls and sneaks around waiting to act. How will this boy ever survive?

If I, clothed in salvation and truth and grace, still get caught and fooled by the Adversary, if I in my white garment, aware of the armor I hold, still fall into darkness and defeat, how much more danger is the darkness to this boy? In the spirit I stand up before the throne, I cry out for his protection, for someone in heaven to stand guard on his behalf. I know until the boy enters the city gates he is not safe. His grey clothing does nothing to protect him and he doesn't know the Name that has the power to save. I am troubled now by his vulnerability and You know this, your purpose hits me like a punch in my gut. You confirm in the Book what has just happened in the Spirit.

"For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.... On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth... And they shall be called The Holy People, The Redeemed of the LORD, Sought Out, A City Not Forsaken. Isaiah 62."

I tremble now at the throne. You brought me low, you lifted me up, and I open my eyes and see I am not the center. You open my eyes to the lost, the wanderers. And this small child, this precious boy, is now added to those entrusted to us who believe, and maybe only to me.

The immense responsibility feels like a burden that goes past my free will but I remember asking for this. For you to lay on my heart a burden for the lost and broken. I had no idea. I did not know the burden would be so real, so crippling, and that the lost would be someone in my own house. My child brother, my own blood. I have special authority here, I have been entrusted with much.

I will give you no rest Lord. You have bound the weight of his soul to mine, and for his sake I cannot be silent, until his salvation goes forth like a burning torch. I stand now in the gap, in the gap where the walls of Zion divide two kingdoms, the gap between the throne and the boy, darkness prowls for a while longer. I rest assured that The Day is coming and darkness will be thrown down into fire, but now, I stand guard. My weapons are mighty in you and this small boy is dead. I fight for his life with my own.

Rejoice oh my soul and have faith, this boy too will be met at the gates by the Shepherd, He will be called Sought Out. His salvation will burn like a torch. The Redeemed are crying out, the harvest is ready, and the intercessors are rising to fight for the advance of the Kingdom. Our hearts are marked by brokenness and we pray connected to the One who cries out continually on our behalf, the only One who really loves the golden haired boy enough to die for his soul.

Martina Sobey 

The Costland Cry

Standing on the shores of Charlottetown I have found a secret place. If I sit just over the bank, the rocks there are perfect chairs and the city is all around me, yet I am hidden. I am guaranteed now to meet Him here it seems, so I come here often. My obvious, yet hidden secret place. In the city, yet hidden in the cleft of the rock. I look out at the horizon where the sky and the ocean meet. Both are various shades of blue-grey. I whisper pray and feel Him asking me to lift my hands and declare His presence over this entire Island. I forget that people passing by may see a hand rising up over the bank. I am overwhelmed every time I come here by His beauty, His peace, and the way His grace crashes over me like the waves hitting the rocks. I let my feet dangle dangerously close to getting wet by the incoming sporadic waves. I am sure I feel the waves consuming me. They pull out the old self and she is taken out to sea. Each wave that hits the shore is another layer of my heart being washed by His grace. Wave after wave our city is being revived in Him.

I breathe You in, God and I can barely hold still, I feel You bursting inside of me. I pray again "Come and flood this place". Those words seem only to hold more power each time I say them. I marvel at how my life can even be used by you, and how you yourself have made me into something that you can overtake and possess. A vessel in your hands. I was cast off, rebellious, broken, dirty, and dark. Your arms pulled me in tenderly and your strength alone upholds me here before your throne where I can murmur a few words for my city. I feel so small before you, so utterly small, yet somehow you have built up my walls, I feel that my prayers are actually loosing something over this place. What if we all gathered, small before you, and asked you to flood this place like a storm?

I day dream about an army standing on the shores, broken people undone before the King, crying out for His Kingdom to invade the cost lands. They are rising up. I shout across the shores "Wake up!" I feel your people coming out of hiding to intercede for the nations. We will call them to come home. There is an army rising up. Banners wave in the sky as people choose who they are going to serve.

I am reminded of a few months ago when you asked me to raise a banner over my household, to take spiritual authority and to raise a banner that blows in the wind and waves the name of Jesus over our home. I remember when you asked me to symbolically raise up that banner, to declare the authority of Christ over our roof, and to watch salvation fall in our home. I did it, not fully understanding what it meant, and yet to see the fulfillment, it too is coming up over the shores in the waves.

Now looking over the land at the rooftops and I can almost see it with my physical eye, but more so in my spirit, red flags raised up over chosen homes that say Jesus is Lord. Red-marked by His blood, His Kingship. I call out ask say "Lift up your banners! Let His name be your strength. Let Him mark you for battle." So that's what this is. It is preparation for battle. I feel like a race horse being kept back behind a bar, waiting for the gunshot so all my stored energy can spur me forth, a freedom fighter. He strips away all the armor I thought I would need, He tells me to let go. Freedom is the armor needed for the battle of the Lord. Here on these rocks, downtown, people passing by, He has taken me away to discuss the battle, to prepare me, to wash over me with grace. Why would I ever want to be anywhere else, and how in the world am I meeting with God. Who am I that He should even be mindful of me? Yet I feel what He is showing me is that we are not nothing, we are actually His instruments and until we see ourselves as Precious to Him we cannot be used in battle. We are actually sons and daughters of the King. How is that even possible. Heaven cries out, voices declaring the worth of the Lamb. It is all about Him. That truth goes deeper and my eyes well up with tears of reverence. Two years ago I would have been bored at the name of Jesus, broken hearted, I wouldn't have thought of Him once a week. How can it be that He now consumes my every thought. He is unrelenting. An hour of meaningless thought and I am homesick. He told me something about this, that I can only love Him in response to how aware I am that He loves me. His love for me is what compels me to love Him back. He first loved us. So my heart cries "I love you", but my souls sings and I rejoice knowing that the Uncreated God said it first. Jesus the Bridegroom said I love you first. I change my I love you, to an I love you too. How humbling, and freeing, I love Him more now than before only because I see how much He loves us as His children.

I look one last time at the water and like the waves against the shore His love has moved deeper into my heart yet again. Refreshing cool, healing salt water. As I stand I say, "Come Lord Jesus come" .
Revival is coming, like a wave over our cost lands, like a tidal wave. First comes the healing oil, then comes the Kingdom. Our island will be shaken until only that which cannot be shaken remains. I see depression rates declining, empty hospital beds, churches become the place of healing, the name of Jesus will bring people of every age to tears, reverence and worship will pour out of our mouths and we will be sent out to bring the broken nations home to their First Love. PEI will be a place for the lost to be found, a place for the orphans to be loved, for the widows to be restored. Let us rise up, anointed by God, and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Martina Sobey

Grief and Glory

Rain coat, purse, sweater, boots, grocery bags, I peel off and set down the heavy layers of this day. One hair pin at a time I let free the strands that were held back, tight in place, controlled. One step at a time I enter into my room, each step bringing me closer to the Sanctuary that waits for me. Every layer I shed, every bag I let free, every pin I remove, I am getting lighter and lighter. The day, the duties, the work, the routine, all becomes nothing as I aim for my quiet place, sights set on a mark, determined to get there without distraction. Clothes put away, books neatly stacked, laundry piled high, I'm coming. I whisper to Him knowing He waits for this time of day we spend together in silence. I begin to write, entering into something new, something mysterious. The adventure of finding Him and going deeper makes my heart come alive. The black sunken lines under my eyes and the drowsiness of not enough sleep are overcome by His breath, His life. Eyes shinning, heart pounding. His Presence enthralls me, calls me closer, and I am home.

Heaven becomes more tangible than earth and when I open my eyes and peek at my room it is but a shadow of where I spend my time with Him. Everything is so dim around me so I close my eyes again. I feel the lump in my throat, the longing I feel for Him, the hunger for more, for closeness. Homesick.

There is a cost for closeness, I often hear people say that. The prophetic voice often speaks those words. They ring true today. In the preciousness of this moment with Him, in the absolute closeness, almost oneness, I know this moment is not easy. These times in His presence are not cheap. Certainly not for Him, paying with His life, the cross, blood shed for me. But the closeness has not been cheap for me either. The worth of where I am is proven by the emptiness I now feel in the world, the way now nothing else can satisfy.

When He called, He said take up your cross to follow me. I think the difference between knowing of Him, and meeting Him has meant a cross to bear. I have known about Him, and His name almost my whole life. I have always talked to Him, I have years of prayer journals, Bible verses. Head knowledge. But I only met Him like this when I got down on a knee, stuck out my shoulder and hoisted my cross up, weighing me down, to begin the walk. As he brings me to the end of myself the joy and hope from heaven come to me in such fullness. The lower I go and the closer I get to Calvary, the higher I feel in my spirit and the more of Him I see. So there is suffering, and a true death to self, a putting off of the old man as Paul names it. I think I was fooled into thinking this death of self, this forsaking of my flesh would be easy. Like a click of a button or a silent prayer repeated, completed in a moment.

The world sells me the lie that we can stay the same and add Christ into our hearts and then die and go to heaven. I do not buy it. I instead sell back to the world my total self. I want nothing to do with it. I want an emptied out shell filled with Him. He will not let me settle without this fullness.

So in what feels like such a rich time of worship before the Throne, as I feel His heart minister to mine. I also feel the grief of letting go of a life, of a world.

They say letting go of everything is not needed, that a loving God gives good gifts and that sacrifice and surrender are extreme. But His word comes alive and His truth is light in all the dark places. As I move into eternal life, knowing Him, I let go of the things easily entangling and distracting, I press on. As I do two things happen.

First there is a grief, a loneliness. A sense that I do not belong in this place, that all is folly. Conversations feel foolish if they do not involve Him. My heart seems to forsake all else and only accept His Spirit. My eyes are fixed above and the earth appears so dim. Almost depressing. There is a boredom with the things passing away, and an enemies voice that says the rest of the world has more joy. I know that "joy" he speaks of is actually fleeting beauty so I let go. With grief, I let go of what has taken years to build up; pride, reputation, greed, loyalty, connection with the world. I unclench my fists and feel all my hard work become nothing. I feel the loss of friendships, of memories, and I feel the weight of what I am loosing. But I know, I know, what I am about to step into, this eternal life, far surpasses the worth of the most precious things the world could offer me. No longer of the world, I feel the sting of it. Accepting a new life, a new self, I feel how incompatible this new being is with my old life. They do not match. I ask for the Grace to know how to be alive in one world, when the Air I breathe comes from another.

Second though, in the midst of grief for a lost world, a dim vastness, there is a peace that surpassing all knowledge. There is a closeness to Him that comes only at this cost, only by forsaking self. There is a joy that may not be obvious in the midst of the world, in sinful conversations, but a joy that cannot be shaken. A joy that lights my eyes. While I may be quiet and withdrawn as the world excites itself over weekend stories, Internet fads, and sarcastic humor, I come alive in the secret places where the world feels afraid. When I am alone, without anything to distract myself with, I feel real, I used to be afraid here. But now this is my greatest source of Life. I may be perceived as one who cannot have fun, who won't let go, who is a law keeper, a rule follower. But in the secret place, like now, I break all my rules to seek Him out. I am recklessly in love. I skip class to be here. I blow off my friends, cancel my plans. Like a child who enters into a secret fort in the woods, He is my Refuge, my Fortress.

So while there is grief in the beginning, and a letting go, there is something new as well. Something I cannot describe. There is light, fullness, a sense of heaven, a closeness to Him that I did not have until I experienced the grief of denying self. Grief is dark, and lonely, but this grief is forgotten. This darkness fades and quickly passes in light of His glory. This grieving is but three days in the darkness of crucifixion, and this Glory is a lifetime of resurrections.

I feel Him inviting us to take up our cross, to bend a knee, bow to the Name above all names, free up a shoulder, and walk the walk worthy of His name. I feel Him pouring out His loving-kindness, His compassion, His gentleness, His Patience, so that we are strengthened to surrender. I feel the fullness of Glory overcoming any grief we experience when we let go of this world, compelled by our love for Him. And I feel an army of cross-bearers rising up into the heavenly places to win the lost for Jesus Christ.

Martina Sobey

Broken Fire Still Burns

Maybe being so all or nothing makes me also either completely in, or completely out of love. A friend pointed out to me, it's like I love entirely. Wholehearted. Oh that's great I thought, because no one has returned that yet. Instantly He whispers I have. I feel like Peter in the storm, calmed by the voice of the Savior.

But jumping into something wholehearted is of no value if it is not received and returned I think to myself. My 'wholehearted' is getting smaller and smaller each time this heart is broken. I think if I keep doing this eventually my all in will be small and shattered. I don't think anyone sees the way I jump in with every ounce of myself, that I jump in and leave all else behind. They see that I am fast, that I am spontaneous maybe, but they don't really see what my heart is doing on high speed, pouring out, giving all. No one sees it because I don't want them too.

I see it. I made you that way.  It is what I love about you. And why I will call you higher.

My mistake, his mistake, this break, has been like a blanket of doubt over my being. I am not doubting my choices, in them I have peace. Instead I am doubting my person, my ways, my identity. Maybe I need to change everything. The enemy loves this, he basically taunts and says see where obedience has gotten you? Fearful Christians don't get broken like this. I know He threatens and taunts with this because a fearful Christian is dead inside, and paralyzed to growth. And really is there such thing to be in Christ yet still in fear?

Voices of the 'wise ones' in the world confirm my doubts, that me, in my purest form, in my most exposed state, is wrong. All or nothing is unwise. Who I am, is in need of change. Not that God can't change me, no they don't say that. Just that there is a great need and that what I thought was God-given is actually dangerous. Like as if I didn't know that my heart was broken as a result of the way I love recklessly. They say seek His word but they reject His voice, alive in our hearts as we live by the Spirit. I know His voice cannot be heard by a heart afraid of being recked by Him. A heart afraid to give up comfort and reputation and to seek only His face.

My tears are hot against my face as I drive home angry. This failure, this dream ended has exposed my inner self to the world around me. Open to be analyzed and judged. Gossip is like stick poking at the pieces of my heart, just moving them around and making them more distanced, harder to place back together. I don't have the world's view of success or perfection to prove them wrong so instead I nod and smile while inside the truth is burning, longing to be spoken with power.

Okay, I have a mission now, I see it in front of me. Be slower. If God speaks, don't obey right away. That is what they are saying isn't it? Obey later. Is that even possible? Is there any parable or verse that advises us to hear the word and let it sit before we act?

Maybe my anger and shame shows that I value my reputation higher than Christ even though a year ago I surrendered it to Him. Told Him I wouldn't care about it anymore, that following Him was my heart's cry even if it meant being scorned by the world. Something laid down, I have picked back up in my weakness. Maybe I shouldn't feel so defined by what people think. Maybe I should stop making sure people know what happened and that I'm not crazy. It is making me exhausted after all.

I love you. 

His voice creeps in gentle and soft to my barren mood of bitter. I know you do. You say it all the time. I snap at Him like a Father who asked me to do the dishes when I'm busy. I smile, I know He can handle it. What God is this who is so intimate and close? Who is defined as love. The sweetness of His presence calms the sense of injustice and anger in my heart and He reassures me He is working, in me and in them.

Their voices all say the same thing "Let yourself heal, don't harden your heart, rest, stop moving, just slow down, be good to yourself, don't be busy, don't pour into anything right now, just be alone and heal, you will know for next time to not go into something like this, let God minister to you and teach you how to not let this happen again, now you see how deceiving emotions can be". They even surprise me when they say this has answered their prayers. Like they were on my side, praying for my marriage to not work. Little do they know their prayers have ripped up my heart, not because of how this ended, but because I realize the little faith of the people around me, how when they didn't understand in logic, they couldn't understand at all. I see now what eyes they see the world with and I will not let my understanding come the same way theirs does. I will never explain this to ears who won't listen. I am too tired. I am tired of the word love being thrown around to cover actions when judgment and unbelief sounds more accurate. If only they knew that true love will always lead a person to Christ, deeper into His heart, and higher into the heavenly places. Masked love leads me to worldly wisdom and a life that makes sense and is safe and easy and all the things they perceive as good. I do not yearn for a life like that, I had that before, it was Him who called me out. I yearn for Him. And He has called me out of complacency and has marked out a race in front of me, I will run with endurance. I don't feel too dramatic to say their words have been chains and weapons that have entangled me. I really shouldn't open my heart up to people if I know they are going to fill the open space with doubt and discouragement.

Some words of their wisdom match up with what The Shepherd says to me, so now I am confused. But their tone is of shame and it is not at all like His. He says rest, come to me, I have seen everything, you obeyed me, I will take care of the rest, you walked in obedience, I see it, I see you. I love you. They say words somewhat like the Shepherd but their tone adds we are so relieved this didn't work, we knew from the start it wasn't good. I say if you think something is only from God if it works out perfectly, what are you going to do if I get sick? If I die? If something actually devastating happens to me? Or what if I sell all my possessions and move my small children to a third world country to live in the dirt and see people saved? That would be irresponsible right?

God speaks words to my heart that only can be understood through the Spirit. He says that through this heartbreak, through this sacrifice, through this relationship, this failure, this fall; chains have been broken. A boy once chained to condemnation and the law and covered in fear has now had His eyes opened by Love and has received the beginnings of True Freedom. Christ has blessed me with the privilege to share in the pain of Calvary with Him and through that He has set another child free.

What a rich experience. I have learned obedience as Christ did; through suffering. And this man has learned freedom like I did; through the love of Christ.

How mysterious and complex and deep. And how disheartening to be covered with judgement and sympathy and concerning glances when deep at work here in every move has been the Power of God. The same Power that worked to raise Christ from the dead.

We have to be able to see that something in life can be from God, even if it fails. We have to trust that God never fails, but we cannot associate His faithfulness with circumstances. I need faith around me to remind me that God was in this. And that I heard from Him at the start, even if His same voice called me to leave. Their doubt and unbelief is choking my faith out of me. I am too tired to fight for what they are stealing. The I told you so in their voices is going against the voice in my heart saying; you were walking in faith and obedience, I love you. The mistakes I have made are so many, choices made have ended in this crash and burn, but these mistakes are not what they think, not what actually happened. If only they would be made low enough to listen.

Critical spirits have made deaf ears and blind eyes.

In this mentality of being all or nothing, in a place of fearlessness, willingness to jump. I abandon myself and I find God in ways that I could not do with caution and fear. Should I be patient, should I seek counsel, should I wait on the Lord and be certain it is His voice I am following. Yes. A fool would say no to that. And God is the author of my faith, I trust Him to continue to work that in me, and to use people I love and trust to do so. But once I know in my heart that it is God I am resting on, I will never do anything but give all of myself to Him and I will give wholly of myself to the people and places He points me to. Will I fall and stumble and make a mess and be broken? Probably. And that scares me. Especially now when love feels lost and foreign.

But is there any other way to be? Wholehearted.What is the alternative? Lukewarm, afraid. Seeing God, or being spit out of his mouth? Brokenness won't make me hardened. It will make my wholehearted look messy, but lukewarm is not an option. 

I think maybe people are afraid when someone gets broken. Like people would rather see a life fine and happy and secure. I'd rather see someone messy, broken, but in love with Christ and following hard after Him. That is the only way to have true life.

Here is what I think; I would rather love wholeheartedly, jump head first, be all in, and have no hesitation in following His voice, His word, and then be broken. Absolutely crushed by failure and dead end situations. I would rather that, I would choose it every time. At least I obeyed. Can patience and caution save me some heart break? Of course. But the mouths who are telling me this are living in caution, not faith. How appealing is caution now? Their religious hearts make caution so unappealing.

If I want to go higher and deeper into the love of the Father than ever before, I can't be anything but wholehearted, and a worker who looks back and hesitates is not fit for the plow.

Their confusion screams so loud and their own doubts toward God invade my heart  "But it couldn't have been God you were trusting, look at how it ended. It must not have been Him, it couldn't have been His voice because it didn't work out, it didn't make sense. You can't hear His voice and just act like that, it has to be a slow process. This whole thing was messy, at least He rescued you now. Praise God."  You praise in pride of being right. Will you praise when it doesn't go the way you wanted? If the bets don't fall in your favor and I ever prove you wrong, will you say praise God then?

When God spoke to me for the first time and said "Come to me" He never promised success or ease. He never said I wouldn't be heart broken. But He did say that if I walk by faith in what He does and says, not by sight and logic, that I would see His face. He also promised that people would not understand. That the spirit of religion would ring loud and clear and that age and understanding would attempt to control my faith.

They tell me to seek wisdom and the people they point me to are dead. Dead in fear. In lukewarm hearts beating defeat. If the fruit of wisdom is fear I will not seek it. If the result of slowing down means dulling passion and flames contained down to candle size, I will run faster. 

I would rather live my whole life broken hearted and messy, than to only ever do things with parts of my being. I would rather be reckless and get burned, than stay inside watching the fire yet never feeling its heat.

They say age will teach me otherwise, I say if age means what they have I will not grow older. If their wisdom is leading me to the lives of dead faith they lead, I will not follow their footsteps. If their words will lead our generation to where we stand now, feeble and shaking, I will not follow.

If my biggest mistake is that I am too involved, too passionate, too all or nothing, I don't know if I can stop, and I don't know if He has asked that of me.

I wonder if age and wisdom would have taught Mary Magdalene to save half of her expensive perfume for another time. Or to not use it at all at the feet of a Man. It was really a waste after all. And maybe her caution should have told her that crying at His feet in front of men was embarrassing and wrong.  That if she really needed to do that she could wait for an appropriate time, not interrupting the celebration with her big scene. She was really acting on emotions as she wept at His feet.

There is a difference between emotion and reverence.

If we are afraid to fail, to break, to be perceived as wrong in the world's eyes, we may never see God. If we think when something doesn't look 'wise', or doesn't work out, or doesn't appear logical then it can't be God, if we think that way, we won't hear from Him. If we claim "He is not a God of confusion" and use that as an excuse to stay complacent in logical situations, we won't endure to the end. Not only will we not endure but we will miss out on the fullness, making less of the sacrifice and refusing the precious inheritance that was bought for us by His blood. If we read the Bible we will see that the people most greatly used by God were messed up. They were all over the place, broken by what God led them to do. And most often it involved their plans being redirected, not logical. And I guess too in most cases it involved the wise church people around them being critical and hesitate.

If God says build an ark, I won't wait 6 months and pray to be sure. I will go and buy some wood that afternoon. If people ask, I won't say oh I'm just seeing how it goes, I'll just buy a few pieces each day. I will say, God said to build an ark, I'm selling all my stuff to buy wood. If a year later God says, you don't need the ark anymore. I will cry. And I will feel stupid. I will have to now go around and look for clothing and buy back my stuff from all my friends. I might look back and think, ah I should have prayed longer and maybe applied for a carpentry program for the year, just wait it out and see if next year He still wants the ark. I might regret some aspects of how things played out.

But when I stand before the throne, only by His grace, Jesus will look to the Father and say, she knows me. I am her Shepherd and she hears my voice, she doesn't listen to the voice of strangers. The Father, who sees all things will look at me and say, you obeyed like a child, and so you are. You are an heir of my kingdom.

And what didn't make sense for a few generations, will make sense for eternity.

Seems logical to me.

If I am known as someone who makes a big mess, who is up and down, all in or all out, who seemly destroys things by being fast and spontaneous, and seems to be head fast on a path of relentlessness, but who burns with passion and  You know what else fits that description?

Fire. 

Martina Sobey. 

Abiding Presence

I wake up and look through the dark of my room to the green neon shinning in my face, bright. It is 6:42 am. The five o'clock wake up and quick swipe of my finger turning off my alarm seems like a distant dream. I overslept. Give me the first fruits of your day. I remember His command, that my first early hours of morning, fresh, belong to Him. I calculate the time and I know my sleeping has robbed from somewhere. I know I will shower, get dressed, eat breakfast. I know those things are so secure and routine that I will not compromise them. So this time passed has been stolen not from me, but from Him. Just turning to 6:43 and already my mind is racing. What can I squeeze into this hour? A quick half hearted devotion, a silent prayer, maybe a psalm. Yet I will fully devote myself to makeup application and matching socks, hair pinned. I realize that already, in this small clump of 60 seconds I have been deceived and convinced myself that my day is ruined. Spoiled by my disobedience. Pleasing Him, impossible. The enemy, my deceiver, whispers failure and taunts me to give up. In my early morning blur I rebuke him and the coffee brews. Awake now I say "Oh my soul, rest". I slow myself and sit, wrapped in blankets I feel His love move around me. Even still my mind spins a wheel of thought. As I read about Him the fullness in my mind fades and my heart finds rest in Him, in who He is. Beholding Him I pray to be transformed to be more like Him. I remember the words we will be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. I know He has filled me afresh as the Word takes over my thoughts and memorized scriptures are brought to light. I let my worldly thoughts leave me as His word takes power over my thinking. I know in this place I shall hear from Him afresh. In this place of communion with His Spirit when His written word fills me, so now I am surrendered to hear what He longs to speak over me. I thank Him that He is alive, always speaking and moving.

I look in my mirror across my room lit dimly and I see the marker lines forming words on my mirror, bold black reminders that stare me in the face and speak truth of His love. Miraculously the lines form letters and those form words, I read. "The Father is Love", so often heard, but even still I preach it to my soul as the sun begins to rise. The fog outside, and inside my heart leaves as His light penetrates my soul. The sense of unworthiness I somehow picked up in a few minutes in the early day is gone and I sense His pleasure and love. I just love you, it's who I am. I let His truth call my other thoughts captive.

The same green neon numbers, digital, tell me 7:21am. What felt like hours spent resting with Him has really been minutes. Time multiplied by the Spirit, a gift from the Father. There is time now, time for jeans and boots and hair and black eye lashes. I am ready for the day, the 6:42am sleep in and the chaotic thoughts that took over in that first minute are gone because my God speaks love. He did not hold out a checklist, comparing me to it. He held out His arms and said, come to me. He looks with love and when I look at Him, by the Spirit, the Father's eyes reflect Jesus. I know the blood that covers me and that I have been bought at a high cost. I know the price, the power that now surrounds me and holds me in this intimate place with the Father.

That same grace is here in the pages I read, Jesus speaks to the Father in the book of John: the glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them as you love me. 

I listen again as the Father whispers love over me, and the Spirit reveals the depth of the love the Father has, the same love He has for His Son. Perfect unity, for the sake of the world. I give thanks to the Spirit by whom I participate in this sacred fellowship and I pray His presence over my household.

Jesus prays: that the Love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. 

How great is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Here is the place I will abide.

I open my door and ask the love of Christ to flow out of my heart, out of my bedroom and into my brother's. I brush my teeth and whisper, with you I do abide. How mundane, yet how sweet?

Clothed in peace and righteousness by the grace of Christ, this is the fullness we are offered as Christians. To dwell in His house forever and ever. Who ever said forever starts when we die? We can live in the heavenly places with God now. Each day. Of course our flesh will wage war and the world will try to stop us, but we can take heart, for He has overcome the world.

I am wondering how many days out of this year I will live and abide in continuous communion with Christ Jesus our Lord? 

I certainly don't all the time. But in the quietness and victory of a chaotic and then restful morning, I am realizing there is nothing in my day, in this world that can pluck me from His hand. I will not claim that promise any more without the lived out evidence that I spend my whole day actively abiding in His hand.

I can say Oh yes I abide each day in Jesus Christ. But until I experience continuous abiding, have I really received my inheritance?

Let us lay down our unbelief, our complacency, our routines, and let us live for the upward call of God in Christ. Let us claim our inheritance and children, heirs, and saints, and let us actually show the world what we have. The fruits of the Spirit, healing, life spent with God, communion with the Spirit and His power, a promise land. Maybe as we rise up to the heavenly places and live a life walked by the Spirit, then God will impart heaven onto earth. Maybe as we rise up as an army of believers who actually dwell in His Presence, then maybe His presence will come down.

Heaven coming to earth means so much more than I know. But I do know it means sinners saved and turned into saints. I know it means God here. I know it means glory increasing and the power of God made manifest.

So then, let us consider our calling, let us no longer settle for a few thoughts of God each day, or for a bedtime prayer list and online devotion. Let us look at the joy set before us, the marriage supper with the Lamb, and let us give every bit of our lives to seeing that same kingdom descend. That we may live heaven now, and that those of the world may see power and authority in our lives and that they may come drink of the Living Water. Let us actually be vessels who are always full of water, always filled with God's presence, so that all who come close to us may drink and never thirst again. Let us be the royal priesthood we are named to be, and let the commonly claimed promises become a physically inheritance and realm we abide in day by day.

If I, with all my imperfections and past sin, can dwell with God for an hour and eighteen minutes in the stillness of my bedroom, I think we can all learn to abide with Him all the time. Surely there is enough grace in the heart of Jesus to keep us in the place He has called us to dwell.

I wonder what this city will look like when it is full of abiding believers who impart Christ to the people around them?

I don't think it will be normal, I don't think we have any idea the fullness that is coming for us, and I certainly don't think when He pours out His Spirit that I will be sleeping past my alarm.


Martina Sobey

A New Healing

I have this thing in my eye as I try to sleep that keeps irritating me and making me blink fast. My eye keeps watering and if I stare straight ahead and don't move my eye either way I seem to be able to ignore it. I can pretend it isn't there but if I attempt to use my eye at all I am quickly reminded and the fast annoying blinking starts again. It is reminding me of this deep anger and agitation that keeps welling up inside me. Like remnants of deep offenses and poor communication. Like something poking at the edge of a wound, not excruciating pain really, more so just annoying. The more that wound gets tickled and poked the angrier red its edges become. Inside me there is this wound that seems to be burning angry red. I don't think it really causes pain, it is too numb and patched up to breathe. I have it all covered up and buried. Safer this way. But it still has control over me because any move, any attempt to now feel anything seems to poke and irritate and tug ever so slightly at the edges that just won't come together to close the gap. I thought I wasn't, but clearly I am paralyzed. Freedom to move and feel is stolen, I am chained to my own anger.

Layer by layer I see the anger is inward. Not really caused by the things I am projecting it towards. I see clearly, it is directed at me. I am reminded of how at one point this inward anger controlled me. How in the past it has been crippling. I look now at the wound in my heart and remember nights when wounds inflicted were treatment and pulling wound edge pain was medicine. A way of release. Wounds much like this one deep in my chest used to bring my numb heart peace. I see all too clearly now the anger I've been locking inside my heart is not stemming from offenses done to me, it is flowing out of the heart of someone who can't look at herself. From a face whose eyes when wounded glare self-hatred.

I never did know how to leave this feeling behind. But if wounds in my youth couldn't do it, maybe healing can.

Maybe the hands of the Great Healer can do what my self injury in the younger years never could. Maybe this God of love can heal deep hatred. Maybe He can plant seeds of love. And maybe the impossible can be done, maybe He can move so deep as to make my heart love even itself.

Time has not moved me forward at all. One wrong move and this fire hate flames up inside me. My recent mistakes like air, fresh, fanning the flame. Old coals turn orange red again and one spark could send this whole place up in smoke, leaving only ashes behind. Instead the pen in my hand and the blank pages set before me bring a cooling calm water over the ready to explode coals. The voice of the Shepherd whispers and breathes calming summer rain.

You will love again. 

He promises. I am reminded of all other promises and how right now they feel ruined and wasted. But my wound reminds me of its deep cry for healing, it sparks in me a desire to hold onto His words with both hands clenched tightly. And so I will.

My stone heart will soften and I will love again. 

The words in Ezekiel ring in my head like an annoying buzzing truth I reject, but as it fades I realize His words are life. So I listen reluctantly. "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. This desolate land will become like the garden of Eden. I am the Lord, I have rebuilt the ruined places, and replanted the waste lands."

I am amazed now that while I am pushing truth away and fighting it off even still my relentless consuming fire Spirit of a God will not let me rest until I place myself completely in His arms.

Starring at my wound for what it is, no bandages, no numbing medication, I see it all. Exposed. In some ways it is deeper and more serious than I thought. But it explains my anger and I am relieved to at least see the cause. The air burns and the cool calming wind brings a fresh pain to the wound exposed for the first time to the air. Pain is better than numbness. Numb wounds get hurt deeper and are unable to protect themselves from further insult or infection. Numb skin gets hurt. Dead skin knows nothing. Healing skin always feels. Red, raw, exposed, and in pain but at least it is alive.

I am not saying I am ready, or even that I fully want to be, but Great Healer, if I am to be yours entirely then I must be whole. I'm not asking for clean, step by step healing. But that you would come invade my mess. Layer by layer look deep into my chest wound and show the brokenness that it has no match against your healing hands. Your healing oil.

Let your perfect love cast our fear and cover the multitude of sin. Let love invade even the hateful ways I see myself. Let me look only through your eyes.

In my crumpled, wounded state, in a heart that is all dried up, hardened I still want You. There is this burning desire for You. Like I was made to seek You. Made to stare at Your face. Like being storm-tossed cannot keep me from gasping for air in between the waves and crying Abba with any breath I have left. If I lose everything and find you, I'll do it all again and again. Maybe You are the only one for whom total surrender is appropriate. I should save my total surrender and complete giving of self for You who are worthy. I know deep in my heart that nothing lost in pursuit of You is lost at all. And anything that slows me down, ties me back, distracts me, I hate that thing. Maybe that is where my self hatred comes from, I stop myself from getting You completely. But You are in yourself patience. Your patience will overwhelm my urgency and create in me a long-suffering.

So with burning urgency, yet holy patience, I will seek you. Anything in my way is in danger. I cannot stop until I see Your face. I will meet You, more like You will meet me. In my mess and brokenness. Where all mistakes rest unexplained, but in a place where peace and wholeness are risen like a banner over my mad, wounded pursuit, my imperfect quest.

I will collide with you in the broken places, and love will consume the remnants of hate. Wounds and scars will be made new and healing oil will be hot against my skin. We will collide when my strength is failing, the moment my heart stops beating and your steady beat begins. We will collide in the moments when I am but a heap on my floor. We will collide in numbness. We will collide as sure as the sun will rise. Because if I seek wholly, if I am all in, if I am one hundred percent after You, You will be found. You will place yourself on my path of whole hearted seeking. Always. You will stand in my way and in the wilderness again we will meet. You will come with tenderness and healing and love. We will keep colliding until our meeting is never interrupted, until unbroken communion rises up and like a vine and branch we are never pulled apart.

When we collide again, all of this will be deemed worth it. The precious things that are lost, the innocence that now seems stolen, the energy poured out, the compromises made, all that was lost won't be lost at all. Because once healed, this wound will tell a story of a painful place, of a hopeless path, a dead end and of a Great Healer, a Gentle Shepherd, a Loving Father, who came and overwhelmed the darkness.

Come let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up. Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth. Hosea 6:1,3

Martina Sobey