It's 4:15 am when the Lord wakes me.
How do I respond?
I want to respond like Samuel did, "I'm your servant, ready to listen"
You know when he has something to say to you.......to your heart....to your spirit.....to your soul.
My heart........closed tight.
I remember sitting in the airport in Delhi, India waiting for a plane to take me 7,000 some miles across the sea to my roof, my man, my family. I sat listening to Christy Nockles song, "Grace Flows Down" as the tears flow down my cheeks. It is then I see the sign.......
God begins to prepare my closed tight heart....right there.....in India.
He reminds me of her. The woman with no name......... at the well.
I am her and I have been.
This trip has been hard. I feel and see things I never want to see and feel again.
Anger, helplessness, fear and HOPELESSNESS........
My head and closed tight heart scream.....GOD DO SOMETHING..........PLEASE......
There is no roof for heads, heads full of lice, naked bottoms, selling of bodies, vacant eyes, spiritual oppression that is palpable.........
I shut down......I am slipping to the place (a deep place like the well where the no named woman goes for drink)........
I come home to more.......different country......same things........
Selling of bodies, (the Super Bowl is commonly known as the single largest human trafficking incident in the USA), a sick mom with fragile bones, death of a dad leaving behind his babies and his bride, thoughts of words said months ago that still sting my heart.
My heart is closed down. Nothing in.....
I try to read His word.....search for HOPE.
I am white knuckled......hanging on.
They only prayer I have to offer is, LORD I BELIEVE; HELP MY UNBELIEF. I repeat it over and over again.....It is all I have.
God reminds me the enemy wants to steal my joy......cause me to doubt God's goodness......
GIVE THANKS...........
So I list:
A's beautiful brown eyes that remind me of the beautiful ones I saw in India
RJ's belly laugh
The love of my husband (blush)
A safe trip
For every hand I had the HONOR to touch and hold in India
For the feet on the ground in India that bring GOOD NEWS (how you inspire me)
For my church family (oh my how I love you)
My family and how you helped
Words of Ezekiel study with R and His Word still alive today
Every person that made the trip possible
Every prayer prayed.....
And it happens. My encumbered heart begins to feel again.
Once again (even if it is 4:15 am YAWN)....... The Lord speaks to me His truth and life to the dry place in me.
I am her... I am the woman at the well.
I am so loved by Jesus that I can come to the WELL over and over and over and over........AGAIN.
Never to be turned away by Him.
When He asks me for a drink and all I have is an empty cup, empty prayer, empty heart....PLAIN EMPTINESS....
Even when I like her do not recognize Jesus and the gift of God.......
Even when I like her tell Jesus.......you have nothing to draw with Lord I am empty
Even when I like her say, "the well is too deep, too dark, too empty.
Jesus tells me......John 4:14
but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
He never denies my thirst.
Because of Jesus I have living water. The gift that satisfies my soul.
