A Christmas of Hope

Merry Christmas to everyone who is reading this! I have finished off the semester and have come out with straight A's - the first time ever in my college education experience :D So I was very happy about that.

Christmas this year has a new meaning for me. Maybe it's because this has been a difficult year; maybe it's because God has shown Himself in many splendid, powerful, and miraculous ways this last year; and maybe it's because I'm older and more appreciative. A few weeks ago I received word that a dear cousin of mine was getting a divorce, which really surprised many within our family. The children are struggling because their mother walked out on them. This has grieved my heart greatly but our family is seeking ways to make this a happy Christmas for everyone. Dad and I have begun to do a daily prayer of Ephesians 1 for our family and extended family because there have been so many things happening lately that have caused us a lot of pain and we're all tired.

But at the same time God has shown Himself so mightily. He has provided me a wonderful job with a delightful family and I couldn't be more thankful. He has opened the door for my parents and I to do some house remodeling which we've wanted to do for years. God has provided money for my education and an open door for my mom to go back to school. God has healed my best friends' dad from leukemia. God has worked on the hearts of a few people who hurt me in the past to the extent that they have come to me to show me the love of God. God has brought an entire University to it's knees not out of desperation but out of a desire to go after God. God has blessed me with prayer experiences where the people I've prayed for have been instantly healed. God has brought me into a dorm room with roommates who fear the Lord and seek Him daily.

This year has been incredibly difficult but God has been so gracious and so good. And so today, on Jesus' birthday, what do I lay before Him? What can I give to the King of Kings, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, etc.? I give Him my heart...that's all He asks for, that's all He desires. Jesus Christ came into the world so humbly and so weak and needy so that we could live in communion with the God who created the world with His own hands.

This is why Christmas is a time of hope. Because I now live in perfect relationship with Jesus Christ I don't need to worry about my future. With so many things happening right now I have something that I can hold onto with faith - that thing is hope. I have placed my hope in Jesus Christ and so this Christmas season I look to the future with expectation and I hold onto faith that God will work all things out for our good and to give glory to Him. This is hope, something that in this present, that we can hold onto that we have faith for something in the future. I hope for joy to come to my family; I hope for healed hearts; I hope for reconciliation; I hope for peace and I hope for provisions.

Glory to God and Happy Birthday Jesus!!

Surrender

Throughout this last summer the Lord brought me through a season of surrender. It was hard, it was painful, I fought the Lord on so many different things He was asking me to surrender, but because I trusted God I finally let go and surrendered all my hopes, all my dreams, all my expectations, all the people I love and hold dear, all my fears, all my worries, all my doubts, and all my desires. And in the end I laid down before the Cross in complete brokenness. But I walked away from that experience with a fuller joy and a deeper peace.

Throughout the course of these last couple months I have been able to watch God do many miraculous things in my life. The healing of my best friends' dad, the relationships I've built with my roommates, and many other things. I have seen my mom come into a deeper understanding of God's love for her and I have experienced such peace during every storm that has come my way this semester.

But I got tired, I got overworked, I poured out too much of myself and I didn't allow God to fill me back up by spending those quite moments with Him - being in an intimate relationship with the Creator of the Universe is a daily thing. And so once again I find myself standing back where I started; burdened down with all my "baggage" of the hopes, dreams, expectations, fears, and worries I had before. Once again I find myself asking God why I haven't found my husband yet, why all these other girls get to experience love but I don't. I have come to the end of myself and once again God is asking me to surrender.

Surrender is a DAILY! dying to yourself - it's not just a one time thing. It's a continual, on-going, all-encompassing thing. It's painful but in the end it's so incredibly beautiful.

So here I am Lord, naked, vulnerable, shattered, and torn into pieces from the things of this world and Satan's lies and deceit. I am in need of a Savior for I am broken and tired. Once again I surrender all my hopes, all my dreams, all my expectations, all my plans, all my fears, all my worries, all my doubts, all my pain, all my loves, all my friends, all of my family, all my desires. Take them Lord...for here I stand, broken in your love.

Surrender is a daily dying to yourself.

Identity in God

So, I'm finally getting around to posting this message. I had written "Beauty to be delighted in" in a bad attitude and I want to first apologize to God for my actions - it was not glorifying to Him; nor was it hopeful or helpful for those who read it.

Needless to say, God did something after this post.

That evening I was talking with my roommate about this. I mentioned how my thoughts had gone wild after a guy from my past (absolutely not a relationship in that way) had said something to me that kind of shook me. I had started to think that I don't have close guy relationships and because I don't have guy relationships I must not be marriage material. She encouraged me by showing me that in order for me to have close relationships with guys it will get to the point where I'd either need to break it off or marry the guy.

Later that evening I was going out to get ice cream with my other roommate and she had accidentally walked in on this private conversation and didn't know what to do. So I explained what was going on. Then she said something I never expected to come from her mouth, but God definitely spoke through her to my heart. Her speech is as follows:
"Can I tell you something about you that just drives me bonkers?" "Sure" I said, "OK, it drives me crazy that you can't see how incredibly beautiful you are. You have all these giftings and talents and just this beauty both inside and out that everyone else can see but you! You may feel like you've got problems with your physical and emotional appearance, but you are beautiful and I want you to finally realize that for yourself!"

I...was...speechless. I touched me in a way I never thought it could.

That next morning I went to North Heights Lutheran Church and I was surprised by the message: Identity

The pastor spoke on the identity of both David and of Saul. Both were anointed King, both were powerful men of God; but, there was a difference between them. Saul was King but he didn't act according to his God-given identity. David wasn't yet king but yet he acted according to this God-given identity. The pastor proceeded to say that Saul lived in unbelief because although God had spoken his identity to him, Saul was too afraid to not believe what other people spoke about him - about the identities that other people had placed on him. Saul lived in unbelief. Unbelief is sin.

By not putting God's identity of you over others' identity of you then you are living in unbelief and you are sinning.

This spoke something to my heart - deeply. It dawned on me this whole time I had been living in sin because I couldn't not believe what other people had placed on my head for my identity. But that no longer matters because I am now living in belief because I have finally accepted this and I have stepped into my identity - the identity that God gave me. It's an identity that can be found in the Word; it's an identity that is rooted in my relationship with God.

I can see now that all along the ugly duckling never existed. She was always a figment of my imagination. But the swan has always been there. Yes, I am the swan. I am not and never will be and never have been the ugly duckling. Now I see the swan has never been hidden; one only has to look through the lens of the eye of God to see I am the swan. I may not have my beauty delighted in by humanity, but I do by God and it is so much more special because His delight is eternal, infinite, and unconditional.

Do you know what your identity is? Do you know who you are to God? I'd like to challenge you to find out - it's quite a journey with a wonderful ending :)

Beauty to Be Delighted In

I had originally wanted to call this "Beauty to be Found" but it made it sound too much like I'm lost. Instead, I thought it more appropriate to call it "Delighted In."

Because no one reads what I write I think I'll just pour out my heart on the pages of this site because it's not going to be read anyways so it's safe.

I have never really seen myself as beautiful. I've always looked at other girls who were skinny and had the looks and felt ashamed when they said to themselves "I'm ugly. I'm fat." I always dreamed of maybe being Cinderella - who worked hard and was incredibly gorgeous and then one day a prince would rescue her.

Whenever I look in the mirror I see two faces. I see the face of an ugly duckling staring back at me but hidden behind that ugly duckling face I see the swan shinning through. As the lyrics of Mulan goes "when will my reflection show who I am inside?"

As I've gone through life I've been forced to face the ugly duckling on a regular basis while everyone tries to hide the swan from view. My exterior never lines up with the swan, instead it matches perfectly with the ugly duckling. The swan is there and she sings out beautifully but people ignore it because they can only see the ugly duckling.

All men have been a place of pain in my life. To be quite honest, the only man on earth I trust and respect is my dad. All others I expect to be hurt by and so far, except for a few very rare exceptions, I have been. I feel like they can only see the ugly duckling and don't want to go deeper to see the swan. But the swan is there. Oh she is there and wants to come out but people can't see. Why can't men see the swan!? I don't want them to see the swan for romantic reasons but for friendship reasons. I feel so outcasted, so shoved into a corner by men that they don't even want friendship with me.

When will my reflection show who I am inside? The swan is there. I'm not the ugly duckling, I am the swan. This swan walks in front of the whole world in expectation of her beauty to be delighted in with the purest reasons. But they can't see her...why?

This brings me to my new deep sorrow. I feel like because men can't even delight in my beauty as a friend then I'll never have the hope of having a man delight in my beauty as a lover. And here come the tears...

To change here I wanted to mention for my own later reference, since I'm the only one reading this, that what I mean by a friend I mean someone who wants to spend time with me, good quality time. I don't want to be "Hi, how are you doing?" friends, I want to be "How are YOU doing?" friends.

I am not the ugly duckling, I am the swan...but this swan is waiting for her beauty to be delighted in...

Freedom (Part 1): Speaking Freedom to Others

The Lord has recently been teaching me about freedom. It is so amazing when Daddy gets you excited to learn about something so foundational to who He is that you get all giddy inside. This message of freedom I pray is not a reflection of my life but a reflection of God being seen in my life.

Freedom can come in many different ways, and sometimes more ways than one lead to freedom. I was recently brought to Ephesians 5:18-21 where it talks about singing praises, hymns, and spiritual songs to each other. It got my curiosity going because I never quite saw this passage from the angle God brought me in. From where I stood, fasting and praying for Bethel with the Holy Spirit leading me to pray for freedom at Bethel, I saw the importance and need of each other, within a community, speaking life into each other. And in by doing it the way the passage was saying, we are speaking not with the tongues of man but with the tongues of the Spirit. In my own personal life I know how low a few negative words spoken towards you can bring you, but I also know the releasing from all of the negative that can come when good, Godly friends speak the truth to you about who you are because they see you with the eyes of God.

This kind of freedom is almost tangible because it comes straight from other persons in a language that you can understand but yet they speak with the power of God over you! I really understood in that moment as to why God said this to the early Church, through the apostle Paul. It was because as a Body of Christ every part needs to work together correctly but when one part becomes "cancerous" that "cancer" can spread to the other parts of the body. I know this may sound extreme, but the extreme of being Christian (and I'm talking in a negative way)can come as judgmental and just a few words not spoken with the love of God can tear a person down and can feel as if they just went through a physical beating that left them bloodied and trying to grasp consciousness. The persons emotional well-being has been wounded and they're left sitting there trying to wrap their mind around the situation as their perception of God becomes clouded.

But instead, if we truly learned how to speak with the Holy Spirit, if we spoke with the love of God to other members of our body, all the parts become lubricated and they begin to work correctly. Easier said than done though. So many things can happen in life that we must choose how to react to each situation. Sometimes we are left in a sour mood and because we're human we let that sourness come out in the way we treat, speak, and act towards others as if they were somehow the issue. And sometimes because we get wounded by what others say we can turn around and take that hurt out on others. See what I mean about being cancerous?

In my own life I'm learning to love people with the love of God in all occasions because I personally know the freedom that comes with a few words, full of God's love, spoken directly into my wounded heart and I walked away with my burdens lifted from my shoulder. But in order for me to be able to do this I must learn how to live in accordance with the Spirit (Romans 8) because my flesh is prone to sin and if I don't walk in accordance with the Spirit I will turn around to those around me and most likely speak something that will tear them down.

(Stay tuned for more!)

Learning to Die to Self

It has recently come to my realization how important it is to learn to die to self on a daily basis. This last weekend I went with my dad, his 2 sisters, and my grandmother to a meeting with Andrew Wommack at the Hilton in Minneapolis. While tornadoes ripped through the Twin Cities I was sitting in an air conditioned ballroom as goose bumps went through me at hearing the words Andrew was saying. He was talking about "Body, Mind, and Spirit". I never quite understood those scriptures about my spirit, but Andrew helped clarify things so much! He said that we are not JUST human, but we are 1/3 spirit as well and that when we become "born again" in Christ it is our spirit that comes to life - filling a void that all of us face from the day we are born. Later in my personal time with God, it came to me that when a baby is born, it's body is brought into life, but there is something so central to us humans that is dead since the moment we are conceived. But because of Jesus, we become complete because all three parts of us, body, mind (soul), and spirit are now alive. And when our spirits become alive it is made perfect because our spirits are like Jesus. So why do we constantly face a lot of strife and fear and anger and depression on an almost daily basis? It's because we are living in our flesh.

Andrew said something so radical to me that it shattered so many things I thought about God. He said that because our spirits are made alive in Christ and that they are made perfect in Him our Spirit can never be separated from God. This means that even though we in the flesh may be filled with fear and anxiety and anger our Spirit is, even now, dancing at the feet of Jesus and filled to the brim with love, joy, peace, and all the other fruits of the Spirit. It was so cool to hear that because it brought me a bunch of excitement to know that even now my perfect Spirit (never quite realized that now my Spirit is perfect) is fully immersed in God.

So why is it important to learn to die to self, to let the flesh die? Well, as Andrew said, the only way for this life and joy and peace that God has already given me to flow over into my natural life I need to stop living in the flesh. I need to make my soul (mind, emotions, and personality) to be in agreement with my Spirit (2 verses 1) in order to allow all the promises and blessings God has already given me to flow over into the natural.

It is hard to live according to the spirit because you can't use any of your senses to experience it. But you can be sure that if you walk by the Spirit you will live the God-filled, abundant life, that the Bible talks so much about. I don't know about you but this is exciting because I'm tired of letting the things of this world tear me down. I'm tired of allowing my emotions and thoughts to get the better of me. I want to live the life God wants for me, but the only way I can do that is if I live according to the Spirit (which leads to life and peace - Romans 8). Imagine, living every day dancing before the Lord. It's like living in heaven here on earth but with all the stuff of the world going on around you. I don't know about you but I want that. I want to never hunger or thirst again, but I want to live every day completely satisfied and it is my goal in life to bring others into that life.

God bless!!

Frieda

This summer a couple of my friends and I from Bethel have gone to Hennepin Avenue, every other Saturday, to Auggies, to show people the love of God. Auggies is a strip club and as I've found out, it is one of the worst places to go for the girls; but sometimes desperation is enough to make someone do something so unwise. God loves these people so incredibly much and has been telling them about His love for them for a long time, but sometimes it takes the voices of Christ followers on earth to get them to finally lean their ears His way and to believe in His unfailing, unconditional love.

This last Saturday we met a woman named Frieda. She was in her 60s, missing a couple teeth, was a short, sweet woman who spoke with an accent (German). I saw her walk right past our little group of four sitting in a circle outside Auggies; she was walking with her face to the ground, sort of shuffling her feet, and hugging a plastic bag to her side. I quickly got up and ran over to her and started talking with her. It took a little bit to make her look up at my face - I think she didn't trust me but when I showed her I wasn't going to hurt her. I asked her if she needed any prayer for anything and she said she didn't have enough money for a bus fare (she needed 75 cents) & that her knees were hurting her. I added everything up and I asked her if she was homeless and she said "yes, sort of." So I brought her over to the group and said "Hey guys, this is Frieda. She needs money for a bus fare." I for some reason immediately looked over at Hunter (thinking he might have money on him). I saw his face drop and I almost laughed because he was so sad about not having any money on him. So then I told them about her knees and we prayed for her. She said her knees were feeling a lot better.

This whole time I was watching her feet because she was wearing thick socks with pink flip-flops over them. I kept thinking, there is no way I'm letting her go with those flip-flops; no wonder her knees hurt! She needs to be wearing tennis shoes!! And a thought came to me - I should give her my shoes. I can afford a new pair but she can't and these are good shoes. So without anyone noticing I lined my foot up next to hers and it looked like my shoes would work. So as she started walking away I told her I wanted her to take my shoes and try them on. There, outside Auggies, I take my shoes off and she tries them on. Too small. Hunter, Esther, and Megan start murmuring but I didn't care - I wanted her to have shoes! Hunter takes off his shoes and says "You can try mine on." We all laugh. Then Megan takes hers off and says "Here, my feet are big." They fit like a charm! Size 10 as well - exactly what she needed!

We talked some more, just wondering who she is, what her story is, and what her relationship with God is. Then Hunter comes to me and tells me to keep her there for a couple minutes while he gets money. Before I could say OK he was gone - sprinting back to the car. As we continued talking she kept saying "I shouldn't complain" - she sleeps on a bus, can hardly afford Goodwill, has no family, didn't find out what she does for food, but she said that she always looked for ways to help families who couldn't get nice things for their kids. A homeless woman only thinking about others and she says "I shouldn't complain!" Well that felt like a sword right to my gut - God telling me, stop complaining because you have been blessed with much!

We walked down to the other corner and waited for Hunter to get back. Her response to getting the money were tears and saying "God feeds the rabbits." It was such a blessing to bless her! I was crying and I did not get a lot of sleep that night because I couldn't stop thinking about how much I have been blessed with. That woman was ministering to me and the rest of our group when we were there to minister to her.

What an eye opener! God kept bringing to mind that verse about entertaining angels unaware. And "whatever you do for the least of these brothers and sisters, has done it unto me." (Matthew 25:40). We did it out of compassion and God's love but the blessings that have followed have been great! God is so amazing and I just could not let Frieda go without providing for her needs as much as I was able to. I wished I knew if there was a place I could take her but none of us knew anything. But I believe God will provide for her as He provides for us.

Lord God, wherever you lead me I will go. Whatever you ask me to do I will do. And whatever you ask me to give up I will give up.

Blessings!!

You Are A Treasure

It amazes me how many Christians seem to have a lack of understanding how much of a treasure they are! In today's world, depression and anxiety are increasing; way too many teenagers are committing suicide; and stress is through the roof; even for Christians. But why? If we claim to be Christians why do we have to live like the rest of the world who seems to not understand how truly precious they are.

I used to be pulled into this trap - I was depressed, I wanted to commit suicide, I was anxious over some things and I was constantly stressed. I didn't get it but now I do. You see, I viewed myself through the way the world sees me but all along God was there whispering in my ear how precious I was to Him, how much He loves me, and how beautiful I was. The truth is, you wont hear this from the world because the world lives according to the flesh and easily falls into sinful temptations. The devil comes to us in our weakness (notice how the devil comes - he is not omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent) and tells us lies to allow us to believe him and then we fall into the effects of his lies. The devil wants you to believe that you're just another person, that there's nothing special about you and that you should just give up. But God sees who we really are and He is constantly there telling us who we are to Him.

Even though you may be in the pit of depression there is still hope. God will make away, you just have to take it.

My parents have owned this round bronze table for as long as I can remember. It was never taken out except for being used as a gong or something unimportant. It had green spots on it and was a gunky brown color - I though that was just how it was and so we just kept it alone. It wasn't until my mom took another look at it and noticed the Arabic writing on the table. She had believed all along that it said stuff along the lines of "Allah is God..." etc and so she decided to send the writing with my dad to work because he has a couple friends who speak Arabic. These coworkers came back and said that it reads "Blessing," "Good eating," and "When you come into this home this will become your home and we will be your servants," along with many other beautiful sayings about hospitality.

We decided to take that table and buff it up. Through many hours of tarnish remover and buffing it up, this table now sits in my mom's office with a lustrous golden/bronze color and it is absolutely beautiful! That bronze table had a hidden treasure etched for all the world to see, but it just needed to have some TLC.

And like that table, you, as a unique individual, are also a treasure. You may not see it under all that stuff covering you (lies, dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, abuse, and the list goes on) but it's there. And the way that this treasure which is etched in your entire being is going to be shown is to go through some "buffing" and "tarnish" remover. You need to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus which washes away every sinful impurity that you did or that someone else did to you. And then your treasure, my treasure (me Eliana), will sparkle and shine for all the world to see because you have found yourself in Christ. You have seen who you are through God's eyes and you have believed in that truth instead of the lies.

And even when you doubt that you have worth, just listen to God with your spiritual ears and you will hear Him say how much He loves you and that you are a treasure to Him.

5am, Crying and Afraid

I would normally have something encouraging, challenging, and/or uplifting to say on here but I don't right now. I should but I just need to get some things off my chest.

God has been ever so faithful this last semester. I have seen Him work in mighty ways and my life has been changed. But now the semester is coming to a close and I'm afraid to leave Bethel and the friends that I have here and head back home into a life where I constantly am bombarded with things from the past. I walked into Bethel not knowing a soul and deciding that this would be a wonderful place for me to start over and begin a whole new volume of my life. I love summer, I love being able to get outside, but I'm afraid of what might come with summer. Mainly, the question that has been nagging me is whether or not people will want to be with me - people who I went to school with and grew up with. Do they need me in their life? Have I made such a difference in their life that they want me to be there with them, living life together. Will people, the people I call friends, will they need me?

The reason why this question even has to be asked is because this last school year I have over and over and over again by people from my "other" life have not expressed any such desire to want to be with me or that they need me in their life. And I have been hurt by this. Relationships has always been where I am who I was made to be, but it has also always been the place where I am the most hurt. Rejection had become my closest companion in the past and it's constantly trying to rekindle that old "relationship."

I feel misunderstood a lot. I feel like people don't get me and so they try to avoid me. I hate sounding needy but that's what I am right now. I'm needy because I woke up at 5am, crying, this morning because going through my head were certain texts with well-meant messages but had been said in such a way that wounded me in my most vulnerable spot. Will people ever understand this almost craving in my soul to be with others? Will people ever understand that I constantly ask myself "what can I change about myself to become someone this person needs and will call at 2am if they need to talk?"

I'm afraid for summer to come. I'm afraid of not being wanted. I'm afraid of not being needed. I'm afraid of leaving people from Bethel who have expressed such fierce love for me that chains from wounds from the past have been broken and I have stepped into a new me (although probably right now that's not evident).

I need to know that I'm wanted. I need to know that I'm needed. And I need people to tell me that they want me and need me.

Holding Nothing Back

If there's one thing I've learned these past 5 months it's that the road to forgiveness is long and difficult. We become wounded and instead of running to God and laying our burdens at the foot of the cross we become embittered and angry. Our hearts become hard and we lose the ability to let God work in our hearts and lives. We seek revenge and we build walls around ourselves - further wounding relationships. I am a witness to this. I have allowed myself to hold onto the wounds from the past and it has only caused me hurt and anger.

Shortly after being freed from my fear of rejection I was forced to face a lot of things from my past, some of them I remembered quite well and others I had forgotten - either from purely forgetting or from forcing my mind to forget. While I was recollecting my past God opened my eyes to see His hand at work. All the hurt, all the pain, all the deep wounds were not failures in my life, in fact God had a plan in all of this. From the beginning God knew my relationship with Him and He knew that He could do something wonderful amidst all the pain. And He has - He has healed me completely from all the hurt, and wounds from my past and the chains of fear no longer keep me bound.

This freedom I have in my life has given me a drive to move forward full speed. I will not hold back any more from the plans that God has for my life. The peace and the love that I am experiencing is so great that I can't help but proclaim "Jesus is Lord!" to the whole world. One step after the other, holding fastly to God's hand, trusting Him completely for my present and future, and setting my sights ahead to the more abundant life that God has for me. I will run the race wholeheartedly and when a battle is at hand I will not step back in fear but I will place my warrior band (as a wise woman told me this week)on my head, take up my sword and charge forward. When the Spirit comes over me I will dance for Jesus. At every opportunity I will take a chance to show God's love (something that I'm really working on - I'll be honest), and I will learn who God is more and more each day.

The chains are gone and I will move forward, holding nothing back...

Blessings!!

"The Garden"

I have a praise report! I have been dealing a lot lately with a fear that has gripped me almost my entire life and that fear was the fear of rejection. It has been an area of great hindrance for me and a very wounded part of my life. But thanks to God's mercy and love I can say that at the end of 2009 - literally - God has completely healed me of my fear of rejection and I have been spending every day of 2010 reveling in this new found freedom I have!! Anyways, before God healed me I wrote this poem as a way to kinda put my testimony out there. It's kinda a different, allegorical way of looking at it but nevertheless it's my testimony. Enjoy!!

"The Garden"

I walked through a fire destroyed land,
With dead trees and branches lying all around.
My heart was heavy and my spirit was depressed
As I looked at the destruction at its best.
Left, right – I knew not which way to turn.
All I knew was to cry as I let my anger burn.
Hurt, rejected, beaten down was all I understood.

Where once a lavished garden thrived
Is now a burned out waste land with no light.
Where once a little girl learned to dance
Now there is only burned up branches – a remnant of the past
How could it have gotten this far?
How could the fire have destroyed so much?
Hurt, rejected, beaten down was all I understood.

As I sat there with tears of hurt streaming down my face
A voice called softly from the distance.
It said “Come this way!”
It beckoned me to follow ever so gently.
And in that direction I went silently.
The walk brought back angry memories from the past
Of how the fire destroyed the once beautiful garden.
How could walking in this direction make things any better?
And yet I walked on ever so silently.
Hurt, rejected, beaten down was all I understood.

After an eternity of walking something appeared in the distance.
Something green and alive and beautiful
My feet went quicker and soon I was upon the beauty
A rose bush was what stood right in front of me.
Small and beautiful with bright pink roses.
How could it have survived the fire?
How did it not get destroyed?
Hurt, rejected, and hopeful was all I understood.

I looked down at my feet as the tears began to flow
And there right beside me was a watering can full of water.
I knelt down beside it unsure of what to do
And then a light hand touched my shoulder.
I did not turn around, I was unsure of this warmth I felt.
And then I heard a voice whisper in my ear,
“Water the roses.”
So I took that watering can and ever so gently watered the roses.
Hurt, rejected, and hopeful was all I understood.

As I knelt there watering the roses the bush began to grow.
I watched in amazement as it grew from a shrub into a beautiful bush.
I set the watering can down and the ground around the can sprouted with grasses.
I quickly rose to my feet and stepped back in awe.
I looked down and saw grasses and daisies sprouting around my feet.
And then a ray of sunlight came down and alighted on this rose bush
And the pink roses sparkled in the sunlight.
My breath was taken away at everything that was happening.
Amazed, rejected, and hopeful was all I understood.

In my awe I suddenly became aware of the light touch on my shoulder
So I turned around and saw a man standing before me.
His face was beautiful and His eyes were full of love.
He was dressed in the finest linen and His garments were righteousness.
I looked at Him and everything within me felt drawn to Him.
I noticed His outstretched arms and I ran instantly into them.
He embraced me ever so lovingly and the tears began to flow.
And He held me ever so tighter.
Amazed, loved, and hopeful was all I understood.

I stepped back to look at this man who held me with such Love
And as I looked into His face I felt wholly unworthy
And I fell to my knees and began to weep in my shame.
Then the man said “Here, let Me take that off your back”
And He took off a pack I did not know I carried.
I watched as He walked up to a tree and place it on its branches
And as He stepped back the tree transformed into a Cross
As the tears kept flowing I felt a complete freedom come over me
I stood to my feet and was amazed at the lightness I felt as I looked at this man.
Amazed, loved, and hopeful was all I understood.

And then right in front of me sprang a lake and a waterfall
And then trees and more flowers came in a beautiful wave of light.
A butterfly flew past me and a little deer ran right in front of me.
Rabbits pranced around my feet and birds sang in the branches.
I became breathless at the miracle all around me
Where once there was death and now there is life.
I looked back to the man and ran back into his outstretched arms.
Amazed, loved, and free was all I understood.

This man lifted me into His arms and spun me around
As laughter filled the air.
I felt complete and whole within His arms
And I hugged Him with everything I could.
He set me back down and began to sing.
His song went deep into my heart and I began to cry again.
Then He took my hand and we began to dance.
Twirling and spinning, swinging and dipping;
Dancing to the most beautiful song I had ever heard.
Complete, loved, and free was all I understood.

As I gazed into His eyes of love He smiled back at me.
And with His hand He wiped away the tears streaming down my face.
And He bent down and whispered in my ear,
“My precious Diamond, I love you! You take My breath away!
I love you so much! Rest in My love.”
And as Love coursed through my veins I closed my eyes
And rested in that love as I drifted off to sleep.
Safe in His arms, and loved for all eternity.
No longer hurt, no longer rejected and no longer beaten down.
I found hope and was made complete.
Loved, cherished, and His beloved was all I knew.