The Rhythms of His Heart

LOVED. SEEN. KNOWN. HEALED.  These words have become very important to me.  They are words that come to me in prayer often when I sit before God.  My prayer life no longer is a one-way conversation where I only examine my heart before God, but it also is a conversation where I imagine how He feels about my coming to Him. He loves it when I come. He sees me when I come and there's now a deep familiarity between us where we can be with each other with or without using words. The simple invitation is just to "Come!"Don't get me wrong some days there is  too much talking, there is the  shadowy, sinful awareness of myself that can keep me from coming. Yes,  He wants us to see and know what is true of ourselves, but in recent days it has been more simple.  I  just "Come" and hold my heart in all of it's good and bad before Him--the God Who Sees, Loves & Knows. Why is this important to me?  I think because for most of my days I wanted this seeing, knowi

Sent to me by this 'brother' and drawn by one of his students It was just a year and a bit after I had moved across the country.  It was a warm sunny Sunday morning in August and I had hopped on my scooter and gone to church.  From the outside no one could tell that morning I had been in a deep pit of wanting to give up.  I wanted to pack up my little apartment and move back East.  I was tired of ministry, tired in my body and tired of being alone.  I went through the motions of church that morning.  No one really stopped me to reach out, but neither did I reach out and ask for a listening ear, prayer or encouragement. In my scooter wheel chair I scootered out the church door when it was over and was on my way home. I got to the side of the parking lot that allows me to cross the street and there was a man I had never seen before enjoying the day.  He was a stranger on that day, but years later has become one of my most precious "big brothers" and cheerleaders in