This week marks a significant spot on my path. I finished my book. Well, I mean to say that I have all the content written in my book. There will be significant editting done before it is published. I have to say that it would have been nice to sleep in today but alas I woke at what some consider to be an “unglodly” hour. Three or four am is not an uncommon time for me to get up in the morning. It is a common time for me to get quality time with my laptop.

I have four children who need me throughout the day and I find that the most peaceful time of day is in the hours before day break. I wish I had a room with large windows faceing east so that I could see the sun slip over the horizon each day. All I see out my windows is houses.

The girls in my pilot class for the study asked me if I was on cloud nine.

Not really… no.

That was how I felt when I got permission from my pastor to pilot my bible study at my church. At the time I felt pregnant. The Lord had been pouring so much into me through his word over the last five years that I felt pregnant with the message he gave me. It was about this time last year that I was asking God why he gave me the desire to write and sculpt and he told me that this gift was not just for me. It is for others. The purpose for this gift is to help lift others up and draw them closer to the Lord’s side.

I really cannot describe the urgency of having a message to give to others better than: pregnant. It is something that starts small and continues to grow. Once I placed myself in the position to hear from God in his word, the message grew fat within me.

I told my serogate moms, my mentors, “I’m pregnant with a message of hope.” They celebrated the eminent birthday with me. I said I didn’t know when or how or even if I should deliver it. They said I must… this child has something to give the world.

That is probably where I falter.

I doubt my skills as a writer… not the message. I know the message comes straight from the WORD. But I wonder if I convey the message adequately.

Having the pilot group was the key to making sure this message came out. Like the group of friends and family in the waiting room of the hospital, they eagerly awaited the pages. I HAD to deliver. They were expecting me to.

For the past four months I labored to extract the message God gave me from my heart and the Word. The heart is the womb of the soul. It is where the most miraculous things occur. It is where music and art and light come from. The creator’s very image is reflected in the human heart. Once the savior has purified it, the heart is free to create.

Even people who’s hearts have not been purified rejoice in the creation. When a person sees the artwork I do, that comes straight from my heart, they rejoice.

Like a woman who has carried a child within her for the better part of a year and labored for hours, if not days, I feel… exhausted. I anxiously count fingers and toes. I wait for the nurses and the doctor’s assessment of my child. I long to hear the approval of family and friends. They may look over this child of my soul and nod their heads. No one ever tells a new mother that her baby is ugly, even if they think it.

I think my creation looks rumpled… squeezed and pushed through the most awkward of places. It is gooey and pink and somewhat bruised. And the new mother is conflicted… If it had been born in a back alley somewhere I might have tossed it in the trash. But this one was born with witnesses… lovely ladies who trod to our meeting place each week with open hands and open hearts to receive this child of mine… awesome women who watched from the sidelines. Like a team of nurses they assisted me. Even the ones who did not remain to the end served their purpose. They are the ones I most want my child to reach. They are the ones who NEED the hope the Lord has to offer, no matter the venue in which they find it.

Sarah anticipated this child before it was conceived…

she was first in the labor room

Dana was first in the delivery room…

Jane and Cyndi were first to hear of the eminent birthday

Mandi cried. She’s been waiting for this one…

Melandie arrived at just the right moment

Heather and Tara and April rejoiced at the news

They all cheered me on… told me it was worth it… All the tears and fears… joys and sadness… ups and downs… confidence and insecurities… all the time and effort to birth a work of the heart.

The irony of it… Well I suppose irony is not the right word (not sure what is…)

I am “pregnant” again.

This new one is still very small. The urgency to deliver is not yet upon me but I feel it growing. Little seeds were being planted while birthing the first one. As I took in the seed, I thought, “That’s going to grow…”

I am more anxious about the next one. I think it may make me a little more vulnerable than the last… Challenge my constitution a bit more. Like a new mother who suddeny realizes she is going to have two in diapers at the same time, I am not as confident about birthing something else while the first has just come home…

“A little break?” I call out to the heavens…

Blissful, I am not.

Have you ever read the prophets?

You know? Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel… Jonah… All those people in the bible who had a message from the Lord to give to his people… Well, many times they had a hard time of it. I mean, people don’t always want to hear what the Lord has to say. Sometimes the message is hard to swallow.

Isa 30:10 says: They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.

People want to hear things that make them feel good about doing what they want to do, rather than what God wants them to do. I have many times lamented that I seem to be blessed with things to say to people that they do not want to hear. Many times, when I am right here at my computer I argue with God.

I say, “God they don’t want to hear this… They don’t want to be confronted with their own sin, their own personal idols… They don’t want to hear how they come very near to you with their lips but their hearts are far from you!”

Some days I handle this message just fine… The reality is that I have yet to speak a truth that I have not had to experience the heavy end of. When I go to write about it, it seems that the Lord gives me the privilege of tasting, no, eating it all over again. I battle… struggle… fight… surrender on my knees in this place… face to ground, me and God, darkness and light, truth verses lies.

Truth is hard. Truth is brutal some times. It takes courage to face. It takes a gentle hand.

Lord, give me the discernment to have a gentle hand with the truth.

They say, “Be careful what you ask for.”

I asked to hear from God. I stuck my nose in his word for hours each day. In my desperation, I sought his face. At first it was easy… a blessing. No more wandering aimlessly in the dark. Now there is clear direction from the Lord. But what happens when you realize that where the Lord wants you to go is probably not going to be a picnic in the park.

God doesn’t stop talking just because you don’t want to hear anymore.

I have been awakened in the wee hours of the morning going on seven months now and I think to myself, “This is what I asked for…”

I asked to know God’s will for my life… to be a vessel, a conduit through which he can work… I asked God to use me. I asked to be allowed to influence people for Him.

Funny how the very teaching I have been working so hard to pen over the last four months comes back to greet me. The part that sticks out to me is the one where the children of Israel look into the Promised Land and see that it is inhabited with giants. They realized that the land God had for them was not available for them to just walk up and start building their homes in. They were going to have to FIGHT to take it. God wanted the prime real-estate to belong to the people who were doing HIS will. But the people were scared of the fight. Only a few men believed they could do it.

(Joshua and Caleb said) “do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the LORD is with us. Do not be afraid of them.” (Num 14:9)

The Lord is with us… do not be afraid… I spent some time making sure the Lord was with me in this. Too many times have I set out on a fool’s errand of my own choosing. My zeal has led me out without discernment and kept me wandering around without direction. I believe that is something that many people fail to determine before jumping in with both feet. They have no idea if the Lord’s hand is truly in it because they spend little, if any, time at the Lord’s feet… listening to his voice.

This time was different. I had very clear direction from the Lord and yet my fear was holding me back. I joked with a friend that I was ready to hop a boat to Tarshish. My husband was serious, though. You know how that went for Jonah… Yes Lord, I don’t want to spend time in the belly of the whale.

This leg of the trail requires faith

More faith than I have ever given

Faith that God will provide

I know he will provide for me. This is something we have done together for a long time. But this is different. This is: trusting him to provide for other people… people who might not want to hear the truth… people who would rather have a teacher who tells them what they want to hear… to tickle their ears with pleasant stories.

My stories are not fairy tales. They are stories of real things that live in the lives of real people. They are more like war stories. Yet this battle is not with flesh and blood. This battle is with things that cannot be seen… truth and lies that dwell in the heart… darkness and light in the lives of people who have been bloodied and bruised.

I say the things people are afraid to say. I touch the people others are unwilling to touch… the modern-day lepers of our society… the unsightly spots on the white robes of our churches… They are the ones who need the hope the most. They are the ones who need a touch.

Maybe my struggle is even more like Jonah’s tale than I think. Maybe my purpose is to be obedient, arrive in Nineveh, and be surprised at the result. Maybe the people of this town DO want to hear. Maybe they are poised on the brink of redemption and I just cannot see it. Maybe they are just waiting for a LONE soul who is willing to go where others won’t.

Oh Lord, forgive me for presuming to know what is in another’s heart. Make me an obedient vessel. I submit to your will for my life. I know that there will be a fight to take enemy territory but the land there is good.