The Problem with Passion

When This life gets to me, I'll be found on my knees.....                                                                 When my heart sinks heavy, I'll let you lift it for me.....                                                                                            Misunderstood....would be a great place to start! I feel like my whole life my heart has been misunderstood. I love to love! I want every person in every room I enter to know they matter, that they are special; that they are loved! I desire to share the Love God has given me with each and every soul He allows me to come near. He speaks to me and through me to help people look to Him, know they are loved and find healing. He’s created me to Love well.....and I thrive in its wake! I love to love......                                                                It’s as if the enemy knows precisely where to aim. It’s as if he knows exactly where the “ugly lie” is hidden and just lives to brush up against that wound again and again. Hoping to steal, kill or destroy your journey...And it is truly by the Grace of God that he is allowed to do so...because God knows there will be a moment when it is healed and the enemy can no longer carry any threat to your stance...God is working amidst the enemies attempts, He is setting you free. He is building your faith....and boy can it be painful....Yes God must hold us down sometimes to do the extraction!                                                                           So there I stand beneath the vast sky and the darkness of night and the echo of the words steal my breath. I heard nothing else after that moment, just felt the depth that it penetrated my heart, my mind and my soul....pain that wrapped around me and shattered my being for what seemed like the longest breath ever. Tears welled up from the deepest pit, out my wounded self and I held them back as the scream took center stage...”me again, this is my fault”. My actions and my honesty and my love are to blame for why a man can’t see my pure heart just waiting to be received. As if I’m the temptress just waiting to trick them into being distracted...really do I even possess this power that I so often get blamed for? And if I do, who has given me that authority? Is it all me? Do I have an ill heart and I’m just blind to it? Is my passion the problem? I stumble over the words, “It is not my heart to awaken feelings if it is not their time.” And the harsh response that says, “yeah well your actions say something else”...As if I acted alone to align the universe for this crossing of paths, or I awakened a sense of connection all by myself...I am not in control....am I? My leaning in to draw near to one of Gods creations makes me wrong, or to blame? I sit riddled with questions, but humbled nonetheless and crippled enough to know I have to weigh this before My Father. And so I do; I carry my broken self to the Throne and collapse for what seems like the millionth time this month and I beg to be unravelled, beg to be revealed to myself...what is mine to carry here Lord? Why did those words dig so deep that I couldn’t see straight? Why the intense anger that arose as they penetrated my ears and my heart? I know this space and I am aware that when I feel so much emotion from any mans words, especially when I do not even know how they were intended, the Lord is stirring beneath; inviting me to look...trying to tear the curtain and bring me near! So I peak in, terrified to see...but Grace welcomes me and flashes me back to the very first moment the enemy stole the truth and buried the lie into me! I was 8yrs old and a man that I had received as a father figure was stealing from me my innocence and he told me with his words, it was because of my beauty and because I was so full of life that this was happening....and every man there after would affirm the same thing...”You are a distraction and not a treasure. No man will ever see your heart...because your passion will blind them...” There it is, the “ugly lie” and here I am Trying to lie still and wait, as His mighty hand moves to finish the surgery I unexpectedly walked into. I cry and squirm but find the Truth....He says to me,”Sarah your passion is a gift, very few will know what to do with it! The enemy would love to convince you otherwise...twisting My gifts into faults. But this is not the Truth. The Truth is there is a man who is strong enough to harness your passion and let it burn as it was meant: to light the world on fire for Me! Your role is to keep the passion at rest until he comes for it....he will come! I’ve arrested his heart for you; because his heart is arrested for ME first and foremost, and therefore he will see you. Truly see you as you are; passionate and loyal, sincere and pure, surrendered and submissive, gentle and collected, whole and mine completely...He will see Me in you first!” I weep for this, “Yes Lord, I want that! I pray...teach me how to put my passion to rest until it is time, give me the wisdom and discipline I do not now possess in order to be still and wait! Give me the eyes to recognize Your will for each breath and each day! Let me pour passion on those who are ready to receive You and Your Mighty Word and Healing! Do not let the enemy continue to twist the Gifts You’ve put in me into weapons against me. Heal my heart from the lies, I know I am left without blemish or stain from those trespasses against me, but I beg You Lord, debride these wounds completely that they may heal completely! I will wait, I will lie still and rest in You while the pain is removed from my soul. I will trust Your work and believe You are good and this will indeed be what is best for me. Thank you Lord for taking the time to arrest my heart more fully to You! Thank you for making me able to reflect, for giving me the courage to follow You beneath the surface to see what is really happening. Forgive me for misusing any gifts if I have. Show me my errors and forgive me my sins. You are good....Amen” I freely share my life, my stories, my failures, my blessings...may you glean whatever the Holy Spirit

intends...thank you for walking this out with me brothers and sisters....Rest In Him Sarah G                                                                               ~Song of songs 2:7 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Why Grace?

The last time I visited Grace with my written words, I didn’t understand it was just an intro into something that would dust up against my soul in many seasons and probably forevermore...bringing with it gusts of meaning that could only be used to enliven the Great Mystery of God to my frail eyes. Grace encompasses such a sweeping enigma for the human condition! The secrets of Living seem to be buried beneath the rubble of its very passage into our realm of reality! All the while with Grace perfectly intact, it is in that very rubble that beauty is found within the soul, that our bodies are filled with true Life and our minds welcome the revelation of Light. Grace has so many links in every part of our precious existence. It is the chain from which all life and meaning is held together and sustained; directly in the face of our limited awareness, our deafening blindness. Grace is woven throughout our experience, sprinkling our lives with concepts like acceptance, gratitude, joy, love, and peace. And paradoxically right along with all the afore mentioned, sprinkles of pain, discomfort, sadness, fear and loss. All of these, gifts worth unwrapping; feelings worth drawing in. Joy is always worth the wait, and fully living is always worth the believing that precedes it. Staying alert and awake to God in the moment allows Grace to awaken the joy and with it the pain. If we will not numb ourselves to this experience we will dance with Grace, even allowing it to lead. Truly living accepts both the good and bad and places them at the same seat of the Father...Grace! Jesus knew of the pain! It was written, it was lived, it was the Word, but it was also being seen through the lens of the God-Man. A lens that understood Gods Grace was laden upon these words “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned it so it will stand.” Without God’s Word as a lens, the world warps our perception. So the idea remains, a good God who planned everything... Everything!?!? Let me try to put all these, as of yet, feeble thoughts and words together here...Grace is seeing that this very moment should be sipped of; we should drink the Light of the present into our beings, inhale the Sweet directly out of the now! Receive Joy through gratitude; because you see, we’ve seen His Grace today already within the very nature of our first inhale...but perhaps we missed it already as well, within the entitlement we feel for that very breath. Grace is learning how to open your hands each day for Gods daily bread, expectant and thankful for what He gives~even when you know its gonna hurt. Gods Grace is abundant, and an unbroken whole that both fills the home of a child saved, but also of a child lost. How can this be? Grace is that when you have waited and waited and waited and things did not turn out as you thought, your eye still gets caught on something more beautiful than you'd ever imagined and you breath of Life from that treasured instant! You become aware....Grace abounds! Our lives are not a series of Grace moments and Curse moments...its all Grace. Sometimes He has to hold us tightly in those painful moments like a terrified, hurt and flailing child just to breath Grace upon our ears “Are your ways My ways? Can you drink of My Cup and eat of My Manna? Can you believe that I tirelessly and tenderly work all for the very best good of the whole entire world, all of My Creation...to include you? Can you embrace that I do this because the flame of My Love for you can never ever be put out?” And with that you stop squirming and you relent and you find His gift in the passing day and as you wake the next morning you sigh, “He’s given me two, why am I allowed Two?” Grace is why! There is where we find the fullness of Grace; in His arms, turned towards Him...the emptiness exchanged with His presence, this begets Joy! All is Grace! And Our God chooses to cut into our ungrateful hearts to make us whole; He takes the very pain that He has given and shows us how to find beauty and thanksgiving in it. And this transforms the entire exchange into joy that fulfills all of our emptiness! May we drink the Sweet right out of our world, as it is...this very moment... As we are...this very moment...”My Grace is sufficient for you....”                                                                                                   Most of the time, our eyes are just bad ;) read Duet 32:39 NASB May the Word transfigure your sight...bringing a new perspective....receiving a new Grace! Rest In Him Beloved!