From: Dust….To: Dust

A letter from this girl from dust...

Dust....just think of it....from dust and His mighty breath each one of our vulnerable souls begins to take form! Knitting together the innermost workings of our spirits, our minds and our bodies. Whispering a wholeness, that He is well aware this sinful world will at some point break...but beloved, do not be afraid, His plan has always been ahead, and behind, and even in this very moment; the plan to restore us back again to the original design, a reflection more like His own! Restored back to that breathtaking masterpiece that He had in mind as you were created from His very essence and being. Yes you...the one reading the words from this very page. You are beyond value to Him who brought you to life. You are one in a trillion! The process of mystery and beauty that our forgetful hearts will rarely rely on or remember; We are His and He is ours. So where would I be going with all of this talk, well rightfully so, to the very beginning of my own tragic failure to know my worth is in Him alone... 
Let’s start with, I’ve never been the girl who longed for or fantasized about the love of my life or my wedding! I didn’t go in and out of relationships searching for meaning; but I did go in and out of promiscuity in search for control! I often stood alone, falsely brave, sure that I could do anything and mindlessly surrendered to the brokenness that said I didn’t need anyone. Yet the brokenness was more clearly that I couldn’t trust anyone, so I wouldn’t place myself in positions that meant I must. Except for the occasional crazy cycle of only risking with those whom I knew would fail me because then I could innately rationalize my disfunction and continue down this broken road that would, thankfully, lead me to You Lord...
Then there was the day that I felt like You handed my heart to someone You trusted! And boy did I think I was ready. So I must impart here for all of you “girls from dust” out there, don’t we always think we are ready? Seriously when it comes to relationships with these men God’s made, don’t we always think we are ready. Ready to date, ready to get engaged, ready to marry, ready to have children...we always think we are ready...am I right? Be honest ladies, if you have found yourself standing and waiting on a man...you have told God over and over how ready you are. I think those are the moments where God just lovingly gazes at us and says oh sweet child you have no idea...
You see God loves you so much that He would rather do the work in you now to bring you closer to reflecting Him, than to deliver you into an idea that you are ready for what marriage and true love actually means. So just to be fair, I would like to inquire from the current wives, “Were you ready? Did you have any idea what was coming and how hard it could be? How often you would hand over your worth and identity to the man standing at your side, clinging to his actions and words to fill your identity cup?” 
My God is loving me so hard and so well right now that I cannot even stand beneath the weight of what that means. You see He loves me so much that He would rip me out of the hands of another to offer me a healing so deep it would ensure I will be ready, one day, for this thing of being His bride. We will all do it ladies, at one point or another, we will put our worth in the hands of a man and wait and watch all of his actions to determine our value; both before and after marriage. It is a battle and an offering daily in any healthy relationship.  There is also the side of this that until God begins to move into that role in our lives, we will have or will continue to hand it over to some pretty unreliable sources as well; Men who abuse and use and manipulate the beautiful essence of a woman! I didn’t even know how broken I was here until He showed me myself and my deep wound! Listen the wound can come from so many different things, the enemy is sly and fiercely despises the precious gift your heart could offer its counterpart; as God implies while bringing Eve before Adam and saying she will be a “sustainer beside you Adam” (Ezer Kenegdo). As for me I literally just discovered this morning that the wound was inflicted from my own unknowing mother and her wounded soul of unworthiness and then cleverly reaffirmed through the sins of many men along the way, as well as my own sin sinking the nails deeper and deeper still! We were collectively participating in the destruction of Gods fragile and precious design of her; and isn’t this obvious and true of modern day american society! I have walked with so many sisters through this process but for whatever reason did not see my own brutally inflicted wound; but then again how could I until I stood next to a man who really would point me back to Christ in a way that God would reveal a beautiful plan for healing and a sinful heart of surrendering my worth over to Adam. Sweeping my floor this morning at my studio it hit me and really hard...I knew it was coming. I’d tasted it moving into my soul, but I just couldn’t grab hold until this moment! The fear, the lie, the overwhelming weight of it all...the idea that if only I was enough, then...then my mom would not have chosen so many other lovers over her God or her daughter...Then she would have quit running to her addictions...Then those men would not have abused me and left...Then every man who failed me would have chosen to fight for me...and on and on and on. That if I was enough things would look and be a certain way....but we are in a fallen world beloveds! The weight of these "thens", belongs to God alone and not a single human could ever bear this burden! So here I stand in circumstances beyond my control, watching and waiting on God and He says and has been saying all along, “Sarah Dawn, my beloved, this has nothing to do with your worth or your value, it never has! You are Mine; I know you are Mine and that is enough!” And I sink and whisper desperately, “Help me to believe, Abba, help this broken and unbelieving soul find the Truth.”  Because somewhere in the story I related this lie to You God, and decided if only I was enough then You would give me the deepest and most hidden, and even denied unto myself, desires of my heart to be seen and loved unconditionally.  Strange right? You have already said Yes to me, I’m breathing after all! You have already chosen me, I’m ministering after all! You have already married me, I am Your bride after all! You have already decided to heal me, this heart is thriving after all! You have already accepted me, because I’ve been written on Your Hand after all...and yet I’m blind! But then I see a glimpse of light that's so redemptive it ignites the wildest embers of my soul! Now Lord, in Your great Mercy and Love, may the process begin of me seeing, receiving and truly accepting these gifts from You. At the end of the day it is all You Lord. The way the story goes isn’t based on someone else choosing me or giving me value, treating me well or honoring me as Your daughter, but on You alone deciding who deserves to come alongside Your hand, already holding and healing this heart of mine and participate in the journey we're taking into Your likeness! Love is a gift, honestly none of us deserves to receive it in the breathtaking form of a marriage, communion, commitment to another, but our God has chosen to offer us to one another, trusting us to go to Him for our strength and our worth, and to point the other to do the same! He loves you so much, that He is willing to do whatever it takes for those who love Him to see their worth is in Him alone and always will be, before handing us over to the beauty and struggle of helping another continually surrender to the same source of meaning! God also is the only one we place our full trust in, not in the other and their choices, because the reality is we are all broken and all sinful; but I believe that if we will continue to lift each others broken pieces up before the Lord, He is faithful to us and He will work all things together for the good of those who love Him...
This morning I read the best description of what that word  “good” means in this passage, 
“Good means to be changed to be like Him who is Best.” ~Ann Voskamp  
Ahhh but now my beloveds I hope we can see, may we each continue to heal and come to know...this is the work of redemption, restoration and reconciliation at its Best and God only wants His Best for You His Daughter!!!! So you don’t have to know the outcome, you can still believe in the middle of uncertain circumstances that God is working all things together for the “good”...and trust this girl from dust, it is worth it and more than you could ever ask for or imagine! Don’t give up! My love and prayers are lifting your broken pieces up before Your perfect Father…
Abba have mercy and...
Enlighten what’s dark in us
Strengthen what’s weak in us
Mend what’s broken in us
Bind what’s bruised in us
Heal what’s sick in us
Revive whatever peace, love, and beauty that has died in us...
Make us Your bride!

From Dust To Dust…
You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you. -Song of Songs 4:7

choose...

I have to admit that sometimes I wish sweet healing didn't have to rise out of great pain and that creativity would move in moments that were not so full of the tension of pulling apart this heart, mind and soul! But here I sit with my words being dripped out as the only antidote to the doubt and the broken heartedness of these precious breaths…you see I sit and watch and know life is waiting for me to engage her once more; offering me the choice to stay in the present moment fighting for Gods breath of Peace that hovers just above all of these circumstances! To simply choose Joy repeatedly…..so much easier typed than accomplished!
This mind fluttering to and fro with wonderings unexplainable but Hopeful for some place to rest these weary and chaotic reasonings. 
My choices, yours choices and His will all scattered across the space, trying to clearly see me and still see Him in all of this! Knowing, Father, You are indeed here and You are in the very depth of me and my heart space that still reaches to sin against the very Love You rescue me with again and again! Ahhh there it is the deep gasp, and You've done it again! I remember You are indeed my one and only soul mate; teach me to rest in this Wisdom! Meeting me in the written depths as I make real what lies beneath by letting it permanently mark the pages as actual words, both thought and now spoken into print! I'm struggling to chose to Trust You Father, I'm broken and bent towards doubts and yet perfectly poised for Faith to sink deeper! 
I'm reminded I am on this path You have called me to….right here, right now and it is destined for greater things than I can fathom! But my eyes are stuck on that which has just been ripped away, ugh so broken in that space…My eyes need your help Father. Draw me back to Your gaze. That place where I truly forget everything else except for what You say and see in me. The battle for TRUTH to capture me again! Help me find the Word of Truth each day, cause I'm desperate, like each man(whether he knows it or not), for Your help! 
The Words You've revealed through the mysterious way that You do, seem to all point to that hard surrender of Fear for Your helping Hand instead…so my palm opens and I reach up from the mire….take me wherever we need to go Daddy…I won't fight You! When I am afraid I will trust in You, show me The Way beyond this dark shadow! Great faith comes through great trails and great pain…You are not alone sweet soul…grab His hand, walk, wait and watch as He refreshes your souls! Trade in your fears for His Peace…Choose and if you cannot, then ask Him to on your behalf. He is faithful my beloveds…ever so faithful!

Isaiah 41:9-13
9 I have taken you from the ends of the earth. I have called you from its farthest parts, and said to you, ‘You are My servant. I have chosen you and have not turned away from you.’ 10 Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will give you strength, and for sure I will help you. Yes, I will hold you up with My right hand that is right and good.11 See, all those who are angry with you will be put to shame and troubled. Those who fight against you will be as nothing and will be lost. 12 You will look for those who argue with you, but will not find them. Those who war against you will be as nothing, as nothing at all. 13 For I am the Lord your God Who holds your right hand, and Who says to you, ‘Do not be afraid. I will help you.’

Mark 5:36
36 "Don't be afraid, just believe"

Psalm 56:3
3 "When I am afraid, I will trust in You."

Sitting, waiting, watching...

Yes, it's early and a Tuesday but feeling like a Monday, the one where we paused life in honor of those who sacrificed for us…..I rose at 5am and woke to enter the sacred space of the Holy Yoga prayer call room and sat and waited and watched….always knowing God would do what only He does best; orchestrating the hearts of the callers to be linked by the thread that continues to point to Him and His mighty hand in our lives! And as the lovely women stepped into their voices and stories, so it was….again God and the invisible thread that connected us all. The scripture Colossians 1:11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy
Oh that precious and painful season of wait….and here we sit, 7 daughters of the King, and we've waited, and we are watching!

The conversation rises with its own life as God reminds each of us of His presence and purpose in the wait. Then the word joy jumps back off the pages, ugh and the weight of how to be joyful as I hear these stories, but there buried beneath the muck of confusion and pain is the golden thread that rings brightly with His glory and I see it and I hear it…each after the other resonates the same words "but it has brought my husband and I closer"! Ahhhh there it is the Bride and the Groom; what waiting increase, the intimacy and the connection. The wait is to bring you closer to Me My beloveds, ever so much closer to Me! You'll need My Spirit to endure and to be the strength that lifts your head as you climb up the mountain! You'll need My Grace to be your backbone as you wrestle through the confusion and pain of not understanding My ways! After all, things really do come true in the most unlikely ways! 
Sipping my sweet cup of coffee that warms, but waiting and longing for the burning reminder of Your presence Lord and as the playlist lingers on I am aware I'm here with You…I sit and I wait and I watch as You are in all those that fill this space. There You are in her smile, or his serious face as he taps on that keyboard. There You are as the rhythm of this whole world. The rain falls outside and you wash over us again and again if we will sit and wait and watch for You, never washing us away but washing us back to You and to life! It is all preparation indeed…one season leads gracefully into the next. Let it pour, sitting, waiting and watching for Your unexpected best Lord….Joy

Our hearts are too small….

Let me be completely honest and raw before you...I’ve spent the last few months beating my fists against God’s chest, with complete lack of understanding, the fullness of an excruciating pain and a dose of deep mourning! Can I just humbly express to you, and it moves me to tears even as I write this...but He stood there and He took it and let me have the outlet of His loving arms to absorb all of this ragamuffin’s confusion! Because He knew what I needed and that was to wear myself out in venting my pain and crying out with my “why’s”! So He graciously stood and let me get it out. We are sometimes taught as Christians not to ask why but instead to ask what. Most of the time I totally understand and agree with this offering, but then there are those moments where you really have to get alone with Him and scream WHY. May I boldly remind, that even Jesus Christ, our Savior’s last words contained a “Why”! It is when we will kneel in front of our Father, acknowledging that we do not know why and our understanding of Him is truly not big enough; this is where we are undone! This is also the very space where He rushes into us to fill the gaping space a broken heart creates. The vacuum waits to be filled and here He comes with the only thing that can fill it; His LOVE! He meets us with something bigger than knowledge and explanations can offer, He meets us with Himself and the vastness of mystery and the humbling realization of our limited capacity to understand.
 I can attest that the tension, these last few months, of my Faith (my belief that God real,  is good, is for me and loves me) swirling with really hard, unanswered questions had broken open my heart indeed and created an all consuming vacuum desperate to be filled. I’m sure my Faith lent to an even deeper pain than if I’d had none! There was nothing within my reach that would fill it. No matter how many explanations I tried to navigate, or how many explanations others could offer me, none were gonna fit or fill this pain!  As I entered the studio last night so crushingly weary from this battle, the Spirit began to move!  As I scanned the room and the hearts of those practicing with me, my message rolling from these uncertain and even a bit doubtful lips; the Spirit began to reclaim my mind from the mischief of the enemy. Because dear ones, in our searching for understanding, doubt  penetrates all areas of our being. The enemy would like to infect you wholly with poisonous doubt. It is here in the Why’s that you indeed doubt God and feel let down by Him; you doubt everything from your understanding of Him, of yourself (identity, worth, value, purpose) and of others. Which, only magnifies the pain! You see, as I looked at them and let the words out from my soul, the Spirit began to remind me how big God is and that these little hearts of ours cannot contain the full understanding of the His Will or His Love...so He breaks them open to expand the space that He wishes to occupy within them! You see we spend our lives in an ebb and flow to construct an understanding of God and His Love; it is human and we are all guilty of doing this repeatedly. He is merciful to keep breaking that heart space open for bigger understandings and explanations. He is always revealing there is so much more going on here than we can possibly understand! The moments of no understanding press us into new territory and space, expanding these fragile human hearts of ours because they are still not big enough to contain all that God is....

Sweetly there came a moment where I just crumbled into Him, emptied of all my attempts to satiate myself with some explanation, wounded deeply and crying out at the very end of myself...and His Love rushed in to fill that Vacuum my broken heart had created. This expands my heart space and bends me gently to His will again; and the pain becomes worth it. Joy rises from the mourning. He turns the darkness into light, the crying into laughter, the doubt into greater belief, the despair into great hope. Outside of our understanding God awaits! You see He could stand back and explain the pain to us but instead He knows what we need is for Him to rush into the space and pour out a greater expression of His love until we are full, because then we will overflow with that very same Love and it will fall out on others through our every breath and movement! Although I wouldn’t wish the pain of Why moments on anyone I can fully see that if a vacuum is never created within our hearts to challenge our understanding then we will not have the capacity for the Love that comes for us...Finally I breath deeply and whisper yes Lord, Your will be done! 

Most beautiful place….

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Psalm 130

My Soul Waits for the Lord

A Song of Ascents.

1 
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!
2 
    O Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
    to the voice of my pleas for mercy!
3 
If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
    O Lord, who could stand?
4 
But with you there is forgiveness,
    that you may be feared.
5 
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
6 
my soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen for the morning,
    more than watchmen for the morning.
7 
O Israel, hope in the Lord!
    For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
    and with him is plentiful redemption.
8 
And he will redeem Israel
    from all his iniquities.

So these words have been rippling over my mind; the path of these delicate notions meeting my ears ....its funny, really, that I can often hear without even a hint of a whisper to part these lips! Silently listening and then from time to time rolling it off my tongue and in my heart. I first took in these words with these with my eyes but my ears and heart and soul are what will bring me sight ...and though my heart immediately grabs hold of the part “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I hope: my soul waits for the Lord more than a watchman waits for the morning, more than a watchman waits for the morning.” because it feels so close to this moment, the one I am finding the very breath I am partaking for life; the present moment, where I am very presently awake and aware of the wait I am facing....but I keep hearing Him beckon me to more; the more of this verse. The part I really need to hold on to and understand in this season of Lenten sacrifice and surrender. The part with words that grab my soul and my attention on the deepest levels; the wrestlings beneath the sheath, behind the veil! Words indeed, of I cry out from the depths, my pleas for mercy, with the Lord there is steadfast love, and  plentiful redemption.....Oh yes these are the ones I need! You see as I undress the first lines of this song of the soul that stings as it fully enters me for the work with which it has been sent; I realize God is whispering to me, “Sweet Child I am your only hope and I trust that you know it and you are here because I am sure you will cry out to Me from the depths of this pain and confusion of life and you will cry out to Me alone! That we would sit together in these prayers and promises and you will feel My hands smoothing over the brokenness of that precious heart which I’m molding like clay between My fingers! Yes Love I am that close, both to this pain and to you...
 So close that the far down meaning of a plea suggests you are desperate for My help, it is full of urgency and raw emotion and it is for My great Mercy to rain down like the spring showers that will come my beloved; they will come! So now the waiting is sure and full of excitement and Joy and steady strength drawn from Me alone; the waiting is for Me. Nothing else can hold you here like I can! For remember dear one, with Me there is steadfast Love.... say it again beloved... There is steadfast Love! Say it until you believe it! Say it until it settles your thoughts! Say it until you know I’m standing right here with you! That’s it, forget the rest of the room and hear these words, this is it...all you will need today! My steadfast Love! Do you feel it overshadowing the wait yet? This is it, what the wait is all about; it begins and ends with My steadfast Love! Because of this Love I have for you I call you into to waiting like watchmen waiting for the morning! In all your life beloved, when has the morning not come? Do you understand yet? You see you are not just waiting endlessly for something that is sure to never arrive...NO beloved you are waiting for Me and I come, like the sun is sure to rise each day, I come!!! No matter the darkness of night or the chill of winter, I am waiting with the sun to show you once more of My presence and My great Love for you! 

Oh the things I am redeeming for you through these fading streams of time that you feel are so long trodden! I am redeeming the parts stolen and lost and even the ones you freely gave before you understood your worth sweet daughter! It is here that I am redeeming you from all your iniquities! And looking back my dearest, these words of mine will lift off the pages and meet you right where you are.....waiting for Me; it truly is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen you......