Thy Word is a light...and a lamp...

 It is a heavily overcast Sunday morning!  I am sooooooooo thankful for some rain and cooler weather.  We have had scorching clear skies, merciless sun (remember we are right on the Ecuator at 10,000 feet!)  and so much wind.  The city and outside the city, is like a crisp dust bowl, and the rain is so long overdue.  Today I awakened to the delicious darkness of heavy clouds, and I came to the front of the house, and looked out, and "my hills" to the south cannot be seen, Cayambe is invisible, as is anything beyond the east hill of Quito.  AND IT WAS RAINING LIGHTLY.  Thank you, thank you, thank you God.
I made a pot of coffee and am sat with my Bible enjoying the peace and quiet.  Quito on a Sunday morning can really be as quiet as a teeming city of 2 plus million can possibly get.  Even the gas trucks haven't been around honking and letting people know they can come out and buy gas!
It came to me that it had been a looong time since I had posted anything.  I have felt I had nothing worth writing about, nothing that would be reader worthy!  That's a little clue about me, when it goes dark, it usually means that I am not doing so very great for some reason or another.  It doesn't usually mean that I am too busy.  A few days indicate busyness, a long period of silence, pray extra! :)
I don't think I can put my finger on any one thing, it has been layered things, complex webs of stuff in my heart.  I would say that I have never been a procrastinator really, especially through the last 2 1/2 years in school, I was the nerd who worked ahead, and made arbitrary deadlines for myself so that I was never pulling all-nighters, or waking up saying, 'oh, it's due today!'  But somehow, I am in a slump, and just cannot seem to find a way out of it, each week I have several deadlines to prep for, and it is not uncommon for me to sit down over and over again, to feel like I am hitting a wall, writers block, thinkers block, or something!  I am not sure what is going on.  I learned at ISF that it is important to just be with whatever is true, to be honest, to turn towards God.  I realized the other day that even this has seemed wrong!  Ah ha!  Shame, shame, hide and cover, I am not being a good little girl and working ahead, and being productive, productive, productive.  Hmmmmmm.  So I am turning towards God in my mess, thankful that He is neither surprised, nor critical, nor wringing his hands in despair, nor rolling his eyes, nor disgustedly walking away.  He knows I feel out of sorts, like a long jumper who has taken off on the wrong foot, and flubbed the jump as a result, but day after day of that.  "And can it be that though my God shouldst die for me, amazing love"  an old hymn is ringing through my head and heart this morning, and I am humbled, and amazed, all over again.  Another song, it must be a cross of love!  Wow!  How can He love me? In my mess?  In my procrastination?  In my fatigue and exhaustion?  In my hiding and covering?  Shame?  Ahhhhh, back to that again, BECAUSE IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME, OR MY PERFORMANCE.  HIS LOVE IS A SETTLED GIVEN!  Just like in geometry or logic, given this, then that; given His love, given my sin, HE BORE MY SIN ON THE CROSS, HE WHO KNEW NO SIN BECAME SIN, THAT I MIGHT BECOME RIGHTEOUS!  Mind blasting!  "Blasting, not boggling, because anything can boggle the mind."  There is only one response to these truths, prostrated, humble, overflowing gratitude.  So many many eucharisteos, and somehow I have gotten away from writing and numbering them on paper, slinked into, slid into "thinking them" and from that to "not even thinking them"  a slow steady decline.  Again!  "He who knows me best loves me most!" another Gaither trio song I believe.  He is brining truth through old songs to me today, and I thought I would share. 

Please pray that I will trust God, and His Spirit alone, to bring about Christlikeness and transformation in me.  That I will attend to the Spirit's work in me and deny Satan footholds in my life that become strongholds if they are ignored or fed.  And pray that my awareness of sin would only bring brokenness and humility that draws me closer to God, rather than shame and guilt, hiding and covering that distances me from God, the only hope, the only answer to my condition.