The night calls to me. It is wet and cold and I have to wipe down the picnic table and bundle in my lumpy pink blanket to ward off the chill. The blanket is old. Very very old! For years and years it was my dearest wish to have a real down filled duvet and this blanket was the closest thing my parents could find that was in their price range. It worked beautifully until I got the bright idea to wash it. Then it became my lumpy pink blanket because all the fake down inside the squares of space got lumped up together in big clumps. But by then I was thoroughly attached to it and it was mine and I loved it and woe betide the person who suggested that I get rid of it. All these things flit through my brain as I lie on my back on the picnic table underneath my magic tree. Above me the night sky hangs like a soft navy blanket and as I watch it through the lace of branches I wish that it would just peel back and give me the face of my God. Tonight, as normal, it is my questions that draw me outside. The endless barrage from my own heart that drives me so often out into the night or the rain or the ocean or down the gravel road or the creek bank or all the other endless places that tug my soul because God is there. Tonight I don't even know what the question is. I just know that the one and the only way to answer it is to be still before Him in the place He is drawing me to and listen.
So, I lie on my back under all that loveliness and I listen. The lumps of my blanket make it hard to be comfortable and I wriggle around and try to get them all out from under me. As I do I think of the lovely duvet (with real down filling) that covers my bed inside. It truly is a dream come true to have such a creation. The fact that I had trouble switching from my lumpy pink blanket to the cloud-like white one that I now have the pleasure of sleeping under each night, seems laughable. Somewhere in all these thoughts, as the breeze kisses my face with the goodness of God, an answer to the question I don't know begins to take shape.
That lumpy pink blanket is so so like me. Ever so typical. I find a 'solution' that works for me. A supposedly great substitute for what I really want. Sometimes its things I'v been asking God for, telling Him I want, and am supposedly waiting on Him to give me. Sometimes it is things that I'v always done or always had and just don't want to give it up. Sometimes it is dreams that I think I have all worked out and ironed down and I just don't want Him to take away. Sometimes it is something that I want so badly that I can't even bring myself to ask Him for because He may say no. So, instead of being totally open to His plan and His best for me, I knuckle down and make do. I live awhile with my head low, slogging along doing things my way. I close that one small door of my life and give Him the clear signal that "I got this, I don't need you here" and I survive. I start missing God notes. Don't see the sunrise. Don't feel Him calling me from the rain or the ocean or the great night sky. There are a myriad of reasons that I do this. Top of my personal list is the simple fact that even though I KNOW His best is absolutely, totally and completely THE best, it often does not look like it to me. My idea of how my dreams should play out doesn't match His and so I am going to reject His awhile until I'm good and fed up with trying to make my ideas work! Another one thats high on my list is that His best is new and different and not already comfortable. I'm not ready to give up my lumpy pink blanket because I am so attached to it. So I stuff that beautiful duvet in the top of my closet because its not what I am used to. Never realizing that I am wasting whole nights of lovely sleep because I won't let go of the familiar to accept the best! The third reason I miss out so often is that I can't in my wildest dreams imagine that He would actually give me something I want so much. So rather than holding the longings of my heart out to Him, I tuck them inside and pretend they are not there. I go on ignoring them or crying over them or talking them over with friends, but never offering them to Him as a request.
How silly. How utterly childish and untrusting. But I do them all. Tonight, as the breath of God danced like breeze fairies among the branches of my magic tree, I felt His whisper in my heart. His voice calling me to trust. To let go of what is old, to ask Him for the deepest desires of my heart, and to trust Him that His plans and dreams for me FAR exceed anything I could ever cook up in my own finite little mind. I hope that I am growing. Hope that I am learning to trust Him, this great and loving and oh so gentle God that I serve and love. Times like tonight I am so grateful for His patience with me! Grateful that He is willing to win my trust. Grateful that He loves me, even though I cannot imagine why! And I am grateful that He gives me these reminders, even when they come through my lumpy pink blanket.
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