Meditations from the heart

The Eternal One will never leave you; He will lead you in the way that you should go.When you feel dried up and worthless, God will nourish you and give you strength. And you will grow like a garden lovingly tended; You will be like a spring whose water never runs out.~ Isaiah 58:11

I remember many years ago sitting at Crossbridge church on a Friday night singing this song by Sidewalk Prophets called Keep Making Me.

It goes like this:Make me brokenSo I can be healedCause I’m so callousedAnd now I can’t feelI want to run to YouWith heart wide openMake me brokenMake me empty So I can be filledCause I’m still holdingOnto my willAnd I’m completedWhen you are with meMake me empty‘til you are my one desire‘til you are my one true love‘til you are my breath, my everythingLord, please keep making meMake me lonelySo I can be yours‘Til I want no oneMore than You, lord‘Cause in the darknessI know you will hold meMake me lonely‘Til you are my one desire‘Til you are my one true love‘Til you are my breath, my everythingLord, please keep making me‘Til you are my one desire‘Til you are my one true love‘Til you are my breath, my everythingLord, please keep makingI know you keep makingLord, please keep making me

The lyrics to this song are quiet profound. When I first heard them I sang them without thinking what they would really mean for my life. It was early in my recovery and I could really relate to that first line make me broken. I could fully admit I was broken and the whole purpose of my life at that time was to be healed. Up to that point I had spent decades numb and calloused and I was running towards God with my heart wide open.

I could also relate to the second lyric make me empty. I went from one relationship to the next trying to fill my heart with love but only ended up feeling emptier. I was chasing after the things I never received as a child and instead of chasing after God I chased after one man after another. I wanted to chase after the things I felt would make me whole but they never did. I was beginning to let go of my will and surrender to God.

But these lyrics make me lonely wow I never really knew what they could mean for my life. It really is crazy when you sit back and really see how singing one song could profoundly change your life in all the hard ways. I do think now at least for myself I have sang songs not really grasping what I was really singing with words too profound that you only really know what they mean by living them. Loneliness I discoved was one of those things you must experience to know how deeply troubling it is to walk through. To me it’s very similar to grieving a loved one. Before you lose someone to death you think you know what it’s like, what it feels like and then the day comes: the experience of death and it’s too profound for words and you realize man I really didn’t know. My experience with loneliness has felt a lot like that. Interesting enough my experience with death proceeded my experience with loneliness. I’m not quite sure how I had not experienced a season a loneliness until I was 45 years old but I sure am thankful.

I prayed a lot during this time and for years while I went through it but day after day I just felt so alone. Then one night God came to me through a dream. I’ve read so many stories over the years of how God came to people through their dreams and spoke to them but I had never experienced it. I’m not even sure I even believed in it, at least not for me. Webster defines a dream as a series of thoughts, images and sensations occurring in one’s mind during sleep. In my dream I was barefoot and I was standing in the grass. My feet were planted firmly into the ground. Then flowers began to grow up between my toes and around my feet climbing slowly and twisting around my ankles. Then the flowers turned into God’s hands and He began to rub my feet. When I woke up I felt this warm sensation start at my feet and grow up through my body. It was a deep abiding feeling of love that I had never felt before. For days after this dream I could still feel Gods love washing over me. This was new experience for me because in the past I always had dark and troubling dreams and never in my life did I have a positive and uplifting dream.

It was after this dream that God gave me the word Rooted and I felt deeply rooted in Him and I had never felt that way before. I felt solid and unmovable. It was during this time that God nourished and strengthened me with His own hands. I was growing like a garden lovingly tended. My roots were growing deeply down in Him and He was building me up. It was because God made me lonely that I became His and finally found my Home, my true north, my resting place. It was in the darkness that He held me by the feet and anchored me down in His love.