It says Nelson on his drivers license and it expired 12 years ago.
He says the picture is a reflection of his soul
He makes his bed on the bottom of a rotting crate, he stumbles in and out of it most days.
He makes his idols out of cigarettes and beer.
He’s a long way from here, oh a long way from here.
He’s been crying for deliverance but couldn’t hear through all the noise
He’s been lost for so long, and his lovers were only decoys.
Oh Nelson my brother the ground you stumble on is new
You can’t see it yet but He’s fighting for you.
The world hates you, and oh how you thirst.
But isn't there One it hated first?
Your feet don’t move well from infection and abuse
you’ve been walking, for a while questioning their use.
You’ve passed the same rock a hundred times before
The cornerstone stands and knocks at your door.
There’s a well beyond the stone
And there's a flute that calls you home.
You feel your heart beat wild to the tune of it's allure.
Your lungs ran out of air and your alive but your not sure
The voices now are silenced and you hear the sweetest lion roar.
You stumble forward wondering how you never heard before
You drop your bottle now, I see hope rising up inside
Your breathless lungs breathe life for the first time.
Your feet begin moving faster than they ever have before.
You run until you reach the water rejected by the world
He’s waiting there with a cup of gold to give to you to hold.
The water purifies your feet and fills your hungry soul.
He draws from the well and pours it out now, He uses it to wash your feet.
“I love you precious friend.” He says. “Take up your cross and follow me.”
Thoughts of a world I couldn’t change drowned the wind You sent to save me. Drowning in her streets, and she hid Your face from my eyes, then Your call from my ears.
Wind sent forth by sweet Jesus. He pleads intercession for the life that You gave me. I cry through the sins of my father and breathe redemption deep into my lungs.
Still she lied to me and I forgot what You told me, that I’d never be the same for the knowledge of You.
I forgot when you said You’ve been with me since Your beginning. I forgot when You showed me Your hands holding my heart when it was tiny enough to wrap palms around.
Until you broke through my deafness, breathed life to my veins thirsting for air, and waged war against me for myself. All the while, You write tears down as they fall to the floor like rain.
Oh God, the vision in my heart. Is it Yours? Resting inside Your precious will, oh help my doubt. Oh God the vision, how it grows. Like that of Betsie and Corrie ten Boom, obedient servants unceasing to the call. A home for restoration to the wounded of this world.
There is no place untouched on this earth by the repercussion of sin, the depravity of the things of the world. May this place hide those within the refuge of your wings.
Your healing touches gently, beautiful, and none can take its place. May I see it to its end but Oh, Father, your will be done, Amen.
A home for Your wounded soldiers to find healing in Your wings. A home for wounded children to find adoption through your Spirit. A home for the lost, rejected, to find their way, oh, once again. Send me, oh Mighty Visionary, may I will go with You to its end.
When my heart goes out in search of the pieces that it needs to find home again, it shall find my Beloved waiting there, just beyond mountain.
Oh, precious faith, my gift, my guide. My heart dances wild in my chest as He plays the flute for me. Suddenly and all at once, He calls me, like the sweet dew of the morning, only the fragrance never fades.
I know that this is just the way He meant for us to be.
I cannot deny the overwhelming fullness in my soul at His faithfulness to my requests and to the Truth of His Righteousness.
He never fails me, though time and time again I fail Him. So it is, that the desire of my heart is to offer the whole of my existence to serving the call, as if He spoke it into those pieces before they made their way back to me.
Play Your flute, sweet Jesus. Wherever you call. My answer is yes.
The beginnings of these words seem irrelevant when I think of the terror you must have felt for those few minutes on the Saturday you will remember for the rest of your lives. These words, I offer with overflowing eyes, a heavy heart, and the humble nature of a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don’t suppose it would help to tell you that I complained this morning about the electricity and how its absence had only slightly inconvenienced me. As my aggravation grew with every passing hour that I could not get cold filtered water from the stainless steel refrigerator, the tornados yesterday seemed a lot smaller than the damage they wreaked across my precious home state.
And then came 9:45 Sunday morning. I headed outside with my un-blow-dried hair and my room-temperature water. I got in my car with all its windows still intact, my car that did not have a tree resting on its roof, my car that had not been flipped on its side. Less than one mile later, I started seeing trees down in my neighbor’s yards. It was getting worse. More trees. Then I started seeing windows outside of their frames, then trees through windows. The first devastated home I saw had been shifted off its foundation, and where its garage had once stood, there only lay the frame of a roof, resting on top of a pile of debris and broken wood.
I turned right on to Forestville road. I didn’t know where to look, I couldn’t find comfort in this landfill of the left-over’s of a tornado. I’m sure my mouth was visibly hanging open, my hand held my cheek in disbelief. I started seeing decks in piles, debris wrapped around trees, shards of metal in yards, likely the missing pieces from the destroyed mobile homes down the street. And then I saw your home. I saw what’s left of your home. I saw a lazy boy and a beautiful lamp in the middle of your yard and for some reason that’s what got me the most. I saw multiple people salvaging things from the inside of the place you lay your head and putting them in to a truck for you. These people, I can only imagine, are neighbors, members of the community recognizing a need and humbly offering the only thing they can; their hearts and their hands. I saw them walking the streets close to yours, dozens of them. I saw them talking with distraught home-owners. I saw them picking up trash. I saw them embracing one another. But I didn’t see you. Your home spoke louder than I imagine you could. The screams of a life of memories literally leveled. A lifetime of a place called home, taken down in a moment.
I write to you to offer all the sympathies and condolences my little hands can give. I write to you to tell you that there are scores of people praying for you and the other victims of this storm. I write to you to tell you that nothing I write will change what has happened, but that I hope you find some comfort in the knowledge that God chose to use you in my life and to be sure, in the lives of others: to humble me, to break me, and then to rebuild me. I pray that you will let Him do the same for the home you lost and for the life you begin rebuilding. I don’t know if you are a believer. If you are, I don’t know where you stand in your faith.
This is what I know, I am a 25 year old woman who has not a doubt about the saving grace of God, and the gift He gave us in Jesus Christ to make all things new. Be encouraged if you can. Trust Him if you can. And if you can’t, ask Him to help your unbelief. At the risk of quoting scripture you’ve heard one too many times, this comes from a heart firm in the belief that He works all things together for the good of those who love Him.
Blessings to you in this difficult time,
Your neighbor
As all (three) of you may recall, nearly a year ago, my pace quickened and my step changed direction as God called me toward His marvelous light. I gave up eating out at all forms of restaurants for approximately 40 days. Grease and fries to the wind, what I found was a desperation within my heart that I had not known before.
So this year, after very little deliberation, and for purposes of earnest seeking (not purposes of traditional value), I offered up something near and dear to my heart. Yes friends, I have given up (drum roll) social networking websites. Goodbye Facebook. Goodbye Twitter.
As has been mentioned on more than one occasion by more than one friend, I was “addicted” to Twitter. While my Twitter use appealed to me for multiple reasons, i.e.; receiving updates about happenings in the world, having encouraging spiritual gems by learned men and women of God, and outputting thoughts and revelations throughout the day for various individuals to “enjoy”, I found myself referring to both accounts countless times throughout the day. Perhaps someone might find what I had to say interesting. Maybe someone “liked” something I posted, or maybe by some miracle I gained more than 30 followers on an account where I only knew approximately 6 people. I found myself mid-conversation, mid-car ride, mid-church service(!), thinking “Oh! That’s good, I should tweet that!”
After having gone without (and I do not mean to sound as if this is some life and death sacrifice) for 21 days, I am learning that having the approval of man (in the form of “likes”, “comments”, and “mentions”) is something I relied on for fulfillment in ways that I can’t explain.
Our behavior must be driven in a way that forces us to be humbled while acknowledging that we were created to glorify God alone. We must be careful to examine our motives and our behavior, with reverence to God’s word. Finally, we must ask God to search our hearts continually and pray that He finds a heart made pure and blameless before Him.
