Love Notes

Based on Zechariah 13:1-14:21, Psalm 149:5-9, Proverbs 31:1-9, Revelation 20:1-15.

I thank You, GOD, for our son, my son, the son of my womb, the son of my vows. He is Yours and was Your idea, not mine and not ours. You intervened divinely to bring this person forth. I know this, and also that is name is written in the Book of Life. So is his earthly father's name Therefore, they will enter Your thousand-year reign with the honor You bestow on all Your saints.

Utter weakness and dependence jolts into seeing our need for You, LORD GOD. The paradox of powerless keeps popping up for me in prayer! That our inability reveals to us our poverty, our need to cry out for You. And when we do, in You walk. You walk right in and sit right down. And You turn the pages of our heart to see what we could not see before You entered to gently us by Your words and gentle songs of love.

Thank You for daily emptying(s) of self -- always the occasion for Your Spirit, O GOD, to increase and to manifest as Your desire. Therefore, each day I offer my "self" for crucifixion, steadfast in Christ who olds me fast and by Your Holy Spirit who is increasing in me as much I will allow. Thank You for creating --  each and all -- to be an instrument for You to play  any way You want and to bring it all together is the most stupendous symphony that ever was or ever will be -- a glorious symphony of notes and color and scents and sounds to the glory of Christ whose  Love reversed the curse from this creation.

Your weapons, LORD GOD, are all forged as LOVE -- love that creeps up the walls of Jericho like ivy, gently etching its tendrils into the cold hard stone until, at Your command, Your people shout, and the walls fall down.... Love that opens a fountain that washes clean those who surrender to Your care and keeping, who seek Your wisdom and Your ways, who  continually quash their own.

Love conquers all. And those who call to You are located by You in their desperation. Someone in recovery told me that "GOD: stands for "Gift Of Desperation." That is when we see our need and call for You and hear Your answer. And at the last You will say, "This is MY people" and each of us will say, "The LORD is my GOD."

You, O LORD, will come again -- and all Your saints with You. This honor have all Your saints. And in this is the confidence I have for my husband and son, our son, Your son. I am a prisoner of hope that Your Love conquers all. Light over darkness! All will be well eventually, and then, forever and ever, time without end. Amen.

This photograph is by Jo Chaney.