Summer Feast

(Be aware, Grandma, the pictures don’t come until the end of the post!)

 

I’ve been hungering for delight.

 

My living has become dry boned parched. I escape into the still-dark morning, spread out on the linoleum office table, a litter of focus and begin jumping from one heavy book to another, searching for You. I need more than wisdom, more than ENOUGH. I need unstrained, unfiltered You. I open the thin pages one after another to Song of Solomon, slightly embarrassed, (this book of unabashed desire) and just place my hand flat, willing desire to seep into me too…miracle by osmosis.

 

See the Winter is Past, the season of singing has come. (S of S 2:11)

 

I’ve missed the early morning expectation.  Do you remember?  I could feel the Eastern sun seeping through the windows, throw on jean shorts and a sweatshirt and quietly open up the door of the cottage at the Inn.  Barefoot, I would pad down the wooden staircase and out into the sea-smelling morning.  As I walked across the sidewalk, I would run my fingers through the lavender around the statue, crushing the petals between my fingers and then turn: eight boardwalk steps down and then the quarter mile wooden path lay before me through the underbrush toward the ocean, toward You.  I would run RUN long strides, barefeet heavy on the wood, pad, pad, pad, pad.  The seagulls cried as I climbed up a small hill of sand surrounded on either side by pink rosa rugosas and there I was… in front Homer Winslow’s wild foggy sea, lobster boats puttering in from their morning catch.

 

You always met me there.  You ALWAYS met me there.

 

He has taken me to the banquet hall,
and his banner over me is love. (S of S 2:4)

 

The memory lies before me haunting and I am still empty, and I need You now, here on THIS shore and the words come that if I seek You, You promised I would find you.  Even here windows cranked open to freshen the stiff office air.

 

When I’m hungry for You, I paint You with words.  Linda Dillow taught me that, the missionary-writer of Satisfy my Thirsty Heart.  She said, worship was a door inviting You in.  And so, I practice the simple steps…painting You from A-Z:

 

Abba, Abundant, All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Advocate, Atoning Sacrifice,

Bread of Life, Beautiful, Bountiful, Brother, Banner of Love,

Come Along Side One, Clay-molder, Creator, Comforter, Cornerstone, Curator,

Deliverer, Delights in me, Discerns darkness, Death-Annuler, Disease-Healer, Dream-Granter, Desire-Creator,

Forgiver, Faith-Teacher, Father, Feast-Spreader, etc.

 

I run out of my own words and open the Bible to find more You, more words, more stories, brushstrokes to a fuller picture.

 

Just typing the words makes me feel like I’m taking a cloth on a window and cleaning, one word at a time until I see You again.

 

I NEED to see.

 

Turning to worship is a 180 repentance turn away from self-gazing, self-grazing and toward the the only hunger-satiator, Bread of Life, thick, nourishing.

 

I pulled the minivan back into the driveway, getting home as the children were padding down the green carpet of the front nursery steps.

 

But the worship did not stop… The clarity of your picture spilled out into a new thanksgiving.

 

And as I began counting thanksgivings, (and I do use Ann Voskamp’s lovely 1000 Gifts App.  I can download my pictures straight in!) they come faster and faster and faster…an embarrassing overflow.

 

It was all present before and yet not filled with Presence.

 

Worship uncorked thanksgiving and LIFE washed up wave after wave into our day.

The feast prepared became visible, and I began seeing glory everywhere:

In a fresh-picked picnic.  Easy laughter coming from our beach chairs.

The freedom to adventure big…

and small.

and hours to search for treasure.

 

When you have been stuck in the desert, how does the rock get struck, joy begin to flow in your life again?

 

…………………………………………………

linking with the very lovely:

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