It's All Coming Back To Me Now

God is restoring what the enemy has stolen. Many years ago, a piece of recording equipment I had was stolen and pawned for drug money. By the time I tracked it down, it had already been sold by the pawn shop. The man on the phone said there was nothing he could do.

Inside the sequencer was a disk with over seventy songs and soundtracks I had recorded. Many of them were original, among them the first fully instrumental piece I had ever composed.Since I play by ear, there was no written music. The recording was the only record of the song.

In the months that followed, as I was going through my divorce, the melodies of this instrumental piece and other things that had been developing were lost deep inside me. Some of them have never been recovered.

For years I have asked the Lord to bring that particular song back to me. I made several futile attempts to remember the melody, sitting with my hands poised over silent keys, just waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Until this week.

Tuesday evening, as I was shutting things down and getting ready to go to bed, I closed my computer, and suddenly the melody erupted in my spirit as though it had been there all along. Actually, it was there all along - it was simply hidden deep inside me. Now, after fourteen years, it was suddenly returned to me unexpectedly.

I went immediately to the keyboard and began to play, and the entire thing came back right away. Now I am working on a new arrangement, and I believe something powerful has been released in the spirit.

This was Tuesday night, August 30, 2011. The next morning, a message was posted on Facebook regarding the month of September, 2011 ushering in a season of "suddenly" - including sudden breakthroughs and restoration.

Psalm 30:5 tells us that weeping may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning. This verse has been rumbling around in my spirit all week. I have continuously heard, "Joy comes in the morning," and "The night is over."

One of the first statements made in this posting about September is that September is a new morning. This evening this very verse was posted by another friend on Facebook.

The Lord is speaking to His people, sometimes in very subtle ways. We must remain steadfast in listening to His voice and sensitive to the leading of His Spirit. The time is now. Restoration is in the air.

Suddenly September Part 1
Suddenly September Part 2

“This is what the LORD says: ‘You say about this place, 

“It is a desolate waste, without people or animals.” 

Yet in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem that are deserted, 

inhabited by neither people nor animals, 

there will be heard once more the sounds of joy and gladness, 

the voices of bride and bridegroom, 

and the voices of those who bring thank offerings to the house of the LORD, saying,

   “Give thanks to the LORD Almighty,
   for the LORD is good;
   his love endures forever.”

   For I will restore the fortunes of the land as they were before,’ 

says the LORD. 

 Jeremiah 33:10-11

The Realm of the Unexpected

As I realize how much time has passed since I last posted, I am reminded of just how quickly life happens when we are looking the other way.

The past few months have seen many changes, not the least of which is David and I being reunited in the same house for the first time since January of last year. The move from Arkansas to Texas was a transition that took longer than either of us had anticipated in terms of our living in separate areas of town while job issues were resolved.

Well, resolution is not fully complete, but thankfully we are back under the same roof. We spent several grueling months trying to purchase a home only to have the financing fall through at the last minute, the result of mishandling by our broker. We decided to find a small and cheap rental to give us some time to regroup, and on April 1, we moved into a small, modest four-plex in an area near one of central Texas' greatest treasures, Lake Travis.

I mentioned "many changes," and while time does not allow me to elaborate on that at the moment, I can say that where I find myself today is working to build a home-based business while also looking for a "real" job to help sustain us financially until the aforementioned business takes off, which I am confident that it eventually will. This process has proven to be a real test of my faith, as we have really had to trust the Lord for His provision during this season of continued transition.

The past couple of weeks have brought me into a realm of renewed closeness with Him as He has once again drawn me into His presence at unexpected times, in unexpected ways and in unexpected places. As I have begun to release my grasp on the circumstances around me and my incessant drive to control them, I have watched His provision come forth in short bursts when I'm least expecting it. My sensitivity to His gentle nudgings is being heightened, as is my awareness of Him throughout the day.

During a recent encounter I had with Him, I tearfully asked Him why He had been so silent lately. He replied that He had been bringing me to a place of total dependence on Him because of what He is about to release me into. The details of this are currently between me and Him, but let me encourage you with this:

If you are feeling isolated and alone in your relationship with Him, and His voice seems distant at best, do not give up. Stay close to Him. Keep pressing your head into His chest. Let go of whatever it is you need to let go of. If you genuinely ask, He will show you - in fact, you probably already know what it is.

Don't be afraid to ask the hard questions. He is not afraid of them, and He will answer them. Most of all, seek wisdom. When you aren't hearing anything regarding where to turn next, His wisdom will guide you, and He promises to give it freely.

Blessings on you and yours. May hope reign in your heart and peace reside in your spirit.

"If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, 

who gives generously to all without finding fault, 

and it will be given to you."

James 1:5

Not Forgotten

I have a confession to make. I love Amy Grant music. The old stuff. I guess it's mostly because it is part of the music I grew up on, and as much as I love current music, I do occasionally wax nostalgic and take great delight in listening to the songs that became the soundtrack of my life. Recently as I have been listening to Grant's The Collection, I have been hearing something in the lyrics of some of the songs that I have missed before.

If you are a singer, you know that there are particular songs, especially early on, that seem to generate requests for you to sing again and again. For me, one of those songs was El Shaddai, which I first sang at a little Assembly of God church in El Campo, Texas in my teens. As many times as I have listened to and sung this song, there was something that only became real to me today.

As I was driving to pick up my dog from the groomer, this song came on, and one line in particular struck me in a way it never has before. I relate on a more personal level to this line than I ever could have imagined when I was a young singer with visions of touching the masses with music that would move and inspire them.

The line that captured me was this: "...to the outcast on her knees, You were the God who really sees." Today for the first time when hearing this line, my mind immediately returned to a little bedroom in my parents' home in the months that my first marriage was ending, and the image of myself face-down on a tear-soaked carpet, pouring out my heart to a God I couldn't see, longing to be held by arms I couldn't feel.

In those agonizing months of coming to terms with rejection and betrayal, I learned to know Him on a deeper level than I had ever dreamed possible. He came to me, expressing His love for me in real and intimate ways that even now I have a difficult time expressing with mere words. I came to know that He saw every painful thing that had happened, and as He healed my heart, His voice became more familiar and precious to me than I had ever known before.

Today as I drove, I heard that same familiar voice speaking again to me - through me. Here is what He said:

"To the one whose heart has been battered by rejection and betrayal, to the one who has been cast aside, to the one who has been overlooked in search of someone or something else, to the one who feels the dull ache of dreams that seem too lofty to ever come true and the sting of criticism that makes their destiny seem unattainable, tell them this:

I have not forgotten you. You are mine. I have inscribed you on the palm of my hand, and your face is etched into my heart.The ones you thought would love you may have rejected you, but I have accepted you. The world may have cast you aside, but I have adopted you as My own. The world may have overlooked you, but I have called you by name, and you belong to Me. I want you to know the depths of My love for you, to commune with Me in sweet intimacy. When we spend time together, your destiny will become clear, and as you walk in all that I have laid out in My word and listen to and follow My voice, your destiny will be fulfilled in a more powerful way than you have ever dared to imagine."

"How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

       How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,
       they would outnumber the grains of sand.
       When I awake, I am still with you."

Psalm 139:17-18