Depth.

Welcome to the City of Orange Beach, Alabama.

    The billboard reads America’s Best Kept Secret, & I nod in agreement, as I look around at a heaven that is mine alone for the next seven days. I’ve never seen so many empty lounging chairs, never heard so few children screaming amongst their little floaty-armed splashes. I’ve also never stayed anywhere nearly as beautiful. So what’s the catch?

    Well for one, I am pretty smitten with a lovely man with a bashful smile. One who’s two week strong relationship has been built on about 7> years of a growing friendship. One who’s laid back ways balance my own high strung tendencies. One who’s still stuck in Ohio.

    Just kidding, we are so not stuck there. It’s a peaceful kind of escape for the motor mouths. Like myself. I wish my typing was as fast as my talking. But I am losing this focus pretty fast.

    So. My eyes are blessed as I make love with an ocean & palm trees, grazing over sacred ground beholding peace & restoration & bliss. Humidity has given me a heartfelt hug, & my hair is the bare proof, uncivilized curls breaking free from the forced straightening this morning, frizz giving me a natural boost of volume. No teasing necessary. Swooshing of water & high pitched giggles are cherished by the slight breeze. Contentment outweighs the stress of a morning of new beginnings that tomorrow will place in my hands, a land filled with textbooks, professors, papers, & lectures. A land that was not so extravagant in the past. A land that I am familiar with & unfamiliar with all in the same breath. Last time, I was in the classroom with those people who didn’t all believe what I believe, timid legs carrying me to sit voiceless in the back left hand corner of the confinement. I prayed I wouldn’t be noticed, that no voices cared to hear mine. Round two will be an online community with people who have the same heart; whose heart’s flow with the same blood. & yet I’m nervous. Because the plan of how everything will work is unknown & heaven knows what lurks in the depths of possibility. The unknown makes me squeamish. Which is why I tend to stick with the familiar. Which is usually why I end up back at the start.

    But this is about fresh air. This is about thankfulness & breathing in deep & breathing out deeper. This is about catch & release. Clinging to new hope, radiant joy, & holy revelations these seven days will gift & releasing all toxins, joy-killers, disbelief, & at times, belief. Belief that God isn’t enough & that you are too much. Belief that new days still have to carry unwanted baggage from yesterdays gone bitter. Belief that you have to leave & good vibes have to fade.

So I’ll slip into the limitless.

    Venture over to the side with the fearless & the bold. Pray over change & renewal & restoration that sticks. Listen for revelation. I will not believe impossible’s withering voice.

    I’ve always been told the feeling fades. The joy you find in something dies when you over indulge. The mad love you feel for your mate becomes tolerance after marriage. The passion that’s consumed you during revival will become limp & lifeless. Sometimes fading feelings are miracles. Like moving on after a huge break up, & catching your breath when you see them with someone else. Like letting go of the deceased, who was more than a shell in the casket to you. Like the fear of death, & how I assume the act of dying is a lot less scary after it happens. But the drawing of the shades is a choice. How do I know? Because we choose what to hold on to. & when we want something in the most horrible way we force it to stay, often times way longer than its intended season. I am confident that we have all been there, at least in the relationship aspect. Where we love these beasts of humans & our eyes are so covered with everything we wish they were that we chain our emotions to them, slipping the handcuffs around their wrists for them, dragging ourselves behind. & I imagine there’s our God, trying to slip the oversized handcuff off our emaciated wrist, all the while we shake our heads & throw a tantrum because all we can see is what lies before us & that’s what we want.

    Well what I want is to take the freedom & love the Lord lavishes upon me during this trip & run. Run because I have been set free. I want to take his promises & believe their worth & that they are just as everlasting as the Father who speaks them. I want to feel those same hands that knit me together in the womb restoring me at age 22. & 23. Because my birthday’s Wednesday. I want revelation to take me deeper into the Father. I want to say I know him the way he knows me. There’s always more him to know. We can take his huge dynamic self as our tub of ice cream because no matter how much he reveals to us about himself in one day, there is always more for tomorrow. Every day. So take me deeper, Father. I crave you & I long for you. You have filled me with such great joy & you are not stingy with your Spirit. So won’t you come? Fill Orange Beach, Alabama with your presence & my time with your fullness.

Lasting impressions.

    So it’s been prominent in my heart to get my priorities straight this trip, & I think you can do the same. You don’t have to go eighteen hours away to pursue truth or lasting change. For you: what do you want to see grow in your life? What area is neglected that God is currently tapping on the door, asking you to enter with him, hand-in-hand? For me, for the following seven days: what do I want to remain when the world tries to cue the curtain?

    This is what I want from you, Orange Beach. I want the Father to heal my self-centeredness. I want him to reveal more of himself, taking me deeper into his love & plans. I want him to confirm that his plans are spewing out of me. I want further direction, although I know sometimes (usually) it’s a step by step kind of deal. I want his peace & confidence as I begin these Bible classes in an attempt to find more of him. I want restoration. Restoration where he slips off the masks & covers I’ve been hiding under, using as comfort & begins proclaiming who he made me to be over me all over again. I want to become. I want to remain, & remain impressionable to his whispers in the wind. & I want to keep & remember his blessings & newness.

    I want the same for you. I pray a boldness over you & a new wind to which you adjust your sails in anticipation & delight. I pray you fade out the wrong & hold fast to the Father & all goodness flowing from his Spirit. & lastly, stay positioned, sweet love. Stay positioned in a way to accept his change, timing, blessings, & intimacy. Stay positioned to depth.