Listening for My Melodies

Sweet Jesus,
You are constantly speaking and singing sweet, positive, wonderful things over me.  Oh the longing of my heart is to always be listening and cherish each heartfelt word that you share with me.

Your voice starts as a gentle humming whisper in my heart, but then with believing grows into a beautiful harmonic melody that resonates through my whole being.  The growing dynamics of your sounds develop as I continue to acknowledge you by singing to you with thanksgiving and believing.  You have always been and always will be singing to me because your love songs are perfectly faithful!

I love that you desire me to hear the many wonderful things you are singing/speaking over me, way more than I do.  Your desire for me, confounds me.

Thank you Spirit that you help me stay in tune with Papa's love songs, keeping me aware of His melodies for my life.  I am so grateful!

now is the time to wield my sword

My thoughts are in battle and my heart desires rest.  I've been fighting with doubt, insecurity, and shame.  Holy Spirit what is the root here?  Why do I keep struggling, even when I keep trying to give these things to you?  So if this isn't my old nature, it must be the enemy.  Maybe you are trying to teach me how to use my weapons.

I need to learn to enter rest, to enter quickly and to stay.   To stay in your approval, acceptance, your grace and love.  My thoughts, heart know better. That you love me, that you care about me, that you will take care of me, but something deeper or something from outside of me won't let this be real for me.  I know I can't think myself into rest, but it is a gift that is released from within me, with the Holy Spirit that I must receive.  So teach me, oh Teacher and sweet Comforter how to receive your peaceful presence with gratitude, grace, and joy.

Graham says that "Rest is a Weapon." I need to use this against the enemy.
I also need to learn how to wield my sword, the words that God has given me, against the enemy screaming in my mind and feelings.

It is time to do this, time to learn this, time to take the ground that You declare is mine!

choosing to lay in your green pastures

Dear Jesus,

I desire to cling to you today!  Negativity is trying to hold me down, and I don't want to be held down I want to soar! I know your mercy, grace, and love covers me.  I will choose your grace, kindness, and love today in spite of my failures.  I will choose to look to you and not my struggles, failures, and sins.  

Oh Jesus, thank you for loving me...

You have loved me with an everlasting love,

You will not forsake me nor abandon me, no matter the poor decisions I have made.

You love me, you love me, you love me, because that is who you are!  You are love and you are faithful, never changing.  You are unlike a shifting land, you are unlike waves tossed to and fro, you do not waver because you are stable.  You are like a Rock, solid!

You love me patiently because You are familiar with all of my ways, you know me inside and out.

You are shocked at my stumblings, because you know me better than I do.

You know when I sit here to type, you know when I rise you eat and play. 

You know the patterns of my thoughts, you know what makes my heart beat, you know what brings me joy, you know how I desire love, you know how I desire affection and attention, you know my selfishness, you know my mindsets,  when I fall back into bad thinking about myself, you know when I believe negativity, you know when I receive condemnation, you know in all the area's of my life what I think I deserve, You know that I wish I had a different chair, you know my financial state, you know I have $50 dollars to my name and have to fill my car again this week, you know that gas prices are going up.  You know my desire to be healthy, my desire to turn to you, you know my struggle with anxiety, fear and how I turn to food instead of you.  You know where I seek comfort, wisdom, and love.  You know every person and place I turn to.  You know the needs I have for love, for intimacy, for connecting, to be known, to be loved, to be accepted.  You know when I struggle for people's acceptance.  You have put a longing and desire deep within me for you.  Because you are all that I need, you are all I desire, you are the fun and play, the my deepest hunger and fire.  There's a deeper connection that I long to stay in...learning to abide is what this is called and what I am craving....to listen, to cling, to believe, and hold onto too.  

Deep in my heart I'm longing for more.  The lies attacks me and say I can't hear you, I won't hear you, you won't talk with me, I've walked away and can't hear you anymore, and I think there is a lie I believe wondering if you really care.

Comparison hurts our friendship and condemnation, fear....

However, I don't want to waste time thinking of negatives, I desire to focus on you.

You love me soo much, you love me, you love me, you'll take care of me, you'll take care of me, my hand is feeling better, thank you Father!  You love me and are waiting to reveal this to me! I will focus on you!  Thank you that my hand is not aching.  My arm is feeling better, Thank you Jesus, that even unbelievers declare that everything I touch turns to gold!!!!  Yesterday at school someone said that, everything my hands touch turns to gold. Yes, my hands drip with the gold of your sweet presence...because you are sooo Valuable, and make me valuable! I am so valuable to you God, not just because of what I do...but Because I am your daughter, your friend...and your lover.  Whoever I am to you doesn't change based on how good I am.  Whether or not I am make bad decisions as a daughter, I will still be your daughter, I am family because of His blood and I will still be your daughter.  That does not change.  I am still your lover, even when I'm unfaithful, Jesus is bound to me and I am bound to Him.  While I am preparing myself, you still love me.  Just like Ester who had to prepare herself for the King, so this is my desire.  My desire is to be prepared to meet you. She went through a cleansing preparation, learning how to act like royalty.  This is my desire. 

"In repentance and rest is my salvation and in quietness and confidence is my strength."

This is a verse of preparation.

As I learn to rest in you.  As I "labor to enter into rest" I will find salvation and peace.  Thank you God.  

Peace is a gift to be received.  Because you are My Prince of Peace, You are within me, I can have peace,  I have have mercy, grace, love...everything I need is within me through Christ.

So Lord, I believe and I declare that you are in me and will me my every need. 

You will satisfy me with good things.

You desire to be my joy, my love, my hope, my provision, my strength, my vision, my desire, my love, my affection, you desire to have my attention,  you desire doves eyes and a heart that is focused purely on you.  Everything, everything, everything, you desire to be for me!

Everything!  Everything! Everything!

So I will lay down any heaviness, lay beside the quiet waters and green pastures....

and receive as you feed me, as you love me, as you speak to me, as you comfort me, as you hold me....

...you will meet me!

never forget this...

Do not be afraid- only believe me dear one,

Though your heart may falter, and your feet and words.  I will never leave nor forsake you.
You struggle nor your sin can not change my love for you.  In times of unbelief and fear I am hurt by your actions, but I am not hurt to the point of leaving you.  Remember Peter and how he disowned me three times?  My love for him was not forsaken.  And if you like Peter disown me, I too will not forsake you.  So do not let yourself be discouraged neither afraid, for my love for you is more fierce than a wild fire on dry hills.

But Lord, everything in me seems like a mess, unstable, unsure, and afraid.

This is why you must come to me darling, come to me believing and ready to receive of my love and my words. What you behold that you will be become.
So come, come....come and sit with me.  Behold me.  Let me love you.  For it is only as our love is strengthened and you understand my heart for you, will you feel My strength, foundation, and stability.  At times you are unstable, unsure, and a mess, but I am never changing- always faithful, always strong, never wavering, and always constant with my love.  This is the importance of coming to me, allowing me to strengthen you.
Yes, you come, and you will because I have called you and will continue to call you to myself.

Come, take your steps toward me and keep your eyes on me, for I desire to be your focus.  I desire to give you doves eyes.  And in the struggle or persecution of it all, I will come in and walk with you as you open your garden to me.  Worship me and sing to me a new song.  Remind yourself of all that I have done.  As you worship and remember, your spirit will rise up in faith.  Stir yourself up Jodi.  This is not a anxious thing, but a time of praise, of thankfulness, and of connecting.

You know me dear and I know you.
You are mine and I am yours.
I have you and you have me.
Never forget this.

listening

Where do I start, what I am feeling, how to I release this ache that seems to be deepening?
Why write, why not pray? 


Pressure that's built up, must soon be released or burst with a serious break through this innocent skin.
Why does it hurt to be so "naive"?  Yet a more horrible feeling is of risking to rip through the seams that brings me many fears, questions, and serious condemnation.
Where do I count the costs? What do I give for these losses?
If I ask questions, will I wait for the answers?
My thoughts can not grasp the heaviness of my feelings but in my confusion with this deeper level sensing-

I will choose to be quiet and to him I will listen.

So It Is

A new excitement bubbles up as she sits and starts her new way of journaling, with him at heart.  She has always written to discover both her heart and his.  She may say that her life's rhythm seems to keep it's movement through this sweet release and divine exchange.  Her process and path have always been lit on those pages.  Seeing his beauty that lies beyond the pain, struggle, and mundane is what her hopes are for the chapters of her story to come.  Laying down her pen and pad, the home where she's always sewn and reaped, is difficult for her.  But as journey's go forth, so come the obstacles.
However, in pain she may lay down her pad and pen, but in hope today she steps forward to her new screen and key.

"And so it is" he whispers in her heart "your journey is one of hope, courage, belief, love, and trust.  And I can't keep my eyes off of you."  Smiling deeply she moves with expectation and lifts her sight to enjoy his eyes- the beauty beyond.