I found a poem from long ago...one that I thought was lost. This prayer seems like one of those books I reread every few years: dog-eared and well loved.

3/16/00
sweet spirit - i believe.
give a language to these groans,
these slippery unformed thoughts.
make flesh and bones of my cries,
that all petitions would be fully formed before
the father's piercing gaze.

o holy light, who placed in me this burning,
may your will be done in each
ripple of man, family, country, world, and the
uttermost of the heavens.
sweep your love across the skies of deaf and dumb,
dreamer, skeptic,
and with it, perfect glory.

Ok, so it has been over two months since I've written. A crazy two months. My precious nephew was born...Xavier Deuteronomy Jones. The huge work deadline that has hung over my head for 9 months of this year has finally come and gone, with success. My sister got a cyst that was huge, had surgery, found out it was benign, and has been recovering for the last 5 weeks. I started working part-time and have been playing "catch up" on the many things in my life that have fallen to the wayside since February.

I have felt myself be distant from myself and God. On Monday night at the House of Prayer, He told me that it is now safe to unpack myself...all those emotions and thoughts that have had to stay somewhere until I had the time to let them out. Today I had a retreat day. Time. I had a few instructions from Him on how to unpack myself...and so it began...a flood of tears and of healing. Grief over what has been lost in the last year, amazement that He is still here, I am not lost, and that the Fortress has been waiting for me.

Here is a section of a Mike Bickel book that I was drawn to today. "I speak this confession to God when I face pain and pressure: I am loved, and I love You; therefore I am successful. I love You even when my love is only in seed form and is still immature. Even though my love is weak, the position of my soul is to be a lover.... Pain drives our soul into the secret place...in that posture of refocusing my soul....It is like a muscle that is worked over and over. My heart keeps enlarging in the absolute truth that I am loved, I am a lover, and therefore, I am successful."

O my Rock, help this truth to go deep.

Desire is meant to be a roadmap Home. John said this last night at housechurch when we were talking about our individual passions.

I think this echoes CS Lewis' last book in the Chronicles of Narnia: the stuff of this earth and in this life we purely desire are shadows of the life to come. Desire is not meant for us to ache or run from or push down but for us to learn about who we really are and where we are going. There's a David Wilcox song about longing. I can't remember the exact words but it's something like.... "when I feel lonely that means some room (in my heart, soul, mind) is empty. That empty room is there by design. When I feel hollow, that's just the proof that there's more for me to follow - that's what the lonely is for."

I like the concept to use desire to understand our journey. In otherwords, what I desire (or think I want) is not totally the point. The desire becomes my teacher and the journey leads me to more fufillment than just "getting what I want."

Mike Bickel from the Kansas City International House of Prayer has said over and over that we get exhausted by this life and even ministry unless we spend time in adoration, gazing on the One we love. Since we don't fully know Him yet or comprehend the fullness of His magnificence, our adoration or time spent consciously expressing love to Him will fall short, but it is still needed by us and wanted by Him. I've been thinking about our desire for Him a lot lately because we have spent a good portion of time in our House of Prayer Monday nights contemplating His beauty and adoring Him. Telling Him that I love Him and long for Him somehow makes it more real, and expands that place in my heart. The longing has grown; the love has grown. The understanding of His beauty has grown. This desire for Him is my roadmap Home.