{ your words make whole }

All my world, All I've lost
The wrecks I've made here, The lives it cost
Your hand restores
Your words make whole

With all my soul
I thank You, I owe You...

All my devotion
All that I have to give
Here's my devotion
You're all that it means to live

::

This hit me earlier tonight when I was reading... as I could not get these lyrics out of my head from one of my favorite, well, I should say, since I have a LOT of favorite songs, (as I am just recently re-discovering that music is one of the biggest ways I connect with God...) I'll call this song, “Devotion” by the Newsboys, (yes, an oldie but a goodie), one of my “all-time favorites,” meaning it's been a favorite for more than a few years.

But, anyway, I digress! So, later this evening I finally had gotten a chance to slow down today and being caught up with sleep and just tucking the hubby in bed, I settled in with some hot apple cider on the couch.

I am always amazed that the times I just want to journal and pour out my heart to God and maybe will say, well, maybe I don't have to read. I find that in the process of writing, I want to. I want to hear from Him. I want to have Him speak to me. I need Your grace, I need Your help.

Those times where I just long to hear from You alone; Your voice above all the noise.

The other day, as the transition from being gone at a wonderful retreat and being away collided with the daily battles and challenges of every day life that we are all accustomed to, I found myself feeling bombarded with voices clamoring for my attention and I remember sitting down, not wanting to deal with it all and just saying, Lord, Your voice is the only one I want to hear...

And, I am always astonished, how He meets us.

He is always here, closer than our very breath...
Waiting for us to draw near.

It hit me as the more I read in my chapters in my One Year Bible tonight, how much His word brings me life.

I started to write in the margins, as I felt myself getting pulled back into the action of the story of Joseph, the parables of Jesus, the heart and wisdom of the psalms and proverbs, words that have transcended mere words on a page...

Words of a Heart and a Story that bleed love.

Love of the One who gave it all just to be with us. Just to be with You and me.

I am floored each time when I think about it. When it hits me. When I see the love and sovereignty of God who was with Joseph, with Jacob, with Isaac, with Abraham, with Noah. Of the God who saw Leah, who saw Rachel, who saw Sarah, and remembered them.

Floored when I see His heart and His great love for His people, His heart and great love for you and me in sixty six stories strung together by a chord of love. Unfailing, unconditional, revolutionary love.

Of the One who is coming for you and for me.

It hit me as I began writing a few phrases in my margin, realizing again this thing that was happening within me... I wrote,

"Your Word gives life...
Your Word makes new.

It nourishes.

Comforts. Heals.
And restores me.

It invites. It calls.

It awakens..."

Sound familiar? And as soon as I had written out the last work, I instantly remembered one of my favorite parts of Captivating, where John and Stasi Eldredge used those very words to describe one of my favorite subjects I wrote about recently, beauty.

As they contest,

"Beauty is powerful."

And,

“We need what beauty speaks.”

For beauty speaks.
It nourishes, touches, restores.
That beauty comforts, it heals.
Inspires, empowers, and awakens.

It matters.

And, that, beauty, most of all is transcendent.

How crazy...

For in all of these experiences with beauty, "we long to be united with the beauty we seek, it is not just enough to merely see it, we long to pass into it," as C.S. Lewis puts it brilliantly. And isn't it interesting that in the very place where He has said He will speak to us, in His word, we are taken beyond that which we see, taste, or feel, and brought into that which is transcendent.

And isn't it interesting tonight when those words struck me as hauntingly familiar, that beauty would be synonymous with His Word.

For His words reflect His character, His heart, who He really is.

And our Lord simply could not be more beautiful.

:: I've posted this song on here many a time, but just ran into this new video, (new to me), it is AWESOME!!