Rest And Purification

+JMJ

A Sacred Moment At The Foot Of Cross

I moved recently, to a different state, 12 hours from my home town. This means:

A new house… A new position at work… A new Church… A new everything….

I have been struggling lately: physically, emotionally, and spiritually because everything is unfamiliar and this makes me feel so out of place and underutilized.

But I have prayed for this move for a long time, to bring our family together, and knew that I would have a purpose here, but that purpose is so unclear.

It is hard to go from one place where my purpose was so blatantly obvious, to a place where I am lost and unsure.

The Lord, however, will show me how there is a purpose to everything.

A Sacred Moment

While sitting in Adoration, a few days after my move, begging the Lord to tell me what He wanted me to do here, He gave me a powerful moment:

I was standing on Calvary… in a hurricane. A flash of lightning shows me the dark silhouette of the cross just ahead of me. I can just make out Jesus hanging in agony there. The gale-force winds rock the cross and shove me one way, then the other. The huge raindrops pelt His wounds elevating the torture of hanging on the cross. They sting my skin and make my eyes burn. The howl of the wind and the deafening thunder is all I can hear. I call to Him, but my words are stolen by the whipping wind.

I stumble towards Him being thrown to the ground by a gust of wind into the muddy sludge at the foot of the cross. I look up as another flash of lightning strikes so close I can feel the electricity in the air.

I can see above me a length of cloth wrapped around my Lord’s shoulders and whipping violently just out of reach. I cling to the cross dragging myself to my feet, completely soaked and miserable, reaching for that length of cloth blowing above me.

My eyes are burning from the wind and rain, so I close them and reach. I feel the cloth brush my fingers. As I grasp it, there is a blinding flash of light and deafening thunder as the lightning strikes my Lord on the cross. The electricity travels down the cloth and through me.

Everything stops here and is silent.

The Pride Within Me

When this moment first happened I thought He was showing me that I was going to be the focus of something big. Something spectacular and huge, (which may end up being true in its own way) but I realized that the devil was twisting it. I saw the lightning lighting me up. When in fact it was the Lord lighting me.

I have a deep desire to be known, acknowledged, honored, and consulted. All prideful things. I crave the esteem and high opinion of those around me, which is why I made myself the center at first.

I had turned the focus from Jesus on the cross to myself. I realized I had been neglecting Him, leaving Him to hang on the cross… alone.

Patience and Purification

It is through continued prayer and meditation on this moment that I now realized that He was telling me to come back to Him. In Meditative Prayer, which I had grown lax on.

My daily prayer time has greatly diminished, as I realized the devil had pulled me away towards other things. Exhausting me and blinding me, even with things I believed to be good.

I had been running myself ragged in more ways than one, and the words of a very dear friend reiterated this to me.

I needed a rest, which I am not good at. I am a do-er. I enjoy the feeling of accomplishment when tasks are completed. When there is something tangible done.

But I needed to rest in meditative prayer. I needed to rest with Jesus. The tasks that need to be completed right now are interior, not tangible. When I took ahold of that length of cloth, I was connected to Him. Being connected to Him ended the hurricane I was struggling through. All of the turmoil I had been feeling dissipated.

I was extremely undernourished in respect to my prayer time, and I can see now, how the Lord had arranged things in my life to fix that.

I see now that everything that has happened over the past two months has been His desire to pull me closer to Him, teach me, and purify me.

A new home, and new beginning, with my husband and kids after living apart for two years. A restart for us to grow closer not only to each other, but to the Lord.

A new position at work where I felt really underutilized at first. I am working fewer hours that are a lot less strenuous. This has freed up the time (and eliminated the excuse) to spend in prayer, care for my family, write, study, and work on correcting my vices.

A new church where I can turn the focus to Jesus rather than my own self-esteem. A church with a great many opportunities to grow, be nourished, and be an instrument to the nourishment of others.

Coming back to Jesus makes all these things make sense.

He is clarity.

This is a time for me to rest in Him, be purified by His love, wait for His voice and listen as He prepares me for what is next.

Thrive in Jesus, my friends!

Have any big changes in your life lately? Something that didn’t make sense at the time, but does now?

Leave a comment and let me know!