My heart is yours, again.

Open my eyes, that I may see. Psalm 119:18

As he was returning to the city in the early morning, he felt hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it and found nothing on it but leaves. And he said to it ‘May you never bear fruit again,’ and instantly the fig tree withered. The disciples were amazed when they saw it and said, ‘How is it that the fig tree withered instantly?’ Jesus answered, ‘In truth I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt at all, not only will you do what I have done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, “Be pulled up and thrown into the sea,” it will be done. And if you have faith, everything you ask for in prayer, you will receive.’ Matthew 21:18-22

O God, who of Thy love and pity didst send us Jesus Christ for the illumination of our darkness, give me wisdom to profit by the words He spoke and grace to follow in the steps He trod.

Jesus Christ said, Where ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any.

            O God, give me grace now so to do.

Jesus Christ said, Judge not.

            O God, give me grace this day first to cast out the beam out of my own eye, before I regard the mote that is in my brother’s eye.

For Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. –John Baillie

And I sat here in the quiet long and hard this morning, staring at the Word of the day: And if you have faith, everything you ask for in prayer, you will receive.

And I was reminded of Solomon, to whom God appeared in a dream, and said, Ask for anything you want, and it will be given you.

Jesus very clearly says, Anything, as did His Father before Him.

And my mind wandered around the proverbial candy store, examining all of the brightly coloured jars and bins. Like yesterday, when one of the kiddos raised her hand and asked, Miss, if you weren’t teaching us, and you could do anything in the world, what would you do?

And I was reminded of Marco’s question, Why are you making this pilgrimage?

And I was reminded of the answer I whispered as I sat in the meadow under the trees and blue skies of Assisi this summer. The answer that is now imbedded in my screensaver: And what do you desire? Christ asks. “Lord, I desire your Heart.” Christ then reached into the depths and, removing her heart, replaced it with His own, at the same time hiding her heart within His breast.

John Baillie has a long list of details of what this heart, in grace, does, since we act out of our heart, the wellspring of life. Just as water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person.

And once again, I know that my desire, my one request, is to live free and easy under His light burden. Heaping and overflowing, poured out into my lap.

Nothing else.

Most highest, glorious God

Cast Your light into the darkness of my heart

Give me right faith, firm hope, perfect charity, and profound humility

With wisdom and perception

O Lord, so that I may do what is truly your holy will. –St. Francis, The Cross of San Damiano

It will be done.

And because Thursday is my Everette day, CityPsalms was already cranking away as I drove back and forth up and down Broadway because E always wants to listen to Uncle Cameron. And we both are really loud and pound on our chests when we sing the chorus My Heart is Yours to “Let Your Kingdom Come in my own Heart First.”

And last night we took out all of Nicole’s crèches and set them up all over the house and put bits of turtle food in front of them to eat since it didn't work to try and make houses out of the little crumbly sticks and all the spice cans came down off the shelves for walls and the Tupperware lids were roofs and the sheep kept running away and hiding and the angels carried the shepherds on their backs to look for them and then Mary invited everyone inside for a big sleepover, even the three visitors from far, far away. And then we read Grandma’s Christmas story over and over and over again by the brightness of twinkly lights on the rosemary bush.

Jesus Christ, the illumination of our darkness, May Your Kingdom Come in my own Heart first.

My heart is yours.

So what if Time’s got hands on a clock — it’s God who has His Hands on the universe.

Open my eyes, that I may see the wonders of Your law. Psalm 119:18

And Ann Voskomf’s story for yesterday opened up with one arrow. A yellow arrow on a signpost pointing to Hope. And it is a good story, with lots of bold-faced truths. But the Big Thing is that He holds Hope in His hand. Who believes in unseen things, in impossible things, in the things you can’t measure and control and deduce and reduce and wrap up in a reasonably neat and timely package and who in this cynical world remembers how to find Hope?  And it is not my job to measure and control and deduce and reduce and wrap up in a reasonably neat and timely package.

My job is to say, “Lead and I will follow.” One arrow at a time.

And the cool thing about taking Everette on long walks through the desert to the park is that her eyes are open. And she notices every tiny thing and she constantly opens up her arms and mouth in awe.

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”  [Kuyper]

“Joys are always on their way to us,” writes Amy Carmichael. “They are always traveling to us through the darkness of the night. There is never a night when they are not coming.”

Because there is never a night where joys are not coming to us, there is never a road that can’t arrive at Hope. Circumstances can go ahead and run out of time — but the courageous refuse to run out of hope.

We can always hope because there is always joy traveling to us down the unexpected roads.

And because the thing is: Hope always has a cost and hope is always worth it, because who wants the cheap and deadened alternative?

And I rode right up A Mountain this morning with a pretty loaded pack. And gold gilt duct-taped sunflowers from Nicole. And I am so very curious. But peaceful. Because over and over again I learned on last summer’s trip that I was absolutely clueless about what lie ahead of the next curve.  Except for being completely enveloped in God’s unconditional love. His tightly knit, wrap around love. And Nicole and I kept whispering, “This is amazing.”

My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Breathing in deeply.

Open my lips, O LORD, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise. Psalm 51:16

Open my eyes that I may see. Psalm 119:18

I will thank you, O LORD my God, with all my heart. Psalm 18:32

Grant me understanding, that I may live. Psalm 119:144

So yesterday, Jenny and I met at Beyond Bread and together, yet quietly in our own thoughts, we plotted the next few months. Plotted as in deliberately put points down, in a pattern. Because such is the nature of life that it can be swept away with unintentional clutter, leaving only a few stray dust balls.

And one thing we did is sign up for an Intensive Contemplative Retreat Day out at a desert monastery. Albeit intensive contemplation seems a bit of an oxymoron. Yet, as the Friar explains, “Contemplation is the summation of the Christian life. It is the realization and fulfillment, moment by moment, of the primal Christian injunction: Love your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Rightly cautioned, intense.

And Thursdays are going to be my mini-contemplative days, the mornings set aside to listen.

Open my lips. Speak LORD, Your servant is listening.

Open my eyes. That I might behold Your beauty.

Open my heart. That I might receive Your love.

Open my understanding. That I might know Truth.

Selah.