Marriage of the Lamb

"Child, I cannot put my ring on your finger until you have taken the world's ring off of yours. You are holding on to promises of this life. Promises of beauty, of being known, of being loved, of your dreams. There is no room for Me."

When our love for the Lord is mad passionate extraordinary, as strong as death, nothing else in this world matters. Because when you love something so completely that you have put everything, every hope you have in this man, trusting that He will catch you when you fall  and if He doesn't, man you are done for, everything else is just peripheral. Every thing else fades in the background of the altar when you are staring into the eyes of the Man of your Dreams.

When He looks you in the eyes on that Wedding day, where will your eyes be? At the car y'all are taking, at the men of your past in the pews, at the ocean behind you, or into His eyes? Because when you look someone dead center in the eyes, you get lost. That's the love Christ died for-- Not some, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength" prayer we lift up when we need Him to come through, so we can keep living in our comfortable lives blending in with the rest of the World. If the world cannot tell that you are Spoken for by the way you live your life, then what does your Husband have to say about that on your Wedding day? You say Beloved can I trust you with these dreams of mine? His response, "My dear, can I trust you with Mine?" Can He trust you with His life? Because that's what He gave for your hand. 

Are the things you are living for worth what Christ died for? 

God, change my heart to beat with yours! My desires do not reflect yours! Make them the same! I refuse to spend my days desensitizing my heart to the Father's love with the mindless media I take in, the idle chatter I partake in, and the worry I allow to consume my mind! I will spend my days cultivating the garden you planted in my heart, mending our broken relationship, and filling myself with Truth of my Beloved's faint but ever-present whisper. 

References:

Song of Solomon 8:5-8

Revelation 2:4-5

The Dance

I'm sitting in a garden, and I am wearing a red vintage dress, pearls, white gloves, and my hair is in a beautiful up-do with makeup suitable for a ball (in my mind resembling the enchanting Audrey Hepburn). I am sitting at an outdoor breakfast nook, and across from me is Jesus. Strong, inviting, handsome; he is everything I ever hoped He would be and more. We are enjoying each others presence, mostly in silence, because those are some of our most precious times together. He knows what I am feeling. We are drinking cold milk from fine china and enjoying freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. The garden is lovely.

But our direction is not faced towards each other, rather side by side, scoping the horizon. For on the other side of the garden lies a vast expansive field. I can see movement in the distance of a girl in a white dress. She is dancing.

The peculiar thing about this girl is that though the atmosphere around her is in constant changing motion, her motions remain unaltared.

The sun rise kisses the earth, embracing the girl with the light of day. But almost as if caught in a time lapse of the impending seasons, she is greeted with every variation of atmosphere beneath the horizon. Piercing rain and stark lightning slice the sky, swiftly transitioning to a cold, blistering wind violently sweeping across the field. I quickly look to the girls face, who to my utter disbelief, has remained wholly untainted by the weather changes. In fact, as the death of winter sweeps over and the new life of spring emerges, she opens her eyes for only a moment to pick a freshly bloomed dandelion, smell it, and continue her dance without missing a step of her inimitably choreographed performance.

I stretched to take a closer glance at this girl, astounded by her grace and perseverance, only to be welcomed by an all too familiar face. That girl was me. And I was watching her on the other side of eternity. 

I looked beside me to see Jesus with a huge grin on his face. His eyes were closed and hands out, as if He was leading someone in a waltz of some sort. 

It was me He was dancing with.

The reason I had gone forth unfazed by life's storms was because I held the assurance that I had not been dancing alone.

In fact, not a second had gone by: rain, snow, sunshine, wind, that I had ever danced alone.