Utterances of Life

Utterances of Life

One night, I was a millisecond away from drifting off to sleep, when the Lord spoke three words. They came, bing-bing-bing. I knew if I yielded to sleep, the words would vanish. So I wrenched myself awake and stumbled through the dark to find a notebook and pen. That’s hard to do if you have sleep issues.

Patrisha Gazy's word to me specifically, picturing the hidden treasure that I value.

Patrisha Gazy painted this as a word for me–showing the hidden treasure that I value.

Truth is, I treasure the voice of God—in Scripture, but also when He speaks in fresh ways.

I wrote down the three words. They made no sense at the time.

God regularly speaks in mysteries, bypassing my intellect to reach my spirit. An interruption to my thoughts is often God interjecting His voice in curious ways. It’s like a treasure hunt as I ponder and search out the meanings. God puts a tidbit of revelation on my horizon as an appetizer. If I search for more, it often leads to a full course spread on His banquet table.

Over the past twenty years, I began to realize that God knows the English language. I don’t know why—but that came as a surprise to me. Maybe I thought He was limited to Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.

Having a command of the King’s English, God can easily bring a single word or short phrase across the screen of my mind. Sometimes He whispers it in my ears. And the words He speaks are potent with meaning, offering guidance or warning. Some words reveal the enemy’s angle. Others are like keys, unlocking barricaded doors. Instructional words carry the tenor of fatherly advice. Some phrases drip with poetry and love. Others calm my worried heart, bringing supernatural peace. And all His words bolster my faith.Continue reading

Treasuring Divine Happenstance

Treasuring Divine Happenstance

Last week I shared about why I bought this painting. God had woven together three things: a pregnancy dream, a talk by Ray Hughes about saying “Yes” to God, and the symbolism in the painting. The message?

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Patrisha's painting at the Ray Hughes conference

Patrisha’s painting at the Ray Hughes conference

But a fourth piece to this puzzle remains. I didn’t explain the wave. Did you notice the wave coming over the land and not the sea? In mountainous areas like Montana, massive waters like a sea or an ocean don’t exist.

To complete the story of this encounter with God, I have to give you another piece of divine happenstance. Soon after finishing my first book, I had another vivid dream:

I am crossing a landscape scarred by a hurricane long ago. Wreckage is strewn about in all directions as far as the eye can see. Jagged planks of lumber, shattered window frames, pieces of boats, empty cans, broken wooden chairs, driftwood, shells and other rubble fill every square foot of land. Any stench is long gone, and the debris looks clean—whitened by the sun.

I carefully step over the wreckage, making my way toward a beautiful azure sea that is a mile out. I can see the thin strip of deep blue water on the horizon. The sky is crisp and clear with no hint of haze. A few lovely white clouds dapple the atmosphere.

This picture is as close as I could find, but doesn’t quite capture the miles of sun-bleached remains.

This picture is as close as I could find, but doesn’t quite capture the miles of sun-bleached wreckage.

Way out in front of me, I notice one other person. It’s Kathy Tyers, my first writing mentor. She seems to be making the same trek. She gestures dramatically, waving a complete sweep of her arm again and again, as if to say, “Come on, Susan! Keep going! Don’t give up! Follow me!” But she’s so far ahead, I can’t hear her voice.

It could take awhile to get there. I continue, step by step.

All of a sudden, I hear a faraway low rumble. Perhaps a plane is taking off. It starts to increase in volume. Something powerful begins to roar—a noise so loud it sounds like several planes, then 100 planes, and now 1,000 airplanes taking off all at once. The ground vibrates in violent unison, as I look backwards…Continue reading

Eyes Bright Again

Eyes Bright Again

I pulled out a celebrity-gossip magazine that happened to be in my seat pocket on a flight to Denver. You know the type: oh-my-gosh,  The Perfect Little Black Dress of the Season—or—Three  Ways Your Partner Might Be Secretly Cheating! These kinds of articles seem to be the grist of today’s Western culture.

By the time the plane landed, I was made to feel thoroughly undersexed, unsophisticated, and deserving of costly beauty products. The underlying message? —If you aren’t really working on being one of the beautiful people, you’ll end up alone.

Modern culture promises us the moon with superlatives: perfect skin in three applications or idyllic sleep with the right kind of mattress. We hope to find ecstasy in a perfume, identity in an expensive car, and attitude in owning the latest gadget. These things make us feel more attractive, momentarily. We turn a head or two.

But attention doesn’t satisfy, because it only parades as love. Many sacred hours are wasted with this kind of distraction. It’s a pretext, a facade, masking our fundamental need for relationship.

Loneliness seems like life’s albatross. We are required to hold all relationships loosely. Beloved grandparents and parents fade in their vitality and pass away. Colleges and careers take us away from extended family. We lose our original sense of community, the familiarity of a hometown. Marriage has empty spaces with its own unique set of vulnerabilities. Children grow up and find their own lives, as they should. Even lifelong friendships can change overtime or be lost unexpectedly. Single, divorced, or widowed people may think loneliness is their singular struggle, but the experience is common to most everyone I know.

Through good times and hard seasons, loneliness still hovers. We seek out a diary, a dog, or an online friend, looking for solace in some kind of connection.

But down deep, the connection we really need is with God…Continue reading