My Birthday Story

Today is my birthday. I like celebrating my birthday with writing - something from the Lord. I thought it was going to be a birthday poem, but God had something else in mind. He wanted to give me my birthday story.

Characters: God and an angel

Setting: Heaven

Format: Dialogue

This is where my birthday story begins:

Angel: You called me Lord?

God: Yes. Come near. I have something I want to show you.

(Angel approaches God with curiosity)

Angel: What is it that you are doing Lord?

God: I am creating a vessel of hope.

Angel: I can't believe I have been called to witness this sacred act of creation! Tell me Lord, what will he look like?

God: This is not a he. It is a she and she is very special to me. I want you to watch as I knit her together. It is very important that you pay attention.

Angel: Yes my Lord.

(Angel pressing in even closer with a serious look of concentration on his face. Time passes.)

Angel: You have been working on this one area for some time Lord and the detail is extraordinary. What is it that you are knitting?

God: The heart. I am taking my time with the heart because one day, my friend, this one will ask to have a heart like mine and this is no small request. Because she does not understand fully what it is that she is asking for, it is up to me to make sure her heart can carry such a burden.

Angel: Your heart! Surely you jest my Lord. How can something so fragile as a human being carry a heart like that of the Lord's?

God: I see your point friend and although it will not be easy, it is possible.

Angel: Where do you begin my Lord?

God: See this section here?

Angel: Yes.

God: I have started here because this section will play a very vital role in her life.

Angel: What is it my Lord?

God: Forgiveness.

(The angel glances up and locks eyes with the Lord. They share a moment of understanding about the power of forgiveness)

God: If it were not for her ability to forgive, the poison of the enemy would destroy her - things like anger, bitterness, and hatred would overtake her heart. She will endure heartache, heartbreak and heart sickness, but her heart will never be destroyed.

Angel: I see you have changed colors. What are you adding now?

God: Mercy, grace, humility, the capacity to love unconditionally. Other things she will need in order to have a heart like mine. See this mark right here?

Angel: Yes Lord. It looks like a word. Loving-kindness?

God: Yes. Loving-kindness. It is my heart-name for her. Do you understand what I have done?

Angel: I am not sure.

God: I have branded her heart. This name is permanent. Many things will come against it in an attempt to erase it from her identity, but all will fail. Her heart and this name will remain steadfast.

(Silence as the angel contemplates all the Lord has spoken. God breaks the silence)

God: Now, I will work on the feet that will go where I call them to go; the hands to serve how I call them to serve; and the mouth to speak what I have called it to speak.

Angel: These are wonderful things you are working into this vessel. I am in awe of your generosity. She is loved, indeed.

God: Would you like to know my special name for her?

Angel: Oh, yes Lord, very much!

God: She shall be called "Song of Joy."

Angel: Why did you choose that name Lord.

God: Because joy will be the thing that binds her to me when all else falls away. It will come out of her life like a sweet melody. It will give her strength in times of need. However, there is another purpose.

Angel: What would that be Lord?

God: To be shared with others. Joy is contagious! She will share her joy with many. She will spread it like honey on bread and serve it to all who will eat of it, so they too might find renewed strength in me. She will be known for her joy.

Angel: Lord, what are those dark spots?

(A moment of silence)

God: Those, my friend, are dark nights of her soul. They are the seasons when she will withdraw to a remote inner place and question the reason for her very existence. Where she will question mine. Her mind, will and emotions will be pressed to their limits. Her spirit will cry out in agony.

Angel: Isn't that dangerous Lord? I see that there are more than one. What if you lose her?

God: I will be near. She will not feel my presence, but I will be there. I will share in her anguish.

Angel: What will she do?

God: She must choose.

Angel: What is the choice?

God: The same as it has been from the beginning - to trust me.

Angel: What will the outcome be?

(God chuckles as He senses the angel's growing concern.)

God: I will tell you. This is the outcome. She will remember my Word. Like my servant Job, she too will cry out, "Though you slay me, I will trust in you." The truth of who I am will be revealed in greater measure. The truth of who she is will be revealed. I will not lose her. She will remain a vessel of hope in my hands. Refined, beautiful and precious to me beyond measure.

(The angel speaks with some eagerness in his voice)

Angel: May I ask you one more question Lord?

(With a twinkle in His eye, God replies)

God: Yes - go ahead.

Angel: Did you call me here to witness the creation of this vessel because I am to be her guardian?

God: Yes my friend. You are to be her guardian angel. You will walk with her all the days of her life. Does this assignment please you?

Angel: Oh yes, Lord! I am humbled to be chosen by you to guard over a vessel of hope - one that bears your image in her heart. Yes. I am very pleased.

God: Good. I am finished knitting her into her mother's womb. Ready yourself to go. Before you go, just know that she will need you from the very beginning. The enemy will plan her destruction from this moment forth. Though his plans are limited and will be used for my purposes in the end, she will suffer at his hand. Also know this, my plan for her life is eternal and fixed in her very DNA. My plan will be fulfilled in this vessel of hope that I know as Loving-kindness and Song of Joy and will now be known to the world as Carol.

My life verse:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)

The Joy of Relating

Over the years, the enemy has tried to convince me that I was not loved as a child. I admit that while I was in the midst of my young life, I never consciously thought, "I am not loved." I had a roof over my head, food on my table and clothes on my back. Our family was

"dysfunctional" - functioning incorrectly or abnormally

but we were not without a certain degree of love. What we did lack was an intimate relationship with one another.

"Intimacy generally refers to the feeling of being in a close personal association and belonging together. It is a familiar and very close affective connection with another as a result of entering deeply or closely into relationship through knowledge and experience of the other. Genuine intimacy in human relationships requires dialogue, transparency, vulnerability and reciprocity. As a verb "intimate" means to state or make known."*

Ironically, I recently learned that my top strength (according to this strength finder test I took) is relating. In a nutshell, this strength is described as a "desire to know others and to be known by them" and that a person with this strength is willing to take incredible risk in order for that to happen. This "strength" has been with me all my life. It didn't go away just because I found myself in a family environment that wasn't condusive to it, that didn't recognize it or nurture it.

This is what God showed me this past weekend at my aunt's funeral: I did not give up on searching for people to relate to me in an intimate way when intimacy wasn't possible in my own home. Even as a child, I was determined to exercise this strength. It was part of my spiritual DNA. When I think back to some of the things that I went through as a child, it has become clear to me that the enemy was just as adamant about keeping this strength hidden and ineffective as I was about exercising it!

At the funeral, as I spoke with family members (aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) , memory after memory surfaced of how so many of them had allowed me into their world and responded to my desire to be known by them and to know them - even if it was in a small way or for a brief time. In the sea of my childhood memories, these memories had not been a priority. How kind, and maybe slightly odd, that the Lord would show me at a funeral, through these memories, how He had been with me all along. Of course, it was this very aunt who had given me my first real opportunity to experience the joy of intimacy within a family - so maybe the setting was not so odd afterall.

God had not abandoned me.

This strength of relating was not some cruel joke on His part. It is His heart's desire too - to know us and be known by us. He would never take such a strength lightly.

He is the capital "R" relater.

He gave His life on a cross so that an intimate, knowing relationship with me - with us - might be possible once again.

In relationships.....

He knows the pain of rejection.

He knows the joy of acceptance.

He knows.

I am very thankful that this strength is irrevocable. It is part of the expression of God's image in me. It is a part of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:3-4) that has been granted to me.

Those days long ago were tough and I fought for every crumb of intimacy/relating that I could get. Now I sit at the King's table and feast on the intimacy we share and I give Him glory and thanks for the relationships I have on earth that are intimate and real. I will always openly and eagerly invite others into this wonderful, yet sometimes risky, world of relating - some will accept, some will decline - but I am secure in the knowledge that even if all others refuse my invitation, God will not.

I rest in the knowledge that it is my privilege and my right as a believer to relate to Father, Son and Holy Spirit for all of eternity - starting now.

What joy! What peace!

* (Wikipedia)