This morning I have been awake since 5 am. I cannot sleep with so many thoughts, memories, hopes, regrets, and prayers surging through me all at once... Anticipation sighs within.

Today I am preparing for tomorrow's journey *home*. With thanks giving in my heart, I will be traveling with my dearest down a familiar road, towards the the place where so many of my childhood memories began; beginning place of my longest loves, cradle of broken promises and cherished dreams, bound together like so many hopes and fears, crushed and pressed down within this vessel, my heart.

Melancholic waters of the past, revealed, have been trickling gently through the fissures of my soul, like a sculptor's tool, re-shaping, carving deeper,  smoothing out rough places. Not by strength, but through persistence these waters do their work.

Becoming... streams of thanks giving. Poured out prayers, sweet aromas of incense...

Now offerings, mellow like the new wine, rich with the aroma of rest. Yes, this shall be a journey of thanks giving, albeit also towards a haunt of oft elusive hopes and restless ghosts... it is a place of healing. Thoughts wandering, diligently fingering this continuing thread- woven red and blue by many hands- into the colorful tapestry of who I am.

These beautiful recollections and horrible realities that laugh and cry together in my dreams remind me of where my history began, though there is a time I would have just as soon forgotten the painful parts of where I come from... I have now, finally, arrived at this peaceful place, a destination I did not foresee, of learning to embrace the awkward, accepting the repulsive futility of my own efforts to do right, to be good... I'm now appreciating the strength of even a broken past.

Resting within a fuller view of His Grace, I am now- more than ever- aware of this multitude of blessings He has bestowed over the years. Old, empty fears, once wrought with hidden despair and desperate longings, have ebbed away. I am thankful for this supernatural healing, and the humble forgiveness that now resides. Anger abandoned and forgotten, hurts released... I am free. My Savior realized, His Spirit alive within... Faith full. Living. Resting now in His shadow.

Sitting beneath this ever-widening span of branches, tree of my family's history, our expansive humanity, I am aware of the tangled mass of holy and unholy roots, so jumbled together as they've cradled my heart, hidden. Buried so deep in the dirt that motives and devices are too often shrouded in murky darkness, unknowable to my minute understanding. Treasonous mystery, my own heart, deceptive to even myself.

Lord, give me wisdom, I pray, eyes to see... deliverance.

Deliverance from self and the strongholds established therein is a long, trial-some journey... I am thankful for a Shepherd to gently guide.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.

As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs;
the autumn rains also cover it with pools. ^[a]

They go from strength to strength,
till each appears before God in Zion.

~ Psalm 84.5-7

Today, my Lord and Messiah Y'shua, I thank you... for Your Redemption... each new day. A new life, guarded in You... even as I wait.

Lord, I thank you for my family, my heritage... These who have offered me the shade of a loving, genuine existence all of these years, who even now keep me grounded.

Father, I thank you that my destiny does not end here though. I thank you for Yourself, the Word, my deepest Root. I thank you that I am in Messiah, and thus in your family, and an heir according to the promise, grafted into Your tree of faith.

Even as I journey to this earthly home, I am reminded that my everlasting home is in You.

Home. by Jami Smith (click to listen)

My heart fails
My mind falters
Sometimes my passion fades
Sometimes my desires change
Sometimes I turn my head and I look the other way

When I'm restless you are rest
When I'm helpless you are help
When I'm nervous you settle me
When I'm empty you fill me
When I've gone to far you gently bring me home
'Cause you are home

Home is where my history begins
Home is where you delight in me
Home is where your voice is in my ear
Home is where you dance with me

Here I am. Finally taking the time to continue with a wonderful challenge that I took up about this time a few years ago... Adonai, I thank you... for protecting me on this journey, for helping me now to protect others.

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