Vast open skies glittered with stars splashed like paint flicks and a moon so yellow, so round, so perfect called my anxiety filled heart to be still. Warm Summer wind kissed the pale and bruised of my skin, and the cool water whispered a sense of peace my broken soul longed for.

The lake night was the night my heart wanted to plunge into the water’s glistening depths, where the pain of life would no longer be felt. Where the voices in my head that spoke of my rubbish existence and my used state, which was of no worth to anyone, would forever be silenced.

As I gazed at the splendor of the sky, vibrant life energy stirred up by creation was alive and awake and beckoning me to seek the face of a God I wasn’t sure existed, let alone would care for someone as broken and messy as me.

I cried out…

The lake night, the night that was intended to end my life awakened me instead to a very present God. A God who was gently speaking to me without a sound, and was guiding me in and through all things, and somehow, despite the mess and the deep dark hole that I had kept on digging, He was here now, inviting me to seek His face.

The splendor of creation was awakening this wretched girl who was soul numb and dying inside, to the glorious presence of Jesus and entwining my heart to a grander story. His creation was designed to wake us up to Him.

For the last seventeen years, God has been waking me up through His creation, breathing truth words into my soul. Beckoning me to walk this wild faith life that invites us to live wide-awake, and it has happened as His truth words whispered in the midst of living the ordinary everyday life.

I have woken up to the truth that early morning cuddles and silly songs with young ones are holy work.

My soul has come alive as the sun kisses the sea and bounces brilliant colors across the sky or when I've held my baby boys for the first time… and in these moments I've discovered you can’t help but worship Him profoundly and purely.

I come alive where trust is tested, and dreams are shattered, and life doesn’t have the perfect Instagram post because He is with me and He is faithful.

I have experienced authentic relationships over cups of hot tea, long talks, and prayer that leads to healing and restoration because I'm no longer numb and afraid inside.

I now understand that the work God has entrusted to us is the way in which He touches the world through us, where people encounter the face-to-face with God… and it's beautiful.

These life experiences with creation, humanity, and brokenness have been used to wake me up and by His grace, grow my soul into who God created me to be.

That’s what life is meant to do; it becomes the God-at-work, groundwork within that teaches us how to work with and walk with Jesus in the everyday ordinary, waking us up to His presence alive and at work within and around us. It’s like leaven permeating every part of our soul, enlarging and expanding the kingdom of God within us, teaching us, gracing us in our fumbling and stumbling to live into and be the fragrance who He created us to be. We become part of the story He is telling the world.

The invitation to wake up is not just for the select few; it’s for every single one of us. Messy and broken, rich or poor, fatherless or famous, each of us is invited to wake up and live into this wide-awake life with the Creator of the universe. As we live awake, it changes us, it changes the way we see and experience the world around us, and it wakes us up to the grander story being told… His…

If you'd like to learn more about this WILD FAITH Click Here

Has God ever asked you to TRUST Him?

I mean REALLY trust Him.

To trust Him when it hurts like crazy.

To trust Him when you don’t want to let go.

To trust in His goodness and faithfulness.

To trust that when He says He loves you and will never leave you... AND that He really means it…

To trust that you are a child of God, equally valuable to Him.

To trust.

A silver Tiffany’s bracelet sits on my wrist as I write. It is scratched and tarnished with time and tears. It was gifted to me on my graduation from Mercy Ministries (Australia) many years ago now. It is a marker of God’s promises of healing and restoration in my life. It reminds me of a time when I was so broken that I didn’t know if this world could want someone like me in it much longer.

It’s a faith marker…

Wild Faith…

A marker of a time when I trusted God with my whole heart and life…

It’s a remembrance of Who He has been to me in my past and Who He still is today.

Inscribed on the heart are the words ‘Forever a Princess’.

A reminder that I am a beloved daughter of the King of all kings.

and a scripture…

 Proverbs 3:5-6

“Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.

In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths.” (AMP)

A reminder that He is in it all with me. I am never alone.

A reminder that He has been trustworthy before and remains trustworthy now.

Old wounds that make your roots grow deep in Him

So I am still standing and proclaiming this scripture, trying to trust God with all of my heart on this new path He has set my feet on. Trying to allow Him to grow my roots down deep in His great love.

It’s been tough, exciting, joyous, freeing, but tough.

Mostly because this last season opened up old wounds where my trust had been damaged before, nobody has tried to do this to me by the way, it’s just what happened in the coming and goings of life and I’m pretty sure the enemy would love it if I never trusted again.

But, I look to my scripture and I TRUST…

It feels vulnerable and scary.

Sometimes I cry...

Sometimes the heart walls come up...

What happens if I get hurt again? What happens if disappointment rocks my world one more time? Will I break? Will I not be able to rise again?

Sometimes I feel like a mess... AND then I look to the One who holds all things and I walk...

I speak the words YES to the Lord and I proclaim His truths again and again...

“A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not quench; He will bring forth justice in truth.” – Isaiah 42:3

He doesn’t break us.

But He does unmake us.

Wild Faith in the unmaking

He unmakes all the stuff that can cause our root system to die or be hindered.

He asks us to surrender who we are and our dreams to a place of trust in Him. In doing so we lose more of ourselves and find out more of who God really is in us. His testimony burns like fire in our bellies, it shapes us like clay and He reawakens us to His constant presence and His kingdom purposes.

He is in everything, not the cause of everything, but always in it with us.

As we acknowledge Him in this space of Wild Faith, this trust, this place of deepest surrender, He is there with us.

He undoes old mindsets we didn’t even realize we still held onto and brings more freedom…and our roots grow deeper more freely.

"Don't you know that when you allow a little lie into your heart, it can permeate your entire belief system?"             - Galatians 5:9 (TPT) 

He goes into old wounds and brings the deeper healing that leads to beautiful restoration… and our roots grow deeper in quiet trust in Him.

"...to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes." - Isaiah 61:3 (NIV)

He covers us in His loving kindness and grace, giving us the time and space to feel, to hurt, to cry and to once again let go and surrender everything to Him time and time again.

And the beauty here is that nothing sown has gone to waste. Every seed sown in tears will be reaped in joy… and our roots grow deep.

"They who sow in tears shall reap with joyful singing."      - Psalm 126:5 (AMP)

It’s all for Him, for His kingdom.

Trust Him today

He will breathe on the life of things to come, promises you are holding onto, dreams not yet here, restoration you long for…

Trust in Him.

Yield your heart toward Him.

He is with you and will guide you.

He will breathe life into your soul once more (Stole that from my hubby’s song LIVING WATER) over your dreams, into your deep wounds.

He will breathe…

He will unmake you in all the BEST ways and you will see who you really are as an image bearing child of the King whose roots are deep, trusting in Him.

Can I encourage you as I encourage myself to first lay it all down, give all your fears, anxieties and troubles over to God? Spend some time in worship at the foot of the cross, surrendering your heart and life to this Wild Faith, this deep trust. Press into His Word because it is a lamp unto your feet (Psalm 119:105). Step out into uncharted waters because He is with you…

He calls us to trust Him with ALL of our hearts.

Surrender your heart today beautiful one…and your roots will grow deep.

Allow the words of this song by Nicole Nordeman minister to you, or better yet, download it HERE and sit at the foot of the cross and allow the words to minister to you and help you release it all to Him today.

 Big love,

xx

If you enjoyed this post you may enjoy reading

WIDE AWAKE: The story of a soul waking up

If you'd like to grow in your Wild Faith journey, be sure to sign up to my website to gain a beautiful devotional, Wild Faith: Part One. CLICK HERE for more information

THE UNMAKING

This is demolition day

All the debris and all this dust

What is left of what once was

Sorting through what goes and what should stay

Every stone I laid for you

As if you had asked me to

Monument to holy things

Empty talk and circling

Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?

What happens now?

When all I’ve made is torn down

What happens next?

When all of you is all that’s left

This is the unmaking

Beauty and the breaking

Had to lose myself to find out who you are

Before each beginning

There must be an ending

Sitting in the rubble

I can see the stars

This is the unmaking

This is the unmaking

The longer and the tighter that we move

Only makes it harder to let go

Love will not stay locked inside

A steeple or a tower high

Only when we’re broken are we whole

What happens now?

When all I’ve made is torn down

What happens next?

When all of you is all that’s left

This is the unmaking

Beauty and the breaking

Had to lose myself to find out who you are

Before each beginning

There must be an ending

Sitting in the rubble

I can see the stars

This is the unmaking

This is the unmaking

I’ll gather the same stones where

Everything came crashing down

I’ll build you an altar there

On the same ground

Because what stood before

Was never yours

This is the unmaking

Beauty and the breaking

Had to lose myself to find out who you are

Before each beginning

There must be an ending

Sitting in the rubble

I can see the stars

This is the unmaking

This is the unmaking

Oh this is the unmaking

Had to lose myself

To find out who you are

I can barely breathe…

I swallow hard and perse my dust-encased lips closed.

I try to set my face like stone… unreadable…

My heart is heavy…

I don’t know if I can face the journey again…

My body felt weary before I even took the first step on the desiccated, dusty road to the temple in Shiloh… to worship You.

I am well. My soul is not.

It is fatigued by the inner fight. My heart is divided in this moment. I feel let down, disappointed and unable to trust that You are truly good…

I feel like a waste of space…

Unworthy…

Unloved…

Every year it’s the same…

Pennaniah mocks me and gloats over my bareness…

Bitterness then breeds all kinds of ugliness within my heart and soul toward her and toward You. It seeps in like a poison trying to kill any life or live that is left within me. I am desolate, desperate and in deep despair God.

I see their faces looking sympathetically as I saunter past. Some mock and jeer, others are filled with heartfelt empathy. I can almost hear them whisper the shame I bring upon him, Elkanah, my husband and my love.

How my heart aches for him. He loves me, I know… but I can’t help cloaking myself in the shame I know I bring on him…

My bareness…

I’m empty…

Childless…

A humiliation to my husband…

Not worthy of one portion of food let alone the double portion he places in front of me…

I cannot bear to eat a single morsel.

Why me Lord?

Have I done something wrong?

Have I not remained faithful?

Every year I set my heart on You, believing that You can and will open my womb…

Why hasn’t it happened yet?

Do You even hear me, God?

Are You not the same God who parted the Red Sea and brought down the walls of Jericho?

Aren’t You the God who has remained faithful to His people despite our constant disobedience and poor choices?

You are Him right?

I can trust You and put my hope in the one true God, can’t I?

The One who made a convent promise with Abraham that all people on earth will be blessed through him?

I am one of his children.

Is not Your covenant promise for me too?

Can You open my womb and allow me to be the bearer of life, to be called a blessed woman?

I can’t bear this garment of shame any longer.

So I run…

I run so hard, so fast…

Dust encircles me and invades my lungs and I do not care.

My tears almost blind me and I stumble forward as I arrive at the temple.

Breathless.

Panting.

Desperate.

My body trembles with exhaustion. I simply fall on my knees and weep.

All these years have taken their toll… and I am in the deepest anguish of heart…

So I am here, bursting open the floodgates of my anguished heart and pouring out the deepest parts of my aching soul before You.

Lord, my Sovereign King, it is in this moment that I choose to yield my heart and life to Your great plans.

I choose to fix my mind, my heart and my life on Your governing Lordship alone.

I choose to trust confidently that He who promised is faithful.

I will year after year come and celebrate Your blessings and Your faithfulness in my life.

I boldly ask for a son and believe that You can and will open my purposeless womb to the promise of fruitfulness.

You, God, are great and worthy of all praise.

My heart rejoices in God my savior.

There is no one who gives good gifts and loves humankind out of the purity of holiness like You do.

You breathe life into being.

I will trust You and I will thank You.

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