sacred spaces

I'm continually surprised by everyday practices and places becoming s-a-c-r-e-d in this season.

Visitors coming, sacred.

Prayer time in chapel, laden to our knees, sacred.

Worship, sacred.

Weekly prayer meeting, gathering together, sacred.

Some of it has become sacred--like gathering together for Bible study, like visitors coming--because it being possible has become SO rare. 

Studying the Bible together ALWAYS should have been sacred, always should have been such a gift.  In some seasons, it has actually felt like something I don't have time for, or like an awful lot of work to drag small children to.  Lately, it has been such a precious gift.  We are HUNGRY. 

Sometimes, we have the fuel and the peace to gather together and encourage one another in His Word.  sacred.

Visitors always should have been a gift. Coming to Haiti has NEVER been an easy or small thing. Others, stepping out on faith to work alongside us, to love on our students or family or community...should always be sacred to me. But after so many cancelling for so long, having this family here now, leaving behind small children and spouses and jobs and comforts, battling darkness and insecurity with light and peace, I am overwhelmed by the gift of their presence, overwhelmed by how sacred it is to be a PART of the faith people are stepping out on.  

Chapel, three times a week for 12 years, should always be sacred. Worshipping the Lord in three languages, with hundreds of brothers and sisters over the years, praising, praying, pleading, glorifying, growing, worshipping in community...should always have been a precious gift. But again, often it has felt like something I didn't have time for.  In this season, it has felt like oxygen.

Standing in the back, praying over student by student for their protection, for their families, for their faith...what a GIFT.  Swaying with the crowd, singing Truth, hearing truth, praying truth, TOGETHER, what a gift MANY long for in many places.  What a sacred time it has become.  

What a heavy season. How thin the circumstances have stretched us.

What a mighty God. What growth is possible in the thin. 

That alone is sacred.

Grateful for precious, sacred moments just today...studying His powerful Word with my English 3 students this morning, other mamas loving on my children, worship with brothers and sisters of both my countries and cultures and languages, baking cookies with new friends and catching up on life 'outside', great Bible study with OMS co-workers, dinner with my precious family, an evening with friends and popcorn and Zorro, something needed that feels awfully 'normal'.  

I am so thankful for sacred places--places where His presence is so close--in the middle of a time you might think He'd seem far away.  

He simply never is.  

Here's an awesome testimony Enoch shared in my office yesterday...Thank you for your continued prayers. Keep keep on.  The battle rages.

Sunday evening, EU's Associate Dean of Enrollment, Enoch, was standing in front of his home, not a drop of fuel in his truck, wondering what he was going to do. 

After weeks of searching and coming up empty, he couldn't figure out how he was going to get to church that night for Bible study, or how to go to work the next day. 

He prayed a rather frustrated prayer. "Lord, I have been trying and searching like everyone else, and I can't find one single gallon. I don't know what you want me to do!"

As he was praying, a car pulled up in front of him, and the owner of the town lottery business rolled down his window and asked Enoch what he was doing. 

"Jump in!" the man said, drove him a few miles to one of his businesses, filled up a five gallon container with fuel, and sent Enoch home again, free of charge.

Enoch put the five gallons in his truck and went to Bible study. The next morning, he woke up early to come to Emmaus with the fuel the Lord had provided, and his phone rang.

"Hey," a friend he hadn't spoken to in a while said. "Do you want this fuel or not? I've been saving 15 gallons for you, market price. (Fuel NOT being sold on the black market at exorbitant prices is impossible to find.) Just come get it!"

Yesterday, Enoch pulled into Emmaus for work with a tank full of gas, and some at home to spare, grinning his signature smile.

For the Lord knows, and sees, and listens, and cares, and also supplies, what we need and sometimes more. For the Lord uses whomever He will, whenever He will, however He will. For the Lord's hand is not short nor His timing off.

For the Lord is faithful. 

We testify today, and hold firm.