Do you ever feel like you are wondering and waiting? Wondering why the path you thought you were so sure of isn’t happening?  Questioning what you know He has put on your heart to do with the rest of your life?  Questioning your own abilities?  Unsure of the direction, unsure of the path, unsure of the plan? Unsure of the Why?  I get fearfully at times in the quiet and waiting.  I wonder is this a roadblock, a stop sign, or just a hold on a minute or NO.  I am the person who has to understand, I’m person who has to have clarity and a sense of security so I tend to question.  I question myself to determine where I’m at emotionally, physically, spiritually.   I question myself as to what I’m doing and the why behind it all.  The answers are not always available and that causes uncertainty and fear.

An Oasis is a place in the desert where the area around it is full of life and where you can find water.  It can be a place of refuge, relief,  growth, strengthening and change.  Growth, strengthening and change especially when it alters the soul is often times painful and beautiful at the same time.   As I’ve walked through my own personal desert I feel like He has allowed me to come to my Oasis; a place of rest and restoration, growth and change. I know that He has allowed me to become the person that I was always meant to be. The person who sees people and life through a different lens, the person who will forever walk the path that leads to Him no matter where that journey might lead me. He knows my heart, He knows my soul and He knows how much I believe in Him and Love Him.  He also knows my tendency to question, to reflect, to be a doer and how hard it is for me to wait when it’s my passion and my dreams to help others along their own path to healing and to the Father.  I am grateful that He forgives me when I am frustrated with the waiting and say OK… Father aren’t we ready yet? When are we going to move?

1 Samuel 16:7  “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”

As look at my walk through my own personal desert I know that I pulled and pushed a suitcase overflowing with things, some I packed in that suitcase myself and some was packed by others. It was a life time of words spoken into my life, it was their labels, their pasts, their rocks, their beliefs, their anger. These things overflowed from my suitcase and grew into shackles on my feet and hands, they became the cinder blocks I carried on my shoulders, and they became the brick walls where I was able to hid a little girl, a young woman and a mother.

So, as I have wandered the desert lost and unsure.  Today I can say with a grateful heart that God it was time to break down the brick walls so that His light can get in. He said; it is time to break down the iron gate around your heart, so that you can feel LOVE.   He said; we have to burn out all the diseased parts of your broken heart, so that you can have a new heart full of me. He said; it is time to throw off the cinder block on your shoulders so you can walk up right again.   Finally, He said; it is time to cut off the shackles that bind you to a past that wasn’t meant for you and can no longer contain you. He said; I have carried you through the desert, I held you in the fire, I have given you my sword, I have protected you each step of the way so that you can become a completely new person in me for my glory.  It is time to enter into the Oasis I’ve created for you.

Most of you have been on this journey with me and know the amount of work that it has taken to be committed to living a different life, to be committed to walking on His path, to be committed to the healing of my mind, my body and my soul, to be committed to hearing His voice and feeling His presence; to desperately seek Him and feel Him every day until the day He says come home.  I am grateful that I cannot imagine a day without Him in my life.

If you are like me the time in the Oasis is peaceful but difficult. The quiet eats at me sometimes, it brushes against me like a thorny branch that wants to scratch and tear at my mind, my soul. There are times when It leaves me feeling like an outsider to an inside world; like I’m seeing my world through a rainy veil, there but shadowy and out of focus.

I know that you and I can be assured from His word that the time in the Oasis is a time where my Father is saying to hold on, it is a time to conserve your strength, it is a time to learn how to press in with desperation, it is a time to quiet the mind and know stillness in Him, it is a time to listen, it is a time that is building your faith, it is a time to lean into me and to know me.  It is a time to know the sound of my voice, to know the sound of my heartbeat, to know the language only you can understand.  It is a time to LET GO and become the vessel I need you to be, To LET GO of what you have known me to be, to LET GO of who you THINK I am or who you THINK I should be.  It is a time to LET Go of your expectations and your attachments.  It is a time to Just Breathe… breathe in my word, breathe in my presence, breathe in my GRACE, Breathe in my JOY, day by day, moment by moment.

Ecclesiastes 3:1  To everything there is a season, and a purpose under heaven. 

So Father, today as I became aware of my oasis. I’m grateful for every second of waiting and quiet, I am grateful for every second of the learning and pressing in, I’m grateful for the knowledge that you have chosen this life I’ve had to fulfill your purpose. I’m grateful that you have given me the life I’ve wanted; to be surrounded by your love, to do your work and to help others along their path to healing. I am grateful that you gave me your sword, I’m grateful that you held me during the fire and carried me through the desert to lead me to my Oasis. I’m grateful that I have experienced the miracle of Faith and Love.

Hebrews 1:1  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. 

If you are in the desert or in the oasis, I promise that our Father is with you, holding you, carrying you, and preparing you for His purpose. He is strengthening you so that you can yield His Sword, so that you will have the strength to throw your suitcase and chains into the fire, to lay yourself completely down at His alter.  He is changing you so that you can hear His voice and feel His presence. He is giving you a new soul and a new life in HIM!!!

Psalm 46:10  Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the heathens; I will be exalted in the earth.