A Blessing

I wrote the following words to be spoken over my friends at church. I wish I could speak them over you, a collection of blessings from our heavenly Father to you.

I am with you
I am with you, my children.
I am here in love and power, in grace and fire.
I am here in great tenderness.

This is just the beginning
Some of you have fresh breath in your hearts.
Some of you did six months ago.
Some of you still feel on the edges
wondering if the wind blowing through the room is somehow missing you.
Wherever you are and whatever your experience has been
I am here for you.
I have been here for you and I will continue to be here.
All that has already happened is just the beginning.
I don’t run out
and neither does your capacity for growth and joy.

Tell my stories
What you have seen and heard and received from me
was not given to you alone.
Tell the stories of my work,
the stories of love and grace and healing.
Words carry life and build kingdoms.
Words grow faith and create realities.
Share the wonder.
Be generous with others as I have been with you.

My Spirit is a river
I am pouring out water
transforming the desert with a river.
Gather on my shores,
be carried away in my waves,
feed your roots deeply from my love.
You will not always experience me the same way,
but I am water and I am life.
Return to me.
Come again and again
to drink, to wash, to be swept away,
to be refreshed by the shade of the trees on my shores.

You don’t receive because you don’t ask
What is it you want?
What is it you can’t quite believe you might be allowed to have?
What is too big, or too small
that you think I am unable or indifferent to give you?
Ask me for it!
Ask me to fulfill the hidden longings of your heart.
Ask me to bless your home, to heal the wounds in your family.
Ask for renewal for city and the restoring of this broken planet.
When you ask for life and healing you are joining me in the work I am doing in the world.
All that is goodness and freedom and love I am.
Ask me.

I see your faithfulness
Wherever it is that you feel hidden and unappreciated
serving without reward or acknowledgment
I see you there.
I see you making the phone calls, sweeping the floor, comforting the toddler, readjusting the schedule.
I hear your prayers, I see your tears and your effort.
You are my child, and you will be rewarded.

Continue in my love.
Be with me.
Let me love you
in all that you are and in all that you aren’t.
Go back to the time when you knew most deeply that I loved you.
Be still.
Remember.
Remember when I called you,
when I sang my song to you,
when you would gladly have given anything in the world to know me more.
That love is still yours.
Search for it,
Rest in it.
You have always been mine,
and you have always belonged.
What I most want is for you to always know that.

Self-giving love is the way of life
I am a God who gives freely,
a God who needs nothing from you to make me happy.
I created you, not so you could love me,
but so I could love you.
Continue in my love.
And it is there with me that you will enter into my way of being in the world,
the way of love, of sacrifice,
the cruciform way.
And it will not be a burden to you
for you will find that it is the way of life.