I’m meeting him each morning now. If you want to know the truth, it’s a bit of a secret I don’t even want to divulge to my closest friends or husband even. I’m not embarrassed, just tentative. Hopeful. Quiet.
My alarm rings in the dark beside my bed.
“Are you getting up early again?” my husband mumbles as he turns over toward me. His arm is warm from beneath the comforter and flops toward me.
“Yes.” I whisper and slip sleepy legs to the floor.
Still in my pajamas I make coffee with habitual hands. The coffee has become a necessary routine each darkened morning, but the meeting him has not. Yet. Sometimes I still fight it.
{I still enter nervously; a long break away from anything or anyone makes for some awkwardness}.
I put away a few dishes as my family still rests and the coffee drips. The children are upstairs in soft beds and I imagine the smell of it rising gradually to make the home a lived-in place.
I fill my cup, decorate it with almond milk and I sit down in my new “office.” It is one corner of my dining room table that I’ve repurposed during the waking hours for me. It is still piled with papers and folders but it becomes my sacred space this morning.
I’m only four or so weeks in to this morning-meeting and it’s morning-graces, and it is slowly becoming integral to my survival.
I find the next chapter. Today it is Psalm 5.
In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; In the morning, I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly…by your great love I can come into your house; in reverence I bow down toward your holy temple. (v3, 7 NIV)
And I take a breath.
This is my holy temple. This is reverence. And I hope.
My heart is quiet, beating deeply with gratitude that he even meets an awkward, nervous girl who may have forgotten what it means to love him with all of me.
How do you reconnect with God after you’ve been away?
by Sarah Markley, holding coffee in nervous, hopeful hands today.
So simple and beautiful. This is where we find freedom, I think. The fact that we can fellowship in a secret place, it blows my mind.
I love you, sister.
i love you too girl. thank you for being a part of my life. =)
wonderful…for me…He had to win me from acts of duty to acts of love…the more I fall in Love with Him the more I desire intimacy with Him… intimacy blossoms out of relationship…not fulfilling a duty…much like our earthly love. blessings as you meet daily with the Love of your soul~
i love that! intimacy blossoms out of relationship. such wise words. thank you!
You know, every morning I wake up on the wrong side of fear. It’s like you said, the awkwardness of remembering what grace is afresh.
That His love for me is stronger than all the weight of all my half-heartedness.
But oh, it takes intentional remembering, doesn’t it?
And surrendering. To Love.
You have painted great beauty here.
thank you kelli! i love how you described it as waking up on the wrong side of fear. and yes, grace is new for today and only today, i am finding. we need to trust to get to tomorrow. thank you so much for joining us today. =)
I love how kelliwoodford put it “That His love for me is stronger than all the weight of all my half-heartedness”.
I am learning to overcome the awkwardness myself.
Beautiful post
thank you teresa!! =)
Sarah,
Beginning this week, I have also felt a prompting in my spirit to seek Him more earnestly by waking up early to read, pray & listen. I have obeyed, and I am so thankful. It makes me wonder why I waited so long to restart this special meeting time with God.
I am right there with you on this..
i wonder the same thing (for me) myself. thank you so much for your comment!
Love this, hubs and I have been doing 4:30am together w/Him bout a year now and can honestly say after the obedience of it we look at it now as precious time. Even on our recent vacation we were up and at em at the same time. I feel so blessed to get to do it w/him and learn so much about him, after 35 years that is saying something! What we are learning about Him is amazing, the softness His grace brings to us makes me question how anyone who calls them self a Christian and doesn’t do it……just shows how very far I have to go and keeps me swimming in His grace for me. I believe it’s true we cannot give away what we don’t have and I simply want to give away a journey, knowing He takes each of us where He wants us to go. I love the comment about intimacy, so looking forward to reading more here and at deeper story.
that is some amazing commitment Becky! so amazing. i love your words of wisdom here. thank you for sharing!
Beyond commitment His Spirit has to be guiding us…..His call and company is more what it is:)
Sarah, this touches a deep place for me. I’ve felt the call of that Lover of my soul to stop avoiding our regular meetings. He is gentle and patient, but I make excuses out of all the years I spent time with him absently, out of a sense of duty and fear. I’ve been tentatively spending more of my quick-captured quiet moments with him. It’s good.
i have done (and still do) that too. duty/fear has a way of worming itself into my heart and breaking me.
love you ash. =)
Wow. This is so simple, so beautiful… so full of wonder.
“My heart is quiet, beating deeply with gratitude that he even meets an awkward, nervous girl who may have forgotten what it means to love him with all of me.”
I’ve felt like I’ve been away for the past couple of years. Only recently, when I started reading a year Bible-reading plan have I seemed closer than I have in a while. Yet, I still don’t feel the passion, the love that I’ve had just two years ago seems so distant. It almost seems as though I’m reacquainting myself with Him – yet not able to surrender to Him… although I know I’m willing to go wherever He leads us… emotionally, I can’t quite give it all yet. Oh, how I want to, though
how I love for that quiet place…
I’ve never been a morning person. I love sleeping. I love laying in bed, snuggling with my husband as we slowly awake to get ready for work. Something I’ve been doing is reading while still in bed… it helps wake me up, and sets my mind on what the day should be focused on – although, it seems I tend to forget as soon as I’m done. Sigh. It’s so frustrating. Desiring to go deeper… to have that peace… yet stuck in a rut!
How are you able to get up early? Are you naturally a morning person, or did you have to work on it?
the first week or so was really difficult, but now it is much easier and I look forward to the time alone. I really do.
i think that when it comes to jesus and time, everyone’s life looks different. what works for you is what works for you! but it took me doing something different than what I was doing to see things from a different perspective. =)
thank you so much for your comment!
you drink almond milk, too
My time with God is what I long for because I have tasted the goodness of His unconditional love, and my soul dries up when I don’t let Him fill me up…praying you will find anew how much He delights in you, Sarah…keep showing up…so proud of you…blessings
thank you Dolly!
I’m so honored that God takes my tentativeness, my half-heartedness and blesses even that. I’ve been skittish with him but His acceptance of me is healing me. Thank you Lord, for taking us as we are. Thank you for meeting us where we are.
echoing your thankfulness…
Oh my. Timely for me today. I had a date with Him this morning, too. Instead, I rolled over angry and self-pitying. Then drove to work parched, whispering, “I believe, help my unbelief.”
Thanks for this, Sarah.
one of my favorite requests in scripture. =)
Yes, it’s stunning. A dear someone just brought it to the forefront of my mind recently. I’m grateful.
Thanks, Sarah…know that there are others of the early morning kitchen table persuasion, a fellow-cloud of witnesses sitting and waiting and hoping and yawning and looking sorta nervous, but that’s okay.
i’m so glad. thank you for this, john. i can picture it perfectly (all of us yawning with our coffee in the dark). thank you for painting it.
Simple and beautiful yet takes such a fight against resistance to get to those sacred places. So overjoyed when we arrive walking away emptied out and filled again. I have recently discovered our secret place again with the one whom so lavishly bathes me.
Love you Sarah…
Thank you for sharing where you are at with this right now. I feel God drawing me back into doing this too, I haven’t for years as my young child always seems to wake up before me, no matter how early I set an alarm and she is busy-busy from the word go. Hard to find a period of peace and quiet to start my day. But I’m feeling the need to try, to spend some time drawing closer to God.
Thank you Sarah.
Love this tender telling, Sarah. Breathed hope into this heart today.
Sarah thank you for this–I miss mornings by myself. My Caprice is 7 weeks on Sunday and before she came, I would wake early while the older two lay asleep and so did husband. I simply needed alone time like this. Now with a nursling…well, this Psalm makes me misty eyed. How I want to curl up with Him, because I desperately need it. Thank you for this picture of yours.
Love this, Sarah. The early mornings are a sacred place for me too but for some reason I fight it. It’s always encouraging to hear others walking the same path.
Thank you for your post, Sarah. I love my time alone with God. The stillness, the warmth and peace. Just knowing that He is mindful of man, awes me. The nuggets of truth my spirit receives during this precious time is worth every wink missed. Blessings ~Debra