Staring at the screen.  Wondering if I can even write like this.  Typing out into space where my words go where?  Can I do this with out my friends paper and pen?  Is it something I can learn?  It takes me a long time to write those few sentences on Facebook...to put them down in a way that is safe for others to read.  Safe for me.  I hear this Jesus whispering now to my heart.  Releasing the gift.  Daring me to step into it, and sending encourgement that I never expected to have, ever in my life.  Coming all at once.  "You should..." "You really, really should..." "Have you ever considered..."  "I love the way you..."   God breathes on the gift, and I am left feeling breathless.  Heart pounding.  Pores open to sweat.  Does the Lord want to use the secret sacred?  The place where I am simply ME with Him?  The way I think?  The way I dream and breathe life?  The way my heart works down into the deep?  Alone with Him?  And now, He asks me to dig up this one little talent.  My only talent.  The one I gave to Him several years ago with tears.  Lots and lots of those!  Here is the great I AM handing it back to me.  Smiling.  Delighted.  Oh, God, it makes me cry.  His goodness is so full that I can not comprehend it.  Why He would desire to use my broken life seems irresponsible and even dangerous.  I know who I am.  I know the roads I have walked.  I am every lost person.  I am the lonely and brokenhearted.  I am the hurting one who has learned to find comfort and healing in the risen Christ. But am I safe?  Can I throw a line to the drowning with out dying myself?  No. No. To live I must die, and I finally get it.  Dying is worship, and worship is life.  I have a chance here to live, and I've decided to take it. Indeed, why wouldn't I?  How could I not?  Did He not die for us so that we might live?
That I might?

Bernadette