I arise on the wings of the morning to sing to you, my King. I arise to sit in your presence and know the Love that I have longed for all the days of my life. I arise today, your daughter. My identity is in you. I have seen You. I see you in the stillness. I see you in the glitter of the water on the lake. I hear you as the rustle through the leaves. As the sun dapples the forest on the path ahead, I know that you are so present. I feel you as I dive into the deliciously cold water of the lake and say who is my Father that he would make this for me? I know you as I walk with a new friend and testify to your utter goodness in my life. As I tell her of the ways that my heart has left you time and time again in search of another lover, and you have come after me again and again, never leaving, never forsaking me. I know you as I come back from an hour spent with you and immediately a girl I have been hoping to talk to asks me to walk so that we can talk about life and sadness and pressure and following you. Yes, God. Your presence is what I long for. Yes, Lord, my life is all for you. I smile at your humor, your delight, as I walk with the 3 men from the church, hearing about their testimonies and having them ask about mine. I smile as I think of the barriers-cultural, linguistic, all of them that you overcome as you go before me and behind me and by my side. The only response that makes sense is to praise You, Lord. Why would do anything else? I am seeing freedom that comes when it is all about you and not about me at all. Secretly, my human desire always wants it to be about me. I want to be the one who helped. To be the one who was used. To be the one that is significant. What chains I bind myself in when I live for my significance and my glory-pursuing the kingdom of me instead of the kingdom of God. Oh, how sinful my nature is. I know that it is true that there is nothing good in me. That apart from you I can do nothing except chain myself and fall down before idols that steal and kill and destroy. Oh wretched one that I am. Thanks be to God that he delivers me from this bondage. For the law of the spirit of life has SET ME FREE from the law of sin and death. The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace because the mind on the flesh is hostile toward God. When my mind is set on me, it is hostile to God. However, I am not in the flesh but in the spirit. Not because I chose this path, but because the spirit of God dwells in me. Christ is in me. My body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. He who raised Christ gives LIFE, true, real, deep, poignant, spiritual life to my mortal body that was so far beyond hope. The greatest miracle I have ever witnessed-Christ's spirit in me.

The more that I do mission work or pursue kids for the Lord or share the gospel, the more in love with Him I fall, as I see his utter, deep, abiding goodness. I see that He truly, truly saved me against all odds. And I just love Him. I think again of his last interaction with Peter, one of my favorite things recorded about Christ. How Peter betrayed him and probably thought that it was the last time that he would see Jesus, that in the end, after years of their closeness and bond, Peter chose himself over Christ in the most crucial moment. I can't imagine how crushed he was. Then to see him again. I imagine that maybe Peter wasn't sure how it would be..how Christ would act. And you read into the intimacy as Jesus looks at him and asks "do you love me?" redeeming peter, not casting him off. Not reminding me of his lack of love or faithfulness to Christ. Laying it aside. Showing him that he died for Peters sin, just as he died for my sin 2000 years later. And not only that but sets him on mission, "Then feed my sheep, peter." I wonder if Peter was shocked that he would be counted worthy to serve Christ. I wonder why I am not more often shocked that I have been.

Lord Jesus, I love you. Take more from me that I may be more yours. Set my heart upon your love, so that nothing else compares. If you are for me, who can be against me? Because you intercede from me, nothing will ever separate me from your love. Thank you.