Friday, March 15, 2019

I Will Pour

My lips are smothered with shea butter and green salve from my nose to my chin.  I woke up in the night with cramping in my feet.  My voice resembles what escapes from speakers when they've been abused by bad technicians.  Our water filter can't keep up, and my body feels it! And I read:

"For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;" -Isaiah 44:3a

After five months of dry season that seems to carry a dryness of the soul on it's dusty, Harmattan winds, the impact of this verse settled into my core, flowing over the cracked places. I parsed the verse, adding one word at a time.
For I (The Father, Mighty One, Deliverer, Peace)
For I will (A promise, and I know I can trust Him)
For I will pour (A picture formed in my mind of a stream of water cascading from heaven)
For I will pour water (Clear, cool, refreshing, satisfying)
For I will pour water on (where will this out pouring land.  It has a direction.)
For I will pour water on the thirsty (that's me! I'm the thirsty! My heart is the landing zone.)
For I will pour water on the thirsty land (and I picture if flowing into every crevice of my being)
For I will pour water on the thirsty land and (There's more!)
For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams(flowing, fresh, rippling stretching into the future)
For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. (Hallelujah!)

Tears flowed down my face as God's Spirit flowed over my heart with hope and promise of tomorrow's brightness and today's rightness.  My sister-in-laws have been here for over two weeks.  They have been working with a group of children from our neighborhood. Today, at 4:30 pm, we will perform two short dramas with 25 children.  One of the dramas is called "All You Need" based on a children's book by Max Lucado.  It is about...WATER! How God's love is free for everyone, and it never runs dry!
One beautiful thing dry season brings in Nigeria...flowering trees! This is my purple carpet.

I continued reading in Isaiah 44:3b.  

"I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants."

Again, that promise of His Spirit, but this time from me to my children.  My children...all of them.  My three girls that I love and hold in my arms daily, the forty girls I'll meet with at 1pm to talk about how God sings over them, the twenty-five children who will be acting in the dramas at 4:30, the ninety children who come to Bible study on Thursdays, the children who will come to watch the play today...every one of them.  I plead with God to transfer this promise to all of my children! His Spirit, his blessing, his water, to flow over their hearts and fill them with life eternal today and forever!

Please join me in praying these words for me and my family that we might step forward with hope into ministry today and into the future.   Pray these words for the children of Nigeria that this land might be filled with knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea!  (Habakkuk 2:14)


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