I was wrestling with a seemingly impossible barrier in my heart as I tried to sleep one night when somewhere between sleep and wake I saw the words I AM. My mind’s eye followed the image and watched the letters burn off in flame, yet remain.

Within moments and breaths, and without fully knowing how or when, the barrier had fallen. Within the name, I AM, I finally understood the answer to a question I had long ached over.

When Moses with fear and trembling asked the God who revealed Himself to him in a flaming (but unburned) bush what His name was, this was the answer: I AM WHO I AM. Many sages from ancient to present have expounded on this in a way I cannot, but that night I understood something that had eluded me and I’d like to share it.
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I AM is the present One and we are invited to live present with Him.

He Who “makes all things new”, allows us to make things new with him by being present too.

He is present: near and now.

His Presence burns yet still leaves what is true.

He gives light to our path and fire in our hearts to recognize His ways.

We too can enter this fire, His Holy Presence.

There we can let go of the past — the pain and joy of it alike. It will always be a part of us but it’s not who we, or others in our life, ARE.

How? Do you have to have a vision of burning letters? NO! God sees these hearts of ours. We turn them toward Him, the light, and in revealing, there is healing.

Like my little guy who is currently counting down the days to his birthday in April, designing his cake and thinking of all the birthday gifts he’ll open…we can relax about the future — our fears and hopes. It is beyond us, but “I AM”, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is His name forever. The future is secure.
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He makes all things new.

When we find our identity most fully in I AM, who we are in His eyes, we will find many things “new” simply because we could not *see* them before when we were not yet free from looking at them through eyes of the past.

With gratefulness for all the paths that brought us here, we can live present. This is the way to living with a well of joy.

He “makes all things new” not just by some mysterious magic but by showing us the way of Mercy: the way of potential. We can find that clean slate we ache for, it’s real.

This is the stuff of earth touched with the stuff of heaven. God with us.

Often, I have not only wanted reprieve from pain but a return to happiness, happiness that came easy and full. I would search the face of what I used to know as only happiness to me and I couldn’t find it there anymore, it was “past”. I felt devastation and failure in my bones, not joy.

In those moments in His Presence though I realized the best question was not, “How to recover what’s lost?” There’s a better question: “How do we be here now, present, with You?”.

I will not be the one who says this is easy, but I am eager to say the joy is true, that peace and hope are possible — if even through fire or, what seems only at the time to be, loss.

We have so much potential. I want to say this especially to my fellow mommas. Realizing potential, that hope we hold for something new happening in the future, is a matter of seeing Who is present and drawing near to Him. Through His eyes we can see ourselves and the whole-wide-world clearest. We need this. I need this.

And there’s so much to see! The Scripture says this is the mystery revealed: He is in us. He who was, is and will be. We’ve barely begun to understand. I’m so excited to explore the great, deep and wide love of God with you all this year. May it be a year of clean release from our pasts, a year of joy and peace.


As for me, the more I discover the more I realize how little I know, but I want to understand more. I’m hungry and thirsty for it, and if you’ve read this far, I think you are too. I’m planning on continuing to write my way through 2016 here, not everyday or even every week. I’d like to come to you here in small bursts as I have this week, when I have something important to say. I’d be honored if you join me!

I’m praying that the stormiest, longest dark hallways of New Year’s will transform into many awe-filled declarations of JESUS, JOSEPH AND MARY! (if you are not sure what I’m talking about, click the highlighted words : ) )…AND for many green fields under beautiful skies, for all our hungry and thirsty hearts.

Raynna

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imageThis is part three of a series, check out part one here, and part two here.

I’m putting my heart on the page here because these have not always been the obvious things to me but I needed them. I wrote a book to share my experience and come alongside what God is doing in your heart. I’m glad you’re here! Check out my book: Pray, Like a Woman in Labor.