if i could just...

A Whispered "Where?"

Yesterday morning in that stage right between sleep and awake, as the cloudy weather was coaxing me to sleep more but the ungraded papers were urging me to start the day, I heard a man's voice in my ear that whispered "Where?" I know must think 1) I'm crazy or 2) It was a dream. I'm tempted to think those same things... and that might well be. But there was something distinct about this voice about this feeling that made it unique somehow.

My first reaction was surprise, that moved into frustration. I cried, "That's what I need to know! Where should I be next year? Where can I be of use?" For I long to be of use, like Marge Piercy's poem: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-be-of-use/

But thinking it over again, I said... "where, where, where" to myself in my mind yesterday during my day of fasting and prayer. And the answer came suddenly into my mind- near. I heard the verse from Romans 10:8 from our Monday Bible Study in my soul- "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart." Perhaps it is not so important where I am next year, but to remember that as in Deuteronomy 30 and Romans 10 and countless times throughout the Bible... what is important is that wherever we are, God is near us. Where? Near.

The Blessings of Being Near: Healing, Compassion & Understanding

Healing

1 Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite. 2 "Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?" they asked. "Hasn't he also spoken through us?" And the LORD heard this.
3 (Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.)

4 At once the LORD said to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, "Come out to the Tent of Meeting, all three of you." So the three of them came out. 5 Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the Tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When both of them stepped forward, 6 he said, "Listen to my words:
"When a prophet of the LORD is among you,
I reveal myself to him in visions,
I speak to him in dreams.

7 But this is not true of my servant Moses;
he is faithful in all my house.

8 With him I speak face to face,
clearly and not in riddles;
he sees the form of the LORD.
Why then were you not afraid
to speak against my servant Moses?"
9 The anger of the LORD burned against them, and he left them.

10 When the cloud lifted from above the Tent, there stood Miriam—leprous, [a] like snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had leprosy; 11 and he said to Moses, "Please, my lord, do not hold against us the sin we have so foolishly committed. 12 Do not let her be like a stillborn infant coming from its mother's womb with its flesh half eaten away."

13 So Moses cried out to the LORD, "O God, please heal her!"

14 The LORD replied to Moses, "If her father had spit in her face, would she not have been in disgrace for seven days? Confine her outside the camp for seven days; after that she can be brought back." 15 So Miriam was confined outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on till she was brought back.

16 After that, the people left Hazeroth and encamped in the Desert of Paran.
- Numbers 12:1-8

I often forget this passage about Miriam who spoke against Moses. When Moses asked, God healed Miriam. He had the power not only to heal... but to forgive and to heal. He had to first forgive what she had done against Moses and than outwardly heal her.


Compassion

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28because she thought, "If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed." 29Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

30At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?"

31"You see the people crowding against you," his disciples answered, "and yet you can ask, 'Who touched me?' "

32But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."- Mark 5:24-34

Similarly the woman who touched Jesus' cloak understood His great power and knew that "if she could just" touch his cloak, she would be healed. But she was given an even greater gift... his compassion and his kind words: Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering. If I could just touch His word this morning, I know He will fill be with His spirit.


Understanding

you looked into my life
and never stopped
and you're thinking all my thoughts
are so simple but so beautiful
and you recite my words right back to me
before i even speak
you let me know, i am understood -lyrics to "Am I Understood?" by Reliant K

This morning on my run, I heard this song by Reliant K, and it hit me. So maybe my "where" wasn't God reciting my words back to me, but I like to think of it that way. Even if it wasn't, it brings me comfort to remember that I have a God who loves me so much. He understands my simple thoughts before I speak or type them. And the God who loves me and understands me will use His power to forgive, to heal, to guide me.