Hope Without Limits

 Now let Us conceive a new creation—humanity—
made in Our image,
fashioned according to Our likeness…
So God did just that.
He created humanity in His image,
created them male and female.
Gen 1:26-27

Have I thrown you off here?  That’s OK.  It’s taken me a couple of weeks to catch on myself.

You’ve probably guessed that I love to journal (a stretch I know).  But here’s the kicker … the entire time we were away on our “bucket list trip” I never wrote a word; never opened my journal till the very last day and the only scripture I “read” was what was already written on my heart as it breathed itself into my spirit.  In the background there was this “performer” part of me that tried to raise it’s head from times gone by that “God would be mad at me for acting this way”.  But whenever I started to hear that … it would get drowned out by:

Getting to know you,
Getting to know all about you.
Getting to like you,
Getting to hope you like me.

Getting to know you,
Putting it my way,
But nicely,
You are precisely,
My cup of tea

Getting to know you,
Getting to feel free and easy
When I am with you,
Getting to know what to say

Haven’t you noticed
Suddenly I’m bright and breezy?
Because of all the beautiful and new
Things I’m learning about you
Day by day.
From: The King and I

OK, I am literally laughing out loud here!  I’ve been hearing this song over and over and over as I wake, walk, drive, and look.  It wasn’t until just now that I looked up the reference and found out it is from “The King and I”.  That’s exactly what this trip has been for me.  The King and I “getting to know each other” on an even more intimate level.  Just hanging out with one another.  Looking at the amazing things that He has created and letting them speak to me of who He is; what He likes and how He feels about me.  Being amazed at how well He knows what I like and having it there just for me … the way Mom always knew what to make for my favorite meal; the way she mouthed every word to every song I ever performed.

Like – ice flowers.  I’ve discovered they only bloom at the maximum 2 weeks a year.  Sometimes not even 2 weeks.  Of course, they are purplish-pink – my favorite color – and, of course, they were in bloom when we arrived and almost gone by the time we left.  Before we left I only read about them being in one particular place, Lover’s Point in Pacific Grove – but they were literally everywhere we went the first few days.  As in the very first morning when I walked out onto the beach at Half Moon Bay:

And later that same day, it was like I had stepped into the movie “What Dreams May Come” (one of my favorites).  We had turned off onto a small side road to go see Pigeon Point Lighthouse.  There were dunes right up to the roads.  My sweet hubby suggested we stop and see what might me on the other side of the dunes.  So I get out of the car, climb up the dune and voila …

But my Heavenly Father, with His great big “mother’s heart” wasn’t through nurturing me yet.  Look what He had waiting for me in Santa Cruz …

and then at Lover’s Point:

More than anything I could read in the bible or anywhere else, what became ingrained in me over and over as I looked  is how intimately my Heavenly Father knows “my favorites”; knows what makes me giggle like a little girl; knows how to make me feel renewed and refreshed .  As all that transpired, it also became very clear – that I must be alot like my Heavenly Father.  I mean He must like ice flowers too to make so many of them and make them purple!!

So on this Mother’s Day – my prayer for each of you is fresh revelation of Your Heavenly Father’s nurturing mother’s heart for you.  And yes ladies … that nurturing heart inside of you that just wants to find ways to let the people around you know how much they mean to you … just means your heart is created in the image of the Mother Heart of God.