"If you want something that you have never had then you have to do something you have never done."
Tomorrow I leave on a jet plane. Okay, not a jet plane but a bus with a bunch of women who are all going after the same thing that I am also running towards; freedom.
It is time for me to do something that I have never done to receive the one thing in my life I so badly want.
I want my heart back.
A long time ago, little pieces of my heart were broken, taken or hidden. I feel like at times I believed I would never have my whole heart back.
Tomorrow I go on Heart Quest. I have been excited some days and well some days I want to cancel. Then, other days I realize that this is an awesome opportunity and I have to go.
See the reality is with kids, jobs, families, everyday life; we never get to spend enough time with our creator. We need some quiet quaility alone time with our daddy. This time away truly restores us.
In the book "Waking the Dead" (great book by the way) the author John Eldredge says:
"I discovered my spiritual life in the desert....The desert awakened by heart.... No wonder Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist spent their free time in the desert....I came alive in the vast, wild desert."
Heart Quest is an opportunity for me to get away and become me in the "desert". I say desert loosely because I will be in Texas. I am from New Mexico. Texas is not the desert. But go with it people, it's symbolic. :-)
I am ready. I know in my heart that my father in heaven has appointed this time for me. This is a turning point in my life. I have done thirty days of prep work (I called this time heart boot camp) and I just know tomorrow He is asking me for 5 days to close some doors in my life. To open my heart to Him. To forgive. To love. To accept. To become me.
This Heart Quest is going to be a life changing moment; my heart is going to be restored.
However, tonight I felt like I needed to write out a few things. I don't know what is going to happen while I am at heart quest but I know that change has already begun before even going. I began heart boot camp in my living room.
CHANGE HAS ALREADY BEGUN BEFORE EVEN GOING.
He keeps talking to me about that.
See I could have had this amazing heart boot camp living room experience 3 years ago but I kept waiting. I kept waiting for an amazing experience to come along and sweep me off my feet. When reality was all I needed to do was something I had never done before... Just ask Him to come away with me.
He would have come to me and swept me off my feet faster and better than anyone else ever could have. See he swept me off my feet and I have not even left yet. These feelings and emotions I have are so good and He did it while I was at home.
Now please hear me out. I know heart quest is going to be amazing! We all need chances to go to the "desert" and be with God. I am so freaking blessed with this chance!!! But I waited for this chance for me to get away with Him instead of just asking Him to come away with me. To come where I was. To begin boot camp in my own home.
Now this desert experience will be great and I pray everyone gets a chance like this but don't wait for that chance. He will come to you right now, where you are and the way you are. You need not to clean up, take that class or this class, or go to that church, or be in that ministry role....
He wants to sweep you off your feet right now. He wants to not change you because you need to be changed but change you because you want to be changed. Does that make sense?
I waited all this time. I have been praying to go on heart quest for 3 and half years when all this time He was on a quest for my heart and attention the entire time. He has done some pretty amazing things in those three years and they were not wasted but I just know I waited for some areas of my life and heart to be changed by a trip or retreat, and I did not need to.
Meet Him today in the "desert" of your back yard. Or storage closet. Or by the lake.
He wants you. He loves you. I waited to go and be with Him, when all along He was already with me.
Simply ask Lord come away with me......