This is going to sound silly, but Saturday when we were setting up the net for volleyball, someone said something to me--I can't quite remember, possibly cort, the word for tent. And as I stretched out the rope to drive the stake into the ground, I couldn't help myself, and in some incoherent mix of Romanian and English I found myself attempting to exclaim: Isaiah 54! I don't think anyone was actually listening to me anyway, but suddenly this verse came to mind:
"Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes."
I love this chapter, and God has brought me back again and again to it, especially to this verse. A change these last months have brought in me is that I do hold back, a lot. And so I'm praying to understand better, to live it, to not hold back. And am thankful for unexpected ways and places the Spirit is working.
Imagine: stretch your curtains wide, do not hold back. Imagine: strengthening your stakes, digging in, and perhaps this looks different than I ever expected it would. But to be certain, it is good, it is wrapped up in a God who cannot be shaken.
Anyway, volleyball? Who would have guessed :)
Sara, this is also one of my turn-to verses, and chapters. This very word was spoken to me in 1992, with a non-scripture preface about going to a large, uncomfortable place. My little brain could not comprehend what was about to unfold. Two years later, my world changed and my family and I were on a plane.
ReplyDeletethis comment makes me smile so much :) it's crazy how God works, for sure.
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