Isaiah 42:11 “Join in the chorus, you desert towns; let the villages of Kedar rejoice! Let the people of Sela sing for joy; shout praises from the mountaintop.”
As I opened my eyes Monday morning after our Umbrella Ministries West Coast Conference, this feeling of grief swept over me. It was the morning after the most amazing weekend of seeing God’s faithful hand at work. Where did this feeling of grief come from? We oftentimes give advice to others, yet forget to listen ourselves. I heard this voice say, “Did you not listen to your own words?” Just twenty-four hours before, I had told a roomful of mothers that they had experienced a mountaintop experience. They had just spent a weekend receiving love and comfort. They were shown positive ways on how they can turn the thorn of grief into the most beautiful rose. I warned them that when they would get home, the evil one would try to undo all that was good. I reminded them to put on the whole armor of God because we would be in a battle. I hadn’t even touched my feet to the ground and he went into attack mode on me. I laid in my bed and cried tears that needed to be shed. I then asked the Lord, “Why do I feel like this? Why am I crying and feeling a little melancholy?” Then the song Joe Knight sang over the weekend came rushing back to me. Sometimes it takes a mountain, sometimes the troubled seas, sometimes it takes the desert, to take ahold of me. When I look at the words to that song, I am reminded God uses the highs and the lows to get us back to Him. I had been on that mountaintop and had experienced the Lord in all His majesty. His sea of love washed over all of me. It was almost like I witnessed a little bit of Heaven here on earth. I could feel it and I could see it. What I realized when I woke up at my home in the desert was my tears weren’t because I was sad. I was longing for my real home in Heaven. The place where there is no more pain, no more tears, or suffering. My time has not come yet, so I had to go back to the desert. I have a wonderful life in the desert and I am so thankful and blessed. Yet when we get these overwhelming times of feeling the Lord’s presence, it makes us long to be on the mountaintop in our forever home with the Lord. The Lord did a majestic work that weekend. He did amazing things through each one of us. I am humbled and amazed how He uses little old us to show others the way to the mountaintop. We all had a view of what Heaven will be like during our weekend. Oh how I long for that day. Until that day comes, I will sing His praises from the desert.
Lord, we are overwhelmed and will sing your praises from our desert towns or from the mountaintop, even from the stormy seas, because we know what awaits us. Eternity with You.
– Michele
