Going Boldly Where No Man Has Gone Before

(The Gate Of The Year)
 

As I begin  my 4th year of “Jubilee” there is a growing sense of excitement in my being. I have always loved the New Year.  It stretches before me like stacks of clean white paper, just waiting to be written on, or drawn or painted on! I can not wait to see what God is going to write or draw or paint in my life this year! The prospects are increasingly bright.
 

I have been on a journey for sometime. I did not understand at first what God was about, and I did not particularly like the direction in which this journey began, and so I sort of hung back and procrastinated, “drug my feet”, as the saying goes. But as time went on I began to see His wisdom, and cooperated a little better and things immediately picked up! 
 

As I said, I am entering what I have decided to call my 4th year of Jubilee!  “Jubilee” is a Biblical concept, from the Jewish culture. It is a season, every seven times seven years (which in my calculations comes up to 49), in which there is a restoration that happens. For example, if your crops failed or some tragedy struck, so that you had to sell yourself into slavery or servitude to survive, then on this year you could go free and have your property and dignity restored! The significance of the seven years, is that every seven years, the people were instructed to let the ground rest, so that it could regain its nutritional vigor. The miracle is that on every sixth year they always produced a double crop that would get them through the year of rest! 
 

So, how does this pertain to me exactly? Well, for about the last seven years I have been on a mission to recover the “goods”, memories, etc. that I had to “let go” in order to survive my childhood! And in the process, I have been restored to wholeness and had my dignity recovered! It is still ongoing, but I sense that I am at a place of transition, completion and rest in it.  This is the year, I sense, that some things are going to manifest in this realm of the five senses! That those things that “are not” are getting ready to “BE”, because of my persistent Faith (which the Spirit of God has produced in me by His Word)!

I have been toiling over a crop - of giving, praying, fasting, obeying, studying, and expecting. I have watered it with tears, weeded it with intercession, fought off the birds of prey from the seed planted, and waited, and Worshiped in grateful patience! Now, due season is here!  How it will manifest, and what it will all look like I can not know. But I will know it when it comes! 
 

I begin this New Year at a very New Place of freedom for me! I begin it with a new “sense of self” that I have never had!  Imagine the frustration of trying to “die” to “self” that you never “lived” to! Lol It has been quite a confusing conundrum! All that having a “sense of self” really means is that I finally know where I start & stop, and where everyone else starts & stops! It is a clarity of boundaries, that I never knew existed until I was made whole. It is very hard to detect the boundaries of shattered glass, and my soul was practically dust! 
 

I have compared it, using the popular “puzzle piece” analogy, to having my “puzzle piece” ran through a shredder! In the analogy we all are a “piece” of the “puzzle” that composes the body of Christ. Each piece supplies a part of the picture.  Each piece fits together in its place. The boundaries of puzzle pieces are so distinct, in fact, that it can only fit in its designed place! Unless that is, the “piece” has been shredded! A shredded piece, that is basically a pile of puzzle dust, can fit anywhere! And so I have, I have been patted into this blank space and that, altered to fit the need of the moment. I have spent most of my life with my colors mixed together, and my boundaries unformed, with confused leadership trying to decide what to do with the pile. They could tell that the pile contained rich gifts, way down in there somewhere, they could see the colors of gold, and purple, they could sense the value, but how could they be expected to know where it fit? It really did not fit anywhere, and yet it could go anywhere. It was sort of convenient at first. But then as the pieces that were actually designed to fit in that place would show up, then I would be continually displaced, and sometimes even treated as an impostor or a fraud, or a usurper! How else could it go? I was in another's place! 
 

As of today, I am still not altogether sure of my “place”, but at least my “Puzzle Piece” is starting to take on a distinct shape, the boundary lines are becoming visible, and the colors are beginning to be easily discerned! God has brought wholeness out of dust again! Well, Adam started that way too! Lol And was shredded and needed a Savior to restore him too! Thankfully the puzzle designer never loses His design for us! Thankfully, my “shape” had a distinct place in His heart, and He knew right where it should go, and He didn't let the enemy have the last word over me. Though it has been a bit harrowing for all concerned (and here I would like to thank His many collaborators, for the love, the patience, the pain and the patch-work of this restoration process!  You know who you are!), still it has been a successful mission! Wholeness has been achieved!  So that now, I am looking forward to this being the year that my “Place” is defined and revealed!
 

Those who have read my writing will know that I can barely write any spiritual encouragement without making an analogy to birth, because that process has taught me so many spiritual parallels!  So I will not disappoint you here.  I can not resist, this process of restoration and deliverance is so much like birth! Even though the pain is approaching (and even, at times, exceeding) tolerable levels, still the separation of the baby from its comfortable dependence of the womb was tinged with a smidge of sadness. (But only a smidge! lol) Transition is always very hard, very terrifying, and very violent! And the unknown on the other side of it is unsettling, if tantalizing and exciting. But even with all those conflicting emotions flying around, the Joy that inevitably accompanies the birth eclipses all the other! 
 

That is so much like this! The deliverance has been hard, terrifying, and violent! But the Joy that has come since I got past that hard, hard place is hard to contain! The freedom is a bit unsettling, due to its foreign nature, yet exhilarating, and intoxicating.  The anticipation is such a new sensation, replacing the dread that I lived in for so long. The hope is so welcome in place of the hopeless, dimensionless, depression that fogged every potential happiness. It is like being able to see, or run or breathe deeply for the first time! The possibilities suddenly seem endless! The prospects are exciting and desirable! 
 

So I walk through the Gate of the Year, finally aware that my hand is firmly held in My Father's loving grasp, relying on His light, His help and His design for me. I can scarcely contain the Joy! I will keep you posted! And I close with a well loved quote; "I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' But he said, 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God, that will be to you better than alight and safer than a known way!' " ~ Minnie Louise Harkins 1875-1957

Shalom! And Happy Jubilee! Again! 

Comments

[small business logo design]

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[Sandra Carlton Duncan]

Thank you so much!