where God is

As a girl - the very girly, ruffles and lace kind - I have my share of what you might call "dreamy days". I think any female reading this knows what I'm talking about. On these days, your head is in the clouds, you feel a mix of fullness and emptiness, your emotions war between joy and sadness, and you're overall not as productive as you are on other days.

Dreamy days. Usually for me it's after late night reading that bled into the wee hours of the morning. Reading the end of a book, falling immediately asleep and dreaming that I'm the girl I just read about. Waking is such sweet sorrow... (sorry Shakespeare, I had to tweak it to fit what I'm trying to say.)

No, I did not travel to the Holy Land last night and meet Mr. Right. I did not ride a horse along the Jordan River or pray by the Sea of Galilee. I did not spend the night at an inn in Bethlehem...but are those things on my bucket list now? Absolutely. Not that they weren't already on it, I just hadn't considered riding an Arabian horse down the streets of Jerusalem. Now that I know you can, I'll have to add it!

The thing is, I think we need dreamy days. I think God has placed a desire in my heart to be a wife, a mother. Maybe even this desire to travel is from Him, I don't know. But I don't think it's wrong for me to think of those things, dream of those days. I just have to keep in mind that while it's yet to be, He is here with me. I thought it fitting this morning as I struggled with the desire to stay asleep and finish my oh so sweet dream, that my Bible reading was in Exodus 20. We think if this chapter as the Ten Commandments chapter, but near the end, in verse 21, the people are afraid. But Moses? Moses just wanted to be near the Lord.

"And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was."

Moses drew near alone. Maybe that's all it takes. A step away from the others, another, and step by step, he became more alone. Step by step, he came closer to the One who held his heart in the palm of His hand. The One who shelters us in the clift of a rock. He hideth my soul. Lessons learned in solitude are the ones that show us our dependence upon Him.

May my desires fade into the background and the desire to be near Him rise to the surface, filling my life, making me wholly His. He seeks us out, and I want to be there, ready to be found, ready to spend time with and near Him.

The future may look a little dark right now because I can't see what it holds. But Moses drew near the thick darkness because that's where God was. As I read last night, the tears in my eyes weren't because the heroine found her hero and I haven't yet. They came when the characters in my book waded into the waters of the River Jordan. Those fictional beings might have fished in the sea of Galilee, but me? I want to kneel on it's banks and pray. The thoughts of being in the same places my Lord was warms me from the inside out. I would love to be there - alone with Him, able to pray and think and absorb. But I may never get to be where God was, my future may not hold it. But that's where God was...and I know where He is.

So I may be a little dreamy today, my head swimming in the clouds, but I want to hide in Him. I want to draw near to the thick darkness. I want to curl up in it, close to Him. Where God is.