It has been terribly long for me not to have posted any of my writing. I still write, most of which have been left unfinished, just with the rush of life and the tendencies have to start and then not finish. But anywho, hello! I have missed sharing my writing about the things I see the Lord in and quite frankly, it has felt quite challenging to see the Lord for me.

I will start by saying that the last few months have been filled with an insane amount of life change. First off, getting married. The plans for getting married are intense and then on top of that planning all the other parts of married life can be even more intense. But marriage with a person like my husband, has been wonderful. I am eternally thankful to the Lord for Lucas and all he is to me. And without the Lord, I never would have been able to find Lucas. Secondly, I graduated college and have begun my career as an educator. Crazy, first year teaching is not for the weak. Truly. Third, we moved to a place both of us are pretty unfamiliar with. We knew practically no one and just went head first into trying to find some community. Fourth, we faced an immense amount of loss on my side of the family just within a short few months. But through all of this, He has remained faithful.

It has been hard for me to navigate so many of my worst fears happening at once (minus getting married to Lucas, just to clarify that was never a fear of mine), but the Lord is my strength, my shield and my protector.

Throughout my time through many of these things that feel like I was walking through the valley, looking for guidance on where to go from the Holy Spirit, my prayer has been, “Lord, could I just see Your face? I just want to see more of You. I just want to see more of Your glory and who You really are and what you think of me.”

When seeking the Lord’s face, I am reminded of Moses. In Exodus, Moses boldly approached the Lord and asked to see His glory. God responds with that no one can see his face and live, but God graciously allows him to see his back, but even then God put Moses in the cleft of a rock and covered his face with His hand, once the glory of God passed by, God removed his hand and Moses was able to see God’s back, but nothing more. The Lord and Moses spoke and God gifted Moses the tablets and the renewal of the covenant. And when Moses returned from Mount Sinai, the skin on his face was shining so very brightly, because of His encounter with God. Even to the point that he had to wear a veil over his face, until he would go back in to speak to the Lord.

Just thinking of the relationship Moses had with the Lord is incredible. I find it so powerful that in Exodus 33:11, it states that “…the Lord used to speak to Moses face-to-face, as a man speaks to his friend…” Which this verse is BEFORE any of the encounters I just described previously. God intimately knew Moses and Moses intimately knew the Lord. Yet, Moses still longed to see God MORE than he already did.

This is where things get challenging for me, because I desire to see the Lord in all of his goodness, but I mean, Moses sure does seem like he has a lot of time on his hands, that I just can’t seem to find on my own. I desperately want this time to seek the Lord, and as you have read, time hasn’t really felt as if it was on my side lately. With all of the changes, a surplus in time has felt hard to come by.

Now more recently, I have been reading through the book of Mark. Mark is filled with so many beautiful truths about Jesus, who He is and what He has done. I feel as if I am finally beginning to understand Jesus as a man who fully lived life on Earth, but also carried so much divinity and glory.

Today I was able to read Mark 9, The Transfiguration. Jesus took a few of His disciples, Peter, James and John up a mountain and then the transfiguration of Jesus happened. Jesus’s clothes were whiter than bleach and dazzling with his glory. This was during a time where the disciples were still unsure about Jesus, but also soon after Peter’s first declaration of Jesus as the Messiah. Now when the Transfiguration occurred, the disciples were afraid, of course, I think I would be a bit alarmed too, considering Jesus’ clothes, Elijah and Moses appearing with Jesus. Peter’s offered to create shelters or tents for the three of them, after reading into it, I discovered that shelters in this context, were tabernacles, a place for God’s presence to dwell and a way to shelter God’s glory out of fear of death when seeing the fullness of God’s glory. Peter was fully aware that he was witnessing God’s glory, but a cloud comes to overshadow it. The voice of God then comes and declares Jesus as His Beloved Son.

Now a lot just happened in that passage, and I can’t help but feel as if I can understand the Disciples feelings during that moment. They were fearful and I doubt that they were expecting to see something like that in that moment. But, here, I am shown that Jesus wants to show us His glory.

In the book of Mark, I previously read in Mark 6, when Jesus walks on the water, it states that Jesus “meant to pass by them,” (end of verse 48). I notice that they use the same language as when God passed by Moses, this was when the glory of God was shown to Moses. As I read this, I wondered, why didn’t Jesus show them His glory then? Why didn’t He pass by them in that moment?” And I think verse 49 and 50 answer that question, the disciples were terrified, they thought He was a ghost and they cried out. But Jesus immediately spoke to them and said “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” And once Jesus was in the boat with them, the wind ceased.

We don’t explicitly know what Jesus intended to reveal to His disciples that night, or whether His intentions changed. But we can look at how He responded to them: with reassurance, patience, and peace. He spoke to them in their fear, entered the boat, and the wind ceased. He reassured them that He is the Great I Am and kept near to them following after. He didn’t immediately write them off for not fully believing in that moment and being stricken with fear. Later, Peter, James, and John would witness the Transfiguration, where Jesus’ glory was revealed to them in a remarkable way. They were still learning about Jesus. They had just witnessed Jesus feeding the five thousand and it even states that “…for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened” (Mark 6:52). Meaning that they didn’t fully believe yet. It was after Peter proclaimed Jesus as the Messiah that Peter, James, and John witnessed the Transfiguration, where Jesus’ glory was revealed to them in a remarkable way and even then, they felt fear.

Jesus has the desire to show us His glory, and I have felt discouraged that I have felt as if I haven’t seen it and have been asking Him for months with what little time I feel like I do have to offer Him.

Jesus wanted to reveal something about Himself to His disciples that day on the boat, we don’t explicitly know what exactly it was, and we don’t know if their fear is what caused Jesus to not pass by them then, but we can look at how Jesus did respond to them; With reassurance, patience and peace.

This is how I continue to see Jesus work in my own life, though I have been a bit flustered with my time and not feeling as if I can give enough time to Jesus and talking to Him, but at the same time, having these desires of seeing Him fully. I see Him meeting me with reassurance. Jesus has reminded me of His provision. He promised that we would have community here and He gave it to us, fairly quickly. He has reminded me through my students of how BIG He is, that He is the Creator and omnipotent. He is slowly revealing Himself as who He is. I have been able to witness the healing of God through prayer. I see that He is near! He is in this boat with me, He didn’t just leave when things got wild and out of control, He got IN the boat with me. He provided peace in the midst of multiple MAJOR life changes, many of which are things that I never thought would happen in my life. But I can still say that He is good, faithful and trustworthy.

Just getting to intimately know God is enough, but my prayer now is that I can continue to be bold before the Lord, proclaim His name, who He truly is and what He has been to me. I pray I will keep seeking His face even if it is with the very little time I feel as if I have to offer Him now. Jesus, may You stay near and may we continue to stay curious about You and desire to know more of you. Just as Moses did.

Jesus is near, He is good and He is so very gracious. We will have moments of doubt and fear, but He is continually meeting us with His patience, peace and reassurance. Thank you, Jesus.

Just a few pictures to show where and what I have been doing these past few months. It has been hard to keep up! But He is good!