Turned Some Corner

A Devotional by Margot Cioccio

Photo by Margot Cioccio

Psalm 94:17-19

 Unless the Lord had given me help,
    I would soon have dwelt 

in the silence of death.  

When I said, “My foot is slipping,”
    your love, O Lord, supported me.
¹⁹ When anxiety was great within me,
    your consolation brought 

joy to my soul.

Today upon rising I had ideas for an new album in my head. I've written two verse and a chorus to what I think will be the title song. Then I thought I better stop and get this devotional witten for today.

For the past week while I have been painting I have been listening to music and I find myself drawn back to my earlier folk music roots. I know I've turned some corner because for many years I set that music aside for what I deemed to be more spiritual music. I do love praise and worship music but I for years divorced myself from a musical style that like so many other things reminded me of a past that I felt went off track. Over the past few years God has done such a healing work and in the process I have gained back a number of things that I once loved to do but set aside in favor of things that would not remind me of the life I felt I had lost. I wonder at times why it took so many years to deal with this long forgotten and broken part of my past. I locked it up and stayed clear of anything that reminded me of it. I suppose in a sense it was off limits to even the Lord. He is a gentleman and won't force you to share your life with him. He won't force you to take of your religious mask to truly be known and to know him.  You add to those off limits areas a busy daily life with plenty of its own concerns and before you know it those memories became that trunk in the back of the basement behind a lot of other stuff... forgotten.

It was not until the Lord started talking to me about meeting him in the secret place. In my mind that secret place he was calling me to was some wonderful spiritual garden like place. So with old hymns words like " I come to the garden alone while the dew is still on the roses"... "and he walks with me and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own"... I said yes Lord I'll meet you in the secret place. I'm not saying that the Lord tricked me but I had no idea that he was talking a massive layer by layer basement cleaning as the location of our secret garden. Its been every bit of 3 - 5 years of layer by layer dealing with the things located in the basements of my mind and heart. It pretty much started when I began spending daily time with the Lord. Before you run away and tell him "no way I'm not going there. Lets leave well enough alone." I want to say that he has dealt with things as I have become ready to face them. He has not forced me, nor has he shook at me a wagging finger of condemnation. In each and every broken and painful place he has understood and helped me to see that area through his eyes of mercy and love. I have been able to forgive others, and forgive myself and I have allowed him to sweep away the rubbish and preserve for me those things that are precious. Perhaps even more precious because they have been rescued from the rubble heap.

For years my time alone with the Lord was pretty sporadic. I got filled up on worship services and was busy serving the Lord and doing lots of interesting things. The Lord met me and used me in those places of service. I prayed a little here and there and would binge on the word when I felt guilty about having neglected it. I would binge journal in much the same way and talk to the Lord about things that were going on as I found a bit of time here and there. I think the Lord met me where I was at the time. In that time I learned to trust him, and how to walk by faith. He's rescued me so may times from things beyond my control and from my own foolishness.  I've seen him take impossible situations and turn them into places of great possibility. I was walking as closely to the Lord as I was able to walk in those seasons of my life. Perhaps I will look back on this season at some point and realize that this was just scratching the surface of truly knowing Him.

In the dailyness of our relationship we have been able to little by little deal with the long forgotten secret places. As we have dealt with them from that once barren and salt covered ground has sprung new life and I see things beginning to bloom and grow that I had no idea were even possible.
I've turned a corner. I think perhaps we are done with basement cleaning and we have moved into a time of wholeness and fullness in him.

"The Glory of God is a human being who is fully alive." - Saint Irenaeus

You invite us to come and die - so in you we might truly live. ~ Margot 

(Words to a song I need to finish writing)

Prayer:

Dear Lord, 

You know what is around the corner. When we have found the faith to go beyond where we could see and what we understood, you meet us there. When we are ready to take that next step of faith you rise up to meet us that we might journey on together. Lord help us to leave what is familiar and to embrace the adventure that you have set before us. You are calling us to come closer to know you more. Come closer and allow you into those secret places so that we might die to our old dead and broken past and become fully alive in you.

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Thanks ~ Margot