It’s 5:00am in Arizona and I’ve been up since 3:00. Perhaps sleeping 12 hours the night before wasn’t the best idea. Regardless, I spent the last two hours tossing and turning and praying and dreaming until I just couldn’t stand it any more. I had to get up.

BLOG CONSTRUCTION
I just pulled up my e-mail account and noticed a string of messages from my friend, Jon. Jon is my web guru of sorts. He is part of a small team of magic workers who graciously provide advice and skill to this technology/media deficient soul. I mentioned something yesterday about wanting some future changes and tweaks and the man took the idea and ran with it! If you are reading through google reader you probably won’t notice anything different, but the blog is getting a makeover to say the least. THANK YOU, JON!!

Things are still in transition, so bear with me while we make everything all fancy. 🙂

HEART CONSTRUCTION
Once I hit 3:30am on the clock this morning I knew I wouldn’t be heading back to sleep any time soon. So I turned to prayer. Usually my prayers during the night tend to go something like this, “Lord… please be with everyone that I know. Help me to love them. Now PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE help me to go back to sleep as soon as possible.”

My Aunt Kathy was able to join us on our trip to Israel. I loved having her there. The Lord used her to speak into my life just as powerfully as He did the lessons each day. She had trouble sleeping several nights. She would go to sleep by 9:00pm only to wake up at 1:00am or 3:00am. She told me how she used that time to pray for everyone in our family by name, to read God’s Word, and to search His heart. Not once did she talk about begging to go back to sleep.

I want my heart to be under God’s construction. I’ve seen and heard too much in the last two weeks to stay the same.

But there’s this part of me that’s terrified that I won’t be able to make all the changes; that somehow I will stay in the same ruts and routines. I stared into the darkness this morning and begged that God wouldn’t let me stay the same… that He would touch me and heal me.

In the stillness of the early hours of the morning I felt the answer wash over me like the waterfall I stood under at Ein Gedi. [In the desert where David hid from Saul! Check out Psalm 63!] His water causes dead things to come to life. As long as I am connected to the Living Water I will grow strong roots that can withstand any drought or flood. His power is what works in me, not my own strength or will. You don’t stand to the side of a stream and hope to get wet… you jump in. The water does the work. His passionate, filling, life-giving water is available each and every day. I just have to remember to come to the water.

 “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, 
   whose confidence is in him. 
 He will be like a tree planted by the water 
   that sends out its roots by the stream. 
It does not fear when heat comes; 
   its leaves are always green. 
It has no worries in a year of drought 
   and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8, NIV

Under construction,
Ginger