A Woman's heart...God's dwelling place

Well, I finally started the Beth Moore's study book. The name of the study, A Woman's Heart, God's Dwelling Place, resonated with me when I first saw it because it somehow paralleled this blog's name and intent. How affirming to read in Week 1 that sanctuary means a consecrated or holy thing or place; a hallowed part, like a chapel; an asylum; an area devoted to the sphere of the sacred. The heart is also referred to as God's tabernacle, where He dwells or resides. Beth says it is the place for the ministry of reconciliation of bringing men back to God.

If you go back to my very first post and the name that God gave me for this blog, I am amazed at how sanctum or sanctuary articulates so well God's intent for my blog. My one desire is that whoever reads will be drawn back to God and also experience that sacred quietness, that holy lull that lifts and refreshes.

Perhaps this is the journey to His purpose for me. I still do not know. He is just giving me just enough 'light' for the next step so that I can continue to walk with Him day by day. A friend and I were talking the other night in a divine cocoon in the midst of youthful energy and noise. I 've just realized what a precious time of sharing it was, hearts bared, weakness admitted, perseverance in faith determined. My friend's eyes shone with an intensity that revealed her pain, and more importantly, the glory of God that always radiates in weakness. Beth talks about the heart (tabernacle) being a place where God meets with us, like I met my friend. Here it is safe and holy. I can bare my heart to Him and know His pleasure in me.

7To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 8Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 10That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. [2Corinthians 12:7-10 - The Holy Bible, NIV]

Father, grant us the courage to admit our weakness, knowing that in our weakness, You are strong. May each person reading this yearn to have their heart a tabernacle, where You meet with them and tell them great and glorious things, where You show them their real unholy state and offer forgiveness and redemption, where they feel Your Father's delight. Please draw us closer to Your heart. Draw me. Use this blog as a sanctum for those who venture in. Thank You, Lord. In Jesus' Name, Amen.