The Valley Deep

Everyone talks about the mountaintop experience, some people even live for it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on the mountaintop moments we have, in fact I love them when they come, but there is something to be said about the valley. In fact, my name actually means valley. The valley is the place in between the mountains. It is the place where all the water running down off the mountains go...making the valley have the richest soil. Making it a place where the best crops are gown, and the richest nutrients are found. It is also in the valley where God shapes us the most. Where we gain our deepest maturities, our strongest character, and our strength as a person and of course, our humility.
Thank God for valleys, if it were not for them I would not have enough character to stand on the mountaintop without my pride knocking me down.

I got lunch yesterday with a close friend of mine. My mom just came through her second brain surgery, she is ok, but there is a heaviness that lingers around me lately. We were talking about life and such and she said the most wonderful thing to me that lifted such weights off my back. "Be a woman of rest". My life at the moment is extremely normal. My husband and I both work 9-5 jobs, we go to the gym, we eat dinner, we sleep, we go to church and do it all over again. I am in a season of the mundane and weariness sets in sometimes. Then she said this, "If you can love God in the mundane you can love him ANYWHERE. Can you sit still and keep your peace when the promises God gave you have not come to pass yet? How about when all your friends are being blessed, hearing from the Lord, participating in exciting moves of God and you have to stay in the mundane? Can you keep your peace trusting God has not overlooked you while they all run past you? If you can, that is what it truly means to be a woman at rest."

I need to learn to not rush the Lord anymore. I can feel Him do an eternal work in me. Joyce Meyer says the slower and longer the change takes to happen in a person the deeper and more profound the work. This work began in '05. Never in my life has the Lord taken me through such a long lasting season, ever. I feel as though He is doing such a deep work and building a foundation. Although no one would probably realize that just by looking at me. I believe He is taking His time because things that are built fast fall down fast but foundations that are built slow and steady can withstand a great shaking. So thank you for this wilderness Lord, where I wage my private wars, and thank you for this valley deep that I am becoming...and for the maturity, humility, and softness (no matter how small amounts I may have of each) that this wilderness has given me.

If I can love you in the wilderness I can love you anywhere, if I can praise you in the mundane, then I can praise you anywhere...
To be refined by a fire is a way of God, and it stems from His great compassion for us.

"He's brought me to the wilderness where I will learn to sing, He lets me know my barrenness where I will learn to lean...beautiful mercy do what you have to do, jealous lover do what you have to do.."
-Laura Hackett


Let every valley be lifted up, and every moutain and hill be made low
-Isaiah 40:4