I am not gonna lie, for a while this moment in time had turned into quite the pooey season. Yet praaaaaaise - I find myself, by the sweet sweet grace of God once again, in a fresh place of hope; finding pearls in the pain and discovering fresh vision amongst the cloudiness that had so heavily eclipsed my world for the last six weeks. Not sure if anyone can relate?

I meeeean it all started off SO lush!! I was totally enjoying quarantine. I consider my last blog post and I smile as I ponder in hindsight just how excitedly I had braced myself for the NEW NORMAL. I was soooo expectant that it would be glorious and that there was a place of pressing in that we all needed to embark on in order to hear from God and to partner with heaven.

And that is totally what I did do. Gave myself fully to it. And it was SO glorious. Like I mean it was the stuff the sweetest of dreams were made of. I was in seventh heaven and filled with SUCH expectation! I was literarily blown away with all the hours of praying I was finding myself engaging in - like more than I had ever before. I was so overflowing with soul-joy at the encounters I was having, breaking bread, worshipping Him or simply just experiencing ridiculous delish glorrray in the Word, sometimes before I’d even opened my Bible.

I was captivated, heart full - all guns blazing diving into this 2020 Passover unlike any other we had apparently ever known…the promises of a literal Pentecost were upon us like we never could have imagined. I was praying Joel 2:28-29 all over the place - so so so pumped for what was gonna be unleashed as earth was bracing it self for heaven to show up. I mean in my glorrray bubble COVID-19 seemed like it was happening on another planet - because in my world…with just Jesus, me, my prayers and His presence this was one blissful SELAH season that I just couldn’t get enough of.

And then Pentecost came. And with it, George Floyd’s death. And somehow everything exploded. My world came crashing down. And all this expectation…months of praying and pressing in…and crazy hope…and anticipation for heaven on earth…IT ALL JUST CRASHED! I literally didn’t know what to do.

Suddenly as the darkness of all that’s going on in our world closed in, I had and still have so many mixed feelings about what was going on that I found myself totally unable to pray. I was filled with so much sorrow and disappointment. It’s like my mouth was on mute as my heart ached non-stop.

Everything that I had ever found normal, familiar, safe, stabilising and purposeful fell out from beneath my feet and I found myself out at sea. It went on week after week where I would just weep in God’s presence, devoid of any zeal and filled with such sadness. I just couldn't see God anywhere that I looked. And I mourned His presence in the way I had known it so powerfully only weeks before. I know it sounds so melodramatic but its honestly what was happening in my inners. Everyone kept talking about everything that could be shaken being shaken and it actually felt like that for sure.

But after about a month of this incredibly sucky wilderness, I had a beautiful encounter with Jesus, that shifted things a little. I’d had a beautiful conversation with my bestie the night before, that helped my heart to see a little better and then the next morning I sat in James 1:2-4 where it says “Consider it wholly joyful, my brethren, whenever you are enveloped in or encounter trials of any sort or fall into various temptations. Be assured and understand that the trial and proving of your faith bring out endurance and steadfastness and patience. But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be [people] perfectly and fully developed [with no defects], lacking in nothing.”

And as I studied this passage I came across this amazing story about a young girl called Marie Durant…told by John Piper. In the late 17th century, in southern France, Marie was brought before the authorities and charged with the Huguenot heresy (being a Reformed Protestant). “She was fourteen years old, bright, attractive, marriageable.” She was asked to recant her Huguenot faith. “She was not asked to commit an immoral act, to become a criminal, or even to change the day-to-day quality of her behavior.” She was only asked to say, “I recant.” She refused. Together with thirty other Huguenot women, she was put into a tower by the sea and left there for 38 years. She and her fellow martyrs scratched on the wall of their prison tower the single word, “Resist!” Tourists still see and gape at that word on that stone.”

John Piper then says the following words in this study: “We can understand a religion which enhances time… But we cannot understand a faith which is not nourished by the temporal hope that tomorrow things will be better. To sit in a prison room with thirty others and to see the day change into night and summer into autumn, to feel the slow systemic changes within one’s flesh: the drying and wrinkling of the skin, the loss of muscle tone, the stiffening of the joints, the slow stupefaction of the senses—to feel all this and still to persevere seems almost idiotic to a generation which has no capacity to wait and to endure.”

This mashed me up. It revived me no end. It was so so true right??? Radical hope is a rarity. Hope like this precious one and all the Huguenot women walked in is sheer lunacy to humanity - unless you have an understanding of the beauty, resurrection and crazy comfort that can only come when you recognise that there is a hope that goes far far beyond the temporal…it’s hope that is eternal, and we as believers have the option of being prisoners of it because Christ is within us the hope of glory. And because it’s a hope built upon the Rock, it pierces through the temporary, through the circumstantial - and it sets your feet on solid ground - even in the shakiest of storms.

Jesus then, in that moment of encounter assured me that because I belong to Him and because He lives in me, no matter what - I can always have hope. Eternal hope. And even when a situation seems hopeless and that the poo really has hit the fan…irrespective of what it may look like on the outside, there is ALWAYS eternal hope exploding through even thee most dire of circumstances - if I am willing to see beyond the mess…and peer into the majesty.

He then reminded me that the Cross looked like the greatest defeat of all time. What a sorry situation that would’ve looked like at the time. The perceived mess of Calvary. The utter horror of it. It looked like the enemy had completely won, right? Yet Calvary was exploding with majesty. And then I felt Jesus say to me “Bobbi every moment of every day is pulsating with my majesty and I need you to see it. I need you to focus your eyes and to see…”My majesty in the mess. My majesty in the mediocre. My majesty in the mundane.”

Aaaah Lord!!!! You are just so good. That moment was so life giving. So refreshing. So filled with hope. And then in that same encounter He led me to Hebrews 10:35-36 which has been a proper life verse over this season and He reminded me:

Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward. For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised.

And then once again I was so encouraged, as I am time and time again whenever I get smacked in the face with this scripture that dohhhhhh of course!!!! That’s what I need - I just need steadfast patience and endurance. And so that what I found myself praying and seeking.

Yet if truth be told, even then I struggled to move forward. Smiles. It’s quite crazy really…Because I had fresh hope. I felt fresh comfort. But my prayers remained silent. And I still couldn't see a future ahead of me. I missed praying so much. Yet my heart seemed to be on mute. It’s been such a stubborn season of barrenness. Even when there’s been refreshing its been only temporary. A trickle of respite before the void kicks in again. I feel like during this quarantine there may perhaps be others who can relate.

And then when I thought things couldn’t actually get any harder…God got my attention, told me some home truths and began to do a deep work in my heart. And it was so painful. He broke me. He crushed me. Like totally pressed me and He is still doing it. He showed me stuff in my heart that isn’t pleasing to Him. He showed me I needed to repent. Like whaaaaat?! What a total heartbreak - I mean its quite the shocker when you think the brass ceiling you’re experiencing in your time with God is because of circumstances and then you find out it’s because of your own heart. Aaaaaaahhh so hard.

And so I began to repent. And that’s all I’ve been doing for the last two weeks and after two weeks of being on my face crying out for mercy, I have finally after six weeks found my place in Him again. I had found my voice again. My prayers have returned and my vision is being restored. Gosh, mercy is a beautiful thing. So undeserved. So kind. Yet even as mercy so compassionately saves us from ourselves, she also pours herself out in our places of brokenness, tending to our lost fragmented places:

“I am a never-ending fountain of living water, and I long to pour myself into every dry, cracked, and broken area of your life. Do you feel me now, reaching into your pain with my healing love? Listen, and you’ll hear my rushing river flowing through you as it washes away the debris of confusion and disillusionment, clearing away the dry dusty remains of disappointment so you can clearly see the joy I have in store for you.

No trauma is too great for the power of my love. The biggest gaping holes—the areas of your life that feel empty and void—become openings for me to pour myself into, when you invite me. So invite me, and I will come. I will fill you with myself, turn mourning into joy, replace heaviness with hope, and till the soil of your heart so beauty blooms from the ashes. Drink deeply of my love, and it will transform you—mind, body, and soul. Set your eyes on me today, and offer me your pain once and for all. Swim in my healing waters and allow the currents of my love to lead you into wholeness.”

So so good. I found so much joy in receiving this in my inbox a week ago. I have reread it so many times because it washes over my soul again and again and it feels so comforting. This time round, the refreshing of these words and my fresh places of drinking from God’s presence have lasted and these words have been life. And as I continue to move towards a new place of strength I look back at the last post I put up about the NEW NORMAL where I speak about a purging, a humbling, a suffering so that He may be glorified but actually at that time of writing I have no idea of what i’m about to step into lol. I have no idea that partnering with God isn’t going to look like I thought it would look like. In fact it’s gonna actually suck. Smiles.

Yet I am recognising that the whole while, even as part of this season has been hard and I have wondered how there could have been such a unholy glitch in the heavenly matrix where my sweet selah season got so uncomfortably interrupted with all this heartache and craziness - that I am actually still very much being prepared for this new normal. Even in the crushing, the darkness, the confusion and the cloudiness - even then I am partnering with God for all that He has in store.

And this season may not feel like sexy Christianity where it’s super attractive and makes someone look like they’re living their best life. Nope. Instead it’s humbling and heartbreaking and I don’t know what I’m doing.

Yet even in the not knowing, I’m still headed towards that new normal. And in stark contrast to my last blog video, as I move further along into this unprecedented season, I no longer have any kind of grid of what it’s going to look like. And that is totally okay.

But what I do know is that I don’t want to even step into it until Jesus is done breaking me, shaking me and shaping me. And I certainly don’t want to step into the new with any of my old junk. I’m okay right now, just leaning into the process, praying and envisioning again.

And thankfully…I’m beginning to once again glimpse the glory in the grime and it feels so so sweet.

And for now, that is all the hope that I need…for me to be able to behold even a little of the majesty exploding out of the messy places of my world. x