Mijita Ru, chapter 2

Mijita Ru 2

I awoke early, gazing up at the pre-dawn sky crowded with stars. My restless thoughts had awoken me before I was ready to rise. Now I will be exhausted today instead of refreshed. I sighed, resigned. I had asked Mater to take me with her, sworn allegiance to her god and people, forsaking my own. But that was not why I was worried. No.

Today is the day we would finally arrive in Bethhaven. I was finally frightened of my choices facing Mater’s home town.

I could not imagine what today would be like, so I let my thoughts roam the familiar territory of the past two months. Leaving Perla had been difficult, but her father had been very generous with us. It is true that he received the chance of a second dowry by accepting her back in his house. He also graciously received all our household items that did not fit on the donkey. And our house. And land.

Seer: One who Sees

She sees... not with her eyes, but in her soul. And He speaks to her. She can hear Him when she listens.

Love!!! Art sings... and I just found a prophetic artist. LOVE!!!

Christine Council draws prophetically... prays for people and draws the image that God gives her while she prays. SWEEEEET!!!!  I love all her stuff - check it out on her BLOG or WEBSITE.  Or just... browse my favs. Unsurprisingly, the ones I like best are under "Worship". Lol.

Dance in the Rain

Breakthrough

It's Raining

Come Away with Me

Longing

Like a Little Lamb

Surrendered

Mijita Ru, Chapter 1

"Entreat me not to leave you, or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The LORD do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me."

Characters:

   Mijita is pronounced Mee-hee-ta, meaning "my little daughter". 

   Mater - Mah-tehr, "mother" incl. "mother-in-law", responsible overseeing female

   Pater - Pah-tehr, "father" or "father-in-law" responsible overseeing male

   Perla -  Majita's beautiful sister-in-law

   Achilioin - Orpah's deceased husband

   Mahlon - Ru's deceased husband

1. Mijita Ru

I woke to the sound of snuffling, Mater was crying again. My own eyes felt heavy and resisted opening. I rubbed at them, so puffy it was a wonder they opened at all. The hollow emptiness in my stomach hurt worse. Even my arms felt drained of the energy to rise off my cot and go to Mater.

“She wants to be alone, Mijita.” My sister in law stumbled back into her cot, flopping onto her back. “She sent me away.”

“I’m sorry. This sorrow should be yours and we should be comforting you.”

Perla sighed.

The funeral for her husband had lasted all week. A widow of three years, myself, I felt her pain freshly. Our father, Pater, had sunk into the ground last year with something that slowly ate his health away. The passing of Achilion last week was my sister, Perla’s, heartbreak, certainly, but all three of us women grieved for our former lives. Women could not own land. We were effectively homeless.

These thoughts churned ‘round and ‘round in my head like a never-ending circle. It always came back to the same question, What do we do now?

Perla echoed my thoughts whispering, “What do we do now?”

How Funny...

I knew I needed to create this blog... and share the stuff God's giving me all the time... and so I did... and then... things got a little quiet. Or, rather, a little too personal. Lol. How to share innermost soul in a public forum? Not really my nature. So... I haven't posted anything.

What I have... what I might be able to share, is a rewrite of the story of Ruth. I have recently had some interesting new views of what her life might have felt like. Scary a-plenty to "rewrite Bible stories". Like, "don't go there". But sharing human emotion in a common-to-man situation?  That's the stuff of fiction, and my area of obsession. So, that, I might attempt.

Yesterday I got a verse. Finally. I've written it on a sheet of paper and hung it in a weird place that has gotten everyone's attention. Every time I see it, I read it and meditate on a new word. This is how I meditate, anyway... each word takes on new meaning as the focus, creating a wealth of thought and inspiration in one little verse:

"As God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." Colossions 3:12

The verse came to me in the daily NIV inbox delivery. Not by "searching the Scriptures", so I laugh a little. God can talk however He wants to whenever He wants and I'm loving this verse.

I'm chosen. Eep!

Holy.  (holy crap!  Are You sure?!)

Dearly loved.  *head bowed* Thank You.

Clothe yourself... what a beautiful picture, being able to put on attitudes like clothes. So many times I think I need to feel it from the inside-out to be true, but this says to put it on, on the outside. It's a decision to be... compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient.

That's as far as I've meditated so far. Not bad for a day.

Elisha Sees

 "Then he set his countenance in a stare until he was ashamed; and the man of God wept." 2 Kings 8:11 

Elisha is such an interesting character. There's no hesitation in him. He starts his ministry off by smacking a river and shouting, "Where is the Lord God of Elijah?" He demanded that God respond... and the weird part is, God did. Elisha demands all kinds of wild things, and God does them.

Even if the writer is only jotting down the wild stories... if I try to stretch what I read about Elisha to somehow connect with my own experience of how God answers prayer... it doesn't fit. I can't see how or why God answers Elisha the way He does. It's as if Elisha has every super-power anyone has ever dreamed of all at once. From bringing people back to life who had been dead for days... to feeding lots of people from someone's snack... to making an ax head float.

Elisha can see stuff that no one else sees. I started reading about Elisha when I looked up this story:

"When the servant of the man of God arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, 'Alas, my master! What shall we do?'"

I'm thinking he just sloshed his coffee all over himself.

"So he answered, 'Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.' And Elisha prayed, and said, 'Lord I pray, open his eyes that he may see.' Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha." 2 Kings 6:15-17

Not only does Elisha see... he knows what to do about it.

  1) Not panic
  2) Pray some more
  3) Laugh

Me? I'd be wondering how to organize flaming chariots. I'd be wondering if we should attack the enemy? Make an escape? Not Elisha. He asks God to blind them... and then leads them into the middle of his country's military base. His king isn't sure what Elisha is up to, either (I feel so much better!) He is smart enough to check with the prophet before killing the POW's. Elisha tells him to let them go free and they tuck tail and run, lesson learned!

Today I read a verse where Elisha did not like what he saw.

 "Then he set his countenance in a stare until he was ashamed; and the man of God wept." 2 Kings 8:11 

I had to read the phrase a few times before I realized that, yea... Elisha stared at this guy, Hazael, until he was squirming. "Set his countenance", "fixed his gaze", "stared steadily," - however it is translated from Hebrew, it's weird. It makes Hazael, the recipient of this noted expression, very uncomfortable.

Apparently not as uncomfortable as the man of God, himself, though... 'cause Elisha starts crying.

The conversation that follows shows how Elisha saw what Hazael would do with his life. Hazael tried to play innocent for a moment, "Who, me?!" But the exchange is brief and he hurries on his way to start his reign of terror.

*sigh* I don't know why I'm writing about this verse, I guess. I think it is amazing how much Elisha saw and how boldly he acted on it. I'm sad for him that it wasn't always good, that this time, it broke his heart. I can imagine what it would feel like to see bad things before they even happened. Sometimes there isn't anything to do about it, no way to fix things. I would want to kill the one to save the many if I saw what Elisha saw. Other times he declared someone dead and they were... it's not like he couldn't have done it. I'm not sure why God let Hazael live. Why did Elisha let him live?

Maybe it's ok that I'm blind to a lot of stuff that God sees. Even if He shared Why he lets evil continue, my heart would be so broken. I suppose just like His.

Would you want to see? Even if it hurt? Or would you rather only see what you can change for the better?

Images from Habakkuk

Originally posted on Colorimetry on October 14, 2012

"Awake, O north wind,

And come, O south!

Blow upon my garden, 

That it's spices my flow out."

 - Song of Solomon 4:16

 

Welcome to my innermost thoughts from reading the Bible. This is where my imagination begins...

The thoughts I'm sharing don't come from church or preaching, but I'm not trying to communicate anything negative about church or preaching. 

Habakkuk is really fun to say... I like all the strong "k" sounds kind of like that Justin Bieber song that the radio plays every other minute nowadays: "As long as you love me, we could be starving, we could be homeless, we could be broke." I wait to hear that "k" - it's amazing.

Habakkuk reads like a Psalm, full of visual pictures. 

This verse reminds me of all the Presidential debates:

"Therefore the law is powerless,
And justice never goes forth." 1:4

But let's not discuss politics especially on a post with Bible verses. *cough*

I love these descriptions of the bad guys:

"Their horses also are swifter than leopards,
And more fierce than evening wolves." 1:8

"Their faces are set like the east wind.They gather captives like sand." 1:9

I can picture it. Are evening wolves more fierce than morning wolves? They sound like it. Is the east wind immovable?  Isn't this beautiful? Like a moving force that is unstoppable.

I always love words about writing...

"Write the vision
Make it plain on tablets
That he may run who reads it." 2:3

Doesn't this feel like something important is written? That the reader will want to run and know where and how? It's goosebumpy cool.

More fun:

"The stone will cry out from the wall,
And the beam from the timbers will answer it." 2:11

The wall is talking to itself. Ha!

"The mountains... trembled;
The deep uttered its voice." 3:10

"My lips quivered at the voice;
 Rottenness entered my bones." 3:16

"He will make my feet like deer's feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills." 3:19

There are some great visuals of God, too:

"You are of purer eyes than to behold evil." 1:13

"The LORD is in His holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before Him." 2:20

"He had rays flashing from His hand." 3:4

Habakkuk is very short. Three chapters and it's done. His name comes from Hebrew habaq: "embrace", meaning "one who embraces or clings".

Which visual picture do you like best?

I always love the idea of nature talking. The mountains and the "deeps" of the waters. It sounds like it is calling back and forth all around us. I love that.