barefooted

{via pinterest}

i posted Monday about my brush with the sacred.

on how i can never again wear shoes because my time and life is now Holy Ground.

and then i began to contemplate this thing of being barefoot. this unlacing of our sandals and casting them aside.

it's humbling to be without shoes. 

we are not lifted higher than we ought to be when our feet are bare. it's casting aside this most basic of pretensions, this utmost lowering.

our shoes are covered in the dust of life, the dirt of the path and the bits of foulness that cling to our feet.

we do not always watch where we step, either on this earthly walkway or when we traverse within our soul as well.

we cannot bring this filth to Him.

my feet have never felt so unclean as they do in these times of sacred approach. these times when Heaven and Earth seem to meet and collide in this explosion of revelation. 

and i find myself on my knees then, overwhelmed in this place where Love and Life have met and forgiveness is my name again. 

as this bush burns in this wilderness, this place where I AM has come to meet with us, we bare our feet as we do our souls. 

we are no longer separated from the ground. skin against Earth, brushing soul against Life. 

and we step onto this place, barefooted and unsure, with paths of sharp stones and cutting thorns ahead of us.

and He holds out His hand

follow Me

our weakness cries out for us to be shod again, to put our shoes on and protect ourselves. 

but He requests us be humble

and He will carry us. 

Stars

There they stand, the innumerable stars, shining in order like a living hymn, written in light. ~N.P. Willis

I have a fascination with the stars.

There is something so intimately distant about these twinkling points of light...

...so close that my fingertips ache to reach out and brush against the velvet night in which they reside...

...and distant enough to make me tremble with a whisper of things far greater and more majestic than I.

I think the stars are God's secret way to keep me humble.

How can think of myself as any great thing when I gaze up into the night...

...realizing that the mighty hand of the King placed each one of those brilliant diamonds upon the cloak of midnight...

...and calls them each by an individual name?

...maybe this is why I love the night.

I find myself most content...most complete...when I am wandering out among the stars late at night...

...for there is something so sacred about those moments under the black sky, lit only by a flickering point of celestial brilliance.

"There are millions of stars, and I love them. But oh, My beloved, I love You so much more. You are not just one in a waving mass of faces...

...you are special...

...you are loved.

You are Mine."

"But all night, Aslan and the Moon gazed upon each other with joyful and unblinking eyes." C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian