i have a real hankering.

several of them actually.

i have a real hankering to finish this crazy upcycling project i started last spring involving an old door and chalkboard paint.

i have a real hankering to take a nap. but i’m pregnant, so what else is new?

i have a real hankering to make homemade bread, just so my house will smell like i made bread.

(i’m pretty terrible at any recipe involving yeast. homemade bread is always strictly for the smell in my world.)

i have a real hankering to go for a long walk, end up by a fire pit with a bunch of friends and a guitar. we could drink hot apple cider…or chai, and talk and sing and laugh and snuggle under fleecy blankets while wearing hooded sweatshirts and wool socks. anyone?

anyone?

i have a hankering for the mountains. wisconsin doesn’t have three-dimensional landscapes.

but we do have a lake that looks like the ocean, that’s kind of nice.

yesterday i had a real hankering for a word. fall on me like morning dew Lord Jesus.

it’s not that i’ve had it rough with God lately, the walk just seemed so…

steady.

and it’s not that steady is bad, i just wanted to feel like there was something being breathed into my soul, new and crisp like the air outside.

and i wondered as i prayed if i was being spoiled and selfish.

i’ve had seasons where i’ve heard Abba speak so clearly. it was blessed and terrifying and painful, but so good. so deeply good. and i wanted that again.

but lately it just seemed that i was abiding, and certainly acting on what i felt the Spirit lead me to do…at least as much as normal.

“i just want to feel You so close!”

but i didn’t know what to pray, other than to lift up the normal requests and praises. 

i didn’t know what to read. 

what to listen for.

so i read psalm 139.  that’s a good place for a mom-to-be to read.

God knitting things together in the depths of the earth and all that good stuff.

but that’s not what stuck out yesterday.

“You hem me in behind and before…”  writes the psalmist.

surrounded.

and lovingly stitched in.

even as i think of how the child inside me is knit together, stitch by stitch, i am hemmed in behind and before by a God who loves me and knows my heart deeper than i could ever dream…

even when i feel like i’m just abiding.

so it still feels steady.

but in a good way. 

He surrounds me with warmth and comfort, like a letterman’s jacket that would have denoted “steady” so long ago. 

hemmed in.

no escaping.

i’m sure there will be seasons again when i hear Him so clearly the silence deafens and the glory is crushing and terrifying. 

i’m sure there will be many more steady, abiding, lay down in My pasture days.

but He surrounds all these days.

hemmed in.

behind and before.